Peeves from
the Cleve

>>Ohio’s Homostupids hate their hometown,
their contemporaries and probably you

SIXTH CITY SICKNESS: The Homostupids

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

With a band name that only Texans the Motards can rival for pure un-P.C. punk-rock offensiveness, Cleveland’s the Homostupids tear a page from hardcore’s history book, blasting through songs in under a minute with a grating lo-fi sound and laissez-faire attitude that would make even the Mummies blush. With the rash of new bands like Toronto’s Fucked Up and Philadelphia’s Clockcleaner rescuing the tainted name of hardcore by adding elements of teeth-gnashing no-wave noise, heaping amounts of misanthropic attitude, humour and hyper-speed tempos, it would seem that the Homostupids would have their finger directly on the underground pulse. Oddly, though, the band subscribes to the Groucho Marx adage that they would hardly want to become members of any club that would let them join.

“There are just so many of those kinds of bands in every city and almost all of them are completely fucking boring and soulless,” says bassist Steve Peffer. “For any of those kids that are getting into these so-called weird hardcore bands, I would just tell them to wake the fuck up and put on some Voivod, like Killing Technology or any of their early records, because those are just scorchers. If you want a really weird, heavy band, there ya go.”

True, while the Homostupids could, whether they are willing to admit it or not, be included among the new, young, quirky hardcore breed, they do manage to stand out a bit from their blitzkrieg brethren. Their hometown of Cleveland’s punk roots include some of the most fucked up acts of punk’s heyday between ’77 and ’80, with bands like Rocket From the Tombs, the Pagans, the Mirrors, the Electric Eels and others being some of the most dangerous bands around at the time. This historical fact is not lost on Peffer, despite his barely being in short pants during the first wave of punk.

“Cleveland has always been a little different from what’s been going on in the rest of the world. Those early bands had no expectations and I would like to think the Homostupids don’t either. Those early Cleveland bands, I think, still have an influence on other bands in the city because they never thought people would be talking about them now and just did what they did with real integrity. Cleveland is just a hopeless, shitty city and people feel completely disconnected here, and I guess that further removed us from formulas. If anything binds Cleveland bands together, it’s just that they’ve always thought nobody would ever give a shit about what they did.”

With bloated travelling festivals that now hock shoes and cell phones under the banner of punk, the real deal has burrowed deeper underground, with real punk bands playing living rooms, rehearsal spaces and other DIY venues. Perhaps this is where the Homostupids finally feel a kinship with the new school, as these off-the-beaten-path venues are their preferred place to play (LBH in Pointe St-Charles, where they play this lucky Friday the 13th, is a good example).

“We don’t play out of Cleveland that much, so when we do, we really try to get somebody to set something up in a house or anywhere that’s more of a party. There’s no rules at venues like that, and it’s way more fun.”

With Panopticon Eyelids, Omegas and Double
Dip at LBH on Friday, June 13, 9 p.m., $6