PANTHERS

Panthers Conceived in Brooklyn, NY in September 2000, PANTHERS began as a side project for five friends. In addition to playing in TURING MACHINE, Justin Chearno had been involved with PITCHBLENDE and UNREST. Jayson Green, Geoff Garlock, and Jeff Salane were all members of ORCHID, and finally, Kip Uhlhorn was a member of THE RED SCARE. At first thought to be a finite distraction, the band has evolved into the main musical outlet for all involved. Drawing influences from MC5 and THE STOOGES, PANTHERS have established themselves as an New York City favorite, combining explosive songwriting and an equally explosive live show, referencing avant-garde art movements such as Dada and Fluxus, as well as incendiary youth groups like the Situationists and Weather Underground. Politically inflammatory and musically dynamic , 'Are You Down?' is a record that demands reaction. Recorded at Rare Book Room by Nicholas Vernhes, these ten tracks hustle by so quickly that you need more. This is the sound of PANTHERS, this is the fucking noise! - From their one sheet for the TMU release "Are You Down?"

Dim Mak Releases:
DM042: "Get Serious" 12"/CD April 4, 2003

Discography
Panthers "Are You Down?" LP/CD (Troubleman)

Press

Updated 5/25/05
Lumpen 93
Album review: Things Are Strange
We are not capacity, we are the surface of the template and vandals of self-defeat. Sitting on the fence of ill-repute is cool, man. There is no dissonant spasm here, ne breschluss, no quotable line, only the influence of the drum cut thick and the imagination of guitars as a post-facist party. By the way, your personal information called. It send its regard.

Updated 3/02/05
Impose Oct/Nov '04
Excerpts from interview with the Panthers
Words: Kami Arnold
When asked for a brief history of the band, all three present Panthers laugh when Jayson replies that it's not so brief anymore. Each member of Panthers has an impressive pedigree. Jayson, Jeff, and bassist Geoff Garlock were part of the influential 90's hardcore group Orchid. Kip was a member of The Red Scare. Guitarist Justin Chearno was in Turing Machine and Pitchblade. Kip recalls "At first, I don't know if any of us considered this a full time band. It's just something we started." Even now, a few years in to their tenure as a band it seems that to a lot of people the Panther's can't step out of the shadow of Orchid. When I asked Jayson and Jeff if they think the Panthers will ever be able to shake being known as "the band with those guys from Orchid," it's Kip who tellingly responds with a "no."
There first record Are You Down?, was hastily recorded soon after their formation. It received an equal amount of reviews heralding the band as the next big MC5-influenced thing, and reviews that totally panned the record. The critical response to Are You Down? shaped their view on making records going in to the next new releases. Jayson laughs and then says,"Once you have a rcord that is torn to shreds, you're sort of like-don't worry if people like it. After Are You Down? people still wanted to hear our music and come see us play, so we'll make the music we want and hopefully someone will still like it." In 2003, they release an EP on Dim Mak Entitled Let's Get Serious, which was one step away from the sound established on their first record. Now, with the release of Things Are Strange, they veer even further from their original territory, going so far as to dip in the pools of stoner rock. Kip explains this transition in their sound by saying, "At first, because we were all in hardcore bands before this band, it was harder to be heavy without being a hardcore band. Now we have the ability to be heavy, but in a totally different way, which is liberating."
"We're actually working in a way that we're stripping away more then we're adding to songs," Jeff adds. "So as dense as the record is, their are definitely a lot of parts of the record that have been cut out- like guitar parts or bass lines that have been shortened or simplified or drum parts that have been made a little more straight forward."

Updated 3/02/05
CMJ Alert August 23, 2004
Panthers
Record title is smaller
These Brooklyn art punk pugilists deliver the goods again, following last year's propulsive Let's Get Serious EP. After dosing on Swans, Pink Floyd, Ash Ra Temple and other agents of the baroque, they've emerged with a bit of King Crimes clinging to their Jesus Lizard.

Updated 07/13/04


Substance 6
Getting Serious with the Panthers
interview and photography: William Galindo

Updated 7/13/04
Rockpile
by Reed Jackson

It's a rainy Mother's Day in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and I am sitting in an empty diner, drinking chocolate egg creams with the Panthers. All five members, young smart, and mostly bearing names that start with a "Jay" sound, have called their respective moms.
In one week, the band will cross the ocean for its first tour of the United Kingdom. They are considerably less prepared for their immanent departure than they are for hallmark holidays.
"We're still locking down the van situation," vocalist Jayson Green tells me. When Rockpile'sMike Mckee bumps into drummer Jeff Salane earlier the same weekend, he's treated to the band's nervous slogan for the pending tour-"Pay to Play in the U.K."
"Does anyone know how to drive stick?" asks one Panther. Around the formica table, four shaggy heads are shaking a collective "no." "Don't worry man, you can learn," affable bassist Geoff Borlock reassures. "In a foreign country, on the left side of the road, with our internet directions, it'll be a piece of cake."
Facing such daunting English obstacles, The Panthers remain undeterred. As a precocious, articulate rock band from a trendy geographical hot spot, they have a lot to gain from a jaunt to the British Isles. Memories of how a raid limey response spurred major stateside interest for fellow Crooklyn residents Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are floating in the air, riding on the wind form nearby Williamsburg. The Panthers , in what quickly becomes recognizable as a habitual penchant for self-deprecation, aren't pinning their hopes too high.
"There's no better place for the backlash to start than with us," bespectacled guitarist Justin Chearno predicts.
The Panthers should have nothing to worry about. Their new EP, the aptly titled Let's Get Serious (Dim Mak), showcases a confident sound in the process of constant expansion. The band's second recorded work appropriates the fiery political sense of 60's radicals The MC5 and modernizes it with a course in French postmodern theory. The ideas are set to a fierce rhythmic attack taking the classic Detroit sound to let it bleed all over the place, the Stooges shimmy turned into British conceptual ballet. If the Brits know what's good for them, they'll eat it up.
As for our Panthers, they are looking forward to the trip, regardless of the outcome. Guitarist Kip Ulhorn is fervently anticipating the duty-free cigarettes while drummer Jeff Salane has majestic visions of seeing Stonehenge.
"Everyone tells us that we will lose money and that it's going to be difficult, but that we just have to bite the bullet and go," sums up Justin.
"And the bullet will be bitten." With that kind of steely resolve, The Panthers' mothers should be proud.

Updated 7/13/04

Fader 18

LOVE CATS
PANTHERS MAKE SONGS ABOUT SEXUAL POLITICS SOUND LIKE THEY'RE ABOUT FUCKING AND FIGHTING>

photography dorothy hong

People'll tell you that Panthers' first alum, Are You Down??, released in 2001 on Troubleman Unlimited, is kinda sucky. Five of those people are Kip Uhlhorn, Jeff Salane, Jayson Greene, Geoff Garlock and Justin Chearno, the members of Panthers. The album, they concede, was made too soon, too rushed; it was "the audio-document of us trying to be in a band," Uhlhorn explains. They even had to establish the tracklisting before recording the songs because the artwork needed to be completed while they made the music.
Which is why Let's Get Serious, the aptly-entitled five-song EP just released on Dim Mak, is such a startling record. It's just so fucking good! (One online review gave their first record 0.7 out of ten and the new one eight-that's the kind of difference I'm talking about.) Green's lyrics, dwelling, on sexual politics and the politics of sexuality (the intellectual space between Kate Millett and Fischerspooner) are, he says, "more personal and less rhetorical" this time, and have smart-funny titles like "It's Not The Heat It's The Humility", "Post-Fascist Fantasy" and "Thank Me With Your Hands". The music is denser, more considered, less reliant on riffs and more on playing big, playing powerful. It's the sound of a far more confident outfit, essentially, which is to be expected with three years of playing together under their belt, and also the guiding hands of engine/producer Steve Revitte (whose credis include Liars and Tito Puente, something I imagine only very few can claim), who the band refer to as the "sixth" Panther. Steve Aoki of Dim Mak, FYI, is the seventh Panther, and I, it delighted me to be told, am now the eighth. Killer!
What else? They're student types-though some went to grad school and some dropped out of college-and they have crappy jobs at video stores or no jobs at all, or are making the transition from the former to the latter: Salane is just about to be fired from the same "crappy job at NYU" that one that one of the dudes from Interpol was fired from before him. It's tough being an indie band in NYC, as they all know. "You really have to be rich to be in a band in New York," says Chearno, "and our startling lack of cheekbones belies our lack of breeding."

annalise cho

Updated 7/13/04

Rockpile

If Sassy were still handing out awads, we'd nominate the Panthers' Jay G. as the new Sassiest Boy in America. This doesn't mean the band is stuck up, though, as one member points out, "Community is built on obstacles and overtaking them." With a lineup boasting musicians from Turing Machine, Orchid and The Red Scare, Panthers keep the volume up and the revolutionary iconography in full view. Troubleman Unlimited Records dropped the band's debut, Are You Down?, while Jeff drops the beats.


Updated 01/26/04
interview by Cory O'Malley
Evil Monito

Last year New York City's Panthers released the incendiary "Are You Down??" which was a volatile mix of post-hardcore angst and heady, cultural studies references that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Intelligent, aggressive and demanding, the record polarized audiences, acting as a beacon of literate and urbane rhetoric in the largely unrefined and lethargic medium of rock and roll (indie or otherwise). The band recently followed the release with a five song EP, on Hollywood's Dim Mak records, called "Let's Get Serious."

The new record puts a little more emphasis on the roll, and the band has slightly toned down its ideological arguments. No less interested in conversing on the topic of presenting less-than-discriminating audiences with philosophical and cultural handfuls, the band sat down with me, before a recent show at LA's Spaceland, to discuss their continuing evolution. An edited account of my conversation with drummer Jeff Salane, vocalist/lyricist Jayson Greene and bassist Geoff Garlock – all former members of Orchid – is as follows.

###

EM: Much of the criticism surrounding your first LP, "Are You Down," was about how political you are, but are the types of the cultural studies and art-historical references you were making inherently political?

JG: You can't control how people interpret the art you make. You can't really control [how] people read it. Obviously, if they're reading politics into it, then that's valid, if that's their reading. I think there's a certain crossover between subversive politics and the things that we were talking about – a lot of the references coming from even the Futurists – there's a certain level of far-left political action.

EM: Is there a way to discuss philosophical ideas that are not particularly topical and be political, or are these different things completely?

JG: It's not really a concern of mine to have people be [topically] interested if they don't want to be. I'm just more interested in interjecting these ideas into the lyric writing process because it seems out of the rock paradigm of writing.

EM: You briefly discuss Edward Said on your web site. Is it important for you to expose an audience to thinkers like Said?

JG: Theory is at a weird point now where people are passing, and there isn't really a passing of the torch going on. There isn't anyone to take Said's place, to do what Said was doing. To see him go is a pretty big blow, particularly now when his writing is becoming more relevant than ever. The stuff that he's been talking about throughout his entire career – you read his stuff now and it's prophetic. I was really upset by his death. I felt the loss.

JS: Other people have died while we were a band, but this was the first person that we could all agree upon that was mutually important.

EM: Were you afraid that your rhetorical angle on the first record would be taken as shtick, in the way that many people found it difficult to take the Nation of Ulysses seriously?

JG: They were hysterically funny, and such a strong satire and praise of the same thing. We didn't want to do that, but it came off that way...[At the time of the writing of "Are You Down??"] I was trying to write theory stuff, because I had so immersed myself in the language of theory. I was reading the Futurist Manifesto, stuff about the Weather Underground and the Panthers – basically youth culture, radical youth culture, and art. It was interested in that kind of direct language and the way the assimilation of pop culture as a means of twisting ideas for your own motives. There were no bones about what was being said. It was clear, and powerful and exciting – it's all very sexual, and that whole way of speaking about art and politics was really appealing to me, and I just wanted to do it... With the new EP, we kind of new we couldn't write another record like "Are You Down." I think there were varying levels of people being interested in the [ideas presented on the first] record. There was a level of over-the-top-ness that I was really interested in at the time – and am still interested in as a way to get things across. But you can't keep doing that. If we wrote another record like that, it would be ridiculous.

GG: I think [the response to "Are You Down??"] had interesting developments of reviews creating more reviews, and reactions creating more reactions, instead of the actual initial reaction to the record. All of a sudden...it's the worst record ever made.

EM: What does "Let's Get Serious" mean?

JG: It seemed like sort of a party program. The first record got slammed. It was probably like a 70 to 30 split, people hating it to liking it. The name of the first album was a question. We knew that the response was going to be like, "Am I down? No thank you!" We were setting ourselves up for bad reviews. But part of the idea was to be really inflammatory. It was stuff that I still feel works in a certain context. I look at it and I would do a few things different.

GG: Your music is not going to be perfect, and they lyrics are not going to be perfect. What can you do? If you are happy... I don't think that we're ever going to be like, "That was perfect."
For more on Panthers, go to

www.pantherspanthers.com


Updated 01/06/04
KERRANG!
"Let's Get Serious" by Stevie Chick

Their sleeve notes quote bleak French novelist Georges Batailles and departed gangsta Notorious B.I.G., their lyrics zip from acrid interpersonal angst to acute subversive sloganeering, their music lunges with the deranged lust of garage and the geometric perversion of post-rock. Panthers are a hard beast to pin down.

But God bless their fog of fury, because "Let's Get Serious" is full of twisted promise. The blarring horns underscoring opener "Thank Me With Your Hands" suggest the breadth of Panther's vision, and by the time you get to "Sexist Not Sexy"s clattering riot, they sound like Iggy fronting At The Drive In, with Nation Of Ulysses writing the script. Where they go next is unclear, but with wiry anthems like "Don't Be A Dick" up their sleeves, it'll be worth following.




Updated 01/06/04
LOW OF INERTIA
Issue# 14

In New York, a new band is hyped to death every week. I've forgotten more "next big things" in the last six months than cigarettes I have smoked, and that, my friends, is one scary figure. Thank God for The Panthers, a real band that has the chops and songwriting skills to go toe to toe with any rock band in the county right now. Having honed their skills in such inspired bands as Orchid, Red Scare, and Pitchblende the boys know how to play, which is an undortunate anomaly in the world of clich? d retro New Wave. Their sound is potent mix of bands like the MC5, The Stooges, with a touch of latter day rockers like At the Drive-In, and if you find yourself at a Panthers show you better be ready to dance 'cause the music is infectious. Let's Get Serious, The Panthers? follow up EP to last year's debut, Are You Down? Is an explosion of post punk ferocity and politics whipped into a boogie-rock stew that demands notice. The band deals with topics not often covered in today's ultra-trendy, socially unaware rock and roll world. Sixities radical leftist political groups, oft-mentioned approaches to sexuality and sex, and simply fucking shit are all in a day's work for The Panthers. I met up with the four of the five Panthers (Jayson: vocals, Justin: guitar, Jeff: drums, and Kip: guitar) at Odessa in NYC for drinks and some good coversation. Among other topics covered were the co-option of the Brooklyn underground scene by MTV (unwittingly even) and how the idea that a boy might makeout with another boy even if one of them has a girfriend, is revolutionary in this puritan age of the "compassionate conservatism." Enjoy.

I wanted to ask about the MTV2 promo!
Justin: Where'd you see that?
On MTV2.
Justin: It?s still on?
Its on constantly. Usually when I come home I?ll fillip through the channels and invariably you guys will be on there.
Jayson: Well, our band was put together by MTV, and actually we met (at their studios). And we decided we all kind of have the look that is cool these days.
Justin: They had the gear and we all just started jamming.
Jayson: Yeah, and they were kind of like, "you guys should try to do this kind of thing," and they lead us along a little bit, it was cool. The auditions were really hard. They were in Florida, we were sweating ?cause it was so hot.
Jeff: Even though we?re not as famous as O-town, we are still actually living as a band off of MTV.
Jayson: They were disappointed ?cause I gained a little weight and I was supposed to be the heart throb, since I'm the singer, and it just didn?t go that way. They kind of let us go, but we had all their money.
I know there were rumors that you were going to work with the Neptunes.
Jayson: Well, that's still happening but it's more of a sexual relationship than musical one. We get hot and bothered when we hear their Justin Timberlake song. (laughter)
Kip: People are going to be like, "Are you really funded by MTV?"
Jeff: Are they really living off of their royalties from their commercial?
Jayson: Seriously, we got like $250 for that spot
Jeff: And we just pooled all of the money and we used that to do our tour up the west coast.
Justin: [The way it happened is] that a friend of ours worked at MTV2 doing on-screen graphics and intialy they were like, "We're going to do this thing, filming bands in their practice spaces, and they're not going to use any of your music they're just going to show you guys playing." And so that's what we thought it was. We thought it was like an MTV show, like, "bands from New York practice a new kind of rock" or whatever. They were going to have a rock band, a hip-hop, group and a soul group. So, I went in and they said we could do it. I don't think we even knew what it was for.
Jeff: Right until we got there.
Kip: We thought they were going to come to our practice with a TV camera and film us practicing but what ended up happening was we went in and went through wardrobe, makeup, catering.
Jayson: We actually rode in a bus to this practice space that wan?t really our practice space.
Justin: Which turned out to be next to the Turing Machine practice space.
Jeff: But they made it up inside and decorated it.
Jayson: It was designed by the woman from the Lunachicks, she works for MTV. She put Lunachicks paraphernalia up in the background and was like, "this is your practice space."
Jeff: There were like fifty people there helping out. The director, camera people, stylists, hair and makeup. It was crazy.
Were they like, "give me attitude," or "make love to the camera"?
Jeff: No, they were like "scratch your back with your drumsticks." [laughter]
Justin: They were like, "Okay, unplug your guitar, plug it back in. Hmmm, would you try [to do] that in a totally unique way like nobody else?"
Jayson: Kip played bass.
Kip: I looked more like a bass player, according to MTV.
Jeff: they were like, "go on the couch and talk on your cell phone."
Jayson: Our [real] bass player, he pretended to hate it but he turned into fucking Mariah Carey as soon as he got there.
Jeff: He was a diva. He wouldn't talk to me for days. They loved him, they showed his face constantly.
Jayson: It's 'cause he looks like Jack Osbourne, they were used to him. He looks like somebody in At The Drive-In or something with his big hair.
That's understandable, but you guys are the face of rock for an entire generation, the kids watching the promo on their television don't know what you sound like, but-
Jayson: Neither does MTV! [laughter]
Justin: They were shocked that we were a real band. They figured it out halfway through the day. That's really true.
On another subject, you deal with a lot of sexual politics and that's not a topic that's generally broached in a serious way with post-punk bands. It is usually more veiled or a manifests itself in romance songs. That's obviously something that's important to you.
Jayson: It is something that I?ve noticed not many bnads talk about sexuality in a way that is subversive or interesting. I'm not saying that my lyrics are. I feel like my personal sexual experiences are something that I want to talk about it's a pliticial issue that people don't consider political or it's not as politicized as it used to be. I think it is really important and I wish more people did talk about it.
Why do you think sex is music is so taboo? Either it?s portrayed in a campy way-
Justin: Or it's the most overt thing you can possibly think of.
Jayson: I think people are weird about being honest about sexuality. I think that's a rock paradigm. To talk about sex it's very straight. Even being a straight guy, when talking about sexuality I try to never use "he" and "she." I try to keep it either gender neutral or make it seem like it's the same gender. People are so strict about how they talk about it. I don?t know why it?s so taboo. Yu?ll see the most conservative sexual politics in the most liberal punk rock band. That?s one area of politics where people are brought up like, if I'm guy and I have a girlfriend, and when we're dating we don't make out with anybody else and we don't have sex with anybody else, and we love each other. And then when we?re in love we get married and have babies. And it's not that cut and dry ever. And everybody's constantly lying about it.
I think a lot of people in the indie rock scene feel guilty about being sexual, like it's offensive.
Justin: I was around for all of the indie rock stuff in the eighties and nineties and it was completely gender neutral. Like boys and girls, both separate and faux-innocent. I think everything right now is hyper-sexual, hyper-straight. All this terrible, weird red-board internet dating.
Justin: Like Make Out Club, it's like the opposite end of the spectrum.
Jayson: That stuff is dangerous and fucked up for other reasons. I feel like sexuality has been dealt with in the past, like in the way, way past and now there isn?t anybody really. There?s no kind of art that?s honestly dealing with sexuality.
Justin: It's either a romantic comedy or the furthest to the other end of the spectrum that it could possibly be.
Jayson: Soit's basically touching, like you're so far right, you're left. There isn't a lot of progressive writing, talking, art being made about sexuality that's forward-thinking. But what you think of as progressive, someone else might be like, "you're a crazy pervert."
Very true. Do you guys think that you guys are actively trying to engage your audience?
Jayson: How so? What do you mean?
Jeff: Like tyring to have sex with them?
I mean, with the lyrics to your songs.
Jayson: What did Ghostface say? "oh you're god damn right. I fuck fans!"
Jeff: I'm not trying to seduce people [with my music] if that's what you mean.
What about besides sexual politics?
Jayson: I definitely never write a song and think, "This is how I want people to understand it and take it and have it affect them." I write about something that is of interest to me at the time. And I tend to , in the lyrics, ask a lot of questions, and lot of times I?m asking the questions to myself. Obviously, People will read it and the question will be to them. And obviously I would love for people to have it start them thinking. The thing I liked about the lyrics on the first record, as much as its been criticized, I wanted to take that over-the-top approach because it polarized people instantly, they had no choice but to think about their own politics, and how they responded to it.
Some people got really offended by your music.
Jayson: Because it accuses people, but it only accuses people who are guilty. If you read it and you are down with it, then you don?t feel like you are accused.
Well we're all kind of guilty though.
Jayson: Like anything else it?s making a division between the cool kids and the non-cool kids. No matter whether you're cool or not you always want to identify with the cool kids. If they?re like, "man I hate it when nerds do this," even if you do it you?re like, "Yeah I hate that shit too" But that kind of black and white really polarizes people. It's not something I'm going to do again.

Updated 11/25/03
LET'S GET SERIOUS by Kathleen
skratch magazine

Brooklyn's Panthers, made up of nine members, straddle the fine line between energetic rock and pure cacophony. Still , when a band incorporates percussion, trumpets, and saxophones into their music, there is no overlooking the extent of their instrumental capabilities. Simply put, this five-song EP is pure energy ridden with so many instruments that it's hard to tell which instrument is which. Definitely not the weak at heart...or ears.

CRUTCH
by: Chad Cheatham
Brooklyn's Panthers, made up of nine members, straddle the fine line between energetic rock and pure cacophony. Still , when a band incorporates percussion, trumpets, and saxophones into their music, there is no overlooking the extent of their instrumental capabilities. Simply put, this five-song EP is pure energy ridden with so many instruments that it's hard to tell which instrument is which. Definitely not the weak at heart...or ears

Loud, angular, fuzz, Fugazi, MC5 ? read a review of either of the two Panthers? releases and you?re going to find these descriptives listed, thrown about without inhibition like a tramp?s sexual innuendoes on an overdone vodka tonic night. You may also read a little about political rhetoric, possibly dabbling in a some Dadaism and French philosophy. Granted, it may be difficult to describe Panthers any other way and it may be even more difficult to avoid drawing parallels to the members? musical rap sheets, especially in relation to the politics and theorizing?

Fuck it ? let?s just talk a bit about the Panthers? second release, Let?s Get Serious, their new EP on Dim Mak, and we?ll leave it at that ? no history, just what?s going on right now on this record ? I don?t really give a shit about anything else because this quick fix record spins out of control at points of no return that could frighten the tunnel?s light of which death chases down and laughingly lures you towards.

Take a trip to Europe and you?ll see the fashion trend of multi-layers that could fittingly dress the lead track, ?Thank Me With Your Hands,? with all the sedimentary elements pushing on each other like musical platectonics, creating ripples, mountains of grandeur, and an instant driving force that will not allow you to ignore Panthers. This sets the volcanic stage of exploding crescendos and eerily pungent diminuendos that step-stutter throughout the course of this EP.

As with the entire lot, the guitars overflow on ?It?s Not the Heat, It?s the Humility,? but are placed with precision, giving you a feeling that you always have something to count on when you?re feeling lonely ? they?re omnipresent and as pleasant as a tired puppy in several indescribable ways. Unlike the first two tracks, the drums seem to be the proponent in ?Post-Fascist Fantasies,? sharing duties with clapping hands and shakers ? this is surely the ruler edged rock and roll romp on the release, staying short at two and a half minutes long, but hardly falling short with anything else.

On the way out the door, ?Don?t Be a Dick,? is a perfect goodbye ? rioting guitars and rebellious vocals ? scream, fortissimo ? thank you, fuck you, goodnight, it?s been fun. Panthers burst in and jet out just as fast, peaking and dilating your ears with a sound that may be too dense for some, but just fine for me. Give ?em a taste and hear for yourself.

updated 02/12/04
Petite Mort
A Brief Interview with Panthers by Matt Owens

How did you guys get together?

We ended up in NYC at the same time -a total fluke- all of us for educative purposes, but only one of us for "established" educative purposes, and in the meantime, we made a band.

I know that some of you guys have been in previous bands that have received notoriety. How do you see this band in relationship to your past ones? An evolution? A complete break?

An evolution only in the sense of a next step, and not a next step that implies growth or forward movement, merely a next step that implies a different direction. It is easily a decided break and a decided link to our past projects.

I think every member of the band is not from NYC but you started here. Do think being in NYC is important to you as a band creatively?

We are a scattered background, but NYC is a beacon for that, no? NYC is important because it locates our lives, our cultures, our relationships at this particular moment.

They have also just released a split 7" with JAPANTHER on Vice Records. Their 5 Song EP entitled Let's Get Serious is out on DIM MAK Records.

Are the Panthers Fat? Or was that just a phase?
That was a "Fase" with an "F".

Any plans for the future. A new record?

Jayson is planning some crimes against young America, Geoff is talking about a scam against his boss and company, Kip we can't talk about right now (legal issues- see State vs. Intellectual Confessional, Corp.), Jeff is considering furthering his guerilla art show, and Justin is cooking up a pot of trouble.

Aside from those, we have just release an EP on Dim Mak Records. All other records are subject to change. X

SHOUT Aug/Sept. 2002
Panthers Manifesto rock is a slippery proposition. While The Nation of Ulysses perfected it with their "anti parent culture sound," countless others have utterly blown it. So please exercise caution when injecting leftist slogans into your punk- you just might end up flat on your face with a dog-eared copy of Foucault: For Beginners clenched in your lifeless fist. Brooklyn's Panthers have managed to navigate the chasms of political punk without sacrificing their ardent allegiance to having (of all things) fun. Their debut album Are You Down?, is kind of like the dance party version of The Society and The Spectacle. More than the sum of its parts, Panthers is comprised of a who's who of well done 90's heaviness. Mix together former members of Orchid, The Red Scare, and Pitchblende, and what do you get? An irresistibly energetic amalgam of MC5 and Stooges swagger, spitting cultural studies greatist hits right into your face. A sloganeer of the highest order, singer/lyricist Jayson Greene lays it bareright on the album's back cover: :Our punk is Pastiche". Is it folly to admit to plagiarism as a writing tactic, or just bracingly honest? "Our entire record deals with ideas of plagiarism and what that means," says Jay. "I just read this awesome thing by the graffiti artist Zephyr, where he said that good graffiti writers steal and bad ones borrow. So much of my own lyrics are things that I've taken from other songs and just switched around." Guitar player and songwriter Kip Uhlhorn pipes in: "Actually, I think it was Duchamp who first said that thing about the best artists stealing," For all their eridution, however, the Panthers are really about a full-on rock show. "Playing live is so much more important to me than the recordings,"says Jay. Their reputation for galvanizing, somewhat evangelical sets precedes them - and isn't for nothing. They really do turn in one of the sweatiest and most convincing performances in New York today. Eneter the venue as jaded as you want, but after Panthers hit you with, "You're all impotent fools until you smash your teacher's face in," we can testify that you'll walk out a believer.

Paper Magazine
"The Year New York Broke... And the Broke Cashed In"
The variety doesn't stop there. Panthers is a politically minded five-piece with a nebulous agenda; their debut full-length, Are You Down?, provokes with grinding guitars and lyrics like, We aren't a band, we're a cabal of terrorists" Diverse as all these bands are, most share a love-hate relationship with the media. "The hype machine really starts rolling in New York," explains Jayson Green, Panthers vocalist. "None of these bands are what I consider 'rock' bands-especially a band like Black Dice. To call them a rock band is kind of outrageous. But they're great. So it's hard to keep it a secret. Besides, the more people that come to shows, the better." Panthers' guitarist Justin Chearno is more succinct: "You can't always play to just your friends, because you burn them out."

Swingset Magazine
The Panthers are a rare breed of band, one both instantly familiar yet refreshingly bold. The band puts its own strong stamp on the innovations of the past ten years of punk rock, which is not surprising considering it's made up of members of Orchid, Red Scare, and Turing Machine; all thrilling bands, in equal parts jagged Monorchid-esque guitar lines, garage stomp ala MC5 and '91-era Nation of Ulysses. Basically, the Panthers are a straight-up, guns blazing rock and roll machine, the kind of band that rocks out unabashedly but is clever enough to rhyme Marvin Gaye with Jean Genet. The title of their recent debut poses their essential question: Are You Down? After hearing them both on wax and in the front lines where it counts, we here at Swingset answer with a resounding new school Yes!

The Face August 02 issue of 40
dressed-up, messed-up, young, sexy, drunk, dirty new bands - Panthers, New York: Sweaty, grit-acular rock and roll with passion and fury.

Time Out New York Reading CD booklet
Yeah! What I want is bands that come with a manifesto. I'm fucking sick of bands who only have an image. They're clear about who they are, as well: Track three is called "A Panther is a Motherfucker." I mean, call me an old punk, but this sort of stuff- stuff that declares that this is year zero and everything needs to be redone-it's needed right now. And they're smart enough to add a quote from James Brown: "People, we've got to get over before we go under." I'm the wrong generation for this kind of music, and yet it strikes a chord with me more than anything else. Twenty-five years ago in my country, a band recorded a song called "God Save the Queen," and the entire country went into a convulsion of anger. I just wish every generation could feel how I felt as a 19 year old when that happened. And that wasn't the first time for something like that. When Elvis came along in the '50's, he kicked a hole in it too. Written by Billy Bragg.

NME
The rest of the rock scene in Brooklyn is pretty much in the same spot as Yeah Yeah Yeahs were a few months ago; had a few gigs and baking on a big break like Julian Casablancas wearing their pin on Saturday Night Live. ...Outhud moved from California and are already playing trendy art galleries. The Liars' sloppy rock'n roll sound gets the most votes as the next Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Japanther is a white hot version of Guitar Wolf if Guitar Wolf knew how to play their instruments. They are not to be confused with the equally uitar-driven great band, The Panthers.

New York Times
Then, Now: New Rock City- Furious Guitars and Harried Vocals Wrangling, discordant guitars build pressure, and discordant vocals discharge it in insurrectionary slogans. (Among a list of NY bands such as The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture, Ex Models, The Walkmen, Oneida, Radio 4, French Kicks, Liars, Enon, Les Savy Fav....)

Show Review Section M #25
3.18.02 w/ Engine Down and Caesura @ Bottom of the Hill in SF
The Panthers appear, a frenetic five piece that recalled a less angular At The Drive-In. The guitarist who looks like he should be handing out pictures of Chairman Mao conjures churning feedback from his instrument. I survey the room again. It is a decent crowd for a Monday night.

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