SHUT UP: Album and Release Show on 8/3. Playing with The Messthetics on 7/21.

SHUT UP

SHUT UP

SHUT UP, the Asbury Park punk trio of Dan Matthews (guitar / vocals), Jamie Conner (bass), and Bob Paulos (drums), have a busy few weeks ahead of them. This Sunday, 7/21, they'll be playing Asbury Park Yacht Club when they open for The Messthetics (the long-time Fugazi rhythm section of Brendan Canty and Joe Lally along with guitarist Anthony Pirog). On 8/3, SHUT UP will be releasing their debut album; and we're honored to be helping them present their release show on the same day at The Stone Pony.

SHUT UP have been fixtures of the live Asbury Park music scene for a couple of years now, and the band's members are familiar from their other projects like The Black Clouds and GayGuy/StraightGuy. Their debut brings together the songs with which they've been assaulting audiences during those live sets. Jack Endino (whose production / engineering credits include Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, L7 just to name a very, very few) co-produced with Matthews and handled recording, mixing, and mastering at Soundhouse in Seattle. The result is a relentless 27-minute set of songs that manage to say quite a bit given their, mostly, short run times.

By the time you start to feel the barrage of drum hits from Paulos as Matthews growls, "You think you have the answers / We'll give you something you won't forget" on "Better Luck Next Time," you know that SHUT UP aren't planning to take it easy on you. And, thematically, the band spend a good chunk of the record calling out complacency, selfishness, and phonies. With lines like "The People that I grew up trusting were full of shit" on "Blood Orgy," "You know I'll always have your back / If there's something in it for me" on "Ramen," and "Punk erosion. / They only care about Me Me Me Me" on "...Nope," it's clear that SHUT UP are done with everyone's bullshit.

The album also touches on some of the bigger issues facing us. Matthews snarls, "Just being rich and white / Doesn't give you the right / To choose who gets to live / And who dies" over a martial drum beat on "Resistance." The 3-minute epic (by SHUT UP standards, anyway), "Indifference Kills," goes out on an ominous wall of noise, pushed along by Conner's bass, after Matthews declares, "We're on a sinking ship / And no one gives a fuck."

...Nope brings together elements of hardcore and grunge. The songwriting reveals a familiarity with the ways in which life, the music business, and the world can feel pretty screwed up. SHUT UP see all of that, and their answer is to throw all of that back into the faces of the worst offenders and to continue to rock.

...Nope is available for pre-order now and will be out on Capacitor Records on 8/3. SHUT UP celebrate with a release show at The Stone Pony that very day. Helping them out with that will be Hot Blood and Fetal Rage. CoolDad Music is a proud co-presenter. Advance tickets are available here.

This Sunday, 7/21, SHUT UP open for The Messthetics at Asbury Park Yacht Club. That show is free.