despair and dark ales

On thursday night I faced the Waste, again! My bruises still hurt when I poke them. I got to Reggie's just as the doors were opening. Coming straight from work I was still wearing my work t shirt, earlier one of my co workers asked me what I was doing that night, when I said I was going to a heavy metal show he said, "Like that?" I said, "Man, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to drink beers and probably get into a moshpit." This is called foreshadowing. Thus clad, still all in black, I paid my 15 bones and went directly to the tub of beers that was being manned by a cute girl. I got a PBR because it's cheap and gets the job done. They have cheaper beers at reggie's, but they aren't worth it. As long as I've been drinking beer I have yet to run into a better cheap beer than PBR. It's not like they sell 40s of mickey's at shows, probably for the best. I got a spot and listened to the very cool metal that they were playing before. I don't know what it was, some kind of depressing, loud, heavy shit, the kind of stuff that goes great with despair and dark ales.

The first band on was Weekend fucking Nachos! Fucking sweet, I thought. I've seen these dudes play in basements and shit, so it was a blast seeing them on stage and fucking owning. People starting moshing from the first song. Weekend Nachos sound like hatred, in a good way. They sounded fucking great, surprisingly crisp, almost refreshing. I saw Eric from Morbid Obesity and bought him a beer cause dude has been very cool to me in the past on several different occasions. There were a lot of people I recognized from shows and shit, but no one I really knew until I ran into Quijote and Brenda, both of who rock, as I was leaving near the end. But whathefuckever. I ended up talking to a few freaks. 2 of them were wearing Speedwolf shirts and one was wearing a Midnight shirt. Apperently the mighty Speedwolf played a little while ago at Red Line Tap, who knew? Not me. After W.N.'s set I bought a fucking cool zine from the lead singer. It's called Spilled Blood, it mainly consists of interviews with some hardcore bands, and has a sweet layout, check that shit out.

I had to go to this show. It was going to be metal. I had no choice. For one Black Tusk was playing. These dudes came on stage looking like evil fucking shaman and proceeded to conjure up a sound akin to a glacier exploding. There seems to be a plethora of awesome bands playing this kind of metal, some kind of hateful stoner metal, these guys, Howl, Red Fang, of course Mastodon, there's a bunch of them and it rules. I was so moved by them that I thought about getting a "good" beer, but I wasn't digging the selection at Reggie's, so I drank more cans of PBRs and hailed satan.

Black Tusk - Crossroads and Thunder



What do you think of when you think of Canada? Mounties? I think of Scott Pilgrim and 3 Inches of Blood, also mounties. Fact is I don't know shit about Canada. It's up north, it's huge, it has polar bears? Yet out of this seeming wilderness come 3 Inches of Blood, blasting old school metal. They sounds like if Judas Priest was started by Satan. Ridiculous lyrics, ridiculous guitars, ridiculous all fucking over, and I love them for it. This must have been the 5th time I've seen these guys. They were pretty good, but they weren't as good as last time I saw them, which was insane because it was at the Empty Bottle, which is tiny, and they were opening for Skeletonwitch. It was during their set that I realized how close the show was bordering to parody. There were all of these people headbanging, tossing up the horns, chugging back beers, moshing, while this crazy band was on stage, all guitars and madness. It was also at this point that I realized, not for the first time, that heavy metal shows fucking rule.


Municipal Waste was the last band for the night. Of course they rocked, what with their paeans to partying and rocking and total Tromaeque madness. All day long at work I have to listen to terrible insipid oldies or some other bullshit station. TV bombards me with the worst fucking music. There's people like fucking Gotye and Adele running around like they own the fucking place, that's a goddamn shame. Have you heard Foster the People? That shit sucks. What about all of those bands on car commercials? You know why they are on car commercials? Because they are bland. MEANWHILE, in the darkened, damp, seamy corners of society lurks true fucking rock and roll. Call it whatever you want, it's not so much a genre of music as a spirit. And you know me, I am all about the seam. Luckily for everyone involved Municipal Waste gets what I'm talking about and they get up on stage and do it. They were pretty good. They packed their set with a million songs, which of course meant that they played really fucking fast, almost too fast, a gift and a curse. I had a fucking blast and I ended up getting a mouthful of confetti at some point. Good times.


Municipal Waste - Mind Eraser

Surprisingly Municipal Waste wasn't the most awesome live show I've seen since I last posted about rock shows I've been to. That honor goes to Le Butcherettes at the Subterranean. Dear fucking god. Teri Gender Bender is the brains behind the band, but she is also one of the most impressive performers I've ever seen. She came out in a black velvety dress, black tights, black sensible sneakers, black hair with big bangs, looking like a total rock princess, then, before my very eyes she turned into a motherfucking werewolf. She was terrifying, it was beautiful. Of course the rest of the band was really good, and Chicago's own Heavy Times were spot on. But Teri was possesed. After the show Fester and me ate like 20 tacos. Each.