TDA, Pons, Venus Twins, Theophobia @ The Broadway

by Kate Hoos | Feb 22, 2023 | Shows

Tits Dick Ass at The Broadway (photo by Kate Hoos)

Love was in the air on Valentine’s Day at The Broadway. Love of noise, love of punk, love of chaos, love of radical queerness and much much more. So you know it was exactly my kind of Valentine’s party and exactly the kind of night that fuels my fucking life-force. On the bill were two of my Brooklyn favorites—Pons and Venus Twins (who were a last minute addition after another band dropped off)—as well as Tits Dick Ass who had been on my list to catch for a while, and Theophobia who I had previously been totally unfamiliar with.

Theophobia kicked off the night, and the electro pop rock project—Dylan Mars Greenberg on synth/vox and Matt Ellin on guitar/vox—were as much musical theater as a band. They put on an endearing and highly energetic set filled with hilarious interludes and stage banter (the band has been together for 75 years, they have it mastered!) with videos by Greenberg projected behind them. It was the perfect primer for the night.

Venus Twins hit the second slot of the night and hot daaaaamn, they never disappoint! I’ve seen this band many times now and they are a well oiled noise machine, a swirling chaos kept just at the edge of control, hammering your heart and your mind with the sheer levels of their wicked intensity. This was a treat in that I had just seen them the week before (see pics) and didn’t find out til I was heading out the door to go to the show that they would be playing for a big added bonus to an already stacked show.

Pons is another band I have seen many times now and the potent no-wave trio has also never let me down. And on this night, they were more incendiary than I’ve ever seen them, an explosive current bubbling just below the surface that boiled over during their last song, a massive vortex of noise flying out from the stage that culminated with guitarist Sam Cameron literally r i p p i n g all of the strings right off of his guitar to signal the end of the set. I needed a minute to catch my breath afterwards, holy fuck!

Pons at The Broadway

Tits Dick Ass closed out the night and were celebrating the release of their debut single, “Girlfriend From Hell,” which came out later in the week. TDA has been creating a buzz in the local scene for the last year or so and had been very high up on my list to see but something kept getting in the way every time I planned to go see them (mostly work, the downside of working nights). I was stoked to finally break the missing streak and was definitely not disappointed!

Here’s what I had to say about the new single in our Single Serve column last week:

The Brooklyn based band has made quite the splash on the NYC scene in the last year with their live shows attracting bigger and bigger crowds and for good reason, they are unabashedly queer as fuck with a stage presence that is massive paired with a ferocious sound; they hit in all the best ways. Now they have released their debut single, the no-wave punk ripper, “Girlfriend From Hell,” which is also the first taste of their upcoming debut album, Burn A Bitch, due out this spring on House of Feelings. Despite not having synths, it reminded me a bit of the synth punk nightmare classics of Screamers and definitely is a kindred spirit to the freaky outsider no-wave and punk of the late 70s and early 80s. The song features a video that was filmed at local venue Rubulad and directed by filmmaker Dylan Mars Greenberg️️️. A companion remix was also released alongside the song for acidic and cool re-interpretation that feels downright dystopian. Read an interview with the band here.

There was a little bit of technical difficulty with Julia Pierce’s guitar that took a minute to sort out at the start of the show and as she was fixing that, an audience member jokingly yelled “now you’re just edging us!” which was met with very hearty laughs. It was a minor delay though and things quickly got moving. From then on out, start to finish their set was indeed, massive and queer as fuck, nothing short of ferocious in absolutely the best and most cathartic ways possible. Bassist Seth Sosebee was in and out of the crowd numerous times, driving the energy up to a wild fever pitch and drummer Tom Person hammered a hard driving beat behind Pierce’s buzzsaw guitar and awesome vocal attack. This is a band that knows how to work a room and I suspect it will only be a matter of time before those rooms begin growing in size.

You can sum this night up like this “punk as fuck// queer as fuck” and as far as I’m concerned, you can’t ask for a better way to spend Valentine’s Day than that.

Watch the video for “Girlfriend From Hell” below. Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)