Friends forever.

KIDS THINK THEY'VE SEEN EVERYTHING, RIGHT? Sterling silver studs stuck through ass cheeks, hair died more shades of the rainbow than the colored corn puffs in their sugar cereals, and bands that make the world their stage--from basements to warehouses to the middle of the club (that last one thanks to Providence, Rhode island's art-metal vibrators Lightning Bolt). But just as punk's artistic edge threatens to become duller than airplane silverware, Denver, Colorado's Friends Forever ride to the rescue, rifling the neighbors, pissing off the police, and confusing the club owners with their DIY performance style.

Take, for example, a recent Sunday afternoon in Seattle when the Friends Forever showmobile pulled into a vacant lot behind a small art gallery. Their portable stage consisted of the sort of Volkswagen van hippies abandoned long ago for Trustafarian SUVs, a rusty twinkie on wheels that opened to expose the guts of the operation--a tangle of chess, lights, and odd contraptions At the center of this mess sat drummer Nate Hayden, ready to pound the cobwebs outta the cocked heads of the indie kids milling curiously around him Perched like guardsmen in front of the van were bassist Josh Taylor and keyboardist Jason Isaacs, each with their own instrumental weaponry and theatrical armor. Isaacs wore a backpack that would shoot fireworks out in a swirl of sparks and smoke, while Taylor would yank an enormous, quick-inflating ball above his head and shove it through the crowd like an erratic tight end scoring the winning touchdown, in the meantime, the bearded bassist used his chord as a lasso, corralling the cool kids into movement or otherwise forcing them to suffer the consequences (tailing to their ass on the hard gravel yard). Most of the crowd chose the former option.

To say that Friends Forever value the art of performance is like saying that Slayer know how to shred. It's everything they are and everything they do That mantra includes the use of fireworks, power sports, colored smoke bombs, and the kinda noisy, ass-ratting lowbrow art rock that could very well shake the last 15 years of junk food consumption from your bowels in two-second blasts of bottom-heavy noise. Their music is an eerie death rattle that climaxes with the pained screams of a man being boiled in oil At other times they sound like a marching band filtered through your worst hangover--a post-drinking experience that causes sound to warp away from your ears the faster it comes at you

Friends Forever's new collection of recorded chaos, on Load Records, is called Killball. Taylor says the album's meaning--and perhaps the reasoning behind his giant inflatable show prop is: "It's a sport we see happening in the future--like football but played to the death Denver's the hugest sports town I've ever seen and [Killball] is land of our own version of football."

When we inquire as to the rules of the game. Taylor stutters a bit, saying, "Jeez, I don't even remember them right now. Nate pretty much invented the game and it has a lot to do with getting your players totally messed up on PCP and giving them weapons" Clearer in Taylor's memory is how he and Hayden started the band, back in 1997 when they were living in Hollywood, CA.

They were two shy dudes living in their ears with no clue how to schmooze, so they made their own shows. "We would totally crash people's parties," he laughs. "We'd never talk to people. we'd just start playing. We just figured that if we bought a power source and generator we could play anywhere we wanted to. Living in Denver if an awesome band comes through that we want to open for and none of the promoters of the show want us to play, we can still play out front and have fun. The concept was pretty easy."

The band have since overtaken numerous sidewalks back alleys, parking lots, and other such normally wasted spaces--a chunk of their performances were documented in Ben Wolfinsohn's 2001 DVD, Friends Forever. The footage shows Taylor and Hayden--then a two-piece dealing with their vomiting dogs, impromptu West Coast shows, and most often. the police, who were constantly busting their shit up in swankier cities like San Luis Obispo, CA. When asked how the hand deals with The Law, both on the street and in the clubs, Taylor answers, "It's always the same battle. It's easy with the cops to say. 'Oh we didn't know this was illegal. We won't do it again.' and then you just leave town and you don't have to worry about it. It's harder with the club owners, because I see where they're coming from as far as putting their time and effort into having this club for people to have fun at, and you're coming along and maybe jeopardizing it. So we try to do the best we can and make them happy without being total jerks."