By Lisa Morgan
Guttermouth is coming to the Date Shed and unless you are allergic to rebellion, you are NOT going to want to miss it! The Huntington Beach born American skate punk band that formed in 1988 and currently recording for Volcom Entertainment, promise to continue the legacy of hard core punk rock, sarcasm and rebellion, that they have been infamous for since the 80’s.
The reputation that the band, more accurately, lead singer Mark Adkins, developed coinciding with their deliberately explicit, outrageous lyrics, has sometimes resulted in high-profile problems for the band. In 2004, Atkins single handedly provoked the entire Vans Warped tour to turn against him. In keeping with their reputation for offensive behavior, Adkins would often openly insult other acts from onstage, declaring that bands such as Yellowcard and My Chemical Romance cared more about their fashionable clothing and popularity than about the quality of their music. The band members also mocked what they saw as an uninformed political display of many bands on the tour by selling t-shirts and displaying banners that jokingly proclaimed support for President George W. Bush in stark contrast to the anti-Republican music movement leading up to the 2004 presidential election. After several weeks on the tour, Guttermouth was “politely” asked to leave, fueling rumors that other performers had petitioned to have them ejected. Eventually, however, Adkins issued a statement apologizing to Warped Tour manager Kevin Lyman and admitted that the band had left the tour voluntarily, due in part, to his distaste for the political atmosphere surrounding it. Prior to that Adkins was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon for using a microphone of all things, to incite the crowd into near riot. Then there was an incident regarding indecent exposure that caused him to be banned from Canada for a few years. But all in all, this was in keeping with the spirit of the original Punk Rock movement of the 1980’s until “punk broke” according to Adkins, in the 90’s.
The band will be the first to tell you, you either love them or you hate them. They and their last album, Shave the Planet, “continue to piss off the PC police” as they “recall the glory days when LA punkers weren’t singing about heart-wrenching adolescent breakups, but cynically cracking on Oki Dogs, TV Parties and Group Sex.” The title track from the album and other songs “ooze Mark Adkins’ skewed social commentary” while others like Primate Camp and My Chemical Imbalance are “closer to a committed patient’s un-medicated delusional rants.”
Guttermouth consists of Mark Adkins, vocals; Clint “Cliff” Weinrich on bass guitar; Dave Luckett and Matt Wills on guitar; Justin Van Westbroek on bass; Alex Flamsteed on drums. “Don’t lump us in with all those watered down 90’s bands, we’re a product of the 80’s. That’s where we get our inspiration,” says Adkins. Then and now, Guttermouth will “continue to cross the line that should not be crossed and remind us jaded assholes why we fell in love with punk in the first place.”
Guttermouth will be performing along with The Queers, The Hellions and Dune Rats at the Date Shed in Indio, Friday, October 5, brought to you by Ming Bob Productions. The concert is 18 and over and $10 at the door. The Date Shed is located at 50725 Monroe Street in Indio near the Coachella Fest concert grounds and Empire Polo fields.
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