Featured Live Show: The Chariot / Horse the Band / Arsonists Get All the Girls

Tonight, there shall be distortion... And it was good.

The night in question was last night at Gramercy Theater (Blender Theater, if ya nasty)... Beards aplenty filed into the Manhattan club to boogie down with chaos engineers The Chariot, along with Arsonists Get All the Girls, Horse the Band... (and *sigh* Norma Jean)... After waiting in line outside the venue in the fucking freezing cold, stupidly wearing just fingerless gloves as my only winter accessory, I took a seat in the Old Man Section in the back of the club to rest my frail, aging bones and to get a bird's eye view of the audience in attendance. One thing I instantly noticed was the noticeably noticeable harsh divide of the crowd: either late-twenties-ish bearded and flannel-clad gentlemen or 14 year old scenester co-eds in neon-splashed graphic tees, graphic hoodies, and skinny jeans, with noses buried in their cellphones, no doubt twattering nonstop about how the show is going to be the most epically massive "evar"... I wept silently within... but not in a goth way... in a man way.

Anywho, it didn't take long into the show to see who these children were here for... judging by their attention to the Arsonists set that opened the night, they were definitely Horse/Norma fans. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to shat on the headliner of the night or their direct support (I just honestly think someone shoulda stuck with their original vicious blueprint while someone else needs to start expanding on their schtick... respectively). In other words, these two will not be discussed here. Only the two I traversed midtown to go see...


(Arsonists)

As mentioned before, AGATG kicked off the night... and they did so with fuckin fire. This is only the second opportunity I have been able to catch these cats, and it has been a long time coming. The first time being at the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival two or three years ago when they were only a mere "I've heard a few decent things bout these guys, maybe I'll give them a passing listen for a song or two" blip on my radar. And ever since have grown into an act that always seems to find its way into my listening rotation, thoroughly pummeling my ear canal in some of the most wonderful ways possible... See the track "Shat Shart Tart" if you need an example... Anywho, their set paraphrased: ridiculously awesomely abrasive. My only slightly negative comment would be that they seemed cramped as hell up there with six members and what looked to be all the bands' gear for the rest of the night. But regardless, they still delivered the wallop, though I noticed they seem to be drifting in a more accessibly brutal direction, I hope which continues to be a positive thing rather than detracting.


(The Chariot)

And then it was time for the main event... Well, the main event in my personal opinion... And boy howdy, did they ever fucking bring the ruckus. Fucking A right, The Chariot NEVER cease to amaze me live. It just seriously never gets old. They fucking wail, and they're a cavalcade of cacophony, hellbent on obliterating every notion of a nice, calm rock show... Instruments thrown, abrasive lighting, alienating feedback, dizzying ragdoll antics by the members, and general disregard for any kind of structure or even fuckin safety, are all par for the course with the ones they call the Chariot... If you can't tell, I'm kind of a fanboy for these guys. They're like my little underdogs. Momma's special little guys... It was somewhere between the jarring mash of feedback and samples and the whipping around of a workshop hook lamp that I realized I wasn't going to do this set or any set of theirs any justice through verbally trying to describe it. You just have to do yourself a favor, tuck in your balls, and go see these delightfully damaging little scamps when they blow through your town... And do like I did, make sure you venture out of the Old Man Seats for these guys, cuz it's just a tiny bit better when a guitar neck narrowly misses clipping your ear. It always is.

And to send you packing with a smile, a splendidly beautiful representation of why The Chariot is one of the most INFUCKINCREDIBLE live bands ever... Go see for your damn self, ass:

The Chariot - Unofficial video for "Teach" (sick live montage):

Featured Live Show: Between the Buried and Me, HORSE the band on Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite fake holidays: It's an excuse to eat shitloads of tooth-rotting sweets and dress up as bloodthirsty serial killers, zombies and assassinated presidents. But last week, I forwent my annual costumed partying and gluttonous candy-eating by attending a concert at the Blender Theatre at Gramercy. And with good reason: Between the Buried and Me were playing a headlining show with support from Horse the band, Animosity and Giant.















First up were Giant. The Raleigh, North Carolina quartet recently replaced The End after their guitarist abruptly quit the band. But Giant's squalls of melody, bass grooves, atmospheric guitars and occasional throaty shouts didn't go over well with the Blender crowd -- people began spewing the typically unimaginative insults ("You suuuuuuuuuuuuck!") during most of the quieter instrumental parts. (Clearly no one else was a fan of Isis, Pelican or Cult of Luna.)






















Next were Animosity. I had first heard of them a few weeks ago when I received their new album Animal, which was produced by Converge's Kurt Ballou (the disc caught my attention among my pile of CDs because it had a neon album cover that featured a vomiting bear), and I was really psyched to see them live. When they came onstage, each member wore a mask of a giant photo of their own heads. "We're Animosity, Bobblehead Edition 2008," said singer Leo Miller, whose "bobblehead" bore green sunglasses and an open mouth. They immediately launched into "Toothgrinder" from the new album; they also played "Bomb Over Rome," "A Passionate Journey" and "Plunder Incorporated" from Animal as well as older tunes. Animosity's fast metal guitars, pummeling blastbeats and strangled screams induced non-stop mosh pits and left the crowd wanting more -- when their set ended, the "one more song" chant turned into "one more set."















To prepare for HORSE the band's performance, roadies began putting out fake trees, a giant inflatable turkey and a funeral horse and carriage on the stage. Then the drummer flitted into the spotlight in a short dress and fairy wings; the guitarist came on in a belly-baring genie outfit, the bassist was dressed as a witch and the keyboardist wore a yellow evening gown. When the singer walked out in a mermaid outfit (complete with a red-haired wig and seashells covering his hairy man boobs), it became apparent that Htb were dressed as female Disney characters (that's Tinkerbell, Jasmine, Maleficent, Belle and Ariel for the Disney deprived).






















"We're HORSE the band from another land," said frontman (er, frontwoman) Nathan Winneke in a high-pitched voice, setting off the band's raucous set of frantic tunes laced with lung-burning howls, breakneck guitar runs and manic 8-bit video game-inspired synthesizers worthy of the greatest NES games. Htb played both new and old tracks (from R. Borlax to The Mechanical Hand to their latest, A Natural Death) including crowd-pleaser "New York City" (natch). The little mermaid was wigless and topless ("Let's see that at Disney on Ice, you motherfuckers!") by the time they got to their closing song "Cutsman," which had the audience going apeshit over the "Nintendocore" classic. Even if Htb isn't your cup of tea, you can't say that they don't put on an entertaining show.






















Finally, the headliner: Between the Buried and Me. The last time I saw BTBAM in NYC was October 31, 2004 at the Knitting Factory, when they were touring in support of Alaska and opening for Converge. This time around, the five-piece came onstage dressed in matching overalls and straw hats with no shoes ("I think it was a bad idea to play barefoot," frontman Tommy Rogers later said). From there, they played their new album Colors in its entirety. From the opening piano ballad of "Foam Born (a) The Backtrack" to the 14-minute opus "White Walls," it was immersive, beautiful, heavy, melodic, progressive. When the set ended they left the stage for a mere two minutes only to returns and play "Selkies: The Endless Obsession," everyone's favorite jazzy, synthesizer-laden track from Alaska. Costumes aside, this was one of the best all-around shows I'd been to in a long time, and you should kick yourself for missing it.

[All photos by Jesse Angelo.]