Jake Dressler Photos
Clockwise from top left: Intercourse, Dandelyin, Polluter and Cancer Conspiracy Tuesday night at Cafe Nine.
Tarek (Rick) Ahmed, the lead singer of Intercourse, writes songs about furry sex — because, he said, he was taught to write what he knows.
He made that observation after his band played a deafening set on a four-act bill Tuesday night at Cafe Nine.
The Crown Street club buzzed with “hardcore,” “noise rock” punks, all tatted and geared up for a night of vigorous head banging and punk camaraderie. Intercourse, Polluter, The Cancer Conspiracy, and Dandelyin played a range of extraordinary music, with song titles ranging from “Ice Cream and Memes” to Intercourse’s aforementioned “Furry Sex,” a reference to a niche animal costume fetish.
Hardcore punk is generally faster and louder than regular punk rock, and its lyrics tend to focus on subversive humor. Noise rock is a separate genre which emphasizes the fusion of rock and noise. It employs heavy distortion to create an atonal sound.
Intercourse, founded in 2013, blended those two genres on stage Tuesday night.
During the set, Ahmed thrashed around the stage, twisting his arms and digging the microphone into his mouth while the rest of his body contorted. Amid the confusion and shouting, he also made some political points about America in 2018.
“We go mostly noise rock, or hardcore, we call it outsider hardcore because it’s weird,” said Ahmed, the band’s only remaining original member. He proceeded to pull up his cut off jean shorts to reveal a detailed portrait of Steve Perry tattooed on his upper thigh.
Drummer Caleb Porter, who is 24 and hails from New Britain, said that his mother is a Puritan and was aghast when she saw their lyrics on the bands Bandcamp site and saw some of their vulgar lyrics.
“My dad showed my mom our band camp. He said, ‘Read the lyrics!”
“I said, ‘It’s all Rick.’”
Mom’s response?
“Rick should write songs about his mom.”
Instead, said Ahmed, who is 34 and lives in Northford, he writes about his nightmares. And his mistakes. Including “all the abuse he did to his body,” as one bandmate put it.
Here’s what the band sounded like onstage Tuesday night:
If Mom had been in the audience — and if she or anyone else could make out the lyrics — here’s what she would have heard Ahmed yelling during the song “Cowboys & Immigrants”:
I’ve got a gun
It’s fucking big and black
When I load it
You bet your ass it’s lethal
My gun is long and hard
Protecting your ass from brown people
I need a big thick one that shoots bullets fucking fast
To empty out a school or church
You’ll be glad I’m there
You’ll be glad there was a cowboy
I need it to protect my family, my grill, my truck
My Duck Dynasty dvds
My chewing tobacco
My Nascar shit
I need it for “hunting”
Here’s what the band had to say outside the club:
Intercourse did not perform its song “Shit Head Plague” Tuesday night. If it had, these would have been the lyrics:
Oh no get your dick beaters off of me
For 30 years I’ve suffered this plague
Of shit heads in silence…
The forum’s yours
“What you have to say
May change the world”
“shut your fucking cock sucker”
Shitty conversations
Handshakes that last too long
Bad breath and beards…
Shit heads… Nothing gets past you
Where’d you get your degree??
Here’s a sample from Polluter’s set at Cafe Nine Tuesday night…
… from Dandelyin’s set …
… and from the Cancer Conspiracy.
(Videos courtesy of Zach Lewin.)