When No Statik played Tampa, Florida last month, we arrived to find EX-FRIENDS and PERMANENT MAKEUP already entrenched behind the venue's merchandise area. No big deal, but we had a stupidly large array of shirts and needed to spread out, so we set up our veritable shopping mall on the other side of the room with our pals/tourmates ASSHOLE PARADEand proceeded to have a quite excellent evening. As we were on our way out, a one of the guitarists from EX-FRIENDS walked up to me with a scrawled note wrapped around a tape. Dude gave me a sick demo, but couldn't come to the show because "work sucks" (feel your pain, buddy). The vaguely interesting part is that he put it in the merch area, where no one from our band set foot all night, and since the outside of the small package read "Terminal Escape," it's only because someone got nosy and read the note that the tape ever made it to me... and I'm glad it did. SHADOW LAUGHTER play earnest UK82 styled hardcore punk with vocals that seem to be trying to break out of '80s US hardcore shouts with only occasional success. This sounds like a teenage band in all of the best ways - the drummer is trying so desperately (check out the lurching start to "Living In Fear," it's pure ramshackle bliss), and though the songs are relatively simple, the way SHADOW LAUGHTER attack them is fukkn great (and on a side note, they have the coolest name I've heard in ages). Shit like this is just a part of what makes going on tour just as exciting as it always has been.
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