Music with Jameson & Lone Star: Saturday Dec. 6th a night of Hardcore and Pop.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good night when the first thing you encounter on your way to the White Swan is a van parked in the street with the overwhelming smell of pot and sound of Van Halen emanating from inside. I guess that means it's either 1978 or some Gulf Coast Hardcore kid feels that Women and Children First is the only way to get stoked for hours of the city's best hardcore/Grind/Metal bands.. Have you seen junior's grades? gneaw! gneaw! gneaw! gneaw! gneaw! gneaw! gneaw! Yes folks, The White Swan was hosting the second night of Noisefest. Here's a brief rundown of what I saw there:

The Assholes opened sounding a lot like the bands I had in high school after hearing the Circle Jerks and Black Flag only better, faster, and funnier. Imagine a guitarist that looks like Stephen King and a small bald big eared dude playing songs like “Stupid Fuck” which consisted of those two words repeated over and over in rapid fire succession for about 30 seconds. Oh lordy, who knew Assholes could be such geniuses?

Satannibis was a three piece consisting of a drummer surrounded by sludgy dirty bass and guitar ( I think that was Dissent's white Epiphone wielding guitarist). The great thing about them was the drummer; he played not with a straight punk 1-2 1-2 but had a brutal yet loose and jazzy style that was totally unexpected.

Battle Rifle was likely the most droll band of the evening. Opening their set, the guitarist announced with a smile, “We'll make this quick; I have a fight to watch.” which was met with a “De La Joya's going' down!" from the audience (likely those charming smart-asses the Hypocristinas) which in turn led to a a hilarious back and fourth between the band and the audience. The music was no less brilliant with the brutal assault led by the drummer's sharp fast blast beats – that guy was a freaking machine! Likely the only band I've heard recently that could make a 20 second song sound epic.

The Ale Gore followed. God bless their little souls but they looked like everyone's favorite nerdy friends led by a lead singer who looked like Jeff Goldblum gone hardcore – with as bizarre results as you would expect. Oddly though, despite his awkwardness, he was actually was a pretty good frontman who put himself fully into what he was doing and to solid effect and the band was, for the most part, pretty dead-on with the exception of the drummer whose single kick drum style left you pining for the double-kick assault you expect with this kind of music. That aside, the only real issue with them was that they simply played too long. This stuff works great in 15-20 minute blasts max but their set may have gone 5 minuted too long which, in hardcore, is an eternity. Nevertheless. they were pretty fun.

The last band I saw at Noisefest was Insecticide. I will admit it, I feel pretty stupid having never seen these Californians before this show. They've been doing this for 20 years and the kids all knew the songs and why wouldn't they? They were brutal uncompromising metal in all it's glory! The guitarist would blaze through solos with as much joyous ass-whoopin' as the best 20 some odd hotshot. The bassist meanwhile was a show unto himself – pure showmanship and without compromising the music (to borrow a quote from Andrew Moccasin). In fact, I was so enraptured in their performance, that I let my hardcore guard down and forgot to pay attention to my peripheral vision; there to my right was a body hurling in my direction. Thankfully the person's winter wear made for a blow as soft as a pillow but unfortunately it did knock off my glasses and, focusing more on my glasses than my balance, I fell flat on my ass. Classy! No problem though, everyone gave me a hand up and it was back to Insecticide in all their awesomeness!

Meanwhile, over at Rudyard's it was a totally different scene - the poppy indie-rock scene. Sadly, I missed Phillip Foshee but I did manage to catchElaine Greer. Beyond her trusty bass wielding sidekick , Travis, she was also assisted by Austin (News On The March/Humanicide), and Andrew (Wild Moccasins). Elaine was at her best. Hell, better than that. She whipped out a new song that I thought simply killed. Andrew kicked-in with this chugging locomotive beat while Austin laid down this lovely guitar line and Elaine's vocals carried the whole thing home. The song suddenly seemed to end as Elaine let a few chords ring on her guitar and the band then went into this lovely coda that was epic and heavy. Amazing stuff but unlike the participatory Hardcore crowd, people here were sitting on the floor or sitting in chairs like it was a poetry reading. Good god people! How anyone could sit through this, I have no idea.

Austin's Unbearables were a solid ensemble featuring two keyboardists, two wind players, bass, guitar, drums and one extra vocalist. The songs were sweet but the really nice thing was the leader of the band was sharp enough to leave the individual players room to move. The best songs were those in which the bassist would lay down a solid and dirty bass line with the drummer behind him laying down the backbeat. With that backdrop, the wind instruments (one woman of a flute and the other on trumpet, sax, and clarinet) would play off each other with a lovely psychedelic trippiness. Excellent stuff.

News On The March, whose EP release was being celebrated, stole the evening. If I had any issues with News on the March's Halloween show, I wasn't going to find them here. There the band's performance was constantly stepping over the music but here there was no sign of that. Here was a band fully focused on its music and delivering the goods. A lot of credit needs to go to soundman Joe Olmelchuck because to really appreciate News On The March live you want to savor it all and here the sound was pristine bringing out the glorious harmonies, rich cello, and those jangly melodic guitars. It was simply the perfect way to absorb the richness of what this band had to offer. And guess what? People finally got off their asses!! When Geoffrey of Sideshow Tramps started dancing with a woman in the audience it was the perfect expression of the joy that that band can bring to your soul.



Links:
More Photos on My Flickr

News On The March EP Release Pics (Link)
Noisefest Pics (Link)

Bands:
The Assholes (none, sorry)
Satannabis
Battle Rifle
The Ale Gore
Insecticide
Elaine Greer
The Unbearables
News On The March