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Born-again punks
Darkbuster reunite and the Unseen hit the Warped Tour
BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Two years ago, Boston punks Darkbuster were one of the most popular bands on the local scene. After their beer-soaked victory in the 2000 Rumble, they started packing rooms all over town, and their self-released album, 22 Songs That You’ll Never Want To Hear Again!, became a word-of-mouth local classic. In June 2001, they went on their first real tour, a four-week trek out to the West Coast and back. The gigs themselves went well, but the stress of DIY touring proved too much for the group: a month after they got back, they broke up.

"There’s a point where everybody in a band gets frustrated with what’s going on, and I think that those 30 days really made it evident that it was time for a little break," explains Darkbuster frontman Lenny Lashley. "All the shows were fun, but we had some pretty terrible van issues. It was pretty taxing on everybody — by the end it was like, ‘Okay, this is a lot of work.’ "

As is often the case with bands who bow out at the top of their game, interest in Darkbuster refused to die down after they called it quits. 22 Songs soon went out of the catalogue, but it remained a jukebox favorite at local dives like PJ Kilroy’s and the Cambridgeport Saloon. One of the band’s long-time kindred spirits, New Jersey pub punks the Skels, were known to lead Darkbuster sing-alongs during their semi-regular Friday-night gigs at Flannery’s Bar in downtown Manhattan. Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen was even spotted with a Darkbuster sticker on his guitar.

Fans cried for a reunion, and now it’s finally happening: this Saturday at Axis, Darkbuster are playing their first official show since the break-up. The Skels are opening; Boston punks Dirty Water and the Spitzz are also joining the party. 22 Songs will be available at the merchandise table, and Lashley is warming up for the gig by playing a local punk solo matinee — with Dirty Water’s Mark Lind, Suspect Device’s Jason Bennett, and Mark Linskey of New Jersey working-class heroes Hudson Falcons — the same afternoon at the Middle East. But the most exciting news is that Darkbuster are leaving the door open for a return to active duty; Lashley says they’ve even got a few new songs up their sleeves. "If anybody wants to know why the band is getting back together, there’s rumors of 22 Songs going for $55 on ebay.com, so that’s good enough reason as far as I can consider. I don’t know where this reunion show will lead. We’re kind of taking baby steps, but we’re having fun, and we’re playing better than we ever did. I think that speaks volumes in itself, you know? We’re a little more focused about why we’re doing it."

Lashley, bassist Mike Gurley, and original drummer Eric Edmonston formed Darkbuster in 1996, recorded 22 Songs a few years later, and eventually built up a following in their native Brockton area. The album’s appeal is obvious at first listen: it’s an infectious mix of tear-stained loser anthems, raucous drinking songs, 10-second in-jokes, silly covers ("Suspicious Minds," "The Joker"), and scenester rabble rousing. One of the funniest tracks is a soft-spirited tirade against Lilith Fair. "Most of the songs I write are just a moment in time," says Lashley. "I showed up for practice one night and Eric never even called me to tell me he was going, and he wound up going to Lilith Fair. Driving home I was furious, and by the time I got home to Bridgewater, the song was complete."

Two of Darkbuster’s most popular songs are digs at other bands: "Amazing Royal Shaft" calls out 1997 Rumble winners the Amazing Crowns, and "I Hate the Unseen" has a few laughs at the expense of the South Shore punks in the title. "It was just a joke, really," says Lashley of the latter. "We played a show out in Norwood, I was extremely drunk, and I kind of went to approach them and hang out. They weren’t too receptive to me — in retrospect, and to their credibility, I probably wouldn’t have talked to myself that evening anyway. The song just came to me the next night."

There were no hard feelings on anybody’s part — Darkbuster continued to share bills with both bands without incident. In the video for the current Dropkick Murphys hit "Walk Away," the Unseen play the groomsmen in Lashley’s screen marriage to real-life fiancée Shelly Chesson. "[Dropkicks’] Ken Casey actually called me to get in touch with Shelly, because he wanted her to play the bride," explains Lashley. "Then he said, ‘Well, if she’s going to do that, why don’t you play the groom.’ He never even mentioned who was going to be in the wedding party until the day of the shoot. I’ve got to give him props for having the wit, you know? It’s hilarious, the stuff that was going on while we were shooting it. I told Mark Unseen, ‘Make a toast about how you really feel about me.’ You know, ‘This guy wants to see us die in a car accident.’ We were all dying laughing — it was like therapy."

The Darkbuster crew have remained active on the local scene since the break-up. Lashley has a new hillbilly band called Lenny & the Piss Poor Boys; Edmonston fronts the alternative-rock outfit Linus. Gurley continues to fly the punk flag with the USM; until recently, second drummer Danny O’Halloran did the same with the Marvels. Second guitarist Paul Delano has the highest-profile gig of them all as part of Bosstone Joe Gittleman’s Avoid One Thing. According to Lashley, they’ll all be there Saturday night. "Eric’s doing a bunch of songs, some of the stuff Danny had a tougher time playing — switch ’em around from song to song. We’re trying to get some horns together as well. We’re going to try and bring a little pomp and circumstance to it."

Darkbuster fans have long sworn by the band’s commercial potential — to oversimplify a bit, they’re Boston’s answer to NOFX. Asked whether he could ever see himself doing something along the lines of Avoid One Thing, who have a relatively well-financed album out on Side One Dummy and are playing the East Coast leg of the Warped Tour later this month, Lashley hedges his bets. "I could see doing it. That’s a different side of the business that I’ve never seen. There’s somebody pushing them, getting them there. If this band had that kind of stuff behind them, I think we could do really good things. Everybody’s got family, but if we could somehow make it work, we’d certainly take a stab at it."

THE UNSEEN HAVE COME A LONG WAY since Lashley started singing about "their cool punk haircuts and their leather clothes": the day of the Darkbuster comeback show, they’ll be playing the Warped Tour in San Francisco in support of their fourth and latest album, Explode (BYO). Formed in 1994, during the pre-Dropkicks dark ages of Boston streetpunk, they rose to national prominence at the end of the decade with two albums on A-F Records, the DIY label run by renowned Pittsburgh political punks Anti-Flag. Two years ago, they graduated to BYO, the well-distributed label arm of the long-running LA hardcore band Youth Brigade, for The Anger and the Truth.

Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, Explode is the sound of a band at the same furious crossroads between oi! and thrash as classic British punks G.B.H. and the Exploited. Drummer Mark and bassist Tripp split the singing duties down the middle, with Tripp’s redemptive outlook a good foil for Mark’s relentless nihilism. On the disc’s slam-friendly leadoff track, "False Hope," Mark tells off "punk’s not dead" types with a chorus that’s as jaded as it is catchy: "Try all you want/Nothing’s getting solved." Guitarist Scott writes most of the music, and he and fellow ax man Paul Russo borrow just the right amount of metal edge from Boston hardcore.

Explode is political only in the vaguest sense of the term: "Fuck the government, fuck the world," rants Mark on "False Hope," but anarchy is no more of a cause than the left or the right for the Unseen. Mostly, they sing about their personal demons: it’s Mark’s head that’s about to explode on the title track, a desperate hardcore blast with a clever melodic twist at the end. On the frantic "Don’t Look Back," Tripp finds a silver lining with his high-pitched sneer: "Won’t be haunted by the past, I’m trying to move on." Russo makes the most of his lone lead-vocal turn, "Tsunami Suicide," which might be the starkest moment on the disc.

The band get topical on the album’s second half, which kicks off with the virulent sellout defense "So Sick of You." "Don’t support us anymore/Cuz we played Warped Tour/Say we turned our backs on you/That’s not the fucking truth," sneers Mark as his mates string the nay-sayers along with a boozy oi! chorus and a fancy guitar bridge. On "Useless Regrets," Scott fires off the disc’s hottest riff while Tripp wages war with the bottle; the pummeling "New World Disorder" ends the party on a sinister note by evoking September 11. The Unseen are already a US punk institution, and they aren’t showing any signs of slowing down yet.

Lenny Lashley performs this Saturday afternoon, July 12, at the Middle East; call (617) 864-3278. Darkbuster perform this Saturday night, July 12, at Axis; call (617) 262-2437.

Issue Date: July 11 - July 17, 2003
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