6/6/06: Unholy Fest at Mice Pace

Surely I'll be dead by the time the next 6/6/06 rolls around, but I was very much alive for this one. We had our biggest, most badass show to date at Mice Pace, mostly thanks to an invasion of hip bands from Knoxville and Will Fist's Whisk-Hutzel record label. Fissure, a band comprised of Anthony, Mikey, and myself, opened the evening with a plodding, Corrupted-jocking picking sequence before launching into a massive wall of distorted doom. From there, we let our shit feed back through lots of fuzz, delay, and reverb for a rather terrifying drone for a few minutes until we realized the PA was fucked up, so we faded out to inspect. Turns out it was only a speaker cable. Oh well. We received numerous compliments, which was nice considering it was only our third live performance (and the first one to more than three people). Up next was Big Bad Oven, one of two of Will Fist's bands to grace Mice Pace that evening. Big Bad Oven probably had the most unique setup of the evening: a homemade lap steel (or something similar to it) and Will Fist's trademark turntable-turned-amplifier-with-big-muff-attached-run-through-giant-kustom-cab. The music was just as interesting--catchy garage-ish rock; normally that's not very exciting, but played through their setup, it was goddamn captivating. And they played "California Sun." The evening's third performance came from Knoxville's the Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, a superband whose members play in or have played in Tenderhooks, the Royal Bangs, Powersnake, and the Bloodiest Night of My Life. The Midnight Bombers play
a hyper fusion of Naked City and the Melvins. Periods of squawking saxophone, occasional fists-in-the-air-generating riffs, and lots and lots of spastic freakout, the Midnight Bombers torched Mice Pace. I must mention that Ben Euler plays in this band. He's the only person I know with whom I share my six favorite bands/musicians: Tom Waits, Pere Ubu, Bob Dylan, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Black Flag. Hell of a dude, that guy is. After the Midnight Bombers came the Dirty Knees, featuring members of Goddamn City and Divorce (the Tennessee combination of PiL, Captain Beefheart, and Lydia Lunch, not the Athens thrash band) and Laura of I've Had a Picture of My House on the Cover of Maximum Rock 'n Roll fame. The Dirty Knees play extraordinarily catchy garage rock. "We are Dirty Knees if you please...We are Dirty Knees if you don't please!" is their anthem and catchphrase, and it's been stuck in my head since Tuesday. And to answer any questions regarding the badass-ness of the Dirty Knees, they covered a Venom song. The last Knoxville band of the evening was Goddamn City, led by Will Fist on bass and anchored by Matt Silvey and Elizabeth of Dirty Knees...both on bass. Lots of low end and lots of riffs were the story for Goddamn City. The sound was somewhat reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age--that is, if Queens of the Stone Age were amped on Red Bull (cocaine?) with a beautiful girl riffin' instead of the not-so-beautiful Mark Lanegan. The evening's final performance came from
Sadville, and it marked the end of my tenure with the band, during which we went from being an obscure mediocre hardcore band to a well-known, signed sludge metal band. I split the set with Blan; I played "All Hands Away," "Black Flag's Animated TV Special," and "Ascending the Golden Escalator to Sludge Metal Heaven," and Blan played "Your Zao Sticker Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore," "Babylon University," and a new song. The new song was really heavy on the low end throughout, and it was closed with a slow, straightforward doom part with Blan playing 80s-style, tremolo-heavy leads. 'Twas pretty damn good, but the old songs on which I didn't play weren't as badass, but that was in large part because Blan hasn't learned lead parts yet. Sadville will be back to full form soon. We closed with "the Forbidden Dance of Decay," the song which has pretty much defined our existence since 2004. I shared vocals with Travis while Blan played guitar, and I had a damn good time doing it. I'm going to miss playing in Sadville, but I think I'll be happier now that I'm no longer in the band.

6/6/06 has come and gone. I'll never forget it.