Bonus MP3: Video -- "In Control"

Friday night's show at Rubber Gloves featured one of the best local bills I've caught this year.

An album-release show for Teenage Cool Kids' Foreign Lands, the evening also featured Cleburne's Fungi Girls and, more importantly, the phenomenal debut performance by Denton-based Brit-punk/hardcore act Video.

Formed just three weeks ago, Video is fronted by Daniel Fried (of The Wax Museums, Bad Sports, Silver Shampoo and High Tension Wires), with Payton Green (of Wiccans and The Wax Museums) on guitar, Harpal Assi (of Wiccans and Silver Shampoo) on bass and Gregory Rutherford (Wiccans, Silver Shampoo and High Tension Wires) on drums.

Yet, for as much as Video is a band that sounds like the sum of its parts, the band managed to forge a new, distinct sound (more on that later) while delivering an explosive, high-energy performance. And the audience? Well, fists were pumping, heads were bangin' and people were shouting along. This was especially true, when Video closed with a furious cover of The Misfits' classic "Bullet," which, locally speaking, is one heck of an irreverent song.

The crowd loved it.

After the show, we asked guys Video for an mp3 to give our readers. Check out, and go ahead and download, the band's song "In Control" while you read more about Video and the show after the jump...

Bonus mp3:

Fried says "In Control," like the other songs on the band's MySpace page, was recorded, just last Tuesday--first onto his four-track and then to a tape player he bought two weeks ago at Goodwill for $12.

With ten songs to draw from and well-chosen covers (in addition to "Bullet," the band played Pagan's "Boy Can I Dance Good."), the band's live set is a pretty striking sight.

Friday night, Fried alternated between standing motionless behind the microphone stand to pacing and jumping around every inch of the stage--half the time dragging the mic stand in his wake. Meanwhile, Rutherford wailed away at his kit, Green shredded and wah-wah pedaled all night, and Assi slid around the stage battering his bass. 

"I've been in bands since I was 14, but tonight was the first time that I've been up on stage and not been playing an instrument," Fried says. "It's exposing, and I didn't know what to do when I wasn't singing."

But Fried made it through and, despite his concerns to the contrary, Fried's first go as an instrument-less frontman--and the band's first performance as a whole--was, well, like I said before, phenomenal.

But, don't just take my word for it: "Video really blew me away," Teenage Cool Kids' Daniel Zeigler said after the show. "It's, what, two-thirds of Bad Sports, most of Wiccans, half of Silver Shampoo? You know, that whole thing is such a clusterfuck. That group of people, all of those guys have been in bands together, but, the thing is that Wiccans doesn't sound like Bad Sports, which doesn't sound like Silver Shampoo, which doesn't sound like Video, and that's really awesome to see. I though they were fantastic--even better than I thought they would be. And I can't wait to see more of them."  

Ditto.