Up The Academy and Muscle Worship, last night at the Replay Lounge
Let’s take a walk outside, to the Replay Lounge’s world-famous beer garden. Oh my, what do we have here? It seems to be mostly the same thing as any Thursday: the lone mute guy surveying the crowd, some heterosexual couple pawing at each other, a group of people who must all be “the gang” hanging out and being annoying, an intense or situationally dependent loud conversation between dudes and ladies who might be fighting or flirting, a cute DJ playing – and this is no embellishment – the 1965 Leslie Gore hit “It’s My Party,” of the “cry if I want to” fame, while she nods her headphoned head to the simple, heartbreaking beat.
It’s Brad Shanks’ birthday, one man who’s of the small handful of Replay Records’ administrative moguls, who tonight is also celebrating the label’s second release – Up The Academy’s new 7-inch. This is the guy to watch tonight. He’s the dangerous one. It is this man who sprays popcorn all over everybody like a money shot during the Up The Academy set, as the band bangs out yet another pairing of tawdry garage riffs. It’s this man who pushes around those dumb enough to stand in front of Ron Miller, the front-man brain-child of the band, so that a chaotic pit forms and dissipates at once.
