Where to find punk rock in Sonoma this Halloween

Dirty Westside, Hemmed Up and Get Dead bring the noise

The venerable El Verano roadhouse, Reel and Brand, hosts goblins, ghouls and a whole bunch of punks on Oct. 29, when they bring in Get Dead, a well-known punk band based here in the North Bay.

This pre-Halloween night actually has three bands performing. Dirty Westside, from El Verano, will open the show and Napa’s Hemmed Up will follow. Get Dead climbs up on stage last to reprise their sizzling set of 2021, when they dazzled the amped up crowd.

The Get Dead website describes their music as, “signature NorCal punk sound, balancing bombast with up-picked bounce and dirt-smudged acoustic songs.”

Drummer Scott Powell, the leader of Get Dead, explained that the band is originally out of San Francisco, but he and the bass player, Tim Mehew, are from Sonoma.

Growing up locally, they had exposure to some great punk shows, often held at Little Switzerland. Powell said they want to rekindle “this annual punk rock Halloween show that used to happen when I was a younger guy. With bands like The Randoms, The Bodies…some of those old school Sonoma Punk bands. They had that going for eight years or so. This will be the second year we’re doing it.”

Get Dead has had quite a run of success. Their recent album, called “Dancing with the Curse” was ranked as one of the best punk albums of the Year in 2020 by Brooklyn Vegan. They have also been busy on the road. Powell explained, “Last summer we did Europe twice, Scandinavia…doing punk festivals. Then we went further south, France, Spain, Germany, Italy…than we did Canada. That was our last run for the season.”

“The band has been together since ’07, so this will be our 15 year anniversary, and we have been touring for 12 years,” Powell added. “We signed with Fat Wreck Chords six years ago, and the world opened even wider. They have torn it up at “festivals in Japan, Australia, Central America, Mexico. We did Europe 10, 11 times. Yeah, man, we like to get out there,” Powell casually explained.

The five-piece band has released five full length albums. The newest, “Dancing…” has not been supported by a tour yet because of COVID, so this will be a debut of sorts. This special set by Get Dead will therefore have an extra dose of energy driving it tomorrow night, .

The performance space at the Reel can be problematic in a Goldilocks kind of way. It is too large for many acts rooted in the Valley of the Tunes, it’s the perfect size for many touring bands, and for this show…well, let Powell explain, “Yeah, man… I always like playing small rooms. You can really feel the humanity, you know, everybody sweatin’ and bleedin’ on each other.”

The opening act, local four-piece combo Dirty Westside, has members resurrected from The Randumbs, The Bodies and Tri-Polar. The band’s style is even more aggressive than Get Dead’s, so be ready for their “dirty punk”. Dirty’s shows are always wild and not so random, as they go for the jugular.

The crew at The Reel and Brand will be prepared for a big house. This three-band show starts at 8 p.m. with a minimum cover charge of $5.

getdeadmusic.com, hemmedupmusic.com, reelandbrand.net,