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.

Tame Impala at the Wonder Ballroom - 4/20/2011

So the Australian psychedelic rock band Tame Impala came through.  This is not normally the kind of show I go to, but my wife loves Tame Impala, and I had heard Innerspeaker, oh 600 times or so.  It’s a good album of solid song writing, with a prevalent early psychedelic period Beetles sound, and reverby vocals and swirly guitars.  On top of that, it was on 4/20 the stoner new year.

So we arrived fairly early, and had our three choices of wonder ballroom bars, the upstairs hipster Seceret Society (ugh!), the Under Wonder Bar (probably my choice), and the Afrique Bistro (no lines, because the food is overpriced and the service lackluster).  We ended up at the Afrique Bistro, and the experience reminded me why the lack of a line is the best part about this place, oh and it repels hipsters.  I ordered a Aviation Gin and Tonic.  I like to order very simple drinks out, because most bar tenders can’t make a good drink, for whatever reason.  It is hard to screw up a gin and tonic with extra lime.  But the bartender, who was MIA giving bags to some homeless guy for 10 minutes, says they are a out of tonic, at a bar?  Yelp reviews show this to be a common problem here.  Ok, order some scotch, and get ready for the show.

We didn’t stay too long, and walked in during Yuck’s set.  Now Yuck is some British indie rock buzz band that is compared to Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, two bands I love.  First things first, are you really going to name your band something that has negative connotations, and in addition rhythms with both fuck and suck, as well as fucking sucks?  Apparently it is ironic or something, oh so very hipster. Alright British hipsters, you do your thing.

Me:  This band sucks.  They are boring.  Indie post snooze core?

My wife:  That’s an insult to snooze core, they are just indie hipster crap

Yuck really was not very interesting musically.  The crowd did seem to like it a bit, as well based on some applause.  How this band gets compared to Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth is beyond me.  Two innovative original bands, verse this forgettable poppy indie rock?  They also had a "light show" that was down right awful.  A white sheet hanging behind the band and what appeared to be some nice lights, but they were so close to the screen that the effect was really weak and didn't look good at all.  Seemed like a light flail.  My previous band Cloud of Suns put on a better light show for our EP release last fall, on a $100 shoe string budget.  Soon, Fuck Yuck Sucks was over.  I am sure Pitchfork (shudder) loves this band.

I grabbed my wife a beer and we headed up to get a little closer for Tame Impala.  Shortly before the set started, I had an ear plug flail, where the filter for my fancy ear plugs popped out and disappeared, and no amount of searching turned it up.  I must admit I was distressed by this with two heavy rock shows and Sunday night practice on the agenda for the weekend, I would be swinging the Tame Impala show earplug less.  Tame Impala came out to cheers and launched into their first song.  I am not really familiar enough with Tame Impala to name their songs, as most of my listening has been when my wife was playing the album around the house and in the car constantly when it came out.

In any event, my ears were thankful this wasn’t a metal show, so it was not insanely loud, even up close.  What first stood out to me was the drummer.  He didn’t have any overhead micing on his cymbals, just the mics on the drums and possible one on the high hat.  The drums sounded awesome, and would be a theme of the show.  You could hear the drums extremely clearly, and the drumming really drove the band  The drummer’s name is Jay “Gumby” Watson, and he has a rock solid sense of time.  Apparenetly there have been some line up shuffles, and Nick Albrook who was on guitar is now on bass, and the rhythm section was solid and sounded great all night.

But from here, I was less impressed (which did allow me to take some pictures ;).  Now Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker is a production master piece, with perfectly balanced vocals and guitars, and a band sound that is clear despite the heavy use of effects.  The live show just did not sound as good.  The guitars were buried, not loud enough to be heard, and I don’t think I understood one word Kevin Parker sung all night.  He had an entire table loaded with gear that he kept messing with, but the vocals came across as having a synthetic quality, washed out quality.  And it isn't because Parker can't sing.  He can sing, and has a voice many would kill for.

Kevin Parker was playing some sort of Stratocaster, and the other guitarist, Domimic Simper was playing what I thought was a black less paul custom, but turns out it was a Ibanex Les Paul Custom form the 70s I am assuming.  Both guitars were running through effects I could not get a good look at, and vox amps.  The guitar tones were muddy.  That sticks in my craw.  I like to hear the guitars.  Parker was often messing around with his effect table.

Now the light show was  pretty cool.  They had an osciliscope displaying a Lissajous pattern that was being routed to various channels I believe.  It was in time to the music, and cool and psychedelic.  This was used pretty much the whole night but depending on the song, it seemed a different instrument was being routed, and hence a different visual effect.  Now it does not take a lot of money to put on a cool light show, and Tame Impala's demonstrated what you can do with some creativity.

The music overall was solid.  These kids are good song writers, and the live show had sort of a dance vibe, and the crowd responded by getting down, at least close to the stage, which is of course, somewhat rare for a Portland show.  They played their hits, which I don’t know the names of, but I recognized the music and so did the crowd.  They probably played a good hour and 20 minute set.  Watson took the lead on talking to the crowd with some moderately amusing banter about how much the band liked Portland.  Watson also announced that they were launching into the last set of music, which seemed to be a catchy arrangement of danceable numbers that had the crowd moving and celebrating the 4/20 new year openly.  Tame Impala does not do encores apparently, and so the show just ended.

Overall I felt the drummer carried the rest of the band, and the guitar tone and vocals could use some work.  These kids are young and the stage is a different place from the studio, but they need to get their tones in order.  I heard a somewhat My Morning Jacket accessible vibe from these kids, with some Fleet Foxes sprinkled in on top of their clear Beatles/John Lennon influences.  They got skills and will probably go a long way given all the buzz surrounding them.  My opinion of their music was slightly degraded after seeing their live show.  I guess I like bands that blow you away with the live shows.  The show did not sell out either, so that says something.

After the crowd cleared out, much to my relief I was able to find my filter for my ear plugs laying on the ground. I had a hankering for some salty fried food, so it was off to Potato Champion to close out the evening, and the fries did not disappoint. The new year was thoroughly celebrated :)

Record Release - April 12th - Red Fang Murder the Mountains - review

I am not one to obsess too much over new releases.  Rarely do I feel the need to rush out and buy a record the first day it is out.  I generally prefer to buy my music directly from the Artist at their show.  My friend Rich on the other hand, was in the record store yesterday and saw Red Fang's new release, Murder the Mountains, and promptly snapped up a copy on vinyl.  He called me up to see if I would like to have a listening party, so I invited him to come visit the human depravity that is the man cave.

Now I had already listened to the album cause it was streaming on NPR for awhile (click on the album title above and you can stream the album on Bandcamp now, and also buy it there).  But to listen to it cranked on the turntable, hooked up to the amp and speakers I personally built while I was in school (a damn fine sounding set if I do say so myself), perhaps it would be different?  So Rich came over, we made some preparations, and spun that puppy up.

I looked over the packaging while Malverde played.  Malverde is a strong song, and a great lead to the album.  I love the chorus of this song.  "That's a trick, that's a trick, I can't believe that your falling for it."  Red Fang has been playing this song live for a while, and this song kicks ass.  Lead with a strong song, you want to pull the listen in.  Next up is Wires, the single that was released a while back, another strong song.  Rich and I both agreed how the vocal work bouncing between Bryan and Aaron gave a nice balance between the gritty and the clean and kept the tracks interesting to listen to.

Next is Hank is Dead with Aaron on vocals.  This is a solid song, but not one of my favorites.  The guitar solo seems somewhat out of place.  You also can hear Chris Funk's credited slide work on this track.  It adds a kind of nice finish, but the slide is buried for most of the track.  Then comes more Bryan (or Maurice on the album credits ;)  on Dirt Wizard, the main verse and chorus don't move me, but the bridge is real cool, though it is the kind of thing that blows you away live but does not transfer to well on an album.  It works better cranked on vinyl though.

Then there is the sludgy Throw Up, which shows Red Fang chugging along together to create a sort of wall of sound.  They are all playing unison and it just sounds big and mean, like their live show.   I like this track better than both Hank is Dead and Dirt Wizard, but the chorus is not quite as anthemic as the first two tracks on the side.  Time to flip the record over, remember flipping records?


The liner notes list Anita Robbison on guitar, Jenny Conlee on keyboards, and some one else who's name escapes me right now.  It is interesting who Red Fang thanks in the notes.  Missing are many of the main players in the Portland heavy rock scene.  I suppose Red Fang is not that tight with a lot of those making heavier music in town these days.

The second side is where this album starts to weaken.  My opinion is that this album is front loaded, with the best material appearing earlier on the album.  The second side starts with some trippy effects and kick ass drumming, and a fast past, almost punk rock type song, Painted Parade.  A short song, but not really that memorable.

Next track is Number Thirteen, with some nice rock tone guitar lead in, and back to some cleaner Aaron vocals.  Aaron's vocals sound so clean and polished on this album.  It is almost shocking when you first hear them, another cool chorus, makes this my favorite song on the second side of the record.

From here, there are three songs I felt are kind of ho hum about, it makes the record go out with a fissile rather than a bang.  Into the Eye is not a bad song, but is retreading ground already covered for the most part.  The Undertow starts out promising, and here is where you hear some of the guest musicians I believe.  The psychedelic guitar noodling, which is cool in my book, but not so much Red Fang's thing.  This is a cool song, and has sort of a plodding to it.  Though it does not seem to be quite as put together.

The final track is called Human Herd.  It almost doesn't sound like a Red Fang song.  A little straight forward for them, and the verse vocals are somewhat lack luster, and the chorus hook is not that compelling.

All in all Murder the Mountains is a solid album.  Most interesting though is that none of the songs have the epic, wide appeal of the song that brought Red Fang into the lime light, Prehistoric Dog.  The song and video really brought a lot of attention to Red Fang.  Prehistoric Dog is the sort of sing along, anthemic, head banding song every musician wishes they could crank out 12 of and make music for a living.  It makes me wonder if such a song is absent by choice, or just that creating a song like Prehistoric Dog is just not easy to do, and even less easy to repeat.  In any event, with a jam packed tour schedule over the next 6 months, it will be interesting to see what happens with Red Fang's popularity.  I suspect Red Fang will become "The" metal band to come out of Portland in years to come.

Eternal Tapestry and Moon Duo, April 9th at East End

So my friend and I hopped in the car and got down to East End post haste.  We go inside after dodging the heat ruining someones evening and Eternal Tapestry was rocking the house.  It was packed.  Eternal Tapestry was awesome.  Psychedelic swirls, dynamic builds, we only caught a couple of songs, but there is no doubt that Eternal Tapestry may very well end up being one of my favorite bands in town, and I will have to catch them proper for their next show.  They have been getting some buzz lately, and it sounded like they deserved it.

Things cleared out when Eternal Tapestry quit, so we grabbed a seat on the bench in the corner.  That was a good call.  After the switch, Moon Duo started up.  Now I was warned by the other guitarist in my band about Moon Duo, and he said he had seem them recently, and they were pretty cool, but the beat was kept by a drum machine the whole time and washed the vocals were revered out.  I tried to go in with an open mind.  I did really like the trippy keyboard sounds and the guitar tones coming from the Airline Triple Custom, in white.  But yup, every song was based around a drum machine, and a very beep boop, simplistic 80s style drum machine sound.  The vocals were washed out and reverb heavy.

The drum machine thing got old for me.  They would have been awesome with a good drummer on an acoustic kit.  I did notice the guitarist was doing a lot of looping, which is probably a part of the drum machine decision.  Locking loops with the time perfection of a drum machine is a lot less trouble prone that doing it with a live drummer, particularly if there is not a clear beat for the drummer to lock into in the loop, or if the drummer can't hear the loop.  A click in the ear is a possibility, but drum machines don't need to be feed, watered, or get bailed out of jail :).  I guess I see some of the appeal.

It was really cool to be able to catch the two bands I actually wanted to see, even if I missed a good portion of Eternal Tapestries set.  Quite a night for me, two venues, five bands.  The show let out and we made our way down to Potato Champion and feasted on some deep fried taters, covered in pulled pork.  Yum!

Purple Rhinestone Eagle and The Shrines, April 9th @ The Know

Well there aren't many nights that have this many shows going on at the same time.  Witch Mountain was doing their LP release with Nether Regions, Rabbits, and Wizard Rifle.  I have to confess, that I am not in love with any of those bands though.  Purple Rhinestone Eagle, on the other hand was great the last time I saw them, and were with with The Shirnes from LA at Saratoga and I thought Black Wizard from BC, but more on that later. 

But I have also really wanted to check out Eternal Tapestry with Moon Duo at East end.  What to do?  I gave a listen to all the bands, and determined that Karen and the other band whose name escapes me and I am too lazy to look up for the East End show where probably not going to be to my liking.  Two chord Shoegaze tends to not get me excited.

So I left it up to my partner in crime, and he was in more of a rock mood.  So Saratoga it was.  I got there around 9 PM even though the show was slated to start at 8 PM.  No one really starts a show at 8PM right?  I arrived and killed some time playing pinball, at which I admittedly suck very badly, but I still enjoy none the less.  First up was what I thought was The Shrines, mostly because I realized later, they were playing The Shrines kit.

The band broke out into a standard blues rock number.  A trio, with the bass player and guitarist sporting Afros.  Straight up blues rock does not excite me these days.  Such bands have no place at shows where a good original band could be on the bill.  I also felt duped because the music on The Shrines web site was nothing like what I was hearing.  One blues rock number after another flowed.  We are not talking blues rock re-imagined, we are talking straight up, Chuck Berry style blues rock, with nothing whatsoever new to add.  The band played with skill, but I gotta say, I was really bored by their music.  I was back playing pinball before the set ended, and that says something.

So the next band started to set up, on the same kit with The Shrines displayed on the kick. Who was the first band, and where was Black Wizard?  Well turns out Black Wizard was not on the bill, some misinformation had been propagated, and the first band was a band on tour with The Shrines.  Why bring such a band with you on tour?  Only The Shrines now for sure.  OK, well roll with it then.

Next came The Shrines, much more to my liking.  Still blues rock based, but they did something original and psychedelic with it.  Also a trio and playing the same rigs the first band did.  I would call it psychedelic guitar rock.  The lead guitarist tore it up, expertly manipulating his pedal board, even making adjustments to his delay with his feet as he played (nice thing about the large Electro Harmonic's original series Memory Man).  He was rocking a strat and a Marshall head of some sorts I think.  I didn't love The Shrines, seemed to focused on showman ship and less on the music.  It wasn't bad, but I was not inspired to buy their music or merch.  None the less, I think I know why they had the blues band open up.  By comparison, The Shrines seemed like innovative geniuses.  One of the advantage of picking an opening act that just plain and simple, makes you look a lot better as a band.  The crowd had started to grow for The Shrines, and as it should be.

My friend still hadn't arrived.  Damn dude is slow, so I tracked him down and we prepared for Purple Rhinestone Eagle.  We arrived just as they were starting, and after a stop at the bar, we headed up to check out the action.  Now things were not sounding quite right, and I realized that Andrea Genevieve, lead guitar and vocals, had switched amps.  Last time I saw PRE, Andrea played a music man head, and sounded great.  This time through, I was shocked to head a Line 6 head.  Groan!

Now philosophically, I have no problem with modeling amps, or any other kind of gear with new technology as long as it sounds good.  I use a digital modeling delay (The fantastic Eventide Timefactor) on my board.  The Line6 amp did not sound good.  It sounded like ass.  You could not hear the guitar.  The guitar had that modeling sound that just is not right, not sure how else to put it.  Gritty and distant sounding.  I was most disappointed.  How do you tell someone a musician you don't know to take their amp out back and shoot it?  I can't say that I will be motivated to go see PRE again.  Bad tone sticks in my craw.  But Andrea is really talented player.  I know the promise of the modeling amp, particularly if you sue a lot of different sounds in your live show.  Maybe she can dial it in some.

The rhythm section of Morgan Denning and Ashley Spungin were killing it, but the guitar, and also the vocals for that mater (another hint: point that mic at the back of your throat and the crowd might hear your vocals) were way too low.  The crowd was sizable, best of the night, and PRE deserves it since they are awesome musicians and their songs are good.  A fun local PDX band to see live around town.

Seemed like a short set, as it turns out, there is a curfew at Saratoga, being that it is located in a residential area, so the show ended at 11:20.  But wait!  Would it be possible to head down to East End and catch Eternal Tapestry and Moon Duo?  Read my next post to find out.

Metalliance Tour @ Roseland Theater Thursday March 24th

So the Metalliance tour rolled through Portland last Thursday, and the line up was more than enough to get me there.  I have been wanting to see Kylesa for a while given the buzz and hearing their albums, and have not been able to catch them here in Portland.  This show has a jam packed line up:

Atlas Moth
Howl
Red Fang
Kylesa
Crowbar
Saint Vitus
Helmet

With Helmet performing Meantime in it's entirety.  More on that later.  But damn, this show started at 6:40.  I didn't have a chance to check the bands out I didn't know, so I was going in a little blind.  Since I have a job, getting there at 6:40 was a challenge, and we ended up missing the first band due to a need for some food.  We got there and headed up stairs for a brew and to watch Howl since we had missed Atlas Moth.

Howl, hum, they could play, but I had some issues with these guys musically.  Traditional sort of line up, but I didn't hear anything new or different from these guys.  It was straight froward, 80s influenced rock with cookie monster vocals and no space what so ever.  I found it very straight forward music.  Everything was on the beat.  The "lead" guitar player in fact looked like he had done nothing but get tattoos and go to maiden concerts his whole life.  His lead playing was lack luster, and what he did play was buried in the mix.  Yawn, are these guys really worthy of being on this tour?  The set was a short 20 minutes, which was fine by me.  I will give Howl points for some awesome merch, a kick ass art work.  But for me, give me the music over good art.  I only want the merch if the band is good.

So a word about the sound.  Now Roseland has one of the best tuned sound systems, period.  It can sound awesome in there with a knowledgable person behind the board.  So what is up with the kick drum?  They had the kick drum turned up so loud, it was literally making my eyes water as the low end pulsated my eyeballs.  Yes, it's impressive display of subwoofer prowess, but it detracts from the music.  When you overload a room acoustically with low end, everything gets muddy.  This problem persisted the entire night and seemed to be more philosophical on the part of the soundman.  Just cause it is metal, does not mean you need to bludgeon the audience with bass.


After a quick change over was local favorites, Red Fang, sure to deliver.  Red Fang is a great band.  They rock, and tonight was no exception.  They played their newish single Wires, and some tracks off both the old and soon to be released record.  Always tight, always punchy, always with great sound all around.  You hear everything, and they have space.  When the band drops out and leave Bryan playing the main riff during Wires, you know what separated Red Fang form the pack, they know how to leave space.  It makes for good dynamics and generally makes the music more interesting.  Next Red Fang brought out Scott Weinrich for a song.  I couldn't really hear much of what he was doing vocally, but it was worth mentioning.

And as would be expected, Red Fang closed with Prehistoric Dog.  It really is a great song, catchy riffs, good dynamics, interestingly put together, catchy as fuck.  Honestly, it was the best song played all night.  Though, Red Fang has been riding this song for a while now.  I can't help but ask myself, is this song a fluke?  Did the boys just get real lucky in writing such a kick ass song?  There are other good songs on the first album, but none as memorable as Prehistoric Dog.  Now I don't mean any disrespect, Red Fang is a great band either way, but I have heard the new album and it does not seem to have song writing of the caliber of Prehistoric Dog.  More songs that good could propel Red Fang to a much wider audience.  I will say that I will be at the Murder Mountain release show at Branx.  I tend to enjoy Red Fang more live that their recorded material anyway.

Next up was Kylesa.  I saw the therman being set up, and the two drummers, and well, I was excited.  I had heard both of Kylesa's albums and liked them, but due to rampant computer issues this winter, I have not had the albums on my phone to listen to, so I don't know the albums by heart.  The show started off with some trippy keyboard and delay type sounds from Corey Barhorst, Kylesa's bass player, and I realized immediately that Kylesa was right up my ally.  The proceeded to rip through a set of kick ass psychedelic stoner metal.  There were some therman atmospheric moments from guitarist Phillip Cope, trippy keyboard atmospherics, along with crushing brutal moments.  The two drummers played together nicely and enhanced the drums rather than getting in each others way or sounding over played.  Laura Pleasant's played some excellent guitars, and displayed a mellower, reduced psychedelic playing style that, well kind of reminded me of the way I play leads.  It wasn't overly flashy playing, but solid, and great for the songs.  I have to say though, all in all I was not blown away.

Afterward a friend who knows Kylessa's material better said that they played everything faster than on the albumes.  Perhaps it was to squeeze more tunes into their time slot, but as any player knows, shifting the tempo of a song can dramatically change it's emotional impact, as the phrasing tends to work better at a specific tempo (one of the reasons why drummer's that wander are the worst!).  In any event, that could explain a lot.  I would like to see Kylesa again, preferably on a bill with fewer bands.

Next up was Crowbar, who to be honest I had never head of before this show, and I suspect it is because they are considered sludge metal, and personally, I am not a fan of sludge metal, at least not of the music I have heard refereed to as sludge metal.  I do like the Melvins, but I think they transcend being called sludge metal with the wide variety of material they have put out.  Anyway Crowbar wasn't terrible, but once again, no space, everything was filled.  Additionally everything, vocals, guitars, was in the lower registers.  I thought they would have been really good with a high wailing type singer.  Maybe it was the overwhelming bass/kick drum, but it just all sounded muddy, and well sludgy I suppose.  Maybe that's the point, and I am just not into it.  Next please?

Saint Vitus was up next.  I had heard about Saint Vitus in search of new music to check out years ago, along with Pentagram as sort of the second generation of heavy metal spawned by Black Sabbath.  I found some Saint Vitus, and honestly, never purchased any.  Guess I wasn't that impressed.  So sometimes, the live show blows the recordings out of the water.  In this case, I don't really have a lot to say.  In fact, I don't have much recollection of the show, it was not very memorable for me.  I guess I would say straight forward rock with raspy vocals?  I guess another band that I didn't get.  Ok, moving on.

Finally, Helmet was up.  I will confess, I liked Helemt's Meantime album quite a bit when it came out.  Yes, I was being fed what every American youth was gobbling up at the time, whatever MTV was playing, which mostly was grunge.  I liked that Meantime was different.  I never really thought of the album as metal, more heavy alternative rock.  In retrospect, I feel like Meantime was really ahead of it's time.  So many metal bands now sound similar to what Helmet was doing 20 years ago.  Meantime and the band really were ahead of their time and a ground breaking act for 1992.  Hard to believe they wrote that album post the glam/hair rock era.  Also worth noting is that Page Hamilton grew up in Portland, though moved to NYC.  Never knew that one till a few years ago, but I still remember seeing the images of Mt St Helen's erupting growing up in Alabama and thinking "There are Volcanoes in America?,"  I only knew the NW as where grunge came from at the time.

Anyway, Page was rocking a pink Ibanez, probably the least metal guitar one can imagine, but the band sounded tight.  I though the opening track In The Meantime, which was one of my two favorites from Meantime (the other being Ironhead) was somewhat lack luster for a reason I can't quite put a finger on.  Things did pick up though, and I realized one thing I really like about this album is the space.  When the guitar adds rests to emphasize the rhythms, it is excellent.  Really awesome, and so many metal bands these days could make their music vastly more interesting to me by employing rests.  As the album went on, I was not quite able to sing along, but the show was really good.  Gotta admit, I was pretty tired by this time, and seeing the kids in the mosh pit both brought back memories, and made me feel old since I felt like I would collapse expending that kind of energy after my day.  Helmet finished up meantime and did a few more songs, gotta be honest, I don't know much of Helmet beyond Meantime, but it was a solid show, and gotta give Helmet respect.  They deserve more than they have gotten in accolades and definitely showed they should be headlining this touring metal show.

Afterward we headed over to Dante's to grab a late night slice, resisting the call of the sweet decadence of Voodoo across the street, for once.......