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.