Make Sluts Not Bombs: Slutbomb Concert Report
Slutbomb from left to right: Vinnie Paige (Bass), Taylor Kincaid (Drums), Debra Long (Vocals), and Darrel Glass (Guitar)
All photos taken by Jordan Ranft
Living just outside the Bay Area proper, it gets a little tiresome having to drive some 60 minutes to Oakland, Berkeley, or SF to see a show. Don’t get me wrong, there is a solid DIY scene in my town with events popping up several times a month, but we aren’t really on the map for touring performers and end up with a lot of cards packed with local acts, all of whom I love dearly. So, when we do get a touring band, especially one I like, I make every effort to support. Sometimes that looks like buying a t-shirt from them, and other times it involves tricking your editor into letting you run an article about them in a music blog with an international audience. But never mind that, have you heard of Slutbomb before?
Hailing from the wilds of Cincinnati, Ohio, Slutbomb is a frenzied dervish of old-school hardcore. Their songs, which rarely run longer than 90 seconds, are blasts of screeching guitars, machine-gun drumming, and vocalist Debra Long shouting and grunting politically dissident lyrics at a mile-a-minute. Flares of psychedelia and funk appear as abrupt interludes, and a song will occasionally slow into a sludgy, plodding morass of crunchy guitar and drums, before exploding again into a relentless crescendo of snares, yells, and riffs. This variety of generic influences adds dimensionality and versatility to their sound, giving depth to the frenzied thrash that’s their bread and butter. Since 2017, they’ve cut two full-length albums and several EPs and singles, all of which are worth checking out, but the true magic occurs when you catch them live.
Watching Debra Long perform is, I imagine, like seeing the inside of a particle accelerator when atoms smash together. She is never not moving, leering, shouting, or tumbling across the stage. She sings so fast that it sometimes feels akin to rapping. At multiple times throughout the set, she jumped off stage, mic in hand, and sprinted laps through the crowd, pausing to scream in people’s faces, without ever losing the rapid tempo of the song. It made me tired just watching her, and yet after the set she was awake, alert, and cheerfully agreed to pose for a band photo like she’d just had a full night’s sleep and a cup of coffee. I also have to plug the whole band for being a friendly bunch of folks who seem genuinely excited to converse and build community with people after the show. Slutbomb is diva-free! While they have just wrapped up their West Coast tour, they are about to embark on a European leg in September and October, so global InSpite readers need not feel left out of the fun.
The show, like many DIY punk shows that happen in your hometown, wasn’t as well attended as I hoped it would be. When I see a flyer taped to a light-post or taped to a coffee shop window, I always envision a small room packed to the gills with locals. I see stage dives and rambunctious pits and a permeating anxiety that things might get too rowdy. Perhaps that’s the other motive I have in writing this piece. If you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re probably already the type to hit your local community center/bar/backyard for a show, but if you aren’t, there’s great music happening fifteen minutes down the street from you. Don’t miss out.
Bonus: Stardontmeananything
While I went to the show to see Slutbomb, their co-headliner starsdontmeananything completely blew me away as well. These guys are heavy as fuck, with a post-hardcore screamo vibe that occasionally meanders into space-age ambience and brutal breakdowns. They manage to be incredibly harsh while maintaining some semblance of melody in their songs, which is a delicate balance with disorienting effects. It was my first time hearing them, but I’ll be there the next time I see their name on a bill.
