so, how was your friday night? undoubtedly pretty fuckin' lame compared to sandeep's. three of the most badass bands i've encountered in the last 10 years, one show, $8 cover, and it was diwali (and birthdays of members of two of the bands!). i had been stoked about this show for a while, with Grayceon (SF), Lesbain (Seattle), and Walken (SF) playing on one night it was almost an ideal lineup for me.
before coming to the bay, i spent a few years kicking around seattle. upon encountering Lesbian, i made it a point to attend as many of their shows as possible and buy up every recording of theirs that i could. Lesbian forges the way into a delicate metal sub genre of their own. dipping into sludgy doom coupled with intensely psychedelic jams interwoven between math rock-esque break downs, they are more than a little hard to cram into a box.
Grayceon, also being a very uniquely artistic band, has never failed to amaze audiences at every show i've seen them play. i distinctly recall some random dude approaching Grayceon guitarist Max Doyle (also of Walken) after the band had just tore it up on the roof of idle hands tattoo parlor during the lower haight art walk, shaking his hand and saying "i never knew i could like a metal band before today...". there are many qualities that about Grayceon that one doesn't often encounter in metal bands. Jackie Perez Gratz (also of Giant Squid and Amber Asylum) fronts the band as vocalist and electric cello shred mistress. add guitarist Max Doyle's crushingly heavy handed finger picking and drummer Zack Farwell (also of Walken)'s thundering rhythms into the mix and all you're doing is bringing together keen minds for music theory and ridiculous amounts of obvious musical prowess. it's impossible to describe the bands sound without frighteningly redundant use of the word 'epic', so i'm just going to recommend you head to their website (http://www.grayceon.com/) and their myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/grayceon), listen to a couple tunes, and have your credit card ready, you'll be wanting to buy the albums as soon as you're finally able to tear yourself from listening to the songs over and over online...if of course you don't own them already.
Walken...well i'll lay my bias out on the table, i fucking LOVE this band. i don't know what it is, but from the firs time i saw them play, i was fucking hooked. taking some of the greatest elements of doom, math rock, and a healthy dollop of thrash Walken churns out tunes that are just so satisfying to my ears and soul. somehow it's like their music better describes my emotions than words can...it would be fucking sweet if i could walk into work and simply say 'i'm feeling very Thunder Paws today' as opposed to explaining that i feel very intense and mind bendingly groovy with high chances of repeatedly throwing some metal horns...(seriously, look up the song! it makes sense!!)...but i digress. these guys fucking rock. featuring the guitar and drum combination of Max Doyle and Zack Farwell you've already come to love with Grayceon, Walken also hosts Sean Kohler on guitar and backing vocals, with Shane Bergman (also of Hazzard's Cure) rounding the grinding quartet off on bass and lead vocals. together, the band belts out a sound worthy of the badassittude and groovyness of their namesake.
walking in to the hemlock on friday night i could already hear the chug of the cello. it was 10:05 and Grayceon was already on stage! i rushed to the bar, grabbed a beer, paid my cover to gain entrance to the tiny back room with the stage and dashed in, only to be met by a wall of show goers nodding to the hypnotic stylings Grayceon shreds their audiences with. their churning, heavy tunes cutting back and forth between sharp, driving speed sections and grinding, epic, down tempo dirges all within one 5 to 12 minute opus. i have yet to see this band put on a bad show, not even an okay so, Grayceon throws down. add in the fact that it was Zack's birthday, and all the good vibes that brought, and you have one killer fucking set with an audience packed so tightly there isn't even room for a gangly indian dude to slither his way to the front.
next up on stage was Lesbian...i love those guys! i was sure to stake out a spot up front for this, it was maybe april when i saw them last, but being in SF means having way fewer opportunities to see them play, so i jumpon any chance i get! i remember reading once that they first chose to call themselves 'Lesbianwitch' because they were searching for a band name that would be as offensive to christians as 'Black Sabbath' or 'Pentagram', then after a bit, it became Lesbian (i have no idea why, but who the fuck cares?! they tear it up!). Lesbian's set began with frontman Dorando Hodous letting the audience know they only had time for two songs. i smiled, recalling a Lesbian show at chop suey in Seattle more than a few years ago with Book of Black Earth and Melt Banana where their show started the exact same way, it was a good indication that epic slaughter was soon to follow. Lesbian warmed the audience up slowly, weaving intricate, oddly syncopated patterns with more reverb than distortion, creating a pleasant false sense of security before tearing into some intensely sludgy yet mind bogglingly technical riffs, which managed to sound simultaneously hap hazard and delicately crafted. luckily with Lesbian, two songs is a good 30 minutes, and Lesbian utilized that time to batter the audience with two amazing tracks off of their recently released (a month ago maybe) album, Stratospheria Cubensis (which is awesome by the way...more details on that in a later post [oh, and just a side note, but Lesbian is going to be playing in oakland this thursday the 11th at Sugar Mountain Records on San Pablo]).
closing out the show was Walken. since y'all already know how i feel about their music, prepare for more of the same. the show was fucking awesome, AWESOME. Grayceon and Lesbian alone made it an amazing night, but with Walken headlining...i'm struggling to some up with a simile to adequately express how FUCKING AWESOME this show was. let's jsut say, i would have paid 8 bucks to hear Walken play just one song live.
i got a bit of a kick out of the fact that this show was happening almost a year to the day after the CD release show for Walken's most recent full length album (Nov. 6th, 2009 at annie's social club...oh annie's...) . this year, it was celebrating Zack and Sean's birthdays that was adding extra emphasis to the fact that it was bound to be a badass fucking set. i was super excited to see Walken play. i had missed a couple of previous opportunities to see them, and was super pissed at myself each time. after the first Walken show i saw, i made it a point to see them as often as they had shows i was aware of. there was one point a couple of years ago when i saw them three times within two months and i was thrilled as fuck. friday night lived up to and my expectations and completely destroyed any part of me that would ever contribute to missing a Walken show ever again.
y'know when you're chilling right before a show and you tell yourself, 'man, if they start with (fill in your favorite song by the band here) or (fill in your very close second favorite, but possibly actually favorite song by them here)', and then the band totally plays one of the songs? that was my exact situation as Walken tore into 'Right at Home' to open their set. from there it was straight into a five song block with almost no break for applause, Walken wasn't on stage to fuck around, they were up there to melt some fucking faces...and melt them they did (musically). i tried to keep track of the set list in my head, but got way too carried away rocking the fuck out to 'Watch it Burn', 'In the city of No Seasons' and of course getting some serious headbanging in on 'Thunder Paws'. the best part of the show was undoubtedly the new tracks, keeping me eagerly awaiting new recordings from these guys. after an intense and killer set of tunes, the guys from Walken stepped off stage, leaving the audience calling out to hear 'Running Out of Time'. i checked my phone, it was still hardly 12:40,surely there was time for...and before i could finish my thought they were back. the unstoppable machine of metal badassitude that is Walken tore into 'Running Out of Time' and 'Beast Toker' providing the audience their sought after encore.
as with all the bands that played friday night, Walken is a band that strives to play music that is recognizably metal in a way that few metal bands conceptualize their music. in my opinion, Walken owned the show that night. yes i'm biased, but seriously, give 'em a listen and go to a show. you'll be blown the fuck away. seriously, go buy some of these albums. check out some samples of the bands first if you need to:
http://www.myspace.com/grayceon
http://www.myspace.com/lesbianwitch
http://www.myspace.com/walken
alright, that's it, go listen to some music fun new music...and keep it gloomy y'all.
