tisdag 24 Jul 2007, 1:17

So I was looking forward to seeing Gormadre for awhile now, whom originally had been scheduled at the living room, but through whatever turn of events ended up at skrappys paired with rosetta/battlefields, throw in a ton of locals and another tour combo (TABL and inferis I think), and skrappys “Gnarwal Fest” was born. And Damn, what a fest it was.

First up was some locals, Iraqi Blood Machine was the first band, pretty kickass 2-person grindy/pv type stuff, the ‘guitarist’ was actually using a uber-distorted bass so it sounded kinda like if lightning bolt did some lsd and decided to play pv. Much props to these guys. Next after that was Alarm, another local outfit, hardcore/pv stuff as well, they were good as well, kinda turned into a wall of sound at times, other times popping into some awesome grooves/lines you couldn’t help but jam out too, good shit.

After that was Inferis (singer was saying they were now “this is empire” or something), I honestly wasn’t too into these guys, clean vocal scenish hardcore, not my stuff yo, 5 person band, and yet IBM managed to beat em out with just two people, they had an alright ending song with a pretty epic outro but for the rest I could care less about them.

Next up is Monarcs, some rad dudes from Miami, kinda experimental hardcore stuff, a touch of screamo here and there, all their songs were based off enlightenment or realization, fighting authority, all that good stuff, yay free-thinking! Aside from the message, the actual music kicked ass too, lots of energy (even if us in the crowd wasn’t movin much aha), not your most typical band at all, some weird styling on the guitar work, and hell… the band as a whole. I guess I’m doing a bad job explaining them here, but they were good, make a point to see em if they’re around you guys.

After Monarcs is Blues, second time I’ve seen these guys, I’ve got a demo of theirs and an EP on my comp, good southernish botch styled hardcore. This set just blew me the fuck away, just amazing. The had so much energy it was ungodly, the whole band was so into it, all the songs they played flows so well, and were probably the “closest to studio” sounding band out there, very clean, very controlled, amazing all over. I’d have to say my favorite Tucson band at the moment. I wish I had more to write about them but I don’t, they’re just fucking awesome and you need to see them.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030568.jpg?t=1185250317

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030569.jpg?t=1185250334

Next Up: Rosetta, a band I’ve been looking forward to seeing live ever since their debut masterpiece The Galilean Satellites came out. The crowd wasn’t as into them as the rest of the bands, so many damn hardcore kids, no appreciation for sludge nowadays, but oh well, it was still an ok turnout. Regardless of the crown, Rosetta’s stage presence was great, mike was going crazy on the mic, you really couldn’t hear him well at all though, I don’t know if this was intentional (like the spacey drowned out sound he has on some of theirs songs) or if the equipment was bad, but whatever he kept on truckin, screamin his lungs out. They played about 2-3 songs (I don’t necessarily have the new stuff in memory yet so I couldn’t tell). As far as the rest of the band, it was just a huge aural wall of sound, awesome awesome sound, atmo-sludge at its finest. It was all over too soon though, but that’s what ya get when your songs are 8 minutes long and ya gotta get out so the next band can play.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030570.jpg?t=1185250363

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030571.jpg?t=1185250396

After that was Battlefields, whom I hadn’t heard at all prior to this, the set started out with the guitarist just slowly building up quietly with the vocalist messing with effects on his effects/keyboard/noise board thing setup, almost looked like they’d be post-rock at first, but then the heaviness kicked in and god did they fucking slay. The set was only two songs but lasted 20+ minutes, epic as fuck, vocals were a bit more brutal and coreish than you’d normally see in sludge, it was pretty refreshing though, they weren’t your everday atmosludge band jumping on the bandwagon a year late like the rest of the scene nowadays. Overall good show, not as much stage presence as most of the others but whatever, they were still awesome.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030572.jpg?t=1185250418

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030573.jpg?t=1185250447

After that me and my bros got some water and stuff and when we went back to the stage we saw that they had a carpet pad and a drumset set down, and we knew what that meant, FLOOR SHOW, FUCK YEAH. I’d expect nothing less from Comadre, I was really hoping they wouldn’t play on stage. So they opened with a few songs from what I thought was burn your bones iirc, they got a huge pit going, everyone was moshing/dancing, not really windmilling, but just having fun, everone was tearing it up, band was inches away from us, awesome atmosphere. After a few songs came the aural orgasm we refer to as “burn the scene” a good 20 kids and I were up there screaming along to the whole chorus, everyone was going insane, it was just pure awesome. They finished up with two songs from their new split with trainwreck, which were awesome as well. Great band, great set, amazing energy, amazing show, nuff said.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030574.jpg?t=1185250482

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030575.jpg?t=1185250510

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/_k_a_k_i_h_a_r_a_/S5030576.jpg?t=1185250529

Second to last its Graf Orlock, everyone’s favorite cinema-grind band, who also played floor, and were just as frikken brutal, crowd was goin nuts, even if half the songs were no longer than a minute, they played A Waste of Ammo and a shitload of other songs from the new LP, (im bad with song titles so I wont bother trying to list em). The set ruled though, half the audience were talking/chanting along with all the samples (which are the best damn samples you’ll see in grind, ever, hooray 80s cinema). As far as the actual band, they were damn good, all their shit was pretty tight and controlled, not like some of these old orchid vids you’ll see with the guitarists just losing their tempo and fucking going with it, they knew what they were doing. As I said earlier with comadre, great band, great set, amazing energy, these two bands were born to play together, shit ruled.

Graf's set was so brutal i totally forgot to take pics…dammit!

Last band to play was The American Black Lung, this being their record release show, they were back up on stage so not as an eventful crowd, everyone was just kinda chilling/standing around/being tired, but they played on. Nice somewhat dancy/poppy hardcore, not scene though, just ..jammy y’know. They played several songs off the new album, it was all pretty good stuff, nothing stuck out too much or whatever, just some standard stuff, I guess I’m not into as much as some people, I’d probably appreciate them better if they played before gormadre, seeing as how I love them so much more. Whatever, they put on a good show too, and that was the end of it.

I Ended up Picking up Graf’s new 10” on red, Comadre’s split 12” with trainwreck (which turned out was a tour version since they got only 60 of the 800 that were scheduled for the tour, and ended up hand-screening the covers just to get em out, hooray limited shit!), Battlefields 12” on yellow/red splatter, and 4 shirts (Graf, comadre, Rosetta, and Battlefields) Jesus was I broke afterwards, who says money can’t buy happiness.