It has been a minute since I have been to a small, all-ages show. The lack of venues in Orange County makes that difficult. However, Octopus vs. Bear has been sporadically putting on shows. Located on the opposite side of the block from Garden Amp, Octopus vs. Bear is a stone’s throw away from Garden Grove’s Main Street nestled in the basement of The First Baptist Church of Garden Grove. It was dimly lit with white Christmas lights strung around the tops of the walls. There was no barricade, but a giant pillar stands in front of the stage, which was initially built for something else.
The poster and flyers for the show listed the name as Inpost; however, all of their socials have this band named as First State. Whatever the case, this band kicked ass. They played songs that were definitely a love letter to the emo bands of the late 1980s and early 1990s, going as far as to cover Braid. I say this a lot, but these kids have done their homework. If you threw one of their songs into the middle of a mixtape from 1995, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. After playing a set that would make fans thirty years their senior cheer, the band ended with a cover of the Ramones’ version of “Do You Wanna Dance?” While trying to figure out the band’s name, the Chudson guitarist/singer said they were a ska band the last time he played with them. That is a pretty cool flex in 2026.
It is hard to pin down a genre for most of these bands, although mixed bills are not unusual, especially in a county with a handful of venues. Willowbark! came out with a ton of energy. Sometimes they had a member of the band playing keyboard and sometimes they did not. They seemed to be quite content with not fitting into one genre. They were much more experimental with sound than most bands I have seen. Almost everything blended together and did so well, even if it did feel like a mash of sound. One song started slow and almost morphed into a Misfits-like song. Willowbark! knew how to get the crowd to move. I do not know exactly what I saw, but by the reaction of the crowd of kids, it was working.
I have been a fan of Chudson since I saw them at Chain Reaction last year, but I haven’t been able to see them since for good reasons. They were either on the road or had set up a house show that sold out before I had a chance to get tickets. As always, they started explosively and did not stop for the first few songs. While they have definitely improved in the fifteen months since I last saw them, there wasn’t too much to improve on. They still come out with the same energy, but they are able to harness it a lot better, preferring to play in smaller rooms than bigger venues. They played some newer songs that leaned a bit into pop punk but definitely still sounded like Chudson, although some new songs didn’t stray from the formula, like their song “I Hate Live Nation.” In the last year, they’ve had the experience of playing bigger venues. Chudson recognizes the level up but still sees the inherent bullshit that comes along with it. I haven’t seen a band push back on leveling up this hard since the Replacements, and I respect it.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between punk, ska, or even metal or emo kids. The styles just seem to meld together like this newer generation’s taste in music. I don’t know if this was meant to be a mixed-genre show, but it ended up being one. If you were hoping this could be a regular spot for shows, this venue had been shut down previously by the city of Garden Grove, but had somehow re-opened. Who knows if and when this will happen again This county needs spaces like this. Bands like this need a place to play. Each of these bands should be out there more than they are.
The good doctor, Seuss, that is, also considered the burden of antlers. In his signature rhyming voice, Dr. Seuss tells the story of a boy imagining himself with “deer horns.” He could wear more hats! He could hang school supplies from them! He’d be the star of the football team! Yet their burdensome nature soon became apparent. With unwieldy antlers, he could no longer ride the bus, and his mom couldn’t possibly let someone with deer horns live in her impeccably clean house. In the end, he learned to accept his own body for what it was.
Burden of Antlers utilizes harsh tones and loud production values to unnerve their listeners. Cooley growls in a pained rasp that’s discomforting, yet also admittedly effective. Combined with dissonant and constantly shifting riffs, Sea Sleeper nail a style of music that’s purposely meant to deliver pain rather than pleasure. Their quest to challenge is admirable, though I wish I had a better idea as to what, thematically, they’re attempting to accomplish. When the vocals are incomprehensible and the lyrics sheet is missing, it’s difficult to know exactly what I’m being made uncomfortable about. Yet the larger problem is the production, whose loudness negatively contributes to the cacophony. While the harshness delivers pain and discomfort in more interesting ways, the high volume is just unpleasant.