ILDM THANKSGIVING BASH II
WACO JESUS / ILLINOIZE / THROUGH TERROR / RIVER RUNS RED / BLUTIGE NACHT / DARK FARMER
Rock Hollow Gun Club, Freeport, Illinois 11/24/07
by Dr. Abner Mality
Regular readers of Wormwood will know that the Rock Hollow Gun Club in rural Freeport is one of the best kept secrets in Illinois as far as quality metal shows go.
Not only is the atmosphere totally unique, but every gig I've been to there feels more like a party than a concert where strangers stand around and watch bands. By the end of the night, most of the guests have connected with each other and the bands in some way, making the experience much more personal than usual.
This was the second annual Thanksgiving show sponsored by the brothers of the ILDM and masterminded by Randall Mikkelson. Every music scene should be lucky to have guys like this working for it. The show this time around was more important than usual, as the purpose was to raise money to pay for the medical bills of Don Decker, the guiding force of notorious band Anal Blast. Don is suffering from terminal liver disease and needs all the help he can get. Don was in attendance tonight and looked pretty shaky. Hopefully the proceeds tonight will go some way to easing his situation.
Tonight's gig was fun from top to bottom. Randall managed to put together a line-up of extreme metal bands that all had a different sound and personality to them, as opposed to the cookie-cutter metalcore or goregrind outfits that make up many multiple-bill shows. Though the crowd was not as big as last year's bash, it was not weak and the bangers kept a high level of enthusiasm throughout.
First on the bill was the oddest band of the night, Dark Farmer. None other than Randall Mikkelson himself handled vocals for these guys, but Randall assured me he was just "sitting in" until they get their own frontman. Unless I miss my guess, the guitarist was a member of the late lamented Lincoln Love Log (5 "L" words in a row has got to be a record for me). The band plays an extremely off-the-wall style that tries to mix Southern-tinged sludge ala EyeHateGod or Weedeater with spastic Voi Vod style grooves. It's an original sound but it's certainly not mainstream in any way and has a kind of unfocused feel to it. Randall's vocals were pretty hair-raising, varying from good ol' boy bellerin' to hideous high pitched shrieks. The band needs some tightening up, but that will come with time.
With a name like "Blutige Nacht", you might be forgiven for thinking the next band hailed from Germany, but instead they originated from the faceless suburban wilds of Aurora. "Blutige Nacht" means "Bloody Night" in German but it should mean "We Kick Ass" because these guys threw down an incredibly fast and violent blast of European-influenced black metal with a sizable component of US death metal thrown in. To say the band combined the ferocity of Deicide with the cold wintry melodies of Dissecton would be pretty close to the mark. Wow, these guys completely shredded all in their path, delivering a style of music not often seen in Northern Illinois! Their lead singer was hell itself, unleashing rapid fire rasps and gruesome death growls. The bassist kicked in his own grisly screams to add even more torment. The set was akwardly interrupted by a couple of blown fuses, but we could all sense the blackened wrath of Blutige Nacht. They need a little work on stage presence...you should never spend the show watching yourself play guitar even if it is incredibly fast...but I was utterly impressed by the unholy scouring of Blutige Nacht.
River Runs Red was up next and I didn't catch where these guys were from. Their main stock in trade was brutal death metal, but they mixed things up with touches of straight-up thrash and a little metalcore tossed in. Lots of chunky blasting that reminded me of Dying Fetus, Skinless and such bands, with a long-haired vocalist that tore it up and got some good "helicopter hair" going. This was a crowd-pleasing set that got some mosh action going on the floor. If you wondered what the mid-way point between classic death metal ala Suffocation and more modern deathcore like Suicide Silence might sound like, River Runs Red is your answer. With the injection of some more originality, this band could really be on to something.
Through Terror rolled in from the Quad Cities and continued the onslaught. Randall told me that these guys had their gear ripped off only a short time before, placing their appearance in doubt. What the hell is going on with all the theft of band gear lately? It seems like a spreading plague! Bet its emo bands doing the dirty deeds!
Anyway, Through Terror kept the aggression quotient high, but in a different way than Blutige Nacht and River Runs Red. This was tough guy thrash that kinda reminded me of Indianapolis band Demiricous...no nonsense stuff with plenty of velocity, choppy riffs and a kind of two fisted feel to it. One look at these dudes told me that they haven't had their drivers licenses for too long, but they were plenty tight and their drummer was excellent. Lead vocalist was a maniac with agonizing shrieks and raspy gargling, sometimes hitting those kind of metalcore vocals but not to the point of annoyance. The floor really got going with Through Terror, but by the end of their set, things started to sound kind of samey and I lost a little interest. Their very last track had a very cool twin guitar part to it...more stuff like this and more lead soloing would help their cause. A promising band with a lot of energy.
Biggest surprise of the night for me was Illinoize, who also hailed from the Quad Cities. Scuttlebutt indicated that this was a "rap metal" band, which had me scratching my head, as I can't see such a group on an ILDM show. And indeed, that was thankfully not the case, although elements of rap did find their way into Illinoize's music. First thing I noticed about the four piece was that they shared a drummer and bassist with the headlining and much more well-known Waco Jesus. A busy night for those guys, for sure...
What exactly is Illinoize? One thing they are for sure is HEAVY! These dudes played with maximum crunch in every tune. But other than that, they play an eclectic smorgasbord of styles ranging from super-fast D.R.I. style hardcore to real brutal groove metal with "death rap" vocals to melodic Southern tinged swamp boogie to just plain ferocious death metal. It was all performed with a lot of filthy fun and sleazy song titles like "Spread Your Legs, Bitch!", showing they do have some things in common with Waco Jesus. The lead guitarist was the best shredder of the night and let loose with many killer solos bringing Zakk Wylde to mind.
Overall, there was something really catchy and appealing about the band's ultra-heavy approach to diverse musical styles. These guys prove that pretty much any music can be converted to death metal with the right amount of muscle put into it. The pits were in full force, but there was a lot of laughing and smiling going on. That's something you don't see at every show and it would be nice to see more of it. Illinoize was pure entertainment and even dragging out the horribly overused "Ace of Spades" as the last song (is there any other fuckin' Motorhead song besides this that can be covered???) didn't keep their set from being a ton of fun.
The planet's most offensive band, Waco Jesus, was back once more to headline a Rock Hollow bash and as always, they delivered more of their misogynistically filthy brutal death metal to bitchslap the faithful. Whereas Illinoize was varied, Waco just unleashed one blast of technical, relentless insanity after another at a pulverized mass of flesh that once called themselves concert-goers. These guys are tight beyond tight and I had immense respect for their bassist and drummer, who just finished a blistering set wtih Illinoize just a few minutes prior. Waco's brash lead singer (or squealer, rather) is the Andrew Dice Clay of metal, yelling out such homey aphorisms as "I blast your face with my semen, I blast your face with my fist!"
On record, I get kind of bored with this unceasing bombast, but live is really where Waco Jesus excels and they proved it again tonight. The real proof of their success is that so many people were still moshing on the floor after a long night of hell-raising bands.
There's a feeling of fellowship to these Rock Hollow events that I've never really experienced anywhere else. Even the camaraderie in the best days of Milwaukee Metalfest wasn't as homey. When you add this warm glow of metal brotherhood and the fact that money was being raised for a good cause to the general high level of mayhem of the show itself, it's hard to voice any complaint at all. I hope this is a Thanksgiving tradition that will continue for many years.