The Lost Riots - 1978

Lauren Lennox doesn't like the The Lost Riots. This was the band infamous for their Summer 2012 show at Pitkin Plaza's Ideat Village music festival, where the New Haven police department showed up with pepper spray. Prior to the concert, Lauren Lennox, the building manager for neighboring apartment building 360 State, had sent out an email to tenants urging them to file noise complaints against the performance. Complaints were indeed filed and cops were dispatched. Festival organizer Bill Saunders was subsequently taken away in handcuffs for failing to produce a permit for the show as well as inciting a riot (ironic!). There were about fifty people in attendance, who mostly responded by hurling some 'fuck you's' at the cops and recording Saunder's arrest, along with said 'fuck you's'. Since then, 360 State and festival organizers have reached some kind of agreement after a lengthy debate over how New Haven's culture ties in with the proper sound ordinances. All in all, it was a good story for The Lost Riots, who got their namesake before their show was cut short by their own title.

This past summer, rather than inciting lawless chaos on the peaceful streets of New Haven, The Lost Riots siphoned their energy into recording a barrage of EPs. 1978 is an ode to youth, furious and confined to cramped suburban practice spaces. It captures the heyday of angry neighbors and deafening racket, before noise was filtered through a white mac cable. A timeline that illustrates homemade punk is spanned from England to New England, with the unheeding attitude of Jeffrey Thunder's to narrate it all. On "Crown St. Blues", crunchy guitar propels nights of running wild and skipping school for bars and bloodshot eyes. These songs illustrate life in a city where you never have to hear an alarm if you never give up and go to sleep. "Go" is a Sunday morning stroll that drags down the tempo before racing towards the finish line. Its easy-breezy pace is an unabashed dedication to the shear fun of playing music so unattached from trends.

"Blood Sandwich" has The Lost Riots at their most threatening, as Thunder's breaks free from familiar territory best when he wears a sneer. He incurs the Johnny doesn't care about the world attitude of 80's punk, with a '5-6-7-8 we became what we hate,' that reflects on adolescent ideals from a wizened perspective. Bright chords evolve to present day noise rock, in a moment that dwells on how this genre's delivery has changed a little, but the anger is still directed at the same place.

"Suburban Fool" has that sweet, sweet P-bass bite with knobs turned way up. It is where The Lost Riots return once again, to a grimy glam punk sound. Crusty acoustic ditty "This Job Sucks" rounds out the timeline with fading amp lights. The message is clear, even without excessive decibels. I can't help but to consider young and eager professionals trying to sleep in upscale apartment buildings. Their jobs must suck.