Friday, December 14, 2012

QUESTION - Demo - Tape - 2007

   At some point during my time living in Bloomington, I remember going to many punk shows only to walk out after watching 5 minutes of some dude earnestly playing a uke while staring at his shoes or having to sit in the same room with some clown while he just discovered the joys of using a delay pedal through a practice amp. It could be kind of miserable and I wondered why the dirty, loud, fucked up punks didn't come through town (yes, I remembered sometimes that I could set up my own punk shows and did indeed bring those bands to town). At some point, a bunch of Minneapolis bands started coming through town that helped to reinvigorate my interest in booking shows and bringing good music in the place I lived in. Not surprisingly, a lot of those bands shared members...bands like JOSE BOVE,  ASS,  HARLEQUIN and GANGLION. My favorite band to see live out all of them was QUESTION. They played no-bullshit, straight ahead, ragged hardcore and they looked like crazy, loud, fucked up punks. I remember at their show in a Bloomington basement, their singer went on a rant about how religion destroys peoples lives and I thought "Oh that's kinda quaint that someone would still rail on religion at a punk show." Then, I remembered that I still lived in a town where "punks" had told me that they're religious and I realized that it's still vital to talk about the subjects that you find passionate at shows. QUESTION raged away at their 20 minute set and I danced like hell with everyone there. Basement destroyed. Punks happy. Demo tape bought. I biked home with a 10 foot smile across my face.
   I moved to SF and and less than 4 months later, QUESTION played a show at Thrillhouse that caused a handful of norms to completely lose their shit in the best way possible. Since then, I haven't heard anything about them and I assume that they broke up. Listen to this tape and mourn your loss.


QUESTION in SF at Thrillhouse. Photo by Brian Dooley.

...and since you didn't ask, I think their song "No Name" is the jam.

4 comments:

  1. Question are bloody fantastic. I think members of this band are now in Sad Boys, who put out what's easily my favourite demo of 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RsqzdyChGg

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  2. JBriggs,

    any chance you have a copy of the SAD BOYS demo that you can upload for file sharing and downloading off of media fire? i'm looking for a copy of it other than whats on youtube, for example a copy i can put into my itunes. thanks.

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  3. http://terminalescape.blogspot.com/2012/10/sad-boys.html

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  4. Yeah, Angie played bass in Question and now plays drums in SAD BOYS after moving to NY. Also plays/played drums in VARIX from Minneapolis when she comes back to town.

    QUESTION is still a band! Their drummer Joe still lives in MPLS but Jeremy, Sarah, and Angie all live in NY so they meet up from time to time.. According to Joe a few months ago he was going out to NY to work on recording an LP for Question. Joe currently also plays drums in CONDOMINIUM and COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, and bass (I think?) in FUCKER SS. Probably more bands too. Joe is the best drummer in Minneapolis, in my opinion.

    QUESTION has released three different 7"s since this tape. First S/T 7" was self released I think, then they did a 7" called "Insanity" on Fashionable Idiots, and also a split 7" with Bloody Phoenix. All are great.

    Possibly my favorite MN hardcore band of all time!!! I will never forget the goosebumps they gave me during their entire set every time I saw them.

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