This Weekend In New York: The Gories, Black Dice, And Real Estate Go Beyond Brooklyn

Remember when you had to drive an hour to a town you'd never been to just to see whatever D.I.Y. shit was going down in your state that weekend? You'd bitch about it at the time, but it gave you a kind of treasure hunt-like satisfaction. Waste of Paint recaptured some of that (suburban) adolescent spirit this weekend by voyaging to two exotic locales: Ridgewood and Hoboken.

Debbie Allen

Friday, we roadtripped to Maxwell's to see The Gories play the latest of a handful of reunion shows on the docket since their 2009 reformation. Formed in 1986 (and subsequently disbanded in 1992) by Detroit natives Mick Collins, Peg O'Neill and Dan Kroha, The Gories played a key role in pioneering the kind of stripped-down, bluesy garage-punk that's since exploded. The Hoboken show felt a bit like a dress rehearsal for their Saturday engagement at the Bell House, what with all the missed entries and exits, jokes about how they hadn't played certain songs since the '90s, and general messiness. "We just played that in different keys," admitted Collins after a particularly dissonant part. Things coalesced by the end, though, when they delivered a confident rendition of "Nitroglycerine" to a crowd that seemed honored to be let in on the process.