“Thanks you guys a lot for being here we are iaw fra itagioiuu…” said Luca Lando, guitarist and vocalist of Go!zilla, the fuzz punk band from Florence, Italy, that played Cafe Nine.
His syllables rolled back like eyeballs, as though a wah-wah pedal were wired into his vocal chords. His Caesarian haircut shellacked to his forehead, he crossed one shin behind his planted foot and tilted his head like a cherubic Jesus.
Apparently, fuzz punk is huge in Northern Italy right now.
Fuzz is a psychedelic, jammy, and fast take on the kind of punk rock that uses more than three chords. At Friday’s Cafe Nine show, Go!zilla also played looser than your average punk outfit. Fausto, the drummer, repeatedly reached over to Nikke’s bongos while the latter brought the fuzz on his synth. Mattia, the group’s guitarist, strummed away with a mop of hair obscuring his face at all times.
Lando played a couple of songs sitting on the floor with his back turned to the audience, almost in mockery of the Cafe Nine tradition of musicians walking off the stage into the audience instead. During the final measures of the band’s last song, Lando took two unapologetic steps into the crowd.
Go!zilla shared the bill — and is sharing their U.S. tour — with another European group, the Roaring 420s, a surf band from Dresden, Germany. The 420s’ set was far more laid back than Go!zilla’s, despite Luisa Mühl‘s punk drumming. Their music sounds the way a tie-dyed shirt feels against your skin if you wear it before the dye dries. A certain chemical togetherness pervaded the air.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” said guitarist and vocalist Timo Elmert. “Shout out to all the Deadheads,” added the 420s’ bassist, Martin Zerrenner, who looked like the Devil in a Mr. Rogers sweater. As the sound waves rolled out of Elmert’s amp, Cafe Nine patrons rocked their legs to the rhythm.
Spectral Fangs, a Cafe Nine regular, opened for the headliners with their energetic instrumental and vocal style. Their soundcheck was basically a song in and of itself.
“Who needs working up for anything? We’ll just blast it out,” the bassist said. And they did.