The Holy Mountain, Street Sharks and Double Negative: 3.25.06: Raleigh, NC

This past Saturday King’s hosted the first “Thrashatorium Presents” show. The Thrashatorium is a house on Wake Forest Road in Raleigh that has hosted some of my favorite shows of all time with bands like Strung Up, Direct Control, Government Warning and of course tons of local bands as well. Since their shows have gotten a bit too big for the house over the past few months they’ve moved operations over to the downtown club King’s, which (from what I understand) has agreed to host about one show a month put on by the top-notch Thrashatorium booking staff. Personally, house shows are my favorite shows since everyone is usually completely wasted and packing everyone in to a small room really makes shows feel like events, so I was trepidatious about King’s (which must have a capacity of around 400 or more) being able to replicate that environment. While I wouldn’t say Saturday’s show was as over-the-top crazy as most Raleigh house shows, I was amazed at how many kids came out. There were more than enough people there for the show to feel well-attended and from what I understand the bands were paid very well. Here’s hoping all of Hank’s hard work continues to pay off and that the Raleigh scene continues to get better and better.

As for the bands that played, it was the first show for the new band Double Negative, a much-hyped (in Raleigh at least) unit composed of people who have been around the NC hardcore scene for upwards of 20 years along with California expatriate Brian Walsby, who drummed for the Mystic band Scared Straight in the early 80s. I’d heard some of Double Negative’s practice tapes previously and I was nothing short of amazed… the music sounds like a dead-on reinterpretation of Why?-era Discharge with an Animosity-era Mike Dean clone on vocals and a palpable Japanese undercurrent to the rhythms. In other words, it was fucking amazing! You never would have known that it was Double Negative’s first show based on their performance and the crowd’s reaction. They played hard as shit, though they were also perceptibly amazed at the amount of slamdancing and general craziness that they induced. Closing with covers of Void’s “Think” and DRI’s “I’d Rather Be Sleeping” didn’t hurt either. While Raleigh has a habit of producing solid, fast hardcore bands, Double Negative are on another level and I don’t plan on missing too many of their future shows.

Double Negative:

The venerable Street Sharks were up next, and I think they were a little nervous about having to follow Double Negative’s blistering performance. No worries, though; they pulled it off and like every one of their shows I’ve seen so far this performance was even better than their last. I really wish they would play their cover of Screeching Weasel’s “My Right” at every show, though.

Street Sharks:

The last band of the night was Tampa, Florida’s the Holy Mountain, who I gather were the big draw for all of the kids at the show whose pants were covered in patches of forgotten 90s crust and power violence bands. While they weren’t really my thing, they were definitely solid, very slick neo-crust in the vein of Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, etc. I can listen to that music but I’m not really into that sound or aesthetic, so I spent most of my time envying the guitarist’s Crude t-shirt until they busted out a sweet-ass Crucifix cover to end the show. All in all a great fucking show and more than reason enough to celebrate until the sun came up, which all of the Raleigh die-hards proceeded to do. NCHC!

The Holy Mountain:

Click here to see more pics from this show
Click here to see more pics of Double Negative
Click here to see more pics of Street Sharks
Click here to see more pics of The Holy Mountain

Note: I’m trying something a little different for this review by hosting the images on flickr. If this works out well I may continue to host all of the blog’s images on flickr in the future since it’s a lot cheaper than my current hosting plan, which Dead Metaphor’s advertising revenue by no means covers. If you have any comments/questions/concerns about that, please leave a comment on this post.

Gorilla Angreb: Long Island b/w Supersyn 7″

I wasn’t really planning on writing about this 7″ since plenty has already been said about Gorilla Angreb in other forums, but this 7″ has been getting such universally bad reviews (most notably in Maximum Rock N Roll, which said something to the effect of “the fire is gone” when they reviewedd this release a few issues back) that I felt like I had to step up to the plate and put the official Dead Metaphor Seal of Approval^© on this one. While I think that, in general, the level of praise applied to Gorilla Angreb exceeds their actual musical worth, I just can’t stop listening to this fucking record. I think it’s by leaps and bounds the best thing they’ve done to date. Whether they were playing fairly standard—if excellent—thrashy hardcore on the Aborted 2000 EP or slightly more complex poppy KBD punk like on their self-titled 7″ and split with Lokum, until now it seemed to me like most of Gorilla Angreb’s songs followed a similar pattern and that they’d backed themselves into a schtick that they couldn’t really get themselves out of. However, this single is a different story.

Sure, the X comparisons are inevitable, since the male/female harmonics recall that band more than any other punk sound, but structurally these songs have this loose, wandering, almost Bad Seeds-esque vibe that I find absolutely enthrallng. It also doesn’t hurt that “Long Island” has the best chorus that the band has hit upon yet and the main riff in “Supersyn” captures this lazy, first-gen CBGB vibe that recalls some of my favorite power pop singles of all time.

Unfortunately this 7″ was very limited so the poor reactions from the collector scum elite may be the nail in this disc’s coffin, but if you happen to run across one I encourage you to pick it up and make up your mind for your self rather than letting the punk elite make your choices for you.

Inside Man

Last night Kelly and I went out with our friends Jen and Michael to see the new Spike Lee move Inside Man. I’m not generally into the habit of talking about movies on this site, but after stumbling upon a couple of reviews of this movie on Google News it strikes me that most people just completely don’t get it at all. Everything I’ve seen about the movie bills it as a more or less stereotypical (if smart) heist movie, and as such a quote unquote “departure” from Spike Lee’s more well-known work that deals with race relations in the US. After reading these people insist that race isn’t one of the foregrounded issues of Inside Man I can’t help but wonder if these people are just stupid, didn’t watch the movie at all, or both.

Even someone who paid only a marginal amount of attention to the movie (like the two teenagers behind me who were making out and chattering the whole fucking time) will notice that Spike references the rampant racism among the police and the ways in which they rationalize their beliefs with reference to their personal experience (which, in places like New York City, is mostly with people from ethnic minorities). Someone paying a bit more attention might notice that two black men are the heroes/good guys (to use the terms losely) of the movie while the white people in the movie tend to have either little regard for morals or a pretty fucked up way of going about being moral. However, what I think is particularly clever about Inside Man is that it isn’t operating in a cultural vacuum. Spike knows damn well that people expect him to push the race issue, so he doesn’t give the viewer any room to dismiss this movie as a black power wish fulfillment fantasy. Denzel Washington’s character in the movie is the smartest, most complex character in the film, but he’s definitely dealing with some issues, including both pressures from outside (like the racism that keeps him from being a respected detective) and the inside (most notably his ambition). While I’m no Spike Lee expert, it’s nuanced, sophisticated portrayals of race relations like this that make him such a brilliant filmmaker and retarded interpretations of his work like the one I mentioned above that manage to dismiss his skill as founded only in his perspective as a black man.

However, it strikes me that by over-emphasizing the race angle I’m starting to do the same thing, so let me end by saying that Inside Man is a pretty awesome heist movie, and one that has the advantage of reflecting the reality of race relations in America rather than just glossing over them as so many movies do. So if you like movies like The Usual Suspects go see this, just remember to think about a little fucking bit afterwards, okay?

Excuses Are Useless

Yet I give them to you anyway. My friend Billy is down in Chapel Hill visiting for the next few days, so we have a busy schedule of drinking and arguing minor points of continental philosophy planned. Whenever he gets his sorry ass out of our guest room / Kelly’s office I’ll be back with posts on Brutal Knights, Gorilla Angreb, Hjerte Stop and all of the other crap I’ve been spinning lately.

The Vicious

I mentioned on a post a while back that I had some amount of trouble getting into the Vicious’ first 7″ (which was, like this 12″, on Wasted Sounds Records from Sweden). The first time I heard the record I was floored (and, perhaps, drunk), though I wasn’t able to generate that same enthusiasm on any subsequent listens. However, I tracked down this 12″ anyway because I had a feeling that this band was onto something, and after hearing this I think I finally get it. Once I saw the artwork, which features the band members decked out in devilocks and leather jackets and posing, corpse-style, with their arms crossed over their chest, I realized that the Vicious are going for the early (as in Static Age and before) Misfits style, which is a fucking brilliant style to play in the year 2006. I suppose there have been lots of Misfits tribute bands in the years since the original band took the stage (see, for instance, Balzac from Japan or the post-Danzig Misfits) but the Vicious are the only ones who even get close to that sound.

Like most of their Scandinavian brethren (see the Regulations or anything else on Kick N Punch Records), authentic-sounding retro production is not a problem for the Vicious. They have that great, slightly trebly, early punk rock feel to the guitars, and the recording manages to feel big and powerful without feeling slick. The artwork is also top-notch; while it doesn’t recall any original Misfits artwork in particular, there’s a definite Beware feel to the cover, though again it doesn’t feel self-consciously retro like some bands.

The Vicious also nail the music, which is mid-paced punk rock with a hefty dose of melody. The riffs are incredibly simple and the vocal lines match them, though they’re not delivered in a Danzig-style croon but rather in a Stitches-like howl. The only shortcoming in the songwriting department is the lyrics; just like the Regulations (with whom the Vicious share at least one member), the lyrics are pretty trite and awful. Being a fan of music created primarily by teenagers you get used to bad lyrics, but I always found Regulations and Vicious lyrics trite nearly to the point of distraction. I mean, so much work obviously went into getting the rest of the schtick right, why not write some decent fucking lyrics? You don’t have to write free-form post-modernist poetry, but I would think that one could find a slightly more interesting way to say “I’m so fed up / I’m gonna self-destruct.” These guys (and most other punk/hardcore bands for that matter) would be well-served by studying Government Warning’s lyrics in detail; they’re a great example of a band who deals with more or less traditional punk themes but brings something new to the table with the way those universal feelings are articulated.

Despite that minor gripe, though, this 12″ really is completely fucking essential (and let’s face it, if lyrics were your thing punk rock probably wouldn’t be your favorite genre anyway!). I’ve been doing my best not to reflexively jump on the bandwagon of loving everything coming from Scandinavia these days, but honestly this music is just too damn good not to give props to. Congrats, Swedes, you rule.

The Swing

It just dawned on me that I haven’t written anything new here in nearly two weeks. That is a ridiculously long time for me. I was out of town for a week over spring break, which I suppose was an attempt to recover from all of the stress surrounding my PhD exams, but the “break” ended up being nearly as busy and stressful as studying was. Now I’m back in Chapel Hill where the things to do seem to have really piled up; I’ve yet to give any of my students any grades and we’re more than halfway through the semester, and there are a zillion and one Direct Control orders to fill as well. Also (and this is probably going to sound stupid to some of you), I’ve been trying to kick caffeine, which I’ve found a really trying experience. My caffeine intake had risen to absurd proportions as I was studying… I was drinking several pots of coffee and several sodas a day, and now I’m trying to limit myself to one cup of coffee in the morning. The result is that once that morning cup wears off I feel lethargic and useless all day. Hopefully this will wear off soon, but all of you straight edgers out there who swill cokes like there’s no tomorrow should probably note that coming off of caffeine is far worse than any hangover I’ve ever experienced. Anyway, I’m in the process of pretty much restructuring my life right now, so hopefully I’ll find time in my average day for posting. God knows I have a shitload of new records that I’m itching to write about, so look forward to that.

Thank God Almighty I Am Free at Last!

The exams are now all over! This afternoon from 2 until 4 I took my oral exam, and while it was the most difficult, gruelling and stressful two hours of my life I am proud to say that I passed. It’s funny, I’ve been practicing for this moment for at least 8 months now (I’ve been studying for a couple of years), and while I felt like I was as prepared as I possibly could have been, I found that that wasn’t nearly prepared enough. I guess there’s just nothing that can simulate five incredibly intelligent people grilling you all at once, so the experience is bound to be very new and frightening. And grill me they did! When I didn’t know something they would press the issue at length, and whenever I gave an idea that wasn’t too subtle or refined, they would drill me with follow-up questions. Basically, there was no room for the kinds of knee-jerk responses that I was used to giving in my practice exams and in the written exams I’ve taken.

When I walked out of the exam I felt like I had been physically beaten, but since then I’ve eaten (including a sweet milkshake made of mint chocolate chip ice cream, oreos and two shots of kahlua) and gotten my mind straight a little bit more and it’s finally starting to set in that I’m past all this bullshit. I think it’ll take a few days of hanging out, spinning records, playing guitar and watching movies to realize that I actually have a life once again, but I have a feeling I’ll enjoy that process.

Face to Face: Over It CD

I think that over the years I’ve owned, at one time or another, almost all of Face to Face’s recordings (including their hard-to-find first 7″). While almost all of those have been sold over the years, this is one record that I could never get rid of. No matter how uncool pop punk was, I realized that if I ever was in the mood for some good old-fashioned pop punk then this was the record I was going to turn to. For the last few months I think that pop punk renaissance has finally started to come about, and indeed Over It is leading the charge of records I never thought I would listen to again.

Part of what’s great about Over It is that it caught the band at exactly the right time, moving past the awkward growing pains and less-than-stellar production of their Dr. Strange/Fat Wreck debut and before “Disconnected” made them stars for whom big money could be dropped for the recording of Big Choice. I love hearing this moment in the life of a great band, when they’re clearly on to something original and exciting, but they haven’t quite left behind the hard-and-fast ethos that is near-and-dear to their hearts. Over It really is the best of both worlds, and we’re all lucky that Face to Face went in to record this EP when they did.

Speaking of this being an EP, I think that’s another thing that makes it so listenable. There is not a note of filler on this record; I honestly couldn’t imagine hearing one song and not listening to it the whole way through.

While Social Distortion and 90s big-league punk bands like Bad Religion and Green Day are the reference points most often cited when describing this record, I’ve always thought that Over It was at least in part an homage to the great early Descendents stuff like Milo Goes to College. Whether they’re swiping relatively large chunks of lyrics (“it’s gonna take you years to find out” from “Disconnected;” obviously the band knew the song since they were known for covering “Bikeage”) or merely alluding the Descendents penchant for melodic, bubbly bass lines, Over It is one of the only records in my collection that actually manages to recapture the fire of one of my favorite albums of all time, albeit with all of the differences one would expect given the two records’ utterly different contexts.

While I’m probably not going to convince many of the hardcore die-hards in my audience, if your musical sweet tooth starts whining for some solid pop punk it doesn’t get much better than Over It. Further, it has a nice edge in the recording and songwriting that makes it palatable to those of us who are all too familiar with the standard repertoire of pop punk tricks.