The Suicide Machines Bring Legendary Ska Punk to St. Andrew’s

The Suicide Machines, the Detroit-born legends, brought a hell of a lineup to the iconic Saint Andrew’s Hall on Saturday, September 7 for a ripper of a good time, featuring Osaka’s own HEY-SMITH, Kill Lincoln, and Bad Operation, who are all on the Bad Time Records roster.

 

 

BAD OPERATION

 

 

We’d love to fill you in more about Bad Operation as a band, but one of the interesting things to note is that the band doesn’t have much of an about section listed anywhere. Maybe that’s by design because their website mostly notes some of the highlights of their actual music via quotations from various news outlets talking about their sound or things they’ve been involved in as a band

 

What we do know is that the New Orleans-hailing band has a roster that includes Daniel “D-Ray” Ray on Trombone & Keyboards (who jumped onto the barricade a few times during the performance), Brian Pretus on Lead Guitar and backing vocals, Dominic Minix on Lead Vocals and Guitar, Robert Landry on the Drums, and Greg Rodrigue on Bass and backing vocals, and they absolutely throw down when they’re performing.

 

While we feel as if we’re not doing the band real justice, we’ll leave you with this quote from Jer from Skatune Network, who endorses the band perfectly: “My vote for band most likely to make people who swore they hate ska, realize ska slaps.”

 

 

 

KILL LINCOLN

 

 

Described as a ska-punk sextet by The Washington Post, the band Kill Lincoln began in the Washington D.C. area and brings along that punk ideology that we’ve come to know from that region. The article shares that the band is slightly scattered now between New York, Washington, and Baltimore, but due to their roots, they still consider themselves a D.C. band. It’s also important to note that their band name comes from the rival high school in ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High.’

 

Drew Skibitsky, who tends to steal the show, is what many referred to as “you know, like the Bosstones have that guy that just dances?” But after watching for more than 10 minutes, you start to wonder how many calories he needs to eat in the day to keep moving at that speed. Mike Sosinski, singer and guitarist, told The Washington Post that Skibitsky “…dances, he sings along, but he really interacts with the crowd. He’s sort of our connection to the audience. He gets people excited. He gets people up onstage to sing along. He gets in the crowd. He’s getting them moving,” which is an important part of their overall performance considering the rest of them are all playing their instruments during this time.

 

Sosinski isn’t just a musician but is understated in his importance as he runs Bad Time Records, which houses all the artists on this bill, plus many more. Unfortunately, the setlist for the Saint Andrew’s Hall show was not uploaded online, but checking other setlists, their common song titles that you can check out are “I’m Fine (I Lied),” “I’m Getting Too Old For This Shit,” and Second Cities.

 

 

 

 

HEY-SMITH

 

 

HEY-SMITH was formed in Osaka, Japan in 2006, and boy, do they have a lot of energy! With the Ska Punk variety, you tend to expect that, but this group was on another level, and may have stolen the spotlight a bit from the headliner. According to their biography, translated from Japanese, “The origin of the band name ‘SMITH’ is taken from the initials of each member, and ‘HEY’ just sounds like we’re in a good mood!” And they certainly act it.

 

While Shuhei Igari and YUJI take on the vocals and technical bravado of the band, Full, who plays the Saxophone flings himself around the stage like a wild man. At one point, he ran up the side of the wall and climbed into the speaker housing while shirtless, and we honestly thought he was going to dive into the crowd from there. Luckily he didn’t, I wouldn’t trust drunken Detroiters to catch him.

 

Members “Makes sense” and likawaken hold up the rest of the brass on trombone and trumpet, respectively, and Task-n rallies the beat with the drums. We truthfully were very thrilled by this performance, and noticed that their merch line tended to be in demand for most of the night, with fans picking up vinyl to commemorate the occasion.

 

 

THE SUICIDE MACHINES

 

 

In March of 1991, The Suicide Machines launched their journey in Detroit, Michigan, and their consistent lineup member is frontman Jason Navarro, along with the current iteration of the band: Ryan Vandeberghe on drums, Rich Tschirhart on bass and Justin Malek on guitar.

 

Whether they’re on the road or in the Detroit area performing, they are a fan favorite, and the packed house included lots of locals from the scene happy to support the hometown heroes. Over the years, the band has performed at Riot Fest, Warped Tour, and the band just celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the release of ‘A Match & Some Gasoline’ with a deluxe vinyl LP reissue of the original CD.

 

The energy prevailed throughout the night, as the band banged through some of their best, including “Permanent Holiday,” “Capitalist Suicide,” “Give,” and who could forget the Tony Hawk Pro-Skater favorite “New Girl.” They closed out their set with “Vans Song,” “Hey,” and “DDT,” all while Narvarro got in the faces of fans at the barricade, and crowd surfers flinging themselves across the sea of bodies, having the time of their lives.