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ivy room presents

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March 9, 2025

THE KOFFIN KATS

The Last Gang

Last Thread

7pm doors / 8pm show

$18 ADV / $25 Door

IVY ROOM | 21+

THE KOFFIN KATS

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The groundwork for what has become the relentlessly-touring sonic assault known as The Koffin Kats was laid near Detroit, Michigan when Vic Victor (Lead Vocalist, Upright Bass) joined forces with long-time friend Tommy Koffin (Guitar). After adding Damian Detroit (Drums) the band kicked off in June 2003, stopping for nothing. Now, with over ten years of touring internationally and over two thousand live shows, the touring trio’s current home is out on the open road.

The Koffin Kats began by putting together songs with such subjects as dealing with the horrors of the real world, as well as Science Fiction. The band started in small local bars playing for beer, hoping for gas money, and eventually made their way out of the Midwest. The next couple of years contained positives including numerous North American tours, and negatives concerning changes at the drumming position. During this time they released their first three albums: Koffin Kats (2003), Inhumane (2005), and Straying From The Pack (2006).

The three album releases and their supporting tours gained attention for The Koffin Kats and helped get the band noticed in the wide world of punk and psychobilly. In 2007 Vic and Tommy connected with drummer Eric “E-Ball” Walls to record the band’s fourth studio album, Drunk In The Daylight (2008), and catalyzed what the band is now known for: love for their fans and the road, and playing everywhere for everyone willing to watch and listen.

In the years following the release of Drunk In The Daylight, The Koffin Kats have established their name performing in Europe, and have also been included on tours with some of the tops acts in psychobilly, including, but not limited to, Mad Sin, Nekromantix, and The Meteors. In 2009 the trio released their fifth studio album, Forever For Hire, and Tommy departed at the year’s end to pursue a normal life. Shortly thereafter, “EZ” Ian Jarrell took over the guitarist position and joined the band on tour. While on the road they worked on the material that would become featured on their split album with fellow psychobilly act 12 Step Rebels, From Our Hands To Yours (2011).

The Koffin Kats signed with Sailor’s Grave Records in late 2011, and released Our Way & The Highway in January 2012. The trio supported their sixth studio album’s release with non-stop international touring, finally ending in summer of 2013. In autumn of the same year, they released another full-length album with Sailor’s Grave Records, Born Of The Motor.

Early 2014 brought another change to The Koffin Kats’ member roster. Ian Jarrell left the band to handle personal business at home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not wanting to bring someone too far removed from The Koffin Kats family into the fold, Vic and Eric enlisted John Kay (Guitar). John was the engineer on some previous KK recordings.

The founding lineup returned in 2016. Six years after his departure, Tommy Koffin returned to playing guitar with The Koffin Kats. With Vic Victor on lead vocals and upright bass, and E Ball Walls on drums. In 2017, the trio self released the album “Party Time In The End Times” under the Koffin Kats Records label. The band toured throughout the following years until the Covid 19 Pandemic brought live entertainment to a halt.

During the unexpected break from touring, the band took time to write and record. Vic and Tommy put together an acoustic release called “Victor & Koffinfunkle.” Back in writing mode they then focused on new material. This brought about the early 2021 self release of “Ya Can’t Take It With Ya.” A 6 track EP.

The band continues to tour and is currently working on new material to release throughout 2023, their 20th anniversary year.

THE LAST GANG

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The year is 2021. America is still fighting its way through an ongoing pandemic, currently fueled by the ignorance of millions who have decided science isn’t good enough for them. Countless lives have been lost or disrupted by an inefficient government loaded with corrupt politicians, egged on by snake oil salesmen who are inexplicably given nightly platforms on cable TV or allowed to spread their disinformation through social media. Make no mistake: Rome is burning. We are fiddling.

Pissed off yet? So is The Last Gang. This California punk quartet had big plans for 2020, with a seemingly endless string of tour dates keeping them on the road in support of their Fat Wreck Chords debut, Keep Them Counting. Crowds were getting bigger. Sing-alongs were getting louder. Spirits were getting higher. The only problem? The band was trying to write a new record simultaneously, and it wasn’t going well.

“Our downfall is we want to tour a lot, but it’s sometimes hard for us to write because it takes so much out of me,” begins frontwoman Brenna Red. When the world came to a standstill in March 2020, it was actually a blessing in disguise for Red. She could finally focus on everything happening outside of their tour van — and she quickly realized it wasn’t pretty.

“Because COVID happened, I was allowed to not rush, and we stepped back and re-wrote songs,” she explains. “Then I went to Fat Mike’s to write with him, and he challenged me to write more Clash-influenced reggae. I listened to London Calling to get inspired, but I think Joe Strummer once said if you want to be inspired, don’t listen to your idols — listen to your idols’ idols. So I also listened to a lot of Toots And The Maytals and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, and a ton of Trojan Records compilations.”

One listen to Noise Noise Noise, and you’ll discover a band who has not only pushed their musical boundaries in new and unexpected ways, but a lyricist in Red who has unlocked a new side of herself, spitting barbs both personal and political at whoever might listen. We’re obviously punk at our core,” she says. “People expect to hear something, and that can become tedious and somewhat boring. But when you throw somebody a curveball, if they hate it, that’s fine. But more than likely, they’re gonna go, ‘What is this?’ and it’ll pull them more into the album.”

Noise Noise Noise is nothing if not full of curveballs. The album opens with the “Guns Of Brixton”-esque title track, the first of the album’s many forays into guitar upstrokes and elastic basslines. The next curveball comes in the very next track, “WFTW,” the rare punk song that’s four minutes long and feeling a little bit like Searching For A Former Clarity-era Against Me!with Red cramming as many syllables into her verses as humanly possible. It’s also one of many new songs elevated by lead guitarist Ken Aquino, making his recorded debut with the now-quartet.

“Ken is a great lead guitar player, but my huge thing I love about Ken is at his core, he’s a melody man — he can sing pretty,” she gushes. “He adds so much to our band.” Aquino also used to work in the same studio as producer Cameron Webb (Motörhead, Sum 41), who just so happened to be behind the boards for Noise Noise Noise (which was also co-produced by NOFX’s Fat Mike and Useless ID’s Yotam Ben Horin). Red was thrilled to reunite with Webb, who previously produced Keep Them Counting. “I know he’s not going to let me sound bad,” she says. “He’s going to push me.”

Look no further than “Shameless,” a true gem of the album, a melodic punk banger with Red turning in a career-best vocal performance. The curveballs keep coming deep into the tracklisting, with the sludgy 6/8 tune “Intelligence Is A Plague.” In it, Red fires salvo after salvo at the ignorant masses as well as the publications that prey upon them (marking what is probably the first time alt-right “news” outlet Breitbart has been name-checked in a song).

“It was inspired by this overwhelming feeling of ‘Why aren’t we listening to the people who can tell us how to fix these huge problems?’ COVID, climate change, you name it. To me, it’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to listen to you.’ But those people don’t want to be humble. They’d rather be ignorant and feel like they’re right.”

This gets to the crux of Noise Noise Noise: These songs speak to her, and she hopes they speak to you, too. “I write music just to be alive,” she concludes. “I hope there’s something that can be taken from it to make you feel that electricity inside of yourself, whether happiness, pain, bittersweet memories… Just pick apart the art and put it inside of your own life.”

LAST THREAD

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