Dead To Me & Teenage Bottlerocket Review

I caught Dead to Me and Teenage Bottlerocket tonight at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco. These are both punk pop bands that all the punker kiddies seem to dig. Actually, I was surprised that the crowd wasn't a little younger, but this punk pop sound hasn't changed much since the 80s (since the days of Husker Du and The Ramones), so maybe it suits the older crowd just fine.

As soon as we walked in the door, Jason, my company's president, introduced me to Chicken from Dead to Me. Yes, Chicken. I guess his real name is Tyson, so everyone just calls him Chicken.

When we came in a band was playing but I can't remember the name. The Femurs? Possibly. They sound like your average punk band with a yelling front man and lots of fast 3 chord guitar. Not bad music, but nothing to distinguish them from the herd of bands with this sound, but fun to listen to.

Teenage Bottlerocket was up next. They have two singers and when one of the guys sings, it totally reminds me of The Ramones. They were pretty awesome because they could play seamlessly between songs and were ending on the same note the next song began. The guy with The Ramone's voice was in this other band called the Wellingtons and I hear they'd do their whole show in this manner. I would think that would be tough on the forearms and neck, since they do a lot of headbanging. Teenage Bottle Rockets are out of Wyoming. It was a fun show but really loud. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Dead to Me was the headliner. The singer was very talkative and entertaining (like he might have been on speed, but I heard he's clean and sober - he's probably just one of those really hyper people). They put on a very energetic show.

It was a rockin good time. They have a really good sound system in the club, but man, was it loud.

The pictures in the post are ripped from the band's MySpace pages. I took some photos but they turned out really crappy. The Dead to Me photo is by Patrick J Stefano. Nice photo, Patrick.