The Stabbing Jabs
A punch in the face. Queen City style: LOUD. Some things are just meant to be.
The Stabbing Jabs — vocalist Peter Aaron (Chrome Cranks), guitarists William G. Weber (Chrome Cranks, GG Allin & the Murder Junkies) and Chris Donnelly (Gang Green), drummer Andrew Jody (Barrence Whitfield & the Savages), and bassist Jamie Morrison — breathe fiery life into the type of tough, timeless rock ’n’ roll a generation had left for dead. Here it is, ready to make your life a living hell: an arsenal of hard, hammering tunes built on thick, cinder-block guitars. Blood-flecked screams. Dirty, fuzzy low end. Drums that swing as hard as they bash. And RIFFS. Riffs, riffs, and more riffs. Did we mention the riffs?
Drop the needle on The Stabbing Jabs, the band’s debut on Beast Records, and it’s one high-octane face-blaster after another — all of them roaring straight at YOU. Right off the line is the pummeling, utterly unrelenting, freight-train opener, “Broken Brain,” with more rippers — the earth-shaking “Drowning Girls,” bone-crushing “Radiation Love,” and screaming, napalm overload “Bone and Breast” — lurking close behind. It gets moody in here, too: Just slide on into the slippery sleaze and grimy grinding of “Uptown Blues” before making your final descent into the collapsing, claustrophobic chaos of “You’re a Drag.” Once that last squealing squall has died out, just park it all on the shelf next to your copies of Damaged, Kick Out the Jams, Tied Down, Powerage, Raw Power, and Young, Loud and Snotty until, man, you just gotta have that burning Jabs fix again — which, guaranteed, won’t be long after.
The Stabbing Jabs got together by accident. Sort of. An amazing accident that, in retrospect, was so obvious and so long overdue that it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner. In 2019, Aaron was called upon to take part in an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the era during which he did the booking at Cincinnati music venue Murphy’s Pub, a period that saw him bring some of the day’s most influential acts (Nirvana, Jesus Lizard, L7, etc., etc.) to town on their first tours. Just before that commemorative event he’d compiled We Were Living in Cincinnati, a contemporaneously released archival album of lost early local punk tracks. Assembling a band of area rockers to perform a few songs from the compilation at the much-anticipated soiree seemed like a nifty idea.
The singer’s Chrome Cranks collaborator Weber was a clear first call, as was Donnelly, with whom Aaron had played in early 1980s Cincy hardcore pioneers Sluggo. Jody, whose knowledge of the music and formidable skills run deep, was more than eager to sign on as the deadly drummer. Once these gentlemen were in a room together, the flow was instant. Simpatico. Natural. Effortless. Unspoken. Fingers making an iron fist inside an iron glove. Pow!
Their first gig? Awesome, awesome, awesome. So killer. The audience? Incinerated. The nightclub? Destroyed. Completely. But as the drywall dust settled and the stage’s smoldering embers crackled and glowed and floated high above the stoic Cincinnati skyline, it was clear that this thing just couldn’t end.
“It would be cool to keep it going, with original material,” Jody observed. And, thus, it was so.
More devastating gigs followed, and the band holed up in Weber’s Krakdhaus Studios to record their eponymous debut. In addition to its nine explosive originals, the record honors Cincinnati’s punk past with covers of two area underground gems: Dennis the Menace’s “Go-Go Wah-Wah” and the Verbs’ “Little in Doubt.”
Straight-up, hard, mean, noisy rock ’n’ roll. The stuff that never gets old. Some things are just meant to be. And so they are with Stabbing Jabs. Take it and like it. Punker.
