M.O.T.O. * Midnight Creeps * Born Lairs * Weird Party
 M.O.T.O. - (New Orleans, LA) M.O.T.O. Raw Power | Criminal IQ Plenty of local albums released this year were more polished and ambitious than the latest from Paul Caporino's long-running punk outfit M.O.T.O., but not one of them was more fun. The two decades Caporino has spent sharpening his hooky pop songwriting, precise eighth-note riffage, and so-dumb-they're-brilliant lyrics have paid off handsomely -- if Raw Power had been released in the late 70s it might now be ranked alongside the best of the Ramones or the Undertones. The 14 lo-fi, high-adrenaline tunes charge by in 34 minutes, and the band's boneheaded shtick (the first two tracks are called "2-4-6-8 Rock 'n' Roll" and "Gonna Get Drunk Tonight") belies a rigorous economy and focus. Caporino gets an impressive variety of shades from a three-chord palette: His snotty bubblegum melodies on songs like "Deliver Deliver Deliver" and "Piano Jazz Radio" can trigger surprisingly powerful swells of emotion. He does goofy gabba-gabba-hey punk rock with the best of them ("Getting It Up for Physics," "Flipping You Off With Every Finger of My Hand"), but his wise guy's take on adolescence is as sophisticated as it is funny -- he can invoke the ache of longing by denying that he feels anything. And on "Primeval" -- less a conventional pop song than a mantra -- he manages to make compelling music by repeating a single line for two minutes. Nothing against all the bands out there trying to guess which kind of punk will get fashionable next, but Raw Power is still gonna sound great in 20 years, when everybody's forgotten about Interpol -- it's rock 'n' roll without a sell-by date. -Bob Mehr-
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 Midnight Creeps- (Creepsville, RI) Straight out of the bowels of Creepsville USA armed with sleazy tales of sin, sex, and destitution come the Midnight Creeps to bring the danger back to rocknroll! Consisting of singer Jenny Hurricane, guitarist Stimbot, bassist Jonas Parmelee, and drummer...ummm...well we don't know who the drummer is right now but anyway the Midnight Creeps specialize in churning out three-minute roller coasters of good gone bad. The Midnight Creeps have toured extensively playing well over 500 shows in the past 4 years both in the US & Europe including such festivals as Holidays in The Sun/Wasted & Viva Le Punk leaving a trail of busted eardrums and broken hearts in their wake. With their latest release, Doomed From the Get Go, the Midnight Creeps give the kick in the ass to Rock n' Roll that the stylists and handlers for The Strokes & Good Charlotte didn't have the guts to give. The sound of the Midnight Creeps smacks you in the face like bootlegged whiskey. The attack is flat out rocknroll with a 70s punk attitude thrown in as a mixer. The lyrics read like the diary of debutant living a secret life of debauchery. Unlike much of the punk rock of today, the Midnight Creeps use a little something called variety with their songs. The Midnight Creeps live are an addictive vice. Looking like the starlet of the apocalypse, Jenny Hurricane lives up to her name shaking across the stage like the second coming of Iggy Pop. Decked out in her trademark ensembles of designer Blade Runner wear, she dominates the stage holding the audience captive in the palm of her hand and then crushing them. The Midnight Creeps measure their shows not by the amount of applause or money but by their bruises, bloodshed and the amount of people that lost their grip on life at the end of the night. See them at your own risk but to risk not seeing them is a sin.....
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 Born Liars - (Houston, TX ) Every time these guys hit the stage I imagine it must be similar to seeing the rock bands that came out of New York and Detroit in the late 70s–gritty and raw, guitar-fueled rock that’s big on riffs, short on substance, and the better for it. Born Liars’ tight garage rock is something no local band comes close to imitating. Frontman Jimmy Sanchez is the Joe Strummer of Houston punk–sedate but snarling–and songs like “Go Back One Day” (from one of the band’s two 7-inch releases this year) and “View From Here” from 2006’s Exit Smiling never fail to leave me with a better appreciation of music. – Houstonist
This Houston quartet's songs combine the streetwise switchblade blues of Exile on Main Street-era Stones with some of the Replacements' boozy entropic tendencies, and their live shows usually result in bloodshed, bail bonds or both. – Houston Press
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 Weird Party - (Houston, TX ) We don't normally recommend a band's very first show outside the rehearsal space, but when it has a pedigree like Houston's brand-new Weird Party, we're happy to make an exception. Last summer, various present and former members of Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Welfare Mothers, Sugar Shack, These Borders and Muhammad Ali formed like Voltron into a five-headed hydra of garage-punk mayhem. And if you're stupidly worried that somehow that might add up to less than the sum of parts, trust us, it doesn't. Weird Party slipped us some MP3s of "Sarah Palin" and "Pale Brunette" last week, songs practically begging you to spill beer on the band and maybe knock over an amp or two if the group doesn't beat you to it. "We're going to ride this ugly beast of burden till its back breaks or it bucks us off, whichever comes first," promises guitarist Kyle Gionis.
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