Friday night was another in a long series of all ages punk show at the venerable Death By Audio. Where “local” acts Black Wine (from New Jersey), Slingshot Dakota (From Brooklyn and Pennsylvania), The Measure (SA) (from New Jersey) and Lemuria (Upstate NY) intersected in the middle of tours, about to launch out on tours or just playing for the joy of it.

I came out for Lemuria and Black Wine, and showed up early for Black Wine. I was curious to see how well Black Wine’s music from would translate to a live setting. I was somewhat unfamiliar with the rest of the acts. Having only known about The Measure (SA) from their split with The Ergs! I was totally unfamiliar with Slingshot Dakota, so I looking forward by two acts, and prepared to walk away completely neutral on the others. Thankfully, it didn’t happen like that at all.

Black Wine live was very very good, but unfortunately not great. There were a few elements that held it back from greatness, but overall it was so great that the minor quibbles were easily overlooked. First off, Guitarist/ Singer Jeff Schroeck (The Ergs!) guitar playing was excellent as he summoned forth chaos and order in equal measure with his instrument. Songs both complex and simple were handled quite well providing a near perfect portrayal of the album with few technical slips. Bassist J Nixon (Hunchback) sang and played quite well, not overpowering but not weak enough to be completely overlooked either.

The main issues with the set were unfortunately with Miranda Taylor (Full of Fancy). When she sang it was great, when she drummed it was great, when she was required to do both is when it fell unfortunately apart. I can appreciate how difficult drumming is as I can make a metronome fall out of sync, but I think that most of her issues were actually with her positioning. When she turned her head to the side to sing into the microphone and drum she lost full field of vision with the drum set and would occasionally slip and miss cues singing. It’s one of those things where I think it can only improve with practice or possibly with the microphone in a different location.

The set list was grand. They played all of the songs I loved from Black Wine (aside from “Greengrove Road” which is understandable). The album had a lot of hands in it providing additional elements, but Black Wine on stage captured the raw and powerful essences of those songs, giving us great versions of “Cockroaches” “Chateau of Ghosts” and the debut of their song they’ve recorded for The Art of The Underground’s Singles Series.

Black Wine was as good as I had hoped for live, and it’s really quite unfortunately that they’re vanishing on tour for the next month or so, because I’m eager to see them live again.

Slingshot Dakota is Carly Comando on Keyboard and Tom Patterson on Drums and are probably the most posi and inclusive band I’ve seen since Matt and Kim. I have heard the name in relation to the local DIY scene but had never caught them until last night and I have come to feel that was a mistake. Tom’s drum playing was intense and inventive and it was had to believe a car had hit him and took him out of service. Carly’s singing and keyboard playing are wonderful, as her vocals threaten to collapse into cute but never into “twee.”

You could see the joy of performance, that they loved being on stage, that they loved playing for people and they wanted to share that with people. When someone called for a cover of Fugazi, Carly said, “Sure but first I have to play this 3 Six Mafia cover” and they launched into an impromptu cover of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Also, they covered The Descendents “Good Good Things” with Carly and Tom trading verse and chorus back and forth. It’s one of my favorite songs and the chance to sing it out loud in a crowd was exhilarating.

It was later that I found out the reason that someone called for a Fugazi cover was that they had done “Waiting Room” for their third demo, which you can hear at www.ifyoumakeit.com.

Some friends showed up and we spent the entirety of The Measure (SA)’s set in the back hanging out, trying to get a bit of a reprieve from the heat and the crowd.

Lemuria was fantastic. I found them completely by random when Grave Mistake offered their newest 7” Ozzy recently. I bought it and was instantly taken with those three songs. I almost immediately bought their two previous albums The First Collection and Get Better.

Lemuria is powerpop / pop punk in the late 80s, early 90s mode. Not quite the a female fronted Adolecents, but not really Bratmobile either. It sounds, to me, like an artist that would orbit the larger acts of say Lilith Fair. Not noisy or angry enough to be classified as “riotgrrl” but a not clean enough to be modern radio stars.

I wasn’t familiar enough with the band’s cataloge to keep a running setlist in my head. They opened with “Pants” playing “Lipstick”, “Dog”, “Ozzy” and many I can’t quite recall.

Live, Lemuria was excellent. The playing was near record perfet. Sheena Ozzella’s voice is better live than when nailed to vinyl, with slight imperfections giving it a vunerable air which works perfectly for the music. Alex Kerns on drums and back up vocals did his job quite ablely and bassist Kyle Patton kept the cool collected tone of the music on track throughout the set.

It was an excellent night and one of those that really repays continued interest in DIY shows and the packed house added to the excellent tone of the night.