Scenes From Last Night's Trash Talk, Ratking and Lee Bannon Show at Club Dada.
Dallas has been hit in the face — oftentimes literally — with various Trash Talk shows in recent years. So, for the most part, people knew what they were getting into when they made their way to Dada last night. They knew the show would be loud. They knew it would be brash. They knew it would be filled with quick sonic bursts from the Sacramento-sprung hardcore outfit. They knew it would be a bruising affair.
Very literally, Trash Talk shows are punishing showcases. Perhaps more than anyone, frontman Lee Spielman knows this: Staggering about the room like a boxer last night, he noted, too, that perhaps his bands brand of live performance isn't for everyone.
“This one,” he said, teetering on the edge of the Dada stage, right before introducing one of his band's many under-two-minute songs,” goes out to everybody who's been to a Trash Talk show before and keeps coming back.”
Indeed, there's a sadistic appeal at play among that set. And those people very clearly got what they came for by the time Trash Talk's set ended last night. More than a few shirts were ripped, at least a handful of direct mid-mosh punches to the face landed on their targets and one young fan somehow got so messed up during a particularly violent circle pit that she stumbled out of it with blood rushing from her head. But these people also got a good time: Aside from a single fan who was somewhat forcibly removed from the venue for being too angry in his response to the music, the jaws that weren't on the floor were tightly clenched into smiles.
It's not hard to see why. There's an obvious animalistic catharsis that goes down at these shows. But there's more than that. For all of the hardcore show stereotypes that Trash Talk happily perpetuates, it shatters more than a few of them, too.
This bill, for instance, was crafted seemingly to do just that. Featuring New York rap outfit Ratking and experimental Sacramento-based producer on the undercard, this wasn't your typical all-hardcore offering in the slightest. Granted, the hip-hop and hardcore genres have over the years shown themselves to have plenty in common, but they far too infrequently cross-pollinate — except at Trash Talk shows, really. And during one of his many asides, Spielman proudly boasted about the night's varied lineup.
“It's rad to have three different types of music on one bill,” he said. “Hey, we're all here for the same reason.”
Even if those who came specifically to see the early performers weren't exactly eager to jump into Trash Talk's fray, preferring instead to gawk at the action from the fringes of the venue, Spielman's point still resonated.
Because here's the thing: Regardless of whether these people came just for Trash Talk, they sure stayed through the performance, if only to see what the fuss was about. In turn, these folks' eyes were opened to something new.
And, yeah, that's as good a reason for a party — rough or not — as any.