Recording: Mies Coma

Artist: Mies Coma

Song: unknown^*

Recorded at Handlebar ("Crosswires"), February 9, 2014.

Mies Coma - unknown

Full review to follow. It's satisfying when something that looks good on paper translates into real-world success. Mixing Danijel and Brandon (formerly of sludgebeasts Holy Mount) with Clayton Churcher, drummer from Anagram/Surinam takes Holy Mount's syrupy dynamics and adds a rhythmic charge to the proceedings. Entirely tasty, this new unit (which just has one bandcamp track as an online presence at the moment) has really hit the ground running.

Crosswires, meanwhile, has now started its third year of programming musical strays and orphans. The musical brainchild of Wavelength ex-MC Doc Pickles, this is a good spot for some under-the-radar music exploration, and takes place every other Sunday at the comfy Handlebar in Kensington Market. It also starts early/ends early, important for anyone who wants to live a little on Sunday night but still be able to get up for work on Monday.

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Holy Mount

Artist: Holy Mount

Song: We Fell From The Sky

Recorded at The Silver Dollar Room, July 15, 2011.

Holy Mount - We Fell From The Sky

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Quest For Fire

Quest For Fire (Shooting Guns / Holy Mount)

The Silver Dollar Room. Friday, July 15, 2011.

As I think I've said before, I've never been especially partial to straight-up metal. But add something hyphenated in front of it — especially "sludge" — and it's closer to my zone. There's just something I like in using the slow drone of creeping heaviosity as an alternate route to psychedelic bliss.

That'd be enough to draw me out for a Friday night that might be a bit tangential to my normal fare, but it was pretty quiet in the room as Holy Mount led off the night. Their evolution took them ever-closer to a pure, elemental primordial tar pit of sound, their ultimate three-piece configuration (with Brandon McKenzie on bass, Troy Legree on drums, and Danijel Losic on guit) really honing in on a befitting terrain of heaviosity.

Featuring lyrics pitched somewhere between suburbia and Ragnarök (see, respectively, "Meadowvale" and "Garm of Hounds"), Losic's workmanlike vox never upstaged the effortless muscular crunch, and even if they didn't offer much in the way of presentation, it meant there was less to distract from the tasty presentation of songs like "Breeze Blows West". This time out, they were playing a slightly-longer set than I'd seen from 'em before, but given their preferred speed, that still only meant seven songs in forty minutes, presented without deadtime in between — or much in the way of chatter, besides reminding the crowd to check out their 7".¹

Listen to a track from this set here.

I didn't know anything about out-of-towners Shooting Guns, but from their first sludgy riff from their Gibson SG's (Satan's own guitar) I could tell the Saskatoon quintet would fit right into the night. The band would subsequently get some Polaris attention for their then just-released Born To Deal In Magic: 1952-1976, but even as they were making their first foray across the country, they had a few enthusiasts on hand.

Stereotypes are a terrible thing, but I must confess that, at some level, the band played right into my preconceived notions about Saskatchewan. Which is to say that this crew — some with beards, some with long hair, and some with beards and long hair — looked like they could have bonded while hotknifing after a fight in a parking lot. But that's probably a narrow view to take of a whole province.

The set opened with "Sky High & Blind", a grinding instrumental heavy enough to curdle your Vi-Co — and it slowly become apparent that that was the band's predominant mode. "Harmonic Steppenwolf", another song here, could act as a genre tag or statement of purpose. Without vocals, the riffs sometimes blurred together from one song to the next, but the songs usually managed to have unique sonic personalities. "Cheater's Justice", the last one in the set, came with with a cymbal-riding groove and shimmering keyboard line that approached, say, Moon Duo. Steven Reed's double-decker keybs set the five-piece apart and added a bit of a cosmic edge — rarely playing melodically, their function was sort of phased-out whitenoise wheedling underneath the grind, biting and hissing like a prairie wind on a minus forty winter day.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Another band whose members were sporting long hair, beards, or both, it was surprising to hear Quest For Fire singer/guitarist Chad Ross note that this was the band's first time playing the Dollar. And, given their fairly large fanbase, it was even more surprising to observe that they were playing to a half-filled room on a Friday night.

After the slow lurch of opener "Sessions of Light", the band switched over to their faster gear for a couple songs (including "Bison Eyes") before really settling back in at their optimal speed with "Hawk That Hunts the Walking". As they wandered into "The Greatest Hits By God" — arguably their best song — I suddenly felt like I'd found a Golden Ticket for a lifetime supply of cough syrup. I was so relaxed that a few minutes later I realized I was almost drooling on myself. I don't know the details of the physics behind it, but I'm given to understand that something this gravitationally heavy has a propensity to dilate time in its immediate area, manifesting in a sort of blissed-out state where the forty-five minute set (just enough to tackle seven songs) felt like it passed in a mere thousand light-years or so. They actually came back to encore with "Strange Waves", wherein Mike Maxymuik's floor tom tumbled over, but they managed to ooze through it with no more damage than flowing lava leaves on a mountainside.²

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Holy Mount have since disbanded. Losic is now playing with a new unit called Surinam, which features members of Anagram and Town Ship. They'll be opening up at tomorrow's QFF show.

² Quest For Fire have recently announced their dissolution. Their last gig will be tomorrow (February 15, 2013) at The Horseshoe.

Recording: Holy Mount

Artist: Holy Mount

Song: Breeze Blows West

Recorded at The Silver Dollar, January 21, 2011.

Holy Mount - Breeze Blows West

My notes for this set can be found here.

Gig: Dentata

Dentata (Anagram / Bruised Knees / Holy Mount)

The Silver Dollar. Friday, January 21, 2011.

After hanging out at an entirely different kind of show, I headed down Spadina and climbed up to the Dollar just as Oshawa's Holy Mount were taking the stage. Although their thick sludge (heavy in the way that "heavy metal" meant forty years ago) is a bit out my musical sweet spot, I had been favourably struck the first time I had seen 'em. Now streamlined down from a quartet to a three-piece, Brandon McKenzie has slid over from guit to bass, joined by Troy Legree on drums and Danijel Losic on guit and vox. The band led off with both sides of their new 7", "The Rain The Might" and "Breeze Blows West".¹ When I'd seen 'em before, I'd noted that with their talent for heavy sludginess, they got better the slower they played, but "Breeze Blows West", with its pummelling hook is quite fabulous, and shows that they can nail it at a (relatively) higher tempo.

Losic's vox are flattened — sometimes a little too much so — but when he hits his sweet spot, like on closer "Meadowvale", it fits quite well. Stretching things out, they only played five songs in their half-hour set. "Heavy mellow" might be the most apt descriptor for the band, and they're doing it very well right now.

Listen to a track from this set here.

Bruised Knees had also impressed when I'd first come across 'em, so I was glad to have another chance to hear how things were coming along. With some time to gel under their belts — that last show I'd seen had been the first with a new lineup — and on the Silver Dollar's sound system, they sounded very good. From opener "Inside Eye", the band's main elements were on display — and occasionally interestingly juxtaposed. With his singleminded droning guitar lines and stoic glare, Chuck Skullz (ex-Creeping Nobodies), brings a Sonic Youthfulness to the table, which is contrasted with Natalie Logan's brighter demeanour and enthusiastic percussion. Their vocal styles are similarly contrasting, which brings a pleasing frisson, undermining and animating what could otherwise just be deadpan atonal art-punk.

With Chuck Skullz and bassist Graham Hancock creating treated sounds, Logan boosted the energy with some driving percussion, even on the quieter "Folk". That one brought with a singsong-y tunefulness that, indeed, could have been ripped from a folksong, as could its refrain of, "we are ghosts, we are ghosts". Closing with the tasty "Ethio", this was a fine-sounding set showing that the band has moved along well in their process of becoming-who-they-are.

Listen to a track from this set here.

I'm not sure that headliners Dentata are quite at that stage yet. Which is to say that despite being gifted with no shortage of distinctive signifiers, their musical identity seems to be an unfinished work. Put another way: they have a look and an attitude which says far more about who they are as a band than their music does.

Mind you, a look and an attitude can get you pretty far these days, and goes a good distance in describing how in a pretty short time the band was able to marshal a young-skewing crowd that filled up the Dollar.² There's a bit of a grind and shout to their sound, more Sabbath than Riot Grrrl, and given the exacting care that founders Dana Wright and Tamsen Fields bring to the stage (before playing, they were busily tying undressed barbies to the drums and mic stands) the Joan Jett/Lita Ford sort of vibe they were rocking seems by no means accidental.³

A figure dressed as the Grim Reaper bowed a cage-like implement to create some atmosphere at the outset before the quartet launched into "Earwig", subject of the aforementioned video. That one, as well as some of the more-effective songs came in short bursts while some of the more extended ones churned away in a less-compelling matter. There were lyrics that lived up to the band's name ("I will crush you / in between my legs") and plenty of don't-give-a-fuck attitude on stage. All of which meant that this was a reasonably-entertaining show, though perhaps not yet quite worth the excitement the crowd showered on them. To what extent their musical attack can be sharpened — and to what extent that can be conveyed on their forthcoming debut album⁴ — will go quite a ways in revealing whether or not this band will grow the teeth that they're bragging about.⁵

Listen to a song from this set here.

A lot of the crowd melted away after that, but there were still quite a few on hand for Anagram, still carrying the momentum of a good year that had been capped by the release of the fantastic Majewski.Without too much fanfare, the band launched right into the slashing "Good Idea at the Time". Vocalist Matt Mason, unshaven and with a new moustache, looked a little manic as he tore into "Those Were the Days" with gruff gusto, the band's taut snarling chug in lockgroove behind him. With the glorious fuck-you energy of "Fish" (a song by Whitby's Cleavers that Anagram have made into a staple of their live sets), the front of the stage was was filled with bodies bouncing around, plus one or two guys drilled into their own place and doing their little crazy psychedelic dances.

The intense volume and energy papered over the cracks of the band getting mildly unwound during an extended run through "I've Been Wrong Before", and as they played their cover of Leonard Cohen's "The Butcher" towards the set's end they were a bit more detuned than usual, but that's not a big flaw in the middle of it all. Indeed, given how the end of an Anagram set feels a bit like coming out of a hypnotic trace (with furtive gazing around, wondering if you did anything that runs against your basic moral nature), the little details are less important than the state of mind they create.

Listen to a song from this set here.

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¹ Recorded by Anagram's Clayton Churcher, you can find it on their bandcamp, but you might also want to grab a copy on stylish white vinyl while they're still around.

² That might be helped out with sexy perhaps-NSFW videos like this one, which was shot by "cinema of transgression" photographer/filmmaker Richard Kern.

³ They seem to be the dominant forces in the band, though the drum chair is notably filled out by local artist Alexandra Mackenzie, also of Romo Roto. In this company, guitarist Neil Cavalier is mostly shunted to "generic token male" status.

⁴ Word is that album is going to be coming out on local imprint Blue Fog.

⁵ Dentata play tonight (July 22, 2011) at the Four Corners III show at the Steelworkers Hall.

Gig: Sun Ra Ra Ra

Sun Ra Ra Ra (Magic Cheezies / Queen Licorice / Holy Mount / Ghost Trees)

The Silver Dollar Room. Saturday, February 27, 2010.

Show up early enough for one of Dan Burke's bills at the Silver Dollar and you never quite know what you're going to get. There's something touching¹ about the way that he will add a band at the bottom of the bill that has no stylistic ties to the rest of the night — in this case slipping in a band of mostly soft edges in a night otherwise filled with hardness. This would turn out to be the case with Ghost Trees², mainly a vehicle for the songs of singer/guitarist Jamie Steep, backed by a pair of friends on keyb and an 80's drum machine. The latter wasn't used for cranking out programmed rhythms; rather, sitting on top on a floor tom, it was "played" live by Chris B., sitting behind the kit. Its tones — tinny and mechanical but still slightly off-kilter — lent the songs sort of a minimalist C86 type of sound. You know those albums where there are bonus tracks of demos of the album cuts, stripped down, with a drum machine in the background? And how sometimes those demos have a raw, honest appeal that goes missing somewhere when the songs get fully fleshed out? Listening to Ghost Trees playing live was like listening to that. One new song came out a little on the rough and under-rehearsed side, but it was mildly endearing and fit in with the band's gently shambolic kind of vibe. The tunes weren't all killer, but if nothing else, the band is working out a rigourous and distinctive sound which could turn into something quite interesting.

Listen to a track from this set here.

That would be the last time on this night that terms like "quiet, understated charm" would be floating through my head. As a passel of young men started lugging an enormous amount of gear on stage, the place started to fill with a fairly young crowd. And soon that gear — giant bass cabinet and immaculate new-looking Marshall amps — was being put to the test by Oshawa's Holy Mount. Leading off with "Wild Weather", rising out of a couple minutes of guitar noise before a sluggishly churning beat and another woozy guitar line took over. As if I'd just chugged some codeine-laced cough syrup, everything suddenly got slow and heavy. Playing only five songs in their half-hour set (a couple of which stretched out to about the seven-minute mark) the band definitely had some heaviosity going on. Outside my usual musical sweet spot, to be sure, but to the extent I can get behind anything that falls into the wider category of "metal", I'm more likely to be behind something that's appending a prefix like "sludge" to it.³ The vocals were... serviceable, but the band was more about imparting a vaguely psychedelic molasses pour of a time. Again, probably just my particular taste talking, but I actually enjoyed it the most when the tempos were at their most sluggish. On the whole, I liked this more than I thought I might have at the outset, though this probably isn't the sort of thing I wouldn't go out of my way to see.⁴

Filed more definitively under "wouldn't go out of my way to see" would be Queen Licorice, up next, and sharing the use of all that aforementioned fancy gear. The band's complement included, besides the musicians, a "Spiritual Guru", and I guess this was the skull-mask-clad bloke handing out licorice to the audience as the band finished setting up. Also loud, I must confess that this band didn't do anything for me — they seemed to be aiming more for something like "radio ready modern rock".⁵ When I'm taking in opening bands, I normally make a point of trying to remain attentive and give them a fair shake, but by a couple songs into this set I'd had enough, and moved over from in front of the stage to find a spot in the raised seating area, leaving more room for the not-insubstantial number of supporters that were in the room — obviously this was to their taste. A couple songs further along, even sitting and watching seemed like too much and I had pulled out my newspaper, keeping myself occupied with that. Other problems notwithstanding, the band arguably overstayed their welcome, with their set lasting for over forty-five minutes. Of course, a long set is always longer when it's not your thing. Plenty of time to look at the headlines and ponder one's mortality.⁶

But if life is brief, a set by Magic Cheezies is quicker. Once all of that gear was cleared off, the stage looked positively spartan as the trio took over, with Heather Curley's guitar hooked up to a peeny Peavy amp. I was won over by their Wavelength 500 appearance, though the band seemed less-than-pleased with themselves on that night, so I wanted to see them again when they were less preoccupied with technical gremlins. Except for their respective snack-related monikers, the band was pretty much the opposite of the one that had preceded them, which I think gave them a little something extra to push against.⁷

As with the Wavelength show, the set was here and gone in a flash — nine songs in under fifteen minutes, but it felt like about the exact right amount. Once again, Curley led the band in a white-hot clamour, her singing punctuated by arresting yelps and whoops as she generated crunchy, feedback-laced noises from her guitar. The lyrical content is sometimes hard to decipher, but enough phrases slip through ("so sick and tired!", "you make up the words!", "what are you gonna do?") to get their attitude across. Their flow through the set was much more assured this time, with the last squeals of noise from one song still cutting through the room as the count-in for the next song began. There are moments in my life where I want subtlety and nuance and delicacy — but in the opposite-feeling times, Magic Cheezies is exactly the sort of thing I want to hear. Quite superb.

Listen to a couple tracks from this set here.

I was also eager to have another chance to see Sun Ra Ra Ra. Besides wanting another dose of the energy they brought to the stage, the last time I'd caught 'em, they were short a keyboard player, so I did want to see how that affected their sound. The vintage Ace Tone did do a bit to gather together the sonic confusion, and its presence was felt on the opener, which was more of a slow groover. But by and large, the Sun Ra Ra Ra sound is raucous garage spasms, presented with a semi-chaotic stage presence. The vocals — presented with I-drank-acid-and-I'm-pissed-off-about-it scratchy intensity — might be at the far end of the take-it-or-leave it scale for some people, but fit right into the band's ragged gut-punch aesthetic. If the Stooges spent an afternoon huffing turpentine and then decided to bash out some Chuck Berry covers... well, you get the idea. An essential live experience, especially their glossolalian version of "Surfin' Bird", which, in defying description, needs to be seen to be believed. Suffice it to say, SRRR take the song past "creepy", and nestle it right up against "alarming". The finale involved a lot of instrument-swapping with the song in progress, concluding things with the right amount of ragged abandon.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Or possibly totally mercenary.

² Not to be confused with Ghost Bees, Ghostlight, or Ghostkeeper. Or, for that matter, not to be confused with Screaming Trees or Treepeople.

³ I mean, like, yeah, I have some Melvins cassettes stored away in a box somewhere.

⁴ If this sounds like your cup of tea, the band is offering a newly-recorded EP for free download on their myspace.

⁵ And, oh — that sentence required some lengthy consideration to keep it mostly out of the realm of making me sound like a pretentious knob. My notepad has some less kind commentary written at the time, including "suitable for bored kids to smoke hash to" — which might actually be looked at more positively by this band than I meant it.

⁶ The latter thoughts were probably dredged up by the fact that I was sitting across from the Gord Brown mini-plaque affixed to the back of the wall seats. It's a touching thing, worth keeping an eye out for next time you're at the Dollar. It made me ponder at which venue I'd want my engraved memorial, should I suffer an untimely demise.

⁷ "Thank you to Pearl Jam for that lovely long set," was how Curley put it. And to a certain extent, the lack of appreciation from Queen Licorice's fans was reciprocated — a couple women who had been right up front dancing through QL's set lasted for about one minute into Magic Cheezies before they gave each other a preplexed look and decamped from the room.