However long it had been since Acid King hit NYC for a show, it was too long. Probably long enough that the last time they did, it was Manhattan they were playing and not Brooklyn. We’re talking pre-economic collapse, possibly around the time the San Francisco trio (ding ding!) put out their latest album to date, III, on Small Stone in 2005. If that’s the case, and I think it might be, then golly, that’s a long time. That would mean that the last time Acid King came through NYC, neither of the bands who opened for them — Blackout and Kings Destroy – nor the venue they played — the St. Vitus bar — existed yet. Pretty wild.

And Brooklyn was excited to see them, at least judging from the packed house at the sold-out Vitus bar and the people outside who couldn’t get tickets. I had a feeling it might work out like that, and wanting to catch Blackout for not having seen them before, got there early and headed almost immediately to the front of the stage where I’d remain for the duration. It wasn’t long before Blackout went on and recognizing Justin Sherrell of Bezoar (who play the same venue with Samothrace this coming Friday), was surprised to find him handling bass in the trio, which also includes drummer Taryn Waldman and guitarist/vocalist Christian Gordy.

I was thinking of Blackout as a new band, but they’ve been kicking around Brooklyn since 2011, so I guess it isn’t a surprise they were as tight as they were, playing a thick, riff-led heavy psych that blended Sleep‘s stoner heyday and classic Melvins stomp with a touch of Rob Crow‘s vocal compression in Goblin Cock and even, when Sherrell joined in, some of Fu Manchu‘s inherent movement to go along with that Naam-style Brooklyny Brooklyness. You know, the kind you get in Brooklyn? Riffs were familiar and steady, well-punctuated by Waldman‘s drums, and straightforward enough that they never really departed from their central groove despite changes in pace and volume and shifts into and out of verses. They didn’t seem so much concerned with breaking new ground, as with bringing something of their own to an established form.

Gordy came across more as a rhythm player than one to kick out a showy solo, but I could see at one point he was just on the verge of breaking out a stoner rock softshoe while riding a particularly funky line. Go for it, man. No way to lose on that one. Blackout‘s last song, “Seven,”  had their most potent start-stop and a memorable one-two shout to go along with it, repeated early and repeated often in a killer jam. They were a cool band and a good fit for the bill, since you could just as easily point to Acid King as an influence for their driving, tone-minded roll. If that left Kings Destroy as the odd men out, they were just fine with that.

The thing I enjoy most about seeing Kings Destroy at this point — and I enjoy a good bit about them and I’ve had plenty of occasions to enjoy it — is watching them demolish people’s expectations. Whether people in the crowd heard them through picking up their And the Rest Will Surely Perish debut (a Maple Forum release) or just from checking out random videos along the way, there’s little that can prepare either for the focused intensity in their performance at this point — not so much a holdover from the members’ NYHC days as an evolution of it — or the free aesthetic range of the newer, post-debut material from their forthcoming second LP. However they manage to do it, Kings Destroy are always catching someone off guard.

I’m hardly an impartial observer, but fun is fun. Despite throwing in weirdo cuts like “Blood of Recompense” and the closing “Turul” from the new album, due out this year on whichever label is bold enough to pick it up, Kings Destroy also went back to their roots, playing both sides of their initial 7″ single with “Old Yeller” and “Medusa.” The blend was right on, and if they had it in mind to play the simpler, more directly riffy material for the heads out to see Acid King, they probably weren’t wrong in doing so. The room was more or less full from what I could tell as they kicked off with “Old Yeller,” and the crowd was already drunk and already rowdy. Or at least a couple dudes were who decided to spread it around after already being led forcefully to but apparently not through the door once during Blackout.

My pick of the Kings Destroy set? Well, I’m a sucker for “The Toe” and a sucker for “The Mountie,” so take your pick. From the start of “Old Yeller” on down, the band showed how far they’ve come, adding a dangerous sense of energy to the older songs. Both cuts from the 7″ also appeared on the album, so “The Mountie” wasn’t alone, but the push was still clearly geared toward the newer stuff, and rightly so. While I love that record as much as you’d think someone would have to in order to decide to put their “label” stamp on it — and if they came to me today with it, I’d still be up for helping to put it out — Kings Destroy 2013 are miles ahead of where Kings Destroy 2010 were, bolstered by road-time in Europe, more songwriting and a greater sense of what influences they want to bring into the band. Their confidence bleeds through everything they do, and they don’t just know they’re kicking your ass on stage, they actually kick your ass too. It had been a couple months since I last saw them (review here), so the refresher was appreciated.

Vocalist Steve Murphy hopped off the stage into the crowd during the quiet ending of “Blood of Recompense” and stood on some kind of box on the side of the stage during part of the oddly progressive “Turul,” marching in isolated place while guitarists Carl Porcaro and Chris Skowronski, bassist Aaron Bumpus and drummer Rob Sefcik locked in the chugging chorus that brought the set to a finish, so even to the presentation of the songs itself, there was a sense of not knowing what the hell might come next.

What was next, however, was Acid King.

And I’ll say this about Acid King: That is a band who are ready to let the riffs do the talking. The case was roughly the same when I last saw them at Roadburn in 2011, but perhaps accentuated all the more for a headlining set in Brooklyn. Still, even without whooping up the crowd, the crowd was in their pocket… and all over the floor of the St. Vitus bar. Moshing during Acid King? Really? The songs have like 30 beats per minute. Q: How do you mosh to that? A: Sauced. I stayed up front the whole show, and for most of Acid King‘s set, my side of the stage didn’t seem to be getting it as bad as the other one, but really, I didn’t expect that kind of thing to happen. It’s fucking stoner rock, not Converge.

But I’m old, and the generation has shifted, so if Acid King inspire enough devotion in a Saturday night Brooklyn crowd despite not having put out a new album in eight years to result in moshing at their show, well, that bit of “this is fun because I’m wasted” goonery and “let me cover you in my shirtless man-sweat” latent homoeroticism I guess is the price to pay for seeing the three-piece in the flesh. It’s a small one in the long run as compares to actually watching Acid King play (though I can’t help but wonder if the girl on the other side of the stage who kept getting grabbed on by Dipshit McGee would argue), who arrived on the stage with as little sense of fucking around as they’d soon bring to their set, which covered mostly III songs and classics from 1999′s genre landmark Busse Woods but left room for new material as well in the form of “Coming Down from Outer Space,” “Red River” and a third yet untitled.

Yeah, that’s right, new Acid King. They’ve been kicking around “Red River” for a while — also happens to be the name of the street in Austin, Texas, where I first saw them in 2004, half-passed out sitting on the upstairs balcony at Room 710 while they headlined the Small Stone showcase at SXSW — but everything’s relative. Really, they could’ve played just about anything and I don’t think anyone would have complained. The place was just excited to see they were there, and the band — guitarist/vocalist Lori S., drummer Joey Osbourne and bassist Mark Lamb — were well into it as well, not thrashing around or anything but ensuring the delivery of the tightest set possible of some of heavy rock’s most underrated riffage.

If you were so inclined, you could probably write a dissertation on Lori‘s guitar tone. Under the red lights at the St. Vitus, she led the band through the fuzz of “Busse Woods” and “2 Wheel Nation” like it was a guided tour, Lamb’s own low end providing a fitting answer back, resulting in a consuming wave of groove that was, I shit you not, right up there with the heaviest sounds I’ve ever heard come through that Vitus P.A. It was clear immediately that it would be a great set, and as they nestled into the pocket of riff after riff, not overly animated but not still-life-with-fuzz either, Acid King reminded Brooklyn of just what it had been missing in the time since they last stopped through.

When the crowd got unruly between songs, shouting requests or nonsensicalities like, “You’re in Brooklyn now,” as though they (1:) didn’t know or (2:) were concerned they’d set up their gear in Queens instead, Lori simply hit her foot pedal on for the next song and all the rest disappeared in a hum of feedback, Osbourne smiling behind. “Silent Circle” was a highlight, but “Electric Machine” — which followed the unnamed new song and “Coming Down from Outer Space” — made the whole set for me personally. That’s a song I’m lucky I get through a day without it showing up stuck in my head at some point anyway. To be that close to it was something special.

Their regular set wrapped with III closer “Sunshine and Sorrow,” on which I’d apparently never properly appreciated Osbourne‘s drum fills, as Lori put her guitar down and adjourned to the side of the stage — nowhere else to go — to watch Lamb and Osbourne finish off the song and nod on the groove. They couldn’t leave before the encore, so after a minute or so, they launched into an encore of “Teen Dusthead” and the extended, hypnotic “War of the Mind,” finishing huge, sick and unpretentiously righteous as they’d started. It was a monument to riff-paganism equal parts huge and awe-inspiring, and I felt dazed when they were done.

Consciousness returned on the slow march out enough to get me to my car and back to Jersey, whereupon I crashed out so thoroughly that three days later I’ve yet really to come fully awake. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. One thing’s for sure: If Acid King came to the East Coast for the first time in more than half a decade — one show, not even touring — it probably wasn’t without a reason, and if they were testing the waters for a new album prior to recording, the interest and the fanbase is definitely there. Acid King were welcomed to the St. Vitus like the stoner royalty they are, and though I might stand in back next time around, my only hope after this show is that there is one.

More pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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To be perfectly honest, I don’t really even have a good excuse for posting this flyer, I’m just psyched for the show. On Saturday, Feb. 23, Acid King will return to the East Coast for the first time in I don’t even know how long it’s been, and Maple Forum alums and all-around excellent human beings Kings Destroy have signed on to support along with Blackout on the three-band bill. I guess at that point, I don’t need an excuse. It’s just awesome. All hail crushing February:

Somebody’s Range Rover had broken down in the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, so the traffic getting across to the St. Vitus bar in Brooklyn was a cruelty. The Patient Mrs. had business elsewhere in the borough as well, so we carpooled and sat for about an hour, waiting, inching forward, honking, being honked at, staring at the billboards for Soylent Orange or whatever it was, waiting. Waiting. Mostly it was waiting.

I was still early to the show, though, which was the live debut of the supergroup (they need to come up with a new tag for “band made up of people known for being in other bands”) Corrections House, whose lineup reads like a list of influences. Mike Williams of Eyehategod on vocals, Scott Kelly of Neurosis on guitar, Yakuza‘s Bruce Lamont handling sax, backing vocals and noise, and producer/Nachtmystium member Sanford Parker – permanently linked to the largely unmatched crush of Buried at Sea in my mind — acting as warden behind a podium with the band’s logo draped on the front, his laptop, sampler, drum machine adding to the experimental edge and providing the rhythmic base of the material.

The concept for the show was pretty complex. Two bands were opening: noise trio York Factory Complaint and blackened noisemakers Theologian, both NY-native. After them, each of the members of Corrections House would come up for a brief 10-15 minutes of solo work, then, once they were pieced together on the stage, a Corrections House set would close out the night. It was a cool theory, and it felt even better to know that St. Vitus bar was the first time they were trying it out, but I guess my concern going into it was how they’d actually make it happen with each member doing something different, what the order would be and how many songs Corrections House, as a band, could possibly have.

Answer? Three or four songs. But it was a long road to get there. York Factory Complaint went on at about 10PM, so I knew right away it was going to be a pretty late night. All the gear was backlined behind and around the outfit — which lists itself as a four-piece so perhaps someone was missing — who sat and knelt on the floor of the stage in front of their vintage-looking manipulators, Moogs and whathaveyous. Their noise was, well, noise. As advertised. Screaming vocals gave some inkling of structure, but there wasn’t really a verse as such, just lines spit over harsh audio.

I guess that’s going to happen from time to time, and for what it was, I thought the presentation was cool and the ambience creative. I always wanted to start a noise project with equipment hooked up to giant walls with knobs on them that I could dress as a mad scientist in a labcoat and run from side of the stage to side of the stage turning like a fool. Of course, with neither the money for equipment nor a knack for working with oversized knobs, it’s resided in the pile of band ideas next to my one-man black metal band with no music because nothing sounds kvlt enough and my doom project with lyrics based solely on the themes of Final Fantasy games.

York Factory Complaint was much simpler in their approach, and Theologian likewise, though the Leech-led live trio — which included Fade Kainer of Batillus on, you guessed it, synth and noise — were a little more grounded, relatively speaking, and had a projector going behind and over them while they played. That didn’t do much to make the sounds any friendlier or more accessible, but the point was the experiment, and their complex wash of synth, effects-laden vocals and array of abrasive screeches felt all the more purposed for its bleakness of mood. A couple toms on the side of the stage manned by Matt Slagle provided human-driven thud when called upon, and Leech‘s voice became as much a part of the wash as anything else. I wondered how they’d serve as a lead-in for Corrections House, but with Sanford Parker up first crafting a noise barrage of his own, it made more sense than one might have expected.

Dressed as all the members of the band would be in a black button-down with Corrections House logo patches sown on the arms and a larger logo on the back, Parker set quickly to work laying a bed of industrial-style beats and noisy flourishes. Samples came and went muddled by the surrounding swell as Parker, lost in the rhythm, continued to construct the sound one element at a time, even picking up a mic and manipulating feedback from it. After a while, Lamont joined him on stage, picking up his baritone sax and running it through a pedal board of his own, soon doing the same with some vocalizations and even scratches on the microphone that ran along the border between experimental and obnoxious. It can be a fine line sometimes.

Williams appeared unceremoniously on the side of the stage, holding a notebook, and gradually, Parker and Lamont brought the noise down to a steady drone. This actually worked really well, because in his reading — Williams in addition to fronting Eyehategod has done spoken word for a while now and has a book of poems called Cancer as a Social Activity – he gripped the mic, yelled and often had space to pause for the sound behind him filling what would otherwise have been silence tempting people in the crowd to talk over him. I’ve been to that kind of gig before and it’s excruciating, but whatever else you can say about Williams, he’s charismatic like few others I’ve seen on a stage. Like a magnet for eyeballs.

His poems/writings ran through a litany of post-beat disaffection, navigating a gamut of vague imagery and all-too-specific chemically-added grit. It’s hard to critique a written work by hearing a reading, but his delivery could change in a line from tragic and solipsistic to engaging with smiled charm, and not without interrupting the flow of a piece, and that’s worthy of commending. As he read, Kelly made his way to the front and took up position at the side of the stage, fresh off two rare East Coast Neurosis gigs, in Philly and at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple for a weekender preceding the launch of this tour. Lamont and Parker were still up there as well, the former kneeling in front of his pedal board in attentive semi-meditation and the latter tucked away behind his podium.

Closing out his portion with an extended poem that was a series of purposefully ridiculous claims ended by the refrain “That’s what the obituary said,” and finally ending it with what he seemed to make his own concerning his many-storied history of drug abuse — there was some mention of “finally kicking the habit” — Williams then made way for Kelly to run through a couple songs. This turned out to be something of a side-step, since each of the preceding additions of personnel to the stage had added to the atmosphere of what would become Corrections House, whereas Kelly‘s material is more straightforward and more definitively solo. Even “The Sun is Dreaming in the Soul,” which featured a second guitar on last year’s The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here), was wholly Kelly‘s own despite complementing ethereal backing vocals from Lamont. I’m not about to complain for getting to watch Scott Kelly play his solo material — that can only make a good night better — but it was a turn from the process of building Corrections House on the stage, since what he was playing as part of the band turned out to be heavier, darker and more fitting to the rhythmic pulsations of Parker‘s drum machine.

Once they were all there, again, Corrections House only had three, maybe four songs to play. The difference was it had already been about an hour, so it was more like an extended encore than a full set. I wasn’t about to complain. Aside from Kelly playing angrier and with more distortion, there wasn’t much about Corrections House that hadn’t already been revealed. A digital “leak” of their “Hoax the System” video had given some idea of what to expect, and the other material they played followed suit, once more leaning on the line between organic darkened heavy and industrial coldness. Williams spat fury with his characteristic nihilism, Lamont kept up with Parker in laying the foundation of noise, be it with his sax or mic or both, and where once there wasn’t one, an increasing swirl of chaos ensued. It was all I could do to realize how far we’d already come by the time Corrections House were into their second offering.

They wrapped with an extended take on “Hoax the System,” its insistent rhythm playing out steady as the final tide of feedback rolled over it and just about everything else, Williams seeming to hold on against the rush with repetitions of his last lyrics urging the title. It was nearly 1AM by the time they were done, and I knew The Patient Mrs. was waiting, so I was quick out the door of the St. Vitus bar and back down the block to where she’d parked and was waiting for me to drive back to Jersey. Fortunately, whoever’s Range Rover it was had been towed by then. Small favors.

Pretty much the whole way through, this show wasn’t what I’d expected or planned on. From the traffic getting there to Williams taking the frontman spot then relinquishing for Kelly only to resume it shortly thereafter, to Lamont‘s mic-scratching, to the clear-road record time I made to the valley afterwards, the vast majority of my preconceived notions of what Corrections House would be had turned out to be in need of — forgive me — correcting. That’s what they got, anyhow. Rumor has it a 7″ is in the works, after that, who knows. But whatever might come next for these guys in this collaborative form, at least now I know why I’m anticipating it.

Extra pics after the jump.

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Even before it started, Sept. 25 was more than one occasion. Principally, my eighth wedding anniversary. It was also the day Saint Fucking Vitus hit the bar that bears their name in Brooklyn, with Weedeater and Sourvein supporting. Saint Vitus at the Saint Vitus. And in the intertwining of these two events, I’ll say it will serve for years as an example of the long list of reasons I’m glad I’m married to The Patient Mrs. that the one did not preclude experiencing the other. Three bands — any one of whom on a given night I’d be happy to see as a headliner — in probably the smallest space at least Weedeater and Vitus will play this year. It was something special.

This week is also the U.N. General Assembly in Manhattan, and as I was anxiously waiting to depart and head to Brooklyn for the show, it was this foremost in my mind. All it takes is one diplomat deciding to go for a stroll down 34th St. and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel is pretty much inaccessible by car, so I made sure I had plenty of time to get to the Saint Vitus bar. Turned out I was early arriving, and at that point, things started to seem a little too easy. I’d made it there, made it there early, and I was about to watch Sourvein, Weedeater and Saint Vitus do a gig together about as far away from me as the keyboard on which I’m currently typing. I couldn’t help but look up to see if any pianos were about to fall on my head.

None did. And The Patient Mrs. was like, “you should go to this show,” and traffic was like, “you should go to this show,” and my brain was like, “dude I can’t fucking believe you’re going to this show,” and then I was at the show and then the show was happening and all threat of pianos was gone and everything that sucked was somewhere else and all the was was volume, riffs and fists in the air. Sourvein made a raucous opener, and the fact that since the last time I saw them vocalist T-Roy Medlin has surrounded himself with a new band — including former The Gates of Slumber drummer J. Clyde Paradis – only added to the sense of adventure.

Guitarist Joshua “JC” Fari – the band’s original bassist — donned a t-shirt with the logo for famed Manhattan venue the Limelight (the “rock ‘n’ roll church” as it once was) I guess to mark the evening, and bassist Todd Kiessling (Phobia/Dystopia) was of course locked in with Paradis on the band’s signature grooves. Hard to believe Sourvein will have existed in one form or another for 20 years in 2013, but if Medlin is the lone constant for all that time, he gave a good showing of why in Brooklyn. They weren’t through the opener for their set — the title-track to 2008′s Imperial Bastard EP — before Medlin had jumped off the stage. Granted it was crowded up there, with Paradis’ drums set up in front of the kit Henry Vasquez would later use for Saint Vitus‘ set, but still, for having been the driving force in Sourvein for nigh on two full decades, Medlin‘s energy was commendable.

More to the point, their sludge was fucking vicious. It was fascinating to see Sourvein and Weedeater back to back because of how closely the bands are related. Not just by blood either — Medlin and Weedeater‘s “Dixie” Dave Collins are cousins — but in general ethic and punk rock fuckall, there’s a definite link. I can’t imagine either band is particularly fond of playing New York, but Sourvein hit hard with a closing duo of “Fangs” from last year’s Black Fangs (review here) and “Dirty South” — their anthem — and split out in noisy fashion to a resounding reception from the growing crowd. It was early yet, just getting on 10PM, but the room was beginning to fill up.

I spent the vast majority of the night up front. Right up front, where someone of my size and stature really has no right to be. I didn’t want to miss taking pictures, yeah, but I didn’t want to miss the show, either, and I had memories of standing in the back bar as Pallbearer – the last too-big-for-the-room gig I saw at the Saint Vitus — doomed the living crap out of those in more immediate vicinity. So I stayed put in front of the stage, and as Weedeater got going by kicking into tracks from 2011′s Jason… the Dragon (review here) like “Hammerhandle,” “Mancoon” and “Turkey Warlock,” I was easily convinced I’d made the right choice.

Collins had a bottle of Evan Williams, drummer Keith “Keko” Kirkum and guitarist Dave Shepherd had PBR tallboys, so it was a party from the start. “Make noise,” was the bassist/vocalist’s urging to his bandmates before they started, and apparently they were listening. They kept the set mostly skewed to Jason… the Dragon and 2007′s God Luck and Good Speed, the volume giving no quarter behind him as Collins let loose his nastier-than-all rasp. Kicking his leg behind him, contorting to a wide array of faces, leaning on the wall and sitting on his amp case before getting up for another round, kneeling to play, drinking both from his bourbon and a bottle of what I could only assume was cough medicine taped to the side of his speaker cabinet — before they went on, he tried out two straws and clearly favored the longer — Collins was, as ever, a more entertaining frontman than the unfriendliness of Weedeater‘s music might initially have you believe. “I hope you fucking hate this song so much you cry from it,” he said at one point. To the best of my knowledge, nobody cried.

They wrapped with a full-lung toke off of “Weed Monkey” from God Luck and Good Speed, which was preceded by the Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, “Gimme back My Bullets” that appeared on the same album. Someone clever soul in the crowd shouted “Play some Skynyrd!” when they finished, to which Collins — fully absorbed in a stage process I don’t think anyone but him really understands — replied with a quick “we already did,” as though the words were bullets bouncing off him. There are very few bands who could follow Weedeater and hope to stand a chance of not having been blown off the stage. For this too, it was lucky that Saint Vitus were up next.

If one can say such a thing about a doom legend, Vitus guitarist and principle songwriter Dave Chandler seemed positively tickled to be playing a venue with the same name as his band. Both he and vocalist Scott “Wino” Weinrich thanked the bar several times, Wino noting that it was a dream come true for the owners and the band both. After setting up their gear — subdued bassist Mark Adams drinking a Budweiser while his rig was assembled — they very quickly hit some feedback and launched into “Blessed Night” from this year’s Lillie: F-65 (review here), the first song they wrote since embarking on this reunion in 2009.

Since then, I’ve seen Vitus four times that I can think of off the top of my head — Roadburn ’09, Brooklyn, Metalliance and last night; I might be missing one — and I may just have run out of appropriate hyperbole to convey the experience. I’ll argue tooth and nail that Saint Vitus are the single most important doom act America has ever produced, but more than that, they’re stripped down in a way no one else can quite manage to be. Seeing them live, it’s way less of a mystery to see why Black Flag‘s Greg Ginn recruited them for SST Records all those years ago in their initial run: they were basically doing the same thing Black Flag were doing, only they ran their brand of punk through a heady filter of Sabbath.

The government unfortunately doesn’t have a medal to give Chandler‘s guitar tone — though it should — but the guitarist roughed it out anyway, and I held my position up front for the first half of the Saint Vitus @ Saint Vitus set, Vasquez crashing out blood and thunder under the classic heft of the riffs while Wino seethed out the proto-drone of “I Bleed Black” and belted the more raging “War is Our Destiny.” They played all of Lillie: F-65 save for the acoustic interlude “Vertigo” and the feedbacker finale track “Withdrawal” — not that the set was at all lacking feedback — stacking them into the earlier portion of the show to finish up with the likes of “The Troll,” “Mystic Lady,” “Clear Windowpane,” “Saint Vitus,” and the inevitable closer, “Born too Late,” which Chandler – representing the old school even down to his EC F’N W t-shirt — shouted out to the crowd after Wino jokingly asked when the audience was born. “What? ’86?” he laughed, no doubt remembering that was the year the album Born too Late was released.

By then, I had moved to the back, and I feel like it’s worth mentioning why I did so. There had been some moshing during Weedeater, and I stuck that out well enough — took a couple shots to the back that have me sore today, etc., but ultimately survived and found it well worth the effort to do so — but when Saint Vitus got started, and as they really dug into the meat of their set, it was almost overwhelming. Not the crowd, or the push toward the stage, but just the whole thing. I mean, they were. Right. There. Even in the photo pit at Irving Plaza, I hadn’t been that close. After being up there all night, I probably could’ve stuck it out — and when they played “Saint Vitus,” I kicked myself for not — but I guess the bottom line of it was I felt like I wasn’t worthy of what I was witnessing, and after snapping off a quick 850 photos (yes, that’s a lot), I took a couple steps back, eventually winding up over by the soundboard in the back on the lefthand side of the room. I’ve seen a lot of shows in that spot at this point, and as Vitus said their last thanks and jammed out a noisy end — Chandler taking a page out of Medlin‘s book and jumping off the stage to solo in the crowd for a while — I felt lucky to be there at all, lucky to be alive, and where I was standing became at best a tertiary concern.

In the review he posted last night on the forum, SabbathJeff began with the line “Whoa, what just happened?” I was pretty sure of my surroundings when the show was over, but I’ll be damned if everything — up to and including the traffic on the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel — didn’t look just a little extra awesome for what I’d just seen. I got back to the humble Rockaway River valley a little bit before 2AM, inhaled some late-night pasta, said goodnight to my wife and crashed in anticipation of a rough alarm this morning. And today hasn’t exactly been the most productive day I’ve ever had, but if you think I’m about to start bitching the day after seeing Saint Vitus so close up I thought Wino was going to punch me in the face, there’s a good chance you’ve missed the point.

An amazing night the likes of which are rare. Thanks to The Patient Mrs. for eight years of wedded understanding and acceptance, and to you for reading.

Many more pics after the jump.

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Monday night, huh? I’ve passed up some pretty great shows in my time, simply because they happened on a Monday. More often than not, Monday nights find me tired and feeling beat to shit, retreating back to my humble river valley to nurse my wounds and sacrifice some manner of livestock in the name of a mildly productive Tuesday. However, I wasn’t going to miss Eggnogg at the Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn, playing with One Inch Giant, Nevereven and Eyes of the Sun, and even though I felt a little guilty going to a show on a Monday that wasn’t a Precious Metal gig, I nonetheless took the by-now quite familiar route across Manhattan and through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to get across the Pulaski Bridge into Brooklyn. I can do it on auto-pilot at this point.

You know how sometimes you go to a show to see one band and everything that isn’t that band’s set seems to just kind of be in the way? Well, I’ve no doubt that on any other night I’d probably have been way more into show openers Eyes of the Sun and Nevereven, but I was pretty locked into what I was looking for. Nonetheless, Eyes of the Sun‘s abrasive post-metal was well-met by the dual flat-screens they set up on either side of the stage, showing edited-together clips of the earth from space with scenes of sundry atrocities — factory farming, genocide, pollution, slavery — spliced between. Came on a little thick, maybe, but I can’t argue the principle. People are awful.

Also Brooklyn natives, Nevereven were catchy and straightforward hard rock, the sort that would’ve had a shot 15 or 20 years ago at commercial viability when such a thing was still possible. Some progressive elements at work in the guitar, and plenty tight, but landed kind of flat despite the best efforts of frontman Gary Pickard. Both bands drew a solid crowd and garnered a solid response, again, it just wasn’t where my head was at.

My head was primed for catching Eggnogg for the first time. Their Louis EP (review here) was still pretty fresh in my head, and I was surprised to find Bill O’Sullivan on bass and Justin Karol on guitar — I’d thought it was the other way around, and re-reading their current bio, it lists both players as guitarists, so maybe they switch off — though it worked pretty well, Karol playing through a Marshall half-stack and O’Sullivan running an Acoustic combo amp through the Saint Vitus bar P.A. while drummer Jason Prushko, who was the most stoned-looking dude in the room if he wasn’t actually high, slammed away behind, filling in for Ryan Quinn.

Having summarily dug the hell out of both the 2012 EP and the 2011 Moments in Vacuum full-length (review here) before it, I was stoked for the set. Really stoked, actually. I know I hear new music a lot, but it’s not often I encounter a band who seems to have so much potential, and even more, not often I get to see a band like that while they’re still getting their bearings. That’s exciting to me. Eggnogg are young, and in their formative stages, but the heavy psychedelic funk that’s made its way into their sound over the course of their last couple releases — hardly there on their 2009 self-titled but already an essential facet by Louis – and their penchant for grunge melodicism makes for a fascinating combo, and seeing that live for the first time was something I’d been looking forward to since I saw they were starting to play out again while continuing to work on their next record.

They played four songs. Two from each full-length. From Moments in Vacuum, there was the opener, “Magog” and the lurchingly infectious “Wheel of the Year,” and from the self-titled, the heady jam “Northern Lights” and set closer “The Gods Will (Destroy the Hive).” I’d streamed the self-titled through Palaver Records‘ site, but no question the material from the second album was more familiar.  The stomp in both of those songs was right on, Prushko‘s drumming more at the forefront in a live setting than Quinn‘s on the recordings (nature of the beast, not a statement on Quinn‘s playing), and Karol‘s guitar having the same kind of start-stop immediacy, made all the more intricate by upstroke picking and quick mutes.

The room wasn’t full by any stretch, but the people who were there were into the set, myself included. I noted that the members of One Inch Giant, in town from their native Gothenburg, Sweden, ahead of a performance this weekend at Stoner Hands of Doom XII in Connecticut, were right up front for most of the time, and rightfully so. Eggnogg‘s sound was no less organic on stage than it has been on their recorded output to date, and O’Sullivan‘s vocals showcased a rare ability to make a stoner rock gruffness not sound like a burly put-on. His croon and throaty shouts were both effective, and as Karol let loose a burgeoning stoner rock softshoe during the extended solo of “Northern Lights” — it was a kind of Naam-esque two-step/waltz at this point, still very cool — everything seemed to be coming into place.

And that was what I was there for: A band in progress. Their grip on their aesthetic was firm and, by the end of the set, commanding, and but for the want of some louder gear — I shudder to think of “Wheel of the Year” coming through full stacks — they seemed ready to hit the road. I mean that. There’s a certain point where a band has laid the groundwork and established what they want to do, and Eggnogg seemed to be right there, so what’s left is refining and reinventing that process through songwriting and touring. They can only get stronger for the experience, whatever else it might bring them, and their relative youth is an asset working in their favor. When they finished, I was even more stoked on their possibilities than I was when they started.

I bought a copy of the self-titled from Karol, and waited for One Inch Giant to round out the night, which they did in pristine Euro heavy rock fashion. It didn’t occur to me until I spent a while staring at the cover of their Malva EP that I’d heard them before, but they did alright by Sweden, putting on a rock show full of movement for a crowd that was by then sparse at best. Bassist Axel Berglund wore a Suffocation shirt, vocalist Filip Åstrand had Morbid Angel, and guitarist Gabriel “Abbe” Lugo Méndez held and played his instrument like someone well schooled in extreme metal, so I wondered what the band’s roots were in that regard. They broke out some blastbeats in one of their songs and I felt somewhat vindicated at having noticed.

I’ll confess I didn’t stay for their full set. The knowledge that I’d see them again this weekend at SHoD made doing so seem somewhat less urgent, excited though they clearly were to be playing the string of shows they were just beginning. Of the trip out of the city, I’ll say I usually won’t listen to music after a show, finding it — like eating a bag of potato chips after dinner — to be bad for the digestion, but I was still riding high enough on Eggnogg‘s set that I put on the self-titled and let its doomly pulsations guide me through Rt. 3 traffic and home to The Patient Mrs., still awake and still working upon my arrival shortly after midnight. Forgetting to take out the garbage, I went to bed with the distorted strains of “The Gods Will (Destroy the Hive)” still in my head.

A couple extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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Somewhere along the line I got the silly idea that it would be an early show. Wednesday night at the Saint Vitus bar in Brooklyn, Wino & Conny Ochs, with Sean Ragon from Cult of Youth and Kevin Hufnagel from Dysrhythmia opening — three acts, I figured an 8:30 start, Wino/Ochs on around 10, and then call it a night, everybody gets up and goes to work the next morning. Since I mentioned it, it’s probably fairly obvious that’s not the way it worked out, but since I’m still alive to mention it in the first place, also fairly obvious that I lived to tell the tale.

The tale? Pretty familiar by now, I expect. Traffic, more traffic, Brooklyn. Dark room, Vitus brew, Earthride over the P.A. I hadn’t been to the Saint Vitus bar in a couple weeks, but I’ll be back there come Monday for Eggnogg, so it was what it was. After catching them at Roadburn in April, I knew what to expect from Wino & Conny Ochs, but that did nothing to lessen my excitement at the prospect of seeing them again. As previously reported, there’s new material to be heard.

And being long since familiar with Dysrhythmia‘s ultra-tech approach, I was interested as well to see how guitarist Kevin Hufnagel fared in a solo context. Apparently he’s done noise-type solo work before, but this set was more stripped down; just him on stage with a couple pedals and what I’m fairly certain was a baritone ukulele that he ran through them. A little delay here, a little looping there, and through it all, a current of blinding finger-picking. Dysrhythmia have never wanted on the level of technical proficiency, but in this sphere, even the scales and on-a-dime turns had a natural feel.

Playing seated and rocking back and forth, Hufnagel impressed though, and not just in technique. One rarely thinks of a ukulele as a tool of atmospherics, but as he stuck an emery board between the strings to add a fuzzy sound to the finish of his set, he’d conveyed a richer sense of mood than the string resonance of his instrument might immediately indicate. He was followed not promptly by Sean Ragon, who seemed dead set on not starting until he got some reverb on his vocals that I don’t think ever came, but nonetheless unleashed a burst of post-Joe Strummer acoustic aggression once he got going.

It wasn’t as drastic a change as if Dying Fetus went on after Hufnagel or something like that, but the vibe was notably different, and not being familiar with Ragon‘s work in Cult of Youth or out of it, I didn’t know what to expect from his set. The crowd — incrementally making its way from the back room to the front — was more into it than I was. Ragon had his thing on lockdown, but my head was in another space entirely, so I extricated myself to the front barroom and enjoyed the second of the evening’s standard three beers. There was a growing host of familiar faces, and had I not been rank, I might have doled out some quality fat-guy hugs, but I worried about offending both myself and others.

Just as I was dealing with that and about halfway through my beer, Ragon came out from the back room. He wasn’t bolting exactly, but clearly a man walking with purpose. I guess Kevin Hufnagel had the long set and he had the short one, or maybe that’s his thing — play loud, fast, angry acoustic songs for 15-20 minutes and then split off the stage like you broke it. A pretty respectable ethic, to be honest. It’d still be another 45 minutes or so before Wino & Conny Ochs went on just past 11PM, but the Saint Vitus bar offers no shortage of other entertainments. I already mentioned Earthride on the P.A., and after that, it was Hour of 13.

Word had been shooting around the venue as well that both Scott “Wino” Weinrich and Ochs had gotten tour tattoos in the basement earlier in the night. I didn’t even know that was a thing, though I guess it makes sense. Within the first 30 seconds of their set, it was readily apparent that these two dudes were super-tight, musically and personally. In April, they’d filled the old church Het Patronaat with righteous bluesy harmonies, and they did the same for Saint Vitus bar’s unrepentant dinge, opening with “Somewhere Nowhere” and “Labour of Love” to cover beginning and finish of their debut collaboration, Heavy Kingdom right off the bat.

They’d already been on the road together for more than two weeks, so they played the set like it was a given, Ochs in a flowing white linen shirt that screamed “I get ladies” fairly loudly and Wino in a sleeves-gone black t with the word “heavy” on it, as if to emphasize the improbability of their pairing and the improbability that it would work as well as it does. Ochs had a bandage on his arm, Wino showed raw skin with that freshly-peeled look that’s always a marker of new ink. They played most of the Heavy Kingdom record — and at one point between songs, Wino named the two of them as a band called Heavy Kingdom; whether or not subsequent releases will come out under that name, I don’t know — and threw in a cover of Joy Division’s “Isolation,” which was spirited and well met in equal measure, and the title-track from Wino‘s solo acoustic debut, Adrift.

“Adrift” was a surprise, but a welcome one, and it sat well alongside Heavy Kingdom highlights like the swaggering “Dust” and “Dark Ravine.” New song “Crystal Madonna” was dark and quiet in comparison to much of the set, and seemed to be the dividing point between those who were sticking it out to the end of the show and those not, but if there was a shift in mood, it was hardly unprecedented in Wino & Conny Ochs‘ sound, and in any case, the Ochs-led “Here Comes the Siren” was even bleaker. I was glad for the chance to see that song in-person, though, and whether the duo release their next album under the Wino & Conny Ochs moniker or Heavy Kingdom, “Crystal Madonna” — she turned out to be plastic — that song is sure to be a standout. At the end of it, Wino said it was a true story.

No less true seemed the post-divorce balladry of “Old & Alone,” Weinrich‘s sneering vitriol and latent anger coming through as clearly as the fuzz he’d hooked up to his acoustic guitar for periodic solos, Ochs stomping his foot on a bass drum to keep effectively minimal time that nonetheless underscored a groove inherent in the songs. Following a short, on-stage break after their “last song,” they tore through “Manifesto” from Wino‘s 2011 split 7″ with Scott Kelly, topped it with a mostly a capella “Find the Cost of Freedom,” a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young cover that can also be found on their Heavy Kingdom-concurrent  Labour of Love Latitudes session, and built the ending to a raucous rock finish with Ochs speeding up his guitar and drum stomp just to the brink of losing control before cutting it off.

I cut out on the quick, the prospect of an hour-plus post-midnight drive staring me down (that was before I accounted for construction on Rt. 3 in Jersey), but though the evening had its ups and downs, there were good people and good times had, and seeing Wino & Conny Ochs as firmly unified as they were — you might say they got tattoos together in the basement of the venue before playing (only the most sterile of environments will do) — bodes well for the prospect of a quick follow-up to Heavy Kingdom, and that’s something to look forward to, whenever it might arrive.

A couple extra pics after the jump. Thanks for reading.

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Not that I don’t get the immediate appeal of seeing Saint Vitus at the bar in Brooklyn that shares their name, but that’s gonna be one crowded-ass show. Nonetheless, dig into these tour dates, much as they’ve dug into my calendar:

Scion A/V Metal presents
The 2012 SAINT VITUS U.S. headlining tour
in support of Lillie: F-65
with special guests WEEDEATER & SOURVEIN
Tour Dates

9/14 Little Rock, AK @ Rev Room (also w/ RWAKE, YOB)
9/15 Memphis, TN @ Hi-Tone Cafe
9/16 Nashville, TN @ Exit / In
9/18 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
9/19 Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre
9/20 Richmond, VA @ Kingdom
9/21 Huntington, WV @ V Club
9/22 Lexington, KY @ Boomslang Festival
9/23 Pittsburgh, PA @ The Rex Theater
9/24 Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
9/25 Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus Bar
9/27 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
9/28 New York, NY @ Best Buy Theater (w/ DOWN, No WEEDEATER/SOURVEIN)
9/29 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
9/30 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge
10/1 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club
10/2 Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theater
10/3 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
10/4 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
10/5 Boise, ID @ Neurolux
10/6 Portland, OR @ Fall Into Darkness Festival
10/7 Seattle, WA @ The Highline
10/9 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
10/10 Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater
10/11 Sacramento, CA @ Harlow’s
10/12 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Atrium at The Catalyst
10/13 Pomona, CA @ venue tbd (No WEEDEATER/ SOURVEIN)
10/14 Santa Ana, CA @ The Constellation Room
10/15 Mesa, AZ @ Nile Theater
10/16 Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
10/18 Austin, TX @ Beauty Bar
10/19 San Antonio, TX Bond’s 007 Rock Bar

WATCH FOR ON SALE DATES SOON

I’d been feeling pretty good about what the prospects for the evening of Friday the 13th of July held. Basically, they held a Droids Attack show, and I remembered from the last time the Madison, Wisconsin, rockers came through Brooklyn that they were right on the proverbial money. I had to work the next morning, but Friday night after a long week, I was ready to enjoy myself and let loose at the Saint Vitus Bar at a show that I knew would be laid back and not at all trying in the way Brooklyn gigs sometimes are these days. If Droids Attack are anything, they’re unpretentious.

Unbeknownst to me, it was a four-band bill. All prior indicators were for three — The Giraffes, who I assumed would play last and who did, Droids Attack and Cinema Cinema — but a fourth was added which meant that I was early when I arrived at about 9PM. No one would be going on for some time, and the prospect of work the next day meant I probably wouldn’t be staying the whole show. I’d been looking forward to seeing The Giraffes, who may or may not have had vocalist Aaron Lazar with them, but so it goes. And so I went. To the bar. First at the Saint Vitus Bar itself, and then, in an attempt to find someplace with the Yankee game on, down the street a block or two to a punkier kind of dive/local joint. They had the Mets. I had the feeling it was as close as I was going to get.

My spirit undiminished, I drank down a quick two dirty-line Brooklyn Lagers before heading back over to the Saint Vitus Bar in time to watch the first act go on before Cinema Cinema. It seemed to be a one-man show. A guy sat in a rocking chair and sang soulfully from underneath a throw blanket — something I might support theoretically, but there comes a time where you have to stop and realize, “I just paid money to watch this,” and walk out of the room to get another drink. Back out front I went, and by the time I dared venture through the curtain that separates the bar from the back room where bands play, the duo Cinema Cinema were well into their set of bombastic post-punk.

They mentioned twice in the couple songs I saw them play that they were about to go on tour (apparently for not the first time) with Greg Ginn — which is fair; I’m pretty sure if Greg Ginn asked me to do a couple shows I’d get a face tattoo that advertised same — and they covered “School” by Nirvana. I guess after 20 years, that stuff is probably fair game nowadays. Fine. They had their shit together and were tight, and despite their not really being my thing, they got their point across. Great drums, which are almost always welcome to my ringing ears.

A goodly portion of my fourth beer was dumped down my front before Droids Attack went on by their drummer, Tony Brungraber — obviously an accident — but even that wasn’t enough to quell my excitement at seeing the band again. The trio set up quickly after Cinema Cinema finish. Brungraber and guitarist/vocalist Brad Van had introduced me to bassist Dennis Ponozzo by saying he was, “the man,” so I looked forward to hearing him as they got started, and neither he nor either of the other two disappointed. Droids Attack were precisely as I remembered them from their prior East Coast run: good times.

Something else about them: Droids Attack come by their heavy rock as honestly as any band I’ve ever heard. Watching them play and listening to their set, you could see their punk-type roots had grown up, and they made no bones about who they were, what they wanted to sound like or from where they took influence. It was as refreshing as I’d hoped it would be, and Van tore into a few choice solos as Ponozzo and Brungraber made complex rhythms seem easy. Think prog boogie.

Their set was comprised almost entirely of new material, but for the finale, which was the title-track from 2010′s Must Destroy – pretty sure that’s what it was — and Ponozzo kept mostly to the riff on his bass, picking along in time to Van and not really veering too much this way or that for fills or changes. Brungraber executed a varied range of fills in response to the often surprising turns in Van‘s rhythm lines and reinforced the idea that though you can usually have a decent idea of where the band are headed musically, the avenue they take to get there is filled with all kinds of unexpected nuances and detours. It made the newer material I’d never heard before that much more exciting to witness live for the first time.

When they were done, I looked at my watch and it read 11:59PM. For a self-imposed midnight split time, I surmised my evening was over, said a couple quick goodbyes and split out of the Saint Vitus Bar, walking through the bar which had filled up considerably since the last time I’d been out to it — The Giraffes bringing out a hometown crowd, I guessed. Not for me this time. I’ve been doing catchy-song penance ever since with their excellent Dave Catching-produced 2008 outing, Prime Motivator, but back through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, across Manhattan and out to Jersey I went, spitting fury and flavorless chewing gum onto the highway, still feeling like I’d had the quality evening I’d hoped for.

Extra pics after the jump.

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