Thursday, November 19. 2009
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photos by Michael Hurcomb - Staff Photographer |
Stone Temple Pilots with Crash Karma
November 17th, 2009
Kool Haus
Toronto
Since I believe in karma if will not be mentioning anything about Crash Karma (Canadian supergroup with members from I Mother Earth, Our Lady Peace and the Tea Party) I'm not going to review their songs, their performance or how they shouldn't cover the Tea Party. Besides, everyone was really there to see the...
Stone Temple Pilots.
What a show! They sound amazing, look great, no one in the band has died (I'm looking at you Scott), the band plays to perfection and Scott's voice is fantastic. STP opened with Silver Gun and Wicked Garden and then launched into more familiar material like Vasoline, Big Empty (probably my fav of the night), Plush and Interstate Love song. A few more slower tempo tunes and then they hit the crowd with the high energy rocker "Sex Type Thing" and closed the show with "Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart". Great light show as well with a variety of spots and strobes and an LED backdrop playing motion graphics suited to each song.
What the show lacked was communication. I can't recall Scott once saying anything to the crowd except for song titles - not a "Hello Toronto" or a "Thank You". He sang perfectly but didn't have the wild persona that we're more familiar with. The megaphone was still there and that counts for something.
Overall a great show (except for Crash Karma but I'm not going there). Check out STP if they're coming your way.
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Friday, November 13. 2009
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photos and review by Michael Hurcomb - Staff Photographer |
Wolfmother with The Heartless Bastards and The Newno2
Kool Haus
November 11th, 2009
Gotta get this out of the way. Andrew Stockdale (the singer) from Wolfmother looks like Carrot Top. There I said it. And while I'm at it Dhani Harrison from thenewno2 looks a lot like his dad George....Harrison....from the Beatles.
I'd like to 1st review the show lighting from a photographer's point of view. It was bad - too much red and green. But that's my only gripe. Thenewno2 are a great sounding band with some great lineage. You can hear the similarities between Dhani and his father but it's not in a bad way like Julian Lennon - sorry Julian but "Valotte" sucked. Thenewno2 was the band I was most looking forward to tonight and their 6 song set left me wanting more. Gotta get this Cd.
The Heartless Bastards came out screaming and didn't stop. There set was a mix of fantastic vocals and guitar from Erika Wennerstrom and a solid pulse from the rest of the band. The crowd really came alive when they hit the stage after being more subdued for thenewno2.
Wolfmother are back with their 2nd album "Cosmic Egg" and a new band. Founding members Chris Ross (Bassist and keyboards) and drummer Myles Heskett left the band due to "irreconcilable personal and musical differences" leaving Stockdale to bring in 3 new members and a new energy. The addition of a 2nd guitar really helped during "Woman" when Stockdale knocked his mic stand over, tried to recover it and dropped his guitar. Minutes later everything was OK but the band never dropped a beat. The crowd loved them but I really couldn't get into it. I like the music but the show was almost "paint by numbers". Jump here, riff here, pounding drums. Just stuff we've seen and hear before but nothing groundbreaking. Cool band but not sensational.
Saturday, October 10. 2009
by Bryan 'Venomdoc' Fry - Staff Writer
The crowd at the Megadeth/Slayer double-bill was mostly male unshaven tattooed sorts, so I fit right in. The few women around were wearing the latest-and-greatest fashions from Biker's Moll Weekly. Apparently black was this season's black.
The opening act (Double Dragon) did a workmanship job of warming the crowd up. Leading them on several drum-driven chants of MEGADETH! and SLAYER!!
Then came Megadeth, or as they are more rightly known, Dave Mustaine and three other guys. While Dave has a vocal capacity that spans the full range from A to B, he uses it with precision and devastating efficiency. Just like the Pied Piper, he led the crowd into a passionate pit. Peace may sell, but they crowd wasn't buying that. They were however eagerly lapping up all that he put out to tender. By the time Megadeth finished their scorcher of a set, the front of stage was a holy war indeed.
Slayer came on and the concert unfortunately descended into a true season in the abyss. The first song had sparing vocals but was the hardest wall of metal I have ever had the privelage to be assaulted by. Wrapping the crowd up in it's muscular arms just as one of guitart Kerry King's beloved pythons coils around a prey item. The drummer was hitting the frenetic pace that can only be fueled by enough red bull to give an elephant's heart a stop. After the first song, Tom Araya motioned for the crowd to be quiet and then informed everyone that his voice was shot and that there wasn't going to be much singing. The band then launched into a series of instrumentals. Not Spinal-Tapian free-form jazz, but rather something much heavier. However, in the absence of vocals, the pace could not be sustained and the band flagged.
The rapport with the crowd was also lost when there were complete blackouts between songs lasting a minute or longer as roadies wandered around with flashlights, perhaps looking for Tom's voice. Kerry may be able to sing as well as play guitar, but unlike walking and chewing gum, he can't do them at the same time. So the band brought on random people from backstage to sing. They did it in good spirit and while the crowd were positive about the attempt, none of them had the power of Tom in full-flight, when he has the voice of two mortals. The filler-attempt reminded me too-much of the movie Rock Star. I half expected one of the walk-ons to launch into a spirirted rendition of 'Stand up and shout' including the sustained vocal note. Slayer finished their set abruptly and without the obligatory encore.
One hopes Tom's voice hits its former glory and that this is not a harbinger of the tour to come. The show is worth going to for Megadeth alone though. Perhaps it should be re-billed as MegaDave!
Friday, October 2. 2009
by Jeff Barringer - Staff Writer
Headlining one of this years ACL main stages, and firing this years opening volley to start the fest, a new band, Them Crooked Vultures opened the festival with a sold out pre-fest gig at Stubb's BarBQ last night.
Begun as a special project in 2005 by super-musician Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, the band played a handful of disparate gigs in the United States and Europe back in August, but the Stubb's stop is officially the very first stop on their very first American tour.
It is a wise man that attends one of Dave Grohls' side project bands live gigs with no pre-conceived notions. Much like his experimental Probot project, nothing about the sound of this band bears any relationship to either Foo Fighters or Nirvana. In fact it probably derives more of it's sound from 60's classic "heavy" bands such as Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly than anything produced in the last 20 years.
With the legendary John Paul Jones of Led Zepplelin on the bass and the keyboard, the bands direction was probably inevitable, and yet there was a twinge of frenetic "Jack White" experimentalism which when layered with that deep late 60's blues rock, creates a melange different from anything else you'll hear today. With the off key vocals of Queens of The Stone Age's Josh Homme highlighting and accentuating the esoteric nature of the music, these songs wouldn't sound out of place in 1968 London. I think they need to ask Blue Cheer to open for them. THAT would be a great double bill.
But this is a chimera, a once in a lifetime chance to see these musicians play together, something that after this tour is never likely to happen again. With the tour selling out in record time few people will get the opportunity. Luckily for all of us, they taped a set for the Austin City Limits TV show on PBS Thursday. Look for it to be aired sometime in early 2010.
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photos by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer
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Friday, September 25. 2009
by Jeff Barringer - Staff Writer
It didn't feel quite like a Raul's reunion in the audience at the Psychedelic Furs show at Stubb's last night, more like a VH1 80's retrospective as brothers Richard Butler and Tim Butler brought the seminal 70's punk cum new wave band to Austin.
The Fur's have a long history influencing the Austin alternative music scene, in fact going all the way back to their show at Raul's in 1980, Austin's legendary well-spring punk club down on the U.T. campus. Many Austin bands sprang from that gig, and as one of the first foreign punk acts to play an Austin club, the Fur's's helped to establish Austin's punk/alternative music scene on an international level.
This iteration of the Fur's has changed somewhat, with the Butler's being the only remaining original members, but with Rich Good on guitar, Mars Williams on saxophone, Amanda Kramer on keys, and Paul Garisto drums providing able accompaniment the songs sounded album perfect. And what songs there were too, a litany of FM radio favorites of the 80's and 90's. If I had only one complaint about thesong mix it would be that aside from "Sister Europe" they didn't play anything else off their first album. Those songs were so much darker than their later work, less radio friendly, and more experimental for the time. Certainly tame by todays standards, in the FM world of the 70's & 80's where The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac ruled the airwaves, those songs were groundbreaking.
But I digress. Looking at the set list I don't see anything I didn't enjoy hearing, and I would be hard pressed to pick songs to cut to find room for others. Great show, great set, I could watch the Psychedelic Furs again and again.
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photos by Jeff Barringer - Staff Photographer
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Sunday, September 20. 2009
Friday, August 21. 2009
Pat Benatar at the Austin Music Hall - more photos...
photo by jaime butler - staff photographer |
by jaime butler - club kingsnake staff
The first I thing I noticed walking into the Music Hall was the ridiculous line leading to will call. The second thing I noticed was the lack of security. Usually that would excite me but in this case it resulted in the venue having no barricade thus no pit for us photogs. Hurray!, my favorite shooting environment. Thankfully what security guards there were and a few fanatics helped me push to the front of the stage.
To be honest I didn’t really care whether or not I saw Pat Benatar's set and I had already missed the Donnas but once I was in front of her I was enthralled. She’s nothing short of an amazing vocalist and her calm cool attitude on stage made me want to befriend her. Pat was by far the star of the evening, the never ending roars and waning crowd by the end of her set made it obvious. I was most excited to see Blondie and naively assumed the others were as well but once I realized every song in Benatars set was once a top 40 hit it all started to make sense. This chic is HUGE. Bigger than huge and her presence is as strong as ever.
During “Love is a Battlefield” I was lucky enough to witness a middle aged woman, dressed as if she had fallen asleep in 1984 and abruptly awoke ready to go see one of the most famous pop stars of the decade, get roughly escorted out of the building. Once she realized how long she had been passed out she must’ve been filled rage directed at the fans of “this century”. The core audience didn’t seem to notice. They kept right on dancing and reciting every lyric to songs such as “Hell is for children”, “We Belong” and the most popular “Heartbreaker”.
Blondie at the Austin Music Hall - more photos...
photo by jaime butler - staff photographer |
Despite the happy go lucky crowd the rage didn’t stop there. There were some 10-15 fights that broke out that evening. All women might I add. Why were they so angry? Not sure but I bet it had something to do with alcohol and coca cola perhaps? If security wasn’t so lacking the house may have been half empty by the time the headliner went on. Speaking of, right when I made my way to the front of the stage for Blondies “Tide is High” I hear a young woman scream “F you Bitch!” and immediately I got lucky again and got to watch her be carried out by one of the two stage security guards. I still don’t know who she was talking to.
Besides all the ladies spilling their mixed drinks down both my legs I had a really good time. What folks that remained from the Pat Benatar set were true Blondie fans. They went crazy for tunes like “Call Me” and “One Way or Another” with Harry handing the microphone over to the audience for the majority of the songs. There were a few songs the crowd and myself didn’t seem to recognize and I’m hoping it’s safe to assume they are going to be on an upcoming album.
But I’ve always been half ass when it comes to doing my homework. Mostly at this show I was just a fan thrilled to be experiencing a band I was too young to at their prime. And that’s not to say their flame is dying. These guys and girl are every bit as good as I can imagine them being and they are still just plain cool. Harry still has the power to draw you in and make you go “Wow! She’s something”, even if you have no idea what that something is. Debbie wasn’t alone in the glory, she was accompanied by originals Chris Stein and Clem Burke along with Paul Carbonara and Alex Leigh and some Shandon Sahm looking guy on keys. I had to look it up but I believe that was Matt Katz-Bohen. Forgive me if I’m wrong. As much as this show rocked nothing could touch the amazing encore with Chelsea Bono on the bongos. Talk about a hoot. No I’m kidding. But that would be cool huh?
I’m sorry for those of you that weren’t there. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to miss this show or any Blondie show in the future. My advice? Wear boxing gloves and a raincoat and leave the earplugs at home.
Blondie at the Austin Music Hall - more photos... photo by jaime butler - staff photographer
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Sunday, August 2. 2009
Dr. John at the Austin Music Hall - more photos...
photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
by harrison davis - club kingsnake staff
Despite an underwhelming crowd presence at the Austin Music Hall, both Dr. John and the Neville Brothers turned in fantastic performances at the Austin stop of the Mardi Gras Mambo tour.
Dr. John was first up and his blend of Cajun, rock, and blues had the crowd moving right away. Dr. John himself only moved from behind his piano a few times during the set, but he stayed solid all night, especially when he picked up a guitar for a song. His band, The Lower 911, was probably the most impressive from Dr. John’s set. They were able to lay down a huge groove with every song and every solo they took was very impressive. It was clear that the highlight of the show for many was the most well known song “Right Place Wrong Time”.
The Neville Brothers set was dominated by the performances of two people, saxophonist Charles Neville and guitarist Makuni Fukuda. Both players blew the crowd away with solos, especially Fukuda. From his first solo early on in the set, I loved the surf funk sound he got out of his guitar. Charles Neville took longer to get into the show, as did all the Nevilles, but his solos on the slower songs were fantastic and left the crowd speechless. Aaron Neville did little more than just sing the songs and often left the stage during the extended musical breaks. All the energy of the show came from Art Neville who really got into some of the classics, which really got the crowd into as well and turned the first few rows into a dance floor. It stayed that way the rest of the night.
Neville Brothers at the Austin Music Hall - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer
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Saturday, July 4. 2009
Chris Barker of Anti-Flag at Warped Festival - more photos...
photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
by Harrison Davis - club kingsnake staff
The San Antonio stop on the 2009 Warped Tour was, above all, excruciatingly hot. The 100+ degree temperatures and cloud free skies were not helped at all by the fact that the whole thing was being held in a huge parking lot which effectively became a giant reflector oven. Just dragging all the gear from the car and wandering around looking for our passes was an ordeal. After getting badged up and finding an area to use as shelter in between bands, I headed out to see the first band on the main stage, The Ataris.
I had heard of the band, but wasn’t sure if I had ever actually heard them. They turned out to be one of my favorite bands of the day. They had a great energy on stage, which could not have been easy given the ridiculous heat. The most important thing is that their songs were usually pretty catchy, especially their unexpected but strangely fitting cover of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer”.
It took only one half hour set for me to start feeling the heat, so for much of the day I watched the main stage bands and then hid from the sun during set changes. The next band up was Anti-Flag, one of the few bands I was familiar with. I’ve never thought of them as anything more than a generic punk band but they were surprisingly good. They showed a great amount of energy and were actually pretty good musically, which is not something you see often with punk bands. Bassist Chris Barker tried desperately to get the crowd to ignore the heat and actually managed to for a lot of the set, getting several large circle pits happening.
Roger Manganelli of Less Than Jake at Warped Festival - more photos...
photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
The next band on was Less Than Jake, a ska band who I had been a casual fan of for a while. They showed up and just played their show, they tried to put energy in the set but the day had clearly taken its toll. The music wasn’t bad it didn’t feel like the band wanted to be there, which is unfortunate because they much more talented than many of the bands that did.
In between some bands I took time to walk around the grounds and look at the different booths and things. Every band on the tour has a booth to sell merch at on the grounds and many bands hang out at their booth. The unfortunate thing about it is that bands have their booths put up even if they weren’t in town for that stop of the tour. It hurt me to walk by the Flogging Molly booth knowing they weren’t playing. There were other booths around for sponsors and vendors too, none of which I checked out. Walking around unfortunately meant seeing some of the side sage bands that I had no interest in. Every band sounded the same. Heavy guitars, double bass, and a combination of whining and screaming vocals. It was all terrible.
Frank Carter of Gallows at Warped Festival - more photos...
photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer |
The one band that wasn’t on the main stage that I did really enjoy was Gallows. I had been blown away by them at SXSW and was really looking forward to seeing them again. Just as he had done before led singer Frank Carter wasted no time in getting out into the crowd and getting things going. I never saw the circle pit slow down at any point. The best thing I heard all day wasn’t any music, but a piece of banter from Carter, who was greeted with a mixed reaction when he said that most of the Warped Tour bands were “terrible”. I was certainly one of the applauding ones. The action was nonstop the entire set and it was running at full speed. The band left the stage and realized that they still had time left to play another song or two, which they made full use of. They were hands down the best band of the day.
After taking an extended break from the music, I figured I should get back outside even if there was nothing interesting happening. I decided that the lesser of all evils would be Thrice, who happened to be fantastic. I had them pinned as just another scream band cashing in on the current fads, but they turned out to be the most musically talented group on the tour. Lead guitarist Teppei Teranishi was fantastic. His playing was the only thing I ever got around to listening to really. His guitars had a very unique sound. He created an almost shoegaze sound, which sounded great against the heavy rhythm guitar. I have completely changed my mind about Thrice and look forward to getting into their studio output.
The last band of the day was punk legends Bad Religion. They were who they have always been, a good straightforward punk band. They played through much of their older work which everyone appreciated. They showed some energy, but in the end were just another band who was tired of the tour, albeit with a much better back catalogue than all the others. I tried to get interested since I enjoy a couple of their records but in the end both me and the band were too hot and tired to make it work. It wasn’t a bad show; it’s just that playing at the end of a festival where the real headliners have already played, it’s hard to keep the crowd interested.
Bad Religion at Warped Festival - more photos... photo by jeff barringer - staff photographer
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Tuesday, May 19. 2009
You would think that a band that hasn't had a hit single since the Clinton administration would welcome press coverage, but such is not the case on The Offspring's current "The S*** Is F***ed Up Tour" (their asterisks, not ours). I can confirm that not only are they denying most media requests, they denied ours as well as several other media outlets, but they are hand selecting any photos taken by the media before they allow their use, as per the pre-show release that media must agree too.
Perhaps it's a good thing as their show has been moved from the 4,400 seat Austin Music Hall to Stubb's Barbq in Austin, a venue that holds considerably less than half the Music Hall AND as of an hour before show time tickets are still available. And thats WITH Alkaline Trio as an opener! Maybe they are just trying to limit the "damage". I mean who wants to see pics of a band playing to an almost empty venue? If they were still booked into the Music Hall it would be an embarrassment.
As much as we like The Offspring , (I have been following them since their debut release in 89 and own all their releases except the current one, and have seen them perform 4 times), it's sad to see them fall so far, especially when just about every other road show in Austin seems to be selling out their Austin venues. It's disappointing as well when the other bands of the same era, Rancid, and Pennywise to name two, never seem to have problems granting media access when they tour the same venues.
We can only surmise The Offspring don't feel they need the coverage, though I suspect their ticket sales numbers might disagree. At least at Stubb's the show won't seem nearly as empty. If you go have fun, but don't look for us there.
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