A Night Celebrating New Dadadoh and Spicy Mayo
Album releases are celebrations of the culmination of all the work musicians put in to writing, finding the right chords, and putting it down into fully mixed and produced recordings. These days the albums come in various formats from purely digital to the resurgence of vinyl and cassettes to the lumbering on CD. Now one release is an already party, imagine when two want to get together to celebrate two new albums. Well, Spicy Mayo and Dadadoh and the POC decided to do that. They brought me to the art and history covered walls of Unity Through Community for my first visit and they invited Okinawa Plane Crash and Boss Frog to bring the party up a couple more notches.
Once thought over, our openers were the once again alive Boss Frog. Perusing their Instagram shows they are back performing shows again, and, while I apparently missed it, this is the second show back for them since once ending it in 2016. That’s right, we had lead singer and keyboardist, Jack Bennett, back in Phoenix and behind the microphone with that wonderful voice.
With him returning was Max, on drums too. Jack’s vocals going over that of a R&B, jazz and soul music blend filled with a passionate energy. A new and familiar addition that compliments those sounds perfectly was Dallas, of Spicy Mayo, on saxophone. It may not be all the same, but Boss Frog didn’t lose a step in the time since they once called it quits.
Next was a band I’d been hoping to catch for a little, Okinawa Plane Crash. A highly charismatic and charged punk band from here in Phoenix. They caught my eye as they first started appearing on fliers and shows over a year ago with that standout name. As for members, it seems as if a recently newer, but personality filled lead singer has stepped up for them.
I go back a little with Zach Collins, on guitar, and there is Johnny on the bass. If I had not looked it up, I would have never known that this singer was newer to the band. He brought a good personality to fill the spaces between the punk rock songs. Those songs infectious and got the crowd opening a circle within seconds of the first note. Okinawa Plane Crash brought a lot of delight and hope to get out to see more of them.
Then was the first of our bands celebrating their brand-new album “HOOLIGANS,” Dadadoh and the POC. This band combines hip hop with garage rock and punk rock. It is a band I continue to wish got on more of the traditional punk rock bills with this great sound they have. Bryan Preston, aka Dadadoh, took a different approach to this release show setlist. That is, where most musicians would play through the new album then sprinkle in other songs, he instead took to social media asking fans what songs they wanted to hear and that became the setlist. The meant beginning with “Erik Kartman” and ending with “Trouble” with a lot of crowd favorites included.
The bouncing around the circle pit continued in the crowd while the band did the same around in the Unity Through Community’s spacious stage space. Within the set were the traditional “Go Pedro” chants for their maybe other biggest personality of the band Pedro, on bass. All this amounts to you can always count on a highly enjoyable time when Dadadoh and the POC are on your bill.
Last would be another that knows exactly how to bring the fun and had their own album to release, Spicy Mayo. Born out of the ashes of Exxxtra Crispy, this band invokes the spirit I loved from Dallas Rose’s last band. It is a blunt, self-reflecting, and raw emotion that comes through in the less traditional punk rock sounds of Spicy Mayo. In their sophomore release, “Vampires, Popularity & Other Irrefutable Forces Of Nature” this is continued to fantastic results.
I can’t help but wonder if that album title is ever so slightly influenced by the Aquabats’ album title “Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures Vol 2.” Dallas’s personality between songs shows a fantastic charisma and charm to on-the-fly remarks said through the microphone. The band came out decked in different colored hazmat suits minus head coverings.
Spacy Mayo is littered with familiar faces if you’ve been watching local Phoenix music a while. These faces include Evan, guitarist of the late T.O.S.O., Bryan, that we know as Dadadoh, Daniel, once vocalist of Hesperus, and Brett, the drummer of Weird Radicals.
Toward the end of the set there was self-reflecting parody of Dallas, who is also known as Austin, where he interviewed a satirical version played by, what appeared to be, Boss Frog’s Jack. While I’m sure scripted a little, it brought out snickers and laughs from Dallas trying to be our straight-faced late-night host. It was a little more music to follow and then an encore brought back the life size Lil Dijon to sing their final song of the night. This show did not disappoint, if not only went above in the crazy amount of enjoyment and superb music everyone in attendance was treated to.
