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.