Local punk bands Pleasure Petrol, King John and The Jesters, Thee Ultraviolettes and Spillway joined forces on Thursday, Jan. 15 for a night of loud, high-energy music at Hangar 9. The night was filled with eccentric music and the crowd moshing and jumping all night.
Pleasure Petrol is a popular band known around the punk scene since 2013. With other older punk bands moving out of Carbonale, the founders of Pleasure Petrol, Evan Neuman and Marcus Lappin, stayed and formed the band to then play house shows. A few months later they found a bass player, Dylan Frost, who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The band’s current lineup is Neuman, Grant Kentala, Brandon Gill and Everett Gariepy.
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The original band name was Hans Predator but was later changed to Pleasure Petrol when Neuman and other bandmates were playing around with the melody of an old song and came up with the new name.
Neuman described their music as garage, face rock inspired by bands like Hopland, Lemmy from Motorhead and The Stooges.
“Talent (is) always admired and appreciated,” Neuman said. “But like, you don’t need to be the best to be in this kind of band.”
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He described the feeling of playing music as euphoric.
“You kind of lose a sense of time, and you kind of just — I don’t know — (are) like, ‘what just happened?’ (when) you come out of it.”
Pleasure Petrol is always making music and you can look forward to their next performances on Feb. 18 and 28.
King John and The Jesters are another local band that joined the lineup at Hangar. The band started when Vaughn Perry was looking to start a band and met Sam Bakos in a journalism class. Perry and Bakos got to talking about music and later met their bassist, Jude Primeau, through a friend. They then played their first show late November 2024 at house venue the Birdhouse.
“I personally always wanted to join one (a band). I loved listening to music growing up, I’ve been playing the drums for like 12 years now. I love music,” Bakos said.
When performing, they said it feels like nothing is real. They don’t think about it and just do it. They perform a new song each show.
“We try to mix it up, keep people on their toes,” Bakos said.
Their next show is Jan. 31 at the Birdhouse.
Another band to take to the stage Thursday were Thee Ultraviolets. Evan Hall and Berget Borowitz have known each other for awhile and have been playing together in another band when they decided they wanted something different.
“We just — we’ve all been playing music. We just love doing it,” Hall said. “There’s such a good scene here in Carbondale, everything is so welcoming, like, it’s so easy to do, you just kind of fall into it, and then you don’t ever want to stop.”
The biggest inspiration for the band are bands like Spacemen 3 and Les Rallizes Dénudés, along with ‘60s girl groups like The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las.
Thee Ultraviolets did a live session in Carbondale with a group called Emporium, which is now on YouTube.
In a year, Thee Ultraviolets want to be touring and have a seven-inch vinyl record out. Texas and Louisiana are some places they hope to stop by on their tour.
“We really love playing the South, and every time we go south, we find more and more people who are really into the style of music that we’re doing with this band now,” Hall said.
The writing process for the band consists of Hall playing an acoustic guitar in the bedroom, playing around with different sounds until he finds the right sound. Music usually comes first, then Hall takes it to the basement until he finds the melody, and then the lyrics come together.
Future events for the band include shows throughout 2026 but coming up are their shows at Cristaudo’s on Jan. 31 and later on Feb. 28 at Lost Cross.
Well-known local act Spillway also joined the night with their emo punk music. The band got to experience their two-year anniversary of their first-ever performance at the same place where it all started for them. That night was the night they decided to officially become a band. At the time, the band called themselves Plateaus.
“To be able to perform at Hangar after two years means a lot,” Spillway said to the DE through the band’s Instagram account. “It feels amazing to be able to come back and share our growth and experience with the community, something we thought may not happen after the Hangar 9’s closing in 2024.”
Photo Editor Emily Brinkman can be reached at [email protected]
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