Friday Full-Length: The Obsessed, Live at the Wax Museum
Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 8th, 2019 by JJ KoczanFirst off, I like bootlegs. The act of putting yourself in the raw moment of seeing a band play via a sometimes rough recording from a microphone somewhere in the audience. You can hear people talking between the songs, and you can hear the band as they were from the stage — no cleanup, no mixing, nothing. Bootlegs are the truest of “warts and all” presentations for live music. I’ll take a soundboard recording, to be sure, and a good-sounding A+ boot is like a gift from the gods — thinking specifically of Black Sabbath‘s Asbury Park ’75 recording (discussed here), but of course there are many examples among live and studio unofficial releases — but there’s for sure an appeal to a harsher-audio bootleg. It’s a document of a moment that would otherwise be lost to time and memory.
They’re not for everyone, and that’s cool. If they’re not for you, you might want to move on, skip to the bottom part where I bitch about life or just go about your day or whatever. But if you count yourself among the number who can be entranced by such things, and you’re a fan of the band, then the pure aural force The Obsessed display on Live at the Wax Museum should be considered utterly essential. Recorded on July 3, 1983, it first showed up in 1992 as an unofficial release through Doom Records and it wasn’t until last year that The Church Within (fittingly enough) gave it its first official pressing, with a glow the dark cover and a CD encased in a DVD-style digipak, textured artwork and all. The Obsessed have had a few archival live offerings this decade, including Live at the Melkweg November 28th 1992 and Live Music Hall Köln December 29th 1992 in 2012 when the band first got back together, but Live at the Wax Museum has a different feel, its title giving it a sense of importance as a milestone for the band: that time they were in that place. Also distinguishing Live at the Wax Museum is the fact that it was recorded some nine years before those other shows, with guitarist Scott “Wino” Weinrich, bassist Mark Laue and drummer Dave Flood — who demolishes a drum solo in “Sister Sin” right around the middle of the set, igniting howls from the crowd — playing as intense as I’ve ever heard any incarnation of the band.
Across songs like “Concrete Cancer,” which is introduced during Wino‘s minimalist stage banter as an “old tune,” and “Touch of Everything” (a “dance tune”) and “Mental Kingdom” (a “brand new song”),
along with 11 others for a total of 14 cuts plus an intro, The Obsessed absolutely tear into this show. There’s a minute-long intro from some preacher talking about how rock music is the devil and blah blah blah and then the three-piece rip into “Burning Gland” and there’s no going back. “Iron & Stone” and set-finale “Sodden Jackal” would show up in ’83 on the band’s first 7″ single following two should-probably-be-reissued demos — their 1984 Concrete Cancer demo was given a limited run by Relapse in 2017, so it’d be as simple as repackaging 1999’s Incarnate, I think — but what’s most striking about Live at the Wax Museum is the sheer intensity of it, and that’s something that comes through despite the rough audio. Because, let’s face it: it’s a bootleg. It ain’t a cleaned-up live record, or something that’s been remastered and remastered, the tape gone over with a fine-toothed comb to remove the static noise. It’s all there. You get to hear someone in the crowd after “Concrete Cancer” shout that “FM radio sucks!” — nothing changes — and someone else later call out for them to play some Sabbath after they nail “Mental Kingdom” — again, nothing changes — and if you’re in the right mindset listening, all of that feeds into the specific atmosphere of the release.
Maybe that’s an added academic or theoretical appeal, but Live at the Wax Museum has no shortage of highlight performance moments to go along with that, from the winding and chugging of “Failsafe” to the utterly indispensable “Neatz Brigade,” which is probably the catchiest hook Wino ever wrote — that’s a pretty vast pantheon of stuff between The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand, Premonition 13, and the sundry other units in which he’s been involved or led — but in terms of the way the verse builds tension for the chorus to open up and release, I can’t come up with a match for it. Especially not listening to it as it appears here. Certainly the catchiest The Obsessed tune, at the very least, and one that, 36 years later, you’re still pretty much guaranteed to see them play at every show. With good reason.
I wasn’t there in 1983 for this show. I was going on two, so let’s assume I wouldn’t have been able to make it even if I’d been aware of it, or, say, anything. But having Live at the Wax Museum as not just proof that it happened but kind of a glimpse at who The Obsessed were at the time and how much their miraculously-not-punk grit and working-class disaffection flew in the face of the burgeoning grandeur of the NWOBHM is not only helpful in explaining who they were at the time and how they earned the reputation they’ve long enjoyed, but also just a badass-sounding recording of a raw three-piece working to shape what we now know as Maryland doom. Hell yes that gets multiple spins from me.
The history of The Obsessed is tumultuous and ongoing, but their long absence ended in 2012 and in 2017, they produced the LP Sacred (review here), their first new album in some 23 years. They’ve been touring steadily for it since. They did Muddy Roots in Tennessee in August, Descendants of Crom III in Pittsburgh in September, last weekend were at Cafe 611 — home of Maryland Doom Fest — with Spiral Grave and others, and will travel to California next Spring for Psycho Smokeout. So yes, keeping busy. I don’t know if they’re planning another record or what, but they’ve got plenty of time to keep aligned with their every-two-decades pace, and I’m happy to see them play whenever the opportunity presents itself. Hearing Live at the Wax Museum only underscores why.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Today is also a new episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio. The first new one in more than a month. You hopefully already saw the playlist. It’s on at 1PM Eastern.
Listen on the Gimme app or here: http://gimmeradio.com
And thanks again for your support.
While I’m indulging shameless plugs, I’ll be at Ode to Doom tomorrow in Manhattan, presented in part by this site. Horehound, Thunderbird Divine, Mantismass and Iron Rider are playing.
Event page is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/298666037420426/
And hey, thanks for your support.
Before you say it, I know Slayer and Primus are at MSG tomorrow night. In the hallowed halls of the Knicks and Billy Joel. Cough. I won’t ever tell you not to go see Primus, and I get that it’s Slayer’s alleged farewell tour, but yeah. Seems like as regards Slayer, I’ve got my memories of seeing them destroy, and I’d rather make new memories than relive old ones. So I’ll be at Arlene’s Grocery. I’m not telling you you’re wrong for being nostalgic — Primus are one of my all-time favorite bands; I’ve loved Primus since I was single digits, and I’ve loved seeing them every chance I’ve had — or trying to get while the getting’s good, but yeah. I’ve never seen Thunderbird Divine, or Mantismass, or Iron Rider, and Horehound rule, so I’ll take the lower key option and be grateful for it.
This weekend is also my sister’s birthday, so we’re doing family dinner tonight because I’ll be out tomorrow — not at all the first time I’ve rescheduled such things for a show; these people are very indulgent, these relatives of mine — and then I guess other whatnot over the course of the next couple days that I’m sure will be good.
That’s fine. It was a shit week. They all are. I spent most of it overthinking food, yelling at a two-year-old, feeling bad for yelling at a two-year-old, getting hit, kicked and bit at various points, being wrong about fucking everything, going back and forth with homeowners insurance, waiting for the other shoe to drop that will make us have to move again and daydreaming about being dead. In any case, a little time out of my head is welcome.
Thanks to everyone who has added a list so far to the end-of-decade poll. If that’s not you, I humbly point you to the form to do so here. Include whatever you want. Have fun with it.
I think that’s the last of the plugs.
Well, unless you count all the stuff for next week. Monday is that Ode review, plus a stream of the new Midas EP. Tuesday a Canyon of the Skull album stream. Wednesday an Onhou album stream — dark, dark, dark that one is. Thursday a track premiere and review of the new Solace record that I should probably just start writing now to get it done in time. Next Friday a Czar track premiere. Whole week, nailed down. Most of the week after as well. Busy times for being the “off season” in rock and roll, but it usually is, so fair enough.
Gonna try to get my head into the day to come (still early as I write) and probably fail miserably, as I so, so often do.
Great and safe weekend. Forum, radio and NEW merch.
