Buzzoven, Cough, Occultist, Gritter and Druglord
Tuesday, February 15 at The Canal Club
It would be cool to say I can’t remember much of what happened. That I got there too late to see all five bands, that I was stumbling into girls, puking in the alley, totally drunk, totally out of it. But that’s not what happened. I remember every detail. From the moment of entry, every corner of that goddamn club was examined. Every exit checked, every hallway looked down, every ceiling fixture noticed, every Red Bull promotion down to the horrible fake chrome plastic tables was taken into account. Every face examined.
Buzzoven, Cough, Occultist, Gritter and Druglord
Tuesday, February 15 at The Canal Club
It would be cool to say I can’t remember much of what happened. That I got there too late to see all five bands, that I was stumbling into girls, puking in the alley, totally drunk, totally out of it. But that’s not what happened. I remember every detail. From the moment of entry, every corner of that goddamn club was examined. Every exit checked, every hallway looked down, every ceiling fixture noticed, every Red Bull promotion down to the horrible fake chrome plastic tables was taken into account. Every face examined.
The ex, or current, or potential military: men in camo pants with shaved heads. The frat guys, hipsters, aging biker chicks, moms, dads, the guy from that one band with a beard who was wearing shorts in thirty five degree weather and running around tackling all his bros. One has to pay close attention to these things in order to maintain survival. In Richmond all of three weeks and I’ve already made a couple of enemies. Back should face the wall. Can’t ever be sure when some one might snap. I must always be ready to flee at an instant’s notice. I am, in fact, a coward. No heroics. Leave the inmates to run the asylum. Grab the wife and get out.
And yet from there things went basically as scheduled. It was loud. The bands started on time. They thanked everyone for coming. They thanked the other bands.
Druglord delivered super slow doom that is maybe still gelling into a gaseous slime. Gritter are good only if you like Pantera. Occultist started out sounding like each member was playing a different song, but once they pulled it together a few red coals and crusty sparks emerged.
Cough easily played the tightest, heaviest set of the night. Distended riffs over drums like a coffin (coughin’) hitting grave’s bottom. They maybe went exactly fifteen minutes too long. Then there was Buzzoven.
Lemmy writes in White Line Fever that he hates playing Australia because the crowds there spit on a band when they like the music. There was a guy that spit on him once and, rubbing the spit into his own hair, Lemmy yells at the guy (to paraphrase), “Tomorrow, I can wash my hair. But you’ll still be an asshole!” Speaking of Lem, have you seen the movie? Doesn’t live up to the man’s musical legacy if you ask me.
Anyway, the spitting thing works both ways. Musicians spitting on the crowd ain’t too fresh. That shit died with G.G. Allin. But this didn’t stop Buzzoven’s Dixie Dave from hurling gobs. And know what? The crowd was loving it. As an old person, I’d rather stay home and watch ‘Zombie Strippers’ than get spit on by Dixie Dave. “I can handle herpes. But zombie herpes?” asks Robert Englund in the film. Zombie herpes sounds real bad, but just imagine the diseases maybe carried by a guy who shot off his own big toe.
