Circle Jerks & Gorilla Biscuits (w/ Negative Approach)

Three legendary punk and hardcore bands — the Circle Jerks, Gorilla Biscuits and special guest Negative Approach — unite for an epic tour that stops at Empire Live in Albany. With special guests Negative Approach.

The Circle Jerks were arguably the first band to inject hardcore punk with the snotty humour that became one of the movement’s defining traits. Cofounded by singer Keith Morris after his departure from Black Flag in 1979, the iconic outfit fired off a string of speeding anthems like “Live Fast Die Young”, “Wild in the Streets” and “Stars and Stripes”, on which they lob one obnoxious joke after another at parents, society and anything else they deem mainstream and lame. Though The Circle Jerks’ legacy rests upon their initial blast of albums in the ’80s (Group Sex in particular), they’ve reunited frequently through the decades.

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Gorilla Biscuits is a New York straight edge hardcore punk band on Revelation Records. They formed in 1987. They picked the name under pressure to have a name when Token Entry got them a stage appearance unexpectedly.

Ironically (due to their straight edge status), the name came from a big quaalude known as a “gorilla biscuit” which was popular in their neighborhood. The intent was to change the name later, but it stuck.

However the name was used effectively in one of their early songs which is titled Biscuit Power with the lyrics “Gorilla Biscuits in your fucking head, one more time and you’ll be dead…”Guitarist Walter Schreifels’ later musical endeavors include Quicksand, Rival Schools, and Walking Concert.

Frontman Civ became the singer for eponymic hardcore punk group CIV and is currently the owner of a New York City tattoo studio called Lotus Tattoos.Gorilla Biscuits disbanded around 1991. They reformed for a benefit show at CBGB’s, New York, in 1997 and August 14,2005.

They did a nationwide reunion tour in 2006, playing almost every song they wrote at every show. In 2007 they did a month-long European tour.

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Detroit’s Negative Approach, along with Maumee, OH’s Necros, were the undisputed champs of Midwestern hardcore in the early to mid-’80s. Legend has it that vocalist John Brannon recruited drummer OP Moore and the guitar/bass team of Rob and Graham McCulloch at a skate park sometime in 1981. Lead by the bald-headed Brannon’s hoarse wail, the band concocted an extreme sound devoid of frills that alternated between violent and mean. This was first fully documented in 1982 on their self-titled Touch and Go 7″. The band released the more metallic-sounding Tied Down 12″ on Touch and Go in 1983, but died out in 1985 as Brannon incubated the Birthday Party blues of Laughing Hyenas. Unfortunately lacking the more widespread post-hardcore fame of peers Ian McKaye and Henry Rollins, Brannon’s Negative Approach has not gotten the later-day due often accorded Minor Threat and Black Flag. Negative Approach was certainly as influential as those two bands, touching everyone from Poison Idea to Sonic Youth to Los Crudos, as well as entire generations of hardcore fans in Boston and New York. The band was also as original and extreme as any early-’80s punk outfit — the rhythmic crush created by Moore and the McCulloch brothers continues to be an undeniable steel-toe to the face. Touch and Go compiled the band’s discography as Total Recall in 1992, an essential listen for anyone who wants to understand hardcore.