Music Picks: Hard Summer, Sunset Strip Music Festival and Bob Dylan

A A A Comments (0) By L.A. Weekly Music Critics Thursday, Aug 1 2013

...continued from page 2

Bang Sugar Bang, The Dollyrots, Midway, The Randies

THE SATELLITE

PHOTO BY JAMES MINCHIN

Linkin Park: See Saturday.

PHOTO BY AARON D. SETTIPANE

The Dollyrots: See Thursday.

More About

Once upon a time, in a city quite like this one, there was a bunch of cool pop, punk and indie bands who were sick of trying to get shows at expensive pay-to-play clubs, so they started their own little scene, named Kiss or Kill, after a lyric in the X song "We're Desperate." The dozen or so groups often played on the same bills, usually for $5 or less, and their noble efforts to counteract the prevailing mainstream mentality of rock careerism would seem merely quaint except that so many of these bands were disparately remarkable. Bang Sugar Bang idolized X and The Gun Club, yet their homages had a hard-rocking Runaways-style power, while The Dollyrots and The Randies evolved from Muffs-inspired pop-punks into memorable performers in their own right. Everybody was living happily ever after — until the blue meanies in what's left of the band Kiss got heavy and threatening, claiming that the term Kiss or Kill might cut into their market share. That was the end of this cheery DIY confab, or would have been, except that everything's been marvelously documented in a new film about the scene, In Heaven There Is No Beer. For one evening, at least, ongoing and reunited Kiss or Kill bands, including Midway, Get Set Go and Silver Needles, will rock & roll all night and party anyway. —Falling James