Marathon 77, Bullseye, Guyscrapers, Lowercase Roses
Greenhaus (House Show)
Philadelphia
August 7, 2026
It’s that intense, flummoxing, buffoonery-inducing dog-days-of-summer swelter, and I find myself back at the aptly-named Greenhaus, the heat and humidity trapped not from aggregated sunlight but from congregated bodies in unventilated space, on one of the hottest, stickiest days we’ve had yet. I’ll admit upfront that I, like more than a few others, dropped like a fly and didn’t make it to the end of this four-band bill (I’ve established previously here my love for lowercase roses; I hope they’ll forgive my dipping) because it was just a touch too much. But at least I got to hear three high-energy punky rock ‘n roll (or rocking punk? what even is genre?) bands before tapping out.
I started going to basement shows when I was very young, usually to see punk and hardcore bands, so there’s a certain purity and/or nostalgia I always brush against hearing unmic’d drums played hard yet overwhelmed by loud, high-electrical-charge guitar and bass amps distorted into squealing feedback, vocals fighting tooth and nail to be heard; it just hits different. Sure, I like to feel the kick in my chest at a venue with a powerful PA, but I also love when a loud kick is reduced to a soft tap because everything else is so intense and in your face, when cymbals get swallowed in the swirl and the guitars are louder than almost any sound engineer would ever approve of. It’s bad sound that sounds good, both wrong and right.
That kind of sound flatters local punks Marathon 77. They started the show with a set that got progressively livelier and looser as it went, with searing guitar work from singer-guitarist Brian Furrey – ripping rambunctious solos, often furiously Wah-Wah’d into Dean Ween-ish territory. Furrey played with tons of rhythmic freedom, pushing and pulling against the rhythm section’s sense of time, but the unit always worked up a ton of energy, attack and drive, a heavy assault, their instruments in an almost languid unison befitting the heat.
Two New York bands upped the ante, each a twin-guitar rock ‘n roll combo with energy to burn: first was Bullseye, a Big Star-evoking band with a twangier, heart-on-sleeve bent, with catchy songs that had a decidedly upper-Midwest flavor: I thought of Paul Westerberg, and even Low, when Bullseye hinged one tune on a heavy riff reminiscent of “Dinosaur Act.” Guyscrapers was all unflagging energy and extreme tightness, syncopated interlocking rhythms, every player’s parts interesting on their own but adding up (their two guitarists had a wonderful back-and-forth dancing quality, sometimes playing opposite ideas, sometimes congealing, almost always an invigorating, slashing rhythmic interplay); cut measures and herky-jerky structures, and an expansive, all-encompassing sense of rock ‘n roll moves and tropes – one song even went into '80s SoCal punk forbidden beat territory – but overall very much the kind of classic, raw-power New York punk that you’d gladly wad up some makeshift earplugs for, taking all the heat you can stand.
