bITS 'N CHUNKS
Labels and the general culture of us vs poseurs taught me not to trust anyone that gives themselves an actual category. I know, that's stupid but it was a big thing back in The Day™.
Why? Because labels put you in a box and meant you were a puppet. If you voluntarily called yourself glam metal then we already knew what you were all about and there was no room for anything else. That's why to this day a lot of older goths still hiss at the "goth" label, because of what it is and what it has become. When you get tired of explaining things to people, it's easier to distance yourself. The only people that I know of that lean head first into categorization is metal heads and punks and even that is not always a given. You can find generic headbangers anyway and most of them will definitely let you know, but there's a lot of us that hate subcategories for example. Punks are…well, punks. A lot of us don't care either. Now, depending on how old you are you probably had to re-read that last part. Did you just refer to "us" as both punks and metalheads? Yes, there was a time when those two categories mixed like cesium and water. Labels suddenly matter a lot when you need to know what club to go to so you don't get your ass kicked. That being said, with that kind of history it's weird to think at some point punks and metalheads would meet, agree, shake hands, and not murder each other. But it happens all the time. Goths and rockabilly stray cats met up for gothabilly or psychobilly and that's kind of weird. Apparently the meeting of minds of metal and hardcore punk was crossover.
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Live video of "The Mob Goes Wild" courtesy of YouTube user HiDef ROCK, all I have for you are blurry pictures. On to the belated review. Well then. I went to a concert and felt old. A moment of forethought went into my purchasing tickets for this show. Clutch? Fine, saw them on the last Psychic Warfare run around through these parts. Back then, they brought Corrosion of Conformity in tow. This time was The Obsessed -- the pinnacle of old school doom metal -- and Devin Townsend, the peak of progressive operatic something-something metal that doesn't take itself terribly serious. Surely you've heard Ziltoid by now. A moment of forethought, then things became strange. The Obsessed and Clutch seem like a similar fit to each other. Even if The Obsessed is the bigger band for me I definitely understand why Clutch is headlining. I'm glad they brought them along. But Devin stuck out to me -- what in the world was uppity prog rock doing at a stoner metal concert for us bottomfeeders? Devin has two speeds: melodic heavy and heavy fast. That seemed incongruent to the ceremony that we were about to witness. Then I thought, I could definitely see Clutch touring with Devin as both have a quirky sense of humor and penchant for sci-fi, but that leaves out dead ass serious The Obsessed. What…? Where…? When and how? I don’t put together tour packages, I just buy the tickets. And so I sat on them for a clean month. I took my first vacation day in years, and I was off to the rare, coveted Saturday show at Marathon Music Works. Ah, Marathon. My second home. I've hit this venue officially more than any of my other frequent haunts in the city. I'm trying to get back to the Exit/In one of these days and I'm starting to feel a little out of touch with The End. I save the big money for the War Memorial Auditorium and the Municipal. I'll never get into the Ascend Amphitheater. But Marathon is just right. There's almost always a little something there for me, it's accessible enough in terms of pricing, and it's close enough for a $10 Lyft ride from my house. So there. A word on accessibility before I go on, though: please be considerate of people with physical disabilities and don't close off pathways for them just so you can scurry up to your favorite band like ten feet away. Don't be that asshole. Thanks. So I get to the show and I realize no one asked for my ID. Do I, the oldest twentysomething, finally look my age? No, it's an all-ages show! This is fantastic and a curse at the same time. On one hand, most of my scenes are dying and could use some fresh blood. If a ten year old is interested enough in The Obsessed to headbang and drone alone, I am all for it. I will buy you as many sodas as you want. But as the night went on and a few drunken participants got in their feelings, as Devin randomly and deliberately caressed his own nipples on stage and shot mucous, I thought to myself, "how on Earth do you explain this in your back to school essay?" I'm no one's moral guardian. All told, the weirdness aside, I hope those kids have fun and come back. We need more all-ages events to be honest. Can't yell at the kids for listening to Justin Bieber or whoever is relevant now if you don't give them an alternative. After all, I've been listening to this music since I was their age, too. The Obsessed was loud and menacing. I was so happy to be at the front to watch Scott do his thing and bellow hatred at me. There was so much smoke and red light I was pretty sure I was being ferried right into Hell. They played a short set, but long enough to make an impact and Devin and Clutch singer Neil Fallon were cool enough to stress supporting them with merch sales. Merch sales are important for touring bands, folks. Sometimes you just have to buy a hat so someone else can eat that night. If Clutch is the more mainstream band here then Devin is the most pop. Yeah, I said it. DTP combines pop sensibilities with fine progressive craft, a touch of actual Industrial metal as Lord Al Jourgensen intended it, and just being entertaining as all get out. It ended up being a cathartic, bright experience and heavy on the more bombastic tracks from Addicted, Epicloud, and new album Transcendence. Ah, Marathon was packed but so cold at this point thanks to the weather and being in a warehouse. Even bundled up I couldn't shake the mix of exhilarated goosepimples and "fuck I'm cold" chills. I rub my aching neck with my ice block hands; feels good, but helped one thing and not the other. I was now less sore and cold. I look around at the little headbangers and the people older than me running off adrenaline and I feel ancient. I shifted and shuffled around the audience a bit until I was at the very end of the audience for Clutch. A trick at the Marathon for fellow shorties is to stand at the very edge and angle yourself; you can see the whole stage unobstructed now. Even if they can't hear you, the sentiment of "excuse me" and "I'm sorry" still carry a long way when maneuvering around. "We Need Some Money" by Chuck Brown signals the main event. Clutch finally takes the stage bathed in more red light and smoke, but they're far from the menacing doom that The Obsessed brought. Clutch is like a fine medium between DTP and The Obsessed: serious but a serious good time, somewhat foreboding but more tongue-in-cheek. They can do a little progressive jam. I'd dare put them closer to Voivod if they weren't such a boot-scooting, blues-y good time. Oh yes, I danced. I paid for it but damnit I danced. This set list wasn't as Psychic Warfare-heavy this time around but it's also the second (or maybe even third) leg of the tour, the album's been out since 2015 so hopefully you've caught it by now. If you haven't, well, enjoy this Clutch retrospective. I snuck out of the show near the end of Clutch's set. I glimpsed a few drunken exclamations. But you know what, in the end it's alright. I had a good time and that's what it means to go out. I pulled my ear plugs out and soaked in the night air and the night cold, shivering with equal parts excitement and the effects of the below-20 weather outside. I'm so glad I got to see two bands off my bucket list and Clutch for a second time. My concert season is over for the year, but January and February are already looking up. Here's to another year of youth and the scene which refuses to die.
I discovered Woven In thanks to some publicity on Fuck Yeah Black Goths. Just to prove the scene is not dead (undead, undead) I try to stay on the lookout for new dark music. I didn't really know what to think when I saw the initial incarnation of the band marked as dark surf. Like…was that some kind of ironic category that I'm too old to get?
This was only the second time I'd seen that tag and I thought maybe it's a thing people were trying to get started on the 'net. Lo and behold, beach goth/dark surf/surf goth is a real thing...kind of? I've heard surf punk but to be honest that's not really my thing. I can see this happening more organically, though. It makes a lot of sense, surf music & goth have a lot in common, namely the high guitars and thumping bass lines. In surfer music, they sound like feet pounding on wood piers to jump into the water. In goth, they sound like anxious doom. Totally the same. I gave Woven In a few listens and I really liked their warm, ominous, melancholic version of ennui. To me they successfully made the easy-breezy sunny sounds associated with California into something painfully tense, a little distrustful, and startling. I tried to keep up with their career over the years. On their Facebook page, they announced a change in direction to something veering a little closer to goth and here we have Bossa Blanca. Please listen. As I listened, I thought to myself this is a mature effort from an artist that is very confident and ready to go get some new legs. It's getting there, it feels transitional. It's definitely heavier on the goth overtones but it still has that beach kick. Despite moving on, Woven In's sound is so unique and such a firm blend of elements that it's pretty much emulsified. It reminds me of when auteur directors get out of their usual genre or every time Stephen King writes a non-scary book: you're still expecting some of their old ticks to crop back in, maybe because they can't help themselves. But if this is where the group is going I'd really like to follow their dark journey along, whether it's on a dark moonlight beach or back on land. Hey everyone,
I figured I would start off with something I actually enjoyed and ended up being helpful. If you follow me on social media, you may have heard back in August I had a death in my immediate family. In the midst of all that, I was also going through some pretty heavy shit before and after. I'm the exact opposite of religious but there are times when I take comfort in religious ceremony and, strangely enough, orthodox practices. What I'm trying to say is, I was watching The Last Temptation of Christ and made a connection with Lazarus of Bethany. This actually ended up on my AO3 account which I will never share so if you see it there and here just remember real Gs move in silence! Omerta and all that! Okay fam,
So last week I heavily implied that I would be running these Halloween skreets with a boatload of content and then...not so much. Technically I have been over here at Global Comment (y'all like Halloween countdowns?) but I wanted to get a little more ambitious with my blogging space! Unfortunately, the malady known as D E P R E S S I O N took me down through there and I had to focus my energy on my professional work otherwise I wouldn't be getting shit done. Well, I'm not really better per se but I feel good enough to share the things that I literally wrote months ago in case of just such an emergency, so FINALLY here we go with the writings again. As I said previously, I started a self-imposed flash fiction challenge that went from "flash fiction" to "what can i finish with minimal editing in a day" to "regular short story writing". I wasn't feeling any prompts so I decided to do a play list. I'm really no good at making play lists but I like writing to music, as you may have heard. While I'm getting my other posts together, I'll be sharing a few stories. Most of these will be me clowning on myself, but good or bad the purpose of this challenge for me was just keeping the pen moving/keyboard clacking. And I don't really mind making a spectacle of myself; I mean, come on. That being said, here is my curated play list: |
Ia! If you've come this far, you're either looking for weird or you know you've found it... TRESPASSING
September 2018
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