I’m officially seeing a therapist for the first time in my life. I’m pretty annoyed with myself for waiting so long, but better late than never, I suppose. I saw a counselor for a brief time in my early twenties, toward the end of a mild-to-moderate depressive phase. Talking to someone who hadn’t already heard all my complaints a million times helped a lot, so after three or four sessions, I started to feel a little better and more hopeful, and then my dumb 22 year old brain was all like “I’m cured!” and then I stopped going. Next thing I know more than a quarter-of-a-century has passed, but much to my surprise, life never stopped happening that whole time.
Celebrated American author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) liked to draw tombstones with profound and/or funny epitaphs. Based on my exhaustive research (which consisted of googling “Kurt Vonnegut tattoos” and perusing the first page), this one from 1969’s Slaughterhouse Five is probably the most well-known of his tombstones, which makes sense, as Slaughterhouse Five is his most well-known novel.
Poo-tee-weet.
This tombstone drawing is my favorite. It’s from Breakfast of Champions (1973), which is the first Vonnegut book I read, and which remains my favorite. His drawings helped me feel more confident about drawing whatever I feel like drawing, and about not getting hung up on my lack of artistic abilities.
So it goes.
Thing is, when I look back on my life, I see a lot of examples of me simply not trying, and if I may use the parlance of my childhood, that’s dumber’n hell. I’ll get interested in something until it gets difficult, and then I’ll just quit.
One Example: my homeboy Travis taught me how to play an E-minor chord on my first guitar, and later he managed to both figure out a slower version of the opening riff from Helmet’s “In the Meantime” and pass his knowledge on to me, but eventually my hands started to hurt, so I stopped trying.
“Earth tone suits you.”
Another example: Travis got a set of drums, and I got a bass, along with a practice amp and a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal.1 We made a hell of a racket in my parents’ garage for a while, and we had a couple of our buddies jam with us on guitar while we tried to build a complete band that could maintain a tune for at least a couple of minutes. At some point I heard “Maxwell Murder” by Rancid, and then I decided I didn’t wanna play bass anymore because there was no possible way I’d ever be as good as Matt Freeman.
“He ain’t Jack the Ripper, he’s your ordinary crook.“
A third example: I owned an electric keyboard/synthesizer the whole time I owned my guitar and my bass. I figured out how to play “Hot Cross Buns” all up and down the keyboard by jabbing one key at a time, like when Schroeder is fed up with Lucy’s nonsense.
I could never figure out how to jab out “Jingle Bells,” sadly.
I was able to morph “Hot Cross Buns” into “Mary Had a Little Lamb” pretty easily. I fucked around with the presets every now and then (“Bossa Nova” was my favorite), but after a while I always got tired of not knowing how to play it, so back under the bed or into the closet it would go, until I finally gave it away about ten years ago.
One more example: learning how to deal with life in healthy ways takes effort, and so I quit trying to learn. Fuck that. I’m learning now. And I’m gonna crack the nut that is my anxiety if it’s the last thing I do.
Speaking of non sequiturs, the state of this cursed timeline we inhabit has got me feelin some ways lately that I’ve been unable to put into words, so I’ve been sketching, doodling, and kind-of drawing more these past few months. I’ve always been a picture doodler, and later, when I got into heavy metal, I became a band logo doodler as well. My journals are full of doodles, dating back to the one I had to keep as an assignment in fifth grade, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been more artsy than fartsy in my journals. When it comes to drawing, I very much do not consider myself an artist, but I’ve definitely gotten better over the years, just I would’ve gotten better at the guitar, the bass, the piano/keyboards, the trumpet, and all the other shit I’ve given up on due either to lack of natural aptitude or lack of positive attitude.2
What I’m trying to say is that I’m tired of not trying, and I’m tired of acting like I have to be good at something to bother with doing it.
“Ya just go out, and ya give’r.”
Speaking of which, I’m gonna share some of my drawings and doodles from the past few months. Maybe you’ll like them, maybe you won’t. All I know is I’m gonna keep making them for as long as I enjoy it, and I’ll probably share more of them here at some point, but maybe I won’t.
What a man, what a man, what a man. What a mighty good man.
Without further ado…
I made this lil ghoul buddy on a shopping list the day before Valentine’s Day. He’s supposed to be wearing a hood, like on a robe, Grim Reaper-style, but as I mentioned already, I’m not an artist.
I did this one night while Sheila and I were drinking bourbon and watching music videos. I was only half paying attention, and I accidentally kinda made a spiral effect, which I thought was pretty cool. A couple of them are self-portraits.
I’m a big fan of whatever this is.
I call this one “Oracle.” All eyez on me.
This one’s called “Flower Power.” The censored parts are not for your eyes.
This one is also a self-portrait. The beard is an indicator, but the sweat flying off the bulbous noggin is the real tell. I have no idea what I’m so goddamn smug about.
My blog doesn’t really look like that (most of the time).
I started writing this thing on January 24, with the Vonnegut stuff, and I had no idea where I was gonna go with it. I’ve opened the file a few times over the past nine days and revised and rewritten and added and deleted and cut and pasted and proofread and almost published, but today, right now, I’ve decided to quit fuckin around and just mash that “Publish” button already. It’s not like more than a handful of people are gonna read it anyway.
I still don’t really know where I’m going with it, but I’m gonna call it finished. I’m sorry if you were expecting a tidy conclusion, or an obvious unifying theme. You’re rarely gonna get either of those with me. If there’s a takeaway, I suppose it might be that five decades in, I’m finally ready to start really facing my fears. I intend to document the process here as much as possible. If you wanna check back in and follow along, that’d be cool. I’ll be here either way. Thanks for reading.
I thought playing bass would be easier, because I wouldn’t have to learn chords. I’ve always been something of a dingus. ↩︎
Bonus example: two completely different times in my life, I’ve started painting, and then quit almost immediately because I don’t know how to recreate the things exactly the way I see them in my head. ↩︎
There’s no sense in keepin this thing around if I’m not gonna write, right? So here I am, and maybe there you are, too. Let’s find out where this goes together, why don’t we?
I’m currently spending 85-92% of my time hyper-focusing on how unbelievably goddamn weird existence is, and I’ve written quite a bit about how just unbelievablygoddamnweird existence is, but there’s nothing there to share yet, so I decided to throw together a thing where I talk about some trivial bullshit instead. What’s important is that I’m writing.
I grew up scared of everything, including/especially horror movies. Example: the trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge scared the everlovin bejeezus out of eight-year-old me, and I still haven’t watched that movie to this day. The scene at the end of the trailer where Freddy jumps up outta the ground at the pool party? Fuckin forget about it.
It honestly scared me again when I watched it just now.
I’d like to point out that the only reason I haven’t watched A Nightmare of Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge yet is that by the time I finally got around to watching horror movies, the backlog of classics was already enormous (insert joke about how I’ve been known to create an enormous backlog or two, myself) and it’s gotten so much bigger since (so have mine!). Basically, there are only so many hours in a day, and there are a lot of great movies to watch, horror or otherwise. I know the basics of the movie, and I’ve heard things both good and bad from trusted friends. I’ll probably get around to watching it at some point, if only to impress myself circa 1985.
But this isn’t about A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. It’s about the classic 1982 slasher The Slumber Party Massacre. I’ve been aware of this movie for most of my life (the poster, pictured below, also haunted my tiny early 80’s brain), but due to the aforementioned phenomenon that is time slippin slippin slippin into the future, I never got around to watching it, until recently.
The movie is actually not nearly as scandalous as the poster makes it out to be.
I found myself with some time to kill on a rainy day off a lil while back, and I decided to dig into that enormous backlog – really get in there and get my hands dirty – and watch something I woulda been too scared to watch in my juvenescence. I wish I had an interesting anecdote about why I chose The Slumber Party Massacre, maybe some kinda weird synchronicity behind the decision or some such, but the fact is, I chose it because it’s only 76 minutes long, and I’d already spent like 20 minutes tryna pick out a movie.1
Long story short, I’m glad I fished around my gore-soaked enormous backlog until I pulled out The Slumber Party Massacre.
Award-winning author and feminist activist Rita Mae Brown wrote the screenplay as a parody of the slasher films that had become so popular in the early 1980’s. The producers tried to repurpose her script into a more traditional/serious slasher film, and she disapproved of their scheme, which is perfectly understandable, but I feel like it still plays out like a parody in a lot of ways, and the dialogue is damn funny. I’ll bet the screenplay is a great read.
Film editor Amy Holden Jones turned down a job working on E.T. the Extra -Terrestrial so she could direct the The Slumber Party Massacre, and I don’t know how she feels about that decision, but I think she made the right choice. Incidentally, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is the second movie I saw in the theater as a kid (the re-release of Disney’s Robin Hood predates it by about 3 months), and it scared me, too, but not in the same way that the trailer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge would go on to scare me a mere three years later.
Your intrepid blogger on Christmas Eve 1982, doing his impression of E.T the Extra-Terrestrial’s first appearance in the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, whilewearing his brand new E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial shirt.
But this isn’t about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it’s about The Slumber Party Massacre.
The movie never gets boring or drags at all. It should be difficult for a movie with a runtime of one hour and sixteen minutes to even get boring, but I’ve seen plenty of sub-85 minute horror movies that I thought would never end.
Example: I once bought this movie called Wrestlemaniac on DVD at my local Half Price Books Outlet, figuring:
I love low-budget horror movies,
I love classic professional wrestling (the late, great Rey Misterio (Sr.) plays the titular Wrestlemaniac),
Wrestlemaniac is a pretty clever name for a movie, and
it only cost three American dollars,
so it couldn’t be that bad, right? Oh, sweet summer child. It was such a festering turd that I shut that 75 minute movie off before it was over and placed the DVD directly into the garbage can so that no one else would have to suffer. It’s been almost three years, and I sometimes feel like I’m still watching that pile of shit.
But this isn’t about the enormous backlog that is Wrestlemaniac, it’s about The Slumber Party Massacre. The acting is better-than-average for a low-budget horror movie with a bunch of no-name actors, the score works extremely well within the context of the scenes, it’s super funny, the kills are clever and cleverly framed, and the killer (escaped mass murderer Russ Thorne) is creepy as fuck. Here’s the trailer.
I didn’t realize it was gonna be age-restricted, but I suppose it makes sense.
I don’t really have much else to say about the movie. I liked it. It’s free to watch (with commercials) on Tubi. Tubi fuckin rules. To sum up, The Slumber Party Massacre is a hoot-and-a-half (out of a possible two hoots). If you’re a fan of fun, violent, creepy, well-paced, low-budget horror movies, you could find a much worse way to spend 76 minutes of your time.2
Speaking of your time, I appreciate you giving me some of it. If you don’t feel like it was wasted, why not tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit? It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
To paraphrase something I once said on Facebook, if I had until the end of time to do nothing but watch movies, time would go ahead and end before I picked out the first one. ↩︎
Watching Wrestlemaniac with a one-minute long intermission, for example. ↩︎
Hello! In case you’re new here, there’s this band called Drug Church that I’ve been obsessed with for somewhere in the neighborhood of two years now. I’ve written about them quite a bit before, and I suspect I’ll continue to do so, because I assume they’ll continue to kick copious amounts of ass. What follows is something I started writing back in May, when I was on the eve of attending my first Drug Church headlining show. I took a break from writing to eat dinner, and before I got back to it, the show was cancelled.1 I didn’t bother to go back and edit the post at all because I was so bummed, and it sat abandoned ever since, lowering the neighborhood property values and scaring the neighborhood kids (“that old abandoned blog post gives me the creeps!”, they’d say), but no more!
My therapist wants me to set goals, and one of my goals is to write more, and to finish things, and that’s why I’m here right now. This old haunted house of a blog post has some good bones, and I didn’t want it to crumble to dust without at least givin it the old college try, whatever the fuck that means. They rescheduled the show a while back, and it’s coming up in a few days,2 so this seems like as good a time as any to HGTV that shit back into some kind of existence. Add some curb appeal, if you will.
Everything I said about the upcoming show in May holds true in December, and then some. The slow grind and boilin kettle of work is still bubblin away, and some shitty stuff has happened to some people I love, and I’ve really been leaning hard back into Drug Church lately. I never stopped listening to them, but I’d eased up a bit.3 I even went almost 36 hours without listening to them at one point back in October. My Spotify Wrapped 2025 informed me that only five other Spotify users on the entire planet listened to Drug Church more than I did this year.4
I listened to them a lot on CD and watched a lot of stuff on YouTube as well.
I’m listening to them right now, and there’s a good chance that I’ll listen to them a lot tomorrow, too.
I am actually quite surprised with the order here, but you can’t go wrong with any of em.
But I was talking about this old abandoned post from six-and-a-half months ago. The Penzeys Spices part isn’t relevant anymore, in that those spices are no longer new to me. In fact, I ran out of those Indian Special Blend Peppercorns months ago. The company still rules, and their spices are still great.
Anyway, here’s the original post, from May 22, 2025.
👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾
Real quick, full disclosure: the title of this piece is a line from a song by Drug Church. I often (usually) use lines from songs for the titles of my blog posts, but I’ve never before bothered with overt attribution. Lately I’ve been including a video from the band or artist I’m quoting in the title, but it occurs to me now that I should probably give credit where it’s due, lest anyone accuse me of being particularly clever.
I got my order from Penzeys today. I’m very excited. They consistently offer the best spices, herbs, dried chiles, spice mixes, and what have you that I’ve ever paid for. They were havin a “Get a $50 Gift Card for $35” sale, and when I received my card, they were havin a sale on everything that started with the letter “S” or the letter “B”, in honor of small businesses, and also in honor of Bruce Springsteen using his platform to speak truth to power. I took some pictures of my haul, because that seems to just be what we do these days, and because I’m excited about all the stuff I got for thirty-five bucks. Plus I wanna give them a shout-out.
Penzeys is a great company, and they offer a great selection of cooking ingredients, fairly priced. They always have something on sale, they always include at least one free sample, and they often include coffee mugs, magnets, stickers, buttons, and the like for free. If you or a loved one enjoys cooking, you should order some stuff from Penzeys! Unless you live near a storefront location, then you should go buy some stuff from Penzeys!
These pictures aren’t good, but I’m too tired to care.
I’m especially pumped about those India Special Extra Bold peppercorns. 😍
To clarify: I’m too tired to care enough to take better pictures. I definitely care about that horrendous reflection on the bags from the stove hood light that I didn’t notice until I’d already put the tea towel away, but I am way too tired to get the tea towel back out of the drawer and arrange everything again.
I’ve decided I’m gonna start using dried chiles more often. We’ll see how that goes.5
I’m also too tired to care that the Sunny Spain Seasoning and the Bavarian Seasoning aren’t turned slightly to the left (their right).
I’m stoked to try them all. I’ve had the Bavarian Seasoning before, and it’s great. According to the back label, it’s “excellent for all cuts of pork, veal, or lamb,” and if you like to eat those things, it’s almost certainly true, but I haven’t eaten meat in something like 8 years, so I use it on vegetables and whatnot, and it’s never let me down. Tonight I’m gonna use it in a mushroom stroganoff, and I am very much looking forward to eating some of it later. Maybe I’ll report back, but probably not.
I’m too pooped to care enough to take a less blurry picture of this, but I sure do hate how out of focus the letters are.
Speaking of looking forward to something, tomorrow night is the Drug Church show at Turntable up in Indianapolis (unofficial city motto: “If you don’t get lost at least once, were you really even here?”), and I’m fuckin stoked. The slow grind of work has been extra gritty lately, and my kettle is near to boilin, friends. For approximately 45 minutes tomorrow night, I’m gonna sing and dance and holler and sweat and smile and laugh, and I’m gonna forget I even have a job. I’ll definitely write about that at some point.
I’ve shared this video before, but that’s okay. Here it is again.
Here’s a live version, because we could all use it, whether we realize it or not.
This song doesn’t seem to be in their current setlist rotation, but it should be. Holy moly, what a corker!
For now, I’m gonna relax with a can of black cherry Waterloo and read some David Sedaris. I hope something beautiful happens to you today. Thanks for reading.
👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾👾
Thus endeth the old part of this entry. For the record:
the mushroom stroganoff was delicious,
the black cherry Waterloo was refreshing,
the David Sedaris was hilarious,
I still hope something beautiful happens to you today, and
I still thank you for reading.
PS: If you wanted to mash that like button and tell some friends about Clockwise Circle Pit, I wouldn’t be upset. 😘
The reason for the cancellation was 100% understandable, but it was still a fuckin bummer. ↩︎
I’m planning on writing about some of the things that pulled me away from Drug Church, but who knows when that’ll happen. ↩︎
I know Spotify sucks balls, but I don’t pay for it, and I also still purchase physical media and merchandise from bands. Also, it would be irresponsible of me to not tell you that WordPress suggested that I change “sucks balls” to “suckles.” ↩︎
Message from the future: I used one of those Sanaam India Chile Peppers for the first time yesterday, so I guess the answer to the question “how did that go?” is “it did not go well.” ↩︎
This is part four of a multi-part series in which I discuss the sights, sounds, and smells I experienced while attending the 2025 edition of Louder Than Life (“America’s Loudest Rock & Metal Festival”) in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky. Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here. If you wanna read all kinds of stuff about previous editions of Louder Than Life, you can find it all here.
We woke up to rain on Day Four, and at 10:40 AM, we got a notification in the LTL app that severe weather was approaching, and they were asking people to seek shelter. After last year’s hurricane-related cancellation, I was nervous. A little after noon, they announced that the gates would be reopening soon, and that shuttle service had recommenced for the day. A few early bands were axed from the lineup, and set times began at 1:00. I was bummed that Chained Saint got bumped, but after the exhausting day that was Day Three, there was no chance I was gonna get to see them anyway. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to see them again soon.
The kids are alright.
While we were walking toward the shuttle, a young fella approached us and said “excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you, but are you two going somewhere?” I told him we were headed to the shuttle pickup spot, and he said “the Louder Than Life shuttles?” I confirmed that to be accurate, then he asked if we minded if he walked with us, because he was from Michigan, and didn’t know where he was going. Once we got settled on the bus, we learned that his name is Brandon, he’d been to three concerts in his life (the only one I remember is They Might Be Giants), Day Four headliner Bring Me the Horizon was his favorite band, and he was gonna be seeing them live for the first time. We got separated at the entry gates and we never saw him again, but I hope he had a great time and made it back home safely. I thought about this scene the whole time we were together:
Kaitlin Olson plays drunk so believably.
The later start time meant everything got pushed back a bit, which worked in our favor in some ways, and threw a wrench in other plans. We technically arrived in time to catch part of Accept‘s set on the Reverb Stage, but given how long it would’ve taken to get there from the gates, we would’ve only seen like 10 minutes of it, so we opted for snacks and drinks in Top Shelf to start our day while Crown the Empire played on Main Stage 2. They weren’t really for me, but they were energetic, and they sounded good. They’re far from the worst thing I heard on Day Four of LTL2K25.
While they played, a dude who looked to be a little older than me, carrying two drinks and already quite shitfaced, walked up to me and hollered “WHADJA THINK OF SLEEP TOKEN?!” I told him we left before they played, and he looked at me in disbelief. “We were too tired from Day One, and the crowd was too thick,” I added, not having the heart to tell him I find them mostly boring.
This is the only Sleep Token video I’ve ever enjoyed.
My drunken friend then hollered “WHO’S YOUR BAND TODAY?!” I said “Testament. They’re playin way over on the Reverb Stage later.” He nodded disinterestedly, then shouted “HOW BOUT THREE DAYS GRACE?!” I told him I hadn’t really listened to them. He looked at me like I’d just told him his dog died. “THEY’RE FUCKIN AWESOME!” he hollered, nodding his head for emphasis. “Cool”, I responded. He then yelled “I’M DAVE!” and I said “Joel”, then he went in for a fistbump and I placed my open hand on his fist before realizing he wasn’t going for a handshake. We bumped fists, then shook hands, then he mercifully went to the other end of the table to shout at other strangers.
We started walking over to the Reverb Stage around 2:30 so we could find a good spot for Sebastian Bach at 2:45. We settled into what seemed like a friendly crowd and waited for 10 Years to finish their set on the neighboring Decibel Stage. When the band started to come on stage, a guy in front of me pulled out a full-sized flag and held it up toward the stage, blocking most of my view, and completely blocking the view of dozens of people behind him. After he held it up for the third time in the first minute of the first song, a dude to my right asked him to stop, and he said something about being from the same town as someone in the band. The guy next to him said “yeah, okay” and flipped him off.
By the time the first song ended, he had blocked half of my view no less than 10 times. Finally, about halfway through “Slave to the Grind”, I snapped. “PUT THAT GODDAMN FLAG DOWN!” I shouted. He turned to me and said the same thing he said to the other guy, and I said “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHY YOU’RE DOING IT, YOU’RE BLOCKING EVERYONE’S VIEW!” He told me to stand somewhere else, and I told him to go fuck himself, and he kept the flag down for a few songs, then during “Monkey Business”, he tentatively held it up again, saw that I was not going to punch him in the head (I wasn’t tryna get escorted off the premises before Testament played), and then felt emboldened to hold it up a few more times.
During a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “I Don’t Know”, a spot opened up in front of the flag-waving dickhead, and he turned to me and indicated that I could move up if I wanted to. I stared at him until he turned back around, and I tried my goddamndest to enjoy set closer “I Remember You”, but that twatwaffle really got my beans bakin. If he’d raised the flag up once or twice, I wouldn’t have minded so much (even though flags and banners are not supposed to be allowed inside the gates), but he was bein a world class asshole with that thing.
Fuck this guy. And if you are that guy, then fuck you.
The shift in set times meant that we were able to head back to the main stage area to catch part of Tech N9ne‘s set, which now started five minutes after Sebastian Bach’s set ended. I’m not overly familiar with Tech N9ne, but I love his rapid-fire rapping style, and I was glad I got to experience some of it live.
I’m all out of clever captions.
We watched from VIP so we could hang with Mitch and Amanda for a bit, then we re-upped our drinks and went back to the Reverb Stage for Queensrÿche‘s set at 3:55. Neither of us had seen them before, but we were pretty stoked. They sounded great, and frontman Todd La Torre was belting out the high notes from the inner depths of his very soul. The only complaint Sheila and I had about their set is that they did not play “Jet City Woman” or “Silent Lucidity”, and that was equal parts silly, disappointing, and befuddling.
Who needs Geoff Tate when you got this guy and his magic pipes?
I wanted to check out Counterparts on the Loudmouth Stage, but I desperately needed food, shade, and a seat, so we went back to Top Shelf for a bit as Slaughter to Prevail took to Main Stage 1, and they were fine. My respite was brief, as I had to book it back to the Reverb Stage to see Testament at 5:05. I’ve seen them a few times over the years, and in my experience, there’s no such thing as a bad Testament show. This one was no exception. They were on figurative fire, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a band smile so much while they’re playing. I was a little bummed that we only got one song each from The Legacy and The New Order, but they played “Return to Serenity”, which I did not expect, and that was awesome. I also saw some kids on who couldn’t have been more than 16 singing along with every word, and that made me very happy.
Every video from their set that day sounds like it was recorded from inside someone’s butthole, but this one seems a little better than the rest, and it’s one of my favorite Testament songs.
The adjusted set times caused Testament to finish halfway through Glassjaw‘s set on the Loudmouth Stage, so I did not bother trying to see the last 10 minutes of Glassjaw, but we did get to watch hometown heroes Knocked Loose on Main Stage 1, and they delivered the motherfucking goods. As with Testament, every Knocked Loose video I could find from LTL sounded like muddy buttholes, so here’s the studio version of the song they opened with.
It was a helluva show.
Three Days Grace followed on Main Stage 2, and I can confirm that my drunk buddy Dave was correct, they were “fuckin awesome”, as in “fuckin awesomely boring”. Apparently they got a new singer one time, then the old singer rejoined last year or something, and now they have two singers, but they both sucked pretty equally. We departed for the Loudmouth Stage to see The Dillinger Escape Plan, and it was good to get away from there. I hadn’t seen TDEP live before, and I don’t know very many of their songs, but I like everything I’ve heard, and I was looking forward to watching them.
Here’s a pretty cool picture I took before they started.
The band came out and frontman Dimitri Minakakis stood silent and still at the front of the stage, then held a single finger to his lips to shush the crowd, then they blasted into “Destro’s Secret”, and for the next forty-five minutes, absolute chaos ensued.
I’m baffled as to how Ben Weinman can play his guitar and move like that, but I’m also glad he can.
They closed with Certified Banger “43% Burnt”, and my body was at least 87% busted, but we still had to go back to Top Shelf to see at least a little bit of $uicideboy$ on Main Stage 2. Our nephew DJ told us about them a few years ago, and we hesitantly listened to a couple of songs and didn’t hate them, but that was pretty much the end of it. When the lineup was announced, we listened to some more of their songs, because that’s what we do when the lineup drops. We both liked them more than we thought we would, but we mostly wanted to check them out so we could tell DJ that we did.
Much to my surprise, I enjoyed the hell outta their set. I doubt I’ll ever listen to them on purpose, and I wouldn’t pay 2025 ticket prices just to see them headline, but I’d definitely watch them again if I could.
I don’t understand why/how mullets are in fashion, but I do not care for it.
They played for an hour, and we left when they were finished, because we saw Bring Me the Horizon in 2022, and they aren’t really our thing, plus, as I’ve mentioned repeatedly over the course of this series, it was hot, and I am old, and the new location is simply too goddamn big. I’m currently planning to write at least one more thing about LTL2K25, in which I’ll discuss some of pros and cons of the new layout in more detail, and I’ll include some pictures that didn’t quite fit the flow of the first four parts.
Thanks for reading. Tell a friend, if you have one. And be excellent to each other.
This is part three of a multi-part series in which I discuss the sights, sounds, and smells I experienced while attending the 2025 edition of Louder Than Life (“America’s Loudest Rock & Metal Festival”) in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky. Part one is here, and part two is here. If you wanna read all kinds of stuff about previous editions of Louder Than Life, you can find it all here.
Day Three was tight. Still too big, still too hot, still too many people, but overall, I gotta say it was a good day. Quannic was the first band I wanted to see (at 12:30), and I was worried about making it on time. In addition to the festival, there was also a University of Louisville football game at noon, plus Churchill Downs was hosting their first Saturday horse beatings of the season starting at 12:45, and all those locations are extremely close together. I was talkin about tryna leave at like 10:00 AM, just knowing that traffic was gonna be a nightmare.
As usual, Sheila was smarter than me, and she reminded me of something I already knew well from living in a college town: if you wait until the football game starts, you can get pretty much anywhere you want with very little hassle. She suggest we leave around noon, and I reluctantly agreed, and we ended up having the fastest, smoothest, simplest shuttle ride of the entire fest. We were in Top Shelf getting snacks and drinks before Quannic even started playing, and I got to watch most of their set, and hear all of it, and they were very cool. I could easily imagine them playing shows with Hum, Shiner, Jets to Brazil, and the like, circa 1997.
I couldn’t find any videos from Louder Than Life, so here’s a music video from a month ago. I don’t recall them sounding quite so “static-y” live, but they definitely brought the riffs.
Since the crowd was much thinner than the day before, we decided to make our way over to the vicinity of the Decibel Stage. Disembodied Tyrant was in full swing when we arrived, and they sounded so fucking good. We managed to score a little bit of tree shade and took in the scene. So many people in every direction. Aside from the lil food oasis we fought our way to and from the night before, this seemed to be where all the food in the entire festival (aside from VIP and Top Shelf) was located, and that seemed (and seems) like a bad idea.
Intensity in this particular city. I was nowhere near this close to the stage.
We met up with Mitch and Amanda in VIP and hung there while Superheaven played, and they sounded great. I didn’t know them until after they were announced, but I dig their sound, and I was hoping I’d get to see at least a little bit of their set, and I’m glad I did. I also hope to see them again someday.
This is so far up my alley it might come out the other side.
We had to bail before Superheaven finished, on account of SpiritWorld was playing at 2:10 on the Decibel Stage, and there was no way we were gonna miss that. They were Sheila’s #1 Must-See Band of the Festival, and they were in my Top Five. I’d listened to them a little bit prior to the announcement of the lineup, and I liked what I’d heard, but I hadn’t done a deep dive yet. Sheila was lamenting the general lack of bands “for her”, and I told her I thought she’d probably like SpiritWorld. Two months later, she’s blasting SpiritWorld in the shower and shouting along with every word.
She shouted along with every word here, too.
The only negative thing about their set was that lead guitarist Randy Moore was absent, which resulted in a severe lack of tasty dive bomb solos.
Some of those tasty dive bomb solos can be found herein. If you like this, all other SpiritWorld videos and albums are also recommended, though you could probably skip their 2017 demo. It’s not nearly as good as the albums.
By the end, we were drenched in sweat, and my neck felt like it was gonna snap in half. We started the long journey back to Top Shelf for snacks and drinks, and caught the end of Fleshwater‘s mid-afternoon set. I didn’t expect I’d get to hear any of it, so it was a pleasant surprise. If they hadn’t been up against SpirtWorld, I definitely would’ve watched them.
Failure took Main Stage 1 at two fiddy. I’ve only listened to one Failure album, 1996’s Fantastic Planet, and it’s great, but for some reason, I never bothered to dig into the rest of their discography. Still, I like their sound, and I wanted to check em out since I had the chance. They sounded great, but I found it hard to focus on them in those particular surroundings, especially in my newfound post-SpritWorld existence. Following SpiritWorld would’ve been a Herculean task for any band I can currently think of. The result is that I was kinda zoned out for almost the entirety of Failure’s set, and I remember basically nothing of it. I imagine seeing them in a dark space would be a mystifying experience.
See? Mystifying.
I was interested in checking out Devildriver on the Decibel Stage, but the crowd was starting to pick up in the bottleneck zone, and I didn’t wanna stray too far from the Main Stage area, so we went back over to VIP to hang with Mitch and Amanda and watch a bit of Black Veil Brides on Main Stage 2. I’m a little embarrassed about how much I enjoyed their set. It was very “Hot Topic Metal”, but it was better than a lot of other stuff I experienced over the weekend.
I spent the last half of their set standing in the midst of General Admission, Main Stage 1 looking for my pals Stevo and Carmel, who were in for the day, and were gonna watch my #1 Must-See Band of the Festival Acid Bath with me. I found them as BVB was ending, and we moved up closer to the stage in preparation. Long-time reader (sic) may recall that I previously stated in this blog that if Acid Bath were added to the Louder Than Life lineup, I would shit everyone’s pants. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it is my duty to inform you that I did not shit anyone’s pants, not even my own.1 I did sweat the hell out of my sleeveless shirt, though.
Acid Bath was every bit as amazing as I hoped they’d be, and the setlist, while short, was stacked with a lot of my favorites. I love the extra-heavy Acid Bath songs with the extra-harsh vocals as much as the next guy, but I’m a biiiiiiig fan of Dax Riggs’ singing voice, so it was extra cool to experience “Graveflower”, “Bleed Me an Ocean”, and “Venus Blue” live. “Paegan Love Song” and “Tranquilized” and “Dr. Seuss is Dead” and “Dead Girl” were pretty amazing too, even if I would’ve rather heard the original version of that last one.2
I owe everyone in this video a pants-shitting.
When “Dr. Seuss is Dead” ended, Stevo said “jeez, go dry your shirt off, will ya?”, and he was right to call me out – I was a regular ol Sweaty Betty. We parted ways for the time being, and I reconvened with Sheila, Mitch, and Amanda while Motionless in White played on Main Stage 2, and I don’t remember anything about them. I had some interest in seeing Kittie over on the Reverb Stage, but I wasn’t interested enough to actually make that trip again yet, plus I wanted to be near the main stages for Stone Temple Pilots at 5:50.
I sadly never got to see STP with Scott Weiland (RIP), but I did get to hear them with then-new singer Jeff Gutt at LTL 2019. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Gutt pulled off Weiland’s vocals, and I was stoked to have a chance to give the band my full attention while they played. They ripped through a nine-song set of classic bangers from the first three albums. Personal highlights were “Big Empty”, “Plush”, “Interstate Love Song”, and “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart”, but the whole set was pretty flawless.
Promises of what I seemed to be, only watched the time go by.
I was also interested in seeing Machine Head at 6:55 on the Decibel Stage, but it was hot and I’m old, plus dinnertime snacks went out in the Top Shelf tent at 6:00, and I was in need of nourishment, post-haste. I Prevail on Main Stage 2 was the soundtrack, and I don’t recall anything specific about them, so I figure they must not’ve sucked.
A Perfect Circle was on Main Stage 1 at 7:35, and under most circumstances, I would’ve hung around for that, but on this day, Cypress Hill was playing on the Reverb Stage at 7:40, and that definitely took precedence. Even having never seen APC live before, I can safely say I made the right decision. Cypress Hill played for one hour with a full band, and it was amazing.
Get my four-footer, and bring it on…
Sheila and I met up with Stevo and Carmel at Caduceus Wine Garden and caught up a bit while Trivium played on the Decibel Stage. I only know a couple of Trivium songs, but they sounded really good, and I suspect I would’ve enjoyed them if I’d paid them more attention. After Trivium, we parted ways with our friends while Bad Omens played on Main Stage 2. They wanted to find a suitable spot in GA for Day Three headliner Deftones, and we wanted to sit in some conditioned air, so we headed back to Top Shelf.
Not pictured: forty pounds of sweat.
This was my second time seeing Deftones, and they sounded much better this time, plus I’ve become more familiar with their discography, so I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the first time, even though I enjoyed the hell outta them that time, too. As during the Slayer set from two nights before, I made a Show Friend while watching from the Elevated Viewing Area. We sang along together and banged our heads mightily. Sheila had to bail about halfway through, but I managed to stick it out until nearly the end, making my way toward the shuttle as the penultimate song of the night, “Engine No. 9” started. I woulda liked to’ve heard closer “7 Words”, as that was the first Deftones song I ever heard, but as I’ve mentioned before, it was a hot day, and I’m an old man, and I had still more rockin to do on Day Four, which will be covered here soon.
Thanks for reading. It’d be cool if you shared it with your friends and loved ones who appreciate aggressive music and fart jokes.
My guts were a bit rumbly by the time I got back to the hotel, but that was because of the delicious sesame cauliflower that was out for both lunchtime and dinnertime snacks in the Top Shelf tent, and how I couldn’t stop eating it. I actually dreamed about eating it that night, but no pants-shittery occurred that day from me. ↩︎
I fully understand why they don’t bust out a seven-minute acoustic song in the middle of their set, but it really is the superior version. ↩︎
This is part two of a multi-part series in which I discuss the sights, sounds, and smells I experienced while attending the 2025 edition of Louder Than Life (“America’s Loudest Rock & Metal Festival”) in beautiful Louisville, Kentucky. For part one, click here. If you’re interested in other nonsense I’ve written about past Louder Than Lifeseses, click here.
As mentioned previously, Day Two was the least interesting day for me, and it was the same for Sheila. I wanted to see XCOMM, but their set started at 11:45, and there was a zero percent chance in hell that I was gonna be able to get there that early after the workout that was Day One. This band has been around for a little over two years, and I dunno how old these dudes are, but they are obviously young, and they kick a ton of ass. Just now, when I tried to find their ages, I learned that Scott Ian’s son Revel is the drummer, and now you know that, too.
No way I woulda been able to resist gettin the fuck down down to this.
I had some interest in seeing Nonpoint on Main Stage 1. I don’t actually remember Nonpoint from back in the day, but when Sheila and I did our pre-festival homework, I enjoyed them enough that I figured I’d probably also enjoy it live if I happened to be close enough to experience it. My main interest in their set was that my buddy Mitch really wanted to see them, and one of the things I enjoy most about live music is seeing other people losing themselves in the experience, especially people I know and care about. Anyway, we didn’t get there early enough for their 12:45 start time, but Mitch assured me they sounded great.
I bet this sounded tight as hell live.
Sheila and I had a bit of interest in watching Gloryhammer on the Reverb Stage, just for the silliness of it, but as I mentioned above, Day One was so fucking exhausting. The blazing sun and 90° F temperatures didn’t help, but the worst part easily is the sprawling nature of the new location. We had to really ease into Day Two. It was gonna be another hot one out there, and general Admission and Single-Day VIP passes had sold out several days before the fest began, largely due to Sleep Token‘s spot as headliner. No disrespect intended to official headliner Avenged Sevenfold (or my homeboy Dustin), but in terms of drawing a crowd, Sleep Token was definitely the headliner that day.1
Everything about this band is goofy as shit, and I don’t really fuck with power metal that much, but I defy you to listen to this song one time and try to forget that chorus.
We were both very interested in seeing Walls of Jericho on the Loudmouth Stage, but due to our slowness, and the increased traffic on the ride in, we only got to catch their last two songs. They were great, and I’d love to see them again, but, like, for real next time. We popped into Top Shelf afterward for some snacks and drinks, then fought our way through the crowd over to VIP, where we hung out in the shade with Mitch and Amanda and watched Static X. I don’t think I ever listened to Static X on purpose before this year’s lineup was announced. While doin our pre-fest homework, I learned that I knew their song “Push It”, and I figured I could do worse than hearing that live, if I happened to be in the vicinity. Their stage show was hella fun, and they sounded good, and they played “Push It”, and they played another song I kinda knew, so I was happy enough.
More fun than a basket full of puppies. I’m just kidding. Nothing could be more fun than that.
We went back to Top Shelf after Static X and stayed there for the next few hours. One of the two reasons I even bothered to leave the hotel that day was Insane Clown Posse, and they were playing Main Stage 1 at 4:10 PM. My homeboy Jim was pretty into them for a few years in our late teens, but that was when I was getting super into hardcore, post-hardcore, and emo, and I never really gave them a fair shake. I knew a few songs prior to the lineup release (all thanks to Jim), and I’ve always been fascinated by their weird lore, and by the Juggalo community, but most of my juggaknowledge was gleaned from the commercials for the Gathering of the Juggalos, the “Straight Up Juggahos” episode of Workaholics, and of course the Saturday Night Liveparody of their song “Miracles”.
So silly. I always forget “fuckin magnets, how do they work?!” is not from the parody version.
Anyway, ICP’s set was fuckin lit, as the kids may or may not say.2 It was forty minutes of non-stop mayhem, silliness, and Faygo Breaks.
I could never be all up in that Faygo splash zone, but I would not hesitate to see them live again.
I was interesting in checking out Suicide Silence on the Loudmouth Stage at 5:00 PM, and as it was the closest stage to the Top Shelf exit, it would’ve been doable, but unfortunately the Loudmouth Stage was also the closet stage to the shuttle entrance, and the foot traffic was only increasing, plus like I said already, it was hot and the place was too big and I’m old and I’m out of shape even though I walk like 8-10 miles a day at work and I eat lots of vegetables and whole grains and protein.3
I don’t really fuck with deathcore all that much, either, but it woulda been dope to hear this live.
Dayseeker played on Main Stage 2 next, and I found them fairly boring, but I did see a shirt that said something like “I cried at a Dayseeker show and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” on the back of it, and I thought that was pretty funny. Mudvayne came along next on Main Stage 1, and while I appreciate what they do, they are not for me. Some other time I’ll tell the story of when I happened to see Mudvayne live before they were known outside the general vicinity of Peoria, Illinois.
Mudvayne played from 5:50-6:35. Somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00, I walked to the top level of the elevated viewing area in Top Shelf to take some pictures. Here they are now.4
That’s Main Stage 1 on the left, and Main Stage 2 on the right. I’m pretty much as far back as I can be on the top floor of the Top Shelf Elevated Viewing Area.
The Elevated Viewing Area used to be much closer to Main Stage 2. The General Admission area in front of the main stages in the new location isn’t nearly as deep as the old spot, so they made it wider.5 One of many cons for the new location.
That structure on the left edge of the picture is the Brand-New-This-Year VIP Elevated Viewing Area (EVA). Now assholes have their choice of three levels in which they can camp out and prop their feet up on chairs all the live long day.6
The VIP section used to be closer to Main Stage 1, also. DWP got the gold mine, VIP and Top Shelf got the shaft.
Moving to the left. The exit from the VIP area is just to the left of the EVA.
In previous years, the entrance to the VIP area has been right next to the exit from the VIP area, but this year, because of the aforementioned lack of depth of the new location, the VIP entrance is way back behind the EVA, which, due to bottlenecking with the entrance/exit to Kentucky Kingdom, added at least 10 minutes to the walk from Top Shelf as compared to Day One
Portajohn corrals just like that one on the left are one of the reasons we originally sprang for VIP four years ago. The assholes in VIP who camp out and prop their feet up on chairs all the live long day are one of the reasons we’ve gone Top Shelf the last three years.
Note the yellow “circle” on the right side of the picture. I used technology to indicate where the Brand-New-This-Year General Admission Shaded Viewing Area (GASVA) begins, and also where the GA main stage area food vendors start. Both of those things will come into play shortly.
The Loudmouth Stage is on the other side of those trees.
Trees were definitely a pro of the new location, even if every bit of shade was taken up at all times by people looking at their phones. Still, they were nice to look at, and they helped us breathe.
That’s the Top Shelf entrance/exit in the lower right portion of this picture, and the entrance/exit to the shuttles is in the hypothetical space approximately one inch to the left of the tree on the left edge, scalarly speaking.
The people in the vicinity of the Loudmouth Stage (in the center of the above picture) are about to be watching/listening to Whitechapel, and after missing them at the last two LTL’s, I planned on being among those people. The plan was to head over that way and get some food before meeting Mitch and Amanda there.
This is inside the Top Shelf area, and behind those trees lies the Highland Festival Grounds, former home of Louder Than Life. The building on the left, just above the Angel’s Envy tent is the shuttle pick-up/drop-off site.
I took the above photo at 5:48 PM, and we left Top Shelf no later than 6:00, which is when Whitechapel was scheduled to start. It took us less than 5 minutes to walk to Top Shelf from the Loudmouth Stage after Walls of Jericho finished their set at 2:25, so we thought that’d be plenty of time to hear/see the bulk of Whitechapel’s set. The joke was on us; it took us almost 10 minutes to walk over there, only to find that there were absolutely no food vendors in that area. I texted Mitch that we were gonna find food, then we’d meet them there. Due primarily to the people sitting on/in every possible surface in that GASVA, the lines at the food vendors had to split into like four or five lines per vendor, regardless of how many lines any given vendor was set up to handle at one time.
We finally managed to get in near the end of one of the lines for what we hoped would be big honkin slices of pizza, and eventually we scored our dinner (three big honkin slices of cheese pizza), then we proceeded to fight our way back through the vicinity of the GASVA, and longer story short, by the time we got back to the Loudmouth Stage, Whitechapel was finished, and now I’ve missed them three years in a row.
I was unhappy about that, but at least the pizza was good (and a relatively good value, as far as festival food goes), and anyway the next band on the Loudmouth Stage was the other (and primary) reason I bothered to leave the hotel that afternoon: straight outta Bridgeport (CT), metallic hardcore heroes Hatebreed.
The first time I heard Hatebreed was also the first time I visited the late, lamented Black Flag Music and Skate in Bedford, Indiana. The store owner/future homie Pat played their debut album, Satisfaction is the Death of Desire (1997) for me after finding out I was into Sick of it All, Suicidal Tendencies, and Pantera, and I purchased it immediately. I listened to it all the time for the next couple-few years, then I started smokin dope and got super into the Beatles for a while, and I never got around to listening to much after that first album. I liked everything I heard from them, I just didn’t think about listening to them so much anymore.
I was supposed to see them live in 2001, but it didn’t happen. I’ll tell that story another time, but as for this story, at 7:20 PM on Friday, September 19, my wildest seeing-Hatebreed-live-related dreams finally came true.
This is not my footage, but I can see Mitch and Amanda in it, and I was very close to them, so it’s a kinda somewhat faintly accurate representation of what I experienced.
Every band on Earth is lucky that they didn’t have to follow Hatebreed on that stage. For forty minutes, Hatebreed was the only thing that was real, and somewhere in time, twenty-one year-old Joel was smiling, and wondering why. He might’ve even started stomp-moshing all by himself like Scott Ian, which he always preferred to actual mosh pits.7
It’s surprisingly hard to find a gif of Scott Ian stomping around the stage while he plays guitar. I found two videos on YouTube that highlight it, but both were recorded from the front row (two different shows), and both were hard to watch, but for different reasons. If I’d somehow managed to watch the first one while listening to the second one, I think my brain would’ve caved in.
Forty-eight year-old Joel was also smiling, and he definitely knew why, but he was stomp moshing more like Messiah Marcolin, because it’s a little easier on the joints.
I am bewitched.
Forty minutes until Sleep Token took to Main Stage 2, and people were still steadily coming in from the main gates. None of us cared enough about Sleep Token to deal with all that bullmess, so the four of us took that opportunity to call it a night. I would’ve liked to have stayed for Avenged Sevenfold, if only to show Dustin that I don’t hate them, but based on what I’ve heard and read about the People Who Were There for Sleep Token, my night would’ve only gotten worse before A7X started playing, and besides, I had to save my strength for Deftones’ headlining set on Day Three, which was scheduled to end at 11:30 PM, aka two hours past my Bedtime.
Day Three also featured both Sheila’s #1 Must-See Band of the Festival and my #1 Must-See Band of the Festival, plus a bunch of other cool shit happened, and also a bunch more walking. I’ll be writing about all that and more soon. Like, soon soon. I’m holding myself to it.
As always, thanks for reading. Subscribe for updates, if you wanna. If you have any cool friends, maybe you could tell them about Clockwise Circle Pit. Later skaters. 🤘
Hello! And welcome to the first installment of my long, rambly thing about the spectacle that was Louder Than Life 2025 (“America’s Loudest Rock & Metal Festival”). If you’re a glutton for punishment, or perhaps you’re on doctor-ordered bed rest and need something to pass the time, you can find all the stuff I’ve written about previous years here. As I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, this year’s festival was moved to the parking lot adjacent to the Highland Festival Grounds, making the layout completely different than the past five installments, all of which were already varying degrees of different than each other, layout wise. I personally found very few pros with regards to the new location, but I’ll get to all of that later.
The new layout was much bigger and more spread out, and included access to Kentucky Kingdom and an “expanded VIP section”, plus the merch tent was no longer a tent, but was instead inside the air-condtioned Kentucky Exposition Center. All those things sound great for crowd control, don’t they? The problem is, you gotta factor in all the people that will be filling up that expanded space, and the people are one of the main things that can really make or break one’s enjoyment of a large event.
I was jazzed to see Italian death metal freaks Fulci open up the main stages, and we planned things carefully so we could get there in time to see their entire set. I went much easier on the open bar at the Day Zero welcome party this year, on account of our traditional Day One breakfast date at Wild Eggs on Floyd Street was set for 8:30 AM on Thursday, which would give us plenty of time to catch our shuttle and get inside the gates before Fulci’s scheduled 11:45 start time.
Here’s me posing with my doppelgänger at the welcome party.
Speaking of our shuttle: that system was very different this year as well. In past years, Pegasus Transportation has provided the service, with pick-up spots downtown at both the Galt House (the hotel where we stay1) and the Marriott, and with drop-off approximately 100 yards from the entry gates. This year, every ticket/hotel package included a shuttle exclusive to that hotel, which seemed like an even sweeter deal (though Pegasus Transportation was never mentioned by name). Then on August 26, we learned that the shuttle system had been changed, and pretty drastically. Danny Wimmer Presents (the company who puts on the fest) took over the shuttle service, and there was now one downtown pick-up/drop-off spot, located at the Convention Center. While it was annoying that we were gonna have to walk extra before and after getting inside the gates and walking all day, that part wasn’t so bad, as we were only 3 blocks from the Convention Center.
Here’s where it got less good: our driver got us to Gate 1, only to be yelled at by a woman working there, who informed him that shuttles were no longer permitted to enter Gate 1, and instead had to go to Gate 6. Our driver told her he wasn’t from around there, and didn’t know where that was, and she told him to “put it in [his] GPS”. Very helpful. He then spotted another shuttle ahead of us that had turned right, away from the festival gates, and began to follow. Time was no longer on our side. At 11:45, he finally found the drop-off spot, and we began the 1/4 mile walk to the gates behind a whole lot of people with absolutely no sense of urgency.2 Less than 60 seconds later, we hear Fulci frontman Fiore bellow “WE’REFULCIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!” and all hell broke loose from that stage, and I was so sad and angry that I wasn’t there watching it.
We got inside pretty quickly and easily, and I hauled ass to Main Stage 2 to catch the rest of their set, and it was fucking awesome. Scenes from legendary Italian director Lucio Fulci’s films played behind the band, and the blood and terror on the screen added a ridiculously fun element to the set. At one point, this bizarre sound started coming from the stage, and kept looking back and forth between the two guitarists to try and figure out which one of them was making that unholy, inhuman noise, but they both seemed to be playing fairly standard riffs. I soon realized that the sound was coming from Fiore’s mouth. It was so intense and amazing, and I no longer cared about the shuttle nonsense, because I remembered that I had a full day of kick-ass metal and hardcore ahead of me.
That lunatic vocalization I was talkin about happens around the 1:30 mark. This is not my footage. In fact, none of it will be my footage, unless otherwise noted.
After Fulci, I met up with Sheila in the Top Shelf area to cool off and get some snacks and drinks before we made our way to the VIP area to meet up with our friends Mitch and Amanda, who also attended with us in 2022. We started the journey as Fear Factory took to Main Stage 2. I wore out a cassette of their 1995 album Demanufacture when I was in my early college years (aka the beginning of my Wilderness Years), and they’re touring on the 30th anniversary of that album, so I was pretty pumped to hear some of those songs live. I would’ve much rather heard them with original vocalist Burton C. Bell on the mic, but c’est la vie. Milo Silvestro did a great job, and “Demanufacture”, “Zero Signal”, “Replica”, and “H-K (Hunter-Killer)” all transported me straight back to 1995-96, and I screamed along with “I’VE GOT! NO MORE! GODDAMN! REGRETS! I’VE GOT! NO MORE! GODDAMN! RESPECT!” just like I did in my car, and it was glorious and extremely cathartic.
Desensitized by the values of life, maligned and despaired by government lies.
They finished out their set with two songs from Demanufacture‘s follow-up, Obsolete (1998), and one song from 2001’s Digimortal, and then Richmond, Virginia thrash masters Municipal Waste kicked off an energetic, whirlwind 12-song set spanning a large chunk of their discography. At one point, frontman Tony Foresta demanded non-stop crowd surfing, saying “Pearl Jam made it famous, we made it cooler!” They kicked a ton of ass, and I’m glad I finally got to see them. Personal highlights for me were “You’re Cut Off”, “The Thrashin’ of the Christ”, and “The Art of Partying”.
I couldn’t find any decent sounding footage of any of my personal highlights, so here’s a video instead.
The Black Dahlia Murder brought some Michigan death metal to Main Stage 2 next, and I wanted to stay for the entire thing, but unfortunately, Big Ass Truck‘s set at the Big (Ass) Bourbon Bar started 25 minutes after TBDM’s set, and the BBB stood on the far end of the grounds from where we came in. By the time we arrived, the tent was so full that we could barely even see the band. We listened/kinda watched for a couple of songs, then I made my way over to the “second stage” area, with grindcore institution Full of Hell already in progress on the Decibel Stage. They were incredibly loud and chaotic, and I loved every second of it, even if I did watch on the big screen to the side of the Reverb Stage.
This is obviously not from LTL, but I couldn’t find any clips from their performance, and this is an excellent representation of what they brought to LTL, albeit in blazing sunlight and stifling heat.
The reason I watched on the big screen to a side of the Reverb Stage is because I wanted to secure a spot on the rail for Santa Cruz, California hardcore/crossover heroes Drain, because I wanted to receive as much of their energy as possible before hustling back to Main Stage 2 for as much of Exodus‘s 35-minute set as I could possibly see. Vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro came out jumping, yelling, and smiling, and didn’t stop moving for the entirety of the 10-15 minutes I was in the vicinity of the Reverb Stage, and I’m sure he didn’t stop after I left, either. He was crowd surfing before the first verse of opening song “Feel the Pressure” even started, and he spent the rest of the song on the ground, letting various members of the crowd sing most of it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more energetic frontman. I really look forward to catching a full set from these dudes, hopefully sooner than later.
I was way over in front of the screen on the right side of the stage for 12-ish minutes of hardcore magic.
I hated to leave, but I really wanted to see Exodus, and I figured I’ll have more chances to see Drain than I will Exodus, just from an “age of the members” standpoint, so I walked as fast as possible through a whole gaggle of clueless dipshits with no sense of urgency, and arrived at the back of the crowd about two minutes into the epic “Deathamphetamine”, off their monstrous 2005 album Shovel Headed Kill Machine. I’m stoked I got to hear that song live, but the length of it meant they played fewer songs, which resulted in a 7-song set, which was a bit of a bummer. Another bummer is that the sound didn’t seem quite right for what they do. I don’t really know how to explain it any better, but they didn’t sound as good as they should have, and it was clear that it wasn’t the band’s fault. The crowd was enthusiastic, though, and the pit was appropriately violent and fun. I’m glad Rob Dukes is back on the mic, and barring the miraculous resurrection of original frontman Paul Baloff (RIP to the OG poseur killer), I hope they keep him around until the end.
Everybody’s doin the Toxic Waltz, good friendly violent fun in store for all.
The gigantic new layout meant that I missed all of Sanguisugabogg‘s set on the Decibel Stage, because there was simply no way to see any real amount of it without missing Exodus’s set and more than half of Cavalera (aka Cavalera Conspiracy), featuring brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, formerly of Sepultura. They’re on tour performing Sepultura’s 1993 album, Chaos A.D. in its entirety. The album was part of the soundtrack to the second half of my high school years, and there was no way I was gonna miss it. They unfortunately weren’t able to play the whole album, as their set time wasn’t long enough, but they played most of it. They kicked off with album opener “Refuse/Resist”, which is more of a soundtrack to our times than I ever thought possible, then tore through six more songs from the album before shifting gears slightly to play “Symptom of the Universe”, which Sepultura recorded for the 1994 album Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath (another album that soundtracked my mid-90’s life). They closed with all-time party-starter “Territory”, and sixteen year-old Joel heard it and felt it and moshed to it and sang along with it, and he saw that it was good.
Let there be riffs.
At this point I really needed to rest, but nuts to that, because the mighty Cannibal Corpse was up next over on Main Stage 2. Luckily, the Top Shelf section is closer to MS2, so I was able to pop inside the tent while they played set opener “Blood Blind” (from their most recent album, 2023’s Chaos Horrific) to get some quick conditioned air, a bite to eat, and lots more free water, so as to avoid dying of exhaustion.3 Every second of their 40-minute set right up through “Hammer Smashed Face” was flawless, and I was happy as a pig in shit to be in attendance for it.
Men of violence doomed in death, their reward for a life of sin.
Sludge/groove metal supergroup Down followed back over on Main Stage 1, and I was pumped to see them for the first time. Their debut album NOLA came out in 1995, and like Fear Factory’s Demanufacture, it kept me sane during my early college years. I have a variety of thoughts about Phil Anselmo as a person, but the fact is, the man is partially responsible for some of the most formative music of my youth.4 And it doesn’t hurt a single bit that the band is rounded out by Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity) and Kirk Windstein (Crowbar) on guitar, the incomparable Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod) on drums, and Pat Bruders (Goatwhore) on bass. Absolute titans, every one of them.
I’m staring right back at myself, and through its frozen image, I’m laughing right back at my hell.
Marilyn Manson was next on Main Stage 2, and I’d planned on being anywhere but within earshot of him, but it was so hot outside, and the fact that it was still Day One and I was already fucking exhausted, plus the fact that dinner is served at 6:00 in the Top Shelf tent means that I sat in the tent and ate and drank and somehow managed to shut the noise out. In fact, I didn’t notice anything about the band until they started their cover of “Sweet Dreams”, and then I was like “oh yeah, I forgot they covered this. I still hate it”, and went right back to ignoring it. Long story short, Marilyn Manson is a garbage human being who makes mediocre music, and he should not be celebrated.5
Anyway, Lamb of God was next back on Main Stage 1. I was really looking forward to their set, as I wasn’t able to properly appreciate their set when they played back in 2022, on account of my dad dying the day before, and the fact that I had to drive back home twice in two days. It was worth the wait. They were fucking incredible from start to finish. Randy Blythe is a phenomenal frontman, and the entire band is just elite.6 They also performed the second Black Sabbath/Ozzy Osbourne cover of the weekend, “Children of the Grave”, and it was badass.
“A lot of people would be a lot happier if they went to concerts where flames shot out of the stage every now and then.” – Sheila
Up next was Rob Zombie, performing White Zombie’s 1995 album Astro-Creep 2000. If you’re keeping score, that’s the third of three thirty year-old albums being celebrated on the Day One. As if spending 12 hours in the late summer heat and humidity of the Ohio River Valley wasn’t already making me feel old enough. I enjoy White Zombie just fine, but I never really gave much a shit about Rob Zombie’s solo stuff. Sheila, however, is a White Zombie superfan, and is into quite a bit of Rob Zombie’s solo stuff, so this was her #1 Must-See Set of Day One. It was a lot of fun, and I had a great time singing and shouting along to all the songs from Astro-Creep 2000, followed by “Living Dead Girl” (from Zombie’s first solo album Hellbilly Deluxe), followed by White Zombie’s “Thunderkiss ’65”, followed by “Dragula”, also from Hellbilly Deluxe. A good time was had by all, except for those who do not enjoy fun.
I was unable to find any footage from that night that didn’t have the sound blown all to hell, so here’s a video instead.
The headliner for Day One was none other than (Fuckin) Slayer, whose appearance last year was cancelled due to one of those famous northern Kentucky hurricanes. They kicked off with “South of Heaven”, which was really just a fucking perfect way to start a show, and they never let off the throttle, hitting every studio album except for 1996’s hardcore punk cover album Undisputed Attitude and 1998’s Diabolus in Musica. They also played “Chemical Warfare”, which was just tremendous for me. We watched their set from the elevated viewing area in Top Shelf, as they were playing on Main Stage 1, and we didn’t wanna have to walk anymore than necessary for the rest of the day. I’m too old for actual mosh pits, and as I’ve mentioned, we still had three days to go, but you better believe I banged my head and screamed myself hoarse for the entirety of the set, and there was this one dude up in the elevated viewing area who was losing his goddamn mind. Several times he moshed his way over to me so we could sing along together, and during “War Ensemble” he jumped up from the level below me and threw his arm around my shoulder just in time for us to shout “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!” together, and it was awesome. On the off chance that dude is reading this, just know that you were a hoot, and experiencing Slayer with you was a real treat.
“A lot of people would be a lot happier if they went to concerts where flames shot out of the stage every now and then.” – Sheila
Speaking of flames shooting out of the stage: biiiig shout-out to Gary Holt. That motherfucker played a 35-minute set with Exodus in the blazing sun, then came back out with Slayer less than six hours later and played for another 90 minutes, surrounded by fire and explosions, and he’s 61 years old.
After Slayer’s set, we filed out of the gates along with everybody else, only to find a sign guiding us inside a building to catch the shuttle back downtown. As we arrived inside the building, we were met by row upon row of security gates and caution tape, filled with a sweaty river of exhausted Slayer fans. The line never stopped moving, but about halfway through it, Sheila had to pee, and the only way to remedy that (other than inside her pants) was to duck under some caution tape and hustle across the building to a restroom. Just one of many less-than-ideal parts of the New and Improved Louder Than Life. I’ll still get to all the pros and cons, but I’ve already gone on for too long, so that’ll have to come later (maybe in a separate post).
Thanks for reading. Be sure to subscribe for updates so you don’t miss my Day Two write-up, which will hopefully be ready for your perusal within a few days.
Highly recommended if you’re in Louisville, Kentucky. ↩︎
People with no sense of urgency came into play a lot on this journey, as they also do in my day-to-day life. See also, “World’s on Heroin” by ALL. ↩︎
The water is not actually free in Top Shelf, but rather is pre-paid, which sure beats paying who knows how much per bottle, or walking 10 minutes to find a refill station. ↩︎
I’ll admit I don’t know Phil Anselmo as a person, but I do have eyes, ears, and the internet. ↩︎
See also R&B singer/abusive-piece-of-shit Chris Brown. ↩︎
The chronically online might refer to them as “S-tier”, but I wouldn’t. ↩︎
I’ve been dealing with some work-related nonsense for the past few weeks, and some allergy-related nonsense for the past few days, and as such I haven’t really been in the headspace to write anything worth sharing with anyone, but I have to pop in quickly to mention that Louder Than motherfucking Life is LESS THAN ONE MOTHERFUCKING WEEK AMOTHERFUCKINGWAY. To say I’m excited would be like saying that Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes make a kinda cute couple, or like saying that a few parts of Blazing Saddles are sorta funny. To paraphrase my cousin Jeff, if I was any more excited, there’d be two of me. I’m already sad about going back to work after it’s over.
This world’s fucking so fucked up.
I’m lookin at seven-and-a-half glorious days off work, four-and-a-half of them spent with good friends, kick-ass music, delicious food and drinks, and some of the best people-watching this side of an Insane Clown Posse show. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Day One is unbelievably stacked from start to finish, and I’m gonna have to make several difficult decisions, beginning at the beginning: are we really gonna make it through that gate in time for me to see Fulci’s entire set without having to run in public? We haven’t been able to get inside the gates before the first band of the day started playing yet, though we came close with Soul Glo last year. I really wanna see Fulci, though, so I’m gonna try my goddamndest. I pretty much wanna stay camped out at the main stage(s) all day, aside from Marilyn Manson’s set (*insert barfing emoji*), but there’s also a ton of stuff I wanna see on the second stage(s)(Decibel/Reverb), which are way back on the other end of the newly enlarged festival grounds. Not to mention the stuff I wanna see inside the Big Bourbon Bar and inside Kentucky Kingdom. Luckily there’s nothing on the third stage (Loudmouth) that floats my boat at all on Day One. My brain would probably shut down if I had to factor that in as well.
What kind of sociopath decides that Exodus should overlap with both Drain and Sanguisugabogg?
Day Two is the weakest overall as far as I’m concerned, and I’m glad I’ll have a day of relative rest right after a day of full steam ahead. Looking forward to finally seeing Hatebreed (I’ll tell the story of the time I almost got to see them sometime soon/soon-ish) and Whitechapel (they overlapped with Jesus Piece two years ago, and they were part of Hurricane Day last year), plus Insane Clown Posse is playing that day (at 4:20 PM, natch), and I’m real pumped about seeing juggalos doin their juggalo thing. It’s gonna be off the hook.1
I’m unironically looking forward to Insane Clown Posse, even though I only know like three of their songs. Their entire mythos fascinates me.
Day Three promises to be an excellent day for several reasons, most notably that I finally get to see Acid Bath. I’ve been purposely avoiding live footage lately so I can go in fresher, but when I was still watching new live footage, the band was only getting better. Gotta remember to pack a clean pair of underwear for everyone in attendance that day. SpiritWorld, Deftones, Cypress Hill, Stone Temple Pilots, Failure, and hopefully Disembodied Tyrant will also be seen and heard and celebrated by me.
This is the first time I’ve seen any band scheduled at the same time as the main headliner. I daresay DWP rounded up too many bands this year.
Day Four – lotsa cool stuff, more tough decisions. Chained Saint plays at 11:40 AM. Deftones don’t finish until 11:25 PM on Day Three, so odds are I won’t be seeing Chained Saint (or Gates to Hell immediately following). Hopefully we can make it in time to see Accept. Sebastian Bach and Tech N9ne overlap way too much for my comfort, and Bruce Dickinson and The Dillinger Escape Plan overlap completely, and on opposite ends of the festival grounds.
Rrreeeaaalll pumped about Testament.
As of right now, I plan on leaving during $uicideboy$’s set to try and beat traffic. I enjoy what I’ve heard from them more than I ever thought possible (based solely on their appearance), but I figure I’ll be too tired to care about seeing their whole set. It’s like they say, never judge a book by its cover, even if the book has a really dumb looking cover.
Here’s the song the title of this post came from. It’s my favorite Acid Bath song, and I’m so unbelievably stoked about hearing it live. If it doesn’t happen before, the shitting of the pants will definitely commence when they start playin this one.
You’re screaming because there’s nothing left for you to say.
As usual, I’ll be writing something about the experience at some point after it’s over, so be sure to check in for that, if you’re interested. As always, thanks for reading.
I’m sorry I said “natch”, and I’m sorry I said it again just now. I’m not sorry I said “off the hook” though. ↩︎
In the interest of posting somewhat regularly, I’m gonna share a thing here that was previously published on my old blog, Stay Heavy. I think it’s pretty funny, and maybe you will too. I did some light editing before I mashed that “Publish” button, on account of I’m a better writer now than I was eight years ago. I also added some YouTube clips and a few footnotes.
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The second time I met Henry Rollins was embarrassing for me, but only in retrospect. I somehow experienced very little embarrassment while it was happening, and frankly, the fact that I wasn’t too embarrassed from the first meeting to even try to talk to him a second time is very out of character, but depression can lead to poor decision making. I was definitely nervous, but I was also uncharacteristically confident in the moment, and that confidence is responsible for the better part of my retrospective embarrassment.
I went with my buddy Owen to see Rollins Band in Cincinnati in the summer of 1999, and afterward, we hung around the bus because I wanted to give Mr. Rollins a copy of this self-printed collection of poems and journal entries I’d put together. I wish that last part wasn’t true.
My writing back then was heavily influenced by Rollinses writing, especially his earlier writings, and I put the book together during a real big sad time in my life.1 As if all the words inside the book weren’t embarrassing enough, I also included a hand-written note inside, encouraging him to contact me with any thoughts or feedback he might have. I wish that wasn’t true.
For E—– You are the devil You are evil In its purest form You crushed my pitiful heart You left it bleeding and Bruised and Destroyed and I hope You have a Merry Christmas
That’s actually one of the few that I don’t hate, although I think it’d be funnier if the last line was “Happy birthday” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Dig how I capitalized “You” in the penultimate line. Only a true Poet could come up with something so profound.
The only part of the entire experience that does not currently embarrass me is the fact that he liked the title (All Aboard the Joel Train), which, as it happens, is the only part of the entire book (aside from the poem above) that does not currently embarrass me. Putting the book together helped me work through some shit, but I definitely wish I hadn’t given out so many copies so freely.
Watching this live on TV was a transformative experience. Immediately after the song ended, I went into my bedroom and called a girl up and asked her to prom and I didn’t even throw up once.
But we were talking about the first time I met Henry Rollins. That was embarrassing then and now, but it’s also pretty hilarious, and hilarity is why we’re here today.
A whole mess of us (Travis, Darin, Casey, and Casey’s cousin Stacey3) drove up to Indianapolis to see Rollins Band on their tour for 1997’s supremely underrated Come in and Burn. Skunk Anansie opened, and none of us knew what to make of them, although I never forgot their song “Yes It’s Fucking Political”. I’ve listened to them since, and they’re great. I’d definitely like to see them live again, with my more sophisticated middle-aged musical palette.
Still relevant.
Rollins Band was amazing. The crowd was great. Melvin Gibbses bass is still causing my insides to jiggle thirty years on. When the show ended, everyone (Travis and myself excluded) wanted to hang around the bus to try and meet the band, and especially Rollins.
Touch your fear, don’t be afraid.
I should point out that it’s not like Travis and I didn’t wanna meet Henry Rollins. Shit, we wanted to be his best friends. But as voracious readers of his writing and listeners to his music and spoken word performances, we knew that he wasn’t into the whole shaking hands/small talk thing (which I totally get – small talk is the fucking worst), and he wanted people to be happy with the band pouring their hearts and souls and guts out all over the stage (which I also totally get), and we didn’t wanna look foolish in front of Henry.
In short, we thought we were pretty fucking cool.
Anyway, we’re all hangin around the bus, along with some other like-minded fans, and the entire band comes out (sans Rollins), and they’re extremely friendly and more than happy to chat with us for a bit. I told Melvin he was a “bass god”, which embarrassed him, but I stand by that assertion. They all signed stuff for us, and it was cool, and then Rollins came out and began to make the rounds.
Casey showed him his driver’s license, which indicated that they have the same birthday (2.13), and Rollins said “cool, are you a genius too?” and we all laughed, and then everybody else talked to him, one after the other, and I made Travis let me go last to give me as much time as possible to think of something cool and memorable to say to the man who was, at the time, one of my idols, and frankly is one of the reasons I’m still here today.4
It finally comes down to me.
Go time.
My Brain: Don’t be nervous. You’re cool. Say something cool.
My Voice: That was a really great show.
Rollins: Thanks very much, I appreciate that.
My Brain:You’re doin great. Just keep it cool.
My Voice: I really loved your part in The Chase. It’s like, the greatest movie of all time.
A lonesome train horn sounds in the distance. Otherwise, silence.
Rollins: Whoa.
My Brain:Jesus fuckin CHRIST.
My Voice: Um.
Rollins: Thank you, but you really should see more movies. Maybe check out A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s a lot better than The Chase.
My Brain:Jesusfuckinchrist.
My Voice: Um.
And, scene!
I swear upon all that is sacred and holy in the multiverse, I DID NOT EVER think The Chase was the greatest movie of all time, or even “like” the greatest movie of all time. Why did I tell Henry Rollins I thought that? Why did those words come out of my mouth?!
WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME?!?!
In case you are unfamiliar with the “greatest movie of all time”, here’s the synopsis from Wikipedia: “The Chase is a 1994 American action film directed by Adam Rifkin and starring Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson, depicting a wrongfully-convicted man who kidnaps a wealthy heiress and leads police on a lengthy car chase in an attempt to escape prison. It features Henry Rollins, Josh Mostel, and Ray Wise in supporting roles, with cameo appearances by pornographic film actor Ron Jeremy and Anthony Kiedis and Flea of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
Why yes, they do have sex while speeding down the freeway during the chase. That’s not even the dumbest part of the movie.
Rollins and Mostel play the cops who are in primary pursuit throughout the titular chase, and they have a Cops-style camera crew in the car with them. Rollins enthusiastically plays the role of Over-the-Top Asshole Tough Guy Cop, and is easily the most consistently entertaining part of the entire movie, which I have to say again, I have never once almost though it to be the greatest movie of all time, even though I told Henry Rollins I thought that.
If The Chase sounds like it could be a pretty fun and/or really dumb movie, that’s because it is in fact both,5 but I have to make sure I’m being crystal clear about this: as much I used to enjoy watching TheChase, and as much as I thoroughly enjoyed Henry Rollins’ performance as an over-the-top asshole cop, I have never once even considered considering The Chase to be anywhere near even the bottom of any list of “Greatest Movies of All Time”, past or present, but for some reason, I told Henry Rollins I thought that.
I’m sure Travis talked to him about John Coltrane or something cool like that, but Henry Rollins definitely left that encounter thinking I was an idiot, and I can’t say that he was wrong to think that.
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This concludes the previously published content of today’s post. Thanks for reading. Why not tell a friend? I’ll leave you with a live performance of my favorite song from Come in and Burn. Put on some headphones and let that rumbling groove help you get your shit correct.
You’ll always say you hate me, but you’ll watch me anyway. It’s a pain you can’t resist.
I’ve already kinda started, but I’m almost ready to really dig into my wilderness years. I can’t promise it’ll be exciting, but I assure you it will be awkward. ↩︎
This poem was previously published in a poetry anthology called In-between Days, which is also a story for another time. ↩︎
Darin, Casey, and Stacey were in a pretty badass band called Circle of Illusions, and Travis and I were their unofficial sometimes roadies and Number One Fans. I have something brewing in my brain about Circle of Illusions, too. When it rains it pours, eh? ↩︎
At this point in my life, I was less than one year away from my discovery of The Bouncing Souls, which I wrote about previously. ↩︎
I’m finally here to write more about Clutch. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll go on about a few things only marginally related to Clutch, as well, but I don’t know where this is goin yet.
I’m gonna start on April 14, 1998. That was the day one of my most favorite bands in the world (Clutch)1 released their third full length album (and first since I’d started listening to them), The Elephant Riders. It’s still my favorite Clutch album most days. My homeboy Travis bought two copies and gave one to me, because it was also two days before my birthday (the big two one), and he was (and is) an awesome dude. That birthday week is definitely one of my Top Five Best Weeks Ever, and riding around in Travis’s big ol red F-150 while we blasted The Elephant Riders is one of the standout snapshots.
Here’s the copy Travis bought for me. Well, it’s a picture of the copy, anyway.
Here’s the backside/track list.
Here’s the opening track/title track.
Don’t be eatin all the hard tack, between we two there’s half a small sack. Still, we got miles to go.
It was released on Columbia Records, and the dinguses who made the decisions at Columbia had no idea what to do with a band like Clutch (which is to say, Clutch). They refused to release the first version of the album, instead forcing the band to record in both in a studio and with a producer of the label’s choosing. Anecdotally, those knuckleheads definitely didn’t market the final, released version worth a shit, but it’s been my experience that the people who get paid to make the decisions are usually the ones with the dumbest ideas,2 so it’s not really all that surprising that Decision Makers at one of the biggest record labels in the world (at the time) would fumble the ninth-inning slam dunk that is The Elephant Riders. I tried to work in a hockey reference there as well, but I couldn’t make it happen. I’m very torn up about it.
I would like to love you, I sure would treat you right. We could take the trash out every Thursday night.
This album continues the evolution of Clutch from the lean, mean, pissed off hardcore punk-adjacent heavy rock ‘n’ roll riff machine that tore its way out of Germantown, Maryland in 1991 to the weird and indefinable metal-adjacent jamming heavy rock ‘n’ roll riff machine they’ve become. I first saw them live on the tour for this album, at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis, and, it was a stone groove, man. Every direction you looked, there were riffs. Front man Neil Fallon was already perfecting his fire-and-brimstone stage persona, and I almost fell down a few times dancing, on account of the floor of the Emerson Theater was sloped, on account of the Emerson Theater used to be an actual fancy theater instead of a shitty all ages music venue where the urinals were lined with stickers inside and out, and an almost certainly carcinogenic snow fell gently from the ceiling tiles when the bass drum hit loud enough.
The only specific thing I can remember about the performance is that they opened with album closer “The Dragonfly”, and it was sublime. A partial set list exists online, and while I can’t vouch for its accuracy or its completion, it looks like it was a great set3.
Big if true.
I saw some great bands/shows at the Emerson Theater (and missed a few, too), and I’ll prolly write about a lot of that at some point, but who knows whether you’ll get to see it. The internet just told me that the Emerson Theater still exists, and my eyesight and reading comprehension told me it has a terrible website, and the website told me that Municipal Waste is playing a headlining show there in May. I have to assume the venue has been spruced up since I was there last.
Pity the mate of Queen Mantis, so content but so headless, Katy did nothing but shiver and cry, as did the dragonfly
By the way, I acknowledge that it says “I WASN’T THERE” in that screenshot of the set list, but that’s not true. The screen read “I WAS THERE” before I logged in. The logic makes sense, but from a purely aesthetic point-of-view, as far as screen shots go, I don’t like it.
Excuse me, Mr. Horse. What are your feelings about that fall?
Anyway, a live Clutch show is one of the best things you could ever experience, and their fan base is one of the most devoted I’ve ever seen, comparable to The Mountain Goats and the long strange trip of the Grateful Dead (including all the Dead-adjacent and affiliate bands).45 People who’ve seen them 30, 75, 120 times or more. I’ve seen them 13 times now, and only one of the shows was disappointing to me in any way, but that was entirely my fault, and it happened fifteen years later, so I won’t get into it now.
I’m gonna share three more songs from The Elephant Riders and then we’ll move ahead. This three-song run makes up the middle of the album in a way, and in my studied opinion, it’s the best three-song run the band has done to date. I encourage you to check them out, but you really should just listen to the whole album. Especially if you like a groove and a swing with your fatass riffs, and can at least tolerate some gruff hollerin.
“The Soapmakers” was the only single released from the album, and it ranks number 21 on Clutch’s most-played songs live, according to available data collected and aggregated by setlist.fm, and I gotta tell you, it really is somethin special. Like nearly every song from the band, this one kinda sounds like it’s being sung (sang?) by a sentient beard, and it’s a bit weird to see Neil all babyfaced and beardless in this video, especially considering he would go on to cultivate such a mighty beard.
As they stirred heaven and earth they combined to one, and everything was everyone and each one was all.
Aside from the memorable refrain, “The Yeti” didn’t really grab me until I was livin in Austin, which is when I started to write more, and on a more regular basis. One night I was in the office while my ex was at work, and I got righteously zooted and played The Elephant Riders through headphones while I wrote on the computer. “The Soapmakers” faded out with those weird, spooky sound effects, “The Yeti” rolled into my eardrums just like it had hundreds of times before, and suddenly the song came alive in my mind. I watched the story happen in real time, across the vast expanse of a seemingly endless snowscape, and the song worked some kind of magic on my brain, and now there’s an 89% chance that at any given moment, lyrics from “The Yeti” are in my head.
Sky is filled with starry scenes of heroes in their greatest deeds.
The last song of the three is also one of my favorite songs of all time. They’ve only played it live 18 times, according to available data collected and aggregated by setlist.fm, and do you wanna guess how many of those times I was in attendance for?
I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “hero”.
I even caught em on an anniversary tour of The Elephant Riders, and the only songs from the album they didn’t play are “Muchas Veces” and “Crackerjack”, but “Crackerjack” is an instrumental with a long trombone solo, so I wasn’t expecting that one anyway.
This seems like as good a time as any to mention that “Muchas Veces” also contains a trombone solo, and it’s fucking perfect. Both solos are played the hell out of by renowned tromboner6 Delfeayo Marsalis (of the renowned Marsalis Family). As I say, I wasn’t expecting to hear “Crackerjack”, but I thought surely they’d play “Muchas Veces” with some other type of solo(s) or extended jam in place of the trombone solo, because they do sometimes jam on songs live, but alas, they did not, and that’s almost certainly the best chance I’ll ever have of hearing it live.
Muchas veces I don’t know if I’m coming or I’m going, muchas veces I’m at a loss as what to do.
Okay, I’ve spent way too much time talking about the one album, so I’m gonna stop for now and pick things up in a post-The Elephant Riders world. Thanks for reading. Check back eventually for the next installment. Or, pop your digital digits into that box below so you can be among the first to know. And tell your friends, yeah?
Clockwise Circle Pit 