My Heavy Metal/Space Out Halloween night out in 2002

This is the, ahem, sober version of this ILE thread which I impulse posted last night after said night... All in all, I knew this was going to be a great Halloween when, on my way, on Broadway, I saw an adorable George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden making out on a busy street corner.

Anyway, it began as I went to a U-district house party to see three Seattle area metal/hardcore bands inside an extremely dusty, tiny, cold basement... (Here was the flyer for this show, though it change by the time you click on this)

Teen Chthulu: if there was any day of the year this band's music most fits, it's Halloween. A five-piece, two guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards. Most similar to San Diego's Tarantula Hawk, in the sense of those Ghost n' Goblins Halloween sounding synths that accompany the mayhem. There's something more furious about Teen Chthulu, though, that lie in the vocals... which transcend the boundaries of, um, banshee-ism.

Swarming Hordes: Three piece band, two guitars and drummer, doing super tight technical instrumental speed metal medleys. My super lazy review: the F**king Champs sound like Low in comparison. There are about a hundred party metal riff parts to every Swarming Hordes song , but all end up sounding like complete songs of sorts. If someone had described this band to me, I'd roll my eyes back. But I have to say, I was very impressed. It's like they were previously a surf band who decided to take on these math-instrumetal ditties and somehow make it work. Ugh... hopefully somebody who's seen the band before can describe them better.

The Whip: Ho-ly shit. The Whip = Jared Warren and Scottie Miller who were the bass player/singer and drummer of KARP respectively, and Joe Preston of The Thrones and formerly of The Melvins on guitar/noise fuckery. Once again, ho-ly shit. Let's just say this takes where KARP left off and raises the stakes to a whole new level. The Whip are not as, ur, "poppy"/anthemy as some KARP favorites were, and Jared only sings/screams on a few songs, otherwise most are instrumentals that build and build and BUILD. They essential add all the things that I wish Lightning Bolt had, and make it far, FAR more interesting... and the occasional hint of weirdo Joe Preston guitar/noise soundscapes really puts this band closer to Steel Pole Bath Tub highlights.

It was only 11pm by then, so it was time to go over to the Re-bar for the Thursday night Pho-Bang hosted by Jackie Hell and Ursula Android. (Here is a good bio on them in the context of their previous venue closing a while back...)

(side note: after leaving the U-district house party, I had a little trouble driving, as there were such a morass of decimated pumpkins spread all over the asphalt of the immediate residencies, that I had to slow down. Let's just say the U-district gets insane during Halloween)

So I arrive at the Re-bar for the special Halloween edition of Pho Bang to catch The Cripples, Ursula and the Androids (rechristened "Nazi Bitch and the Hitlers" for tonight), and Jackie and the Control Tops. In between sets were dance routines by Shaniqua to Destiny's Child and Lil' Kim songs. All sets were completely raucous. I knew this was going to be a good time when the first thing I see inside is a female couple, one dressed as Flavor Flav, the other as MTV's Kennedy, making out.

The Control Tops and the Androids have exactly the same backing band... guitarist, one tom drummer, and Ross from The Cripples (aka "Ross Sewage"). Basically, the sound is Pussy Galore, except with a funny and entertaining frontma.. ur, um, frontthing. Jackie Hell sings such sentimental favorites as "Debbie is Retarded", "Burger Stink", "This Bitch is Expensive", "Tonight I Kill", and "Boogie Oogie Oogie with me".

The Cripples, who are a very unique blend of space age synth-based garage pop rock, and one of my favorite bands of all time, did the most noisy set of their career..(their costume union was "SuperF.U.C.K."). And they're normally more gutteral live than their records suggest. I guess the theme for this Halloween show involved doing the Pete Townsend thing to synthesizers, so every song featured some children's toy synthesizer being decimated, while still plugged into their amps. Imagine the Screamers, Devo, and Massona in one big synth noise orgy. The finale was a precipation of shrapnel from all the destroyed childrens synthesizer. I don't know if it was their best set ever, but it was certainly their most memorable.

(Yes, there was an odd moment where I was most drunk, decided to step outside, and bumped into Krist Novescelic who subsequently patted me on the back, Kim Thayil who asked me "Hey, is this your dog?", and Dinky, this really intelligent sheepherding dog that's become a fixture amongst the local Seattle punkers... all in the space of five seconds, or something)