Pleasure Venom

One Liner: Breakneck local punk thing

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is punk rock and garage rock
Home: Austin!

Poster Position: 26
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Woah, okay.  I guess I wasn't totally right about C3 completely eschewing any music that might get people riled up and ready to stampede each other.  This is some rip-roaring punk freakout music.  And one of the few things so far on the poster where the name of the band 100% matches the sound of the band.  And after more listening, I amend that earlier statement, some of this is less straight punk and goes more to post-hardcore or tuneful garage rock type stuff.  It's not all punk.

The lead singer is Audrey Campbell, who also writes the lyrics and seems to have all the stage presence needed.  After her, you have bass, drums, and two guitars.  From the one interview I read, it sounds like it can sometimes be considered a solo project, because she's the only member who stays constant while some other folks come and go.  In her words (while talking about how they fit into the Austin music scene) the genre here is fluid: "Sometimes it feels we are too loud for the garage rock scene then too dance-y for the heavier noise punk rock hardcore scene."  Also weird, she says she is also in a Stereolab cover band called The Groop where, instead of screaming and pushing her vocals to their edge, she sings soft and low to channel her best french girl.  So that's a weird switch.

No true albums, just EPs and singles.  2016's Hunt is pretty DIY and raw sounding, with more pure screaming than the later stuff.  2018 had both Seize and Pleasure Venom, and then there have been three singles since then.  Only one track has over 100k streams, and that is "Hive" from the 2018 Pleasure Venom EP.  137k streams.

I like that the singer thinks her music is "dance-y," when the only kind of dancing I would consider to do to this is the kind where you ram yourself into everyone around you as wantonly as possible.  Also, that is some really good acting at the end there.  Also on that same EP, "Deth" comes on like an old Fugazi song with those guitar riff attacks, and then gets a little new wave dancey before devolving back into the Fugazi riffs.  I like that tune a good bit.  But the other one I'll give you to check out is "Severed Ties," their newest single.  9,218 streams.

That's a good tune as well.  It's hard for sure, but it's not obnoxiously so where you're going to end up with a headache after a listen.  Let the past go, man.  This band might be fun to see rock loose in October, we'll see, as I feel like they might get the noon slot on Saturday or something.