Smoking Popes and Off With Their Heads at Turf Club (April 22, 2025)

With co-headliners at the Turf Club celebrating longevity and anniversaries of record releases, it was a punk rock special in Saint Paul for Off With Their Heads and Smoking Popes.

The opener was Mary Jam, a local Twin Cities surf rock / punk band. This trio (guitar, bass, and drum) came out swinging, with a low guttural screaming approach from the lead singer. The second song, You Don’t Want to Know, was an absolute beast of a song, with driving vocals and heavy guitar riffs underneath. Mary Jam was a perfect table setter for the evening ahead, with high energy. This Is a Joke, and I’m the Joke may be the best song title I’ve heard in a long while, and was a more musical number from the band. We got a great call out about for “close week” for certain companies and accountants, with a “if you know, you know”. (Side note: there are some notable Minnesota companies whose final week of the fiscal year is right now, though it turns out that Alli’s company has a close week every month, ugh.)

The next song, Anxiety, was called “really relatable”. The mix of humor and anger was a perfect punk vibe, and Mary Jam leaned in on those fronts. Lead singer Alli was electric and the absolute spark plug for the band. A cover of Wipeout was perfectly placed and got them moving into the close of their set. A final song “about mopeds, ‘cause I like mopeds” was an appropriately silly song to end on, and Mary Jam was done with their rapid fire 25 minute set.

Speaking with Alli afterwards, we chatted about the day job (see the side note above), with a largely unspoken understanding of balancing the day job with the activities that bring you joy. We also talked about the place that a punk band plays in the current environment. Alli said there is a huge amount of uncertainty that exists now, but that all the band can do is continue to be who they are. I hope to see more of Mary Jam in the future.

Smoking Popes was on next. Described as a pop punk band, the Chicago area natives are on the road with their most recognized album, Born To Quit, celebrating its 30th anniversary. Working through the album gave the early highlight Rubella with the dual guitars, plus bass and drums from the quartet. During the third song Gotta Know Right Now, we got a great statement from lead singer Josh Caterer (who founded the band with two of his brothers) on the history and persistence of this album’s fandom. They are playing the album in its entirety and it was clear how much they were enjoying playing this for an appreciative crowd.

Just Broke Up was a great example of the band’s strengths, with great guitar work and Josh’s low tenor vocals driving things along. Need You Around was closer to the pop than punk sound, but still had a hard edge to it. It was interesting to hear from the band that some of the songs rarely got played over the years, and that Can’t Help the Teardrops (From Getting Cried) was definitely one of them. I really enjoyed the band enjoying themselves and there is something to a veteran band doing their thing as much for themselves as the audience.

Pretty quickly (the album is 28 minutes long, after all) we were at the album closer On the Shoulder, but the band wasn’t near done. They went straight into other songs, starting with No More Smiles, without the slightest of breaks. Golden Moment, a song off their newest album Lovely Stuff showed that the band isn’t resting on laurels. Pretty Pathetic had a solid guitar solo and an introduction of the band. With the finals song, I Know You Love Me, Smoking Popes concluded their raucous set.

Off With Their Heads finished the night, getting to take the stage last on their first evening with Smoking Popes. They are a long time Minneapolis punk band, with a litany of local musicians as former members. The band has been centered around vocalist Ryan Young, who has kept the band going for nearly twenty five years. You knew it would be intense when during initial warm up the guitar was intensely loud and the lead singer simply pointed to the sound guy to turn it up more.

This was straight punk: short, loud songs, brief solos, rapidly moving along the set. Like Smoking Popes, the band was playing an album, In Desolation, in its entirety. It also brought back some of the key early members of the band, including long time contributor Justin Francis. Before getting to the album, they played some other numbers first, including Keep Falling Down, which ended with some distortion before continuing through.

The crowd got a full, rowdy mosh pit going, with a group of fans who clearly knew all the lyrics, such as on the song Nightlife. This was a brutally loud show, but exactly what a majority of the crowd had come for. Though that volume wasn’t what I am usually looking for in a band, it was fun to watch an audience who was there for exactly that. And it a good reminder that different people respond to different things in a live music event and that there is a lot of room out there for both bands and listeners. A full night of punk scratched an itch for a lot of people, at least for one night.