(Duffy note: We’re really happy to have Aleks Shaulov, known to many as the guitarist for The Feelers, writing for donewaiting.com. Expect lots more punk rock coverage, obviously.)
MP3: Laguna Beach Rules
MP3: Bolder Than
I heard Vegetative State for the first time a few years ago, when they befriended my old band on Myspace. Immediately my cohorts and I thought that we’ve stumbled on to something awesome. Here were real teenagers, playing real teenage angst driven honest to gawd punk rock with no extra flab, kick, catch, or whatever else you could think of to make it “fresh” or “current”. Soon after, we asked them to play a show with us. A little bit later the label that my friends JG, Mindy and I were running put out their 1st EP. But before we did that, we had to have a meeting with some of their parents at the White Castle, to which we showed up hung over as fuck!!! They were around sixteen at the time and it was understood that parents know best. Since then they’ve smashed more guitars, shocked more innocent bystanders, broken up and re-started again more times then Ol’ Man Hank Rollins got laid.
The band is celebrating the release of their new album tonight at Carabar. Sick Thrills and Necropolis are also playing. Here’s all of the dirt and more as I sit down with the lead singer of VS, Andrew Wagner.
Where does the name come from?
AW: Originally we were called Kamikaze Motor Cult. I came up with that. I thought it was really cool, but we were really young at the time and we kind of thought it was stupid, because nobody liked us at the time, because we were playing at the wrong bars. So, then we changed our name to The Problems. We all knew it was a temporary name. This was all around the time the Terry Schaivo controversy was going on and so I had the bright idea that we’d name the band Vegetative State and have the whole “duuuuuuuh ” (drool) thing be the gag…that and abortion. Continue reading