New Year’s Eve with Clutch, C.O.C. and Earthride — sometimes life just provides you with easy choices. I mean, really, there was no way in hell I was going to miss this show. The Patient Mrs. and I packed into the car early to get down to Philly well in advance of doors at the Trocadero, where just a couple months ago, I saw Kyuss lay waste to an eager crowd. I expect a lot of the same heads came out for Clutch, and who could blame them?

The thing about this show was that apparently the venue was giving everyone a ration of shit the whole night. From barring entry to those who had, say, recently ingested Robitussin in a recreational capacity, to a long drama involving my photo pass, to putting Earthride on before the listed start-time for the show, it was kind of a rough night, and there was a bit of tension. For my part, I stood on line waiting to get in while some couple cut in front of me and took an obscene amount of time to get their passes while Earthride played the first four songs of their total six (maybe seven) songs, which I watched through the open doorway.

Everyone’s gear backlined behind them, they were pressed to the front of the stage in a single line. Left to right it was Dave Sherman on vocals, guitarist Kyle Van Steinberg, drummer Eric Little and bassist Josh Hart, and I got inside in the middle of their playing “Earthride,” which was killer as always, although I’m legally required to note that the best gig I’ve ever seen them play was at Tommy Southard‘s wedding at Asbury Lanes in October. Still, they gave a proud showing of the Maryland underground, which they’re quickly coming to embody in everything they do.

Although I’ve only noted three of them, there were actually four bands on the bill. Kyng played after Earthride, and as I was busy trying to acquire a pass to shoot C.O.C. and Clutch — which, really, was why I drove the two hours to Philadelphia to the show — I missed them completely. My interest was minimal in the first place, but between pouting and calling in favors, I was otherwise occupied. Maybe some other time, or maybe not. I was just happy that by the time C.O.C. got going it all had worked out.

It was my first time seeing the trio lineup of Corrosion of Conformity. I’d previously sworn off going to see them on account of the lack of Pepper Keenan, but the three of them killed it. Given all the genre-melding that’s gone on since they released Animosity in 1985, it’s amazing how vibrant that material still sounds in its blend of thrash and hardcore punk, and bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist Woody Weatherman and drummer/vocalist Reed Mullin gave that material its due, staying honest in their portrayal of all sides of their sound, from Slayer to Black Flag to Sabbath, all within the span of a song. Dean and Mullin were notably tight, and Weatherman beat the living hell out of an already beaten guitar, and I almost immediately regretted not seeing them sooner.

The material was a decent mix of new and old. Animosity featured heavily, obviously, and they teased a “Hand of Doom” cover without following through (god damn it). From the forthcoming self-titled album, I’d been hoping for “Psychic Vampires,” but they broke out “Your Tomorrow” and “The Moneychangers” instead, which fit in well alongside some of the classics. Weatherman played through two Orange cabinets, and his tone was thick perhaps to the sacrifice of some of the precision in the faster parts, but sounded just right for “Vote with a Bullet” and “Deliverance,” which was a pleasant surprise and probably their biggest crowd reaction. Dean took the lead vocal and was backed by Mullin and Weatherman for the chorus, which had all the power of their punkier songs and the mid-paced groove that typified the Keenan era of the band.

C.O.C. closed with the title-track from 1987′s Technocracy EP, which was as suitable a finish as one could ask and possibly the tightest song they played. There was a long break while Clutch‘s gear was fired up and checked, and as I was driving, not drinking, I basically just stayed up front and waited for the band to start, which they did at 11:20. I didn’t know what the deal was with how they were going to handle midnight, whether they’d do a countdown or just say Happy New Year at the time or rock right through it or what, but I was willing to trust they had it all figured out. Clutch being introduced as they had been last time I saw them in Flint, Michigan (review here), by Chuck Brown‘s “We Need Some Money,” it was apparent right from the start that the crowd was ready to party. They hadn’t even started to play yet and people were singing along and dancing.

For my part, I stayed up front even after I was done taking pictures. They opened with “The Mob Goes Wild” — appropriate given the chaos ensuing — and were under way with no time to warm up, no time to get going, no build of momentum. Clutch came out, and Clutch kicked it. Hard and right in the ass with a yeti-sized boot. I was waiting for the new song “Newt Gingrich,” the wolfman-centric chorus of which had been stuck in my head for a few days thanks to a hefty dose of YouTube-ing, and when it finally arrived, it was tighter and clearer than it had been in Michigan. It was also one of two new inclusions in the set, and though the other — reportedly-titled “Pig Town Blues” — was harder to get a grasp on, it was also pretty straight-ahead rocking, and a good complement to the bluesy flow of “Newt Gingrich,” which is more typical of latter-day Clutch and in the vein of 2009′s Strange Cousins From the West, the rhythm of its chorus being quintessential Neil Fallon post-Elephant Riders.

“Pure Rock Fury” was a highlight and something I’d been hoping for. The night prior, at Starland Ballroom in Jersey, they’d unleashed “A Shogun Named Marcus,” “Spacegrass” and “50,000 Unstoppable Watts,” but Philly had its share of specialties as well. Fallon seemed to be in charge of the setlist, calling out changes to bassist Dan Maines, drummer Jean-Paul Gaster and guitarist Tim Sult as they went along, switching the order in what was apparently an effort to line up midnight with a lengthy jam. While dueling with Gaster on cowbell, Fallon called out the countdown to 2012; four minutes, then three, then two, then one, then 30 seconds, 10, nine, eight and so on until it was “Happy New Year everybody!” and the band kicked almost instantly into “Animal Farm,” which, though it’s grown somewhat slower with age, lacked nothing for righteousness of groove.

I was glad to catch “Subtle Hustle” and “Mice and Gods” again, and “Freakonomics,” a fully-electrified version of “Regulator” (Fallon had some technical problems with his guitar, but once they got going it sounded great) and “Electric Worry” into “One Eye Dollar,” which finished the regular set at about 1AM. They came back out after a long break for what I had assumed because I saw it on the written setlist next to Gaster would just be “Big News I & II” but turned out to be that transitioning into “The Soapmakers” and then “Cypress Grove” and finally “Burning Beard” (someone please tell me if I’ve got that order wrong). By then, I’d been thoroughly rocked, and the decision to include not one but two drum solos in the encore was bold, to say the least, but though when it was over my feet would barely hold me up, I was glad as hell to have been able to see the show.

Dan Maines‘ tone had been particularly warm, Fallon was on as always, Tim Sult laid it down smooth and classy, and Gaster has more personality in his sticks than most drummers do in their whole kit, but it was time to split out. They finished and the crowd dispersed, leaving behind a disgusting, alcohol-covered floor, some discarded cups, and merch dollars. The Patient Mrs. and I walked the couple blocks back to the car and, at 1:35AM — set about the two-hour trip back north. Were I going to do it again, and I can only assume that at some point I will, I’d probably get a hotel room reserved ahead of time, but if 2012 had to start with me sleeping till noon on Jan. 1, it was well worth the tradeoff.

More pics after the jump.

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In what will reportedly be their last string of shows for 2011, Pennsylvanian dirt rockers Backwoods Payback are hitting the road for the early part of December with the Virginian duo Akris. Backwoods Payback‘s debut, Momantha, was a bit of a sleeper, but the honesty and integrity behind the music shone through nonetheless, and they’re quickly becoming an excellent live act. Not to be missed if they’re coming through your town, I guess is the short version.

Emissions from the PR wire:

Backwoods Payback will head out on the road this December for one final run in 2011. The tour will take them through the Southeast and wrap up with their final show of the year in Columbus, Ohio, with labelmates Lo-Pan.

Along for much of the trek will be drum and bass noise machines Akris from Virginia.

The tour wraps up a year of the highest of highs and most earth-shattering of lows for the band. The shows promise a mix of tacks from their Small Stone Records debut, Momantha, and a preview of brand new music written since its release this past August.

Backwoods Payback on tour:

11/30 Harrisonburg, VA Blue Nile
12/01 Durham, NC Casbah
12/02 Charleston, SC Jimbo’s Rock Lounge
12/03 Savannah, GA The Wormhole
12/04 Atlanta, GA TBA
12/05 Nashville, TN Springwater
12/06 Birmingham, AL The Nick
12/07 Johnson City, TN The Hideaway
12/08 Blacksburg, VA 130 Jackson
12/09 Cleveland, OH Now That’s Class *
12/10 Columbus, OH Carabar w/ Lo-Pan *
* No Akris

I woke up at the hotel in Philadelphia yesterday late, after a disturbing dream of a sexual nature and saw, in the angled mirrors of the bathroom, the burgeoning bald spot on the back of my head for the first time. That was a bit of a bummer, but the day picked up from there. I was ridiculously, laughably exhausted after night one of the Small Stone showcase at The M-Room, but with one more night to go, it wasn’t quite time to punch/crash out yet.

Taking the bus down for the day, The Patient Mrs. met me in town (this weekend is our wedding anniversary) and we loafed around for a bit before eventually settling in to do some work, and then eventually I dropped her off at the 30th St. Station, so she could head back north and I could run over to the venue for the start of the show. I’ll confess that despite having seen the Brian Mercer poster above on more than one occasion, I didn’t even remember who was first on the bill, so when I walked in, it was a bit of a surprise to hear Ironweed playing.

We’ll begin with that:

Ironweed: Of all the acts on the Small Stone roster, they’re probably the one I’m the least a fan of, but I’ll hand it to the Upstate New Yorker double-guitar four-piece anyway and say they were tight as hell. Their stuff is just on the other side of commercially accessible from what I really get down with, but they do it well, and though I haven’t listened to their Your World of Tomorrow album since I reviewed it back in April, I still recognized some of the songs from it. That alone should say something about the strength of their songwriting, wherever how they use it might lie on the spectrum of my personal taste.

The Might Could: Don’t even like Pantera anymore. Despite not being able to stand too close to the stage on account of the formidable body odor emitting therefrom, The Might Could were loud enough that I could’ve probably sat on the on-ramp to I-95 a few miles down the road and still heard them. Both guitarists/vocalists Erik Larson and TJ Childers played through full  stacks, and though I think going on earlier didn’t necessarily suit the band’s performance — bassist Rob Gouldman (ex-Lord) mentioned from the stage several times they wanted drink tickets — they killed. There should’ve been more people there to see it, but the songs, the tones, the mix of Southern, stoner and sludge made The Might Could‘s set stand out. They were loose and clearly wanted to be that way, but sounded even fuller live than they did on their self-titled, and Ryan Wolfe started off a string of insanely good drumming that lasted the rest of the night.

Throttlerod: Kevin White continued that string that Ryan Wolfe started, and added a more technical sense to it, some theory to go with the speed. There were different styles throughout the evening, and with people doing different things musically, it’s hard to say who was the best, but White was up there, whatever metric you might want to use. Aside from rocking, Throttlerod‘s set was fascinating because of the noisy course the band’s sound has taken over their last couple records, Nail (2006) and Pig Charmer (2009). Seeing northerners take on a Southern aesthetic is nothing new, but the Virginian three-piece — which as of Pig Charmer featured Brooklyn-based bassist Andrew Schneider, also engineer and co-founder of Coextinction Recordings, who was absent — have gone the opposite route, adopting a start-stop crunch that’s straight out of the classic Amphetamine Reptile playbook. With guitarist/vocalist Matt Whitehead adding melody vocally, it’s a distinctive mix.

Gozu: Their spot on the bill was a clear indication that Scott Hamilton, owner of Small Stone Records, wanted to feature them to the crowd. Otherwise, Throttlerod has been around much longer and The Might Could, though a relatively new band, have added clout owing to their pedigree (Childers plays drums in Inter Arma, Ryan Wolfe was signed to Relapse with Facedowninshit and Erik Larson was in Alabama Thunderpussy), but to Gozu‘s credit, they earned their spot. One of the best aspects of their 2010 Small Stone debut, Locust Season, was the vocals of guitarist Marc Gaffney, and on stage at The M-Room proved no different. Locust Season flew under a lot of people’s radar, I guess because it seems like Gozu came out of nowhere with it, but the record was really strong, and the memorability of the songs held up. Gaffney, playing through a custom Matamp (I think) with “GAFF” on the faceplate, was joined on guitar by Doug Sherman, whose high-slung guitar, angled ballcap and stage demeanor was right out of the New England hardcore scene birthed in Gozu‘s Boston home. Still, with the two guitarists, it was bassist Paul Dallaire‘s low end that dominated the live mix, and coupled with Barry Spillberg‘s intimidating performance on drums, there was no question the band was where they belonged. They played a new song — I believe Sherman said it was called “Bald Bull” (the referential title would be befitting their modus) — that speaks well of what’s to come on their next album.

The Brought Low: Like Suplecs and Lo-Pan the night before, it was my second time in a week seeing Small Stone‘s NYC contingent trio. Their set was mostly the same as it had been in Brooklyn, but at the behest of Hamilton, they also included “Vernon Jackson” from 2006′s Right on Time, which happens also to be one of my favorite songs of theirs. Still, it was the ultra-catchy “The Kelly Rose” from their aptly-titled third record, Third Record, that I walked out of The M-Room singing under my breath at the end of the night. Nick Heller continued the night of 1,000 tom hits, and Bob Russell and Ben Smith did right by material both new and old. “Army of Soldiers” was again a killer inclusion, and though it was enjoyable on their Coextinction EP, I hope it winds up on their next album, because it’s worth highlighting and pressing to disc. They had a couple classic Brought Low barn-burners going, and that was right up there with any of them. It wasn’t like I was dying to hear those songs because it had been so long since I’d seen the band, but The Brought Low never fail to please, and Philly was no exception. They tossed around a few joshing Civil War references (a new shirt features the visage of Ulysses S. Grant) in the direction of The Might Could, and it was another enjoyable — day I say “fun?” — set from a rock band in total command of their style and playing.

Roadsaw: They were simply too big for the stage they were playing on. It was my first time seeing the mainstay Boston foursome of vocalist Craig Riggs, bassist Tim Catz, guitarist Ian Ross and drummer Jeremy Hemond since the release of their self-titled back in January, and the quality of those songs was palpable standing in the crowd, much of which had stayed late. There was a second or two there where I thought Riggs — who is a madman on stage — was going to fall right off, and likewise where I thought the microphone which he spins from the cable, was going to pop off the cord and hit someone in the head. Neither happened and the excitement was located entirely within the set, which is fortunate at least from an injury perspective. It was approaching 2AM, which was closing time for The M-Room, so they clipped a few songs off the top. Riggs said after they were done that they prefer it that way anyhow, short and sweet, and I didn’t hear anyone else complaining. Since coming back to active duty with 2008′s See You in Hell!, Roadsaw have emerged as being among a small number of masters of the heavy rock form, and between the Roadsaw record and the showing they gave in Philly, I’d say that anyone across the Atlantic who happens to catch them on their upcoming run with Dixie Witch and Sasquatch would be lucky to do so. A near-perfect combination of energy and experience, and probably the most fitting end the Small Stone showcase could’ve had short of a Halfway to Gone reunion. It was right on right from the start.

But when it was over, it was nigh on ridiculous o’clock, and with the two-hours northbound ahead of me, I made a quick exit and beeline back to the car. I managed to cut some time off the trip (am I the only person who races to shave minutes off their GPS?) and, by some amazing coincidence, fell into bed just in time to completely conk out. It was a hell of a week, and a hell of a weekend, but it capped just right. I won’t be able to make the Chicago showcase next weekend, but it’s Freedom Hawk, Gozu, Sasquatch, Backwoods Payback, Lo-Pan and Suplecs on Oct. 1, so if you can make it, consider this post and yesterday’s a hearty recommendation to do so.

Thanks to Scott Hamilton and all the bands for making it a killer time, and to The Patient Mrs. for being the kind of lady who doesn’t mind it when she calls her husband to say happy seventh anniversary and The Brought Low is rocking in the background.

More pictures after the jump.

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As I made my way into the Trocadero on Philadelphia‘s Arch Street (apparently right in Chinatown), I asked the mostly-disinterested girl working the ticket window if anyone had gone on yet. Her eyes lit up and she said, “Everyone but Kyuss!” It was a little before 8:45PM.

I didn’t remember having been at the Trocadero before until I saw the place, then flashes of Fireball Ministry, Clutch and Strapping Young Lad came to mind, though no recollection of how many shows that actually was. One or two, anyway. The place was decently crowded but not overly packed considering the headliner was about to go on, and I made my way up toward the front of the theater to wait for the set to start.

And wait I did. Kyuss Lives! — the remarkable three-quarters reunion of desert rock gods Kyuss that features vocalist John Garcia, bassist Nick Oliveri, drummer Brant Bjork and guitarist Bruno Fevery — wouldn’t go on for another half an hour at least. I wasn’t especially bummed at having missed MonstrO or The Sword, but the crowd spent an awful lot of time spent waiting for Garcia to come on stage and tell them they don’t seem to understand the deal. And just like when you’re so hungry at a restaurant and you’re waiting, and you think maybe your order is screwed up somehow, that you’re going to get the wrong food, or nothing at all, that the little slip with your meal written on it fell off the thing and is sitting on the dirty kitchen floor, I started to worry something was amiss, that Brant Bjork had slipped on a banana peel or something and pulled a calf muscle and couldn’t drum or something equally ridiculous and unlikely/likely as that.

Guess that means I fell for it. Granted, on the scale of the 15 years it’s been since Kyuss last toured, the wait for Kyuss Lives! to take the stage last night wasn’t all that bad, but the anticipation was excruciating. And not just for me. The whole audience — a mostly-dude mix of stoners, rockers, guys who were there the first time and younger-types who weren’t, peppered with the occasional patient girlfriend and/or female actually there to enjoy the music — seemed tense with it. Maybe that’s me projecting.

They opened with “Hurricane” from 1995′s …And the Circus Leaves Town and sounded right on from the start. They could’ve played anything and it both would have been perfect and not enough, but it was a solid set — more than an hour, not quite 90 minutes, if I timed it right — and though there was no “Demon Cleaner,” cuts like “El Rodeo” and the more expected “Gardenia,” “Thumb” and “100 Degrees” covered a lot of ground.

Oliveri took backing vocals on “El Rodeo” and several others, and though he was a little loud in the mix initially, his voice meshed well with Garcia‘s. His legal problems notwithstanding, he sounded good and looked good on stage and seemed glad to be there. He and Bjork were practically a band unto themselves in the rhythm section. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but Brant Bjork is the Godfather of Desert Groove, and playing drums in Kyuss Lives!, he made it look almost effortless, like at any moment, he was about to kick his feet up and take a nap while also ripping through “Allen’s Wrench” in the encore. Solid doesn’t even begin to cover it. The dude is something special.

Presumably, Garcia knows that, and likewise for Oliveri and guitarist Bruno Fevery, otherwise he’d have gotten other people for the project. For his part, Fevery held down the songs well. His hair hanging in front of his face for most of the set, the Belgian six-stringer kept a low profile compared to the draw of the other three in the band, and while he seemed impatient in the several extended jams the band took, his sound fit well with the songs. No complaints, is what I’m trying to say. Invariably, he didn’t have the sense of freedom with the material as might the dude who helped write it initially, but it was a more than respectable showing, and I think he won over most of the crowd as the set wore on.

The high point, for me, anyway, might have been “Whitewater” from Welcome to Sky Valley, if only because I didn’t expect it. I mean, you pretty much know you’re going to get “Green Machine” — and we did, in the encore — but I didn’t see “Whitewater” coming, and the crowd singing along to Garcia‘s “Aah-ah-ah, I am home” chorus made it seem like that was all the more the case. It was beautiful, and a little lonely, and more beautiful for being a little lonely — much as I’ve always imagined the Californian desert to be. I missed my wife and wished I wasn’t there alone.

It would be pretty easy for me to slip into wax poetics and talk about the grandeur of getting the chance to see these guys play these songs, since I never thought it would happen, but I think it’s important to remember it’s a rock and roll show, even if one that obviously meant a tremendous amount to the crowd assembled to see it, myself included. I will say that a telling moment came about during the break before the encore. The audience was chanting “KY-USS! KY-USS!” and it went like that for a bit, but was gradually overtaken by the even louder “KY-USS LIVES! KY-USS LIVES!” I was glad to have seen it.

Oliveri introduced Fevery to the crowd during the encore saying something to the tune of, “This dude rules and he’s from Belgium.” They jammed out “Molten Universe” before Garcia came back out to close the night with “Allen’s Wrench.” I remembered being on the side of the stage at Roadburn and watching as Orange Goblin‘s Ben Ward joined Garcia Plays Kyuss for the song. This was a different experience, being in the audience in Philly, but more than a thrill, all the same. I was a little surprised when it was over, but the house lights came up at about 10:35 and the place cleared out.

I made my way back to the lot where I’d parked, shelled out a whopping $7.50 for what in Manhattan would’ve cost me $20 plus a tip and hit the road back north with the ball game on the radio. I was in the driveway before 1AM, which is rare to say for the return from Philadelphia, but even if it had been five in the morning, it would be worth the trip. Say what you want about hating reunions, the dudes just being in it for the money, or whatever. I saw John Garcia, Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork do a set of Kyuss songs last night, and I don’t care what else was happening in the world, it’s not gonna beat that.

Extra pics after the jump.

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Every now and then, I do a Craigslist search for the word “stoner,” just to see what comes up. Early this past week was one such occasion, and what I found was a listing from a guy outside of York, Pennsylvania, who was selling off what he touted as a massive CD collection, with lots of varied kinds of metal, stoner/desert rock and ’70s heavy bands. Needless to say, my interest was piqued.

York is more than three hours from where I live in New Jersey, so going during the week was out because of work. And I wouldn’t want to go on Sunday, because six hours in a car is no way to lead into a Monday morning, so I called the guy and said I was interested in taking a look at what he had for sale and asked him if Saturday was cool. He said it was.

Only hitch in that plan was that Hurricane Irene was expected to rail the Northeast on Saturday, making its way up the coast, bringing floods, high winds, downed trees, lightning and other things not conducive to driving at all, let alone 170 miles. You know, now that I put the number to it, the whole proposition seems unreasonable.

Not unreasonable enough, it turns out. Relatively early Saturday morning, The Patient Mrs. and I loaded into the car and made our way south and west to Red Lion, a small-ish town outside of York. I had heard and read and looked at all the maps and the progression of the storm and everything seemed to point to our being able to get to Pennsylvania and back before the worst hit. I’ve already driven in some pretty atrocious weather this year. What was the worst this hurricane could do?

It was raining when I got out there, and hard. The picture above of dark clouds and rolling hillsides I took after dropping The Patient Mrs. at a local Panera so she could continue the work on her laptop she’d been doing the whole drive and headed to the guy’s apartment to spend some time perusing his collection. Not too much time, though, because the wind was picking up.

When he met me outside, Frank, the man in his late-50s/early-60s whose collection I was there to see, asked if I had any weapons on me. I did not, and I judged by the awesomeness of his moustache that he didn’t either, so we made our way inside so I could see his wares. His chihuahua growling at me the entire time, I made my way slowly and, at first, haphazardly through the rows and stacks of alphabetized discs, periodically looking outside to check the conditions, which seemed to ebb and flow as different arms of the storm passed through.

The collection itself was as advertised in both quality and quantity. There had to be 5,000-plus discs spread across the racks. They were stacked two rows deep on bookshelves and piled — organized; nothing was without purpose — in corners. I’d been hoping to find a copy of Keg Full of Dynamite by Pentagram, or some old Sabbath bootlegs, but no such luck. Nonetheless, our man Frank was clearly someone who had just been collecting CDs since the inception of the format, and I was able to find (literally) a stack of releases that saved me months of eBaying.

He charged $10 a piece for each of the three Pagan Altar full-lengths, for Speed, Glue & Shinki‘s 1971 outing, Eve, for the long out of print first edition of Spiritual Beggars‘ debut, for records by Dust, Abramis Brama, Elonkorjuu, Terra Firma, Desert Saints, Privilege, Generous Maria, Toad and Riff Cannon, for the first issue of Josiah‘s self-titled, and, in a departure from the others that even Frank noted, The Arcanum by German folk metallers Suidakra.

A word about that record: I first heard it via downloaded mp3s in 2000, when it was released. The whole folk metal thing was still at least half a decade off, and I was into it because it was a more extreme version of melodeath. But I had little interest in owning physical media at the time (I burned discs and kept them in a binder), and it later turned out that the label screwed over the band, kept the rights, and the album went out of print. It’s something I’ll probably listen to once — haven’t yet — and stick on my shelf to gather dust, because it’s just not where my tastes lie at this point, but it’s something I genuinely never thought I’d find. I never thought I’d find that record. And then, $10 to Frank and it was mine.

The only thing he didn’t charge me $10 for, in fact, was the digipak special edition of Hammer of the North, by Grand Magus. It was $20, but the album has yet to have a CD release in the US, and I figured he had probably paid even more for the import than I was, so it was worth the price nonetheless.

As he totaled up my selections from the sundry shelves and stacks of his library, I began to put myself in his place, and wonder what it would take for me to allow someone into my home to peruse, pick out, scrutinize and ultimately walk away with pieces of my collection. I had more selections than I took home with me. Albums by Fuzzy Duck, Bloodrock (it was Bloodrock 2), Lucifer’s Friend and the recently-burned-for-me Tin House he said I simply couldn’t have, as they were too dear to him to part with. He explained that all the metal stuff, all the more modern rock stuff, that could all go, but the ’70s heavy bands were what he grew up with, and he was sorry.

His failing health turned out to be the reason he was selling. He needed the money more than he needed the discs, so out they were going. I expressed my sympathies, forked over $190 of the total $200 I’d brought with me, and left knowing I could have spent hours more finding treasure among those racks, of which I’ve dreamed of not once, but twice in the now-four nights since.

Using my manliest navigational sensibilities, I suggested cutting north early before heading east to get ahead of the storm, and The Patient Mrs., now retrieved from the aforementioned Panera, was in agreement. It rained most of our way back, heavy at times, but we still got in well under the wire for the most damaging winds, floods, etc. Still funny to see how few people were on the road by the time we landed back in Jersey, though. Cracked open a couple beers, admired the stack of recent acquisitions (at least I did), and waited for the world to end — which, despite the local highway collapse, flooding, downed power lines and the rest, it did not do.

I’ll admit it wasn’t the safest idea I’ve ever had to drive for such a long time with the threat of a hurricane looming. All the same, I regret nothing for what I was able to pick up in Red Lion, and I know I’ll always look at those albums in the picture above and remember the day I went and found them with the wind howling outside and the torrents of rain blocking visibility on the ride home. It was stupid, yeah, but it was also precisely my favorite kind of adventure.

It was my first time at Saint Vitus. The bar, in Brooklyn‘s Greenpoint neighborhood — the mere fact that I didn’t have to be in Williamsburg on a Friday night was enough to make it worth driving into and through the city in the rain – is still a relatively recent advent, but it’s quickly become a hotspot for heavy shows featuring quality bands. My trip in to catch the revived Pennsylvanian trio Pearls and Brass was the first of two nights in a row I’d be spending there.

The door outside unmarked, the bar appropriately dark and the DJ spinning mostly ’80s metal when I walked in, I knew I was in the right place. The Saint Vitus homebrew ($4) is light and crisp and goes down easy. It was the kind of beer you could easily spend a night with, and doubtless they picked it as their flagship for just that purpose. I didn’t see brew-works anywhere (though they’d probably have room in the basement if it goes all the way back), and the place is split between the bar up front and the stage room separated by a thick curtain in the back.

I dug it. I dug the layout. I dug the fact that it was easy for me to get there from Jersey (if you’ve ever been to Europa, you already know how to get there), and I dug that it wasn’t peopled by assholes either of the heavy metal or hipster variety. There was some of that element — a group of people seemed to be having a photoshoot toward the end of the bar after the show — but it’s unavoidable, and if a place like Saint Vitus is going to stay in business, it’s that crowd’s disposable income that’s going to let them do it. In any case, cool room. There was a copy of the Holy Diver vinyl on display behind the bar, and that’s automatic points in my book.

The sound in back was decent as well, which I first got to experience with the avant/noise-making outfit Eleven Twenty Nine. The trio were instrumental, two guitars and a drummer, and all three members of the band seemed to be working in not only a different time signature, but a different time zone. It was the kind of noodling self-indulgence that you can either read as super-progressive or noise for noise’s sake, and either way, an odd fit for comradeship with the riffy Serpent Throne or the sweet tones of Pearls and Brass.

Serpent Throne took over following a short break and that was where the show really got on track. When last I saw them, I was getting embarrassingly drunk in their native Philadelphia and they were opening for Solace and Pentagram. That was quite an evening on multiple levels, but at Saint Vitus they proved no less engaging. Rather, with their third album — White Summer/Black Winter, which was reviewed earlier this year — behind them, they seemed relaxed and able to settle into the grooves their riffs inevitably led them.

They had several highlights to their set, but the unnamed new song they closed with hit especially hard. They’re not really doing anything that’s never been done before, but the interplay between the guitars is interesting, and as they’ve developed as a band, their songs have gradually become more intricate. They sound like they’re having a lot of fun, and they looked that way on stage as well. With stage banter that centered largely on the freeing of the West Memphis Three, a jovial atmosphere was set.

When Pearls and Brass announced their reactivation toward the end of last year, they did so with a show in the bar of a hotel (at least I seem to recall that was the situation) in their native Nazareth, PA. I tried to get advance tickets to that show, but it quickly sold out, and so I was even more eager to see them at the Saint Vitus bar. Their sunshine blues rock was three or four years ahead of the curve when they released their last album, The Indian Tower, on Drag City, and so I expected they’d pull a decent audience in Brooklyn, and they did. I don’t think there was any threat of the show selling out, but the room was crowded anyway, and the people who showed up knew what they were there for.

Myself included. I’d been a fan of Pearls and Brass since they released their self-titled on Doppelganger Records in 2003, and so the chance to see them now, eight years and one reunion later, was exciting. Guitarist Randall Huth and bassist Joel Winter, whose shared vocals came through low in the mix, played right into Sunn amps and made the most of the tones therefrom. The songs they played carried across a lighthearted Americana despite their distortion, and with drummer Josh Martin‘s punkish backbeat, there was never any energy lacking in the performance.

It was a joy to see them after so long. As I stood and watched their too-short set (though the last song they played was at least 10 minutes long and had multiple movements) progressed, I remembered hearing the Pearls and Brass record and feeling like I’d stumbled on something really special. They were tight like a band who’d never gone away, and should they decide to record new material, I can’t see them having any problem aligning themselves with Tee Pee Records or someone like that should Drag City not be able to put it out. The aesthetic having caught up to where they were half a decade ago, I’d be eager to hear where they went next on a studio album.

The Jersey-bound drive ahead of me, I left almost immediately after they finished. I’d made the drive into Brooklyn with one headlight, and decided to change the broken one before I headed back, which took a humiliating amount of time (big American hands, tiny Swedish spaces). That feat finally accomplished, I hightailed it back to the valley and caught as much sleep as possible, ready to do it all again the next night for Totimoshi.

As per usual, there are more pics after the jump.

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It was kind of a surprise when Small Stone signed West Chester, Pennsylvania, riff mongers Backwoods Payback. Not that the band is undeserving. In the live arena, they stand up to anyone you want to put them against (including, regularly, formidable labelmates Lo-Pan), but their recorded output struck me as rawer than most of what the Detroit label gets behind these days, grittier and with more dirt under its fingernails. Listening to the finished product of Backwoods Payback’s Small Stone debut full-length, Momantha, it’s easy to see that same roughness was the appeal all along.

The four-piece have a sound that’s familiar enough to stoner rockers, but not based solely on fuzz-drenched guitar or Kyuss-style desert speeding. There’s something staid about Momantha; it’s like sludge if sludge went to therapy and started the long process of making peace with itself. There are probably a host of bands one could cite as influences or from whom elements are taken and made part of Backwoods Payback’s style, but the resulting brew is much harder to pin down. Captured at Small Stone’s go-to studio – Mad Oak in Allston, Massachusetts – by the label’s go-to engineer – Mr. Benny Grotto – the live edge that made the prior Use Magic to Kill Death EP and self-titled long-player sound so exciting is all the more vivid.

Potentially named after a hockey player (that being Moe Mantha, who did time playing for Pennsylvania teams in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Hershey), Backwoods Payback’s latest balances catchy songs with a driving edge. Momantha takes some time to settle in, but after a few listens, proves indispensable. Opener “You Know How This Works” proves aptly-named, with wavy guitars from Mike Cummings and Rylan Caspar backed by the hard-hit tom work of Steve Curtiss. Soon enough, bassist Jessica Baker also follows the bouncing riff and the album essentially gets its intro the same way the song does. Cummings, as the vocalist, has an approach that has almost no choice but to go all-out as often as humanly possible. It’s melodic, clean for most of the record (the screams on the later “Timegrinder” being an exception), and carries an undercurrent of drunkard’s woes that adds a bluesy feel to the rhythmic delivery of the lyrics.

So if “You Know How This Works” comes from the stomach, it’s even better to launch Momantha, which sets a quick momentum up front and gradually expands on it as the songs progress one to the next. “Flight Pony” keeps some C.O.C. feel in its riff, but is catchy enough to stand on its own, and “Knock Wood” is among Backwoods Payback’s strongest inclusions, with a more open chorus riff and classic bridge that is unapologetic both in its straightforwardness and its low end chug from Baker. The rhythm section first reveals itself as the asset it is in that bridge of “Knock Wood,” with Baker and Curtiss locked with the guitars in a churning progression that then changes pace on a dime back to the chorus to close out the song. It’s one of several really strong changes Backwoods Payback make on Momantha that’s probably too subtle to catch the first time through, but well worth appreciating once picked up on.

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Every time something like this happens, I say the same damn thing: It’s a special kind of asshole who steals shit from a band’s van. Even more so, it’s an even more special asshole who steals the van altogether. Come on, you can’t even carry their stuff off as you take it? You’ve got to get the whole vehicle too? It’s a fucking travesty. The complete inventory of everything taken is here.

My best hopes to recently On the Radar-ized Philly smashers Sadgiqacea that they get their equipment, merch and vehicle back, and that whoever stole it is apprehended and brought to justice. Here’s the news and contact info in case anyone can help, even by sending the band your support or helping spread the word:

Achtung metal legions – we need your help!

Yesterday, Philly doomhaulers Sadgiqacea had their tour van parked on 13th and Carpenter in South Philadelphia when it was stolen around the hours of 12-7PM. Everything they owned was in the van, including all of their merch and gear. Total estimated loss of gear and merch is about $8,500. This duo is one of the hardest-working bands to ever come out of the (215), and are amazingly talented musicians on top of being genuinely sweet, good-hearted guys. This couldn’t have happened to two less deserving people. If you’re located in or around the Tri-State area (PA/NJ/DE and NY) please keep your eyes peeled, and get in touch if you hear or see anything.

Contact email is
sadgiqacea@yahoo.com

Facebook
http://facebook.com/sadjuhkaysha

It’s a formidable group of bands. Expect more to come on this, but wanted to put the lineup out there in case anyone’s looking to make travel plans. Good stuff:

The Small Stone Showcase @ The 2011 Philadelphia Film and Music Festival

Friday, Sept. 23, 2011 @ The M Room:
Suplecs
Backwoods Payback
Lo-Pan
Freedom Hawk
Infernal Overdrive
The Might Could

Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011 @ The M Room:
Roadsaw
The Brought Low
Gozu
Throttlerod
Sun Gods in Exile
Ironweed

For tickets, and more info please visit: http://www.phillyfmfest.com and/ or http://mroomphilly.com/

A while back, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, heavy rockers Black Cowgirl let me post one of the tracks off their self-titled EP for streaming (it’s still here, if you want to listen), and I was thrilled to do so, since the four-piece managed to touch on something pretty special with those songs. They were a little hurried-sounding, true, but Black Cowgirl achieved a potent and unexpected blend of riff and melody there — like earliest Fireball Ministry with a rural touch — that was all the more impressive for the lack of time the band had to make them.

The reason they were in such a rush was wanting to have a CD ready to go prior to a 10-date tour supporting CKY. Black Cowgirl managed to get the disc done, the tour was great and they all lived happily ever etc., and since I enjoyed the EP, I thought I’d fire up the old intertubes and see if guitarist/vocalist Ben McGuire (also of Electric Horsemen) had any interest in fielding a few dumb questions. Six or so.

McGuire was only too glad to oblige, and you’ll find the results below. Black Cowgirl is McGuire alongside guitarist Nate Rosenzweig, bassist Chris Casse and drummer Mark Hanna. Please enjoy the following six dumb questions:

1. How did Black Cowgirl get together? Did you know what you wanted it to sound like when you got going?

Back in 2006 I started recording instrumental songs under the name Time Travel Decelerator. I had a fantasy of a instrumental band that I did not have to sing in that was like Wishbone Ash meets Mystick Krewe of Clearlight. I recorded a bunch of guitar and bass songs on my four track and often thought about forming a live band but Electric Horsemen, the other band I play in, was really busy at the time and it never came together. I knew our drummer Hanna from playing shows with Backwoods Payback (great dudes/lady, by the way) when he was drumming for them and we had talked a couple times about playing together someday but we never got around to setting anything up.

In the summer of ‘08 I met our guitarist Nate at a show and we got to talking and by the end of the night I asked if he would like to add some lead guitar on my instrumental songs. Me and Nate live about a hour apart so for the next few months we started sending riffs, demos, and songs back and forth in emails and chatting on the phone like teenage girls for hours about music and guitar and found we had a lot of ideas that went beyond just instrumental songs. We had both been stockpiling ideas for songs that did not fit any of our previous bands for years and we had a ton of material between us to sift through and we decided to start a new band that had vocals as well. We looked for a singer for a while but had no luck and because I had sent Nate demos with me singing on them I became vocalist by default.

Once we had a couple of solid songs we wanted to find a drummer and the first guy we thought of was Hanna, and things came together one night at a party when the three of us jammed for about a hour and basically wrote two songs. Soon after that night we got together at my house and cooked some food and cranked out two more songs in no time. A little bit after that we added Chris on bass who fit in perfectly as he was a great bassist and already playing in Electric Horsemen and playing around with my sister (they are married and of consenting age) so that worked out great. Things went on like that for about a year (band-wise that is… I’d rather not think about the sister stuff which I guess is still going on), we would see each other every couple months, eat a ton of food, write a bunch of songs and talk about how much fun it was but we could never seem to get our schedules to line up long enough to record or play shows. Before the CKY tour we had only played maybe five times in public but the tour finally gave us a great reason to get into full productive mode.

2. Who picked the name Black Cowgirl?

We never thought about what the band should be called until we had our first show and had about a week to think of one. We tossed around a few other names like “Sharkcharmer” and some other terrible ideas until sticking with Black Cowgirl and we almost didn’t use that. For some reason some people thought it was racist which I thought was ridiculous. The name came to me in the middle of the night during a sleepy brainstorm and to me it represented the ultimate rebel. I imagined a black cowgirl who was a mix of ‘70s Pam Grier and Yul Brynner‘s character from the movie West World who would ride from town to town righting wrongs and shooting assholes in the face with her dual nickel-plated Peacemakers and sawed off lever-action shotgun. The ultimate rebel, the ultimate fantasy. So the name is a great litmus test for racists… if you think it is, you are.

3. How does the songwriting process usually work? Do you have something specific you try for going into putting together a song, or does it all come from jams?

There are songs that totally develop from jams that seem to write themselves and a lot of those ones end up being instrumental. We started and ended our set on the last tour with two of these style songs and they were different every night apart from a basic framework and so much fun to play for us because you had no idea where they were going to take you. Then we have songs that begin very structured with a vocal melody and chords but even those songs change drastically once the whole band gets a hold of it and we begin improvising sections. We all take part in writing and arranging. Once in while me or Nate will have a song that is basically done before we all get to hear it but more often than not writing is a collaborative effort. We are also very open-minded as far as trying many different things to see what suits the song best. It is exciting and tons of fun writing songs with these guys, very effortless and very easy to bring any idea you have in your head into reality. The only thing we go for when writing is to make the songs fun to play and trim the fat and filler until nothing is left but a well-balanced hearty riffy meal with a reasonable harmonized snack at the end.

4. Talk about recording the self-titled. Where and when was it recorded, and was there anything in particular you wanted to accomplish in the studio this time around?

We had arranged to record some demos with our friend John Brenner (from the great bands Against Nature/Revelation) early in the year before we knew about the tour. We headed down to Baltimore and did five songs with the amazingly cool-headed John in about 16 hours straight. We were not very picky with our playing and tracking because it was basically just a demo to help us develop our sound. The week after recording that demo we got wind of the tour and realized we needed a CD that was a little more focused that we could bring out on tour. We did not have the heart to put John through another marathon recording session (even though I bet he would have been kind enough to do it!) so we decided to re-record it ourselves and pay someone else to mix and master it. Going to John‘s was totally worth it though, not just because we got to drink a bunch of Mr. Brenner‘s homemade beer and hang out, but we had a better idea of what we wanted to sound like on record. We may put the original versions John did out someday, the guitars are cleaner and have some cool mellotron and organ tracks on some songs.

A couple of days after finding out about the tour we started re-recording for a couple of hours a night for three or four nights in a friends basement studio which is nothing more than a soundproof room we equipped with some mics and Nate‘s little Korg portable studio. Then we took the tracks to Rich Gavalis at The Dome in Royersford, Pennsylvania to record vocals, mix and master. Rich is a cool dude and he did a great job of making what we had recorded sound less like a demo and more like a legit release.

We did not have very much time to mess with tones, sounds, and different instrumentation on the self-titled. It was more about getting it done in the most straightforward way we could, and getting what we sound like across as simply as we could. I think overall we are all pretty happy with it as a first release and we cannot wait to spend more time tweaking and fine-tuning sounds on the next one!

5. How did the CKY tour come about? What were those shows like?

Our drummer Hanna is a longtime friend of CKY/Company Band/Viking Skull drummer Jess [Margera] and he has done work for CKY acting as stage manager for a number of tours and our guitarist Nate plays in Uncle Matt and the Shitbirdz with Jess. CKY had a string of shows coming up and were kind enough to ask us to tag along. I was worried at first that we would not be well received by CKY fans, who are like KISS fans as far as their level of dedication, but we figured Graveyard went over great when they toured with CKY last year and it was a good opportunity for us to play to a lot of people so maybe it would be cool.

Turned out the CKY fans were very kind across the board and we were very well received and had a amazing time, great bunch of people everywhere we went. We got to play a lot of places I never thought we would get to play, I am used to basements and small clubs (which I love, basements especially) but it was awesome to play some bigger places. I hope we get the chance to do it again… and again… and again. We also got to play some all-ages shows, which I had not done it a long time and that was really cool too. It feels good to know somebody likes the band not just because they are 15 beers deep into the night.

6. What’s next for the band? Will you tour more this year or focus on writing or recording?

We are looking for more shows and we are about halfway through writing our full-length. We are also toying with the idea of recording an acoustic CD as well, kind of like a Neil Young Harvest-era style release. We may combine those songs with what we have already and throw them on the full-length or do it as a separate EP, not sure yet. Right now we are just trying to find the time to get everything we want to do done. If the right tour pops up we would definitely be into that and we should have some shows popping up here and there soon. Overall we are just happy to be an active band finally and can’t wait to make more music!

Black Cowgirl’s BigCartel store

Black Cowgirl on ReverbNation

When a band’s logo comes complete with its own pronunciation guide, you know you’re in for a phonetic treat. Not to be confused with the happy-giqacea you might find elsewhere, Philly guitar/drum duo Sadgiqacea specialize in oppressively dark and bleak post-doomcore, all lumber and crash and heavy and pummel the way the kids like it these days. There are some vague touches of psychedelia in the far-off echoing clean vocals of “Nature’s Antidote” — the second of two crushing tracks Sadgiqacea donate to the cause of a split with Phanatic countrymen Ominous Black — but mostly they’re just mean and dark, and that works out just fine.

The two songs were recorded, mixed and mastered by Mick Mullin at Super 8, whose impressive discography includes Total Fucking Destruction, Fight Amp and Javelina, and in about 13 minutes, they effectively cloud the mind in a wash of malevolent sounds. Even the surf-esque opening guitar lines of “Thy Will be None” feel as though they’ve been run through a hellish alternate dimension, and as the vocals once again change from yells to echoing clean singing, there’s an underlying melodicism that I can’t imagine Sadgiqacea won’t continue to develop going forward.

In the meantime, there’s enough low end in their sound to likely please everyone but bassists, and enough of a genre mix happening in the material to hold even the most fickle of attentions. You can check out Sadgiqacea on Thee Facebooks here, or if you’d rather not travel, here are “Thy Will be None” and “Nature’s Antidote,” courtesy of a fancy-type Bandcamp player:

We’re not so far removed from last week’s live review of their Philly show with Lo-Pan, but Backwoods Payback have announced a run of new dates with Admiral Browning next month already in advance of their forthcoming Small Stone Records debut. Good times, good band. Hope you get to check them out if they’re coming near you.

This from the PR wire:

Pennsylvania stoner/doom rockers Backwoods Payback, who were forced to cut their tour with Lo-Pan short this past March due to a medical emergency, will return to the road triumphantly this June. Fittingly titled the “June 2011 Back on the Horse Tour,” the trek will run from June 9-25 beginning at the Crayola House in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and include a June 17 stop in Kenosha, Wisconsin as a part of the Days of the Doomed Fest. The band will be joined by Maryland psych-masters, Admiral Browning.

Said guitarist/vocalist Mike Cummings of the impending journey: “The 18-date run serves as a prelude to our much-anticipated Small Stone Records debut, to be released late Summer/early Fall. Joining us for the long haul will be Admiral Browning, making this one of the ‘not to be missed’ tours of the year.”

Backwoods Payback - June 2011 Back On The Horse Tour:
06/09 Crayola House Harrisonburg, VA
06/10 The Triple Richmond, VA
06/11 The Milestone Charlotte, NC
06/12 The Nick Birmingham, AL
06/13 Little Hamilton Nashville, TN
06/14 The Hi-Tone Memphis, TN
06/16 The Mill Iowa City, IA
06/17 The P.L.A.V. Kenosha, WI
06/18 Cobra Lounge Chicago, IL
06/19 The Summit Columbus, OH
06/20 Mac’s Bar Lansing, MI
06/21 31st St. Tavern Pittsburgh, PA
06/22 123 Pleasant St. Morgantown, WV
06/23 Millcreek Tavern Philadelphia, PA
06/24 The Note West Chester, PA
06/25 Krug’s Frederick, MD

I fucking love Philadelphia. Of the pitifully few major urban centers I’ve seen in this world, Philly is the one where I’ve always wanted to stay. Nonetheless, as Delaware trio ChromeLord took the stage last night at The M-Room and I flipped my camera’s “on” switch and realized the memory card was missing, I really could have used one of NYC‘s ubiquitous Duane Reades. I jumped into my car around the corner and phone navigated to a Drug Fair and bought not one, but two memory cards, I guess under the theory that I might want a second… in case… the first… didn’t work? I don’t really know. I was panicking by then.

But I got back to The M-Room, which is the kind of bar I dream of owning — townie joint on one side with good-looking food, small rock venue on the other side of a decently thick wall — in time to catch ChromeLord‘s last couple songs. They were stoner in the truest sense of the word, and by that I mean I think they were stoned. Some kinks to work out there, but the riffs were cool and dreamy in a half-speed Nebula or Dead Meadow kind of way, and the band had handmade stickers to give out, so they earned no shortage of points on charm. I wished I’d been able to see more, but as they’re friends with Clamfight (Andy and Sean came down for their set), I’m relatively sure our paths will cross again.

The reason I drove the two-plus hours to Philadelphia last night (and the two hours home) was to see Lo-Pan and Backwoods Payback play together. Somehow I’d got it into my head that the days of these two acts doing shows like this are numbered. Lo-Pan‘s album (Salvador) is incredible, and the rough versions I’ve heard of Backwoods Payback‘s forthcoming Small Stone debut kick considerable ass, and I’m not sure if it was thinking they’d be playing bigger places, or not touring together anymore or what, but when these shows were announced, it occurred to me that whatever happens with these two bands from here on out, it’ll never quite be like this again, and that years from now, I wanted the memory of seeing them at this time, together, enough to justify the trip.

They were clearly comfortable sharing the bill with each other. They’ve done tours and shows together before, and have the kind of camaraderie one might expect from two bands parking their vans outside the same places so often. Lo-Pan went on second. It was easily the tightest I’ve ever seen them play, and at this point I’ve seen them a few times (at least once with Backwoods Payback, come to think of it), but the chance to catch new material from Salvador wasn’t something I was about to miss. It was a short set, but “Chichen Itza” and “Bird of Prey” were highlights, along with “Kurtz” and “Dragline” from the Sasquanaut record, but even more, it was just refreshing to see a band so clearly firing on all the proverbial cylinders.

Lo-Pan‘s extensive touring has started to pay off. With bassist Skot Thompson, guitarist Brian Fristoe and drummer J.Bartz out front and singer Jeff Martin behind, it’s easy to think of them as two separate entities — the music and the vocals — but even in the small M-Room, everything meshed together excellently, and I was that much gladder for having driven to see it. I could have dealt with a few more songs, but I guess the porn on which the set list was scribbled could only hold so many titles. Maybe next time.

Time was getting on as Backwoods Payback started setting up their gear. I bought a book from frontman Mike Cummings before they started, and told myself I’d just stay for a couple songs, snap some pictures, then split, but I wound up there for the whole set and regretted not a minute of it. Like Lo-Pan, they’re really just getting to where they want to be in terms of their sound, but the interplay between bassist Jessica Baker and drummer Steve Curtiss was right on, and the guitars of Cummings and Rylan Caspar set a burly tone of riffs and grooves for the former to lay his soulful vocals on. True to every time I’ve seen them, they closed with “Mickey Morandini,” in which Cummings reminded the crowd once again — who didn’t seem to have forgotten, since they were singing along — that he’s a motherfucker. Good times were had.

I split out almost immediately after Backwoods Payback‘s set to begin the ride back north, which put me back in my river valley just a couple minutes before 2AM. Lo-Pan and Backwoods Payback are in Long Island tonight with John Wilkes Booth and Borgo Pass, which makes me more than a little jealous of all parties involved, but the tour rolls on. If they’re coming through your neck of the woods, either together on this run or separately, go, because what you’ll find at the show is some of the strongest American stoner rock being made right now. It’s exciting. Seriously.

Extra pictures after the jump.

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Pittsburgh double-guitar four-piece Sistered hit a powerful stride on their self-released debut full-length, New Sky. They don’t have much of their hometown’s blue collar disaffection to their sound, but there’s something restless and immediate in their material all the same, and their willingness to blend genres so early on into their career speaks of good things to come. If you missed the news yesterday, they’ll be sharing the stage with Sweden‘s Truckfighters on that band’s July US run of dates, and as they’ve already played with the likes of 3 Inches of Blood and Skeletonwitch, I’m obviously not the only one out there impressed.

Which is reasonable, when you consider that the memorable punkish blast of “God Save the Child Brides” comes a mere 24 minutes before the blistering black metal crossover assault of “Midnight Renegade.” Sistered seem to have an ingrained ability to transcend genre confines, and for a band really just getting their start playing together, it’s an accomplishment that the record is cohesive at all, let alone carrying the breadth of its post-rock instrumental title track or the thrashly riffage of “Story of the Witch.”

I reviewed New Sky not too long ago, but I wanted to get more background on Sistered and get some idea of where they were coming from as a band, the conditions under which the professional-sounding album was recorded, and some of the themes they’re working with in terms of musical and lyrical content. Throw in one about Pittsburgh venues and one about what they’ve got coming up next (aside from that Truckfighters show), and it’s an easy Six Dumb Questions.

Sistered is vocalist/guitarist Jesse Meredith, guitarist/vocalist John Dzziuban, bassist Cary Belback and drummer Josh Egan. Dzziuban was kind enough to field the following. Please enjoy.

1. How did Sistered get together? Was there a mission when Sistered got going sound-wise?

We went through a few lineup changes before things solidified. Jesse (vocals/guitar) and Cary (bass) were playing together and Josh (drums) and I had made music for years in various bands. I joined with Jesse and Cary when they wanted to add a lead guitar and we eventually brought Josh into the mix and it was very apparent early on that we had something unique and interesting with a good live swagger.

From the beginning we knew that we wanted to have diversity and the ability to bend and blend genres all while maintaining something that was our own. Every song and every part has pushed our boundaries and made us better musicians individually and better as a unit.

2. How long were you working on New Sky, in terms of the recording? What was the studio time like? The album is very cohesive and natural sounding, but still clear. Did you want anything particular out of the studio experience?

New Sky took around three months to record. I’d begun recording bands around Pittsburgh about a year before we started the record and had gained some pretty good experience in engineering and mixing, and Cary had experience building and working in a local studio, so when it came time to record, it made a lot of sense for us to do it ourselves. The studio was the basement of Josh and his brother’s house, which is conveniently broken up into a couple of different rooms. We built sort of a makeshift studio with a tracking room and a control room and we left it all up until things were pretty much done. We tried to keep things as live and natural as we could and just make a record that sounds how we do when we play shows. I think we achieved that.

3. How does the songwriting process work? Are there multiple songwriters in the band? The songs are very diverse and sound like they could have come from different contributors, but do they?

All of the ideas begin with Jesse. He and I will usually get together on guitars and develop whatever ideas he has and then we’ll take them to practice and we’ll all develop them further and structure them and make changes. It’s very much a group effort, with each of us having input and each of us having a hand in the writing process, but again, they all begin with Jesse. He really is an incredibly talented, diverse writer.

4. Where did “Midnight Renegade” come from, and what are the lyrics about? I can’t make out most of it, but I keep catching “sexuality” repeated.

”Midnight Renegade” is about rejecting the morals and beliefs instilled in us by a religious upbringing and freeing ourselves of that dead weight; casting off the belief that our desires and wants are all wrong and sinful. It begins by saying “I am the Midnight Renegade,” but later says “You are the Midnight Renegade,” a juxtaposition that asks, who is the sinner, the people breaking the rules, or the people making them?

5. Let’s say I’m in a touring band coming to Pittsburgh from out of town. Not much of a draw. Do I want to play 31st St. Pub or The Smiling Moose, and why?

Honestly, they’re both totally sweet! 31st St. is owned by a guy that looks scary as hell, but is actually an awesome dude to work with. It’s a dark, loud bar with a lot of punk and metal history in it.

The Smiling Moose has a nice, big stage in a small room, with a powerful sound system. The sound guy, Sean, is a really good dude that knows what he’s doing. He also has a college radio show that we’ve played a couple of times.

I’d say a touring band should play at one, then come back and play at the other. Seriously, that’s what I see a bunch of touring bands doing.

6. What’s next for Sistered? Any shows coming up or more recordings this year?

Next, we’re gonna tour regionally, playing this record and a bunch of new stuff; we’ve been writing at a pretty furious pace and have more than enough material for another record. So we’ll probably begin recording that later in the year, it’s gonna smash the shit out of the first one.

We’ve already had the privilege of playing with some great bands like Lo-Pan, Skeletonwitch, 3 Inches of Blood, The Ocean and a bunch of others and we have some more coming up with some bands that I love like True Widow and Fight Amp.

We’re gonna continue building on the momentum we have right now and see where it takes us.

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Western Pennsylvania outfit Under the Sun have about as formidable a résumé as any doom rock band from the eastern half of the US could hope for. Between the three players involved, there are members of Dream Death, Penance, Revelation, Pentagram, Place of Skulls, Cathedral and Internal Void – and most of that just applies to drummer Mike Smail. Guitarist/bassist Dave Roman is also Penance alumni, and vocalist Dennis Cornelius did time in Place of Skulls and is perhaps best known as the former singer of Revelation, but Smail’s pedigree accounts for the rest, giving him a host of influential acts in which he’s been involved. Imagine being able to say you were in Dream Death, Cathedral (before they recorded Forest of Equilibrium) and Pentagram. Not what you’d call a lightweight, and as the impresario behind the release of Under the Sun’s debut full-length, Man of Sorrow, through his Smail’s Custom Drum Shop imprint, his role in the band takes on even more heft.

In case you were wondering, there actually is a Smail’s Custom Drum Shop, about 45 minutes outside of Pittsburgh in a town called Kittanning, where Smail offers lessons and sells – as you might guess – drums and other equipment, but in Under the Sun, the focus is on traditional American-style riff-led doom. Cuts like “Joy” and “Forgiveness” offer the kind of Christian-based lyrics that fans of Place of Skulls have come to expect from a certain segment of East Coast doomers, but where Man of Sorrow really hits its stride in the heavier, riffier songs like “To Sleep with Anger” or the more brightly toned “Divinity,” which injects a faster-paced Goatsnake feel into its Pentagram-style shuffle, Cornelius’ cadence and phrasing only helping the comparison, at least until the section of whispers about three minutes in. On the nine-minute opener, “Stride,” he comes on strong with a kind of overdrive effect on his vocals that I’m glad isn’t a permanent fixture. With the lighter hues coming from Roman’s guitar, interplay of acoustics and electrics, and underlying (maybe underrepresented for doom, but nonetheless appropriately balanced for the mixture Under the Sun have going on) bass, it can be a bit much, but like I say, it doesn’t last, and the layered guitar solos – in the Iommi tradition – more than stand up in making a case for the success of the song as a whole.

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