Live Music: And the angels descended from the heavens

After cosmo pointed out a few metal shows I'd missed in my last post regarding upcoming shows, I decided it behooved me to actually, y'know, do a little research and make sure I wasn't missing anything important. So I headed over to foopee.com to check out The List, and discovered I was indeed in danger of missing some super-important shows. So I went through The List band by band and put together a list of what I feel are the most interesting upcoming shows, with some short annotations. I have no idea how many of these I'm going to make it to, but if you see me there (I look like this, only less orange), say hello.

Oct. 14th: Converge, Cave In, Between The Buried And Me, and Playing Enemy at Pound SF. I think my odds of getting into this show are not good, but I have to try, because Converge are one of my favorite bands, and the most recent Between The Buried And Me album is great, if maddeningly varied.
Oct. 15th: Heroine Sheiks, 400 Blows, and Throwdown at the Hemlock. Heroine Sheiks have a name that is either completely ironic or completely unironic, and features members of Cows and Swans making music that sounds about like what you'd expect members of Swans and Cows to make: scummy, punishing, and confrontational. 400 Blows have been getting a ton of buzz for their dirgey metallic punk, and their live show is supposed to be epic. This should be completely out of control in the tiny confines of the back room at the Hemlock, so show up early.
Oct. 15th: Fiery Furnaces, Rogers Sisters, Black Lipstick at Bottom of the Hill. Meanwhile, across town, an entirely different scene of poorly-dressed indie rockers will be getting together to see the Fiery Furnaces, a brother-sister pair who made one of the best albums of the year. It would be interesting to see how much of their complex, prog-influenced experimental pop translates live, but I think I'll be more likely to be in a mood to rock out.
Oct. 18th: Dillinger Escape Plan, Zao and Every Time I Die at Slim's. I feel pretty confident saying there's no way this show can be bad. Dillinger Escape Plan is probably my favorite live band right now, and they're touring on an extremely solid new album. Zao are great too, despite being born again. And I've been getting seriously into Every Time I Die's eclectic and deeply deranged debut album, Last Night In Town. Bring earplugs and wear your best black hoodie. I have to go, just to ask the DEP if they really got Ryan McGinness to design a bunch of their recent T-shirts. I have two, and they're some of my favorite shirts ever.
Oct. 19th: The Used, Atreyu, Bled, and Blind Head Automation at The Grand, a venue that's only recently started booking metal shows. I know The Used have been getting a heavy promo push recently, and I know a lot of people like Atreyu, but I've never heard any of these kids. Hat tip to cosmo to pointing me at this show.
Oct. 20th: Comets On Fire, Flying Luttenbachers at 12 Galaxies. I really like Comets On Fire, and the Flying Luttenbachers have been doing their random noise terrorism thing for, what, 15 years now? This ought to be plenty loud and plenty fun.
Oct. 27th: Impaled, Kylesa, and Passive/Aggressive at the Elbo Room. Impaled are kind of a fixture in the local metal scene and are all right, but why they're headlining when they're sharing a stage with a touring band the likes of Kylesa is beyond me. Kylesa's recorded output is thin, but it's all quality sludge, heavy metal with a female lead singer who sounds a little like Karyn Crisis. (Why aren't I going to see Crisis on November 12th, you ask? Because they're opening for Kittie, and that's just not right.)
Oct. 29th: Sun City Girls, Neung Phak, and Six Organs Of Admittance at Bottom of the Hill. Where to start with Sun City Girls? They're a determinedly odd band with a long history of violent stylistic shifts, who these days play an odd style of Southeast Asian pop that sounds either totally futuristic or about a million years old. Neung Phak are an authentic Cambodian pop band (or they try really hard to sound like one) who are either friends or followers of Sun City Girls. And Six Organs Of Admittance is Ben Chasny, who also plays in Comets On Fire and is some kind of primitive folk genius. This will be sort of like a night with the Folkways collection, and will probably leave you feeling at least a little disoriented.
Oct. 29th: Tokyo Dark Castle at Pound SF. “Tokyo Dark Castle” is the name of a long-running club night in Tokyo that's one of the centerpiece social gatherings of the Japanese gothic lolita scene. It seems that some San Francisco goths are going to try to stage something similar here. I'm really curious how much of a gothic lolita presence there will be there, but in all honesty, there's enough other stuff going on this night that I'll probably skip this.
Oct. 29th: Lamb Of God, Fear Factory, Children Of Bodom, and Throwdown at The Warfield. That's one big brick of metal right there. Death metal, techno-metal, black metal, whatever. This show is guaranteed to be packed with black-clad teen Hessians from all over the Bay Area, which means that showgoers on the floor will be treated to the ever-jolly give-and-take between the Warfield's aggro security and kids trying to get their mosh on. I'm not sure what it says about me that I'm torn between wanting to go to this and the Sun City Girls / Six Organs show.
Oct. 30th: Hot Snakes, Red Eyed Legends, and Dan Sartain at Slim's. Hot Snakes sound like a streamlined, more garagey version of their predecessor Drive Like Jehu, and I love their new album. Guaranteed to rock.
Nov. 4th: Jaga Jazzist and Supersilent at Great American Music Hall. Free jazz + laptops = retro-futurism. I've heard a lot of Supersilent, because the first thing I got by them was their triple-CD debut album. They're only intermittently brilliant, but when they find their groove they're super intense, and the electronic aspects of their sound are less interesting than the band's interlocking musicians pushing their improv skills hard. Jaga Jazzist is glitchier and less free, which ought to make them a good contrast to Supersilent's occasionally punishingly aggressive free noise attack.
Nov. 5th: OOIOO, Crime In Choir, and Pussers Pihn. I know absolutely nothing about Crime In Choir and Pussers Pihn (who apparently is from Neung Phak, Google tells me), but I do know OOIOO is led by Yoshimi P-We from Boredoms. OOIOO is an all-female band who are way the hell out there, like Boredoms used to be before they became a communal folk-psych band. Not as fierce as Boredoms, but still plenty challenging in the “I can't tell whether this is improv or not” kind of way. This back to back with the Supersilent show is a coupling that makes a lot of sense, if you're going to go to shows on successive nights.
Nov. 6th: McLusky, Yourcodenameis: Milo, Griddle at Bottom of the Hill. Again, two opening bands I know nothing about, but who cares — MCLUSKY IS ON THE BILL! Their album The Difference Between Me And You Is That I'm Not On Fire is easily one of my top 5 for the year — all sneering attitude and jagged pop hooks. And LOUD. The loudest thing on Too Pure in ages. I missed them on their last swing through town and I was super-bummed. There are a lot of other shows this night, but I know where I'll be.
Nov. 11th: Shadows Fall, Damageplan, and The Haunted at the enigmatic Grand. I saw Shadows Fall last year without ever having heard them before and was very favorably impressed. They're not as much fun on record unless you really like traditional chugging American heavy metal, but I'll see them live again any time. And The Haunted are funny. They take themselves very seriously and are very goth. I don't know, they just make me laugh.
Nov. 12th: Warlocks, Dead Meadow, Fraus Dots at Bottom of the Hill. The Warlocks are a semi-legendary West Coast heavy psych / stoner rock fixture, but I'm more interested in Dead Meadow, who put out a great album of heavy psychedelia last year. I must have listened to that album a couple hundred times by now.
Nov. 13th: Wolf Eyes, Comets On Fire, Rubber O Cement, and Smegma at Bottom of the Hill. Wolf Eyes opened for Sonic Youth in Vancouver a couple months ago and violently displeased my friend Christina. Violently displeasing people is what Wolf Eyes strives to do, so I would judge it a successful transaction. Wolf Eyes plays an old, old style of confrontational noise music that goes back at least as far as Throbbing Gristle and also owes a lot to Whitehouse, who similarly got their jollies out of epatering the ol' bourgeoisie. I think Wolf Eyes' inexplicable popularity is cool (inexplicable as in people have been making this stuff for 30 years now, and very few of them have gotten anywhere near the buzz of Wolf Eyes), if only because they're taking folks like Smegma, who have been making wonderful, annoying noises for 20 years now, along for the ride. Also, Comets On Fire are playing, and we've already established they rule.
Nov. 14th: Isis, These Arms Are Snakes, and Oxbow at the ALMIGHTY GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL. I am really, really looking forward to this show. Isis live are a fearsome and beautiful thing to behold, super-heavy and lush in their drop-tuned heavy, heavy metal way. The new These Arms Are Snakes album is steadily burrowing into the side of my head. And Oxbow, well... there's no live band quite like Eugene Robinson and the mighty Oxbow for whom he sings and very often gets naked. Like the Birthday Party on a really awful trip. People try to heckle Eugene, but they almost always come to regret it very, very deeply. Read the Oxbow newsletter to see what I mean. It's almost a shame that Eugene's onstage antics overshadow Niko's amazing guitar playing, but the live gestalt the two create with the rest of the band is terrifying.
Nov. 20th: LUNGFISH at Slim's. I saw Lungfish play, for the first and so far only time, in the winter of 1992. The show transformed my life, my dreams, and how I think about writing and art. Lungfish have not toured the western half of the United States for a very long time. Daniel Higgs writes some of the most elusive yet profound lyrics ever penned in English, and deserves to be placed in the same pantheon of intense, opaque mysticism that holds William Blake. I have no idea what on earth persuaded the band to come to San Francisco now. I will cry real tears if, for any reason, I cannot go to this show.
Nov. 23rd: Laibach and Bonfire Madigan at DNA Lounge. Even though they're one of my all-time favorite bands, both on a conceptual and a musical level, I've never seen Slovenian art terrorists Laibach live. Occasionally I suspect them of having lost the plot, but my suspicions always turn out to be groundless paranoia. Their last album was a brilliant mediation upon the unease engendered in Western Europe by the expansion of the European Union to encompass many of the nations of Central Europe. Laibach do that — they take a basic template of cheesy, synthetic industrial disco, slap some new production tricks over the top of it, and somehow come up with these coherent statements of genuine ideological weight. Their method ensures that the faker and cheesier their live show is, the truer it is to their vision. Only going for myself will tell me if that translates live or is just a big pile of conceptual crap.
Nov. 30th: Lali Puna, Duo 505, and Alias at Bottom of the Hill. I'll predict right now that this show will probably have a pretty annoying crowd, but I'd really like to see Alias do his thing live. I like his albums a lot.
Dec. 2nd: Satyricon at Slim's. Black metal seems to be slowly running out of steam, or at least heading back deep underground after its influence started seeping into mainstream metal all over the place, and Satyricon's still here. Satyr Wongraven has always understood how to market himself and the artists on his label, but he's coupled that underground-betraying market savvy with a brilliant ear for how far and in which directions black metal can be distorted. His last album, Volcano, seemed like a misstep, but the album before that only gets more innovative over time. He seems to come through town about once a year, and here he is!
Dec. 9th: Six Organs Of Admittance and Colossal Yes at the Hemlock. Ben Chasny is like the San Francisco folk underground's patron saint, or at least is ubiquitous enough to audition for the role. His gentle, wild, intense and chiming folk is well-suited to the intimate surroundings at the Hemlock.
Dec. 11th: Hives at the Warfield. Who knows who'll be opening for them? Their 2004 album is a blast of pure pop energy, totally plastic and synthetic sounding, and I still haven't gotten tired of it. Will it be worth seeing with an audience packed full of Live 105 listeners? Probably not. (Am I really that snobbish? Probably, yes.)
Dec. 14th: Slayer, Mastodon, and Killswitch Engage at The Warfield. If you need an introduction to Slayer, you are reading the wrong blog, my friend. The greatest remaining thrash metal band in the world, past their prime but still meaner than most bands half their age. Even without Dave Lombardo, one of the best heavy metal drummers of all time, they're still worth seeing. The new Mastodon record sounds nothing like Rush, except for how the drummer likes to use a lot of snare fills and is really good at it, so ignore all the reviews making that comparison. Remission was one of the best debut albums in recent metal history, so it's not surprising the new album doesn't quite measure up. But I've seen Mastodon live, and believe me, they'll more than hold their own against Slayer. Totally worth braving the Warfield to see. And Killswitch Engage is all right, I guess, although all the stuff I've heard by them has gotten pretty monochromatic in a hurry.

And I still haven't figured out when I'm going to see Le Grand Macabre. I probably can't afford premiere tickets, and I'll miss the fun of watching conservative operagoers squirm if I go to the preview performance...

TrackBack

Aren't Laibach Slovenian?

Oh, and Slayer is not only the greatest remaining thrash metal band in the world, they've always been the greatest thrash metal band in the world. That's sort of like being the greatest new beat artist in the world now, but there wasn't much to do with thrash metal after Slayer got done with it.

Posted by: Jesse on October 14, 2004 10:22 AM

Man, it's really embarrassing when I get the nation of origin of some of my favorite artists wrong. Especially when Google is so close to hand. People from the dismembered Yugoslavia are very sensitive about that sort of thing, with good reason. Jesse is correct, and I regret the error, which I will correct in the post. All I can say is that I was writing for a very long time last night.

And Jesse, what about Testament, Megadeth, and Metallica? Time was when Metallica were pretty good (I just might be employing some understatement), and now that all of Megadeth's albums have been remastered and reissued, it's probably a good time to reassess where Dave Mustaine fits into this debate.

I am sad to report that there has been a pretty significant new beat resurgence within techno circles over the last two or three years, especially in Germany and Eastern Europe. Which just goes to show, people can be nostalgic about just about anything.

Posted by: forrest on October 14, 2004 10:31 AM

(1) at the risk of seeming like a teenager, i must also point out the headbangers ball tour at the fillmore on 11/28 with cradle of filth, arch enemy, bleeding through, and himsa. (2) atreyu = killswitch engage v.2.0. but i happen to like that stuff. yes, i still shop at hot topic. (3) i've noticed, too, that this is an unbelievable autumn for metal shows. all my favorite european bands are coming through, and i'm going to miss them because i'm going to be in... europe! (4) i hear lombardo is back in the slayer fold, although one never knows he's always coming and going. (5) new megadeth album = meh. 1/2 horrible commerical direction of newer albums, 1/2 pretty good thrash of older albums, good production values, although that's pretty much par for the course these days.

Posted by: cosmo on October 14, 2004 11:06 AM

Seeing Cradle of Filth live when they were touring to support Cruelty & The Beast would have been the high point of my year if that particular year hadn't already been rendered pretty much unimprovable (interpret that how you wish). I also like Arch Enemy (don't know the other two bands). The Fillmore is a total barn for metal shows, but I've seen a lot of good shows there. Hmm... onto the list it goes!

Yeah, the *last* time I missed seeing Converge, we almost went to see Slayer when we realized there was no way we were getting into the show (when we were literally THREE PLACES from the front of the line!), but couldn't get that excited to haul our asses from Hunter's Point to the Warfield in a cab. Had we known Lombardo was playing with them that night (which he was, because their then-current drummer was eaten by a cacodaemon or burst into flames onstage or was sick or something), it would have probably made me a lot more interested in making the effort. This time I'll be there anywhere to see Mastodon, so hey, maybe I'll get a nice surprise!

The phrase "new Megadeth album" chills my soul in much the same way that "new Metallica album" does. Slayer have mostly escaped the Curse of the Aging Metalhead, neither becoming overly slick nor overly fixated on past glories, but they're a very rare exception. That's why they're still the reigning kings of metal and also a cultural institution amongst hipsters and music nerds of all stripes. I just want to get my hands on the new Megadeth remasters, and that's mostly because of nostalgia.

Posted by: forrest on October 14, 2004 11:25 AM

I'm taking Slayer over any of the bands you mentioned. One by one, here's why.

Megadeth -- yeah, they were good. At their best, they were really good. For a few songs, they were truly great. I got a copy of a Megadeth best of collection this year, and none of it stood up the way I remembered it. Maybe it's because of Mustaine's love of technique or his voice or something, but they never turned out anything even close to _Reign In Blood_. (Nobody else did either, so they shouldn't feel too bad.)

Testament -- I really liked _Practice What You Preach_ when I was a teenager. I got a copy a couple of years ago, and it's still pretty good, except for the absolutely piss-poor mastering that makes every drum hit click. None of their other albums ever grabbed me. They're not in Slayer's universe, and they never were.

Metallica -- well, that's sort of a different matter. Up through _Ride The Lightning_, Metallica really broke the trail that everyone else followed. But the thing that made _Master Of Puppets_ and _And Justice For All_ so great was their shift into something more than thrash -- the longer songs, the changing time signatures, the occasional subtlety and restraint.

So, I split Metallica into three careers -- the thrash phase up through _Ride The Lightning_, the opening up their sound phase of _Master_ and _Justice_ and maybe the black album, and the disappearing up their own assholes phase afterwards. The first phase was one good-sized step below Slayer though a good-sized step above anyone else (and gets bonus points for being first). The second phase was something else altogether. Can you hear Slayer recording something like "Master Of Puppets" or "One"? The closest they ever came was "Seasons In The Abyss". The third phase isn't worth my typing about it.

You'd also want to include Pantera, who had a couple of albums that have to rank up there pretty highly, but they're a little later than the mid to late 1980s we're talking about here. Other bands put out good stuff, but nothing that ranks that high.

Slayer wrote two albums that were and are the avatar of thrash metal. It's a fairly limited subgenre, but I can't think of any other album that defines, explores and exhausts its subgenre so well as _Reign In Blood_. (That's an interesting topic as well.) It helps that the rest of the metal world moved on in other directions.

Now, I must try and do something at work today.

Posted by: Jesse on October 14, 2004 01:20 PM

Oh, and if it's any consolation, Slovenians tend to be less annoyed about mixups in nationality than other former Yugoslavs. Something about being prosperous members of the EU and not having had a brutal civil war makes them much sunnier people.

I just remembered "Neue Slowenische Kunst". The fact that they use German should be the first tip, I suppose.

Posted by: Jesse on October 14, 2004 01:25 PM

i picked up one of the megadeth remasters, and it was worth it for the dave mustaine liner notes alone :P i'm going to miss *all* these shows b/c of travel. but i am flying back to sf specifically for the the slayer/kse/mastodon show. maybe i'll see you y'all there! like jesse, i must stop metal-ing and get back to work. \m/\m/

Posted by: cosmo on October 14, 2004 01:29 PM

hey, the Satyricon show on 2/12 will be at the Pound, not Slim's. FYI.

Posted by: vinny on November 16, 2004 01:37 AM

Have you heard of a band named Head Automation? If so how would you find out where and when they play in the Fort Worth, Texas area? Thanks!

Posted by: H on August 1, 2005 08:02 AM