Above: Wimps performing “Hello Frustration”



“I’m stoooooooooooooned,” Hunx sighed in his Truman Capote whine before His Punx kicked out their wonderfully bratty two-minute-or-less jams.

Street Punk, the San Francisco group’s new Hardly Art LP, is a scab covered joyride through a teenage wasteland, more than fitting for the all-ages Chop Suey show last Friday packed to the brim with mohawked and piereced teenagers. The kids upped the punx by moshing furiously and taking breaks to make out with each other on the sidelines. This is exactly how I imagine Hunx & His Punx would have wanted it.

“This song is about zitssss,” Hunx said into the mic before tearing his pants off. Hunx’ baby-soft butt featured quite prominently into the set, peeking out from behind his small black banana hammock and finding itself thrust frequently in raputrous audience members’ faces. Between the butt action and the lit-match + gasoline bangers, Hunx & His Punx proved that punk rock is alive & well, and in fact, not bullshit.

My favorite moment: After ripping through a blazing forty second song, Hunx turned back to the band. “Heyyyyyy, let’s do that one more time?” The band obliged, and repeated the number to the frenzied joy of the audience.

Adding to the “butt” rock action was Seattle’s Wimps, who came out onstage wearing suits, hats and beards.

“All you kids look young, so just so you know, we are supposed to be ZZ Top. That’s a band, from the early 80s,” bassist Matt Nyce informed the audience. Wimps’ never dissapoint, and despite the presumed generation gap, their set quickly won over the young crowd. By set’s end, the audience was screaming and shoving each other over Wimps’ catchy punk ditties about eating and napping.

The show also featured the valiant return of Coconut Coolouts, the punked-up project from Lacy Swain and Ruben Mendez, also known as the co-owners of Seattle’s only record-store-in-a-car, Gold Van Records. Their record-lust was more than apparent during CC’s mega-fun set, which found Mendez frequently informing the crowd that “the next song we are going to play is on a 7-inch, and there is one copy available in back.” Or, “the next song we are going to play is on a 7-inch, and we sold out of our one copy today.” If you want Coconut Coolouts on vinyl, looks like you’ll have to be a hyper-vigilant. The show marked something return for the band, which had been on a bit of a hiatus as Swain and Mendez focused on their respective jobs at Sub Pop and Hardly Art.

The band’s high-energy sing-along set included a banana suit, and ended with Mendez on the floor, moaning and beat boxing into a microphone next to a puddle of water. So don’t worry, they’ve still got it. The band are keeping the momentum up with a special Halloween set on KEXP on Oct 26, which may or may not mark the return of the banana suit.