On Thursday night I went out to see Sweet Wednesday play at TT The Bears. A good crew of people appeared for the event including Hattie, who I went to eat a pre-show dinner with at Koreana. Stephanie, James, Robert, Falkoff, and some of Dave’s friends appeared at the show as well. The music was a great set with another rockin’ version of Madeline, sweet as cherry wine, and Wherever You Go to finish it off.
After the music was over it was only about 10:30 and Robert heard rumbling under the folk/rock scene at TTs. So he talked me into investigating the source of the rumbling sounds. At the Middle East next door we asked what was happening at the top of the stairs to the downstairs zone. The music appeared to be on a break below and mostly from what we could see from the view from the top of the stairs the crowd was a large group of people with black dyed hair, black lipstick, and who would likely sun burn under fluorescent light. But we were faced with the major obstacle of a cover charge of $15 per person just to see the bands downstairs and explore the goth/metal scene. The nice woman wearing black and white striped Beteljus stockings suggested that we check out the upstairs area since their cover charge was lower and some interesting bands were playing up there including the speed metal band - Random Acts of Violence.
So Robert and I crossed over to the entrance to the upstairs zone. I was making a fuss about needing earplugs but Robert was insistent that we could purchase them at the bar once inside of the speed metal concert. Robert fronted the $9 cover charge for me and we were inside the small upstairs at the Middle East room with a stamp on our hands allowing us free access to leave and return whenever we wanted.
On stage was a band that is the real thing for speed metal. If anyone has never seen a real death wish hate spewing speed metal band play live before it really is a treat to the senses. The whole time I watched them I found it very hard to suppress a giggle because they looked so much like a comedy troupe trying to do a bad impression of a crazed but musically misguided group of devil worshippers.
The band was comprised of three tattooed dudes with their shirts off. They covered the metal basics of lead guitar, bass guitar, and drums. The lead had a shaved head with short black hair. He got his neck all tensed up and made some unintelligible sounds that sounded like a horror movie villain voice. “ROAAG JHARRA GGODGE GROOK AAAARAFFF”. Meanwhile the fans stood in the front row with their long hair either in fuzzy blond, Napoleon Dynamite style fuzz dos or long black greasy hair bobbing up and down in a full metal thrash while forcing their hands into the air doing the devil’s hand signal. It was some real head banging activity going on while the guitar kept going “deedle deedle deedle twid tweedle” and the singer kept yelling in his dark deep voice “GROK OG CHO ROZ CRAWWWTCH”. While speed metal isn’t melodic it could be classified as a percussive use of the guitar. I found it easy to fit in with the crowd provided I took people’s lead for when to put my hand in the air with the devil’s symbol and thrashed at the right point during each song.
The room had a vending area in the back where they were selling a collection of CDs on a rack from bands that covered the genre that we were listening to. I could have spent a few hours reading through the names of the albums and bands for pure humor value. The albums had names like Leukorrhea, Drown All Retarded Babies, Necromantic, and Dehumanizer along the sides. Most of what I saw aren’t available in the angry speed metal section at cdbaby but it can give you some idea of the type of music that is for sale at this vending station. My guess is that there is a dark sense of humor at play with the Speed Metal crew where they compete for the most offensive song lyrics, titles, and band names.
Since I didn’t want to look too conspicuous or commit myself to purchasing a copy of the Dead Body Fuckers latest opus by spending a long time with the CDs I decided to move onwards to the t-shirt vendors. In the background with nobody selling it was a T-shirt of a ball gagged and bound bleeding naked woman who appeared to have been stabbed in many ways with some illegible text behind it. It would have made a good workout shirt but I worried about the resulting riot that might occur if I ever wore it to anything other than an event like the one I was at. The folks peddling t-shirts had some more innocuous shirts as well. There were two vendors representing two of the bands playing. The first one had a shirt that was a screen print of the bands name on it written in a very artistic fashion shaped like a spider or bat bug squiggled to a lightning edge. It was completely illegible. I mentioned this to the vendor because her illegible shirt would be $10 while the person next to her had a shirt with a nice impact font in front of some eyeballs shooting rays at skulls that was completely readable for only $8. If I were to purchase a shirt at a speed metal concert I would want people to be able to read the words “Corpsicopia” clearly. I promised to return with my decision once the vendors started to vie for my attention and Robert and I left to return to TTs to report back on our experience.
Lisa and Dave were still there and the band taking the stage included DJ Swan and her male counterpart. DJ Swan is a very attractive six foot tall blond woman who plays a Macintosh computer connected to a keyboard by turning knobs and dancing in high heeled shoes. Her partner has a tightly cropped, George Michael style, beard and he riffs at an electric guitar that looked a few sizes smaller than the average one while singing. I pondered the possible off stage relationship between these two people after enjoying the performance with the knobs and tried to explain to Dave and Lisa what we had experienced in the upstairs venue before deciding that we had to take a look at another speed metal band.
On returning to the upstairs area we found a new band taking the stage. They looked like high school students or recent graduates from high school. They looked like the kind of angry kids at school who were likely to get into fights or be mean bullies. Their friends and mothers were in the crowd which seemed to like them and know them personally. The lead singer was probably named Davidson since the crowd kept calling out his name. He made announcements explaining the songs including the first tune that was “about a coroner who falls in love with a woman ---- BUT SHE’S DEAD!!!!”… begin speed metal and ranting screams into the microphone “ACK OOPP GRAAAH BRAAAP”. His last song was an old tune but a good one “about a robot who takes over the world and kills everyone… GRAAAP BRRRAA GRRRAGGG CRA FUUCK”. The bass player was doing a good job of the speed metal intense crouch but he seemed annoyed by the lack of a full commitment by the crowd. He mentioned after the first song that the bass was too soft so it would be good to turn the bass up in the monitor. After the second song he chastised the crowd by saying – “God – I feel like I’m bombing out here. You guys have to do some more head banging.” The nerdy guy with thick glasses in the front row took him seriously and started thrashing as did the bald, potential skinhead next to him.
Robert and I took a break from the metal again to return to TTs. At this point we were generally enjoying the idea of mixing between two worlds through a cover charge as if we were in a movie where time travel was possible and you could get warped between the planet of the lizard people and back to the love planet at any time. After pondering whether DJ Swan and her cohort were romantically involved we played a second game of pool and I lost to Robert by sinking the 8 ball.
Our cue had come to return to the death metal. On the way in I congratulated Davidson and the bass player on having done good work as they were out hanging out with fans having a smoke. The band was taking their time getting the stage together and looked like a bunch of Jewish guys from the burbs with long hair, big beards, and a punk attitude. The bass guitarist had rolled-up the sleeves of his long sleeve shirt to show off his tattoos. One of them was written in large block Hebrew letters. The lead guitarist had a large hand print tattoo in the style of an orc branded by the hand of Saron. This band identified themselves more with the orcs than with the band of hobbits when they watched the Lord of the Rings. So we watched them thrash their hair and head bang through a song before it was clear that we had to follow our inspiration and sample some alternative styles of music throughout the square.
Our next stop was Zazu where the Hats and Heads were playing. They were a British sounding group making riffs that reminded me of The Beatles. Robert had thought from outside looking through the window that they might be an all girl band but they only had one girl in their band. Their last song was “Take off your slippers” which was catchy enough for us to sing along to. Among the fine sights at Zazu was the bartender. She was a demure looking blond woman with dainty steel balls pierced into each of her cheeks. She looked like the girl next door but with an attitude. The Hats and Heads finished playing and as they went over to Robert and me we realized from their group that they were all communists because they were dressed in communist military jackets or were wearing communist styled hats. Central Square is in Cambridge!
Hats and Heads were followed by a two man band taking forever to set-up. The lead singer looked promising to Robert because his clothing was far too small including floods shorts and a long sleeve shirt that only covered half of his wrists. But after announcing that the rest of the band was missing today and that they would make up for it we were disappointed by the attempt.
We moved outwards next door at the ground level Middle East to find a small party of about twenty dancing in the front by the small stage. What they lacked in volume of people they made up for with enthusiasm for Latin dancing. The band playing was four roving Latino dudes singing along using wireless microphones in Spanish in front of a drumbeat generated by an automated machine. Seeing enthusiastic dancing I dove into the rolling crowd with my best solo Latino style dancing with a little death metal dancing mixed in. Two very skinny girls were dancing in a wild grinding salsa style with their friends. One of the singers was a Roberto Benini looking dude trying to encourage dancing and sporting a sign to recruit folks for a bigger event some other night. The benefit the singers had from the small stage and wireless microphones was that they mostly were in the crowd singing while encouraging people to dance. One short, under five-foot tall college freshman with two friends wandered past. She was caught by the roving DJs and got into dancing. She went outside and when she returned she decided she wanted to grind her ass for 10 minutes with the darker Dominican looking guy wearing David Ortiz style sunglasses. Her friends stood outside smoking and then returned to take a few memorable digital photos of the event. The Dominican guy had a happy smurk on his face as he was singing and pressed into the wall by her as though to say – “This is why I do this!” Robert had disappeared to the bar but I didn’t notice it while dancing in the group. He had moved away apparently because a not so desirable woman had been inspired by the teenager to try to grind with him in a similar fashion. So I was just hanging out on my own for a while before sitting down.
When Robert returned from the bar we concurred that it was time to move onwards to a new genre. I was hoping for some blues or jazz but the nearest thing to the Middle East was the Drums and Bass playing at Phoenix Lounge. The bouncer wanted $5 per person but we just let him know that we were migratory drinkers and weren’t likely to pay it. Then he offered $5 for two people but finally he just let us in for free because we didn’t seem like we were going to pay another cover. On the dance floor we were in the typical trance, electronica, music scene. Two short Asian girls with pig tails dancing at break neck speed in the pattern similar to the video game Dance Dance Revolution. A blond woman, and there always seems to be one at every electronic dance rave style DJ situation, was moving in a jump suit standing at the front ramping-up as though she was in the first five minutes in a well timed Jane Fonda workout. An older man was keeping-up with the Asian girls to the Dance Dance Revolution style motions and a smooth looking guy doing a highly organized trance dance of his own. Is there a school for this stuff? Behind the DJ they had a projector playing low grade CGI animations including cheap King Kong and a robot graphics flashing in the background that transitioned into 80’s video games hashed along with screen saver style graphic that synched with the music. Robert said “I’ll bet this is a lot more fun on ecstasy.” Before we moved on again.
At last we went on a final last ditch search for brass. I wanted to head out to Wally’s in Boston but we settled for the Cantab Lounge because it was contiguous with our route. For a Thursday night the Cantab had an all white brass blues band, except for the drummer, singing songs like Mustang Sally. The woman that Robert had fled from at the Middle East salsa Dominican singer location was grinding with the lead singer. We left because they took a break to play a great song for couples to cuddle to and headed to our cars on foot.
