Magrudergrind and Coke Bust, two of the biggest bands in DC hardcore today, will be playing this Thursday at Strange Matter. Both bands are heavily influenced by the powerviolence sub-genre of hardcore, taking cues from bands such as Infest, DRI, and Despise You. While both bands share this musical background, Magrudergrind sounds more like a grindcore band, whereas Coke Bust is a straight edge hardcore band. Fast, heavy, and pissed off can describe both bands easily. Both bands also share the same drummer, Chris Moore, which contributes to their comparable thrash sound. Mosh parts, blast beats, and d-beats are par for the course here.
Coke Bust is releasing a new 12” record this summer, Confined, which is going to be put out in the US by Richmond label Grave Mistake, and by Refuse Records in Europe. Previous releases by the band include a demo 7”, several live EPs, splits with Sick Fix and Vaccine, and two EPs: Degradation, which was released on Grave Mistake and Refused Records, and Fuck Bar Culture, on Third Party Records. The band’s only other full length release has been Lines In The Sand, which came out in 2009 on Six Weeks Records.
Margrudgergrind have been a band since 2002, with their bio on Last.Fm describing them as “delinquent teenagers” when they first started recording. The band has done a whole slew of splits with a whole bunch of different bands including A Warm Gun, Godstomper, and Shitstorm. In addition to the numerous splits, the band has two full length records, Rehashed and Magrudergrind, which were put out by Six Week Records and Willowtip Records, respectively. Magrudergrind has also put out a 10” EP called Crusher, which was released through To Live a Lie Records and Scion A/V, the label owned by Toyota, which has also worked with Richmond heavyweights Municipal Waste and Inter Arma.
Magrudergrind has become an extremely busy band, having spent last summer touring all over Europe with Exhumed and Finnish grind act Rotten Sound. The band recently had a cameo on HBO show Veep starting Julia Louis-Dreyfus. According to an article in Washington City Paper, the producers of Veep had Magrudergrind perform their song “Lyrical Ammunition for Scene Warfare” at Baltimore's Ottobar, where they filmed the performance and included it in the 5th episode of the season that aired last month. The band is currently working on a third full-length album, but it’s a slow process with guitarist R.J. Ober and vocalist Avi Kulawy currently living in Brooklyn while Moore lives in DC.
Magrudergrind just recently finished a stint as part of the Decibel Tour 2013, opening for Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, and Immolation on the tour's final week. This Richmond show will end the live performance action for Magrudergrind for the next couple of months, but it's just the beginning for Coke Bust. The Richmond show starts their summer tour, which will take them across North America and then to Europe starting in mid-July.
Magrudergrind and Coke Bust will perform on Thursday, June 13, along with local thrash contemporaries Unholy Thoughts, Hard Stripes, and Meth Lab. The show is at Strange Matter at 929 West Grace Street, cost $8, and starts at 9pm. For more information, click here.