Sex Vid Is Hardcore

Limited Promotion, Unlimited Potential

originally published July 9, 2008

It's summer, and like every summer, bands are climbing into cramped vans to play across this expansive country in dives, clubs, arenas, houses, backyards and wherever else there is a PA and room for people to watch live music. This summer, bands have a heavily recessed economy to contend with, but this isn't stopping them from long, exhausting drives to play in front of few, if any, fans.

Sex Vid, a hardcore punk foursome from Olympia, WA, is embarking on its first U.S. tour. While the band has completed successful jaunts down the West Coast and traveled to the Northeast for festivals, this is the first time it has attempted a cross-country trip, and Sex Vid is taking an attitude of inevitability to the tour. “All of us work or are students, so it's difficult to make these things work,” says guitarist R.J. Sweeney. “It's an unfortunate time in terms of gas and the general economy, but it is only going to get worse. Now seems more opportune than in the more distant future.”

If Sex Vid finds itself playing to any particularly empty crowds on the tour, it could be said it's due to the band's own carefree marketing stance. The band has little to no Internet presence. You try to Google “Sex Vid.” [Editor's note: While this search does not avail info on the band, you must be 18 and over to view the material that it does. Also, adding genre info, i.e., "Sex Vid hardcore" does not help.] And don't get the members started on MySpace. Sweeney says he finds the music marketer of the month to be “tedious, disgusting and stupid."

"Fuck it," he says. "We have a P.O. box.” Singer Judd Taylor agrees: “MySpace never crossed my mind, ever. Not even an option. It wasn't until we started getting interviews that we realized how uncommon it is for a band to not have a MySpace.”

Even more frustrating for hardcore fans is the band's seemingly limited releases. Having released just three vinyl singles, the band frustrated many hardcore fans by only pressing 500 copies of its first single, “for no other reason than no one had any clue who we were,” says Sweeney. This ignited a ferocious bidding war on eBay, with curious parties paying triple digits for a single that was $4 previously. While the band has refused to re-press that single, it has pressed increasingly more of its subsequent two releases, and those will certainly be available on this tour.

While all of this might appear to be posturing or gimmickry, it's unimportant when the songs get played because Sex Vid is damn good at what it does. Sex Vid operates in the hardcore punk ghetto competently, but rather than aping the warmer, more inviting guitar tones one might pick up from Minor Threat or Bad Brains, the band deals in a darker, noisier aggression, one similar to Void, The Fix, or the earliest records by Touch and Go's Die Kreuzen. The speed is brisk with quick chord changes backed by pummeling drums with larynx-shredded vocals barking about the frustrations of daily life, internal anguish and aggravating participants of society. The self-titled track from the “Tania” single details the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army and the name she adopted after undergoing Stockholm Syndrome. Influenced by various other extreme music genres, it's not uncommon for Sex Vid's songs to degenerate into blasts of noise or detuned riffing. The song “Trainwreck” appropriately features a noisy breather that sounds like a band performing on a crashing train before the song ends in typical hardcore speed and rigidity. “Nests,” too, finds its traditional chorus interrupted by disjointed riffing.

Coming from Olympia, birthplace of Beat Happening, Sleater-Kinney, K Records and Kill Rock Stars, some might think Sex Vid is attempting to uphold some sort of indie legacy. "Not even close," Sweeney says. Those days are long gone. “Not that we were a part of it in the first place,” he adds. The band stays there because, much like Athens, it's a decent place to live. “It's pretty easy to do your own thing and not have to worry about anyone else,” Taylor says. “It can get claustrophobic, though.”

It's got to be rough to be out on the road on your own, but on July 13 Sex Vid will have some of the best bands in Georgia helping them out. Sunday's show includes American Cheeseburger, Atlanta's garage veterans Carbonas and upstart Atlanta thrash band Bukkake Boys (featuring an ex-member of Sex Vid). It's going to be a cathartic night.

Scott Reid

WHO: Bukkake Boys, Sex Vid, Carbonas, American Cheeseburger
WHERE: Transmetropolitan Lounge
WHEN: Sunday, July 13
HOW MUCH: $5