We Are The Chestpains: This Is Our Press

By daniel lupton 1/17/06

http://www.deadmetaphor.com/

Sunday night there was a great show at Chaz’s Records in Durham with Street Sharks, Pink Razors, the Chest Pains and some At the Drive-In-sounding band who really wanted us to remember the fact that they were from Wisconsin (I suppose they succeeded, though I don’t actually remember the band’s name). Unfortunately my camera is currently being repaired so no pics, but it was a really good show. I remember seeing the Chest Pains’ first show a few months back and they’ve come a long way since then. I don’t really know how to describe them… it’s like some weird combination of Flipper, the Circle Jerks and the Minutemen. These guys are a throwback to when hardcore was about breaking rules not following them, and while it takes a while to wrap you’re head around them they’re doing good things. I wish they hadn’t decided to play through small amps though… they sounded pretty thin and quiet compared to the other bands, but I’m sure they’ll bring out the big equipment next time.

By Grant Britt

http://bigblogonline.com/

Greg Barbera was dying to have his own punk band.   Last year, an overdose of the cold remedy Sudafed brought on symptoms that mimicked a heart attack, and Barbera found himself in the hospital thinking his life was over at 36.  He swore that if he survived the experience he was going to do the things that he had promised himself he would accomplish.  "When I was 20, I had these goals," Barbera recalls.  "To write a book and make a record, do a movie. And all of a sudden, it's like I better start putting a little more effort into that."

 He had a bit of experience in the field. In high school, Barbera had a band called the Youth Terrorists.  He had unearthed a tape years ago and played it for some friends who were impressed enough to encourage him to try it again.  "When I went through that whole heart thing, and I'd been listening to punk rock, I thought I always talk about it, but it's time to get off my ass and do it."

A chance meeting with ex- Jett Rink guitarist Tim Ristau last summer got things started.  "I worked with Tims wife Laura, who was putting on Shows at Fowlers' back deck and Tim showed up after shows."  Over a few beers, Barbera and Ristau discovered they shared a mutual love for mid '80s punk rock.  Ristau, who had just left Jett Rink, wanted to play again.  "I told him look, I'll play punk rock, "Barbera said. "I can sing, and I can play sloppy bass.  But heres the deal, I'm married with kids, have a limited window-pick a day and we'll start doing it and see how it works."

After a few listening/beer-drinking sessions, Barbera brought over his bass and knocked out a few riffs with Ristau, who told Barbera he thought it would work.  Calling in drummer Eric Hermann, the trio jelled.  But Barbara had doubts about his bass playing.  "I had never played bass in a band before in my life," he laughs.  "I have instruments around the house, a guitar, drum set and bass, but I was more of a guitar player.  When I bought a house, we had a room dedicated to that, and I thought we should have that stuff set up, so I picked up the bass and tinkered around on it."

But the other two thought Barbera's tinkering was good enough, and wanted to keep the band a three piece, so they worked out a way to accommodate Barbera. " There's certain things I can't sing cause I have to play, so a lot of songs have these little cheating spots in them where I can stop playing and sing."

Barbera's singing is something to behold. He favors old school punk, hard-core vocals delivered with vein popping intensity.  Barbera, who resembles a young John Travolta and has a laid-back demeanor offstage, transforms himself into a lunging, snarling beast that looks like it would take a cattle prod or a choke chain to get his attention.  "When we started the band, I was trying to sing a little more instead of holler," Barbera laughs.  "But after a couple weeks, it was pretty apparent that wasn't my forte, so I was going for the big Hank Rollins style growl."

The growl is not only intimidating, it often renders the lyrics incomprehensible, a fact that seems not to bother the singer.  He aligns himself with the great rock and roll tradition of being misunderstood, citing Hendrix's "scuse me while I kiss the sky" being interpreted by some as "scuse me while I kiss this guy."

"For me growing up, it was one of those things where you got a record and read a lyric sheet.  You had to listen to it a lot of times."  Chest Pains decided it would be one of those bands. " Even the guys in the band are like, we don't even know what you're saying half the time, " Barbera chuckles.  "Oh, if you only knew." Even the band's theme song, "Chest Pains," is difficult to understand until Barbera sends along a lyric sheet.  What seemed to be a sing-along ode to reefer or reverb is merely Barbera as king us if we know the refrain.  "We are the chestpains/This is our theme song/Don't know the refrain?/Cmon and sing along!.  I'm not dying/Im not dead/I just had some chest pains/Is all I said."

"Stop Signs," which sounded like it was about a revolution when the Pains played it at the Wetland s few weeks back, is about a black karate star from the'70s.  Sifu Raymond Fogg, practitioner of the seven star praying mantis kung fu system, billed as the most devastating of the marital arts related in a interview how and his friends used to poke hole in stop signs with their fingertips, inspiring Barbera to write a song about it.

On August 20, Barbera's band will be opening for the reunited Pipe, a band he once managed.   Barbera downplays his role, saying he was merely a middleman for their booking agent, also acting as kind of a guidance counselor, offering common sense road advice.  "I was like, if youre gonna go on the road, bring a cooler and put some soda in it, don't stop at every third gas station and buy yourself a can of soda.  It just made sense to me."

Barbera's common sense is now being put to use for his own band, which he says he wants to record soon.  "I want to nail down some stuff we have now before it gets too far away from what it really is," which he believes happens if you play it long enough.

But he has at least one fan who supports the band no matter what it does.  "My son Spencer's totally into it," Barbera says proudly.  "He runs around the house chanting 'Chest Pains rock. '  Makes drawings of the guys in the band and give to me when I go to practice."

As Barbera discovered, even the little ones want in on the business.   Last week when he headed out to put up posters for the Cave show, he came back home to find his son had made twenty fliers for his own band, Sharks and Lions, and put them up around the house.  "And they're still up.  I start to take 'em down and he's like, you can't take those down. So it's kind of permeating the rest of the family."  It's enough to give a man chest pains.

The Chest Pains play the Pipe Reunion show with the Nein at Local 506 August 20.