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THURSDAY

The one-minute punk song pretty much died along with the first Bush administration—unless you count all those puffed-up late-’90s hardcore revivalists who never learned how to be funny. Wrangler Brutes frontman Sam McPheeters knows the deal, though: He fought the good fight in Born Against, and he dumps a ton of crusty-punk wit into the Brutes’ quick ditties. The targets are clearly defined, from mall culture and our TV nation to skeevy senators, racial politics, oil dependency, and Ariel Sharon. It helps that guitarist Andy Coronado (Skull Kontrol, Monorchid) knows how to keep shit frantic, like it’s 1986 all over again. The virtually guitarless Rah Bras can be just as efficient, but they’re infinitely weirder. And if their big-synth noise isn’t something one might describe as “good,” it’s at least silly and discomforting. The Richmond band tops it all off with a stage show that has been known to mix campy sex-farm stage antics and wink-wink Middle-earth histrionics. Broadswords, ho! Both acts get loud with the Party Line at 8:30 p.m. at the Warehouse Next Door, 1017 7th St. NW. $7. (202) 783-3933. (Joe Warminsky)