Orange Goblin, Gates of Slumber, NAAM at Dante's 6/9/2011

I had been looking forward to this show a while.  I found Orange Goblin a while back on a search for new bands I didn't know, and liked what I heard.  Since they are London based, they don't get to the west coast of the US much (as it turns out, it has been 7 years since they did a show in Portland).  Also Naam, a Tee Pee Records artist was on this bill.  Before the show I also listened up to Gates of Slumber to see what they were about.  Their recordings did not blow me away, but you never know.  More on Gates of Slumber later.

So once again, it was me solo on Thursday night for a show, as no one I wanted to go to this show with was up for it.  Due to band practice, I arrived fashionably late and NAAM was already playing when I came in.  I got turned on to NAAM through Tee Pee Records, because basically I like almost every band on Tee Pee.  Naam is some younger guys from Brooklyn, and they play what I would describe as psychedelic doom metal.  There are trippy ambient parts, as well as some head banging rocking moments.  The vocals tend towards heavy reverb side of things, and they make the vocals sound kind of old school, like Naam is some forgotten band from the early 70s that you never heard of.  So they were killing it when I walked in, and while I missed 1/3 of their set, what I did see was right up my ally.  Consisting of a drummer, bassist, and keyboard player, they lived up to their "heavy psychedelic rock and roll" tag.  Solid drumming and bass, and the keyboard and guitars interweave nicely with each other, creating both a spooky and heavy sound at the same time.  I am at a loss for words about what exactly it is about Naam that I liked so much.

The guitarist was playing a strat, some what surprisingly, through a Marshall full stack.  Not sure what the keyboardist was doing, and the bassist was going through some classic Ampeg rig.  The sound quality was dead on, including the vocals.  After the set finished up, I went to peruse the merch table, and was somewhat surprised to find that Naam was the only band with vinyl to sell.  I talked with one of the dudes on tour with Naam, I think his name was Chris, but not sure.  He did a great job on selling me on purchasing a copy of Naam's 2009 release on vinyl.

One of the key selling points for me was that Naam was selling quite possibly the most perfect modern format, the vinyl + digital download.  For those not in the know, you get a card in your record that you can use to go on line and download digital copies of the album.  To me this solves the issue of wanting the music in a more portable format than vinyl.  Don't get me wrong, I love vinyl and am glad to see it's resurgence, but this is the modern age, and I want my music on my phone and in my collection so I can listen to it whenever I want.  Having a download card made the $20 for the dual disc album seem a fair price.  After listening to the album (which if you like heavy psychedelic stoner rock, you should pick the album up), I believe it is on two discs for the sake of song length.  Probably would not fit on a single record, and once you have two records to the set, you can just split the album across the discs, which is what Naam did.  I am really glad I bought the album, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

After the switch over, Gates of Slumber was up.  These guys are doom metal band that has been around for years, and clearly the guys in this band have been "all in" on being musicians forever.  Gates of Slumber is a three piece with the guitarist handling vocals.  The drummer was ever so solid doom drummer which I liked a lot, and the bassist is wicked talented.  Musically the band sounds to me like a straight cross between Sabbath and Maiden.  They had parts of songs that sounded very close to the aforementioned bands.  The guitarist was playing an SG standard through a Marshall full stack (turns out the full stack Naam's guitarist was playing through was his).  I have to say though, I did not enjoy the guitar soloing one bit.  The guitarist can play, no doubt, but his solo compositions were uninspired.  It seemed like he was just playing fast hammer on pull off stuff not because it would sound good in that part of the solo, but just because he could.  The soloing just seemed to be a bunch of technical playing with no thought given to how it fit with the song and the solo composition.  It made it really hard for me to get into these guys.  There was some comment made about how these guys had been round forever and hadn't really had much success, and I have to think that the guitar playing has something to do with it.  I was not impressed with Gates of Slumber.

Next up was Orange Goblin, and Ben Ward, the lead singer, did not waste any time getting the crowd pumped up.  As the stage hand was setting up for them, he placed 4 beer bottles and four bottles of water up around the center of the stage, and I remember thinking that drinking that many fluids is going to have the guy having to take a piss break half way through the show.  I soon would learn why so many fluids were needed.  Ward got the crowd pumped as he clearly has experience working a room and getting people ready to rock
 Ward mentioned it had been 7 years since Goblin was in Portland, and the band proceeded to explode into their set.  I would describe Goblin as a dirty, doomy, rock band.  They use a lot of party style penetatonic rock, but Ward's vocals are not clean and soaring, more harsh and gruff.  Goblin is the kind of band you would expect to find in some working class dive bar doing wiskey shots and smoking cigarettes, well regaling you with stories of parties past. 

Chris Turner's drumming was solid and energetic, and Martyn Millard bass playing was thunderous and solid.

Goblin is rounded out by Joe Hoare on guitar, holding down some solid crunchy rhythms and fast and heavy lead guitar.  Hoare played an Orange head through the full stack of Marshall cabs, and it sounded great, like Orange's always do for the crunchy.  Not a pedal or effect in sight except a wah that was used occasionally.

Ward is a wild man, jumping around the stage, engaging the audience, banging his head, giving love to front row fans (also banging their heads), and high fiving audience members left and right.  Ward nows how to get a crowd excited and pumped.  And the beer was for drinking, of course, but the water was mostly to pour on Wards head and throw on the audience, three bottles worth.  I don't think he took a single sip of water the whole night. 

As one point, someone brought out a bottle of Jim with a shot or so in it, and Ward proceeded to take that shot down to the crowds delight.  While obviously staged for effect, it represents what an Orange Goblin show is all about, having a good fucking time!  It was a fun show, and while it did not sell out, there was a solid size crowd there.

The shot above shows a discarded solider left behind by an audience member (the band was drinking beer from bottles), and the bottle of Jim ready for consumption.  Pretty much sums up an Orange Goblin show.  I was hoping that there would be some slide and/or lap steel playing, as Goblin has some on their reocrdings, but as I can personally attests, playing lap steel in a loud rock band is a challenge since you need that aural feedback to keep your intonation accurate, and hearing yourself with a loud band always seems to be a challenge.  This might explain why no slide or lapsteel was present.  Despite the lack of slide playing, Orange Goblin put on a great show.

For the obligatory after show snack, I wandered down to 2nd ave only to find that the city has shut down one of the food cart areas that had been on second.  I believe this might have been the area where the city first started to take issue withe local food carts building "permanent" structures such as decks and awnings.  Well the city won that round.  I was able to wander and find a loan taco cart, and a few tacos set me straight.

Radio Moscow, Root Jack, White Orange, Macrocosm - Ash Street Saloon 5/28/2011

It had been a few weeks since I went out to a show, which was starting to make me a little crazy.  I just had not seen much that motivated me to really get out and go to a show.  So I had tried to rally some people to go to the show with me, but short of people that I don't have fun at shows with, everyone was out of town for the holiday weekend.  Happens sometime.  So I decided to go to this show solo, and headed down to Ash Street.  I missed the last Radio Moscow show at East End (too many good shows in one night), so I wanted to make sure I saw them live this time.  And these days, time alone by myself (even if in a public place) is rare and precious.  A little people watching and self seclusion would do me right.

Macrocosm was the opener, seen them a few times now, they get put on bills everywhere.  While these kids can play their instruments, there is a certain lacking of musical refinement (but hey, who doesn't want to play super fast all the time when your younger).  Also the vocalist does the super effected vocals thing.  He has the crazed look, but the processing is just so over the top, that after a few songs it wears thin.  Too much delay and reverb, not enough actually singing, everything starts to sound the same,  Not a terrible band, but at the same time not one I am going to make a huge effort to see.

White Orange I was hoping to catch to see if my opinion of them would change with a second show.  But alas, by the time I arrived, White Orange had literally just finished their set.  Up next was Root Jack.

Root Jack is a band I am aware of primarily because of the short time a few years back when I was playing with what would become Charming Birds. I met Kris, the guitarist and singer for Root Jack because he was in a band called Moonshine hangover with Will Johnson, the songwriter for Charming Birds.  I was a little puzzled as to what such a band would be doing on this bill, but soon I would be enlightened.  Anyway, the music is not what I tend to lean towards these days, but I am still a fan of a broad swath of musical generes, so I go in with an open mind.

It is hard to review Root Jack without making an Allman Brothers comparison.  There songs are rootsy, bluesy, southern rock influenced tunes that seem decidedly out of place in the NW music scene.  With the first couple of songs were fairly simple numbers, with typical topics of love lost, whiskey, women doing you wrong etc.  The playing was tight and well put together, if not up my ally musically.  There was even an Allman Brothers cover, or would that be a Muddy Waters cover since the Allman's covered it?  Anyway, Trouble No More was the song.  I suppose Root Jack wears their influences on their sleeves.  I made it through the whole set (which was almost an hour, BTW), and was left feeling unmoved.  Why was Root Jack on this bill?

Or perhaps more appropriately, why was I into Radio Moscow?  Well Blues, Psychedelic, Rock, yeah, that's right up my ally.  So Radio Moscow took the stage, and the rhythm section was tight.  The exploded into a straight forward blues rock tune.  One might even call it party rock.  Straight forward, nothing that has not been done (better mind you) before.  This continued for several songs.  I did take note that the guitarist, who's name I am too lazy to look up, was playing through three half stacks, and his guitar tone did not sound good.  Tone was muddy and hard to hear.

The connection to Root Jack was somewhat apparent, with the bluesy Greg Allman influenced vocals, and the more straight up blues approach.  Apparently, adding a wah solos and heavy reverb makes you psychedelic.  Really more of a blues rock party band with some psychedelic tinges in my mind.  Hendrix-esce guitar wankery prevailed.  Now I am not overly sensitive to wankery per say, and actually enjoy some guitar wankery in my show, but it does wear thin after a few songs.

While writing this, I visited Radio Moscow's myspace to satisfy my curiosity of why I was interested in this band, given my disappointment with the live show.  Well, for starters, their are a number of overdubs on the recordings which make the band sound like more than a trio, a second and third guitars, to be exact, that bring a life to the reocrdings that is just not present live.  I head slide, I hear acoustic, I hear dynamics.  I hear space.  All of these things were missing from the live show.

Well, exploring new bands and music always involves some level of risk.  Every show is not going to be good, you can't win them all.  I must say I was a little disappointed with Radio Moscow, leaving before the set ended cause all the songs were starting to sound the same.  Maybe a bad night for them, or a bad mix, I don't know, but all the songs started to blend together, which is never good.

Musicfest NW announces line up

Musicfest NW has announced the lineup for this year, at least partially.  Big name acts for this year include Band of Horses, Explosions in the Sky, Archers of Loaf, and Neurosis (yeah!), up and coming acts like Kylesa, and Sleepy Sun, as well as many local acts, including Eternal Tapestry, Diesto, Grails, The New York Riffles, Pierced Arrows, Nether Regions, The Wizard Riffle (who is apprently adding a "The" to their name), Rabbits, YOB, The Thornes, Viva Voce, and Witch Mountain.

Musicfest NW is always a diverse line up of music that goes all over the place.  It's a great way to check out a bunch of music and get turned on to new bands.  I have even enjoyed wandering into random shows just to check out what is going on.  Last year I didn't get a wrist band because my band had gigs and I could not take enough advantage.  This year I will be getting a wrist band.  I am excited about getting to check out a bunch of bands.  Now I have long list of bands I need to narrow to a short list of acts I want to see, in preparation for the schedule release.  Then comes the ritual of trying to optimize and prioritize to see as much music as possible in a few days.

Diesto, Lesbian, Grayceon, and Burials at Plan B 5/7/2011

So I saw Diesto was playing at The Know on Friday the 6th, and asked Rich if he would like to join me for some ear crushing rock.  I have seen Diesto around town a few times, and they are one of my favorite bands on the heavy side.  Rich noticed that they were also playing at Plan B on Saturday, and after confirming that that was actually true, and assessing the line up of both bills, we decided Plan B offered the better overall show, so we skipped The Know and planned for Plan B.

I was meeting Rich there, and when I arrived, Burials (not to be confused with the English band of the same name) were already playing.  Burials are a local band, and I have seen there name on bills around, but can't say i have seen them, or at least if I did they did not make an impression on me.  Many times I listen to bands and I am not blown away, and said band ends up being discarded by my brain.  Sometimes I am just not at a place where I appreciate the music, but when I revisit that bands music down the road, I like it a lot more.

Perhaps I would appreciate Burials more in a different time and place.  Don't get me wrong, the playing was impressive.  Burials is a tight trio with some intricate playing that was dead on.  The had moments I liked, but also some thrashy moments that were just a flurry of everything at once, you hear all and yet nothing at the same time.  For me, it's a musical turn off.

We headed to the back porch and ran into Shaun and Lorretti, regulars at the local heavy shows, and talked with them for a bit while Grayceon was setting up.  Soon Grayceon came on, and every time someone would come or go from the outdoor area, I would hear some enticing music coming from inside.  Soon the call to check it out was too strong and I headed inside. 

Grayceon was up next out of SF, I would later learn, though they were playing on Lesbian's gear and I thought that it was Lesbian, which is what I thought for most of their show.  Anyway, we were treated to something that would become a theme for the evening, the mighty metal cello!  Obviously, it is somewhat different to have a metal band that both employs dynamics, yet also plays some epic metal.  Jackie Perez Gratz commanded a bodiless electric cello, no doubt suited to the rigors of the road.  Playing through the biggest bass rig I have ever seen, literally 10 feet tall, a seventies Ampeg 10X10 by the look.  The vocals went from melodic and sweet to a crushing guttural screams and growls.  I felt the vibrato as the cello added a mournful touch to Grayceon epic tunes.  And yet, there was more.  The guitarist, Max Doyle, was no slouch.  Moving between crisp cleans, using some out of the box chord voicing and generally playing exactly what was need the entire time.  And on the kit was the massive Zack Farwell providing a solid stoner metal backbone.  Grayceon is a solid band, and I thoroughly enjoyed their set.  After they finished I walked up to the stage to tell Jackie how much I enjoyed her playing.  She is a cool down to earth chick.  I also bought their CD, really was hoping for some Vinyl, but had to settle for a CD.

So last year Lesbian started popping up on bills around town.  As it turns out, these guys have some pedigree and formed in 2004. After I see a bands name so often, I start to wonder, so I was interested in checking out a band that would call themselves Lesbian, be it metal or not.  What was icing on the cake, was apparently it was metal cello night, because some members of the Portland Cello Project set up in the front of the Plan B stage, full on sheet music and all.  So they started playing, and the Cellos added such depth.  They were four of them and the music was written to weave in and out of chordal variations, with some soloist moments.  The Cellos were great backing Lesbian up, and I am always pleased to see a band that sounds so good, most because these guys know gear.

The two guitarists, each with Knucklehead 100 heads, Mesa and Marshall cabs.  The bass rig was the biggest fucking Ampeg rig I have ever seen.  It looked like it had the 70s style grill cloth.  The rig was so big it almost touched the ceiling.  They played most of their set with the Portland Cello Project down on the floor in front of the stage.  It was really cool, with the cellos adding some interesting chordal and harmonic elements.  I liked what the cellos were doing.  They were building chords where each cellist was playing one note, and one of the cellist would be taking a more lead/melody roll.  Lesbian are full on metal, but they are all older music scene dudes I would guess and it showed.  They did their last 20 minute song (I am not exaggerating) without the Portland Cello Project, and I did not like that as much as with the cellos, but is was cool.  The bass player was the owner of said gigantic Ampeg bass rig, and he played a six string bass as well as covering vocals.  He is a power house.  Solid drumming and awesome dual guitar work were themes of the evening.

I would like to see them again without the Cello Project just to gauge them as a band, but damn, the dudes sounded great, and can play.  As for the name, OK, but these dudes are no joke.  I went and listened to all their music on bandcamp after the show, and I must say I like it a lot.  They do write some excessively long tunes, but it does not seem to bother me much.

Diesto put on a real good performance, but they were kind of overshadowed by the two previous acts.  Perhaps is was just because these acts were new to me, and I have seen Diesto a few times.  This performance was better than the last Plan B show I saw.  They played several songs from their newish album, High as the Sun .  Totally worth your time to go take a listen.  Diesto is one of the better heavy bands in town, IMHO.  They kick dual crushing guitars, solid rhythm section, more space and doomy moments, less of a tendency to fill everything up with excessive playing.  The show was solid and enjoyable, despite the fact that Diesto did not go on till almost 12:30.

Anyway, it was the best show I have seen this year, way better that the Red Fang CD release.  There were also probably about 50 people there, which is pretty good for Plan B.  Afterward it was off to the Hawthorne carts, where I had the brick oven pizza for the first time (usually fries all the way :).  It took forever to come out, but was delicious and satisfying.

Red Fang Record Release, Mongoloid Village, Lord Dying, and Drunk Ladies at Branx 4/30/2011

Saturday night brought the long awaited album release show for Red Fang's Murder the Mountains.  And as Bryan (of Red Fang) mentioned later in the show, the best thing about your record release is you get to choose the line up, and this was a show I was not to miss.  The day of the show, the other guitarist I am working on a band with, Robb had freaked me out, sending me a text saying the show was sold out.  I had not bought tickets in advance, because I was going to show up early and figured it would just be easier to grab tickets at the door.  After a quick search through Facebook, my mind was put at ease as tickets would be available at the door.  Just to be safe, I got down there as close to 8PM as possible, and the venue was not yet open, but there was a small line.  I was talking to a guy in line, and turns out he had never heard of Red Fang, but his buddy in California had told him to go to the show.  He has an extra ticket, and offered it to me.  I offered to pay hi for the ticket, but he refused.  Then I offered to buy him a drink, but he said he quit drinking.  I finally gave up and just thanked him for the free ticket, a Red Fang miracle!  Got my stamp, Robb arrived and we headed over to the decidedly more upscale (now anyway) Produce Row cafe to have a beer.

Produce Row is right around the corner from Branx and used to be a grungy hippy sort of place, but they remodeled it a few years back, and now it attracts a decidedly more upscale crowd.  They didn't seem to mind us rockers paying a visit, which is nice because their beer selection is awesome, and the food is good as well.  Robb's wife Mags hung out for a while, we ordered a round, and I sampled the Hales pale on Nitro.  Damn smooth beer, and a great way to start the beers flowing.  Soon Rich arrived, and we hung out until a little after 9PM and decides to go check out Drunk Ladies, who none of us had seen before.

Drunk Ladies seemed like a great name for a party band, fun energetic, music that you could dance to.  The real thing was anything but.  None of us were impressed.  Guitar tones were not good, and the vocalist/growler/screamer was not compelling enough to carry this four piece, and the guitarist did not help things.  Rich revealed that he had asked the lead screamer if he was in Norska, cause he was also a heavy guy with a beard.  Perhaps half of Portland resembles the lead screamer for Norska ;)  Anyway, musically, I was disappointed, but on the other hand, I know how it can be difficult to get a bill together with conflicting schedules, and the list can narrow quickly.  I felt like Red Fang should have been able to do better that Drunk Ladies, but I am not privy to how the bill came together.  Maybe it just pays to know people :)

Then came Lord Dying, who I had seen before.  At first, I thought Lord Dying was just another speed/thrash influenced metal band.  Hard to pull that genre off without sounding dated, but as a Lord Dying set progresses, you get to see some variety in their approach, with sections of head banging mixed in with some more subtle mellower moments.  These dudes have been getting a lot of prime gigs lately.  The first show was last summer, but these guys have been making music in one form or another for a long time I understand, and being a "lifer:" has it's advantages.  Their bass player is kick ass, great playing and stage presence.  Perhaps their bio has something to do with why these guys are good: "Members of the Black Elk, Wadsworth, Portals, Damn your Eyes, Cremains and Le force Alumni."  Well, these guys are no strangers to the heavy.  Lord Dying ripped through their set, though the mix was not as good as the last time I saw them, but it didn't seem to slow them down.

After a break came Mongoloid Village, who I have seen a few times around town.  I have to say, Mongoloid Village are one of my favorite bands on the heavy scene around town.  Their drummer is awesome and always pulls me in first with his solid playing.  The rest of the band is also very good, and as I take int he duel guitar work and bass playing, I remembered what it is that intrigues me about Mongoloid Village.  They have more progressive arrangements and chord voicing that are different from your standard metal band, and the two guitarist know how to work together.  I went up front for their set, which was a good call.







Mongoloid Village is more progressive in their tendencies, and I tend to like that kind of music better.  It is also rare to see a tele at these sort of shows, but Fester pulls a great tone out of that axe.  He has a larger more elaborate pedal set up than me even, which is saying something.  I think some of his gear was for vocal though, cause he was wearing an in ear monitor for the show.  Have to wonder how you can make that work in such an environment.  I get how it works great for larger shows with touring sound professionals backing you up, but at Branx?

All around, Mongoloid Village was solid, with solid drumming as always, and some interesting chord voicing from Fester on the lead guitar and vocals.  Heavy, driving metal, with more than just slamming you with ultra loud, dropped tuned sludge or trashy speed playing.  I can see why Mongoloid Village is one of Red Fang's favorite bands in town.

Up next was the mighty Red Fang.  They generated the necessary amount of suspense by dimming the lights before coming out.  It was packed, not sure if the show sold out, but it was definitely packed in there.  I am finishing writing this over a week since the show, so I am not 100% on the opener, but I think it went Malverde>Wires, and I was wondering if they were going to play Murder the Mountains straight through, however this was not the case.

The show was sounding good for the most part, but there were some technical difficulties with the sound system.  Aaron's Vocals and Bryan's guitar were cutting out intermittently.  Such things get on my nerves, perhaps more so than for most, to me it distracted from the energy of the show.  The band appeared to not hear the drop outs though, and played on.  There was a large size crowd of kids semi-moshing up front for most of the show, and the crowd practically exploded when Red Fang busted out Prehistoric Dog half way through the set, clearly this song is a crowd favorite.  Red Fang does encores, so they left the stage, and then they cam back out and did some songs, finally inviting the crowd up on stage for the final song, which was a cover of some sort, but I couldn't quite make out what it was, as some douche on stage was yelling into Bryan's mic (uh, really?).  After the last song, the requisite crowd shot was snapped by John, including the stage fans, and the show wrapped up.

We hit the merch table afterward, I am sure Rich bought something, but I don't remember.  I picked up some Mongoloid Village CDs, and saw Fester and went up to say hi and tell him I had enjoyed the show.  We chatted for a bit and I learned that in addition to running sound at Plan B, He also is a recording engineer for Haywire Recording.  He asked if I was in a band, and said I was working on it.  We found our bass player, so only need a vocalist to complete the line up.  Fester's a real cool down to earth guy.

Finally, it was off to the Hawthorne food carts to get some food. I had the brick oven pizza for the first time, and thought it was delicious, though waiting for it to cook took a while.

Floor, Totimoshi, and Norska @ Branx 4/25/2011

Sunday night brought the Floor show, and as per usual it was me and Rich who seem to be the only 30-something family dudes who are still crazy enough to go see insanely loud music and stay out till all hours of the night.  So Rich wanted to see Floor, which is the original band of the lead creative talent for Torch.  Totimoshi is one of my favorite heavy acts since I got turned on to them at a Musicfest NW show a few years back.  And Norska is a local heavy act that gets opening slots for many of the bigger name doom acts that come through town, and incidentally Norska were recorded by Adam Pike.

So we showed up a touch late, and Norska was already playing. Heavy, doomy, sludgy, metal. You can almost hear their music as power metal but with everything tuned low and slowed down. They play some pretty minimal passages as times. The lead singer/screamer has a great sound for this type of music, and I must say, they sounded great, as in the mix was awesome (sans the floor tom that had a rattle in it), which is so rare for the heavy metal bands. Usually the vocals are nowhere, but here they were right on. Norska also showed some diversity with some faster more progressive passages toward the end of the set. It was clear that these guys can play and can do whatever they want. Great set and mix of material, if you are into the heavy music, you should check Norska out, doing Portland proud as these guys are local.

Next up was Totimoshi. I got turned on to these guys a few years ago when they played at Musicfest NW, at Ash Street no less. I was impressed. Lead by guitarist and song writer Antonio "Tony" Aguilar, Totimoshi plays a sort of precision-crafted heavy rock. They were on tour with the Melvins for a while and get comparisons with the aforementioned and with Black Sabbath, but of course, Black Sabbath's name gets thrown around both in influences and comparisons, but I find most of those comparisons lacking. Anyway, always a good show, though the sound was somewhat lacking, moving up toward the front of the stage allowed me to hear more guitar. I like the Milagrosa Album and also Ladrón, but haven't dug much further into their back catalog. The set was energetic with a good mix of songs. Totimoshi's drummer Chris Fugittis was awesome. With the use of space, by which I mean using rests, the drums need to be precise for the music to work, and Fugittis did not disappoint. Meg Castellanos rounds out the line up on bass, and she is a solid player. Castellanos also was singing some backup, but it was nowhere to be found in the mix. It was a good set, but none of their shows seem to have compared to the first time I saw them a few years ago. Not sure why.

After a bit, Floor came out, and they seemed to be who the crowd was there to see. I only knew of Floor through Steve Brooks, who leads Torche, and mostly because of my friend Rich turning me on to Torche. Floor put on an interesting set of songs that ran the gamut from doomy to more upbeat, driving numbers. Not being familiar with their material, I found the diversity and coverage of different genre influences to be intriguing. Some of the songs I really dug, and other did not move me much. It was all heavy rock, and the dual guitars did not seem to need the addition of bass. These guys do tune down low, I believe to A, and that somewhat negates the need for bass. Henry Wilson, apparently not an original member, was on drums, playing a minimal kit, but very large and authoritative. Solid playing all around from Floor. I felt a little out of place when Brooks was inviting the crowd to sing along to a song I had never heard before. It never ceases to amaze me that a band can play for decades, clearly have a devoted following, and someone like myself who is always on the look out for new music to listen to has not heard of them.

Being a weeknight, I had to skip any after show snacks and head back to the house. It was a good show though, no doubt, worth going to even though it was a week night.

Adam Pike's 32nd birthday party at Ash Street Saloon - 4/22/2011

I got a text from the drummer for my new project saying he was heading down to Ash Street Saloon to check a band.  I had seen the bill with several local bands I wanted to see, and needed some time out ont he two, so we agreed to meet down there.

So the bill was but together by Adam Pike, owner of Toadhouse Studios for his 32nd birthday.  Adam is a fixture int he local scene who in addition to engineering, runs sounds (and quite well might I add) for  Red Fang, Nether Regions, and has also recorded with both of those bands as well as Black Elk, No Go Know, Rabbits, Salvador, Diesto, as well as many others.  Adam also plays bass in White Orange, a psychedelic rock band, who not surprisingly was on the bill.  The line up was as follows:

Empty Space Orchestra
White Orange
Ninja
Dark Country
The Greater Midwest
Ports Will Call

So I arrived and one of the heavier bands, I think it was Dark Country.  The music was an aggressive rock mix with screamed, pushed type vocals, they were pretty good high energy band with dueling SG guitar players.  I was only there for a couple songs, so I didn't have time to form to much of an opinion.

I meet up with Dave, the drummer I'm Playing with, and meet his friends and we chatted a bit, grabbed a beer and such, and it looked like White Orange was setting up.  I have jammed with White Orange's drummer Dean before, and he plays a massive kit, not in number of drums, but huge, resonant drums, a 28" kick, a giant deep snare and toms.  The drum set is pretty distinctive, and lends I giant low sound to White Orange.

So White Orange came on, and they have a loud sound, and some interesting writing and arrangements.  They alternate between more straight up numbers using the I, IV, V chord arrangements, and chromatic runs, and some two chord jams and vamp rock outs, mixed with some psychedelic lead guitar breaks.  I wish I could have heard the vocals, because I think it would have added a lot to the music, but the vocals were buried in the mix.  The band seemed to be having a blast playsing, which always comes through with a certain energy.  You can tell when someone in the band doesn't want to be there, but not the case with White Orange.

After White Orange finished, Ninja set up in front of the stage.  Ninja is a metal band, but not your typical metal band.  The actually dress in Ninja costumes, and they play metal, but the drummer plays a tiny little electronic kit through a small battery powered amp, and the same goes for the 2 guitarists and bassist.  They play through the anti-metal rigs, these tiny battery powered rigs.  They aren't loud at all, but the play with gusto.  I saw Ninja a few years back playing guerrilla style outside of venues for MusicfestNW.  A guy would drop them off in a van, they would tear through a couple of songs till the cops came and told them they had to leave, then they would load back up in the van and do it all again.  These guys have a nice niche carved out with their act, and it was fun to see them.  Don't know if I would make a a special effort to go see them on their own, but definitely a plus on a bill, as they are entertaining and the irreverence towards the things most metal acts hold dear is right on.

Next up was the band Dave was there to see.  He had seen this band at PSU earlier in the day, and was impressed by the drummer.  Turns out it was Empty Space Orchestra.  I had heard of Empty Space Orchestra before as a spacey instrumental rock band, but had not been able to catch them yet.  So they came on, and positioned front and center of the band was drummer Lindsey Elias, and for good reason.  She was incredible, quite possible one of the best local drummers I have heard.  The band played some catchy instrumental rock tunes, but Elias' drumming tied everything together, and it would not have been the same without here skilled drumming.  Oddly, Dave was no where to be found for the band he wanted to see, but I was mesmerized by Empty Space Orchestra.  It was also interesting to see another player on a lap steel, Keith O'Dell.  However I was not able to hear much of the lap steel because it was buried in the mix.  The rest of the band is worth mentioning as well, with Shane Thomas expertly holding down guitar duties and Patrick Pearsall providing the low end, and Graham Jacobs rounding things out on the Sax and Synth.  Empty Space is a band well worth the time and effort to check out live. 

 May 11th at Mississippi Studios is ESO's Portland Record Release show.