This year's ever encompassing HoZac Blackout Fest reached a fever pitch like never before, with this being it's 10th year, and raising the roof for the seventh year at the Empty Bottle for three nights of the best underground music you can find in one weekend in the Midwest. With such incredible headlining acts (that you'd never see at other festivals) in recent years such as Redd Kross, Chrome and Nervous Eaters and Dwight Twilley, this year's cavalcade of talent was just as unmatched and pulled in another massive crowd of punk fanatics from across the globe.
Thursday's annual Blackout Fest Art Show kicked off the weekend with artwork on display from Brian Shanley (70s punk photography), as well as Paul Zone, David Head, RUBIN, Ray Borchers and two South African inclusions from Andreas Schonfeldt and Hein Coetzee, which are on display for the rest of the month at the Empty Bottle for viewing.
The live music was nothing short of strangulating, with delightfully insane locals Toupee opening up the show, shrouded in an anathema of unsettling danger, they always deliver an incredible set soaked in unpredictable noir punk madness.
Followed by their kindred spirits in the noxious ether, Nones' cataclysmic agony was undoubtedly echoing throughout every blood-stained throb of their festering set. Don't miss their debut LP Midwestern Family Values' out now on HoZac, it just might make your flowers die.
And as legends never die, Ron House and company from Counter Intuits made the trek from Columbus to be the second act in the "Ohio Legends" series of art show headliners, after last year's incredible performance by Mike Rep & Tommy Jay, and they threw down an incredible set of noise-laden punk squawk dirge that Chicago won't soon forget.
Please check out the rest of Stan Golovchuk's photography at Medium Gallery
