The Original Sinners and 7 Shot Screamers at CBGBs, NYC, March 22, 2006

“Happy hump day,” yelled 7 Shot Screamers singer Mike Leahy before blasting off a half hour of pure rock ‘n’ roll that can best be described as a cross between The Clash and Johnny Thunder’s solo stuff. Here’s the catch–the band plays with an upright bass, and they don’t sound anything like a psychobilly band. The bass just adds some extra thump to their punk rock crunch. The sound is pure New York City trash rock, even though I’m pretty sure these boys are from St. Louis. After a flurry of originals, the band tore through an awesome cover of The Stones “Paint It Black.” Sure, The Quakes seem to have the market covered on psycho-punk Stones covers, but the snottiness of the 7 Shot Screamers worked wonderfully spit perfect with this tune.

Punk poster girl Exene Cervenka and her newer band the Original Sinners (Hey, whatever happened to Auntie Christ) cranked up the volume at CBGBs, spitting out a raw punk sound that makes her kinda other famous band sound like Josie and the Pussycats. The band stuck primarily to their new Nitro Record’s release “Seven” and few from their 2002 self-titled release. Some of the songs touched on country, and a few were straight up snotty punk, but in general just rocked out taking most of the CBGBs crowd with them.

The guitarist hotshotted licks left and right, leading a band trained rockers that backed Exene like pros. The goddess held firm to her podium, both hands cusped over the mic, never really wavering or acknowledging the audience. Every song is a tale of sorrow, love or in the case of “Born Yesterday” a reason to bust out some crazy surf stylings courtesy of guitarist Dan Sabella (also the axeman from 7 Shot Screamers, the drummer and bassist also split duties tonight).

“Keep calling out X songs and we’re not going to play them,” Cervenka told the crowd.

Nothing like a last minute show to get you through the week.

Photos by Freddy Hernandez