Metal’s been on my mind again of late as I’ve been sitting on the dimly-remembered details of a recent concert here in the Twin Cities for a couple weeks. Procrastination toward tapping fingers on keys after shows has been plaguing me all year. The malaise started with the ACME Fest back in April- another project that rots partially-finished in my leaky copy can. But back to the purpose of this post. Four bands, one gig, at the fabled Triple Rock Social Club on the Minneapolis’ West Bank: Countach, Aldabaren, Pelican and Zebulon Pike. Black Sabbath seems the spiritual and secular root of all four outfits, though each spun the venerated texts of embryonic riffage into different personalized fabric. The common thread of murky minor keys and seismic sternum-rattling slabs of guitar coupled to monolithic pulsing bass lines kept the bands in an elliptical orbit with the object of their inspiration.
In a shady turn of events that smelled strongly to me of payola and local nepotism Zebulon Pike headlined- a pole-position far more deserving of Pelican who occupied the runner-up slot. Countach, a four-piece comprised of two guitarists (one string bean and one bullet-headed with tats), bassist (axe slung low to the knees and equipped with long greasy black locks ideal for whipping into pinwheels on particularly sludgy cyclic riffs) and drummer (shirtless and largely obscured by his kit, prone to sledgehammer beats). I’m pretty sure they did an actual Sabbath cover toward the end of the set put I couldn’t quite place the tune. All three string players copped some great fuzz tones, trading in blues heavy power chords on most songs. A few even employed harmony vocals that reminded me of early Foghat or Deep Purple. Nearly all of the lyrics seemed to revolve around the universal testosterone themes of ladies and lust. Overall it was a great warm-up to what would follow.
Surprisingly the space between bands marked by nearly complete exchanges of equipment. Drum kits were completely disassembled and new amp stacks were trundled on stage. In all it was a very different protocol than what I’m used to with jazz gigs where different ensembles share, at the very least, the same trap set. A DJ cloistered at the back of the bar cued up a recurring medley of old and recent metal hits. The only ones I recognized were “Shout at the Devil” and “Ace of Spades.”
Aldabaren took the stage next. Just guitar, bass drums, but still packing a collective wallop between them these guys seemed more grindcore than stoner metal (by my admittedly stunted taxonomy). The bassist adopted a very theatrical approach with lots of splayed dramatic stances, leaning back into the dark groove erected by his coiled strings, sweat-soaked hair falling across his tortured face in sticky tendrils. The guitarist mixed fast arpeggiated leads with the menacing swollen riffs. His vocals were growls and screams, lyrics unintelligible. They had the look and attitude down, but the set seemed a little long and forced near its end.
Another short intermission and Pelican plugged in. They opened with “Nightenday,” the first track from their first (and only) full-length, Austrailasia. Starting slow the piece gradually evolved into an epic jam without the acoustic breaks. They were easily as loud as their predecessors, but mixed the volume with a strong melodic sense that quickly gave them the edge in my opinion. The flanging guitars and miasmic volume brought to mind heavier variants of My Bloody Valentine and Last Days of May. Trailing the last threads of dissipating distortion with brief band introductions, the bassist announced that the rest of the set would be material they were working on for their next album. Recurring problems with the drum monitor shorting out, but they soldiered on. The deluge of layered drones brought to mind My Bloody Valentine, especially in relation to the tentacles of striated distortion surging from the stacks.
I don’t know either by name, but the two guitarists struck a balance of Dionysian and Apollonian on the stage’s two sides. The former pogo-ed up in down in place, gesticulating with the neck of his axe at the air around him, his head snapping in time with the wave-like riffs. The other sunk his neck into his shoulders, buckled his knees and squeezed his eyes tight. The slightest smirk crossed his lips and he seemed entranced by the wall of fuzz flooding out of the amp behind him. The bassist stood center also looked engrossed in the pulsing cascades of tightly marshaled noise swirling around him, bearing the full brunt of the steady hammering pulse conjured by the drummer. As grainy and massive as the guitars were there was still an odd unifying purity to there sound, particularly when pressed into service in realizing the glorious fanfare-like themes that anchored most of the pieces. It was a quick set, just five songs occupying a little under an hour, but if any of the fresh music makes it to record the new disc should be a mighty follow-up.
Last band of the night was Zebulon Pike. A local four-piece that includes the bassist from Happy Apple (which in turn had Dave King in the ranks before he hit the big time with The Bad Plus,) they looked like a strange amalgam of Faith No More and Anthrax. Somehow they managed to swipe the lead spot from Pelican (big fish in a little pond?), but nothing about their set suggested the coup was warranted. Most of the songs featured competent playing, but a continuous need for over-the-top tomfoolery deposited their shtick dangerously close to self-parody. Also hindering the balance were rickety interludes between the bridges for guitar solos that sometimes fizzled under needless wankery. One tune hit a righteous groove, but the others felt slapdashed and overly beholden to fireworks. The guitarist front man was especially contradictory in this regard, sporting a bald pate and bushy goatee akin to Scott Ian and aping grandiose rock postures, but only producing weak-kneed noodling during his solos. The band’s website lists Mountain, Rush and Bartok as guiding influences, but strangely no Sabbath. Points for trying to leap beyond what appear to be some fairly narrow parameters established for the idiom, but it often was a case of too many ingredients spoiling the goulash. I have to confess being glad when the death knell of their final song sounded. With four full sets of music exhausted I tipped back one more watered-down Bloody Mary and hit the bricks, ears ringing pleasantly and a nice spring in my step for the trot back to my car.
Talking with my friend later I learned she was fascinated by the gender dynamics at the show. Nearly all male and many seemingly single. I was caught off guard by the mellow, even docile behavior of the audience. There was sporadic metronomic head-banging, but virtually no outward aggression until Zebulon Pike’s performance when two ‘fights’ broke out. Coincidence? I dunno. Both were little more than minor pushing/shoving matches, one with an errant headlock answered by quick ejection by the bar security team. I’m curious if this sort of sedate, even polite demeanor is commonplace at metal shows these days? Also wondering what others think of these bands. I’m aware of Jason and Phil’s opinions of Pelican (ones I think I share), but are there other Bags readers who listen to this stuff?
There was a time when pretty much everything I listed to contained growls or yells. When I was a highschooler in Memphis, the best bands were the hardest. It took three years in Chapel Hill to turn me on to indie-rock! I'd say my early interest in 'avant-garde' music came from following a line of extremes.
The only band I keep up with these days is Neurosis. Haven't heard their new cd, but judging from the last one, they're in decline for me. I'll still go see them in December, as their stage show is awesome (as long as the london metal band ticket price ain't too high).
I've come to think over the past year or so that there's better things to do in this increasingly ugly world than make ugly music. Perhaps a couple of decades ago it was necessary to reveal society's ugliness in true form, but these days it doesn't have the impact. By no means am I saying all heavy bands do this. I'm just working out my background thoughts on Derek's observations of crowd demographics at these shows.
Perhaps the main group of people left who will feel like this music tears down society's barriers are suburban kids, and in particular boys struggling to cope with surging testosterone levels, for which this music also provides alleviation. So there's your single men.
But docile? One, they're mostly suburban and tame. Two, they're into slightly more urbane realms of metal/punk/whatever (shit--Pelican were written up in the Wire!). Three, did you see this show in a big city, Derek? People in more 'cultured' areas have long ago learned not to mosh to Fugazi, but go to somewhere like Knoxville Tennessee and any music reaching thresholds of either speed or volume will incite a shirtless mob. (At least that was the case a few years ago).
In my view you'll find two kinds of moshing people these days. 1) Your muscle-bound dudes at a Pantera show. We had plenty in Memphis thanks to a nearby naval base. 2) Suburban kids who have learned thanks to MTV and other mass-cultural devices that this is a formal mode of expression at a rock concert. Often they will ask you 'You wanna start a pit?'. (This has happened to me at Fugazi and Rocket From the Crypt--different shows, different towns). The rock videos obviously didn't explain spontaneity. Oh, yeah, and there's just the occasional drunk/crazy dude who probably doesn't know why he's in the building. I prefer the cute kids, as they usually don't use fists.
Visitng the Relapse site these days scares me. I'm not used to so many hardcore kids looking like weightlifters.
My girlfriend marvels at the gender dynamics of improv gigs. Same story, but with more beards? ;) And in the same way for improv (or any other genre) I feel I have less and less time for 'ugly' music. Ugly is an awkward way to say it, but I can't think of a suitable way to describe it. Non-uplifting? Negative? Negativity is a big part of it.
And I think there's many music scenes that need to think more about their gender relations.
I've noticed a few band names like Pelican, Mastodon, Pterodactyl. Does this suggest not Sabbath, but Budgie? ;)
Posted by: Michael Rodgers at October 19, 2004 6:24 AM>>(shit--Pelican were written up in the Wire!)
By me. Thanks for noticing.
Posted by: phil at October 19, 2004 7:03 AMMichael, thanks for the thoughts & observations (better than my blog entry by a solid mile :) I caught the show in Minneapolis which has a population of just under 400K; add nearby St. Paul and the figure balloons to nearly 700K+. There were probably 60-70 people at the venue, surprisingly small turnout.
Great parallel to improv audiences, jazz & otherwise- the balding, pony-tailed, forty-something white male in a natural habitat :) The critical/journalistic side seems to carry the same severe problematic slant.
The negativity element makes sense too, though one of the things I like best about Pelican are the threads of light shot through all the gloom (occasional major chords, acoustic instruments, etc.). When I first started listening to Sabbath (in the late 80s) I’d try to imagine what listeners a decade earlier were like. My favorite archetype- the disaffected long-hair stoner teenager, cloistered in his bedroom in his parent’s house, dome-shaped ear-goggles shutting out all but the massive fuzz of Iommi’s guitar and Butler’s bass as Ozzy intones lyrics just to him. It must’ve been quite the tonic for angst and loneliness.
Phil, what’re your thoughts on the demographics & the reasons behind them?
>>Phil, what’re your thoughts on the demographics & the reasons behind them?
Is this a "why don't girls like metal?" question? Because I know lots of girls who do like metal - most of the publicists I deal with are women (Hannah at Nuclear Blast is a good example, as was her predecessor, Jill, not to mention Jamie and Maria at Roadrunner and Maria from Adrenaline PR, Debbie at Mazur, a new girl at Relapse whose name I forget...), and I see girls at metal shows all the time. A sizable portion of the Ozzfest audience was female this year - maybe not half, but close to it, and I doubt they were there to swoon over the decidedly un-dreamy guys in Slayer and Superjoint Ritual. Then there's all the female metal musicians, and I'm not just talking about Kittie, but also about Liz Buckingham, the new guitarist for Electric Wizard, and a bunch of others whose names escape me right now.
While MR's points about the steakheadedness of flyover metal audiences are probably valid ones (I stick to the coasts, one trip to Chicago aside, so I have no way of arguing with him), the scene around me has become much less mosh-friendly and much more headbang-friendly in recent years. I remember going to see Opeth a year or two ago and boggling at how the audience was basically a muso crowd, there to watch Mike Akerfeldt's flying fingers and worship, rather than tear shit up. The same is true of hardcore death metal shows I've seen lately (Napalm Death, Nile, Strapping Young Lad, Immortal)...folks mostly just stand there and watch the band, clapping at the end of a song just as if they were at a Paul Simon show.
By the way...maybe, again, this is a New York thing, but I wasn't nearly as struck by the sausage-party nature of the crowds as by the overwhelming Latino-ness of them. That's a topic for another time, I think - the Latino metal audience is huge, defying all mythologies about how the music is aimed at suburban white boyz.
As far as this is concerned:
>>I think there's many music scenes that need to think more about their gender relations.
Agreed, but I think the starting point is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, not your local metal dive. Fight actual gender segregation, not places booking bands chicks (theoretically) don't like.
Posted by: phil at October 19, 2004 9:51 AM"A sizable portion of the Ozzfest audience was female this year - maybe not half, but close to it"
I was at Ozzfest also this year, the Jones Beach set, and I don't really think this is true, I'd put it at closer to 20 percent, but I'm not going to argue. what I will say is that it was an almost exclusively white crowd, I didn't notice many Latinos, not that I was spending too much time thinking about any of this.
what did I think of the day? ten hours of my life I'll never get back, a total waste of time only slightly redeemed by the nine minutes of War Pigs near the end. what was mildly, momentarily interesting was to realize how much of the show was completely composed, the exact same experience no matter which night of the tour you saw them. the order of the bands was the same every night, I'm guessing the set order for most of the bands was the same each night, even the guitar solos were exactly the same note for note from the records. so painfully dull, and Judas Priest weren't even good the first time around.
(why did I go? huge favor to my friend who had to cover it and needed last-minute company)
Posted by: jon abbey at October 19, 2004 10:16 AMMetal not so much about the improvisation? Gosh, you don't say.
Posted by: phil at October 19, 2004 10:18 AMThanks for the reply, Phil. I don’t know enough about metal scene to argue whether the number of girls to guys who like it is commensurate or not (an impossible question to answer with any certainty anyway). The attendance at the one show I went to was definitely skewed to the Y chromo side, but maybe it was just a Midwest thing & all the guys’ girlfriends were out clubbing? Dunno.
I do feel comfortable leveling a claim of disparity when it comes to free jazz/improv. Those audiences aren’t by any means universally male, but the females have always been in the minority in my experience. Interesting to hear that the stationary attentive/catatonic body stances I witnessed aren’t just a regional thing.
Latino metal? Something I know zero about. Relatedly, is there such a thing as African metal? What about Chinese? Sounds like the ideal topic for a blog post… get cracking if you’ve got the gumption.
What’s with all the meat references (steakheadedness, sausage-party, etc.)? Philly cheese for lunch? :)
Posted by: derek at October 19, 2004 10:37 AMJon, curious if there’s any ‘metal’ you enjoy or have enjoyed in the past? Curious too how you know that everything was exactly the same on each tour stop of Ozzfest if you only attended the Jones Beach set? These aren’t intended as pointed questions, I’m just curious.
Posted by: derek at October 19, 2004 10:46 AMactually, I never really thought about it much before that (you have a lot of time to think when bored out of your skull for ten hours), but I have almost no metal in my listening background. a couple of Black Sabbath records, no Motorhead, no Metallica, on and on. it was just never something that interested me much on a band-by-band basis, but I never realized how little I'd heard/cared about the genre as a whole before that day.
as for the same-iness of it night to night, I was with a bunch of journalists who are pretty expert in the field, and they confirmed this for me. Phil's sardonic one-liner above also confirms this. I'm not saying all music has to be improvisatory, far from it, but as someone who hadn't been to almost any metal shows before this, it was strange to me just how constrained this was, all so steeped in nostalgia, no real difference from going to Branson (the second stage was better, I kind of dug a couple of those bands for a few songs at a time).
Posted by: jon abbey at October 19, 2004 11:01 AMI had pepperoni & sausage pizza for lunch, actually.
I know of one Chinese black metal band. (Mainland Chinese, no less.) Can't remember their name, but they played the Metal Meltdown in Asbury Park, NJ two years ago or so...they were pretty good, too. They played Scandinavian-style black metal, face paint and all, but they also added a couple of Chinese instruments to the mix. They had a girl in the band who played some kind of one-stringed thing, and there were definite Chinese-type sounds coming out of the keyboards.
Metal is extremely ritualistic, John. (The reason I was a little sarcastic above is because I'd assumed you knew more about the genre than you do. My mistake.) Metal shows aren't about exploration, they're about ceremony. You can see it in every aspect - the bands' exaggerated stagewear (death and thrash acts dispensed with this a little, but black metal bands brought it back in a big way), the elaborate lighting (sometimes incorporating actual flaming torches, depending on local fire codes), the blood (Mayhem is particularly great in this regard - recall the story of the guy who had his skull fractured when a severed sheep's head flew off the stage and whomped him), the lyrical themes, the near-total lack of irony about all of the above...it's all a package. (That's one of the reasons metal acts take on organized religion so much, I think; they're positing themselves, and metal generally, as an alternate faith. I mean, Judas Priest actually called one of their better albums Defenders Of The Faith.)
Posted by: phil at October 19, 2004 11:10 AMHello Michael!
Probably i'll escape from Shitenia in December and will go to London right in the days of Neurosis concert (actually almost ten friends of mine are going becuz of that concert). Since i'll be there only for couple of days i'll rather search for some plinky plonky sounds of ''london improv'' and i would be glad to meet people form ''the scene'' like Nathaniel, you Mark Wastel, etc ... (i have enough Guys Parkers, etc here at least once or twice a year). And i've heard latest Neurosis and i must agree that they re still in decline ...
as for metal i guess sinewaves in ''EAI'' equals guitar solos in metal
Posted by: lukaz at October 19, 2004 1:01 PMAnybody who thinks Neurosis have fallen off lately (and I count myself among that number, too) should be listening to Isis.
Posted by: phil at October 19, 2004 1:07 PM"as for metal i guess sinewaves in ''EAI'' equals guitar solos in metal"
how so, Luka?
I considered going to Ozzfest this year, as I like some of the bands playing. But the thought of so many hours in a very large crowd is what ultimately dissuaded me.
I'd consider going to see Mastodon and Slayer, or that big tour Lamb of God is on.
Anyways, I don't particularly feel that Neurosis have dropped off significantly (though the new one doesn't match the power of Times of Grace, say). Isis does rule though, but not as much as the new Mastodon rules.
And Phil, thanks for the link: I never knew Agoraphobic Nosebleed was a Pig Destroyer offshoot (that was a fun sentence to write, by the way).
Posted by: Jason at October 19, 2004 3:03 PMJon
i am just saying that sometimes getting a sine wave in yr ears in recent improv is equally predictable as to get guitar solo on every Iron Maiden song (well after their first two albums i guess). That doesn't mean that i don't enjoy it still to hear ringing pressure of a sine tones in my ears (and again to hear a Maiden album up to Live After Death- as a younger man in grammar school Eddie was mine and my brothers hero- a must on t-shirts (ups there were also Pet Shop Boys but not on the t-shirts. I recall one reviewer in Slovenia reviewing a gig by Rapeman and Dinosaur Jr where he said- Dinosaur Jr are middle class american kids which if they would be middle class kids from Britan would swap their guitars for synths and call themselves Pet Shop Boys) ...
Posted by: lukaz at October 19, 2004 3:17 PMAs for Isis they re great. This year they performed in Slovenia. But i would also give 5 stars to japanese band Boris ...
Posted by: lukaz at October 19, 2004 3:34 PMluka,
(well after their first two albums i guess)
i don't know if you saying this because of paul di anno, but i think maiden was a really great band when they had di anno as singer (first 2 albums, the s/t and "killers") - he gave them a punk edge they lost afterwards... i still play the very first maiden record quite regularly.
Posted by: tomas at October 19, 2004 3:53 PMI like Boris a lot, too. Their guitarist, Wata, is another crucial metal female.
Posted by: Phil Freeman at October 19, 2004 4:41 PMYep it is becuz of Paul Di Anno i guess- he was playing in Slovenia twice in last two years and he is a total ass/idiot/prick of a person, but he gave early Maiden some edge
Posted by: lukaz at October 19, 2004 4:51 PM"Yep it is becuz of Paul Di Anno i guess- he was playing in Slovenia twice in last two years and he is a total ass/idiot/prick of a person, but he gave early Maiden some edge."
-> that guy is still alive?! what is he up to, solo stuff? why asshole?
Posted by: tomas at October 20, 2004 8:39 AM"as for metal i guess sinewaves in ''EAI'' equals guitar solos in metal"
thats an interresting one
yeah, i do understand and agree with this
of course, its very very frequent use those last years, making it nearly present in most concerts involving electronics i've attended, as made sine waves become really 'classical'.
its actually get me to the point i really somehow dont want to use this sounds anymore, at least not intentionnaly i'd say.
like the guitar solos...
i am not trying to 'again' being 'negative' on purpose
but as i am thinking regularly about 'how to improvise' (???)
that does interrests me, especially because its a recent case
by the way i dont know nothing about maiden neither or metal
two days ago, i saw this guy from japan called Montage, he played some kind of effected feedback from amplified cymbal
followed by Goh Lee Kwang from japan too in fact
played with a single looped mixer
do you know this guys music at all Tomas, Lukas, Jon or others?
hello
bye bye
alexandre
Posted by: Alexandre at October 20, 2004 1:12 PMi guess Cobain was indeed a fan of balck sabbath
at least that's what he said
sometimes, i was thinking, that i dont really so much believe that Cobain was into Sonic Youth, but he did clearly posed on pictures wearing their tee-shirt
so why! maybe to thank them from something
did they not help about nirvana getting signed on geffen at all!
i dont know
alexandre
Posted by: Alexandre at October 20, 2004 1:15 PMTomas
Paul Di Anno is alive and kicking, looking like nu metal afficiando with terible new songs. His concerts are mainly first two Maiden lps + crap from his recent durunken years, where he became this gigantic ego mutherfucker ...
As for Nirvana- Sonic Youth connection Alexandre check document of their european tour (from ''before Nirvana went famus'' days) in 199? A Year Punk Broke. Don't know the guys you mentioned unfortunately ...
Posted by: lukaz at October 21, 2004 5:01 AMyeah i saw this video
they toured together
hummm, as Dan W would say
i have a temptation for 'conspiracy'
i have lots of theories like this
i dont know what Dan thought of this gig i was mentionning
he was there too
its funny you know
its like a new side of improv to me,
of course maybe its not new at all
maybe more related to noise music
or conceptual art music
i mean, i left before Randy H. Yau
but the first two performances were really interresting for me to witness
because fondamentaly i feel very different attitude than this guys when i play. i found their set was more a 'demonstration' of something they have found out. it does makes music... but there is something so important missing to me.
i dont see how this music could really satisfy and capture audience. i know i am being really hard
hummm, would be so long to explain all this
Posted by: Alexandre at October 21, 2004 5:09 AM"i dont see how this music could really satisfy and capture audience."
Who knows? Those sets you described sounded really compelling. Some of us are just simple people I guess.
You skipped Randy Yau? Too bad, I heard he puts on a killer show, very physical.
Posted by: Nirav at October 21, 2004 12:31 PMi prefer not too much start thinking what this
'some of us are simple people i guess' means really
if some of this people have any frustration, good
me i am quite fine being in the 'complicated people' category
i accept this no problem
more and more everyday i get proof of this
i have to live with this
Posted by: Alexandre at October 21, 2004 4:01 PMyeah i missed randy h
someone i know said it was like the first two
actually goh lee kwang of course is not japanese
as i said by mistake before, he's malaysian
like a cross of sachiko/nakamura somehow
i dont know if dan stayed for randy or not
also i am not sure i always like this nites
where you have three sets of nearly same thing
its a bit too much for me
like yesterday i did this nite with erik m
we both played solo
at least maybe my playing was very different than his
hummm, i wish i played after him
effect would have been better
I have nothing to add to the topic of contemporary heavy metal (having no cd more metal than classic Pearl Jam), but I will definitely wait for an opportunity to alliterate a post with the term "weak-kneed noodling".
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