Surgical Strike

A Place To Bury Strangers
The Blank Club, San Jose, CA
June 25, 2010


Two years ago Umlaut was in New York City and I ran into an old Bay Area friend who I hadn't seen in 10 years at a Starbucks on 7th Avenue (Hey David!). It was a completely random encounter and later over lunch he told me I needed to check out a Brooklyn band called A Place To Bury Strangers. Since that random encounter several other friends of the Umlaut Nation have also urged me to check out APTBS. Well, fast forward a couple of years and, for one reason or another, I hadn't been able to catch APTBS live... until now. Better late than never...

Thanks to an invite from Hard Rock Chick, this was a painless surgical strike of an evening. I left Casa de Umlaut just after 10:00pm... Parked... Ran into Umlaut Nation friends out front (a shout out to Timo and Frank)... Went inside... Watched some of the awful support band... Went back outside. APTBS took the stage at midnight and halfway through their opening song I said to myself "This is my new favorite band.."

APTBS is the type of band I've been looking to find again for years... They are a band whose onstage personality is so loud and out of control I can't imagine what a band rehearsal is like because chaos is such an integral part of them. Their smoke machine belched noxious fumes onto the dark stage to shroud the room in a burlap sack of mayhem that my head was shoved into as a shovel hit me in the forehead... again and again. APTBS are the complete opposite of The Big Four in a good way. APTBS is band that is a pure uncut force of nature onstage... They give off that sense of danger in a performance where you don't know what might happen next... They are a band who throw themselves off a cliff just to see where they land and they dare an audience to follow them. They are my kind of band.

Fronted by mad scientist Oliver Ackerman on guitar and vocals, the wall of volume that APTBS is able to flatten an audience with is astounding. Standing against the stage I felt like I was in one of those Atomic Bomb tests in the 1950's... Engulfed in smoke... Embraced by almost unbearable volume... Flattened.


I'm a complete APTBS' newbie and I don't know any of their songs and I don't know alot about them in general (other than Oliver owns a custom guitar effects company that counts the likes of Wilco, Nine Inch Nails, and U2 as customers). My mind was a clean slate for them to make an impression on me.. and they did in a huge way. APTBS struck me as the spun out bastard child of two of Umlaut's all-time favorite bands: The Jesus & Mary Chain and Spacemen 3 ... and that's why I reacted so strongly to them... I'm always looking for a *new* band who are kindred spirits of those classic bands.

Since I was standing directly in front of Oliver I became hypnotized watching him manipulate his effects as he strangled his Fender Jaguar... and his battle with the guitar had the headstock swinging very close to my head many times... but I was in the mood for a little concert danger so several times I tried to see how close I could get my head to the Jaguar's headstock and not get bloodied by the tuning pegs. Thankfully I came out unscathed by this game of chicken... this time.

The finale of the set was like watching an epic hand-to-hand battle between 3 humans and the invisible beast called VOLUME. APTBS grabbed onto VOLUME and held on for dear life until they managed to wrap their collective fingers around the beast's throat and wrestle it into submission. Clash of The Titans...

Vid by Umlaut

As feedback bounced around the room, the band left the stage littered with murdered instruments, broken guitar strings, and even a little blood as Oliver cut his nose during the performance. Epic.

My head was spinning from what I had just witnessed and I forgot to do a merch audit. On the way back to the car, some pimply-faced teenagers called us fags. I woke up the next morning with the show still ringing in my ears and the image of murdered instruments lying in pools of feedback. CSI Lock 'N Loll.

Murdered guitars and broken strings... Volume vanquished.

Isis

"Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child..." - from 'Isis' by Bob Dylan

(Trivia: 'Isis' is Umlaut's favorite Bob Dylan song..)

Isis
The Blank Club, San Jose, CA
June 22, 2009

For the newbies: Isis are from the generation of bands begat by Umlaut's old friends Neurosis.. and sonically they also remind me of The Swans at times.. and then there's the Tool similarities.. but Isis are worthy of this lineage.. and here in the 21st Century Isis are now like the more nerdy older brother of the more commercially successful Mastodon. In short, an intellectual band who likes to shake the walls with volume while combining it with an intellectual aesthetic to everything they do. NERDS!

Umlaut hasn't really followed Isis closely in almost 5 years, but I really like their new album (Wavering Radiant); back in 2004 I was all kinds of crazy about their Panopticon album with its cover art featuring an aerial photograph of Casa de Umlaut (Seriously, you can see Casa de Umlaut if you know where to look..). Since then, I became all kinds of crazy about Red Sparowes (a side project of Isis' keyboard / guitarist Bryant Clifford Meyer). So, now I guess it's appropriate for me to come full circle and be all kinds of crazy about Isis again.

For the 2nd time in 19 days I traveled down to a club in the valley of my birth for a gig; last year I made the same trek only once all year. Prior to the show, Timo and Umlaut had a last minute dinner and some quality time with the lovely and charming RJ and Kat at the forever excellent Super Taq. Upon arrival at The Blank Club, we took advantage of the liberal in-and-out policy and hung outside while enjoying the balmy Summer nighttime Downtown San Jose weather. S.F. can talk smack about S.J... but S.J. will win the weather war every time.

The Blank Club's knee-high stage is tiny and shoved in a corner and this configuration required the drum kit to be set up BEHIND the back line in order to fit the 5-man Isis onstage; Michael Gallagher's effects board looked almost as big as the stage as it was being set up. This was the 2nd time in 4 days that my ears and senses were assaulted by a band wielding aluminum guitars! First it was Shellac and their vintage Travis Beans, and now it was Isis and their EGC aluminum axes. METAL.. literally!

It was cool to see a sold out Metal show in Downtown San Jose on a Monday night; things are different since I lived there a million years ago! At 10:55PM the band hopped (literally) onstage and launched into the new song 'Hall Of The Dead' and it was 80 minutes of mind cleansing volume that I needed and appreciated. It was also cool to see Isis in a tiny club (The Blank Club capacity = 200) with a suburban audience who were both into the band and also obviously familiar with their music. At several times during the show it seemed like everyone in the club was banging their heads in unison to Isis' volume... and a couple of times I realized I had closed my eyes and was focusing on one instrument during a song. Every once in awhile a band makes me do that: I focus all my attention on one instrument and trip on it. Is that Hippie Shit? Probably.. but I don't do drugs and I did not have any alcohol all evening so this behavior is purely GEEK.

I had to pick my head up off the floor a couple of times because it had been blown away by the band's performance; despite being crammed onto a tiny stage they rose to the occasion and seriously delivered. Also, the sound was surprisingly perfect for a tiny suburban venue! Hail The Blank Club... and it was weird when Aaron Turner said his first words to the audience right before the final song of the set; it was the first time the band addressed the audience. Hearing a human speaking voice after being sonically assaulted and cleansed for the previous hour or so was kind of jarring.. but I had to be brought back to reality at some point.

The merch table was shoved into a dark corner and I couldn't do a merch audit because the only lighting came from the club's red colored light bulbs (club ambiance over functional lighting, dude..); black apparel under red lights in a dark room = practically invisible! On the way back to the car, some pimply-faced teenagers called us fags. We stood in front of the soundboard for Isis and before they came on I noticed the club's DJ had Ludicra and Buzzov*en CDs lined up to play; things are different since I lived in Downtown San Jose a million years ago!

TGIF

High On Fire
The Blank Club, San Jose, CA
January 18, 2008

For the first time in around 15 years, the legendary band Sleep played in the Bay Area... Albeit not together. OM, featuring 2/3 of Sleep, played in San Francisco.... High On Fire, featuring 1/3 of Sleep, played in Sleep's hometown of San Jose.. Although Umlaut has a history with Sleep, I must admit that I like High On Fire more. Sorry Al.

It had been 3 years and 5 months (!) since the last time I saw a show at The Blank Club. My week had been long and bludgeoning with that thing you humans call "work". I almost bailed on going, but thankfully I didn't give into the voices of reason. Instead the night turned out to be a classic surgically precise concert event.

At around 10:00PM Umlaut, Johnny, Todd, and Timo met at the bar of the legendary Original Joe's in downtown S.J. for a late pre-show dinner; High On Fire weren't set to go on until 11:45PM. Original Joe's opened in 1956 and I hadn't been there since I lived in Downtown San Jose back in the years when Papa Bush was raping and pillaging.

Although the restaurant is in the tail end of a renovation, thankfully it still has that Old School ambiance and the retro booths are still in place. Also, the clientele is still on the "Old School" side and I got stares from a couple of old timers at the bar as I ordered drinks.. Guess they don't like long-haired Chinamen.. or maybe they were drunk and thought I was a Good Time Girl... Me love you long time, motherfucker.

Anyway, given my long and bludgeoning work week, I ended up ordering the prime rib... There's something primal about finishing a long and bludgeoning work week with a dead animal in front of you that screams "TGIF" sometimes... not often.. but sometimes.. like this time. Apologies to Umlaut's vegan friends, but that's the kind of week I had.

Over dinner Todd ran off the support acts, and I was bummed to hear that as I was eating the dead animal, Saviours were onstage. Dammit! I had just read Raymond's rave review about them that very day. Dammit! However, after our late night meal, a consolation prize was I found parking for the Prius just around the corner from the club, which was a small miracle given the late hour and limited parking situation in that part of Downtown S.J.. After docking the Prius it was time to do the Lock 'N Loll thing.

There's something appealing and appalling about seeing a Metal show in my old stomping grounds of San Jose. Having seen High On Fire 3 months ago in S.F. (aka The Big City) on the 1st leg of their U.S. Tour, the vibe in the 'burbs was more drunken and meaner... which was a fine vibe as Matt & The Boys launched into the opening song 'Turk'. The atmosphere was only heightened by The Blank Club's tiny stage that's only knee-high, which allowed punters to hop onstage and be idiots and also push the mic stand and accidentally punch Matt in the face with it.. which pissed him off. Legitimate issue or Rock Star rant? You decide, but if anything it seemed to push him to more powerful guitar antics.

You know you're in San Jose when an XXL dude wearing a Down shirt does a stage dive and the crowd parts so he lands face first on the floor. He then got up and staggered towards the nearest wall to lean against to hide his pain and embarrassment. Of course, what made it even funnier was he was diving off a knee-high stage.. so it was like he was jumping off a futon... and he still hurt himself. Do you know the way to San Jose?

Another nice touch to the show was that a decent fight broke out in front of the stage and plowed itself back towards the bar; a tall blonde dude who's at all the High On Fire shows was involved. Silly boyz. I decided to see just how big of a Sausage Fest the show really was... I counted around 20 women in the club out of a crowd of around 250.. Which, according to my unscientific analysis, means around 10% of High On Fire's fanbase are chicks. Order your girlie shirts accordingly, band merch person.

If you bought one of every High On Fire merch item you would have paid around $275. On the way back to the car, some pimply-faced teenagers called us fags. When I got home Bugger The Kitten ran around the house, taking leaps off the couch and the bed; he could have taught that San Jose dude about stage diving.