The Frustrators don’t seem really frustrated, and it may be because they release all the energy they have in store when they play their fired-up short tunes.
When they took the stage on Sunday night at the Troubadour, they looked like a bunch of guys who were at ease, relaxed, and wanted to have as much fun as possible. Half punk-rockers, half stand-up comedians, they were here to kill on stage and to make people laugh in the pit. But I’m not saying this in a diminutive manner, they were really punk-rocking the good ol’ way when they were playing their drunk wild songs.
The Frustrators are a side project of Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt, and since it was apparently their first show in 8 years, die-hard fans at the front seemed to know all the lyrics of the old songs and getting every one of the jokes. Mike Dirnt looked like a punk Dana Carvey constantly chatting between songs, putting the audience on the spot many times, with the help of Waterhog’s guitarist Terry Linehan, Violent Anal Death’s drummer Art Tedeschi, and especially vocalist and occasional guitarist Jason Chandler (also from Violent Anal Death) who could look like a cross between George Clooney and Henry Rollins on a drunk day.
Playfully, they made a guy from the audience wear Mike Dirnt’s pink underwear, a girl drink beer from a rubber chicken, another girl dive from the stage,… well I guess people would have done anything as going to one of their shows is good time guaranty.
Humor may well be present but music is serious business for them as their short and furiously funny songs were delivered with explosive guitar riffs and enough aggressive energy to make the other band jealous, oh yeah did I mention Green Day?
If comparison may be unavoidable for someone from such a successful band doing his own thing on the side, I actually did not think too much about Billie Joe Armstrong, may be one or two songs shared some of that punk power-pop sound, but the rest was more pure catchy punk, with a rough attitude, if there is such a thing.
They were playing the night of the Oscars, the night when Hollywood is partying till the wee-hours, and it had been question of the Academy Awards (and that ‘fucking swan dude’) a lot during the show, as they were having numerous alcohol shots on stage, were opening bottles of champagne, and spraying wine geysers on people, even though ‘it was too early for Champagne, as they had not announced the best picture yet!’ … er, when the show ended, it was almost 1 am!
They played many old songs, ‘Hide and Seek’, ‘Then she walked away’, the Ramonesque ‘I slept with Terry’, acclaimed by a ‘and it was not that great’ shouted by every one in the crowd except me, a violent and fierce song about ‘midgets and not dwarfs!’, ‘Pirate song’, ‘AAA’, but also some new ones like ‘Stigma’, the new-wavey West of Texas (Part 2), and they even did a few covers, a dynamic ‘Living in the real world’ by Blondie, and a very virile and animated ‘My Best Friend’s Girl’ by The Cars, which, despite Jason Chandler repeating ‘I hate that song’, made the original version sound like a lullaby.
Their last EP, ‘Griller’ was just released this month on Armstrong’s label Adeline, their first one since their debut 2000 EP ‘Bored in the USA, and their 2002 ‘Achtung Jackass’. Blame Green Day’s very busy schedule for this long hiatus, but may be that’s where their moniker comes from!