Latest Posts

Tonight: Pleasure Leftists

Pleasure Leftists return to Sugar City tonight with JOHNS and Worst Gift. The Cleveland group is all post punk with a catchy goth vice you can dance to (always important.) Their bandcamp tags them as “deranged,” which is fun, and even better, their label Deranged also put out releases from White Lung and Fucked Up. Worst Gift will bring perfect glam metal from Toronto that calls back to certain Baltimore hardcore. JOHNS, Buffalo’s punk purists, will join. Get to the gig at 7pm with $8.

Pleasure Leftists

Tonight: Pleasure Leftists

I was able to see Pleasure Leftists for the first time last year at Buffalo Iron Works as an opener for Cloud Nothings. The venue was jam packed and teeming with anxious attendees awaiting their opportunity to thrash around to the nihilistic, lo-fi punk of the headlining band. The members of Pleasure Leftists were a quiet presence while setting up and playing, mentioning only that they were from Cleveland and throwing polite thank you’s in between songs. But they had this way of commanding the entire room as soon as they struck a note. The dark, but alluring howl of lead singer Haley Morris worked in perfect harmony with the steadfast rhythm section and somewhat ominous guitar parts. The blend definitely had me (and everyone else) deeply entranced for their entire set. You can catch Pleasure Leftists tonight at the Glitterbox, along with Aaron and the Burrs, Softlines and Corliz[...]

Tonight: Pleasure Leftists

Rust Belt post-punk rockers Pleasure Leftists return to the Queen City with their insurgent sounds for what’s sure to be a special show at Spiral Scratch Records. Cleveland’s music scene has been blowing up recently (i.e. that packed Cloud Nothings show at the Iron Works in April), and Pleasure Leftists seem poised to continue that explosion thanks to their wonderfully propulsive and dark new wave guitar rock and the powerful, Patti Smith-esque vocals of Hayley Morris. Locals surfrockers Aaron & The Burrs, post-punkers Softlines, and Worse, who are making their live debut, will all be providing opening support. Show starts at 7pm, $7.

Grabbed from Facebook: Pleasure Leftists. Their faces look like that all the time.

Tonight: Pleasure Leftists

If you caught last Friday’s Cloud Nothings show, then you also had the pleasure of catching opener Pleasure Leftists. If you didn’t, don’t sweat: they’re coming back. After a few dates supporting Cloud Nothings, they’ll be swinging back through Buffalo to grace the stage/basement of the Glitterbox. Pleasure Leftists, to my ears, sound a whole lot like Joy Division, even more live than on the record. But it’s hard not to sound unique with a vocalist like Halley Morris. Her voice is an enormous, powerful thing and she herself is a presence: up on stage opening up for Cloud Nothings, she sometimes seemed like she was 20 feet tall. I’m excited to catch the band up close and personal. The rest of the bill, all Buffalo locals, is just as exciting. You’ve got Aaron & the Burrs delivering some excellent instrumental surf-rock. You’ve got Hot Tip serving up some hard-hitting[...]

Cloud Nothings at Buffalo Iron Works. Photo credit: Erica Morano of Buffalo.com.

Cloud Nothings at Buffalo Iron Works (4/4/14)

Last night’s Cloud Nothings show at the Buffalo Iron Works was a great experience. The bands played well, the crowd was into it, but it was the synergy between the two that pushed things over the top. I admit I was worried at the beginning. Openers Pleasure Leftists, who will be joining Cloud Nothings for a few dates before coming back through Buffalo next week for your listening pleasure, were awesome, but the crowd barely seemed to move. They clapped hard, but they seemed a little sleepy. Even when the headliners came on, I was concerned. The crowd only started to pick up a few songs into the set, when singer Dylan Baldi started strumming out the first few chords of “Stay Useless.” Lyrically, “Stay Useless” is all aching ennui, wishing for “Something to do/somewhere to go.” The crowd, at least the first few rows of it, seemed to know[...]