Show Review: Brook Pridemore, Two-Man Giant Squid, Nihiloceros, Spite Fuxxx at Purgatory Bar.
May 4th, 2024
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I’ve got Heaven inside of me
May 5th, 2024
Last night on Cinco de Mayo eve we floated around Brooklyn's Purgatory Bar in search of salvation. We found it in the form of Brook Pridemore, Two-Man Giant Squid, Nihiloceros, and Spite Fuxxx. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of affair, so these artists threw caution to the wind and let it all out to put on an incredible show. Here’s our recollection of it.
Brook Pridemore brought more dynamism to a solo set than we thought was possible. Converting the microphone into a torch of sound and scarves, they traveled through all types of songs and to almost every corner of the room. At one point they even performed a Christmas jam. And the dialogue in between songs was just as captivating as the music itself. They compared one song to a Sexxy Red track, in that they both repeated a phrase three times. They lamented though that the similarities stopped there, and that they would most likely never cross paths with Sexxy Red. Unless she likes to go to Waffle House while on tour, like they do.
Next up was Two-Man Giant Squid. We’ve seen sardine tins with more space than this quintet had to move around on stage, but they made it work. They played music with big ambitions. Loud, galloping beats, grooving bass, piercing guitar with gritty solos, lush synth. With this many people and the amount of flexibility each one of them had on their instruments, these rockscapes were everywhere and evoked a feeling of boundless possibility. Šaunuolis!
During the changeover we got alerted that Kendrick Lamar had just dropped yet ANOTHER song, its visual cover being a Google Maps image of Drake's $100M Toronto manor, nicknamed The Embassy, with several sex offender drop pin icons on top of the property. We’re not going to get into the details of what is happening right now in this hip-hop story line, but they are fucking nuts. We’re mentioning it though because one of many reasons this outlet started is because rap was starting to feel tired and stale and we sensed an opportunity to be a part of a Rock and Roll resurgence. Well this rap beef is certainly shining a blinding spotlight back onto the genre. We work to stay focused on Rock here, but there are some aspects of this we can’t stop thinking about.
It has something to do with the cultural impact of star power. Personally, many of us at RCR came up with Drake & Kendrick, enjoying both artists' music for the last decade. How both artists have navigated their careers and place in the music industry is very different, though. For a while now, there have been rumblings and grumblings that have whispered questions about Drake’s methods, motivations, and actions. It’s Drake, though, one of the most popular musicians on the planet, what is anybody going to do about it? If, hypothetically, there was a real need to check his power and ask some real questions though, who could even make that happen? We have our answer. It takes another all-time great. Imagine though, that instead of grown men snitching on each other, all-time greats in the music industry took a stand to come out against the totally fucked streaming economy? Or against the increasingly predatory business models of modern record labels? Or against the ticketing monopolies? That’s what our little rat brains think about.
Nihiloceros was celebrating the release of their new album, Dark Ice Balloons. This power trio were master blasters and played what we dub Thrash Rock. It was anthemic, it was relentless. Black balloons of the dark ice variety appeared and ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the sonic assault of sound. These songs were a cruising Boeing 737 with a bunch of loose screws. At hundreds of miles an hour a door seemed ready to blow off at any moment. This is your captain, speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare to rock.
Last but not least, Spite Fuxxx nearly tore the roof off of Purgatory Bar, which would have revealed Heaven above. This quintet rocked. Their vocalist opened the set with a mini pink megaphone that matched their pink thigh-high boots. The microphone was wrapped up into a long snake cable allowing them to strut out into the crowd, or sometimes leap off stage into the audience, with enough cord to walk all the way to the back of the room. Bass was hypnotic, long slow lazerbeams shot out from the synth, guitar riffage was immaculate, drumming was in the pocket. Some woman viciously made out with her partner for most of the performance.
‘Til next time, Purgatory. Maybe you can come hang around and rock out to another show while you wait for judgment. Until then, connect with these groups on social media below to make it to their next show.
