3 posts tagged “hellhound”
San Jose isn't the city I think of when I'm contemplating an evening out. Despite the fact that I live in the aforementioned city, I usually look elsewhere for my entertainment needs. That said, I do occasionally find myself in downtown San Jose, and it seems that every time I go, it looks more like a real city, with taller buildings and exponential neon sign multiplication. One such neon sign advertises the Voodoo Lounge, the venue that Hellhound, along with Skinlab, Silent Sinner, and A Thousand Kingdoms played at on this particular evening.
I had never heard the other three bands, and didn't even get around to checking to see if they had MySpace pages so I could get an idea of what they sounded like. Nothing really sounds good on MySpace anyway - I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's because the sound quality isn't as good (although it's hugely better than the sound quality found on YouTube), or maybe it's because of the sheer volume of unheard music - something that inspires me to rush through the listening experience. Anyway, I approached this gig eighties-style, which I figured was appropriate. "Eighties-style" here means that I got there with no idea what the other bands would sound like. Sure, I knew they'd be metal, but beyond that...
I met Wayne, Chris, and various members of Hellhound outside, which is something I haven't done anywhere, outside or inside, in over a couple of decades. We're all sort of grown up now, although sometimes you wouldn't know it. When we finally made it inside, a band which must have been A Thousand Kingdoms were playing. They were actually pretty good, sounding raw and heavy, and featuring a singer who actually sang every once in awhile, trading off between the usual throat-tearing style so popular with many current metal bands, and some actual singing. I definitely enjoyed their set, although I'm not sure if I'd actually listen to their music much outside of a live context. Silent Sinner weren't quite as good, with the vocals being more high-pitched in that stereotypical way that people mimic when they're making fun of heavy metal. Chis opined that they occasionally sounded like old German speed metal band, Living Death. I heard a bit of Kreator in there too.
Hellhound ripped through a quick set, and fortunately the equipment problems that plagued their show in Alameda last month didn't come back for an encore. The guitars were upfront and crunchy, and played with great precision of course. This was my second time hearing the two new songs, and I have to say I prefer "The Bleeding Edge" to the other one (which I think is called "Circle of Trust", or something like that). The old songs are as familiar to me as any of the other music I listened to in my youth, and it's great to hear them performed live again - especially "Killing Spree" and "Repression of Life". The band got a great response from the crowd too. Hopefully this time around they'll get the recognition they deserve.
Like the old men that we are, we elected to leave before Skinlab played, so I still haven't heard them. I know, I'll go check them out on MySpace, and be underwhelmed. I'll be right back... Yep. Nothing new. I guess they get points for sheer aggression, at least.
Also, the guy who put the show together, working under the banner of Man Down Productions, is an old high school friend. People are just coming out of the woodwork all over the place lately. Now, why wasn't there a metal scene in San Jose back when I was a kid?
Due to a vague sense of ennui, I haven't been writing as much lately. That's the thing about trying to keep up with multiple blogs - sometimes burnout occurs. I wouldn't call it writer's block, because I do have things to write about. I just need to step away once in awhile. I need time to do nothing. Over the summer, I've been lazy, spending my time re-watching films, hiking with kids, and listening to music without feeling the need to write about it. I appreciate having the luxury of doing this, because over the last number of years, I haven't been able to. Over the past months, I have been rediscovering a lot of films and music from my youth, albeit with adult eyes and ears.
Sometimes you have to step back to move forward. I'm not sure if this counts as a midlife crisis or not. Maybe it just counts as an awkward sort of tango.
Speaking of stepping back, the last couple of gigs I've attended have featured bands who have roots reaching way back to the sparkling days of the mid to late eighties. I'm not going to format this as a "gig review" because once again I've waited until too long after the fact, and also because I have friends in these bands, which makes anything positive I have to say highly suspect. That said, I'm hard pressed to think of any friends who are in bands that I don't like. In fact, I'm fortunate to have friends in some really damn good bands.
First, I finally got to see my friend Devon's band, Conquest for Death. The last time they played, I took Willow along and she decided that (despite earplugs) punk shows were just too loud for six year old girls. On that occasion, we went to a doughnut shop instead. This time out, Willow didn't come. There were a lot of other bands on the bill. Capitalist Casualties, who were supposed to play, didn't. The other bands were all somewhere on the hardcore/grindcore spectrum. Send the Dogs, who opened, had dual male/female vocals, which is always a plus in my book. Their noise scared off the merch table cat though. Cats don't like punk. The other bands didn't really do much for me. I was excited when Conquest For Death finally arrived on stage. They play eighties-styled hardcore, more influenced by European bands than American ones. Short, fast, and loud, with precision leaps into the air thrown in to give their stage performance a visual dynamic. In fact, none of the band members seemed to stand still for a moment. Unfortunately, after only a handful of songs, their bass player, Robert, slipped and fell, doing something to his knee. Since he wasn't able to stand back up after his fall, the set ended. I think they might have played for ten minutes, if that. It's ironic that a band who has toured all over the world, traveling through countries that most bands never reach, without experiencing any show-stopping injuries, would have something like this happen so close to home. I guess it's better than having it happen in Zimbabwe or somewhere... Damn. Still, it was a fantastic ten minutes. Maybe next time I'll experience a whole set.
Next up was the return of Hellhound. I must have attended just about every show they did during the eighties, including house party and high school gigs. For many of those shows, I acted as roadie. During the eighties, I saw them perform with the likes of Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, and a number of other similar bands. Their last show was in Alameda, made memorable by the fact that I ended up with a very impressive black eye during their set. Somebody at the venue thought it would be cool to have disco-ball lighting while Hellhound played, which of course reduced visibility. Add to this a guy going the wrong way in the circle, and you have a collision. It was definitely a "you should have seen the other guy" moment though, because he ran off to the bathroom with his head in his hands and I didn't seem him again for the rest of the night. I had forgotten that this had been their last show though.
Coincidentally enough, their first show after reforming was also in Alameda, although at a different venue. Since I was relying on my mom to watch my daughter for the evening, I had planned an Umlaut-styled surgical strike, getting there just in time to see Hellhound and missing all the other bands.
I failed.
After navigating the darkened maze that is the industrial part of Alameda, I got there an hour after the start time to find that no bands had actually started playing yet. Typical. I can't even be late when I try to be late. I guess it was a bit naive of me to think that the show would actually start when it was supposed to . I sat around a bit until I started seeing some familiar faces, and then spent a bit of time catching up. The opening bands were flawed. The first band played old school thrash with hardcore-styled vocals which didn't gel well with the music. The second band had apparently recently lost their singer, so they performed as an instrumental band. Well, almost instrumental. They still sang the backing vocals, which sounded silly and out of context without a lead vocalist. Decent music though.
Next up was Hellhound. Back during the eighties, Hellhound only managed to record a couple of demos before breaking up. They were perfectionists though, so the demos were well-recorded and featured well written songs with impressive musicianship. Since then, the demos have been pressed onto cd twice, first on Maximum Metal in 1998, and then again last year on Stormspell records. Today, Hellhound still have four out of five original members, with only Steve the drummer being absent. The new guy seems to know what he's doing though.
The first thing I noticed was that Mike's voice had changed a bit. He doesn't hit the high notes anymore, but I quickly decided that it actually sounds better this way (I felt much the same way when I saw Angelwitch for the first time at Ruthie's Inn a number of years ago). They played a couple of new songs too, which is something I thought I'd never hear. We used to joke about how long it took them to write and endlessly polish songs before deeming them fit to perform. Of course, this perfectionism led to some damn fine songs at the end of the process. Unfortunately, Bob was having some equipment troubles, and the guitars seemed to be really low in the mix. Mike made a crack about how they were old school so their equipment was old too. The sound did improve a bit later on, and we were treated to most of my favorite songs from the demos, including Repression of Life, Killing Spree, From the Ruins of Yesterday, Ice Age, Flee the Bomb, and... maybe that was it. A pretty short set, actually. It was enough to remind me that they are better than the majority of similar-styled bands out there, remembering to combine aggression and melody rather than just merging aggression with more aggression. I guess this was kind of a soft opening for them, with the anticipated gig at the Voodoo Lounge in San Jose on September 17th being the real deal. I'm going to attempt to be there as well.
Then, just last weekend, at the long anticipated wedding of a couple of musical friends, I got to see a few other musicians/bands play. Kirana Peyton, who performs as Black Bird Stitches, sang a beautiful accapella song, accompanied by the wind and some nearby windchimes. Will Oldham, who usually performs as Bonny Prince Billy, sang a song which was constantly interrupted by the voices of children shouting, "LOOK MOM! IT'S A BAT!! IT'S RIGHT UP THERE!!! COOL!!!" That's what he gets for pointing out the bat, I guess. Next, he sang a sung with the newlywed Dawn McCarthy, which was beautiful, of course. A band called Lasher Keen played too, and they were new to me, playing a variety of instruments, including accordion, bodran, some sort of cigar box banjo, and others. It's good to see new bands playing with the kind of boundless creativity they exhibited.
I've probably mentioned somewhere on this site that I work at a science camp as a night supervisor. Tonight, as I was orchestrating bedtime for the nearly 200 kids up at camp this week, one of the kids walked up to me and asked, "are you John Scharpen?" This might seem strange that a kid wouldn't know my name, but at camp all of the staff use assumed, or "nature", names. Mine, like it says on this blog, is Crow, so the kids don't usually know my real name. I told the kid that I was indeed John Scharpen, and asked him how he knew. In response, he held up a printout of this photo:
The guy second from the right is me. The guy on the right is the camper's dad, Robert. On the left is our old friend Mike Sammon, who died a couple of years ago. This photo was taken at the Raven/Metallica co-headlining "Kill 'em All for One" tour, at The Stone, in San Francisco, in 1983. That was the year I turned 16.
At the time Robert was in a band called Hellhound. It's ironic that his son would be up at camp with a private, religious school. He'd probably get in trouble for saying the name of his dad's old band. Ha ha. I'm sure Umlaut and Wayne will get a kick out of this.
I found a tribute Myspace site for Hellhound here. Everything is on the internet now.
