I found out about Brutal Knights in the most idiotic girl way ever, in that I had a crush on a very hot French guy (like actual French, foie gras and foreskin and all), and he was really pumped about going to their show so obviously I went, too. We ended up dating for a while, even though we're both batshit, and the show was really loud and hard and sweaty and fun, so the moral of the story is that the Brutal Knights are magical.
Based in Toronto, the Knights consist of singer Nick Flanagan, who, despite his wails about drinking and being fat, is actually an amiable, dapper comedian and journalist; shit-hot bassist Daniella Costanzo; guitarist Katie Whitaker, about whom the band's homage to horniness, “K.W.C.,” was penned; and crazed foxes/sibling team Jon and Matt Sharron on guitar and drums, respectively.
Flanagan is the ringmaster here, and he leads the Knights in the grand punk tradition of goofing off. At a Vice party last summer, their rambunctious set left me and many others—including a bizarre, wide-eyed fleet of Livestrong bracelet- (or, as I prefer, “Lancelet”) wearing contest winners—covered in an unusual mixture of spit, beer, Jäger and pee.
Type-A control-a-thons aside, most music fans with a sense of radness will dig on such songs as “Self Gay Handjob,” “Government Is Asshole,” “So Fat,” “Teen Sex” and “Extreme Lifestyle '04.” Flanagan's songs are a treasure trove of aggravated and hilarious lyrics, particularly those with solemn comments on the cost of acne treatment, depression, strip clubs, Internet message boards and small-town girls with big-time cases of the herp.
This is amusing, upright, back-to-basics punk rock. The Toronto insurgence you might have heard about (Boring Social Scene, Metric and Feist) is okay, I guess, but the real word is on Creeping Nobodies, Anagram, Ninja High School and these guys. This isn't sameness. The title of the Brutal Knights' newest album spells it out: The Pleasure Is All Thine.
Brutal Knights with Neon Maniacs at El Centro Cultural de Mexico, 310 W. Fifth St., Santa Ana, (714) 953-9305; www.el-centro.org. Sat., 8 p.m. Call for cover. All ages.
