When I was a younger man living in the northwest corner of Indiana, I would occasionally find a weekend away from crisscrossing the backroads of the Great Lakes region and rough camping, or squatting, as the cops liked to call it, on the shores of my dear inland seas. On these rare sabbaticals, I liked to go into Chicago and see what sort of issues I could cause. This led to many instances wherein I squirmed into bars, clubs, and basement venues I had no business in, being that I was a minor. And yet I had plentiful amounts of mushrooms to bribe the doormen, women, and theys with, which allowed me both entry to these venues and the opportunity to see hundreds of incredible underground acts, like, for instance, Bev Rage and the Drinks.
These cats are a group of punk rockers, fronted by one Beverly Rage, Chicago's own vicious queen of drag, who have taken over the Windy City's punk scene. I gas them up, but in this case you don't have to just take the dirty hippie’s word for it, as the band won the title of Chicago's Best Punk Band in 2024 and again in 2025, so if you didn't believe me, you may now suck it.
If you’ve been flying so far under the radar that you haven’t heard of these punk-rock all-stars yet, well, now you have, and now is the time to get caught up. Coming spring of 2027, Bev Rage & the Drinks are dropping their fourth studio album, “Demons,” which means you have three other records to take in before the next equinox. But we’re not here today to talk about that, are we? No, we’re here to talk about the new single being released to tease the album, “Break My Back.”
“Break My Back” is the sound of a grimy club lit up in neon and packed full of snarling creatures of the night. It’s a sardonic, overdriven storm of drums and guitars meant to rose-tint your world. A simple classic punk track bursting at the seams with intoxicating riffs and compressed vocals, which nip at the brain like a woodpecker at a tree until they are driven so far into your gray matter that you simply won’t ever be able to get them out. In typical Bev Rage & the Drinks fashion, the song is a twisting labyrinth of hot licks, tasty beats, and fun but ferocious lyrics, which play around with the concepts of heteronormativity and the dark side of queer nightlife; well, how bout that? Is that enough with the Rocky references? How about one more for those in the audience who can’t get down with a little queer culture in their feed: eat shit and die!
You can find “Break My Back” streaming everywhere now, so if you need a little pick-me-up today—and trust me, you do—this one’s for you. There’s nothing that livens up a chilly October morning like a red-hot punk tune blowing out your car's speakers, and that’s a fact. Give the track a try to see undeniable proof that nobody does punk rock like Chicago.
