Concert Announcements - October 11, 2013

The What’s Up Lounge in continues to bring brutal death metal to Mankato – on Saturday, November 9 they’ve organized what is being billed as Human Feast Fest. Suffer The Wrath from Springfield, Illinois, Tyranny Enthroned from St. Louis, Minneapolis’ We Are Legion, Mankato’s Compulsive Mutilation, Aborning from Georgia, and Human Bashing from Mankato are all on the bill for this night of insanity.

As announced here acouple days ago, Kill Devil Hill makes their first area appearance at the Skyway Theater Studio B in Minneapolis on Tuesday, November 19 with Eyes Set To Kill, Girl On Fire, and Pandemic. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketfly.

Rockers The Last Vegas will appear at G.B. Leighton’s Pickle Park in Fridley on Friday, November 22 with Dory Drive and Smiling Politely. Advance tickets are only $8 through Vitalculture.

Tesla returns to Myth in St. Paul for a concert on Friday, January 24. Support acts have yet to be announced, and tickets go on sale tomorrow, Saturday, October 12 at 10:00 am.

CHURCH OF MISERY North American Tour Now Rescheduled

Following the news that Japanese doom band Church Of Misery had to cancel their upcoming North American tour due to delays in obtaining work visas caused by the U.S. government partial shutdown, Metal Blade Records posted the rescheduled dates on their Facebook page yesterday. Great news - except the new dates don't include a rescheduled stop at the Turf Club in St. Paul. Support will still come from Bloody Hammers (November 1–23), Against The Grain (November 1-23), Wizard Rifle (November 24-December 6), and Saviours (November 27-December 6). The new tour itinerary is listed below.

November 1 - Chicago, IL, Ultra Lounge
November 2 - Rock Island, IL, Rock Island Brewing Co.
November 3 - Grand Rapids, MI, Pyramid Scheme
November 4 - Indianapolis, IN, Beale Street Live
November 6 - Pittsburgh, PA, 31st St. Pub
November 7 - Syracuse, NY, Lost Horizon
November 8 - Toronto, ON, Hard Luck
November 9 - Ottawa, QC, Mavericks
November 10 - Montreal, QC, Il Motore
November 11 - Providence, RI, AS220
November 12 - New York, NY, Saint Vitus
November 13 - Richmond, VA, Kingdom
November 14 - Baltimore, MD, Otto Bar
November 16 - Atlanta, GA, Earl
November 17 - New Orleans, LA, One-Eyed Jacks
November 18 - Austin, TX, Mohawk
November 19 - Dallas, TX, Club Dada
November 22 - Tempe, AZ, Yucca Tap Room
November 23 - Los Angeles, CA, The Satellite
November 24 - San Diego, CA, Soda Bar
November 25 - Fresno, CA, Audie's Olympic
November 26 - Santa Cruz, CA, The Catalyst
November 27 - Oakland, CA, The Opera House
November 29 - San Jose, CA, The Blank Club
November 30 - San Francisco, CA, Thee Parkside
December 1 - Sacramento, CA, Harlow's
December 3 - Seattle, WA, The Crocodile
December 4 - Portland, OR, Rotture
December 5 - Bellingham, WA, The Shakedown
December 6 - Vancouver, BC, The Rickshaw Theater

KILL DEVIL HILL Adds Minneapolis to U.S. Tour

As promised, Kill Devil Hill has announced additional dates to their upcoming U.S. tour, including a show in Minneapolis at the Skyway Theater Studio B on Tuesday, November 19. Support on the tour will come from Eyes Set To Kill and Girl On Fire; local support at the Minneapolis show will be Pandemic. Kill Devil Hill features bassist Rex Brown of Pantera and Down fame and legendary drummer Vinny Appice (ex-Black Sabbath, Dio, WWIII, and others). The tour coincides with the release of Kill Devil Hill’s second album, Revolution Rise, set for release on October 29 through Century Media. You can listen to “Crown Of Thorns” from the upcoming album in the YouTube video below. The current list of Kill Devil Hill tour dates follows. Tickets for the Minneapolis show are on sale now through Ticketfly.

October 26 – Ramona, CA, Ramona Mainstage

October 27 – Fullerton, CA, The Slidebar

October 28 – Chico, CA, Lost on Main

October 29 – West Hollywood, CA, The Roxy Theatre

October 31 – Tucson, AZ, The Rock

November 1 – Tempe, AZ, Club Red

November 2 – Las Vegas, NV, LVCS

November 5 – Seattle, WA, El Corazon

November 6 – Portland, OR, Hawthorne Theater

November 7 – Walnut Creek, CA, Red House Live

November 13 – Austin, TX, Dirty Dog

November 14 – Houston, TX, Scout Bar

November 17 – Oklahoma City, OK, Chameleon Club

November 19 – Minneapolis, MN, Skyway Theater Studio B, w/Pandemic

CHURCH OF MISERY's North American Tour Canceled

The recently announced North American tour by Japan's doom lords Church Of Misery has been canceled, a victim of the partial government shutdown here in the U.S. Church of Misery was due to play St. Paul at the Turf Club on Halloween, Thursday, October 31 with Wizard Rifle and Vulgaari. Nothing official has been released yet by the band to the best of my knowledge, but a post on Vulgaari's Facebook page reads:

"Due to our government being a bunch of whiney children who can't get along and would rather just take their ball and go home... Our Halloween show with Church of Misery is not happening. Being from Japan, they're having work visa issues due to the government shutdown. Huge bummer. This will hopefully be rescheduled. We'll keep you posted."

A post by the Turf Club on the event's Facebook page confirms this: "This show is going to be rescheduled. COM had visa issues due to the government shutdown."

The tour was slated to start October 18 in Oakland, and wrap up in Los Angeles on November 23. Shouldn't processing and approving work visas for metal bands be an essential government function??

From The Vault - TWO HIT CREEPER

Long Beach's Sunflower Dead played last night with Ill Nino, and two members of the band formerly had their own two-man band Two Hit Creeper that played extensively around Southern California in the early 2000s. A two-man band is unusual enough, but how about one solely consisting of guitar and accordion?! These guys pulled it off in convincing fashion (with the help of a drum machine), and they were super nice guys to boot. It was hard to not go to a metal show on L.A's Sunset Strip around 2000 and not see James and Michael handing out flyers to promote the band. James (now Jaboo) and Michael are now the guitarist and singer, respectively for Sunflower Dead.

These pictures are from a show they did on May 16, 2000 at Brick By Brick in San Diego while they were still a two-piece unit (they later expanded to a four-person band). Michael and James always seemed to be the type that makes their own success, so it's not surprising to see them breaking out with Sunflower Dead.

I've also included scans from their self-released six-song demo EP from 2000, The Stepchildren's Twisted Circus Music. If you can get your hands on this, it's easy to hear the demented, original spin James and Michael now bring to their new band.

Concert Announcements - October 8, 2013

There wasn't much to report in the way of new concerts last week, but a few things of note have since been announced, so here's a short post with all of the latest.

First, the Halestorm concert at Myth in St. Paul on Friday, December 13 and Eric Burdon & The Animals at the Medina Entertainment Center in Medina on Friday, February 28 that I reported on two weeks ago (here and here) are now both confirmed. Tickets for Halestorm with Pop Evil and Redlight King go on sale this Friday, October 11, but you can get radio presale tickets right now through etix (93X is sponsoring the show). Eric Burdon tickets go on sale this Saturday, October 12 at 10 am through the Medina Entertainment Center - Eric's show earlier this year was nearly sold out, so get your tickets early.

Industrial rock band Filter returns to the area for a show at Pov's 65 in Spring Lake Park on Saturday, November 2 with support from Fight Or Flight (featuring Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan and drummer Mike Wengren), We As Human, and Wayward Boyz Klub. Advance tickets are on sale now through Vitalculture.

Rock band Wicked Wisdom plays Pov's 65 in Spring Lake Park on Tuesday, November 12 with Better Left Unsaid and B! Get advance tickets through Vitalculture.

Embarking on their first North American tour in their history dating back to the mid-70s, Italian progressive rock band Goblin hits the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis on Saturday, November 30. Opening the show is the mysterious, ambient Relapse recording artist Zombi. Tickets are on sale now through Ticketfly.

Lastly, locals Cold Colours have lined up another show in Minneapolis at Club Underground on Friday, January 31.

Concert Review - BLUE ÖYSTER CULT

Blue Öyster Cult

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Minnesota State Fair Bandshell Tonight!, St. Paul, MN

Here's the first of a batch of overdue concert reviews...

This was the second of two nights for the legendary BOC at the Minnesota State Fair, and it was primarily an older crowd that turned out on this hot summer night. The band immediately dug back into their early black-and-white era (the first three albums, for those uninitiated in BOC lore) with a fired-up, fast version of boogie rocker “The Red And The Black” from 1973’s Tyranny And Mutation. A slightly different set from the previous night was promised as “Golden Age Of Leather” was introduced before launching into the 1981 mega-hit “Burnin’ For You”. The catalog was mined further with “O.D.’d On Life Itself” and “Harvest Moon” (from the more recent Heaven Forbid album). Further surprises were revealed when Eric Bloom took over for an extended version of “Black Blade”, and the band stretched the set even more with 12-minute versions of “Then Came The Last Days Of May” and heavy classic “Godzilla”. Bassist Kasim Sultan had his extensive non-BOC work noted during “Godzilla” when the band delved into snippets of “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” “Bang The Drum All Day” and “Paradise By The Dashboard Lights” before letting Jules Radino launch into his drum solo. By this time the crowd had been worked into a frenzy, so when the guitar strains of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” started the audience left the benches and rushed toward the stage, overwhelming the security that had been keeping everyone at bay all night. This brought huge smiles on the faces of everyone in the band, and it made for a grand closing to the set. An encore was expected at this point, and BOC were in no rush to leave, so a long version of “Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll” put an exclamation point on to what seemed a relatively short (85 minute), but powerful show.

Despite brief filtrations with mainstream success, BOC built their fortunes on the strength of their live shows back over 40 years ago. That fan loyalty remains to this day, and the full turnout at the State Fair was a testament to the band’s working class ethics. Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma still remain as the core of Blue Öyster Cult, and the entire band was a natural fit for the group. I got the feeling that the band was limited to 90 minutes for their show and that they would have played longer if they could have, but it’s hard to complain when the show was free with the fair admission. The only downer of the night was having to listen to the strains of Sheryl Crow coming from the Grandstand on the way out. I also need to give thanks for the kind people in the front row who graciously offered to make room on their bench to make room for me so that I could take pictures - I'm grateful for this type of kindness!

Tonight - ST. VITUS and PALLBEARER in Minneapolis

If you missed them last year at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis (like I did), you can redeem yourself by catching cult doom legends St. Vitus at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis with support from fellow doomsters Pallbearer and Louisville punk band Hookers. This is an 18+ show that starts at 8:00, and tickets are available at the door for $25.

St. Vitus's Wino performing acoustically with Conny Ochs on August 16, 2012 at the Turf Club in St. Paul.

For fun, here's an old St. Vitus flyer from their infamous 1987 tour with the Mentors that friend picked up for me that I've previously posted.

EP Review - IRON REAGAN

Iron Reagan – Worse Than Dead

A389, 2013

8/10

If you long for the glory days of crossover, when the fusing of metal and hardcore gave us bands like Excel, Wehrmacht, Gang Green, you might as well go purchase this debut EP from Iron Reagan right now. Fast thrash riffs combine with breakneck-speed drumming and shouted vocals to deliver non-nonsense songs that get right to the point. There’s no screwing around – nothing is over 2 minutes long, and a whopping 19 songs clocks in at just 25 minutes. Crossover was pretty well beat to death in the 80s so don’t except a brilliant new take on the style; enjoy Iron Reagan for what it is – fun, short blasts of thrash that delivers a punch to the gut. Iron Reagan is also notable for featuring members of Municipal Waste, Darkest Hour, and Cannabis Corpse. If you missed out on the original crossover craze, Worse Than Dead is also a great starting point for discovery.

Iron Reagan performs tonight, Saturday, October 5 at First Avenue in Minneapolis as support to Gwar with Whitechapel and A Band Of Orcs.

Tonight - LORD DYING in Minneapolis

I have no idea how this show escaped my notice until now, but the concert calendar has been updated with tonight's show by Lord Dying at The Nether Bar in Minneapolis. These guys are a cool sludge/doom band from Portland, and their debut album Summon The Faithless recently came out on Relapse. This is one of a handful of headlining shows for Lord Dying on their way home after wrapping up a September tour supporting Valient Thorr and Ramming Speed. Also on the bill tonight are Vulgaari and House Of Atreus. This is an 18+ show and is only $10 at the door, and it gets underway at 8:30.

Check out the official Lord Dying video for "Dreams Of Mercy".