What's O On The End & Hi In The Middle?.....Another Reader Speaks!

The letter's just keep comin! This one's from out in the Buckeye state. More show reviews! More harshness! Is is gettin hot in here or is it just me? Maybe someday somebody'll post something nice, but until then, keep your knives sharpened & your ear to the ground.

Hey Siltblog;

Been checkin your shit out. Pretty good. Reminds me of an old local fanzine from the Midwest called The Offense. Ever hear of it? I was a contributor once upon a time, and I too thrived on subjectivity. I won't enlighten with details. Could be too much for you. I was hipped to your thing by the drummer from Times New Viking & he was right, it's a fun read. The other night I went to see a band that your sweet on called Angry Angles. They played with a band called Digital Leather. I liked that name, suggestively gay & punk. Like the old days. They were here in town-Columbus, OH in case you were wondering- and I had been antsy to go & see something new, so the planets seemed aligned for this particular night/show. I drove down to the Bourbon Street bar, paid my 5$ & it was like a throwback to the days of Crazy Mama's and Mr. Browns, but way lamer. I see this guy skulking around dressed in black jeans & t-shirt with a sneer stretching across his face, hair in his eyes, and I had to laugh. I couldn't tell if he was going to cry or shit himself. Turns out he's in the Digital Leather band. Have you seen them yet? They are terrible. Worse than the Blackouts (I included a jpeg from an old Offense where they grace the cover), worse than System 56, worse than Sport Of Kings. Are you catching my drift? I doubt Digital Leather know of these bands, or maybe they know them too well. After all, dollar bins are everywhere. So the sneering pants shitter is on stage playing a keyboard along with a chunky, baby faced guy also dressed in black jeans/shirt and they have a drummer (not in uniform) and proceeded to simp out lame-ass dark synth punk suck that was so pretentious you could almost gag. I mean, they were trying like hell to be menacing but it was too comical. Remember Shox Lumania? Like that. Oh man, it was as if they wanted to be Chrome or Suicide but all they could manage was like Flock Of Seagulls. But worse. Thankfully is wasn't too long. The fat kid who screamed & gyrated turned out to be the main guy for your band, the Angry Angles. He seemed totally overamped and gacked out on something and boy did their performance suffer for it. Even the girl bassist shot back to him as he stormed off the stage & into the bathroom, something like "maybe crybaby needs to do some more coke." I saw Human Switchboard pull some lame shit back in the day, but this set from Angry Angles beat their pitiful drama's by a country mile. And is it really possible to take someone seriously playing a flying V guitar? It all seemed like gimmick to me. Not the cocaine (or whatever it was)-that was real enough- but the music, the look, the overpriced records they were selling. Totally affected. How did you manage to get suckered in for such obvious crap? It was as if the club was a hologram of a sad, distressing Punk Rock workshop or mockup from that Quincy episode. If they play Philadelphia I feel compelled to tell you not to waste your money, but at the same time I reason that you should go and see them since you helped me to waste mine. Thanks for nothing jerk-o. And why don't you write about something good? Like Joy Division or Magazine. I'll keep an eye peeled.

Billy Lee Buckeye