This past weekend, The Talking Head, one of the two tiny rock clubs that sit in the shadow of the Baltimore city courthouse, hosted its second annual Reverent Fog festival, which is basically a 2-day outdoor free show in the tiny side street in front of the club during the afternoon, and then some more bands playing inside the club at night. I didn't catch it last year but wanted to see some of it this time, especially since I'm so broke these days that it seems like a waste not to jump at any free shows I'm slightly interested in. After blowing it off on Saturday and spending a lazy Sunday recovering from a hangover and going to IHOP and watching The Wire, I finally got out to the show on Sunday night around 10, right around the lull between the last outdoor performance and the first indoor performance, just as it was starting to drizzle a little.
The first band to play inside the club was Human Host. They've been around a few years now and I always hear really good things about them, and a kid I used to play pick-up soccer games with on top of parking garages in Towson used to play with them, but the only time I'd ever seen them was when I walked into the Ottobar once about 30 seconds before the end of their set, so I only ever had a pretty vague idea of what they were like. But HH leader Mike Apichella's previous band, Charm City Suicides, were this bizarro hardcore group that I saw once about 5 years ago and were pretty awesome. Human Host, at least in the form that played at Reverent Fog, were just Apichella and two other people, a guy on guitar and a girl on keyboards. For the first half of their set, Apichella played drums on a super basic snare-drum-and-floor-tom set, and they basically did a few really primal sludgy rock songs, although the guitar tone sounded pretty fantastic. Then, after a weird intermission of keyboard noise, they transitioned into a few songs where they sang over pre-recorded beats, mostly Apichella (at some points the other members of the band just stood on the side of the stage or in the audience and watched him), and his singing style was this weird over-the-top metal scream, which in effect sounded like Ronnie James Dio a cappellas over someone's Fruity Loops demos. At one point he just gargled into the microphone for a full minute or so. Human Host are kind of characteristic of a lot of Baltimore bands, in that I sort of admire their chaotic lack of boundaries, but they tend to take it to weird sketch comedy extremes of deliberately awkward amateurishness, and in general the music isn't actually very good. I mean, a scene full of inconsistent eccentrics is better than a lot of other options, but it gets a little tiring in its own way.
The next band that played, The New Flesh, were an awesome noise rock power trio that I'd never heard of before. The drummer, who played these great constant flailing beats, had his snare drum tuned way down and the guitar sounded almost as low as the bass, so their songs all sounded like a big low rumble with some cymbals on top and virtually no midrange. I never really actively seek out heavy music, be it hardcore or underground metal or whatever, but now and then I hear a band like them and the sound is just a big visceral punch in the gut and I wonder why I don't listen to more stuff like that. It was a really weird contrast when, after their set, Daft Punk's Discovery was played over the sound system during the incredibly long wait for the next band. I wanted to hang around and check out at least one more band, but I got so sick of watching assholes dance and strike ironic disco poses that I eventually just decided to call it a night.
The first band to play inside the club was Human Host. They've been around a few years now and I always hear really good things about them, and a kid I used to play pick-up soccer games with on top of parking garages in Towson used to play with them, but the only time I'd ever seen them was when I walked into the Ottobar once about 30 seconds before the end of their set, so I only ever had a pretty vague idea of what they were like. But HH leader Mike Apichella's previous band, Charm City Suicides, were this bizarro hardcore group that I saw once about 5 years ago and were pretty awesome. Human Host, at least in the form that played at Reverent Fog, were just Apichella and two other people, a guy on guitar and a girl on keyboards. For the first half of their set, Apichella played drums on a super basic snare-drum-and-floor-tom set, and they basically did a few really primal sludgy rock songs, although the guitar tone sounded pretty fantastic. Then, after a weird intermission of keyboard noise, they transitioned into a few songs where they sang over pre-recorded beats, mostly Apichella (at some points the other members of the band just stood on the side of the stage or in the audience and watched him), and his singing style was this weird over-the-top metal scream, which in effect sounded like Ronnie James Dio a cappellas over someone's Fruity Loops demos. At one point he just gargled into the microphone for a full minute or so. Human Host are kind of characteristic of a lot of Baltimore bands, in that I sort of admire their chaotic lack of boundaries, but they tend to take it to weird sketch comedy extremes of deliberately awkward amateurishness, and in general the music isn't actually very good. I mean, a scene full of inconsistent eccentrics is better than a lot of other options, but it gets a little tiring in its own way.
The next band that played, The New Flesh, were an awesome noise rock power trio that I'd never heard of before. The drummer, who played these great constant flailing beats, had his snare drum tuned way down and the guitar sounded almost as low as the bass, so their songs all sounded like a big low rumble with some cymbals on top and virtually no midrange. I never really actively seek out heavy music, be it hardcore or underground metal or whatever, but now and then I hear a band like them and the sound is just a big visceral punch in the gut and I wonder why I don't listen to more stuff like that. It was a really weird contrast when, after their set, Daft Punk's Discovery was played over the sound system during the incredibly long wait for the next band. I wanted to hang around and check out at least one more band, but I got so sick of watching assholes dance and strike ironic disco poses that I eventually just decided to call it a night.
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on Monday, September 11, 2006 at 1:48 AM.
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