Watch Out! It's On... Like Simon Le Bon!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen... these are the official dates for Loincloth's first shows ever! Sadly, our very first show was cancelled ( Wilmington, this Saturday the 27th ) because the headlining band's drummer quit.  I don't know that Wilmington was prepared to have it's entire skyline leveled by The 'Cloth anyway!  However the West Coast has been ready to fall off into the Pacific Ocean for quite some time now, so I think they will be prepared for the mayhem that will ensue once we throw down with Sunn 0))) and Dead in the Dirt!  Our first two shows will be with our friends in another instrumental metal band, Dysrhythmia.  I'd like to say "Whassap!" to Hank Shteamer in STATS, who will also be playing with us in New York City.  

The Dysrhythmia shows...

Nov. 16, Long Branch, NJ @ Brighton Bar w/Dysrhythmia
Nov. 17, Brooklyn, NY @ Public Assembly w/Dysrhythmia and Stats

The Sunn O))) / Dead in the Dirt shows...

Dec. 14, Portland, OR @ Roseland/Peter's Room
Dec. 15, Bellingham, WA @ The Wild Buffalo w/Black Breath
Dec. 16, Seattle, WA @ The Neptune Theatre
Dec. 18, San Fransisco, CA @ The Mezzanine
Dec. 19, Santa Cruz, CA @ The Rio Theatre
Dec. 20, Los Angeles, CA @ The Fonda "The Power of the Riff" presents with:
             High on Fire, Corrosion of Conformity, Black Breath, Void Ov Voices

Finally, back home...

Jan. 19, Raleigh, NC @ King's

So there you go... Loincloth have waited the appropriate number of years to play our first show. Twelve years, to be precise.  Here's hoping we have aged like wine, and not like roadkill!  If you are confused by the Simon Le Bon reference in this post's title, you'll have to watch "Squidbillies" on Adult Swim ( Cartoon Network ) to know what I'm talking about.  Poor Rusty, he just couldn't sound bad-asser 'n hell even if his life depended upon it.

Challenges...

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to buy a drum set.  I knew that I wanted to be able to play music with friends of mine, but I didn't know what kind of music we'd play, if I would be able to play competently or not, or whether I'd buy a Ferrari or a Lamborghini  with my first royalty check.  Almost thirty years have passed, and I still don't know what I'll do whenever I get my first royalty check, but my sixteen year old Ford Ranger works just fine!  I feel truly blessed to have been able to travel with great friends, playing the music that we loved to play and to have put something out there that some people find inspiring.  People tell me that I have a unique style, and friends of mine who don't even dissect music the way I do know when they hear me on a recording right away.  I know that my style of drumming may not be for everyone, but I take the fact that I stand out to people as a great compliment.  No one may ever have noticed me as a drummer if I didn't do one thing when I was starting to play drums... challenge myself constantly.

Metal Moments: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Raleigh, North Carolina is not exactly a hotbed on the cutting edge of the national music scene.  There have been bands and songwriters who have been successful from the area, but the scene here is pretty small and very incestuous.  We were a small town that began to diversify in the late 50's and early 60's when Research Triangle Park was built.  Lots of New Yorkers with ties to IBM transfered to the area, and eventually New England's version of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria reached the shores of the area known as Cary, or the "Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees" if you are from Raleigh proper.  As far as I know, the area referred to as "The Triangle" ( those who came to work in RTP live mostly in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill ) still has the highest concentration of PhD's in the world which is great, but these people are not rockers.  Our next massive influx came in the 90's with the great hispanic boom that followed the Texas construction industry.  Great people, fantastic food, impressively ornamented Hondas and nicer pick ups than any of my North American friends, but like scientists in the 60's... not the culture from which metal gods are typically born, or should I say "bjorn"?  

When Confessor were beginning to make a name for themselves the only band that the whole world knew about from around here was Corrosion of Conformity.  Those guys were constantly touring, but they weren't metal enough to get the calls to be opening acts for some traveling bands, and they were too big to be opening for club acts anyway.  Confessor were the only band to call that could bring in fans when certain metal acts came through, so we ended up with some strange shows thrown our way.  Promoters in the area must have thought that all "metal" was universal, and that there was a sense of family between "big hair bands" and underground metal.  Underground metal felt about as much of a familial tie with its big haired cousins as Lyle and Erik Menendez felt with their parents.  Any time I ever saw an image of Poison, Skid Row or any of those bands a subtle command of  "kill... kill... kill" would begin to pull me away from whatever I had been doing. Several times friends of mine found me walking towards the west with an axe, always muttering "must... cleanse Los Angeles... must save us all".  That lack of understanding on behalf of promoters, and a real dearth of polished metal bands in the area made for some unlikely opening slots for us. 

It's About Damned Time!  Loincloth, Live!

Well there probably aren't very many bands who can say they have been around for twelve years without ever playing a single show.  It is quite possible that Loincloth is the only "active" band that can make that claim.  Our historic run is about to end though, and there are four guys who are incredibly excited to see that dubious distinction become a humorous asterisk in the footnote of their biography.  October 27th, Wilmington, North Carolina... the beginning of the rest of all our lives.  What will the world look like the next day?  Will Loincloth finally provide the flying cars we've been waiting for all of our lives?  Will they be able to find a suitable mountain to carve our likenesses for the future site of Mount Rockmore?  So many questions, so many possibilities...

When Tannon moved down to Raleigh so that Loincloth could finally finish writing the album we had envisioned for so long, we never thought about what would happen after the album came out.  In fact, there was no "after the album came out" as far as we were concerned. Tannon would move back to Richmond and we would all be proud to have our little dream realized.  End of story.  There had been some talk of trying to play a local show or two as we were writing "Iron Balls of Steel" but we saw early on that wouldn't be feasible.  We focused on writing everything the way we had to in order to be able to record before Tannon needed to go back home to Richmond.  Mix down, artwork and layout... aside from a few references to someday beginning to write our second craptastic album we were done for the foreseeable future.  It didn't take long though, to get the itch.  I applied some anti-fungal powder and caught up with the third best drummer in the band.

What a Girl!  Luna, 1998-Sep.11, 2012

All dogs are special, but sometimes one comes along that you bond with in a way that makes you feel less like a pet owner, and more like a brother or sister.  A partner. Our German shepherd Luna was one of those dogs.  Monica took Luna in as a rescue dog around the beginning of 1999 after falling head over heels for her at a shelter in Georgia when she still lived there.  She and her boyfriend at the time had to rush back to their house to get enough money to adopt her and get back before the hour long hold the shelter put on the adoption process expired.  They got back in the nick of time, just as another couple was getting ready to start the paperwork on her.  The four of them knew that Luna was a special girl.

Who knows what Luna endured at the hands of her original owners?  Monica said that she was terrified of men, and that if you called her with any amount of sternness in your voice she would cower and you would have to clean up an "accident".  Poor girl!  Before long, once Luna saw that there was absolutely nothing she would ever have to worry about again, she began her transformation into the proud, noble creature that I came to know later.

Monica and I bought our house together exactly nine year ago.  We started off with three cats and three dogs, all hers, all rescues, all with very distinct personalities.  Luna was the protector.  The patroller.  I never felt like I had anything to lose before Monica and I moved in together, but a protective instinct kicked in in me that I didn't know existed.  Luna's total devotion to Monica, and her own protective drive to stay in sight at all times made me feel completely secure that nothing would happen to Monica, or our home when I wasn't there.  I have loved every pet I've ever had.  Every dog, cat, fish, frog, tarantula and scorpion has made my life better and more meaningful, but Luna was the only one that made me feel like I was the one being taken care of instead of the other way around.  Luna slept in the hallway so that she could see everything that was going on in the house, and when she was younger she would wake up to make her rounds.  She patrolled the house and it was clear that she was protecting Monica and everyone else she loved.  We all slept well under her watchful eye.  

The relationship that Luna and Monica had was inspiring, and I will truly miss watching their caring and affection for one another.  If I called Luna or asked her to do something, she would look at Monica first to see that it was okay before coming over to me.  I'll never be as sweet, or as cute as Luna was throwing her toys up in the air and catching them, and I'll never look right wagging my tail upon seeing Monica when I get home every afternoon from work, even though my inner tail wags harder than she'll ever know.  Yes, I'll miss seeing them together but I will always take comfort in knowing that they were a perfect match.  They were meant to be together.  Luna will always be loved appreciated, and sorely, sorely missed.  Luna, if you have internet access in animal heaven, know that your mother and I cherish every moment we had with you, and that you made us better people.  We love you, we miss you, and please tell Ginger and Jake that the next time we see each other it will be forever.

Shipwrecked with a Stereo that Works

Okay, you know the drill...  You are stuck on an island for the rest of your life with a stereo that somehow works, a tree that produces bricks of extra sharp cheddar and whatever other bare essentials a person might need to make a life of sun poisoning and picking sand out of your nethers tolerable.  What are the ten albums you would want to have for the rest of your secluded life?  The same logic that allows for a decent stereo limits your library to ten, that's just how it goes.  We don't question these things, we just appreciate that there is a stereo at all.  Oh yes, and cheese... glorious cheese!

No compilations, no box sets, no cutting out irritating songs, no K-Tel nonstop dance parties.  Just a musical statement as intended by the artist.  I will accept full live albums, because I understand that there are people who fell in love with the band Kiss after hearing "Alive" when they were too young to know any better.  Even people I know and respect liked Kiss.  That's why you get your island and I get mine!  Even if our islands were within earshot of each other I don't think I'd ask you to turn Kiss down at night.  It would probably make me appreciate my own precious record collection even more!  I might have to swim over and kick your ass if you played Kiss loud before say, 11:00 am but after that would be fine.  I used to wake up to a neighbor who blasted eighties era Phil Collins at 7:00 in the morning.  I've put in my time as an overly patient neighbor! 

You may be shocked to see my own list.  I only had to think about a couple of these, but I think I could do it if I ever were to be shipwrecked.  The cheese tree is equally important, and since no one else would be around, the pungent and flatulent smell of extra sharp cheddar would offend only myself, and who cares what I think?

Sabbath vs Sabbath Live: The Flip

This is a necessary follow up to Sunday night's post about the musical alchemists who somehow took a tuned down bluesy approach to protest music, and through their own dark magic were able to invent "Metal".  I made my case, and am comfortable with my position, but I have to compare the two different line ups' live performances.  One line up was surprisingly great and the other, which I let myself get really excited about, was well... considerably less than great.  In fact, I could have put one of the performances on my list of "The Most Moving Shows I've Seen" though it would have been for the wrong reasons.  

I never saw Black Sabbath when they were still active rock gods.  When I saw them, they had descended from atop their mountain to remind us all of how our favorite kind of music had begun.  Ozzfest was not the kind of thing I would normally get excited about, but I knew it could be the only chance I'd ever have to see Black Sabbath.  Though It would not be the line up I really wanted to see, Monica and I felt like we should go.  We were both very glad that we did...