As I write this, I am tonguing a swollen split just inside my bottom lip. I can taste the metallic, bitter tang of the cut, but somehow I’m smirking with grim satisfaction. Somewhere, I’m sure, a young man's fist is also smiling, recalling that gleeful collision it enjoyed to my young, supple face. On February 8th of 2007, I was on the receiving end of a literal and musical beat-down, the kind I’m not sure I deserved. Not because the punishment was unfair, but because I may not have been worthy.
The angriest metal bands in Georgia, Music Hates You and Baroness, graced downtown Athens’ Max Canada last Thursday evening, and all but burnt the place to the ground. I managed to survive, friends, but I assure you only just.
The evening opened with a synchronized groan. The Max Canada, formerly the Engine Room, scheduled local drone-rock favorites The Dumps to be the neonatal venue’s first-ever performance. But alas, their drummer was ill, and the knee-high stage sat naked and silent at the 11 o’clock show time. Dozens of greedy metalheads gushed through the front doors, but were met with exactly nothing. We needed music to soothe our wanting souls, but what we got was anything but soothing. What we got was wrath incarnate.
“We’re Music Hates You. Fuck off,” grunted the rail-thin vocalist as his band mounted the stage. He peered out from his cyclonic hair and beard, judging the crowd, then ultimately giving it the finger. Flood lights beamed from the stage, not towards the band, but flipped around to blind the audience. Music Hates You doesn’t have attitude, they personify it. They make it clear from minute zero that they don’t need you. Hell, they don’t even like you. They don’t like your haircut, your outfit, or that stupid face you make when they pound it into the ground with their rock. Still, the aural abuse is never offensive to the listener. It’s endearing.
The band erupted into their greasy thrashterpeice and debut album’s title track, “Send More Paramedics.” All the crowd could do was gawk. No one moved, or even nodded; they just observed the rabid animals in their natural habitat. After the third song, the perpetually peeved front man roared, “I’m out of tune, but I don’t give a damn. If you wanna hear somebody in tune, go down to the 40watt! Now quit standing around like a bunch’a corpses and dance!” The music returned like a foaming three-legged coonhound, wrenching out of a mudpit, thirsty for revenge. The crowd obeyed their master, and came to terrible life. Bodies heaved and piled; hair slithered into everyone’s eyes and mouth. The stench of male bonding rose in the sweltering air. Then came the fists. Before long, I caught a right hook in my bottom lip and tasted blood. I stumbled backward, tripping over the stage and slamming my head into the guitarist’s fret board. I’m not sure he noticed, but I was afraid that he was going to eat me.
When the group’s final dirge grinded to a halt, no one could deny the local metal majesty of Music Hates You.
The elite headlining act, Savannah’s Baroness, was different beast entirely. The only thing I’d ever heard of them was the reverent rants of their devoted fans. But even having soaked in their stream of awed adjectives, I was not aware of what would take the stage upon the witching hour. Baroness is what happens when art-rock bands like Radiohead or Dredg decide to lift weights and play sludge metal. The result is so haunting, so creeping, so terrifyingly heavy that your only expressible reaction is to claw at the sky and weep.
The band conquered the crowd with the entirety of their newly-recorded sophomore album, aptly titled “Second.” The band themselves didn’t move much, but the crowd swayed and pounded respectfully. It was legendary. I didn’t even mind that vocalist/guitarist John Dyer Baizley was, with every desperate scream, drenching my face with cold spit. It was sort of refreshing amid the roasting audience. In all, listening to Baroness is like filling a coffee mug with age-old glory, popping it in the microwave and pouring its boiling, totally epic contents directly onto your face.
Yeah, it’s that pleasurable.
All kidding aside, though: holy crap.
Music Hates You and Baro-frickin’-ness. Together. Temporally adjacent. In a town as arguably metal-infertile as Athens, events like this cannot be missed. Cheers to Georgia’s finest on a job well done, and to music as metallic and bitter as the souvenir still throbbing in my mouth.
The angriest metal bands in Georgia, Music Hates You and Baroness, graced downtown Athens’ Max Canada last Thursday evening, and all but burnt the place to the ground. I managed to survive, friends, but I assure you only just.
The evening opened with a synchronized groan. The Max Canada, formerly the Engine Room, scheduled local drone-rock favorites The Dumps to be the neonatal venue’s first-ever performance. But alas, their drummer was ill, and the knee-high stage sat naked and silent at the 11 o’clock show time. Dozens of greedy metalheads gushed through the front doors, but were met with exactly nothing. We needed music to soothe our wanting souls, but what we got was anything but soothing. What we got was wrath incarnate.
“We’re Music Hates You. Fuck off,” grunted the rail-thin vocalist as his band mounted the stage. He peered out from his cyclonic hair and beard, judging the crowd, then ultimately giving it the finger. Flood lights beamed from the stage, not towards the band, but flipped around to blind the audience. Music Hates You doesn’t have attitude, they personify it. They make it clear from minute zero that they don’t need you. Hell, they don’t even like you. They don’t like your haircut, your outfit, or that stupid face you make when they pound it into the ground with their rock. Still, the aural abuse is never offensive to the listener. It’s endearing.
The band erupted into their greasy thrashterpeice and debut album’s title track, “Send More Paramedics.” All the crowd could do was gawk. No one moved, or even nodded; they just observed the rabid animals in their natural habitat. After the third song, the perpetually peeved front man roared, “I’m out of tune, but I don’t give a damn. If you wanna hear somebody in tune, go down to the 40watt! Now quit standing around like a bunch’a corpses and dance!” The music returned like a foaming three-legged coonhound, wrenching out of a mudpit, thirsty for revenge. The crowd obeyed their master, and came to terrible life. Bodies heaved and piled; hair slithered into everyone’s eyes and mouth. The stench of male bonding rose in the sweltering air. Then came the fists. Before long, I caught a right hook in my bottom lip and tasted blood. I stumbled backward, tripping over the stage and slamming my head into the guitarist’s fret board. I’m not sure he noticed, but I was afraid that he was going to eat me.
When the group’s final dirge grinded to a halt, no one could deny the local metal majesty of Music Hates You.
The elite headlining act, Savannah’s Baroness, was different beast entirely. The only thing I’d ever heard of them was the reverent rants of their devoted fans. But even having soaked in their stream of awed adjectives, I was not aware of what would take the stage upon the witching hour. Baroness is what happens when art-rock bands like Radiohead or Dredg decide to lift weights and play sludge metal. The result is so haunting, so creeping, so terrifyingly heavy that your only expressible reaction is to claw at the sky and weep.
The band conquered the crowd with the entirety of their newly-recorded sophomore album, aptly titled “Second.” The band themselves didn’t move much, but the crowd swayed and pounded respectfully. It was legendary. I didn’t even mind that vocalist/guitarist John Dyer Baizley was, with every desperate scream, drenching my face with cold spit. It was sort of refreshing amid the roasting audience. In all, listening to Baroness is like filling a coffee mug with age-old glory, popping it in the microwave and pouring its boiling, totally epic contents directly onto your face.
Yeah, it’s that pleasurable.
All kidding aside, though: holy crap.
Music Hates You and Baro-frickin’-ness. Together. Temporally adjacent. In a town as arguably metal-infertile as Athens, events like this cannot be missed. Cheers to Georgia’s finest on a job well done, and to music as metallic and bitter as the souvenir still throbbing in my mouth.
For stoner-thrash sludge rock, please consult: http://www.myspace.com/yourbaroness
For a fat lip, you idiot, so shut up: http://www.myspace.com/musichatesyou
For a fat lip, you idiot, so shut up: http://www.myspace.com/musichatesyou
No comments:
Post a Comment