Gevecht #2

Monosodic Thingy October

Friday October 10.
El Área Chica.
Villada and Gomez Farías
Centro, Toluca

Monosodic (DF): www.myspace.com/monosodic
Blindaje (Morelia): www.myspace.com/blindaje
Onirismo Automata (DF): www.myspace.com/onorismoautomata
Familia Eskeleto: www.myspace.com/familia_eskeleto

Presale: $35

Onscreen Autopsies And A Packed Meatlocker

Gig Review:
Carcass
September 16
Circo Volador

For starters, the venue was sold out, and this is a big place, mind you; totally amazing how packed it was. And Carcass hardly disappointed.

Billed to start at 7:30 (which i didn't know until way after the show) i arrived to the venue to find tons of people outside and inside already packing it on the ground floor which made me go to the top seated area where i found a place where i could see the stage and everything very well; the stage had two cloth-screens in each side in front of some amps with drawings of a slashed human torso, on top of the drums there was a screen that had the image of their third album, Necroticism. The crowd was conformed by tons of people representing the old guard as well as your usual metalheads.

At about 7:45, the lights went out, the screen changed it's image and an intro tape was played, a narration of some sorts after which a droning note started to fade into it; after a few minutes of this, the band came onstage and started things with "Inpropagation" followed by another album opener, "Buried Dreams" from their Heartwork album which informed most of the set. The crowd on the floor weren't moving too much on the accounts of there not being much space to move but there was some crowd surfing; the crowd's response, however, was enormous. On the third song, "Corporal Jigsore Quandary", one of the most well received ones of the set, the projection of the screen showed various body parts being dissected and ending with an eye being implanted on a brain.

The band looked good and dominated the stage with a balance of calm coolness and rocking still intensity with some movement to here and there, Jeff Walker was handling his Les Paul-like hollow-bodied bass with authority and a bit of struggle wearing a Rotten Sound shirt, while Michael Amott was playing a very big Dean Flying V, possing around the stage for a bit; at the other side of the stage, Bill Steer stood there like a guitarist straight out of the 70's, with slightly bell bottomed jeans, a tight brown shirt and his long blonde hair, extracting impossibly low ended heavy riffs of his very vintage looking Les Paul. The band sounded tight and clear (except for the vocals, the microphones were a bit muddy, soundwise), pretty much like the records and like if they never broke up or if they had a different drummer now.

The band played most of Heartwork and about half of Necroticism, they deviated from these albums to play "Reek Of Putrefaction" from their masterpiece (or one of their many masterpieces, anyway) Symphonies Of Sickness to follow it with "Keep On Rotting In The Free World" (complete with various symbols of many faiths on the screen) from their suicide attempt Swan Song, after which they went back to the very beginning of their career, playing "Genital Grinder" and "Psyosisified (Rotten To The Gore)" jointly to make it like one decent lenght song. I was pleasantly surprised to hear them switch from playing the more sophisticated side of their career to the more barebones and unpolished era with even more brutality, it was also great listening to Michael and Bill do some grunting live. After these, they left the stage, not an hour after they started their set.

When they came back, they played "Death Certificate" then the monstrous "Exhume To Consume" and left again; before they came back, Juan Brujo of Brujería came out to yell "Viva México Cabrones!!!" (on account that since the night before, we were celebrating the Independence Day) after which Jeff made a crack about him being his father, he then made a crack about them going backstage to inhale oxygen like Axl Rose or something; he actually made several jokes during the show but most were inaudible thanks to some microphone problems. He then introduced each member of the band, pointing out that Daniel Erlandsson was replacing their original drummer Ken Owen (i heard a section of the crowd chant "Owen, Owen!" earlier during the set) after which he made another joke, this time saying Erlansson owned eBay or something similar, right after which Daniel started pounding a slow beat which gave away the entrance of "Rupture In Purulence", Walker followed with the ultra heavy bassline and then the guitars kicked in, Jeff stood in front of the stage, past his mic stand and played a bit of the song without singing it after which a galloping twin guitar riff started and gave to a fast beat, that of the song "Heartwork"; easily the highlight for many people. The band finished the song, started a riff as a coda to it and ended it all, the screen started to show an autopsy from the first cuts to the body, while the band said their goodbyes to the crowd, throwing picks and drumsticks, with Jeff walking along the space between the barricade and the stage.

Personally, i have two complains, the first being that the show was very short, considering their back catalogue and that they hardly touched anything from their first two records, which brings me to complain number two, namely why the denial of most of Reek and Symphonies? To me and many others, this was the highlight of their career, their golden years and best albums; granted, i love Necroticism and Heartwork and i know those two are much more popular but come on!!! There's tons of amazing songs in both first records.

Thinking about what i am complaining, i seriously don't feel like it was a waste by any chance, it was more than a great concert, and i'm immensly happy for witnessing one of metal's best bands in action, as if they had never had any major lineup changes or had broken up. Everything was crushing, inspired and amazing; after all it's said and done, i can't complain.

Some pictures: http://flickr.com/photos/metaldragon/sets/72157607349083403/

XBXRX, February 1, Centro Cultural Español.

First of all, i would like to take this opportunity and thank the promoters and organizers of this show for daring to take a risk and bring a band with virtually no presence in Mexico and have them play a free show, just doing it because the band is awesome. Everybody give a big round of applause to them.

One of my favorite things about gigs hosted on the Centro Cultural Español, besides that it's a nice place with art and fine architecture instead of the ratholes that usually host rock shows (which also have their charms, but i do think that the occasional change in setting is actually a good thing), it's that it has such a casual vibe that you can come early, hang around for the soundcheck and no one tells you anything: i arrived just as XBXRX were doing their soundcheck and saw that they were having some problems, like not having a proper drum stool and trying to fix it by having a chair with some bags on it so that the height could be compensated. The band were in their civilian clothes, with the vocalist wearing a blazer and a scarf and drummer Weasel Walter wearing an Immortal long sleeve shirt. The place was getting crammed with people (almost literally) and, actually, kind of started thinking that the people who actually attend shows at the Español are some kind of hybrid between hipster and emo kid, maybe some mutation going on although not everybody present was a poseur; when people started to arrived, they started to play Supergrass' greatest hits thru the P.A.which seemed weird, i would have thought that it would be more appropriate to put something like the Locust or the Blood Brothers or some Load or Skin Graft release, then a DJ got up and started to put a mixture of indie pop stuff that contrasted even more than Supergrass (i still think the idea was to contrast and not because they didn't know what kind of band XBXRX are...or perhaps they just judged them because of their hairstyles?). The DJ played everything from bossanova to i don't know what to call it anymore but very light and bland stuff, of which i only recognized a song from the new Of Montreal album, afterwards they started to play old but still lighter punk shit like the Clash's "Spanish Bombs" and the Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" to give way to the more predictable Joy Division and Smiths selections; the song i liked the most that got played was, without a doubt, "No Fun" by the Stooges, i'm beginning to think that the new super cool classic if you don't pretend to like them you're a tool and, therefore, they are going to get overburned by people (kinda like with the Ramones and the Misfits) are the Stooges, what with them releasing a new album in April; if that does happen, i'm willing to do a test to find true fans as opposed to poseurs by having them listen to "L.A. Blues" and see how they get horrified, without telling them who plays the song.

The first band to play were X=R7 who are from Mexicalli and, i understand, are a side project of Maniqui Lazer, who are pretty cool. X=R7 (i can't stop thinking how derivative their name is) are a drums n' synths duo, they played a really long set (or so it seemed to me) which consisted of monotonous riffs with simple drumming being repeted for 2 minutes at a time, i also can't stop thinking they sounded like if the drummer and the keyboardist from the Locust decided to come up with riffs one at a time and being incredibly lazy in the process; the band was enthusiastic but, throughout their set i kept wondering how many spazztic bands does it take before they all start to sound the same. I love Plague Soundscapes a hella lot too but you have to try and add something new to the mix and not just try to approximate that sound just because it's so crazy.

The next band to play were the much awaited XBXRX, already in uniform with pastel blue bowling-like shirts, who right from the beginning started to do as they usually do, with the singer dude and the guitarist going into the slam dancing with the crowd, without missing a note in any of their instruments; at around the fourth or the fifth song, they did the one where they ask the crowd to get down which title i'm forgetting at the moment, the crowd in front of the stage kind started to follow suit but were still not very convinced, even the singer got off the stage to pull people to the floor; the fact that there was so many hipsters trying as hard as they can to look uninterested didn't help, but, eventually, most of the crowd on the front of the stage (including me) was on the floor, the vocalist said that when he said thrice, he wanted everyone to jump up and down and scream but Weasel signaled him to count to four with his hand and corrected; when he counted to four, the pit exploded to all sides, i even got into the slam action (which i haven't gotten into for a long time now) and the truth is that it was pure classic slamdancing, no Kung Fu-like kicking or any of that shit, it was chaos, it was, like Exodus used to say, "good, friendly, violent fun"; i got into the floor until i got tired and returned to the calm flank (i did return to the pit towards the end). Their set successfully combined material from their latest Sixth In Sixes with their older songs, displaying a slight sofistication on their most recent stuff as opposed to their rawer, earlier shit, even though the difference was just a hair. The band, after hurling themselves to the Mexican crowd, getting on the bass drum, striking the structures over the stage with their guitars and spazz around onstage in general, ended their performance after some 25 minutes since they started, they didn't do like on videos i've seen of them from past shows, destroying drums and guitars in an orgy like the Who on crank, they just finished playing, high fiving and smiling to the crowd who congratulated them for a brilliant, if very brief, set.

In between XBXRX and the next band, my editor Marcelo pointed me to a celebrity among us, it was Chino Moreno from the Deftones (ED: as i was typing "Deftones" i started typing it as "Deer" and i made me think, what if there was a tribute band called Deertones? or how about Defhoof? they would play something like "Dog on the DRIIIIIIIVE/Away/I don't care where just on the sidewalk" or "COOOOOOOOOOME!!/PANDA PANDA PANDA!!!"), Most likely trying to score himself some indie points with his attendance, although he wasn't on a rockstar trip or anything, he was really laidback, talking to people and stuff. He's also lost tons of weight recently, so much so that he can't get confused with the guitar player anymore; well, that's the celebrity gossip part of this review.

Afterwards, Roc & Robots got up onstage, some dudes wearing garbage bags, angular haircuts and keytars (you know, those synths you strap on like guitars); they played a mixture between Wire or Magazine-style post punk and Devo-like new wave, with songs ranging from faithful renditions to the style to stupid shite. Listening to them, i couldn't stop thinking how this was a free show and that it was a good soundtrack for drinking a beer, but they didn't really offer anything, the had nothing going as far as a show was concerned and, had the band gotten together 28 years ago, they most likely would be afraid to try to play this style of music, it's just that now it's fashionable and retro; we actually walked out from the place before they finished playing, we then got to listen to the time-defining classic Ass Cobra by Turbonegro, on the way back home.

Bands like XBXRX don't come play here every other day and it's even better that there's support for gigs like these and we hope to see more of these, that XBXRX come back soon to play a longer show and that, fingers crossed, Weasel Walters decides to bring the Flying Luttenbachers here to give some lessons, because people here need to learn.