Ever listen to a band and just know if you lived in the same city as them that you would be good friends with them? Vietnam Werewolf comes off to me as one of those types of bands. They are comprised of four nerdy, scruffy looking Nerf-Herder type guys that like their beer and probably wouldn't annoy the living shit out of you even when they are tanked beyond reason. These are my type of people.
Vietnam Werewolf also has a love/hate complex when it comes from their home city of Cleveland, Ohio. I can relate. I may not be from Rock
n Roll Capital of the World but I know what it is like be from the Midwest with its vast nothingness only to be pimpled with river born cities full of failing sawmills, breweries, and steel factories. The streets are clean but the doors are locked. Everyone still goes to church on Sunday and loves their local NFL team. When you live in the Midwest you are bred differently than being from either coasts. Everything is more homegrown, hearty, and at times depressing in its bland snow swept flatness.
There are quite a few tracks on Ohio's City that tackle the fact you are probably never going to leave your hometown. Nevertheless, you fight from becoming your neighbors with their 9-5 lives and new 4x4 monstrous pick-up trucks. Squirt out a couple of kids, yell at television and be a union worker. On the weekends you pick up a guitar or some drumsticks and rock the hell out of your basement until the daily grinds fades into a wall of feedback and popped and bleeding blisters on broken strings.
Musically, Vietnam Werewolf sounds like they belong on the No Idea roster while playing all the songs Latterman forget to write. The music is aggressive yet catchy. Everything is loud and full of everyday anthems. Vietnam Werewolf sounds like the type of band that play in front of the same twenty uninterested people every weekend but play their hearts out anyway.
I want to share a keg with Vietnam Werewolf as we scour through each other's record collections after a show in some shit hole bar. We would stay up all night watching re-runs of The Drew Carey Show, make fun of hipsters, and talk about everything from dumb girls and being on the road to our friends and family. We then would head off to some local greasy spoon for omelets and thick coffee before one of us has to head back to regular life. We all need friends like Vietnam Werewolf.
