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I am going to start posting these more, hopefully once a week. You can see a selection of my favorites on my Tearsheets page, here. Click any of the above to see some of my Tearsheets from the last week or two.
Monday night’s Ice Age show with Give and Death Domain at the Golden West (brought to you by Unregistered Nurse Booking)was a lot of fun… cool to see such a buzzed about new band play Baltimore as their 3rd show of their first US tour! Give was also a band I’d heard alot about and really enjoyed… they seem to be part of this current movement of looking back to hardcore and punk’s earlier days, but I like that! They were fun to see. Ice Age (or is it iceage? I’m unsure.) were fun and somber and Danish and VERY YOUNG. They seemed a little awkward at first, but got into it after a few songs… and the crowd certainly responded, there was lots of slamming and dancing going on, at least at the front. Good times.
I shot a few quick portraits of Scottie B and Cullen Stalin for a City Paper article, on stands now.
Cullen Stalin and Scottie B lay No Rule to rest – read the City Paper article here
Dillinger Escape Plan played a not-quite-secret-but-unpromoted show at the Talking Head, a very small venue behind Sonar after their recent two days opening at Sonar for the Deftones. It was pretty crazy! Everyone that showed up was a devout fan and there was alot of diving, surfing, moshing and other shenanigans. By the end of the show, the ceiling air duct was destroyed and the guitarist’s face was covered in blood. Wild times.
Finally! The last MDF 2011 post… so many photos to dig through! This final day was pretty fun, though I was dead tired. The surprise of the day for me was probably Skinless’ last show, which was ridiculous, with the singer stagediving and jumping into the crowd constantly. Malignent Tumor, who I’d never heard before, had a circle pit like no other, full of inflatable penises and other assorted insanity. Most fun crowd experience of the fest. Also, Nuclear Assault invited the crowd on stage with them, which was really really fun.
Other notable things were the dude from Exhumed playing in ANOTHER band (Gravehill), Cthulhu showing up for a visit, me saying I’d believe that Ted Leo was going to be playing with Citizens Arrest when I saw it… then realizing I was standing next to Ted Leo.
Another big deal for me was managing to make (with the help of my friend Dustin) this happen:
Yes, that’s Marel, the woman from the Deathfest City Paper cover, posing with Jason, the security guy in the photo, both standing in the same spot that picture was taken last year. I had tried to connect with her for several days, we finally managed to make it happen on Sunday. She was really nice, and said that she started getting texts about the City Paper cover as soon as her plane landed at BWI and thought people were joking! Too funny. Glad we could get this shot.
Over the halfway mark with my MDF photos! Day 3 was a little more relaxing for me, the highlight was getting to see Exhorder, a New Orleans thrash metal band that I grew up on and hearing about, but never was able to see live (a little before my time), as well as seeing Voivod again… they were excellent and the crowd seemed super stoked. Many people told me their set was their high point of the whole show. My favorite discovery of this day was Acid Witch, who I had never heard before but who I thought were excellent live. Cretin was also good live, playing with Matt Harvey from Exhumed (he seemed to be guesting in at least one band a day at this MDF).
Day 2 was pretty epic. I saw several bands that I had never seen before, the standout of which was Exhumed… amazing live, totally over the top, with chainsaws and severed heads and fake blood… just really fun. Marduk were great live, too… but seeing Corrosion of Conformity with the classic line-up was really great, as was meeting Woody from CoC and Steve Von Till of Neurosis. Right before Neurosis played, an epic rain storm loomed which threatened to end or severely delay their show… but hundreds of fans stood in the rain to wait it out, and they cheered and pumped their fists every time there was a flash of lightning. Pretty awesome and totally metal. When they finally came on, they were great and played a barely abridged set. It was slightly less epic on an outdoor stage than the last time I saw them, at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn, but they were still great live and actually played some older songs (Souls At Zero and Through Silver In Blood), which surprised me. This was a great second night of the fest.
MDF this year was a great success… so many amazing bands, so many good times. Pretty much every aspect was incredible and it went off with only a few small bumps, at least as far as I could tell. I am gonna be posting photos from it over the next few days, with a big megapost scheduled to go out on monday. Click on the link below to see more photos from the first day!
The other week, I shot Tune-Yards (or tUne-YaRdS, or some strange capitalization) and Buke and Bass at the Red Palace. The Red Palace is becoming a favorite place of mine to see shows in DC, decent lighting (LEDs, though), nice beer selection, small room but you can see the artist pretty well regardless… I had never heard Tune-Yards before, which was basically a one-person band with some back-up on some songs from a bassist and a horn section, but it was an interesting show. She makes loops with her voice, right on the spot, and then plays over them… she creates a sound that is reminiscent of African traditional music (to my ears, anyway), mixed with drone/ambient. Pretty interesting stuff.