Dio Sing Along ::: photo courtesy of Seattle Rock Guy

How appropriate is it to have “Your Village Sucks Fest!” in Seattle’s least favorite neighborhood of Belltown? My answer to that would be “very”; your answer might be “Why didn’t this night of music take place in Everett?” Zing! Come on lighten up! You know Belltown as home to the stars! You want a $10 cover? You got it! Do you want to pay $10 for Michelob Ultra Light? Yes! Do you want to see a middle-aged man get kicked out of Tia Lou’s for dancing on high risers that are obviously meant for attractive, younger women? Yes! Do you want to bail my uncle out of jail? I don’t have any money.

Contrast is a brilliant thing. Imagine, all these people (let’s call them “rockers”) converging on our condominium laced 13-city block oasis, smoking cigarettes, dressed in outfits that Lemmy from Motorhead picked out for them the night before. It’s a thing of beauty.  Sure there were some hiccups over the course of the evening of Your Village Sucks Fest. One of the bands had equipment trouble so they didn’t have the opportunity to play. Madraso and Mobile Slaughter Unit were unable to take the stage on Saturday Night, which caused me to frown upon getting my wrist stamped. Other then these minor blemishes, an overall enjoyable night for those who came for some rock and roll action. A few casual observations I made over the course of the evening:

* How many stages does The Rendezvous have and are there enough stages to host Bonnaroo? I didn’t know that the Rendezvous had a stage downstairs. As a matter r of fact, I didn’t even know there was a downstairs to begin with. Who says that you don’t learn something new everyday? Cynics.

* Throne of Bone. Terrible band name. Pretty good band. I loved their dissonant palm mute breakdowns. Their drummer had a Pageninetynine shirt that I had never seen before. I was contemplating hiding around some dark corner and assaulting him in order to steal it and add to my collection of Pageninetynine shirts. However as time went by, the unseen forces of maturity kicked in and I decided against it. That and I figured out an online store where I can buy the aforementioned shirt for myself.

*  Warning: Danger! I don’t like this band at all, but I do like their spirit. In a town where so many bands are the visual definition of boring, these guys, with their stage props and ridiculous costumes (not to mention their usage of an oversized 1980’s Tom Hanks head! Egad! I must’ve been upstairs getting a drink when they busted that out!) make life worth living. Or at the very least, it makes watching their band a guaranteed good time.

*  Mico de Noche is what the doctor ordered. Luckily for me, they were part of my rock and roll prescription before the national health care bill passed. Mico de Noche played a brand new song that caused so much on-stage ruckus that I thought they were going to knock their Verellen amps over. If that weren’t enough, they ended their set with the anthem “Summer Beard”, a song that is destined to be on the summer soundtracks of a majority of the male population in Seattle.  Actually I take that back, most dudes around here don’t have the courage to hang with Mico de Noche.  Mico De Noche, release “Summer Beard” in acoustic format. Get Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear and Yogi Bear (Boo-Boo often panics during the mastering stage of the process. Don’t invite him to the party) to remix the track. You might even want to throw Stevie Nicks in on vocals.  Make available the acoustic release, along with the three Bear mixes and the acoustic cut with just Nicks on vocals, on a hand pressed lavender colored 10” that is limited to 77.6 copies. Gentleman, do you want to be successful or not? I’ll see you at Coachella next year.

* The highlight of the evening was the Ronnie James Dio video tribute. In case you didn’t know, Ronnie James Dio is battling stomach cancer right now; a tribute was planned at the Rendezvous in his honor. Gentle reader, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t like Dio. I don’t care if he was in Sabbath or not. I don’t care if he and Mariah Carey are the only two human beings who have ever lived that can hit 31 different vocal octaves. That stuff belongs on the back of baseball cards.  Although I have a complete indifference to Dio, I recognize a special moment when I see one. Festivalgoers gathered for a group sing-a-long to Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark”. Take a look at the song name, just another reason why I don’t get Dio. Anyway, there were some technical difficulties at first, so fans of Dio were just singing out random Dio lyrics until the song was properly cued. Once “Rainbow in the Dark” began to play, the enthusiasm and joy sprayed across people’s faces was pretty contagious. There was someone videotaping this oddly sweet occasion while standing on a chair.  If you’re having a rough day and want to bring a smile to your face, I suggest you put on your thinking cap and find that video. Smiling is contagious.

Arghhh! Beards! The absence of primary colors! Guitar riffs that sound like the musical equivalent of being turned to stone by Medusa! Every breakdown means another mere mortal petrified. The fresh faced and faint of heart are not welcome here. It feels good to be back home in these murky waters. You can’t see a thing: you’re too busy giving yourself whiplash.

What a great show at the Comet this past Saturday, October 10th. The best lineup I’ve seen at a show in quite some time. Well let me rephrase that, it was the best bill that I’ve almost seen in quite a while. To my dismay I missed about half of Madraso’s set. I was not happy to say the least. A couple songs will have to hold me over until 2010! Yeah, that’s fucking right. Insert sad emoticon here. They’ll be playing the top of the Smith Tower (No way! Really?! Be gentle, I’m quite gullible.) apparently. But unless you catch them in Portland in early November or when they’re on tour, you won’t be experiencing Madraso live any time soon. If you’ve never heard of Madraso, you need to check them out immediately. My friend Jason blessed me with their tunes during a particularly intense game of cards. They’re the perfect background music for a murderous game of Rummy or anything else that you want to become menacing.

There were two bands on Saturday night that I was completely unfamiliar with. Mico de Noche, it was their 10″ release show, and Brothers of the Sonic Cloth. I like going to shows and hearing bands for the first time. Having literally no expectations can be a refreshing thing every once and a while. Luckily for me and the rest of the crowd at the Comet, Mico de Noche force fed us what I would describe as southern fried sludge rock. Even though they are from Washington, they reminded me of EyeHateGod and Pantera during some of those point to the sky, call upon Thor and Odin to kill an innocent family in Iowa all in the name of rock n’ roll, breakdowns. I wouldn’t even call them breakdowns, I think “Whiskey Fits” is more appropriate. I’m coining that term by the way, none of you better take that from me. Needless to say, I don’t have much going on right now.

Brothers of the Sonic Cloth features Tad Doyle on guitar. That sentence alone should give you somewhat of an idea what Brothers sounds like. As a youth, I definitely enjoyed me some Tad and their thick-skulled rock. I’d never seen Tad in person, so it was good to finally cross that goal off my bucket list. I think it may have been my anticipation for Black Elk, but I wasn’t particularly into Brothers of the Sonic Cloth on this night. Their studio tracks sound great and so did they at times. But there were also times where they’d play the same droning riff for 830 bars longer than they should have. This is a sludge band stereotype that I wouldn’t mind disappearing altogether. Four note doomsday snorefest. Sometimes I think bands do this to see which will occur first, your deafness or meeting your demise via boredom.

Pzzzzft! Pzzzft! Do you know what that sound is? That’s the sound a taser makes when it touches the flesh of a caged Hyena infected with the mange. Do you know what sound the Hyena makes in response? Go pick up a Black Elk album. They sound gut-wrenching and hideous yet delightful simultaneously. There are times where Black Elk hit you with these intrusive razor sharp rhythms before they settle down and become crushing waves of staccato bliss. Those waves are occasionally substituted with swinging chord progressions that simulate being sick at sea. If you’re still not out of your comfort zone, the vocals will send you there quickly. Get that ice pick out of that drunken man’s trachea. Screams. Shrills. Snarls. Don’t worry, lead singer Tom Glose also has a little something for the ladies, the occasional vocal bit that sounds like David Yow whispering phone sex into your ear. Because I know when you think dirty talk, you think David Yow. “My Last Shred of Decency” has all the aforementioned Black Elk signatures in one incredible song. One of the great things about Black Elk is that even though a majority of their songs take from here to nowhere in a matter of minutes, they pull it off live effortlessly.

A majority of Black Elk’s set at the Comet featured songs from last year’s album Always a Six, Never a Nine on Crucial Blast. I suggest you pick this album up and study it hard for when Black Elk comes back next to play Neumo’s with the Jesus Lizard next Friday October 23rd. Examine Erik Trammell’s stairs will break my fall guitar line on “She Pulled Machete”. Try and predict which abrupt drum fill drummer Jeff Watson will throw at you unexpectedly during “Hospital”. Mr. Watson is one of the most intense live drummers I’ve seen in quite a while. You combine his ferocity on the skins with the thundering low end of Don Capuano’s bass rig and you have quite the formidable rhythm section. “Pig Crazy” might serve as one of the most incendiary example of this. I don’t know if it’s the name or what, but I think of the scene from Lord of the Flies where that fat kid (was “Piggy” his name?) gets killed on the beach because his peers think he’s a monster.

That fat kid wasn’t scary, he just wasn’t well-liked. Black Elk however is scary. Scary good. During their sets, you become the disliked fat kid and they become the scary monsters. I’m not talking Where the Wild Things Are monstrosity either. Black Elk wouldn’t teach nor entertain that young protagonist, they’d BBQ his tender young flesh at some beach bonfire somewhere. Don’t feel bad for the boy, he probably got what was coming to him. Seeing Black Elk live for the first time is like falling in love on a first date. I almost feel embarrassed, they’ve reduced me to fan boy status. Shame on me. And shame on you if you don’t catch them next week with the beyond legendary Jesus Lizard.