|
Yakuza Concert Review
This past November I covered the Enslaved tour when it came through Chicago with The Faceless and Arsis in support. In my comments, aside from being largely positive, I noted that the date of the show coincided with the first snowfall of the season, and how apropos that was for a Norwegian metal group. I could hardly have imagined that, two months later, a record release show with just a handful of local acts could have me wishing it were as warm as that November day.
When I arrived at the Beat Kitchen on Belmont Ave. at 7:30, it was a whole 1 degree Fahrenheit. I thought myself crazy to take a jaunt downtown on such a night, but the line of fans waiting outside the doors of the venue (some of whom had been there for quite a while) made me seem tame. The wind chill was thankfully mild, but even so, it was a night cold enough “to freeze your boogers”, as one fan put it. The local music scene in Chicago is nothing if not dedicated, however, and The Beat Kitchen’s narrow back room was filling up well by the beginning of the show.
This was no less than I had expected, considering the show we were getting, and for all of $8, besides. This evening marked the sophomore record release of Chicago’s death-grind duo Plague Bringer, entitled ‘Life Songs in a Land of Death’, with the added bonus of Yakuza and label-mates Holy Roman Empire and Hewhocorrupts opening the evening.
Although I’ve lived in Chicago for a decade now and have heard numerous stories about Hewhocorrupts on stage, this show marked my first experience with them (and all the other bands as well). The tales of their exploits were usually half-reverent, half-bewildered, and quite nebulous, making them hard to understand. All I gleaned was that Hewhocorrupts were not to be trifled with and that, allegedly, they liked to disrobe on stage. Now that I’ve seen them, I begin to understand the legend, as well as some of the discomfort that comes from talking about them.
To the casual observer, Hewhocorrupts at first look like an American version of Akercocke: suits, ties, slacks, dress shoes, neatly kept hair. In the close confines of the club, with amplifiers and mike stands covering most of the stage, it was easy to miss that one of their guitarists started the set in a ‘Hit Me, Baby…’-era Britney Spears school-girl outfit, thong and all. He was a bald and hairy man, with a particularly dense black patch on the small of his back, but seemed to be perfectly comfortable in the costume—almost oblivious to it, in fact.
While he may have started the set as the most undressed, he certainly did not end it that way. The other guitarist and the drummer stayed fully clothed, but Tommy Camaro was stripping garments nearly as soon as the set began, and by its end was clothed only in grey briefs. Someone later hypothesized that the all-ages nature of the show prevented him from going the full monty, but I attributed it to their spot as an opener. Whatever the case, the show we got was a conservative one, and I feel lucky for that.
Despite the shock tactics Hewhocorrupts employed, the audience seemed entirely comfortable with the shtick and were more than friendly with the group. During songs, some fans would hop up on stage and carouse about before leaping back into the throng, or crack jokes with the band members. In one brief respite, Tommy previewed the bands to come with a smarmy grin and poked fun at himself as an opening group, despite being the owner of Hewhocorrupts Inc., to which three of the four bands are signed. Whenever Tommy went into the pit, his on-stage assistant would follow in his wake, patting him down with towels or standing him upright again as necessary. From what I could tell, this assistant served no legitimate purpose other than to further the band’s biting parody of the corporate world. The only break from character, minute though it was, came when the band took a breather halfway through their set and Tommy regaled us with a foul story of baby-sitting Josh (Plague Bringer’s vocalist) when he was younger. It is Tommy’s theory that an episode of constipation from that era was the origin of Josh’s formidable metal grunt.
None of this, however, is relevant to the music of their set, but the music of their set, was irrelevant to the show, so it hardly mattered. While they did technically play well, from what I gleaned, and with tremendous enthusiasm, Hewhocorrupts’s live shows are more for the spectacle than the music itself. Their shows are an orgy of latent hedonism, hostility, and homoeroticism, and few could ever do it better. My hat is off to them—for now, my pants stay on.
Following them in one of the most jarring band-to-band shifts I have ever witnessed was Holy Roman Empire. Despite their heavy distortion, this group has no metal to speak of at its core, and their place on Hewhocorrupts Inc. is a mystery to me. The straight 8th note verses, 4-5-1 progressions, the catchy power chord-driven choruses, and reverb-drenched tremolo leads are all clear and unabashed descendants of the alternative, indie pop, and post-rock movements of the past few years. Flyleaf meets a less methadone-addled Interpol, to put it roughly. Still, they can certainly write some solidly entertaining songs, and everyone in the audience was polite at the very least, while more of us were nodding along unconsciously with the beat.
Upon reflection, though, this could have been because there was little else we could pick out. All of their songs gave vocalist Emily Schambra plenty of attention and time to sing, but her voice was so buried in the mix that we could hardly distinguish what she was saying. Though she seemed to be on key for the most part, when I watched her closely I decided that her low place in the mix wasn’t all bad, as she often cut off higher or held notes abruptly with laughs away from the microphone.
As for the rest of the band, I got the odd feeling that they had some other musical interests that HRE wasn’t quite capitalizing upon. Between songs, one of their guitarists and the drummer would sporadically lay down some metal-style riffs and beats, respectively. As I would later discover, their skinsman is Tony Tintari, who’s past experience includes Rise Against and Shai Hulud.
A couple songs in, Emily took a moment to salute the other bands in the line-up and announce that the next song was about boys. In a bewildering non sequitur, she also stated something to the effect of ‘Tommy (Camaro) is my boyfriend, so, girls, fuck off.’ I don’t’ know whether her assertion is true, but it certainly answers some of the questions I had about the group.
They wrapped up after about thirty minutes, thanked the organizers, and yielded the stage once more to metal, albeit of a highly unusual sort. Chicago has long been renowned for its jazz and blues, with metal making its own niche in more recent years, so it was only a matter of time before someone decided to bring the two together. Although other groups in years past have fused jazz with metal, in this city the one name to know is Yakuza.
Considering that Hewhocorrupts were also on the bill, I hadn’t expected to see Yakuza in such a late slot, but they put on a highly deserving show that had the audience entranced. Bruce began the set even before his band-mates had finished setting up, with droning ululations that he looped and layered with different effects. Later, he also added some flourishes from the two saxophones he brought with him to the stage. The rest of the band soon joined in, steering the set away from Bruce’s improvisation, but the experimental theme is rich in Yakuza’s music to begin with, so the transition was a mild one.
Bruce, with tattoos to match his band's name, delivered his vocals like threats, barking and lunging at the audience. At one point he even leaned out and used the top of my head to balance himself. By virtue of their frontman and his instruments Yakuza’s other members are often overlooked, which is quite unfair, considering their talents. Each of them plays with as much intensity and passion as Bruce does, though perhaps not with quite his level of catharsis.
On the bass, John had a withdrawn look and was the most clean cut of all the band’s members, but his eyes lit up with a startling fervor at times, and he often bared his teeth at his bass as if the two were at war. The band's guitarist, Matt, showed highly diverse talents, ranging from spastic metal riffing to bluegrassy finger picking and slow atmospherics. Despite his somewhat rag-tag appearance, he played with a precise grace that sounded all the better coming from his custom Emperor amps.
Aside from Bruce's saxophone, Jim’s drumming brings the most jazzy feel to the band with his tight syncopation and quick hands. Although he had only one bass kick, everything on his kit was massive, from the oversized toms to the largest china cymbal I have ever seen.
After around 40 minutes, their set reached a cacophonous climax of double bass, frenetic improvisation from Bruce and Matt, and John sliding his bass across any hard surface in sight. Then it subsided again into the same muted drone that had opened the set, the band departed, and the audience was left to prepare for the night's headlining act, Plague Bringer.
Although I'd known that Plague Bringer have always used a drum machine, aside from being slightly skeptical I'd given little thought to how it would translate to the live setting. Once the wall of amplifiers was built, though, all skepticism was forgotten. Plague Bringer's set up was an uninterrupted row of woofers and stacks that all three band members (Josh, Greg, and a live second guitarist who contributed superbly) could stand in front of with room to spare. It had been set up rather close to the audience, as well, which, aside from being that much more imposing, forced the band members to all stand very close to the edge of the stage during the performance. While this affected both of the guitarists only marginally, Josh was frequently interacting with members of the audience. When a crowdsurfer landed on stage for the third time, Josh seized him by the shirt and pinned him down to deliver some lines straight to his face before shoving him violently back into the crowd.
Altogether, it was just as withering and brutal as I had hoped. I had thought that Hewhocorrupts’s outlandish efforts might upstage the other bands’ showmanship and in audience response, but on this night I was proved wrong. Greg’s guitars cutting through the cold clicks of the drum machine as he sways like some macabre scarecrow, with Josh shrieking on the floor with one sock on and one off is not an image easily forgotten.
This being a record release show, the band played the new LP, 'Life Songs in a Land of Death', in its entirety, with only limited interruption due to technical issues. During this time, a fan brought up two cups of Jager to Greg, and another shouted, "You guys are pretty good at metal!", which drew general laughter. Indeed, it was a very responsive crowd, even before considering the mania in the mosphit. Standing at the foot of the stage I escaped the worst of it, but was kicked and knocked about severely, and my camera was nearly broken more times than I'd like to remember. During the album's penultimate track, ‘Shadows of Black Habit’, the pit was at its most vicious; more than a few punches were thrown and quite a few skulls hit the floor. The final track, a long, relatively atmospheric piece, Greg dedicated Malachi Ritscher, a comrade of many in the Chicago music scene, who committed protest suicide in 2006. Thereafter, a final track was played, 'Impaled Faith', which had the audience as wild as any other time and calling for more once it was through.
Greg could only shake his head, though, while Josh stood with chest heaving and eyes almost glazed over from the catharsis. Both eventually came to the front of the stage to interact with fans, and Greg seemed genuinely interested in getting as much feedback on the new material as anyone was willing to give him. Both he and Josh were actually very pleasant individuals, despite the venom in their music. When I had been looking at merch earlier in the evening and checking a wish list a friend had made, Josh approached me and jovially asked whether I was comparing the show prices with those from online. I laughed and told him no. Our following conversation was very pleasant (albeit regrettably brief), and he confided to me the song they intended to play after the album ('Impaled Faith', of course), but asked me to keep it a secret with a grin.
And those hours later, watching him rest, soaked in sweat, next to Greg as he chatted eagerly with fans, I felt as content with the Chicago music scene as I've ever been. Living in the suburbs, where metalcore reigns eternal, it’s easy to give in to despair. This show, though, and the passion of the fans that attended, have helped remind me of all this city has to offer. The more I reflect on it, the more I’m getting down on myself for not seeing these bands play live in previous years. However, dismissing them is not a mistake I’ll make again, and I certainly intend to attend many of their shows in the future. This time, though I’ll leave the camera behind and let the moshpit swallow me whole.
|
|
|
