Municipal Waste, Off With Their Heads, Phobia, Cauldron

November 15th, The Casbah, San Diego.

Like I'd go to this shit? They wanted 15 bucks to get into this, so I decided I'd be better off taking that 15 bucks and buying some cheap beer over the weekend while spending a Wednesday night jerking off to questionable age porn and later watching downloaded wrestling pay per views.
Without even being there I can tell you exactly what happened.
Cauldron opened up and no one was there.
Phobia played to a near empty house and smelled like hippies.
Off With Their Heads? Off of the Stage.
Municipal Waste takes the stage, a bunch of short haired nimrods with vests on and PBRs in hand headbang passively while smiling up a storm. Dave Witte drums in back and rethinks his life. No one in the crowd except for the 3 guys that are at the bar and trying to pick up on the trashy skanks that came in to work the crowd for drinks remembers who Human Remains are.

I think this pretty much sums up most MW shows. BARRAFALSE!!!

The Xulborg Domestic Model - 767

The perfect role model

Skinny Puppy

Industrial culture has run a parallel to metal for its duration. Its own rules, its own underground, its own level of complete abandonment of human morality while pushing the boundaries of taste. While metal stuck to blue collar aesthetics and horror movie influenced shock value, industrial was defining horror and pushing its limits. Industrial was the pool so much of metal drank from for its new influences. The cold rhythmic sound of steel clanking on steel producing death itself in its factories. The soundtrack to end of the world destruction constructing. Where metal was content to speak of Satan and mythological terrors, industrial spoke of the horrors of daily life in laboratories and factories. The perversion of the human creature in robotic voices. Future speak and Orwellian sensibilities. Oil, ash, pollution, concrete, nuclear waste, bombed out cities and the buildings of today as the ruins of tomorrow. No forests, no utopian futures, no peace. Just the end result of man's own self assured destruction.
Skinny Puppy are the bards of the apocalypse. Through their long career they have explored, influenced and become legends of music. They've influenced so many artists it's almost impossible to even think of a world without them. The perverted mirror of man's design refracting images from their twisted chambers... The image you see is not the image you started with, but the image far more honest than what you were to begin with.
Listen to it all, absorb it all ravenously, pray to whatever God you find solace in. This is terror incarnate. This is Skinny Puppy...


YOUR BLACK HEART MAKES ME SICK

ATTENTION

Urgehal - Ikonoklast

New album by these Norwegian rapists. Much like Goatcraft I am let down by the cover artwork, what ever happened to photos of band members abusing women?

What else to say? More of the same from Urgehal. More of the same from this years Big-Gun releases. Having said that, this is probably top of the pile. I've heard this all before mind you, and you have too most likely. There's only one "Ikonoklast" worth your time this year, and it doesn't use K's.

Whatever

GWAR / Job For A Cowboy / The Red Chord

Gwar, live in San Diego. November 15th 2009 at the House of Blues. This isn't a picture from it because I don't bother taking cameras into these things. So I just plunder the work of others for a reference pic above. Anyhow, doors opened at 6:30, which meant I wasn't showing up til 9 and hopefully missing the opening bands. Unfortunately I walked in for the last two songs of Job For a Cowboy and got some gay STD just from hearing their breakdown laden useless attempt at death metal. They seem proud to be from Phoenix, Arizona, which they announced as often as they could... A typical song going something like this.. "Pointless screaming and semi blast, breakdown... breakdown, more breakdowns, "WE'RE JFAC AND WE'RE FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHOWING UP TO SEE US AND I HOPE ALL YOU BLONDE, THIN, CIRCUMCISED, DISEASE FREE TEENAGE BOYS COME SEE US AFTER THE SHOW FOR SOME HANDS ON AUTOGRAPH SESSIONS!", breakdown, breakdown, blast, breakdown , song over. Repeat.

Then the wait, that agonizing wait as GWAR sits backstage while the roadies set up. Kids kept walking by me nervously as I kept farting out the prior night's dinner of kraut and sausage. I began realizing, that being the 4th time seeing Gwar, it was the first time seeing them sober.
But those are the breaks and driving around downtown San Diego with a face full of gwar juice and a blood alcohol content over .08 is a difficult thing to explain your way out of when you get pulled over by the fuzz for soliciting snaggle toothed crackheads for discount rim jobs. Xul don't deal with lock up.
A lot of young'ns were at the gig, which I suppose is a healthy thing, as their disposable income is probably what keeps most bands going these days. I sure as hell didn't pay for my ticket, so some people had to. Some came by offering me a piece of gum which was obviously LSD laden. I've had my experience with Gwar and hallucinogens, highly recommended, but that wasn't my buzz tonight. Some fellow old fukk summed it all up perfectly. "Gwar is metal's version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show", bravo.

They opened up with a 10 min video spoofing a band rise and fall documentary, the usual nonsense. Crack, perversion and murder.. the stuff dreams are made of. Then the music kicks in, and for the life of me I can't remember what the fukk the song list was. They bring out a pretty killer assortment of murder victims though, including the return of Cardinal Syn, who I hadn't seen live. A gray faced Michael Jackson came out for a baby raping session before getting his face ripped off. Zog came out as a homeless guy squeegeeing Oderus before getting torn apart. Obama got his head ripped off, again. The music live is more focused on the crowd, less of their silliness from the mid era and more to the headbanging tunes. Some of the old classics like Maggots and Have You Seen Me? are still in rotation, along with show closer Sick of You. A few tunes were pimping the new album, of course. Some others from the more recent ones that I still can't recognize for shit because I am one of those fair weather fans that loved their early days, disappeared during their mid era and have come back around for these days even though I have the discography plundered and don't listen to it as much as I should because blah blah blah blah. This was a nice and violent crowd... kids came running out of there with real and fake blood mixed, girls were picked up and thrown all over the place.. Security had looks of disbelief and rethinking their career choices as one crowd surfing kid after another was thrown at them. Really though, how do you sum Gwar live up? Either you see them and understand what the big deal is all about, or you don't and stick to nitpicking from afar. Oderus himself pretty much made the best points for it... "25 YEARS OF GWAR, NOW THINK ABOUT HOW MANY BANDS HAVE COME AND SUCKED SINCE THEN!" "THERE ARE ONLY 3 BANDS THAT RULE, GWAR, SLAYER AND MOTORHEAD" "METALLICA... WHAT THE FUKK HAPPENED?! NO, SERIOUSLY... WHAT THE FUKK HAPPENED?!".

Big thanks to Brian at www.sdmetal.org for hooking me up with the free tickets.