Finally, I can talk about this. Witch Mountain is not only releasing a new album in June, but they're going on tour then, too. And they're touring with fuckin' Lord Dying. Guys, guys... really, guys. If they pass by you, go see them. Here are the dates (with more to come for Lord Dying):

Fri 4/27 - Hub Bar & Grill - Centralia, WA - Witch Mountain, Seventh Silence (free show)
Fri 5/4 - Tiger Bar - Portland, OR - Witch Mountain, Tombstalker, Avi Dei
Sat 5/5 - Cloud 9 - Corvallis, OR - Witch Mountain, Norska, Arcweld
Sat 6/2 - The Ritz - Tampa, FL - Scion Rock Fest: Down, Sleep, Church of Misery, Witch Mountain, The Atlas Moth
Sun 6/3 - The Earl - Atlanta, GA - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Order of the Owl
Tue 6/5 - The Haunted Mill - Belmont, NC - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Monarchist, Pig Mountain
Wed 6/6 - King's Barcade - Raleigh, NC - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Atrophix
Thu 6/7 - Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Fri 6/8 - Saint Vitus - Brooklyn, NY - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Bezoar
Sat 6/9 - Machines With Magnets - Providence, RI - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Sun 6/10 - Great Scott - Boston, MA - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Elder
Mon 6/11 - Geno's Rock Club - Portland, ME - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Tue 6/12 - Cafe Chaos - Montreal, QC - Witch Mountain
Wed 6/13 - Hard Luck Bar - Toronto, ON - Witch Mountain, Blood Ceremony, Castle
Thu 6/14 - Now That's Class - Cleveland, OH - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Fri 6/15 - Mac's Bar - Lansing, MI - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Satyrasis, Borrowed Time
Sat 6/16 - Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Sun 6/17 - High Noon Saloon - Madison, WI - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Mon 6/18 - Off Minor - Dubuque, IA - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Tue 6/19 - Bourbon Theatre - Lincoln, NE - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Wed 6/20 - Larimer Lounge - Denver, CO - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying
Thu 6/21 - Burt's Tiki Lounge - Salt Lake City, UT - Crucial Fest: SubRosa, Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Reality
Fri 6/22 - The Shredder - Boise, ID - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Cerberus Rex
Sat 6/23 - Backspace - Portland, OR - Witch Mountain, Lord Dying, Spellcaster

Also, in case you didn't know (like I didn't before this morning), Castle - the band Witch Mountain shares a stage with in Toronto - has an album coming out this month. Here's a video.

Fitting pairing, I know.

I saw Lord Dying for the first time a year ago today - also their own first time playing to a crowd. They've played basically the same set every time I've seen them since. Today they played a new song. It was great. I'm glad they've lasted a year and hope there are at least a few more years (and a few more songs) to come.

As for the rest of the experience: no. I hate the sun, I hate heat, I hate how nowhere I go has any air conditioning, I hate holidays, I hate weekenders, I hate outdoor shows, I hate lines, I hate waiting, I hate crowds, fuck "socializing", and fuck you. I should have known better than to leave the house with my "day after" brain for a show taking place 15 hours after the last one. I left before I saw anyone else.

But, good to see some of my favorite local bands (still) doing well in terms of crowd and attention. Let's do next time on a rainy weekday indoors, though.

Next Rabbits show: 8/9 Bunk Bar (and 9/9 Ash Street for MFNW)
Next Lord Dying show: 7/18 East End
Next Danava show: 7/22 Rotture
Next Red Fang show: who knows? I'd guess September-ish, though.

[120] Sloths, Wizard Rifle, Dark Castle, YOB (2011)

I'm going to hold off on the previous show I saw so that I can quickly do this more socially relevant post. I don't want to forget any important details in light of my next few days.

Branx was rather warm today. Guess what? They don't have air conditioning. I wouldn't have thought so since Rotture doesn't, but yeah. I hoped. It was at least 85 in the sun when I left the house, which I dislike immensely. Thankfully there was a breeze downtown and something of a breeze in the venue neighborhood.

Of all of the bands, I'd never seen Sloths. I should have before but I'm lazy. In any case, I've known who they are for a while - their guitarist is also one of the guitarists of Nether Regions. Considering how well I (don't) know that number, I was expecting to hear the bands collide, but Sloths stood very much apart from Nether Regions. I think all of the guys in the band are about 18 years old, yet they played with maturity and technical detail that I don't always see out of much older bands. Their bassist was wearing a Young Widows t-shirt; they kind of sounded like them. Hardcore vocals + mathy noise. While I could have done without the vocal style, musically they sounded great.

I think this may have been the best Wizard Rifle show I've seen in a while. Maybe since Black Cobra last July? They played a long song to start with that I was told was new/unrecorded, followed by two familiar high-strung shorter songs. One of those was "Nobody", I've spaced out the other. The new song was great. They keep getting better.

It's been almost exactly a year since I saw Dark Castle for the first time. It was my favorite new-to-me, not-local performance of the year. Then I saw them at Scion - fuck. My expectations are a little high between those two experiences, so I tried to tame that. Nope, still awesome. They only did one song I didn't properly know (from the new album) - the rest I had had time to get into. That said, I barely know their songs by name, so no setlist.

YOB, however, did:

Quantum Mystic,
Prepare The Ground,
two songs that I think were The Great Cessation (possibly a new song with a bunch of padding to make it 20-ish minutes long - I don't know TGC and I've only heard the new album once) and Grasping Air, the second with Stevie from Dark Castle doing a lot of the vocals,
and the encore was Ball of Molten Lead.

"Prepare The Ground" was way better than I expected it to be. Their touring drummer (the same drummer from Dark Castle) held his own ground pretty fucking well. Mike said they'd only practiced four times.

The crowd was decent. Sloths had their own following of moshing kids but the center crowd loosened up after them. It wasn't the densest crowd I've seen there, but I blame the weekend, the weather, and the "all ages" for that (drunks don't like to be trapped... they already are). Still, it was a decent sized crowd, and each band did good regardless of timing.

I don't think "we" told any major entity about an upcoming YOB show that was technically not supposed to be announced yet, but more musically casual individuals who might have been to this show that regularly speak to me or my boss about these things were expectedly not present. White Orange was yesterday, Red Fang is tomorrow, and there are these Rush shows going on in Washington, too. Even so, I think a few people missed out.

That said, YOB is playing a homecoming show in August in Portland. It'll be 21+. You should go.

Edit: There are photos and videos up at The Obelisk forums. Thanks, whomever you are!

[118] Naam, Gates of Slumber, Orange Goblin (2011)

I didn't get a whole hell of a lot of sleep due to a frustrating number of distractions and interruptions. I thought I might need to opt out of the show. But these stoner metal nights are my kind of thing, and I have been getting a bit of cabin fever lately. Plus, when the hell would I see Orange Goblin again? They're from the UK and haven't been here in years.

Well, Dante's didn't lie for once and say they were going to start at 9 and really start at 10. Naam got started at 9:15 according to the front board, and I walked in about 9:35. Already there was a decent crowd.

Oh well to the lost minutes; I don't really care for Naam. The 2-3 full songs I got were more than enough for my palette. Thing is, I kind of missed them after they left the stage. I find them a bit too slow and drugged out for my overall needs, but they were a hell of a lot more interesting (and better sounding) than Gates of Slumber. If nothing else, Naam's drummer was pretty cool, kind of reminding me of Witch Mountain for a brief "that doesn't make any fucking sense" second.

Gates' drummer looked drunk and/or stoned from where I was and had a very slow playing style to match it. The rest of the band did not make up for the lack of interesting happening there. Instead of sounding like a Saint Vitus rip-off like they do with their latest album, which might have worked in the right setting, they just sounded like mediocre hash-doom. I have more than enough tolerance for boring doom bands live, but yeah. Maybe it was Dante's fault. Still, I should have left, taken a walk down crackhead alley and cooled off or something. Anyway, they were spot-on with their name.

It was the usual disgusting temperature in the venue that it is this time of year and apparently I found the warmest spot in the room when Orange Goblin started. Further, it was more confirmation that I hate Dante's sound. The first song sounded empty and wrong - you'd think "The Ballad of Solomon Eagle" carried more power than it actually did. Things improved but that place still has limits. After a couple of songs I moved and that helped with both issues. Still, I was feeling worn out from the heat, and I think it affected my perspective of their part of the show a bit.

I gotta say it's really surreal to see a band live for the first time after years of knowing them. I looked: I heard Orange Goblin for the first time in 2006. I thought that they were that band I had been recommended because I liked Monster Magnet (which actually turned out to be Electric Wizard, not OG). I checked out their discography to that date and gave them a proper listen because a friend of Monster Magnet is a friend of mine - unless they try to get into an argument with me about my awareness of "Nod Scene" when I ask why that's their favorite song of all amazing Monster Magnet songs - in which case, go fuck yourself, hippie.

Anyway, it's been a while. Maybe too long. Maybe I would have appreciated this experience more a few years ago when I was listening to them more and liking stoner metal with a lot more blatant enthusiasm. But given that, it's so nice to know a decent band like they can make an overseas tour possible. I didn't imagine I'd see them live at any point, and I'm glad I got the opportunity.

I went in with no real expectations and was surprised at a rare interesting "noodler" guitarist happening in their band, how fucking tall Ben is over his bandmates as well as his magnetic stage presence (how does it work?), and that I didn't tune out on the songs that I didn't know/love so well.

I kind of thought the crowd would be dickish or aggressive, but they weren't too bad either. It was one of those shows where I only recognized a few folks, which is nice to see from a business standpoint, but apparel choices told me that I was right at home. High on Fire a-plenty, Venom, Slayer, Red Fang, Hawkwind, Weedeater... I had earlier read an interview of David D'Andrea, and the HOF shirt design he discusses in the interview was someone's jean jacket backpatch at the show. If I believed in fatalistic things, I would have gotten the feeling that I was "supposed" to be there.

So, like, I got a setlist because my boss is the most awesomest boss ever. This is what it says. I crossed out where I know it lies.

Ballad of Solomon Eagle
Vagrant Stomp
Shine
Cities of Frost
Magic Carpet
Cozmo Bozo
Hard Luck
Round Up The Horses
They Come Back
Blue Snow
Aquatic Fanatic
Some You Win, Some You Lose
-----
Time Travelling Blues
Quincy The Pigboy
Scorpionica

They also did "Your World Will Hate This" somewhere in the middle. (None of you jerks requested this for me, right?) I also heard little pieces of classic songs, shit I recognized but couldn't title offhand and they were too short to recount by lyrics so I forget what where. For the few mini-covers, though, some guy finally yelled about how "Some You Win" had a riff in it that was ripped off from some other band I couldn't hear him say. It did?

For me, the highlight was "Blue Snow". That's been a favorite of mine since I first heard the band, so I'm glad they played it after all. The whole set was better than I could have expected. The only song missing that I would have wanted to hear was "Solarisphere". But hey, next time. I very much hope there will be a next time.

Good show! Thanks for coming to Amtrakia, O.G.

[115] Archons, Lightning Swords of Death, Saviours, Midnight (2011)

I went to this for Saviours and maybe it wasn't the best decision. Certainly I'd rather be stuck in a room with metal sorts than the people who go to Drunktes, but after Saviours got going I found myself wondering what the hell Jeff The Brotherhood sounded like live. They were playing in town at that very moment, and I thought about seeing them this time since I've seen Saviours several times already, but... metal or garage? Metal.

Saviours played all new stuff aside from their last song, "Slave To The Hex" (I did recognize another - Metal Swim comp?). All new sets are really tough and I wouldn't suggest bands with a history do this. It was okay - I like Saviours overall - but the bulk of their material is too familiar for me to give a crap about the meat of their albums. I like the "singles" and the presentation. And the drummer!

I've seen Lightning Swords of Death's name a lot in recent times but I blanked out who they were. They were black metal (and looked it despite the fact that their singer looked like a mini-Steve Brooks) so it's no wonder. They had their passing moments for me; overall I don't care for that pure black metal sound.

Archons was a nice surprise. I was expecting the worst from my total ignorance. They were a thrashy doom/sludge band, right up my alley. The first song they did made me think they should open for Nether Regions next time they're in town, but the rest was more like Lord Dying - minus the prog element of either band. Still, I've heard this shit a thousand times now and I'm getting kind of bored of watching it.

I didn't stay for Midnight. Don't know 'em, don't care, too fucking tired.

Great turn-out for this show. Someone from every metal-ish local band I could think of was in the room - besides Red Fang, who are on tour. I ended up meeting a punchline for a "___ is my anti-drug" ad, talked with some familiars, properly met the guitar half of Norska, and still managed to escape without a bestial encounter. Motherfuckin' yay.

Next time, Jeff. Next time.