$20 advanced, $25 at the door
General Admission - Doors open at 7PM
Early 1999, IRON LUNG started life in Reno, NV, rising from the ashes of (the real and best) GOB, a prolific and bizarre punk band that was Jon’s primary creative outlet for a few years which Jensen also played in during its last few months of existence, and KRALIZEC, a one-off project band solely dedicated to the mythology of Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’. Both of these groups playedthe now legendary series of extreme punk showcases, “Fiesta Grande”, Chris Dodge of Slap-A-Ham/SPAZZ fame used to put on at 924 Gilman in Berkeley during the last half of the 90’s. Those shows served as a basis for how IRON LUNG would approach the world: DIY, obscure, extreme, maladjusted and utterly free from the constraints of “music” or, more widely, rules in general. The “No Gods / No Masters” approach.Both Jensen and Jon share a love for old medical practices and equipment. The intrigue of barber-surgeons bleeding people to treat their ill “humors” or full on performing limb amputations simply because they had a razor and the dexterity to wield it was just too exciting to ignore. They wondered if anyone had ever really considered the consequences of a lobotomy, electromyography, trepanation, Xenotransplantation, maggot therapy or even using heroin as cough medicine? The real one that hit home was the sheer brutality of a machine invented for the sole purpose of using positive and negative air pressure to physically force a polio-paralyzed person to breathe was such a heavy concept that there was denying their path. IRON LUNG would like to take this moment to thank John Haven Emerson, who died mere weeks before the band was born, for inventing such a barbaric and inspiring piece of respiratory machinery.Yes, they write songs about these literal subjects but they’ve always employed them as analogies for other issues as well. For instance, “HeLa Cells” is really about systemic racism. In 1955, Henrietta Lacks, a poor, uneducated black woman from Baltimore,was the unwitting source of cells which were then cultured for thepurpose of medical research. Though researchers had tried to grow cells before, Henrietta’s were the first successfully kept aliveand cloned. Henrietta’s cells, known as HeLa cells, have been instrumental in the development of the polio vaccine, cancer research, AIDS research, gene mapping, and countless other scientific endeavors. Henrietta died penniless and was buried without a tombstone in a family cemetery. For decades, her husband and five children were left in the dark about their wife and mother’s amazing contribution to modern medicine. The doctors never regarded her as more than a test subject and treated her like something to be used and discarded.Since the beginning, IRON LUNG have always written their recordsaround concepts. Their first album, Life. Iron Lung. Death., is about the life cycle of living with and eventually dying from terminal diseases that only manmade machines can painfully prolong. Their sophomore and most well known effort, Sexless // No Sex, is about the human condition with focus on life/love/gender with a lack of care. White Glove Test plays with double meanings but is centered around the Cold War and the science that almost cured the Earth of humans altogether. Plus, IRON LUNG’s beloved polio epidemic, in which almost every song of their universe is set against, took place smack in the middle of that particular (pun intended!) conflict.All of these generally regard life as a short and sour time without much hope for improvement. So, not exactly a party band.For Adapting // Crawling, their first studio album since 2013, IRONLUNG take head shots at mental health with specific emphasis on the exacting tolls the Covid 19 pandemic took on humanity. The album acts as a sliced cadaver with each song a newly peeled layer exposing the corrosive effects of deep depression, a failed healthcare system, heavy grief from multiple friends/family deaths, paranoia and distrust of government, meaningless existence and loss. So much loss. When time disappeared between 2020 and 2023, the loss of function, of relation, of drive, of everything was incalculable. Life goes on but we lose a little more each day. To help cope with that crushing reality, IRON LUNG finally sat down and wrote about their pain. In order to not be consumed by it, they built a wall around themselves utilizing an “us versus them” modality in the lyrics. All of the band’s pointsof view are from the “we” stance and are funneled through their long established lens of antiquated medical procedures and devices. The only times that mode breaks is when quoting an outsider view before rejecting and destroying it. The power belongs to IRON LUNG and by association, to the allied listener.“Lifeless Life” paints the hopeless picture of being imprisoned in awindowless room. The flickering fluorescents are the only light source and offer no respite or inkling of time. A truly disorienting state akin to mental torture. This was a direct result of the pandemic.We asked Jensen about the ambitious song-infected-with-another-song idea that became “Purgatory Dust // Virus”, he shot back with: “That is a thing I always wanted to try. Never really had the time to figure it out. I suppose that little disruption had some benefit... Initially, I wanted it to be more of a seamless thing but the crudity of it speaks to the anxious nature of living though the pandemic way better than I could have planned it. At its core, ‘Purgatory Dust’ is about people not taking any precautions during the pandemic, causing even more of a spread and way more of a stupid panic. And then we introduce ‘Virus’ in the middle of the tune and let it wreak havoc for almost too long, sound familiar? When ‘Dust’ comes back it deals with the fallout from infection be it death or long term illness. That behavior really freaked me out during Covid, probably because I have studied the Polio epidemic a ton over the course of this band and people behaved pretty much exactly the same way back in the 50s. The echoes of it are staggering really. Same idiocy. Same willful ignorance and hostility toward reason, it’s fucked! Having Trump/Boris/Bolsonaro and the like in charge when Covid kicked off didn't help to calm people down either. Human nature is insane. I am surprised our species has lived this long.”“Cog II” grapples with how the governing bodies view their citizenry in a time of crisis. People are an expendable resource not unlike gasoline, compost or potable water. To achieve their ends, they take what they want from us and throw the rest away. So wasteful and inhumane.Though it seems that way on Adapting // Crawling, the future is not all darkness.
IRON LUNG
IRON LUNG has a lot of awesome shit planned for 2025 including plenty of touring and one-off appearances anywhere an airplane will take them. They’ve always been warmly received wherever they go, except those couple times they weren’t... Jensen Ward is well known for razor sharp stage banter that sometimes gets him into hot water with the locals, butthis is not the space for that sort of trash-talk, we will let him do that on his own. It’s new days ahead. One of the brightest upcoming spots is the What We Like weekend of shows they have planned in celebration of Adapting // Crawling’s worldwide release. They’ve invited 25 exceptional bands from all around the globe, most of them with excellent releases on their own Iron Lung Records imprint, to come play over the course of three days as well as hosting movie screenings, local food geniuses and a world class art show. All this happens April 18-20. These dudes have been working their asses off for more than a couple decadesand they do it all, not for money, but for the punk and DIY community, their chosen family. IRON LUNG would be nothing without their support and they feel like opening the doors just a little bit wider with this new album so we can all grow together and move toward something better than what exists now. They try, they fail, they adapt, they crawl and then they blast so we willeventually get there in style.Iron Lung is:Jensen Ward (vocals / drums)Jon Kortland (vocals / guitar)They are originally from Reno, NV but currently live in Seattle, WA and Reno respectively.Contact: ironlungrecords@hotmail.com Social: @ironlungrecords
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