Smoking Popes & Off With Their Heads at Songbyrd DC
Schedule
Sun May 18 2025 at 07:00 pm to 11:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Songbyrd Music House | Washington, DC
Songbyrd Presents Smoking Popes & Off With Their Heads
Sunday May 18, 2025
Doors - 7:00 PM
Show - 8:00 PM
Tickets
Advance - $22
Day of - $25
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Smoking Popes are ripping through their legendary album Born to Quit front to back, and Off With Their Heads are bringing the heat with In Desolation played in full. Two iconic albums, one killer night!
The Smoking Popes' take on punk-pop was centered around lead singer Josh Caterer, whose obsessions with big-band records and black-and-white movies on the American Movie Classics channel led him to develop a vocal style that was unique in the punk world. The Popes sounded like a loud, guitar-based band fronted by a lounge singer, mixing uptempo rock with laid-back vocals and lyrics with an old-time romantic feel. The rest of the band, which formed in the Chicago area around 1991, consisted of Josh's brothers Matt and Eli on bass and guitar, respectively, and drummer Mike Felumlee. While Caterer didn't think of the band's music as punk, the Smoking Popes gained a number of supporters who would have happily argued otherwise, including the respected punk indie label Johann's Face, Green Day's Billie Joe, Alkaline Trio, and the members of another Chicago-based band, Fall Out Boy.
Johann's Face released the Popes' debut album, Get Fired, in 1993. Two years later, the band returned with Born to Quit, a major-label effort that featured Morrissey-influenced vocals and a more refined sound. The latter record also spawned the heavily rotated single "Need You Around," and subsequent tours with Jimmy Eat World, Green Day, and Goo Goo Dolls brought the band's music to an ever-expanding audience. Destination Failure followed in 1997.
To the heartbreak of many, the Popes called it quits in December 1998. Their final effort, Party's Over, was a covers album that had been recorded earlier that year, but Capitol rejected the record and it didn't appear until 2001, when it was released by Double Zero. The latter label also released two compilation albums -- Smoking Popes 1991-1998, a collection of songs that were previously hard to find, and the 2000 concert album Live -- while the former bandmates pursued different projects.
In November 2005, however, the brothers Caterer reunited with new drummer Rob Kellenberger for the Flower 15 Festival in Chicago. This performance was captured on tape and released by Victory in February 2006 as a CD/DVD package, At Metro. A two-month North American headlining tour with Bayside followed, as did the release of a new album entitled Stay Down. The compilation of early-'90s material titled It's Been a Long Day appeared in 2010 followed by the studio effort This Is Only a Test in 2011. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
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Minneapolis punk band Off with Their Heads began as a hard-touring entity with a revolving-door membership centered around the songs of guitarist/vocalist Ryan Young. After moving from many years of less involved vinyl-only releases, the band's high-speed melodic rock sound spread out over full-length albums like 2013's Home and 2019's Be Good. Calm/Collected, a collection of acoustic versions of songs old and new, appeared in 2022.
Off with Their Heads formed in 2002, borrowing members from Minneapolis punk and hardcore institutions like Dillinger Four, Dear Landlord, Banner Pilot, and the Fake Boys, among others. Based around the depraved and hard-living themes of vocalist Ryan Young's songs, the band existed mostly in the form of an endless string of EP and split 7" releases for many years. Also focused on constant touring, Off with Their Heads maintained a revolving lineup so they could stay on the road more often. In 2007, they released All Things Move Toward Their End, a collection of highlights from the group's lengthy vinyl-only catalog. This compilation was followed in 2008 by their first proper full-length, From the Bottom, and the group self-released a video for the album's song "Fuck This, I'm Out." They followed in 2010 with In Desolation, their first release for new label Epitaph. By the time their third album, Home, was released in 2013, the band was still working with a rotating cast of players, but drummer Justin Francis had established himself as a consistent collaborator and a compliment to Young's anxious punk songs.
Young took some time off from touring following a mental breakdown he suffered while on the road promoting Home, but he regrouped with 2016's acoustic album Won't Be Missed. In 2019, Off with Their Heads turned the volume back up with a set of new material for Be Good, an album where Young reflected on his new home of Chicago and all the intensities of the transition to living in a new city. Forced off of the road in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the band issued Character. This sequel to 2016's Won't Be Missed included stripped-down versions of old and new original songs and a handful of covers. The two-song EP Wrong appeared the following year, with Calm/Collected, a compilation featuring Won't Be Missed and Character, arriving in 2022. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi
Where is it happening?
Songbyrd Music House, 1-3, Penn St NE, Washington, DC 20002, United States,Washington D.C.
