Maryland/D.C/Virginia Biker/Doom Metal

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So I'm reviewing Earthride's Vampire Circus today, which is a really good record if you're a huge fan of Spirit Caravan, the Obsessed, early Clutch, Corrosion of Conformity, Internal Void, Pentagram, etc., etc., and I started wondering what the hell was/is going on in this region of the country that all these bands, almost all of 'em making a similar Sabbath/Deep Purple/biker-rock noise, spring from there. Seems to me this is just as much a regional sound as go-go. What say others?

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 4 December 2005 21:45 (nineteen years ago)

It's a probably a consequence of influences more than region. Pentagram in its original form was very much classic 70's hard rock, influenced by Captain Beyond, maybe some Deep Purple, swirly phasey guitar sound intact. Later, different band mostly, pedaled on Peaceville as very Black Sabbath-influenced and pitched to an English crowd. Wino's Obsessed odds and sods album showed a lot of early 70's hard rock tone and he was also obviously shaped by Saint Vitus, which was totally southern California. Vitus did slow hard rock when it was totally unfashionable to do so within the scene they were sold to.

Corrosion of Conformity were a lousy hardcore band. I saw them early. They later got religion and restarted as a hard rock metal band.
I thought they were Carolina southern boys.

My experience is that biker rock was omnipresent throughout the rural heartland, tied quite naturally to the barroom circuit. As such, it goes back to the late Sixties, where a lot of bands played it or variations on the theme. Many would eventually make regional records. Some would regularly go to major labels, at which point the lovers of hard rock would reliably buy the single copies in stores. Not enough to make them permanently successful but enough to pass the torch.

― George the Animal Steele, Sunday, 4 December 2005 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

I've never heard much Pentagram. I got that disc of early rarities that Relapse put out a couple of years ago, but it didn't make much of an impression. I'm wondering whether I should pick up their early Peaceville discs, with Victor Griffin on lead guitar.

Have you heard this Earthride disc? It's pretty good stuff. The organ player from Clutch (also from Maryland) shows up on two tracks, adding some Deep Purple feel.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, it's no secret. DC stands for Doom Capital.

Pentagram existed since '70, then the Obsessed since '77, so two of the area's metal stalwarts staked out doom turf early. There are tons of sludgy metal acts nobody knows outside the region -- Iron Man, Unorthodox, Angstrom, Death Row, Place of Skulls... to name a few -- even the formerly new wave 9353 flirted with doom in the 90s. Most of these bands have been plagued by every type of bad luck imaginable, but they manage to hang around for decades nonetheless, riding that downer vibe.

The Obsessed totally predates Vitus by years.

COC are from Chapel Hill/Raleigh, so that's a whole other world. Plus their southern rock comes from NOLA. But I don't think you were including them in the DC connection.

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:10 (nineteen years ago)

There was a really good story about Iron Man in the Washington City Paper than ran a couple of months ago -- and it sort of addresses some of your questions about what's going on in the region.

― ng-unit, Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:16 (nineteen years ago)

The NOLA/sludge thing seems intuitive to me but the DC area thing is interesting. I think a lot of the DC/MD came from the uneasy north/South tension it had going on (which is disappearing now as the area reconfigures into a modern sprawl).

― adam (adam), Sunday, 4 December 2005 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

The Obsessed totally predates Vitus by years

Yeah, it does. But "Kill Ugly Naked" doesn't sound at all like Saint Vitus when Wino was in the band while it winds up being done fairly well in Spirit Caravan. The guitarist kept a strong hold on the latter's sound, it seems to me.

Have you heard this Earthride disc? It's pretty good stuff.

Nope. Sound to be something I'd like.

Anyway, with some of the bands mentioned there is cross-pollination from players and "colleagues." This is where one of those Pete Frame personnel trees would come in handy.

― George the Animal Steele, Monday, 5 December 2005 00:09 (nineteen years ago)

>Anyway, with some of the bands mentioned there is cross-pollination from players and "colleagues."

Indeed. Earthride's vocalist was Spirit Caravan's bassist, and their drummer used to be in Internal Void.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Monday, 5 December 2005 00:31 (nineteen years ago)

well(a little off-topic, but) since somebody else already mentioned 'em: how's the new COC?

― don, Monday, 5 December 2005 06:05 (nineteen years ago)

Earthride's vocalist was Spirit Caravan's bassist

Astonishingly, I met that guy when Spirit Caravan played a show at the Martini Lounge in LA about three years ago. He spent some time talking about the new band he was working on. Earthride was probably it.

― George the Animal Steele, Monday, 5 December 2005 07:11 (nineteen years ago)

I'm wondering whether I should pick up their early Peaceville discs, with Victor Griffin on lead guitar.

You'd probably like them. Go for the anthology -- Turn to Stone -- I think it's called. Liebling is pretty focused on the mumbling southern deist preacher/story-teller, Cotton Mather in a heavy metal band isn't a bad description. I'm also a big fan of Review Your Choices which was put out by an Italian label, Black Widow, about five years ago. It has the best version of the title song he ever recorded, the first version which is also on the Relapse collection.

― George the Animal Steele, Monday, 5 December 2005 07:20 (nineteen years ago)

this is a totally fascinating thread! I never thought of MD/VA sludge rock as a regional phenomenon before. I know a lot of people that are into Clutch, though, all in MD or PA. I used to play in a metal band that played at the Sidebar in Baltimore a lot, a lot of bands we were on bills with would probably fall under this category.

― Al (sitcom), Monday, 5 December 2005 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

In the early 80s when I was music director at 10 watt U. of Maryland radio station WMUC 88.1, we used to have a dj who had a metal show, and he played Wino-related stuff. A few other djs, who were more into DC hardcore punk, ocassionally did as well. At the same time, guitarist Tom Lyle of DC hardcore band Government Issue was also talking up this stuff in interviews(maybe even in my then zine Thrillseeker-where my co-editor Tony Lombardi was also talking up this stuff), and in his guest dj appearances on WMUC.

COC were from Carolina but they had contact with the DC scene...

― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 December 2005 16:06 (nineteen years ago)

From the Washington City Paper archives (you may have to pay to get these):
https://secure.washingtoncitypaper.com/archive/

Arts feature
Doomed From the Start
A history of Washington's other native sound and why you've probably never heard it.
By Brent Burton, David Dunlap Jr., Mike Kanin, Leonard Roberge, and Chris Shott
5/6/2005

Arts feature
The Voice of Doom
For the past three decades, Pentagram vocalist Bobby Liebling has championed D.C.'s metal underworld.
By Aimee Agresti
10/26/2001

Cover story
Hair Today
At Jaxx, the monsters of rock still roam the earth. Most of them give autographs, too.
By Eddie Dean
5/26/2000

Arts feature
King of the Stone Age
Scott Wino
By Andrea S.F. Seabrook
11/3/2000

― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 December 2005 16:19 (nineteen years ago)

Interestingly enough, Joe Lally, the basist of Fugazi, was always into this stuff as well. He used to tout it to me (long before he was in Fugazi).

― curmudgeon, Monday, 5 December 2005 16:23 (nineteen years ago)

to add to curmudgeon's list, the Iron Man story I referenced above is also in the CP archive:

Cover story
Honor the Sabbath

Band leader Al Morris went through five vocalists, six bassists, and five drummers to keep the sound of Black Sabbath alive.
By Mike Kanin
8/5/2005

― ng-unit, Monday, 5 December 2005 16:51 (nineteen years ago)

two years pass...

So I've been trying to figure out what unites a bunch of these Southern metal bands I really like (doom blues? swamp metal??) and then I read a COC review on AMG and realized: they're all biker metal.

What is essential "biker metal" ala DOWN and COC and Pentagram?

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 10 September 2008 22:14 (seventeen years ago)

Eyehategod?

― Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname), Wednesday, 10 September 2008 22:22 (seventeen years ago)

Dumpy's Rusty Nuts are what I always think of as biker metal. One time thy played the then rawk pub in my town and there was bikes as far as the eye could see all across the town centre.

― Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname), Wednesday, 10 September 2008 22:24 (seventeen years ago)

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