With a cartoony name like “The Grabbies” one might envision a cuddly pop punk band that dresses in funny ‘80s new wave clothing and excretes sugary little musical plums that get your toes tappin’ and make you feel good all over. Now, I’m not always the best judge of character, but I think I’m fairly safe in saying that the Grabbies do not want to make you feel good all over. In fact, I think they’d rather butt-spray your curtains with diarrhea and light your pets on fire. And their sound is anything but pop punk. It’s a heaving, blistering, seething, vicious wall of misanthropy that sounds like a bunch of rabid madmen gnawing their own limbs off—and liking it. This live recording is a veritable clinic on Punk Rock Audience Baiting; frontman “Anus” tells the audience to fuck off probably fifty different times during this brief show and still somehow manages to sound like he really fucking means it each and every time. GG, at his pissiest, had nothing on this guy. The story goes, in fact, that this performance—unleashed on an unsuspecting crowd of patchouli-wearing college puds—resulted in our heroes having the power shut off on them and being run out of town. While I certainly hope that that story is true, it obviously could be little more than an attempt to “sell the sizzle” of this new record. But either way, it’s immaterial to me. This fucker is busting out all over the place with “sizzle” and it’s a sizzle that latches onto your face like a pan of scalding hot grease. No selling necessary. I’ve got a Grabbies habit now and I need every Grabbies recording I can get my grubby little hands on. Very possibly the greatest live recording of any band I own. This is the shit religions are made of.
–aphid (Proud To Be Idiot)