Daylight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Dispatches from Warped
By Jenny Elsicu
I first covered Warped Tour a few years ago, while on one of my first assignments for this publication. Things have changed—but then again, they really haven’t. The buses, vans and venues (including Porta-Pottys) are still everything you’d expect them to be, and more; but the crop of new bands hitting the festival circuit for the first time keeps evolving. The latest bunch of Warped virgins promises a bigger variety than ever before. Below, you’ll find a few of the bands worth braving the summer sun for:
1. The Va-Va-Violets: V3 leader John Harmann wants you to know: “We’re not a chick band, and we don’t we have chick singers.” Lead singer Harmann and his merry men—guitarists Franco Berlinger and (elder Harmann brother) Neal, drummer Will “Wipeout” Mancuso, and bassist/sk8rboi Arlo Entwhistle—play insanely energetic punk and thrash metal “and whatever else we can come up with,” says Neal. Their unusual moniker came from a friend’s drunken appreciation of a young woman he’d spied walking near the bar they were exiting one night a couple of years ago. “He was too fucked up to say ‘va-va-voom,’ which is a pretty stupid expression,” laughs Harmann junior, “but somehow he came up with ‘va-va-violet.’” When the band and their friend sobered up the next day—not accompanied by said young woman—they realized the name was just what they’d been looking for. Up to that time, they’d simply been known as the Upstarts, “a really fucking stupid name,” Mancuso snorts. V3, all Los Angeles natives, have made their name with a couple of EPs, sold only at their free-for-all type shows, which normally attract the skater-punk crowd that Warped was built on. The buzz was good enough to earn them a berth on the main stage. John Harmann insists they’re ready for their close-up: “We’ve been playing together since we were all fifteen and we could only dream about playing Warped,” he says. “Now we can’t wait to make good on all the promises we made to ourselves back then.”
Photo shows the band in a head-and-shoulders shot, looking serious, captioned: Va-Va-Who? (from left: the brothers Harmann, Neal and John, Berlinger, Entwhistle and Mancuso)
2. The Madmen: This Manchester, England quartet, consisting of lead guitarist Joe McCullough, younger sibling Tom on bass and vocals, rhythm guitarist Bryan Fawkes, and drummer Glenn Prothero, is the only UK group on Warped this year. They don’t mind, though: “It’s what makes us stand out,” Tom says with a smile. Their music doesn’t do too poor of a job, either; punk and garage influences abound, and despite weak distribution in the States of their two CDs , they’ve amassed a loyal following by marketing their merch on their own site—including the semi-elusive singles that have sold remarkably well in England, “Making Up Numbers” and “Romantic Type.” Second on a sidestage headlined by New Jersey’s beloved punk band The Bouncing Souls, the Madmen (no relation to the TV show of the same name) have seen their audience grow from mostly teenage girls to more of the total Warped crowd. Guitarist Fawkes, normally a quiet bloke who likes a beer with his mates, is a particularly big draw with his wild on-stage antics. “Yeah, we’ve started getting people coming round from other stages to see us,” remarks Fawkes modestly. “It’s quite the trip, as they say.”
Photo shows band members acting goofy, pretending to “play” each other as their instruments, captioned: Crazy for you (from left, Tom McCullough, Prothero, Fawkes, and Joe McCullough)
3. Strange Days: This Denver, Colorado quintet—percussionist and occasional MC Louise Strange, bassist and singer Jerome Weiss, guitarist Bobby Lee, keyboard player Phil Mann, and drummer Ryan Falkenberg—got together just two years ago at U-Colorado at Denver. Their name “probably makes people think we’re a Doors cover band,” says Lee, but they were united originally by their mutual love of 80’s rappers like Run-DMC and the Sugar Hill Gang. Says Louise, a musicology major, “We wondered, why couldn’t we do something similar, with some world music beats thrown in? We couldn’t find an example of anyone who’d done that yet, so we decided to make ourselves the guinea pigs.” So far, their experimental sound has garnered tremendous critical praise, and their first CD, You Just Wish You Were Me, is selling briskly from their merch booth at Warped. “It’s the oddest thing,” she muses, “to see kids so much younger than us, shaking it to beats they’ve probably never heard before. They’re trying to dance, but they can’t get the beats—not yet, anyway.” Lee remarks, “We do get the odd Rasta out in the crowd, with those impressive dreads, even here at Warped. It’s fucking hilarious—can’t they take off those damn wool hats? They must have poached brains in this sun.” Adds Weiss, “Yeah, really, and couldn’t they at least offer us a blunt now and then? It might help cool us off.”
Photo shows the band, lined up, wearing shades, captioned: The future’s so bright (from left, Strange, Lee, Weiss, Mann and Falkenberg)
4. The Daylight Bathers: These four young ladies are one of the first all-female bands ever to play Warped—and the only such group on the tour this year. Bassist Sal Marciano (given name: Sandra) thinks she knows why: “The facilities suck,” she says bluntly, then shrugs. “But that’s Warped, right? You live with it. It’s sure as hell not for the squeamish.” Marciano and the rest of the ‘Bathers—singer-guitarist-keyboard player Petula Langley, lead guitarist Mo (Maureen) Kinsella, and drummer Tia Vasquez—who formed four years ago as students at Northwestern University, aren’t worried about such petty annoyances. They’re the openers for the Souls’ stage, and as such are responsible for drawing the late-afternoon crowd with their blend of punk, pop and garage rock. Their first CD, You Are Here, nestles sometimes-angry lyrics into sunny pop melodies. The ‘Bathers like to swap lead vocals between the three guitarists, “but we’re working on Tia doing some leads too,” Kinsella continues. The group has also amassed an impressive array of cover songs, “which is how we learned what we know,” Marciano says. “It’s how everyone starts—even the Beatles had to do it.” The group has written about 30-40 songs, but the covers (some 500, by their count) “allow us to mix things up,” Langley points out. “We try every day to walk that fine line between ‘girl group’ and ‘rock band.’ We love to surprise people.” Langley smiles broadly, considering the band’s possible future: “One thing we know is, we’ll never get really big and have to hire chick singers—because we are chick singers. And proud of it.”
Photo shows the band members in an overhead shot, captioned: Good clean fun (clockwise, from top, Langley, Kinsella, Vasquez and Marciano)
By Jenny Elsicu
I first covered Warped Tour a few years ago, while on one of my first assignments for this publication. Things have changed—but then again, they really haven’t. The buses, vans and venues (including Porta-Pottys) are still everything you’d expect them to be, and more; but the crop of new bands hitting the festival circuit for the first time keeps evolving. The latest bunch of Warped virgins promises a bigger variety than ever before. Below, you’ll find a few of the bands worth braving the summer sun for:
1. The Va-Va-Violets: V3 leader John Harmann wants you to know: “We’re not a chick band, and we don’t we have chick singers.” Lead singer Harmann and his merry men—guitarists Franco Berlinger and (elder Harmann brother) Neal, drummer Will “Wipeout” Mancuso, and bassist/sk8rboi Arlo Entwhistle—play insanely energetic punk and thrash metal “and whatever else we can come up with,” says Neal. Their unusual moniker came from a friend’s drunken appreciation of a young woman he’d spied walking near the bar they were exiting one night a couple of years ago. “He was too fucked up to say ‘va-va-voom,’ which is a pretty stupid expression,” laughs Harmann junior, “but somehow he came up with ‘va-va-violet.’” When the band and their friend sobered up the next day—not accompanied by said young woman—they realized the name was just what they’d been looking for. Up to that time, they’d simply been known as the Upstarts, “a really fucking stupid name,” Mancuso snorts. V3, all Los Angeles natives, have made their name with a couple of EPs, sold only at their free-for-all type shows, which normally attract the skater-punk crowd that Warped was built on. The buzz was good enough to earn them a berth on the main stage. John Harmann insists they’re ready for their close-up: “We’ve been playing together since we were all fifteen and we could only dream about playing Warped,” he says. “Now we can’t wait to make good on all the promises we made to ourselves back then.”
Photo shows the band in a head-and-shoulders shot, looking serious, captioned: Va-Va-Who? (from left: the brothers Harmann, Neal and John, Berlinger, Entwhistle and Mancuso)
2. The Madmen: This Manchester, England quartet, consisting of lead guitarist Joe McCullough, younger sibling Tom on bass and vocals, rhythm guitarist Bryan Fawkes, and drummer Glenn Prothero, is the only UK group on Warped this year. They don’t mind, though: “It’s what makes us stand out,” Tom says with a smile. Their music doesn’t do too poor of a job, either; punk and garage influences abound, and despite weak distribution in the States of their two CDs , they’ve amassed a loyal following by marketing their merch on their own site—including the semi-elusive singles that have sold remarkably well in England, “Making Up Numbers” and “Romantic Type.” Second on a sidestage headlined by New Jersey’s beloved punk band The Bouncing Souls, the Madmen (no relation to the TV show of the same name) have seen their audience grow from mostly teenage girls to more of the total Warped crowd. Guitarist Fawkes, normally a quiet bloke who likes a beer with his mates, is a particularly big draw with his wild on-stage antics. “Yeah, we’ve started getting people coming round from other stages to see us,” remarks Fawkes modestly. “It’s quite the trip, as they say.”
Photo shows band members acting goofy, pretending to “play” each other as their instruments, captioned: Crazy for you (from left, Tom McCullough, Prothero, Fawkes, and Joe McCullough)
3. Strange Days: This Denver, Colorado quintet—percussionist and occasional MC Louise Strange, bassist and singer Jerome Weiss, guitarist Bobby Lee, keyboard player Phil Mann, and drummer Ryan Falkenberg—got together just two years ago at U-Colorado at Denver. Their name “probably makes people think we’re a Doors cover band,” says Lee, but they were united originally by their mutual love of 80’s rappers like Run-DMC and the Sugar Hill Gang. Says Louise, a musicology major, “We wondered, why couldn’t we do something similar, with some world music beats thrown in? We couldn’t find an example of anyone who’d done that yet, so we decided to make ourselves the guinea pigs.” So far, their experimental sound has garnered tremendous critical praise, and their first CD, You Just Wish You Were Me, is selling briskly from their merch booth at Warped. “It’s the oddest thing,” she muses, “to see kids so much younger than us, shaking it to beats they’ve probably never heard before. They’re trying to dance, but they can’t get the beats—not yet, anyway.” Lee remarks, “We do get the odd Rasta out in the crowd, with those impressive dreads, even here at Warped. It’s fucking hilarious—can’t they take off those damn wool hats? They must have poached brains in this sun.” Adds Weiss, “Yeah, really, and couldn’t they at least offer us a blunt now and then? It might help cool us off.”
Photo shows the band, lined up, wearing shades, captioned: The future’s so bright (from left, Strange, Lee, Weiss, Mann and Falkenberg)
4. The Daylight Bathers: These four young ladies are one of the first all-female bands ever to play Warped—and the only such group on the tour this year. Bassist Sal Marciano (given name: Sandra) thinks she knows why: “The facilities suck,” she says bluntly, then shrugs. “But that’s Warped, right? You live with it. It’s sure as hell not for the squeamish.” Marciano and the rest of the ‘Bathers—singer-guitarist-keyboard player Petula Langley, lead guitarist Mo (Maureen) Kinsella, and drummer Tia Vasquez—who formed four years ago as students at Northwestern University, aren’t worried about such petty annoyances. They’re the openers for the Souls’ stage, and as such are responsible for drawing the late-afternoon crowd with their blend of punk, pop and garage rock. Their first CD, You Are Here, nestles sometimes-angry lyrics into sunny pop melodies. The ‘Bathers like to swap lead vocals between the three guitarists, “but we’re working on Tia doing some leads too,” Kinsella continues. The group has also amassed an impressive array of cover songs, “which is how we learned what we know,” Marciano says. “It’s how everyone starts—even the Beatles had to do it.” The group has written about 30-40 songs, but the covers (some 500, by their count) “allow us to mix things up,” Langley points out. “We try every day to walk that fine line between ‘girl group’ and ‘rock band.’ We love to surprise people.” Langley smiles broadly, considering the band’s possible future: “One thing we know is, we’ll never get really big and have to hire chick singers—because we are chick singers. And proud of it.”
Photo shows the band members in an overhead shot, captioned: Good clean fun (clockwise, from top, Langley, Kinsella, Vasquez and Marciano)
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I am really proud of this chapter! BTW "Making Up Numbers" and "Romantic Type" are actually elusive singes by the Pigeon Detectives, a Brit band from Leeds. Check them out online!