Links:
Haujobb

So the waiting was over, Daniel was finally coming to Seattle to DJ and premier new Haujobb material. Equipped with several vodka and cranberry cocktails, my friend, and fellow eP cohort, Jenn Johnson and I headed down to Mercury for what was sure to be an all-night event of untouchable proportions. I could barely contain myself and I couldn't wait.

I can wait.

I didn't miss the show. Daniel showed up, started on time and created a dance floor stir that would have made any DJ green with envy. I'm waiting because the music was not at all what I was expecting. And determined not to completely ruin my love for Daniel Myer (even though that last Cleaner album had me considering), I left after forty-five minutes of rubbish. I'm certain that what he played was not the new Haujobb material I was hoping for. It was straight forward house and techno.

Not known for synapse immobilizing repetition himself, Daniel must have been spinning his favorite dance records. And that is not what I went for.

-Jeff Ashley
[ top of page ]

Hell's Belles
@
The Fenix Underground
February 23, 2001
Seattle, WA

Links:
Hell's Belles

Several of the eP misfit squad have been trying to catch Hell's Belles for awhile now, but with little luck. Every show they play sells out and quick. So deciding that if we try to get to a show of theirs before 11pm, we'll have a bit of luck (smart thinking, eh?). And guess what? It paid off. Even though Pioneer Square's Fenix Underground is packed to the brim with the usual post-collegiate big forehead/little brain crowd, we squeeze our way inside. It's Mardi Gras weekend in Seattle, which means the dumb just got dumber as the alcohol starts pouring twice as fast. DJ Trent Von is spinning that four-on-the-floor house sound, and it all seems a little surreal that at any moment five women were going to take the stage and blow us all away by simply playing AC/DC covers.

With an introduction by the DJ that sounds like every tacky television intro you've ever heard, Hell's Belles takes the stage to a hurricane of howls and cuts loose with "Back in Black." And holy shit does it kick! To quote Earpollution's mad design genius Jeff: "They do AC/DC better than AC/DC do AC/DC!" Bingo!

The sound is massive. The crowd are pressed tight against the stage. Om Jahari shifts with deft ease between singing Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, while Angus (played by Amy Stolzenbach) is eating it all up. Head bobbing, tongue lagging, strutting fine in that Angus-Young-does-Chuck-Berry style, it should really not be surprising then that on the back of her Soldano amp the serial number simply reads: "Angus."

I'm transported back to the parking lot of high school, smoking pot and playing hackey sack with the metal heads who have the windows to their Camaros down and the doors open, AC/DC blasting away inside from cracked speakers. AC/DC should not be heard from a car stereo, should not be seen lost in the sea of a vast stadium crowd. They should be felt up close and personal, five feet from the speaker cabinet, your body pressed against a hundred others, feeling that stripped down metal and blues burn from the bottom of your feet to the top of your skull. Hell's Belles knows this feeling. Oh, they know it well.

After a set break that finds DJ Trent Von spinning more nausea, our heroines return to the stage, opening up this round with "Hell's Bells." I could have died right then and there and been blissfully transported to the afterlife on the wings of those wonderful sounds. See, awhile back a friend got me stuck with notion of wanting to have "Hell's Bells" played at my funeral (I promise you, this is one idiosyncrasy has nothing to do with Neil Diamond). I have to amend that plan because I've now decided that Hell's Belles must play "Hell's Bells" when I die.

The band continue to rip their way through twenty years of righteous rock. "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," "Whole Lotta Rosie," "The Jack," "Highway to Hell," "Let There Be Rock." It must feel incredibly empowering for them to take on such testosterone-laden numbers and subvert them with devilish chagrin. That point is driven home when, after a first encore of "For Those About to Rock We Salute You," they kick out "Big Balls" and, by simply playing it, completely turn the number inside-out and claim it as their own. These ladies are done with us, the crowd is spent, and an hour later I'm back home hanging Angus Young posters on my apartment wall. AC/DC never sounded so good.

-Craig Young
[ top of page ]

Juno/Waxwing/The Ruby Doe
@
Local 46
February 24, 2001
Seattle, WA

Links:
Juno
Waxwing
The Ruby Doe

This is the first time I've been to the venue and I have to kick myself in the ass for forgetting that Seattle has a curfew for all-ages shows, which means they start earlier, which means I need to get their earlier. The Ruby Doe open the night and once again I only get to catch the tail end their set. That's two for two, now--not a good record. The band overcome the cavernous sound of the hall as they effortlessly crank out tight, angular, hardcore sounds; much like if Helmet had steered away from their metal leanings and a little more towards the straight ahead heavy. Waxwing take the stage next. Their members, which includes Rocky and Cody Votolato on guitars, seem to be spread across a number of other local bands (Blood Brothers, Bugs in Amber) and their set is comprised of emo-inflected moods that shift from melancholy winter gray to post-breakup blood red. The lights on the stage floor cast large, threatening shadows of the brothers Votolato across the ceiling, and the images provide a perfect accompaniment for the music.

Up last are headliners Juno, who have been holed up in a studio recording the follow-up to 1999's brilliant This is the Way It Goes and Goes and Goes. Preparing to depart shortly for a five-week tour of Europe, their set consisted almost exclusively of songs off their new album, entitled A Future Lived in Past Tense. Having been lucky enough to have heard the new release it was a peculiar situation, in that I was probably the only person in the entire crowd who had heard the songs before tonight and was at all familiar with them. Funny enough, you couldn't tell that by gauging the way they reacted to the band. Juno's delivery was straight on, the new material coming out sounding like it was years polished. Touring bassist David Broecker (The Prom) fit in nicely between the epileptic sounds of Jason Guyer and Gabe Carter's guitars. In the backcourt Greg Ferguson's drumming kept the tide of guitars in check while frontside, with hands on hips and eyes closed in intense concentration, singer Arlie Carstens let loose with his lyrical manifesto. Carstens is an interesting person to watch perform. His lyrics are so intensely personal, yet at the same time ambiguous enough as to be universally poignant, that you can't help but wonder what he is reliving after he sings a verse in a song and then firmly clasps his hands over his mouth. It's as if he just sung something unspeakable that should never have been shared. It's in those tiny little vignettes Juno affords you a glimpse of its inner workings.

The band opened their set with the second song from their upcoming album "Covered With Hair"--which has one of the best lines I've heard: "Put on your punk belt and rock it for all the square cools"--and ended the night with a frenetic version of the ten-minute-plus "Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire." With the exception of "Rodeo Programmers," everything in-between was material off the new release, and every bit of it sounded amazing. Having heard the new album and now having been able to compare it live, I can write without hesitation that the band and their sound are evolving into some marvelous spaces and the new release is going make you cry with its beauty.

Juno play one more show on March 5th at the Crocodile Café with Girls Against Boys and Action Slacks before packing off to Europe (GVB headline--check Croc's website for band times). Anyone overseas who has a chance to see them should not pass up the opportunity. The band are simply amazing live and well worth checking out. As well, this is their first time abroad and they could use your support. For those of us Stateside, mark your calendars: May 7th is when A Future Lived in Past Tense comes out on Desoto Records.

Juno's set list:
"Covered with Hair"
"You are the Beautiful Conductor of This Orchestra"
"Killing It in a Quiet Way"
"When I Was in _____"
"A Thousand Motors Pressed Upon the Heart" (with vocals)
Help Is on the Way"
"Radio Programmers"
"The French Letter"
"Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire"

-Craig Young
[ top of page ]

Therapy?
@
Graceland
February 20, 2001
Seattle, WA

Links:
Therapy?

In town recording their next album with local legend Jack Endino, these four Irish punkers (and one of my all-time fave bands) were scheduled to play a one-off show before heading back home to Ireland. Last time they played here was May 8, 1996, at the Crocodile Café, wedged between headliners Girls Against Boys and another one of my all-time faves, French punk band Les Thugs. Les Thugs albums were long put out by Sub Pop here in the States. They stopped doing that two albums back after the sales for Nineteen Something were less than satisfactory. I write my friend at Sub Pop and ask if he knows anything about the cancelled Therapy? show: "Why did you drop Les Thugs? Why did you drop Les Thugs? Why did you drop Les Thugs? Why did you drop Les Thugs?" Huh, funny--seems that's the only thing my keyboard will let me type to him. Must be a stuck key.

Actually, May 8, 1996, wasn't the last time the mighty T? played Seattle. Their last show was sometime that following June, but I couldn't make it. I was busy escorting my mother to a Neil Diamond show. Yes, I forsook the awesome powers of Therapy? to take Neil Diamond's number one fan to see her number one man. Thank you, thankyouverymuch. I think I can blame Neil Diamond for that, right? And didn't I mention his creepiness in regards to a former girlfriend elsewhere inside this issue already? Funny things was, while my mom was lost in the holy rapture of Neil and his sequined shoulder pads (did you know his mojo is in his shoulder pads?), that very same former girlfriend was at Club Moe (RIP) getting' it on to Therapy?, the Heavyfuckingmetal Champeens of the World. But such is my life and such is my luck...or lack thereof.

I'm sitting out in my car at 9:15pm listening to local college station KCMU (support local music, dammit!). They're running off the local music calendar for the evening which, they announce, includes a gig by Therapy? at Graceland. So why then five minutes and one block later am I staring at a sign that I simply cannot make sense of? And why do I get the feeling that the moment I turn around the evil specter of Neil Diamond, shoulder pads and all, will be staring back at me?

Turns out that the bad luck isn't mine. Therapy?'s stickman Graham Hopkins fractured a bone in his left hand moving equipment several days before the show. The doc told him to stay away from the jungle gym for a few weeks, thus forcing the canceling of this show in Seattle and one the following night in Portland--shows the band were excitedly looking forward to playing. You might recall, as well, that when Therapy? were getting ready to record their last studio release, Suicide Pact - You First, Graham broke his arm. Drummers I tell ya.

But as much as I was bummed for having waited five years for a date that never happened, I know for a fact I was not as let down as the band members themselves were. Andy, Michael, Martin and Graham are four extraordinarily nice people and they have long worshipped Seattle and the music this city has foisted on the world. The thought of recording with Jack Endino and the chance to play a gig were undoubtedly too much. Fate had to break it one way or another. Sadly, it's pretty much guaranteed every time.

The band have promised to return and play Seattle, and I know they will. They want to play here as badly as we want to see them play here. With a new album due out on Ark 21 this May, I'm sure without a doubt Therapy? will return and kick are asses...mightily, as it were.

In the meantime, while we're waiting for their triumphant return here's an interview I did with Therapy? last spring. Give it a whirl--it's a good read and a little something to gnaw on until they come back.

Now what did that sign say again...?

-Craig Young
[ top of page ]