On this humid September eve, our fearless reporter braved the not so mean streets of Northwest DC to catch two very different performances at Black Cat: Lancaster, PA – based folk-punk act Apes of the State, and Los Angeles’ sardonic pop-rock favorites, Cheekface.
Apes of the State came out swinging on Sept. 16, opening their set with the crowd-pleasing “I Listened” before frontwoman April Hartman issued a challenge to the assembled faithful: Make the band look cool in front of the Cheekface fans. A circle pit immediately materialized as the five-piece launched into their blistering ballad “Love Song for the Class War.”
Apes of the State are crusty folk punk in the most delightful sense of the term: a glorious collision of traditionally acoustic instruments, punk energy, and just enough musical weirdness to keep things interesting. Bass, a 6-string guitar, and drums provided the rhythmic backbone, while electric fiddle and mandolin provided layers to the melody. Shout out to mandolin player Elliot, who nailed his first set with the band!
Hartman, on guitar, and fiddler Mollie Swartz shared vocal and stage leader duties, but the gravitational center of the band is clearly Hartman, whose songwriting and performance carry the emotional weight of the project. Her own recovery journey has been deeply intertwined with music, and that history gives the songs an authenticity that is difficult to fake and impossible to miss.
During their short set, the Black Cat crowd was an absolute delight: freaks, geeks, punks and various other outsiders threw themselves around the floor, alongside your humble correspondent. A bunch of misfits moshing, dancing and generally having a fucking blast to a punk band at the Black Cat…really felt like the iconic 80s hardcore scene in the nation’s capital isn’t such a distant memory after all…
Stream a playlist of the tracks performed by Cheekface at Black Cat on September 16 via Spotify:
OK, now Cheekface is up. If Apes of the State represented the “wear your heart on your sleeve and scream it from the back of the van” school of punk, Cheekface arrived from somewhere considerably stranger. The Los Angeles four piece – Greg Katz on guitar and vocals, Amanda Tannen on bass and backing vocals, Mark Edwards on drums, and live multi-instrumental support from AJ Johnson – have been making their particular brand of nerdy, sardonic indie rock since 2017, building a devoted following of “Cheek Freaks” while self-releasing records through Katz’s own label. Their sixth album, Podium, arrived this year, and the band has apparently decided that the best way to process the collapse of modern society is to put on some extremely catchy music and smile about it.
Which, frankly, is a fun kind of nihilism.
The contrast with Apes was immediate. Gone were the simple backdrop and crusty folk-punk earnestness. Instead, Cheekface emerged beneath an enormous goat-head and columns of fire, and proceeded to launch into their set with the kind of bizarre, theatrical energy that suggested Devo had wandered into a particularly strange Southern California indie-rock club.
Cheekface is a difficult band to put in a box. Nobody puts baby in a corner!
Their songs pull from seemingly disparate corners of the musical universe, from Devo to Cake to Weezer to P-Funk to Oingo Boingo….new wave, punk and whatever other weird shit was floating around Los Angeles when these guys were growing up….and somehow turns all of it into something (mostly) cohesive. The live show is remarkably tight, with a heavy, droning rhythm section establishing the groove while Katz and Tannen weave catchy, often “talky” melodic lines over the top.
And then there are the choreographed moves. Everyone on stage seemed to be having a fucking blast. Smiles everywhere. Little dance moves. Polished pop sensibilities. A goofy, almost wholesome stage presence.
Which makes the lyrics all the more unsettling.
Cheekface have perfected the art of delivering existential dread, anxiety and sociopolitical grievances with the demeanor of people leading a children’s aerobics class. It’s like watching a Jordan Peele movie: everything looks cheerful and slightly ridiculous, but somewhere underneath it all is the creeping realization that something has gone horribly fucking wrong.
Where Apes of the State tell you exactly what they’re feeling, Cheekface prefers wordplay and absurdity. Their latest record, Podium, turns the general zeitgeist dread of 2026 into sardonic pop songs, taking aim at everything from ICE and corporate America to the internet’s ability to turn literally anything into a meme. Pitchfork described the album as a record about “sociopolitical dread” wrapped in hooks, absurdist humor and internet-poisoned wordplay.
One of my favorite examples of this was their performance of “I am Continuing to Do My Thing,” which boils the overwhelming complexity of modern political resistance down to a series of hilariously mundane acts of defiance: a left, left, right, right dance move. It’s simultaneously ridiculous and genuinely clever: a reminder that dissent doesn’t always have to come wrapped in a clenched fist and a bullhorn.
The same sensibility came through when the band played “Listen to Your Heart.” When Greg Katz sang the various commands contained in the chorus, the crowd obediently responded with a resounding “NO!” Apparently Cheek Freaks are very good at following instructions.
Katz was somewhat reluctant to showcase his guitar chops, preferring to let the songs and arrangements do the heavy lifting. But when he did break into a solo, it was thoughtful and purposeful rather than flashy for the sake of being flashy.
And that, ultimately, is what made the performance work so well. Cheekface may look like a goofy indie-rock band having fun under giant flaming goat heads – and they are – but underneath the smiles is a remarkably sophisticated exercise in musical and lyrical dissent.
It’s protest music for people who have become too exhausted to protest normally.
And, given the state of the world, maybe that’s exactly what we need.
