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Beer and bands
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The heavens were gobbing sleet and rain last Friday night, but within the neon-lit walls of the Abbey Lounge, a raucous rock-and-roll camaraderie and an overabundance of bargain-basement booze kept the chill at bay. It was a special occasion, with Abbey co-owner J. Grimaldi and scenester stalwart "Malibu Lou" Mansdorf (decked out in his best plaid pants) toasting the launch of their Abbey Lounge Records and the garage-punk scrappers that make up the label’s stable of talent — Muck & the Mires, the Dents, and the Marvels — in fighting trim. A well-lubricated Lou kicked things off with a champagne toast before his set as the Punk Rock Balladeer, wherein he serenaded us with solo, semi-acoustic versions of wistful chestnuts (the Ramones’ "Questioningly") and his own heart-rending originals ("Janie’s Gone," "Underground Teenager"). It also happened to be his birthday, and when a candle-spiked cake was presented on stage, he extinguished ’em all with a mighty huff, proclaiming, "I wish . . . that we all get drunk tonight!" His wish was our command. Muck & the Mires kept the juices flowing with a set of swaggering Nuggets-inspired rock, sweat soaking their matching blue satin shirts in short order. Pummeling her kit, tiny Linda Khoury was a powerhouse drummer, locking with bass man Chris Miller (sharp in his porkpie hat) to lay down a relentless groove as Evan "Joey Muccarino" Shore huffed harp and howled hey-hey-heys. Although there was plenty of hully-gullying and hucklebucking during the Muckers’ set, the proceedings degenerated into a rollicking donnybrook as the Dents’ sexpot sirens Jen Rassler and Michelle Paulhus took the stage with a hurtling set of excoriating scorchers, their songs — like "Better Off," and the Outlets-style "Mental Defective," both from their new split single with the Street Dogs — pretty much one snarling emasculation of errant ex-boyfriend after another. Paulhus pulled double duty, playing bass and singing stinging harmonies with the Marvels, whose closing set of ferociously snotty punk snits was appropriate to the ever-more-debauched mood of the room. Sneering like Stiv Bators, leaning forward and leering like an overfed, overserved Johnny Rotten, singer Staffy was a feral frontman, spraying mouthfuls of beer at the crowd and proclaiming eternal punk-rock verities like "I wanna be dead" and "I don’t give a shit about politics." As the din ground to a halt and beer dripped from the overhead lighting, he offered a final toast to Malibu Lou. "I think our label representative got a little shit-faced tonight. But it’s his birthday, and he still bought the pizza. So buy a lot of records."
BY MIKE MILIARD
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