The Dark Signal Returns - Shrinebuilder @ the Echo in LA 03/03/10

Man I am going to miss going to see shows out here. I don’t know if I have just handpicked the correct shows to see while living out here, but I have not seen a bad show here yet. I’m only living here for a few more weeks so I should try and see some more...but alas no money to be spending on fun really.



Usually “supergroups” are a failure. Well nowadays they are anyway...obviously CSN & Y, Cream, ELP and Bad Company were pretty solid bands. Okay, Cream were the best of that list, but...some of the later ones in the 80’s like The Firm an Asia were for the most part one hit wonders. I’ll most likely never hear Velvet Revolver or Audioslave, but I’m going to assume they aren’t very good at all.



It was only a matter of time before a band would form out of some of the bigger more influential contemporary underground heavy bands. When I first heard about this band I was immediately excited to hear it. Scott Kelly from Neurosis, Al Cisneros from Sleep and Om, Dale Crover from The Melvins, Scott “Wino” Weinrich from St Vitus, The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand and pretty much the Godfather of this genre of “stoner”, “doom” and what have you. The reason I assumed this band would be great is the consistency of great music they have all released through the years. There is always a lot of heart and soul put into their music from the artwork and packaging to the music itself of course, and then there is the live performance. Who has ever seen a shitty Melvins show? A bad Neurosis show? If you did it was most likely something else causing it, the bands always give 110%.




I’m not that big of a music snob, but I kind of am. With people I know getting into commercial music like Lady Gaga and that kind of thing I have to question their ears sometimes. As much much as I have music on all day and a good amount of it is indeed background music, I still like to hear something that moves me. Modern “dance” music or whatever it is just doesn’t feel right to me. I like some crap you would call commercial pop. But the new stuff is really painful and insulting to me. I don’t know, you can’t call me an old man as I would much rather hear someone screaming unintelligible words with a microphone shoved halfway down their throat at deafening volumes. Seeing a band like this, or musicians like this remind me that there is still good music that can move you. It doesn’t have to have any kind of message, any kind of statement, be any kind of genre, it just needs to BE. This music definitely IS.




Shrinebuilder’s music is pretty dark, but also pretty pos. The artwork on their record reflects this, light on the outside, and dark on the inside. Aside from Dale Crover who seems to be playing a little more of a traditional rock style (and playing a scaled down set compared to what I’ve seen him play countless times with his full time job in the Melvins), Kelly, Wino and Cisneros all pretty much bring exactly what they are known for to the table, but somehow it works when all put together.



I saw the debut Shrinebuilder show back in November at the Viper Room and it was one of the best shows I saw last year. The show was kind of a warm up show, and they played their set twice in a row which was to say the least, awesome. They did what I could tell was pretty much the same set last night. They definitely sounded a little tighter. My one complaint about their album was there are only four songs on it. The album is still long as the songs are long, but seems like they could have fit one or two more on there. The live set consisted of all of the songs from the record, a couple of others I did not recognize, and a cover of Joy Division’s Twenty-Four Hours which was amazing. One of the “unknown” songs was a bluesy song sung by Scott Kelly that could easily be on one of his solo records, a later Neurosis album or just a new original, Definitely sounds like one of his. This song on the setlist was called “Hell” (I think!). At this show it was sung with such emotion and soul you could almost feel the heat coming off of him. “Pyramid of the Moon” this fucking song is so intense, you want it to never end, and it’s actually one of the shorter songs on the album. Live, it’s a monster. Al’s voice is one of my favorite voices in doom/stoner, so I was happy to see him get some time singing on the record and of course live. I never saw Sleep live and never saw Om, so it was cool to see him play bass as well. He is definitely the most energetic of the the three guys up front. Dale Crover is Dale Crover, a monster to watch behind the kit, but watching Al play bass was great, I never realized how great a player he is.




Openers A Storm of Light were great. I love their new record, saying they sound like Neurosis is kind of a cheap way to describe them, but fronted by Neurosis visual dude Josh Graham there is obviously a big influence there. I think their sound is a little more theatrical and arty if that makes sense. Drummer Vinny Signorelli played with Unsane and the Swans....also played in a band way back called The Dots, and his drum set was apparently used during a Bad Brains recording session, hence "The Black Dots". They were tight as hell, but for whatever reason only played about twenty five minutes, leaving the audience slightly confused as they seemed to end just as they started building some intensity.

I hope they announce a Boston show I can see when i return there next month. They have a tour happening but no New England dates that I have seen. Highly recommended show if you are into any of the members’ respective bands.

Scream - The Echo, Los Angeles, CA 02/28/10

Tonight in Los Angeles was a reunion show I half stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago. I saw “Scream” and just assumed it was some stupid LA hard rock band. Once I finally looked at it I realized it was the same band I knew and loved since I was 14 years old. Awesome news.



When I got into hardcore, most of it was pretty straight forward, loud, fast, screaming dudes…at least the stuff I liked. Scream’s debut, Still Screaming, is probably my favorite hardcore/punk/whatever album of all time, or at least in the top three. The album came out on Dischord and it was actually the first “album”, or full length, as Dischord was putting out mostly EP’s and singles. Filled with ultra fast speed at some points, catchy as hell melodies, acoustic guitars (!), reggae, funk and straight ahead rock, and of course Pete Stahl. Something about his voice, it fits perfect with this music and, once you see him perform you realize how much soul he has. I always kind of thought of him as a Tom Waits type of guy, he has that kind of vibe.



When I was sixteen years old and doing my hardcore fanzine in Boston, Scream came to town and played with UK’s The Subhumans at the Paradise on Commonwealth Ave, which is where a number of great shows had been taking place that year. It would be my first time seeing either band, both favorites of mine at the time, and to this day. They both were completely amazing, especially Scream who were just merciless, song after song of their high energy rock, and the manic Peter Stahl stalking the stage, flailing around and putting every ounce of soul he had into the performance. Before the show I approached him and asked if I could interview him, he obliged and we met up after the show and he spent an hour or so with me talking about whatever I asked him. He was generally nice and down to earth and I thought to myself how your musical idols can sometimes be cool guys, you didn’t have to be scared that they would let you down.



A few years later, my hardcore band opened for them at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge, along with the underrated Kingface. The club was sold out, and Scream were now bolstered by another guitar player and a new drummer, a young kid around my age, Dave Grohl. At the end of the night, we were in the backstage area and Peter, who had remembered me from a couple years previous and drummer Dave talking. They asked us how much money the club had paid us, we told them we got out measly $25. Both of them thought this was shitty, and took $75 of their money and gave it to us. This was one of the coolest moments I remember from being in that band, and was the epitome of how that scene worked at the time.



That would be the last time I saw Scream. Years later Pete Stahl and his brother Franz (who also played in Scream) would come out with a new band called Wool, a great rock band from the LA area. I saw them one time in Boston with the Melvins, and approached Peter who again remembered me from years previous. That band broke up and Pete moved on to doom/stoner band Goatsnake. He can also be “heard” singing backup vocals on “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” by Queens of the Stone Age, who
I think he managed or worked in some capacity for.



So after reading that tonight’s show would be the original lineup I was pretty psyched. Although I originally read bass player Skeeter Thompson would not be there, he was in the lineup along with Franz Stahl on guitar and Kent Stax on drums. One thing I will miss about Los Angeles shows is that people really do get into the music out here. I was pleasantly surprised at this…maybe because of the types of shows I go to, I rarely see what we sometimes call “hipsters” back east. Growing up around the hardcore scene in Boston, every weekend when you went to these shows you would sometimes see musicians from your favorite bands mingling around, contemporaries of you and your friends. Bands would come to town and that same vibe would be there. There was no real “vibe” about anyone really aside from maybe the real big ones like Rollins, Danzig and Jello. Most of the time they were just normal dudes who you didn’t feel like you couldn’t approach. Tonight I got there right before the first band played and who do I see come out of the back area but Dave Grohl. A few minutes later I see Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins come in, he is standing near me with that hairdo of his, he is shorter than I remember him being. A little while later I spot Pat Smear, Dale Crover from the Melvins and Shrinebuilder. Scott Kelley from Neurosis and Shrinebuilder is also there. Shrinebuilder are here this week so I assume that’s why the two of them are in town. I also see Brant Bjork from Kyuss/Fu Manchu. I guess being in LA this is the kind of thing you see all the time, but obviously in the context of this scene it’s awesome, not like seeing like Jay-Z at a Lady Gaga show hanging out behind a roped off area. All of those musicians are huge in my world, guys who have created songs I have listened to hundreds of times throughout my life. So I was a little star struck, but not enough where I approached any of them. I mean how often do you get to look to your left and see four people talking to each other who wrote or played on Nirvana – Nevermind, Melvins – Houdini and Neurosis – Times of Grace...and then near them a guy from the Germs. Never!



Once the band came out I made my way to the side of the stage so I could take some pictures. The band was as tight as they were when I saw them over twenty years ago. The energy in the place was intense and I forgot how great of a front man Peter Stahl really is. I got some good shots of him, but he was hard to get since he moves around so much. They played just about all of that first record, some from the second album and a few new songs.



On my way out, it could have just been my senses being overloaded, but I swore I saw actor Gary Cole, who played Bill Lumberg in Office Space and Mr Brady in the Brady Bunch movies but I could be wrong. That would have pushed the night over the edge if so, but it was good enough up to there anyway.

Who's this dude?

Screaming Females - Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA 8/14/09

Last night I made it out to my first show out here in Los Angeles as a resident. I've seen shows here and there as a visitor. The club was called Spaceland in the Silver Lake are of Los Angeles. It's right near Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers were out of town, so it was a quick 30 minute drive over there. I'm still getting used to the highways here; even though I've driven them many times it's still a shockingly huge difference than they are back east. Seems like everyone goes about 75 mph, habitually switching lanes back and forth for no particular reason. It takes a little getting used to, but I think the Massachusetts experience has hardened me into having just a big of a "fuck you I'm from Boston" attitude on the road. That mixed with respect for the rules here as some of them people actually follow, like my favorite: people don't cut you off turning left at red lights, they wait until everyone going forward is past. Even the most obnoxious looking douche in the BMW will wait their turn. A far cry from Massachusetts where every dickhead in a Patriots jacket can't wait the four or five seconds to turn and has to disrupt the flow of traffic. So there are good and bad things about driving here. Driving home was also a breeze, I didn't even make it through to the end of Torche's Meanderthal album which is a brief thirty-six minutes.

I got to the club far too early, and parking was non-existent, until I noticed a valet parking guy for the club which was a pretty awesome little perk. The club was pretty cool, small, maybe comparable to TT the Bears. There was a smoking area which was cool, if you're a smoker (!). Going to club shows by myself in Boston was never a big deal, and I go to huge concerts by myself all the time, but going to a club one seemed a little more daunting. There was nobody there when I walked in, and at the end of the night there were maybe thirty people there.

The first band were billed as a "disco-punk" band and apparently ex-members of something else, who knows. I originally cringed at this description, but they turned out to have a cool little Gang of Four vibe going. A guitar player, a drummer with a laptop that played beats and some noise and then an instrumentless singer. They were easily the best of the three openers. They played a brief 15 minute set. I would definitely go see them again.

The second band, Protect Me didn't really do it for me. A two piece (bass and drums) noisy mess that sounded like they may have done all their homework and practiced but hadn't mastered their instruments and how to make them sound good. The ideas were there, but execution was "meh". I think they were underage, as they looked like they were both about sixteen.

Next up were another two piece band (what the fuck is with this trend? What happened to the good old days of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Earth, Wind and Fire where there were like sixteen people on stage!) from Brooklyn who were traveling with headliners Screaming Females called Shellshag. They didn't really do anything for me either: a guy playing a Stratocaster and a woman playing drums standing up with bells all over her. People seemed to dig them and they had plenty of energy and a cool little thing going, but in the end when they said they were from Brooklyn I thought to myself "no shit, no wonder that was not enjoyable". Only good band to ever come out of Brooklyn was Biohazard. Ha, take that weird hipster two piece band!

I saw Screaming Females a while back in Boston with Throwing Muses, and frankly they blew TM off the stage. What initially sounded like just another indie rock band with a girl screaming turned out to be a different beast all together. Elements of funk and heavy metal but not funkmetal and straight up rock, and even a couple moments that (most likely unintentionally) sounded like Rudimentary Peni to these ears.

Your initial thoughts when you first see this band are the make up of the band, a really tall bass player, and a really short female guitar player. Maybe 5'2"? Last night she wore a long Victorian looking dress, has short hair and the guitar is almost as big as her. She's not traditionally pretty, but I easily developed a crush on her after the first time I saw them and I went and found videos online. If anything though, the crush was more on her stage presence and her guitar playing. It would be easy to fall into the old "wow she is great...for a girl", but it's beyond that. She smokes most male guitar players I have seen (at least in club settings). Listening to them you'll initially think they're just a really tight indie rock band with a chick singer and then all of a sudden, BOOM she'll play a fill or solo that drops your jaw. There was a guy in the front row who literally had his mouth open the whole time last night. When I first saw them it was in a packed club from the back so I was pretty excited to be able to be right at the foot of the stage for last night. Her vocals go back and forth from Bikini Kill/Sleater-Kinney style to guttural screams, all the while playing an intricate lead pattern on the guitar, not just strummed chords. Last night they played for maybe 40 minutes and it was great. I felt like I was seeing something special because of the size of the crowd and just how well the band present themselves. From the way she dressed and carries herself on stage to the tightness of the rhythm section they are the real deal. They apparently played some shows with Jack White's band recently and I'm sure the crowd loved them. Here's hoping they go on to bigger things than last night. LA must have been busy doing something else last night as it was a shame they played to such a small crowd.

I captured some video of the show on my iPhone. The sound is horrible but...the picture is good.