Ron Reyes Band this weekend

Strange how the comments function of the Straight online seems to attract ignorant, hostile people. There's a real tendency for commenters to get their bitch on - especially, it seems, when talking about older bands. My review of what I thought was DOA's most enjoyable album in 20 or so years attracted a vicious anti-DOA barb from someone who doesn't even know that Rampage ain't in the band anymore, and Adrian Mack's plug for (former Black Flag vocalist) Ron Reyes' 50th birthday gig - happening this weekend, with I, Braineater, the Modernettes, the Little Guitar Army, the Jolts, and the Ron Reyes Band - got someone going about how all these old guys playing music again are "legend killers" or such. I guess he hasn't seen Iggy and the Stooges, or Mission of Burma, or Gang of Four, or Rocket From The Tombs, or - to get local - the Subhumans, the Pointed Sticks, the Dishrags, or the Furies, or any of a dozen "first generation punk bands" who have reunited and toured to amazing affect (or done much appreciated one-off gigs like Art Bergmann's show last year). I've seen all these bands and many more doing reunion gigs and loved the experience; the ratio of wins to losses has been about twenty to one, so I for one am delighted to get to see Ron sing. As a kid I was more of a Rollins fan, but there's a great garage-y zeal to that "first four years" Black Flag comp that Ron's songs are on that I appreciate a lot more now...

Plus, um, has anyone noticed that little red blotch on his poster, "with X members of...?" Now I wonder who that might be referring to? I'll lay odds that it ain't ex-members of the Zamboni Drivers...

But I could be wrong...