None More True

Via Piccsy

The American Carnage Tour Finally Happened

Ten things about this show:

• Testament, Megadeth, Slayer — all of ‘em still got it.
• The Tsongas Arena could have been an anomaly in the space-time continuum, transporting everyone inside back to 1991. If that was true, though, there would not have been as many dudes in their mid-forties.
• The staff had a thankless job. I sat in the stands, in the front row, and every two minutes, somebody without a floor ticket either begged the staff to get by, or just jumped the wall and ran into the crowd. I’d say the success rate was greater than 50 percent.
• Chuck Billy’s voice is enormous. I could hear him bellow from outside the venue and down the block. Holy shit. Only got to hear two songs once I was inside though.
• I don’t know the last time that Megadeth played “Lucretia,” “Polaris,” or “Dawn Patrol” live, but I’m damn glad I got to see it go down. The back half of Rust In Peace has never sounded so good to my ears.
• Dave Mustaine just cannot help himself sometimes. He just has to play some of the pedestrian, proto-butt-rock tunes from the mid-90s, doesn’t he? Yep, he whipped out the goofy double-neck guitar for “Trust,” and cooed “A Tout Le Monde” at us. Those were his biggest radio hits, sure, but the people who showed up to hear Rust In Peace and Seasons in the Abyss don’t give a shit. But thank Dave’s Christian God that the rest of the set was so mind-blowingly awesome.
• It was a good idea that Slayer played last. Megadeth fans will stay for Slayer, but Slayer fans don’t give a shit about anyone but Slayer.
• Slayer fucking rules. I get only a minor thrill from listening to anything since Divine Intervention, but live, you just can’t deny them. Proof: My non-metal girlfriend came with me (because she’s awesome and the rest of my friends are a bunch of blubbering bitches). I figured her favorite band of the night would be the relatively accessible Megadeth. After “War Ensemble,” I think she’d made up her mind that Slayer fucking rules.
• Tom Araya can’t really move much anymore, but his voice sounds as strong as ever (not counting the “Angel of Death” scream, which he hasn’t been able to pull off for a decade). Kerry King and Shinguards Hanneman are finally moving to compensate, and Dave Lombardo remains a huge force behind the kit, so it all balances out.
• I guess this tour will be cool when Anthrax hops on next month. But Metallica who?

Maryland Deathfest, Day One: So Sworn

Maryland Deathfest VIII was a blast. I’ve tried to piece together my version of the weekend below. I definitely needed the event schedule to remember which bands I saw; the times I had drinking beer and hanging out with new people were just as fun as the actual concerts. From the beginning:

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Traveling down to Baltimore was uneventful. I was a good American and remembered to take off my shoes and belt when I waltzed through airport security, dressed like a dirty hippie in baggy clothes and sandals. The flight took off on time and landed at BWI ahead of schedule. I cabbed it to our hotel, the luxurious Quality Inn over in the Halethorpe section of town.

Apparently, it’s a pretty dodgy area, but the hotel seemed well insulated from all the riff-raff a few blocks away. It was one of those types of hotels with outdoor staircases and walkways on every floor, so it was easy to make friends just by chilling out in front of the room on the “balcony.” There was also a cheap liquor store right up the hill, so no complaints here.

My buddies were stuck in some vicious Memorial Day traffic in Pennsylvania, and I didn’t want to be a dick and leave for the show without them, so I had about three hours to kill. I bought a case of Yeungling and made friends with some fellow death-festers who were hanging out on the balcony (see? instant buddies). There were some grim-looking folks hanging out on a bench near the hotel waiting for a cab to the venue. We tried to get them to drink some beer with us, but I guess they were too kvlt for us “normals.”

Arrival

Us cool kids hung out for 10 minutes or so, but it was about 3 pm and the fest was starting, so all my new friends took off. I saw a few more headbangers coming and going over the next few hours, but mostly lots of bros checking into the hotel. The NCAA Lacrosse championship was in town, it turned out, and the testosterone levels at the Quality Inn were set to critical levels.

I know nothing about lacrosse, and these bros know nothing about death metal. Our respective groups were getting in the fuckin’ drunk zone for our big weekends, and at that point, I would rather have eaten a beer bottle than talk to lax bros and pretend to care about all the “heavy shit” that they’re into like Disturbed and Devil Wears Prada. So I holed up in the room, ordered some Dominoes, and waited for my buddies to arrive.

A shout out is in order for the metal mom of the Quality Inn, who squired the two 15-year-old metalheads around for the weekend. When I was 15, I had a hard time convincing my mom to let me go to one day of the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, 45 minutes from where I lived. A three-day festival in a different city would be out of the question. This was the coolest mom ever.

After about three episodes of Law and Order: SVU, the ‘Cuse crew finally made it. We pounded a few beers, powdered up (anyone who does not appreciate the soothing qualities of talcum powder in your asscrack and grundle on a hot summer day is really missing something in life) and hopped in a cab for Club Sonar.

The area around Sonar was a heavy metal paradise. Club Sonar abuts I-83, so the parking lot under the highway served as a huge tailgating area. Dozens of crusty dudes hung in and around vans and cars outside the gates, drinking beers, smoking grass, and I’m sure plenty of other sketchy shit that I don’t want to know about.

Lots of people.

The line stretched a few dozen yards down from the gate, but security was pretty relaxed and the line moved fast. The layout in the festival area was brilliant. Most of a city block was sectioned off for the event, so the landscaping was a bit more varied than what I’d expected. There were two outdoor stages: one in front of club doors, with a few Baltimore high rises in the background; the other was wrapped around the side of the club, up on an incline. In between, there were dozens of tents peddling booze, delicious food, and thousands of items of merch from bands I’ve never heard of before.

We arrived around 6 pm; we missed Tombs by a few minutes, which was a bummer, but I’d seen them about a month prior in a cozy bar near my apartment. I believe Malignancy was playing when we showed up, though we only got to see a few minutes of their set. It was sufficiently brutal, and I remember the stage banter being pretty entertaining.

I was amazed at the number of people who already looked partied-out at 6. Most of them looked young compared to the crowd as a whole (the average age was like 27 or 28, but ranged from 14 to 60). It was amusing to see kids perched on the curb with their heads between their knees, still in broad daylight with a full six hours of music ahead. Pacing is a virtue.

That said, they probably picked a good time to wipe out for a few hours. The lineup was pretty sparse for a period after Malignancy. Birds of Prey was pretty cool, nice groovy stuff. But I like them about as much as I do on record: the first few songs sound sweet, but it’s too homogeneous to hold my attention. I noticed that Summer Welch cut his hair off, which made him tough to recognize. My friend also ran into Dave Witte in line for the bathroom:

Al: “Hey! You’re Dave Witte, aren’t you?”

Dave: “Witt-e, actually. I think that pisser is open.”

Al: “Cool man! Nice to meet you!”

A few sets got canceled for the night, so the schedule got all loopy for a period. A few members of Possessed missed their flights (oops), so Naxzul moved up into their spot. They were pretty whack — black metal doesn’t come across well in the daylight, I discovered, especially when it’s as boring as this. I think the singer’s kvlt priest-robe outfit was purchased at a party supply store.

Trap Them also bailed (not sure why, but it was bummer for sure), so that opened up the main room for Watain. Animal heads were in tow and blasphemously mounted all over the stage. I guess the organizers told them that spewing animal guts into the crowd would be a big no-no. Even without the GWAR-style theatrics, I thought they were pretty rad. The sound was a bit muddy, and there could’ve been a little more evil in the mix, but they were definitely sworn.

So sworn.

Gorguts (or Luc Lemay and the tech metal all-stars) was the band of the night for me. Sound was punchy, performances were tight — they have to be for music as spazzy as this. It was getting a bit late when they went on, about 9:45 or so, and when they hit the first chord, a whole bunch of lights in a big condo building behind the venue turned on instantly. I can just imagine all the yuppies up there going “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GODAWFUL NOISE?!?!” Classic.

Crappy picture of Gorguts

Gride was awesome! I wish I had caught more of their set (the night air went well with our beers, so we hung outside for a bit), but the 20 minutes of face-ripping hardcore/grind that I did manage to catch was excellent. I’d never heard of these guys before (obscure Czech grind bands tend to fly under my radar), but I think I’ll be checking them out in the future.

I was getting pretty exhausted, and even with the full-blast air conditioning, the main room started to feel a bit claustrophobic. Coffins really wasn’t doing much for my friends and me, so we grabbed some more beers and perused the merch areas. Found Godflesh – Streetcleaner on colored vinyl for $8. Excellent.

Dunno that guy in the middle, but he seems cool

You’d have to be a real jackass to pass up an opportunity to see DRI. The three of us were feeling pretty sleepy, but we stuck around for a few tunes. It might’ve just been us, or it might’ve been the mix, but the imbeciles sounded a bit flat. We went to go look for a cab before the rest of the crowd did. Grabbed a few more beers at the hotel, hit up the store for some snacks, and posted up on the lawn in front of the hotel with a few fellow concert-goers. The British fellow among them offered us some of his Jim Beam, but we were hoping to make it up on time for Howl at 11:45 the next morning and decided that liquor at 1:30  probably wasn’t a wise decision. Bedtime for us after that.

In retrospect, Friday felt like a warm-up to the rest of the weekend. Saturday would lead us to the downtown prison and an Aldi, give us a sticky bass drum and some Dio covers, and turn out the best sets of the weekend.

Cold and Shining

The (Norwegian) Shining’s Blackjazz is my “something different” this month. A buddy recommended it after I told him how much I was digging the sax on Ihsahn’s After. I was expecting to hear some eclectic black metal-derivative here. Instead, I got some industrial. I never, ever, never listen to that genre at all — no Godflesh, nothing — so maybe that’s why this sounds fresh to me. But I’m genuinely finding the first two tracks infectious, which seems odd for a style meant to sound like it’s devoid of all human spirit. Maybe there is something to the insane genre-smashing hype in their MySpace bio.

The first half of the album is like a soundtrack to a computer crashing, or maybe declaring war on humanity Skynet style. Perhaps this is what we’ll hear at the Singularity, when the line between man and machine blurs beyond recognition or repair. But after “The Madness and the Damage Done Pt. II,” Blackjazz sputters out into noisy filler. The King Crimson cover at the end is a nice save, and my overall impression of the album is a positive one. It’s best when the cold, sinister, machine-like driving intensity is at the fore, not the “experimental” wanking the record label seems to be pushing. Definitely worth a few listens, if at least as non-metal listening. Maybe I’ll finally check out Streetcleaner now.

That Was Fuckin’ Clutch Dude

I planned to be a solid eight hours into a two day New Year’s bender when I saw Clutch at the House of Blues on Dec. 30. But since I’d been drinking constantly since around Christmas Eve, I couldn’t bring myself to become the shitshow I desperately wanted to be. Instead, I had more of what Clutch would call a “Subtle Hustle” going on: kinda fucked up all day, but nobody can tell. It was a good state of mind to be in.

Wait, maaan...whaaat?

Clutch had always been on my radar but I only really started paying attention around From Beale Street To Oblivion. So I was little confused when two songs into a five-song mini-set of Strange Cousins From The West, Neal Fallon reminded us “in case we didn’t get the memo” that they’d be playing the entire self-titled record. “Make yourselves at home, cuz we’re gonna be here a while.” I guess missed the memo.

Clutch — Rock N Roll Outlaw

Yes, it felt like 1994 in the House of Blues. As soon as the hee-haw chorus of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Outlaw” kicked in, it was pretty clear who the the old fans were (can’t say I was one of them). It was a nice nod for the long-timers, the guys and girls that showed up to hear more than the guys bang-bang through “Electric Worry” (which they didn’t).

Neal Fallon is Clutch’s entire stage presence. In a different era, he would’ve been a preacher, spitting some verse at the true believers, gesturing because it just makes good fuckin’ sense. Some movement, any movement at all out of Tim Sult and Dan Maines would’ve been great. But if they have to stand like statues to sound that good, so be it. Meanwhile, JP Gaster looked extra baked. Clutch has been in my regular rotation since the show.

Doomriders, whose catalog I also haven’t spent a lot of time with, also were great. In some way, a way I expect nobody to understand, Nate newton reminds me of Danzig as a frontman. He doesn’t air hump or moan like a wounded animal; maybe it’s because he’s kinda small (he looks a lot smaller next to the lanky guy from Disappearer than he does next to Jake Bannon). It’s probably because his music makes me wicked happy.

This whole show made me wicked happy. 1994 must’ve been awesome as long as you weren’t a diehard thrasher.

–Liam

A Few Words On That Amusing New York Times Article

Last week, the New York Times ran a report from “Hideous Gnosis” which the Grey Lady described as “a six-hour theory symposium on black-metal music” at Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s Public Assembly bar.

I’d heard about this on Invisible Oranges and was moderately intrigued. I don’t like the music, but it’s impossible as a metal fan to completely ignore the sub-genre’s impact, and I giggled at the thought of this “symposium.” I imagined a kvlt event like that would be held at a cold, concrete dungeon, adorned with candles and big tomes written in dead languages — kind of like the glimpse we got into Gaahl’s basement in A Headbanger’s Journey. A bar was probably a better setting–nothing better than a quick side-game of Golden Tee to keep you awake during a snoozer like this. (Ohhh snap!)

But the article in the Times (“Thank You, Professor, That Was Putrid”) genuinely piqued my interest in the event. Writer Ben Ratliff did a respectable job explaining the bare-bones-basic nuances of extreme metal in a way that the average non-metal Times reader could understand (one of my non-metal coworkers seemed to get the gist of it). He avoided getting ass-kissy or judgmental, and he clearly knows enough about black metal to write with (relative) authority. There were some groan-worthy moments — my eyes rolled back into my head reading Liturgy‘s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s thoughts on “burst beats” and the American spirit of transcendentalism in his band’s music — but it got my gears turning.

My first instinct was to write a sarcastic post here about how nerdy and unmetal the idea of studying metal is, but I’ve decided to give the “Hideous Gnosis” transcripts a read-through and try — God, I’ll try– to give the music a fair shake again. Pretentious opining to follow.

~ Liam

Faceless Dying Fetuses Depraving Planet New Hampshire

Fuckin’ New Hampshire, with their “no taxes” and “live free or die” mumbo jumbo. The kind of state that hosts the heavy-hitting Planetary Depravity with Dying Fetus and the Faceless tour went down in a function room with plywood walls above a shitty sports bar in Manchester called Rocko’s. I knew I wouldn’t be drinking, so I tried to time the two-hour drive up there last Friday (November 27th) so that we would miss every single opening band (nothing worse than being stuck stone-cold sober at a deathcore show). I planned right, but we arrived to a “Sold Out” sign taped to the front door. That’s the first time I’ve ever been shut out of a show. As my buddy and I stood outside lamenting, the door swung open.

Vital remains wasn't playing, so I took my sweet-ass time getting to Manchester for this one.

“You have to go!” a bro in a red plaid shirt yelled as a kid in a black beanie stumbled out backwards. “You groped a girl! We already told you to get out of Here! Her father is in there ready to beat your ass! You’re not welcome! Get out!” The black-beanied transgressor was putting up a fight, so two more plaid bros emerged from the club to force the kid out the door. As the last bro cleared the doorway, my buddy muttered “Go…GO!” and we slipped in undetected. We couldn’t have planned that shit if we tried–the best free show I ever saw! I got to buy a t-shirt and go out drinking the next night.

A composite sketch of the offender.

Fetus was great, despite the second-rate sound system at Rocko’s. I really like them as a three piece–the whole set was really crisp and nimble for such a crushing display of brutality. Trey Williams is an absolute beast behind the kit, and he actually has a presence and a personality that sticks out from back there, sort of a hardcore-drummer vibe in general. He likes to stand up and point his sticks at the crowd during the guitar breaks, and a brings a sense of groove back to the band that’s been missing in the last few lineups. John Gallagher is a God of death metal. I’d listen to that guy play out of a guitar exercise book, because I’m pretty sure he’d manage to turn it into a sweet metal breakdown somehow. Sean Beasley seems like a cool dude, good presence–I didn’t realize how fucking big that guy is ’til I shook his hand after the show.

The Rev is taking videos now — awesome!!!

The Faceless made a fan out of me when I saw them at the first Summer Slaughter tour a few years ago, and I was impressed again this time. I prefer Akeldama by a longshot, but it was very cool to see them play Planetary Duality front to back–it sounded exactly like the record, which was impressive for such an intricate piece of music.

The mosh pit acrobatics were almost as entertaining as the show itself. I saw a fireman-carry-whirlwind, which was hilarious; grown men high-fiving after gnarly somersaults into each other; and a 15 year old Carrot Top lookalike set a fucking Olympic high-jump record onto the pile at the front of the stage. I also saw a short young man dressed in Elmo paraphernalia, head to toe. The muppet. I shit you not. I wish I had a picture, because words can’t describe it. This was the kind of rowdy, rambunctious vibe that’s impossible to find at a death metal show in Boston, so I guess New Hampshire turned out to be a pretty good place to check out Fetus after all.

~Liam

Taking Music Snobbery To The Next Level

I’ve been a fucking dork about music for about 13 years, but I’d never bought anything on vinyl until about a month ago. My collection — actually let me call it a library, because now I’m officially a pretentious record collector — has been growing steadily, and I still don’t own a record player. I didn’t consider how dumb this must sound to some people until a friend pointed it out to me — I could keep buying CDs for less money, but instead I’m spending more on something I have no use for.

Right now, let’s just say I’m “between formats.” It’s an ugly situation for a nerd to be in. When I sold my car last month, my last decent CD player went with it. Without a way to play CDs, I’m really just paying for the art and printed lyrics. Art is cooler when it’s 12 inches large than when its 5 inches small. If I can’t play either format, I’m going for the big art. It makes sense to me, but my friends think I’m turning into that doughy record-store clerk that John Cusack played.

I can only rectify this situation in two ways: a) start to wear ball huggers and an ironic mustache or b) buy a turntable. If anybody has any advice on buying a record player, help me out in the comments section because I’m totally clueless.

~ Liam