Pentagram!
Pentagram have been around, in one form or another, since I was a kindergartener. It wasn't until the mid-eighties that I actually stumbled across them, in the form of their first, self-titled, lp in the records bins at the now-defunct Tower Records. The cover of the lp is black, with the band's logo, in purple and white, positioned at an angle on the front. Back in those days, there was no internet to provide me with instant information and sound samples, so I tended to buy music based on what I could glean from record covers. The spartan cover and song titles like Dying World and The Ghoul pushed this one over the top and convinced me to part with the 7 or 8 dollars needed to make it mine.
I was rewarded with a sludgy, Sabbathy morass of chugging goodness. The icing on this particular cake came in the form of Bobby Leibling's sneering Ozzyish vocals. Sometime afterwards, I picked up their second album, "Day of Reckoning", at the late, lamented Record Vault. $7.98, plus tax. The sticker is still on it. This time out, some of the rough edges had been smoothed away, and Liebling's vocal mannerisms aped Ozzy's to an even greater degree. He even utters the line, "all right now/won't you listen?" during one song. Pretty blatant. Still, it's a very listenable record, with the massive Burning Savior still holding a special place in my heart.
Since then, several Pentagram cds featuring Bobby Liebling and drummer Joe Hasselvander have seen the light of day (with Hasselvander playing all of the instruments), not to mention a couple of compilations of early works. Hasselvander has kept himself busy with other projects as well. Liebling, it appears, has kept himself busy with the type of self-destuctive behaviors most often associated with rock musicians. There's even a documentary on his life coming out sometime soon. Not to mention the song he wrote based on one of his suicide notes.
Last year, I saw Raven for the first time in a quarter century, with none other than Joe Hasselvander drumming for them. This year, I was surprised to hear that Pentagram were touring. On July 2nd, they rolled into town for a show at the DNA Lounge in S.F., and I left work in a rush to be there in time. Justin and I got there too late to see Orchid (who I've since heard good things about) and Hammers of Misfortune (too bad - I've been wanting to see them). Nachmystium were band number three, and they steamrolled through a set of Bathory-influenced metal. Kind of black metal. Kind of not. Throat tearing vocals over pummeling metal with epic overtones. Decent, but I'd rather be listening to Bathory.
I didn't bring my camera in because it said "no cameras" on the ticket confirmation page. Of course, once inside, I saw cameras everywhere. Damn. I guess it is kind of hard to enforce that rule now that camera phones are the norm.
Pentagram is now just Bobby Liebling, with a much younger backing band. A search around the internet seems to suggest that there is some bad blood between Liebling and Hasselvander at the moment, but I'm just guessing. The set proved to be a mixture of old and new. I have a couple of the newer cds, but they're not cemented into my memory like some of the songs off the first couple of records are. There was even a brand new song called "Last Rites", which will appear on the forthcoming cd of the same name. As for the songs I recognized, they played All Your Sins (covered nicely by Cathedral on their "Echoes of Dirges from the Nave" live lp), Sign of the Wolf, 20 Buck Spin, When the Screams Come, and maybe one or two others (this is what happens when I wait a week or two to write things down).
As for Liebling, various sources have described his appearance "wretched looking". Said sources have then gone on to half-jokingly question how much longer he would be alive. I'd have to agree that he does look much older than his 55 (I think) years, resembling for all the world some wizened wizard, complete with grey hair at his temples and hooked nose. With a flowing black robe and a pointed hat, he'd truly be scary. However, he soon showed the audience that he has the energy of a twenty year old, joking around (often incoherently), making faces, grabbing his crotch, dancing, and sometimes entirely disappearing from view (I was towards the back). Once, I looked up as all I could see was one of his feet sticking straight up into the air next to the guitarist. As for his voice, it seems to have suffered a bit over the years(he made reference to it, using the word "scratchy", so maybe he had a cold or something), but that's okay because it made him sound less like Ozzy. The songs, both old and new, have that heavy, sludgy, seventies groove, and the packed club lapped it up. The music just oozed atmosphere, creating a weird time warp and dragging us all back several decades. Liebling's seventies-style outfit reinforced this illusion. At one point, Liebling thanked the audience for their continued dedication, and laid to rest a recent internet rumor about him being caught in an airport in France with crack cocaine sewn into his socks. Or at least I think he did. It was often hard to understand what the hell he was talking about.
All in all, I think it was a damn good show. I've been listening to Pentagram for 25 years now (although, truth be told, sometimes years go by without a Pentagram record gracing my turntable), and there's just something about those old bands - maybe it's simply the fact that way back then, there weren't so damn many songs floating around in my head, so each new song I heard was more significant. It might also be that since I didn't have so many records then, I tended to replay them more often. Whatever the reason, seeing these songs performed live for the first time after all of these years was pretty special.
Check them out on Myspace and Wikipedia.
