A jam packed Friday if ever there was one. I received an early morning phone call inviting me to Sherman Oaks to drive Lyz to the airport with her friend. I showered and dressed, and quickly realized I was out of one of my medications. Placed a call that I thought was reaching the Costco in Los Feliz, but it was actually the Burbank location. I tried in vain to get them to switch the order to Los Feliz, but it took them several hours to figure out how to take my refill out of their system and place it in another system. By the time everything got straightened out and I began the drive to Sherman Oaks, it was close to 3:00pm. I raced to get Lyz and her friend to the flyaway, then sped back to Hollywood for the Jesu in-store at Amoeba.
I arrived with a few minutes to spare, and grabbed a nice spot in front of the stage. The guy next to me was flipping through records and talking about black metal bands, so I asked if he was going to be attending the show at Relax Bar later that night. He said he couldn’t even though he really wanted to, and we got to talking about various bands. Apparently he runs his own label, called Dwell, which I think operates out of Northern California. The kid standing to my left was something of a Jesu superfan. He kept talking my ear off about how he owned everything on multiple formats, and really wanted the band to sign a poster, but he didn’t know where to get one. He kept talking about how he’d flown out from Boston, and although he denied this trip was specifically to see this show, I figured he was lying.. Then he started asking questions, like where he could find the new EP, whether it was also on CD, did I like the t-shirts, and was it weird to ask a band to sign a t-shirt. Needless to say, when an older woman asked if she could grab a spot in the area, I offered to let her stand directly to my left.
Jesu put on a good set. Their fuzzy dreamy industrial pop music came across about as well as it could in a live setting. They played a number of songs I recognized (I don’t know names, but they definitely played the first two tracks on Conqueror). The sound was decent — probably could have been louder, but certainly thick and heavy enough to help one achieve a moderately heightened state. The laptop battery died right at the end of a song, so there was slight delay before the dream metal onslaught continued. The show lasted slightly over forty minutes. I did not stick around to buy the new EP, get the limited edition poster, or have the band sign anything. I wanted to get a bite to eat before I headed over to Relax Bar for Wolves in the Throne Room.
Greco New York Style Pizza on Hollywood and Cahuenga. Excellent. Finally, a slice of real fucking pizza in Los Angeles. It only took six months to find. The place had slices bigger than my head, and for some reason I ordered two. Actually, I know the reason — I hadn’t eaten all day. Gorged and ready to rock, I drove over to the pub.
The first band I saw was called Manslaughter. They’re fronted by a female guitarist who makes me really ashamed of my own guitar-playing abilities. The best song they played was their last, which began with a very psychedelic noodling session before abruptly transforming into full-on anthemic metal. The next band was called Lightning Swords of Death. They were interesting. They filled the entire room up with fog and brought the metal, heavily. Anyone with a band whose name is as cool as “Lightning Swords of Death” is going to have my full-fledged support, even if I don’t like the music they create.
The only other kid in the room not wearing black was sitting next to me while Wolves In The Throne Room began to set up their equipment. He mentioned how he’d driven to San Diego last night only to find that the band didn’t make it due to car troubles. I silently thanked God that I didn’t choose to go to the show last night. We talked about music for a few minutes and before I knew it, it had been forty minutes and the band still wasn’t ready to begin their set. They took extraordinarily long to prepare for the show. There were PA problems, as the one closest to my head kept overloading and distorting. The band didn’t seem phased by this, and decided to stop sound-checking and just start playing. They offered three songs that lasted somewhere between thirty and forty minutes. At times it was beautiful and at times a little grating (the vocals), but overall I was quite impressed by their performance. Some very cool, buried melodies beneath the bottomless muck and blackness. At times psychedelic, even. Fantastic show.
And then I went over to Ilya’s, somewhat drunk and looking to drink more. Phoebe taught me how to speak some phrases in Wolof, such as “deedeet y” (no, really), “damay dem lekk” (I am hungry), and “damay tang” (I am hot). She said my accent was excellent, I actually sounded Senegalese. I then proceeded to say those three sentences over and over for the next two hours. Because I was hungry, I am always hot, and I always answer every question with an affirmative “no!”
The photo credits belong to two people on Flickr. For some reason my Internet connection keeps crashing when I try to upload my photos.
