Not many popular musicians, regardless of genre, remain consistently prolific for over three decades behind a body of work defined by its unique balance of artistic veracity and success of the household-name variety. Even rarer is such an artist who frames his 60th birthday with one of the highest profile, most creatively relevant as well as critically acclaimed years in said career. But that’s exactly how 2016 has played out for Dwight Yoakam, perhaps mainstream country’s longest established purveyor of rugged individualism who hit the big 6-0 less than three weeks ago on the 23rd of October.
Just a month earlier, Yoakam released his 20th studio full-length, Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars…, which features 11 bluegrass reinterpretations of songs from his back catalog with one rather notable exception: a similarly styled cover of “Purple Rain” that was recorded as an impromptu gesture of mourning as Yoakam and band received the tragic news on April 23rd (their third day in the studio) of this year.
Per an interview with Rolling Stone, Yoakam was originally made uncomfortable after the fact by his band’s cover of the Prince classic, but he was encouraged to include it on the album (it’s the closing track and was released as the second promotional single) by former Warner Bros. Records president Lenny Waronker.
Yoakam’s resume as a respected TV and film actor was also bolstered this year by roles in Amazon Studios’ eight-episode, straight-to-web legal thriller Goliath (reuniting him with his Sling Blade costar Billy Bob Thornton), the “Bar Fights” episode of Drunk History that aired just a week prior, and a second-billed turn in the feature-length oil field drama, Boomtown.
Dwight Yoakam has been a country music outlier from the start, when his organic honky tonk and country-rock stylings were considered commercial kryptonite against the ultra-slick, post-Countrypolitan urban cowboy sound and aesthetic with which the industry was enamored during the early ’80s (essentially responsible for country’s first true wide-scale acceptance into mainstream popular culture). Yoakam’s understandable disenchantment with Nashville took him to L.A., where he focused on playing venues favored by that scene’s underground roots-rock and punk bands, sharing bills with the Blasters, Los Lobos, and X before self-financing his debut album.
Yoakam has also regularly displayed pretty good taste in non-country covers by releasing versions of the Clash’s great pop moment, “Train in Vain,” as well as Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me.”
In the world of modern-day metal and heavy music, there’s a thin line between natural, inspired, boundary-free explorers, and inorganic, obnoxious, attention-starved genre-jumpers. Some bands straddle the fence and some are unfortunately defined by the latter, but Richmond, VA’s Inter Arma is the rare specimen that pulls off the former.
Given the stylistic restlessness of Inter Arma and the band’s ability to rock it with ease, their city of origin isn’t terribly surprising. Richmond has exported more metal and hardcore of note over the years than most mid-sized urban areas, boasting GWAR, Lamb of God, Arsis, Windhand, Cough, Avail, Municipal Waste, and Pig Destroyer to name a few. But Inter Arma is not some amalgam of what these fellow Richmond bands have mastered, or an outfit that wants to show you how easy they can switch from grindcore to free-jazz to J-pop to grunge to death metal while making crazy faces.
Inter Arma at the Hi-Tone
Formed about a decade back, Inter Arma is now touring behind Paradise Gallows, their third full-length and most recent title for Relapse Records, the band’s home since 2013. Paradise Gallows follows 2014’s The Cavern, a 40-minute single-song “EP” that really drove home what this quintet was capable of.
Paradise Gallows swings between doomy-death metal with understated vocals, sky-reaching piano-driven “post-metal” (whatever the hell that is), and classic power-metal guitar harmonies-often within one (usually epic-length) song. Piano is tastefully used to bolster more epic instrumental passages, and Paradise Gallows is meant to be ingested as a single piece of music rather than a song-cycle.
Inter Arma dabble in heaviness that’s actually trying to shoot for the future of the form rather than rewrite or repurpose the past, a refreshing aspect in these retro-fascinated times.
Opening for Inter Arma is Colorado’s Call of the Void, another Relapse Records offering that mixes modern grindcore, crusty heavy hardcore, and wailing guitar leads- meaning they share the same fans as His Hero is Gone, Brutal Truth, Buried Inside, post-Y2K Napalm Death, and especially Trap Them.
Call of the Void songs lean towards the longer (2-3 minutes) side for this type of stuff, allowing for plenty of references to the aforementioned bands and extending the punishment to its logical breaking point. Local hopefuls Sunfather will kick off the evening. Doors open at 9 p.m. and the cover is $12.
…as well as something to accompany the preview profile feature I wrote in this week’s print issue of The Flyer.
“Youth of America” (B-side to 2010’s Sludge Glamorous 12” EP and 2nd track on 2001’s live Electroretard album)
The total number of live recordings in the official Melvins discography is collectively ten times the size of most bands’ entire output. And like the entire catalog, it can be a minefield of alienating middle-fingers to the curious novice. This live cover of The Wipers’ untouchable slice of early-80s American post-punk approaches the ten-minute mark just like the reactionary (against the under-a-minute hardcore “rule” of the day) original.
Considering the shared Pacific Northwest region of origin and the Melvins’ array of not-so-hidden influences that have nothing to do with hard-rock, metal or heaviness (like the Throbbing Gristle fixation that recurs throughout the band’s discography), it should come as no surprise that this is a loyal yet improved-upon treatment of one of the best songs by a groundbreaking and inspirational band that probably touched the nascent incarnation of the trio in real time. One of the better stage-to-record translations of the double-drummer, Big Business-appended four-piece lineup of the Melvins.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints
“A History of Bad Men” (from 2006’s (A) Senile Animal album)
Perhaps you recall being glued to the mid-season stride hit by HBO’s True Detective and wondering “What is that playing in the background?” during the scene in which the protagonists attempt to infiltrate a terrifyingly authentic roadhouse bar that doubled as an open-air meth market. Inserted into the scenes as if it came from whatever band might be playing on the stage that the viewer never sees, this six-and-some-odd minutes of perfect doom-metal riffery and vocal hooks is immediately infectious. “A History of Bad Men” showcases a Melvins newly-re-energized by, and thoroughly utilizing, the then-new incorporation of Big Business’ Coady Willis (formerly of Murder City Devils and Dead Low Tide) and Jared Warren (formerly of Karp, Tight Bros From Way Back When, and The Whip).
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (2)
“Hospital Up” (from 2010’s The Bride Screamed Murder album)
Please keep in mind that I am including this song based on what happens before the 4:10 mark, when a typically-Melvins curveball is thrown with an abrupt shift into free-jazz for the final minute-plus. Leading up to this silliness however, “Hospital Up” stands as one of the poppier, dare I say, prettier songs that retains the band’s primary heaviness and other defining elements.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (11)
“You Can Make Me Wait” (from 2014’s Hold It In album)
The Hold It In album sees Osborne and Crover joined by Butthole Surfers’ Jeff Pinkus on bass and Paul Leary on guitar, and while “You Can Make Me Wait” isn’t the first time the Melvins have ventured into electronic pop territory or just decided to blindside fans with whatever the hell they felt like doing at the time, it’s easily one of the best and most infectious. Like some of 1999’s Bootlicker album, this song bears more than a passing resemblance to some of the best pop made by Ween, another wildly-prolific unit with a legacy that has more similarities to that of the Melvins than one might think.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (4)
Gluey Porch Treatments (1986)
This is technically the Melvins’ first full-length album, though there’s now several album’s worth of material that predates this release in the form of Eps, 7”s and unearthed demo recordings that date back to 1983. And while the Melvins had already dipped a toe in slow, heavy and plodding songwriting structures, it wasn’t nearly as fascinatingly bizarre, huge or as ground-breaking as this album, namely in a hindsight-improved context of the mid-80s American post-hardcore, crossover and underground metal environment into which it was released.
That being stated, it has aged wonderfully (probably due to how long it has taken the rest of the world to catch up to what was going on here) and is absolutely unlike anything else that was happening at the time. Gluey Porch Treatments is the first Melvins release to really spread the incorrect sonic reputation of “slowest and heaviest band in the land” despite the album featuring plenty of “blisteringly-fasted and heaviest band in the land” moments throughout. 1989’s better-known and more critically-acclaimed Ozma album is an extension of this album and both were rereleased together on CD.
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“Night Goat” (1992 7” single on Amphetamine Reptile, slightly rerecorded version from 1993’s Houdini album)
This “signature” song is actually unlike much of what the press and fans had framed as the “Melvins’ sound” up to this point in history. Instead of the absolutely massive guitar riffs that guitarist Buzz Osbourne had learned how to stretch, pull, layer, compress, or otherwise manipulate into any song structure imaginable, the guitar creates sheets of noise that undulate in and out of the bass riff that is the song’s real backbone. After appearing on 1989’s Ozma, 1991’s Eggnog EP and Bullhead LP, bassist Lori Black (Shirley Temple’s daughter, Buzz Osborne’s then-girlfriend, formerly of San Fran metal-punks Clown Alley, and musically credited as “Lorax”) makes one of her final recorded appearances with the band on this song.
“Night Goat” was originally released as the A-side to a 7” single on 90s noise-rock clearing house Amphetamine Reptile (this would begin a long on-and-off relationship with the label that continues to this day) in 1992 and then resurfaced in a slightly rerecorded version as the second track on the excellent Houdini album the following year.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (6)
“The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)” (from 1999’s The Maggot album)
Not to bely the strength of Melvins originals by getting all cover-heavy with this list, but this interpretation of “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)” – originally released in 1970 as one of the final songs penned by a drug-skewed Peter Green during his final days in Fleetwood Mac – strikes a perfect balance between reverence of the source material and a cover remade in the mold of the interpreter. It’s also the centerpiece of the especially-strong and intense 1999 album, The Maggot, released as the first in a trilogy that would find the band returning to dominance after issuing some willingly alienating and spottier releases during the 2 – 3 years that followed the three great major label albums that appeared between 1993 – 1996.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (7)
Lysol (aka Melvins aka Untitled aka Lice-All) (1992)
Of the three originals in this six-song set, two (“Hung Bunny” at almost 11 minutes and “Roman Dog Bird” at seven-and-a-half) present a consummate example of the aforementioned “slowest + heaviest” formula the Melvins had been developed up to that point. Both are precision weirdo-doom metal stretched out in such a way to keep the listener’s attention even though it seems like an entire grindcore song could fit in between each mountainous guitar riff. A huge influence on how the band Sleep would soon expound upon the approach as well as on the countless bands that have saturated the last quarter-century with their slower, more pummeling tendencies.
Original label Boner Records re-released the album in 2015 as a 2LP set that includes the great and similarly-spirited Eggnog EP from 1991. Lysol also contains wonderful covers of Flipper’s “Sacrifice”, the Alice Cooper Band’s “The Ballad of Dwight Fry” and “Second Coming”, originally by Cooper himself. Note: One characteristic of this album that bolstered its influence was the lack of a track listing on any version of the release and mastering of all six songs as one uninterrupted composition.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (8)
“At The Stake” (from 1994’s Stoner Witch album)
If you like what I’m going on about in the previous entry, check out this 8 minutes of menace delivered with, yet again, one of the band’s greatest riffs. The Stoner Witch album was the middle child of three major label efforts and in many ways the most straightforward collection, with a definite lean towards hard 70s boogie-stomp than metal, than anything the band had yet to do…except for this.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (9)
song.
“Honey Bucket” (from 1993’s Houdini album)
The Melvins can do fast just as good as they can do slow, and they did it better than this later on, but there’s something about this little burner that just annihilates the entire backdrop of ill-conceived metal reinvention undertaken in a panic during the early-90s “grunge” explosion. To clarify…it is not hard to imagine this song as seeded by the band thinking “let’s show Metallica what they should have been doing since Master of Puppets,” though I’d be floored if there was any kernel of reality in that admitted stretch.
Due to the early Pacific Northwest origins and unwitting associations with Nirvana that lead to this album (and the two that followed) appearing on Atlantic Records or a subsidiary thereof, the Melvins attracted a really stupid “godfathers of Grunge” tag that could not be less appropriate to any listener who has given their pre-1996 output more than a casual graze-over. This rather straightforward thrasher serves all of that early-90s alt-metal radio-friendly crap with a “better than you” notice as well.
A Non-chronological and Totally Incomplete Listicle of Melvins Highpoints (10)
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Iceage has been active and gradually making waves across the pond since 2008, but the Danish quartet really started to make an impression on the American underground with the January 2011 stateside release of their impressive full-length debut, New Brigade. Though certainly not the first band to do so, Iceage found a rock-solid sweet spot where hardcore, post-punk, American noise-rock, and good sturdy punk intersect.
This, combined with the band’s young age and good looks, was exactly the perfect storm to cross the band over from their origins in the D.I.Y. basement-show subculture to the embrace of a much wider audience. For once, this was a situation where the hype-to-quality ratio was balanced by a strong album and explosive live show. At a time when bands like Parquet Courts were being referred to as “hardcore” (fine band, but not hardcore) by music media outlets, Iceage was a refreshing and much-needed shot in the arm.
On the strength of New Brigade and a lot of touring, Iceage came to the attention of Matador Records, which released the excellent You’re Nothing in early 2013. The independent powerhouse already had out-of-the-box but similarly top-shelf punk/hardcore enigmas Fucked Up and Ceremony in its roster, so it wasn’t that jarring a move and made sense for all parties involved.
You’re Nothing, like New Brigade, didn’t seem to meet a set of ears it couldn’t win over, but this time there were a lot more people listening. Pitchfork granted the album its exalted badge of “Best New Music” and the album’s overall Meta-critic score turned out to be 86 percent, which is extremely high.
Singer Elias Bender Ronnenfelt’s vocal delivery is one attribute that helped see a large-scale audience cottoning to a rather aggressive and discordant musical backbone. Rather than yelled, screamed, dramatically yelped, growled, convulsed, or vomited, as would be a small sampling of more popular singing trends with more visceral music, his vocals (on the first two albums) are spat out in a lower-register spoken/sung Mark E. Smith (The Fall) cadence. Considering that You’re Nothing didn’t dial down the intelligent power and punch of the debut but did show an improvement in songwriting, Iceage proved influential in opening doors for musically disparate but like-minded bands like The Men, Pop. 1280, and Metz.
Later in 2013, lending to the band’s current and totally understood distaste for interviews, the music press and the underlying blogs that feed it, did what it sadly does best and found an idiotic “controversy” to latch onto regarding Iceage. Misinterpreting the band’s appreciation of black metal entity Burzum, a misunderstanding of the hoods worn in some videos, and Ronnenfelt’s words in zines when he was 17 all led to Iceage having to waste time explaining that they were in fact not fascists or racists.
The adage that all publicity is good publicity is not always accurate, but it didn’t slow down the momentum of the band, who released album number three, Plowing Into the Fields of Love (great title, btw), in October of last year. A distinct homage to Nick Cave (à la Bad Seeds) as well as knowing or unconscious nods to other mid-’80s dark post-punk bands like Crime & the City Solution, early Psychedelic Furs, mid-period work by The Fall, and even early stuff by The Pogues can be heard on Plowing. But Iceage put their own spin on opening up the breathing room on several songs where acoustic guitar, piano, trumpets, mandolin, and viola can fit into the deranged bluesy or traditional folk songwriting structures.
Iceage may be headlining Tuesday night’s show at the Hi-Tone, but the underlying support (in both the big and small rooms) bears mentioning.
On tour with Iceage is Australia’s Low Life (not to be confused with the U.K. goth-y/post-punk band Lowlife from the ’80s), whose own fantastically thudding take on darkwave/post-punk recalls countrymen Feedtime, if that band were less a caveman noise-rock outfit and more a darkwave/post-punk group.
Low Life’s first full-length, Dogging (released last year in the U.S.) has found a lot of love with the stateside garage-punk underground and comes highly recommended for fans of the aforementioned, as well as the art-stomp of the A-Frames or Intelligence.
Low Life will be occupying the line-up slot immediately before Iceage and right after the first local appearance of our own Ex-Cult (who couldn’t fit better on this bill), following a three-week tour that took our hometown hopefuls from one side of the country to the other.
In the Hi-Tone’s small room, and scheduled to avoid rubbing against the action in the big room, the bill will also be opened by another bright light out of Memphis: the unclassifiable hardcore outliers Gimp Teeth. Headlining the small room is Austin’s Institute, another band that does its own (very enjoyable) thing with the template known as hardcore, and if the band has its Salt 12″ EP available for sale (released last October), its earlier 7″ or the Demo 12″ for that matter, this writer strongly encourages their acquisition.
Music Editor’s Note: In the print version of this story, the article is credited to Chris Shaw, and not Andrew Earles. We regret the error.
