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Friday, November 30, 2012
Barefoot Barnacle
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It is sort of funny that the first time I saw Barefoot Barnacle was at the Blue Moon (featuring Seattle's worst PA) was also the only time I ever saw them with a vocalist-- Barefoot was an instrumental band before that, and they've been instrumental ever since-- was in the one place that can't handle vocals. Go figure.
I do feel a little odd writing up two technical, instrumental, metal bands at a Mars Bar Radgoat Friday in a row... but Barefoot Barnacle have been a long time coming. In line for a beer at the bar, the conversation was “This is the most underrated band in Seattle. They're like Cephalic Carnage mixed with Mr. Bungle.”
I hear some Cynic and Obscura-era Gorguts in there, too, but that might just be me.Barnacle play a constantly-shifting style of hallucinogenic metal-- their song titles often have a nautical theme, and you could call a few of their pieces demented tech-metal sea shanties. With Doug and Jorge's guitars echoing, chorusing, and wah-ing through the a song's trippier sections, and Alex's fretless bass sliding chords around, Barnacle can make a club go a little... er... "swimmy."
Those are just their driftier parts, though; the main body of Barefoot Barnacle's songs are charging, thrashing, and heavy as hell. The riffs can grind, but they're full of big, dissonant chords and off-kilter intervals-- they write moshable songs, but they're not a band that just moves power chords around the neck. Similarly, Jon Z is not just putting down 16th notes in double-kick: if you listen to these songs (and yes, you should listen to these songs), even the kick patterns can have triplets breaking up the beat.
The band is excellent at keeping the audience engaged with an instrumental band-- they volley parts between instruments, call-and-response style, setting up parts before they tear into them. They'll switch times at the drop of a hat, shifting gears from breakneck technical craziness to circle-pit break... and the breaks can even come with choreography.
You read that right: choreography. There are some legitimate stage moves that occur during specific Barnacle songs. Nothing to be taken too seriously... quite the opposite: they're being funny... but it is part of the show.
And that's part of it: Barefoot Barnacle is funny. You're going to get a show when you go to see them live, and they're always kind of fucking with the crowd. Once, at a Metal Monday, as Jon Z and Alex (often shirtless, or less) lost more clothes, Jorge yanked off what turned out to be velcro'd stripper pants, and played the rest of the show in a banana-hammock (seriously-- that happened). They opened a show at The Octagon once with a cover of Salt 'N' Peppa's "Push It."
This show was the day after Thanksgiving, and Barnacle decided that "turkey day" should be followed by "geoduck day," which came with an audience participation chant: "dig-a-duck, dig-a-duck, dig-a-geoduck, dig-a-duck, dig-a-geoduck" (well, something close to that... I don't quite remember how it all goes) which Barnacle matched with a riff.
They killed it, too-- I'm sure most of the country was dealing with a tryptophan overdose, and the crowd was a little sedentary-- but Barefoot Barnacle played an awesome, energetic, wild set. Unlike some of the bands I write up, Barnacle exists on the web and you can (and should) buy their CD, but you should still see them live when you can: they play hard, they're never a boring show, and pretty much anything can happen when they're on stage.
Barefoot Barnacle on ReverbNation
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
On Stage 25 - Positivity
A continuing series of insights from the stage at the local club level...
25. Not to sound to new-agey, but positivity is a greater force than negativity. Aside from being well practiced (which is obviously important), you will make fewer mistakes and play a tighter, better, and more fun show if you select the mantra in your head: don't tell yourself “don't mess this up, don't make a mistake.” Tell yourself “I know this. I wrote this. I can play this in my sleep.”
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Lb.!
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Lb.! are built to cover a lot of ground, especially for an instrumental two-piece. Ryan's 8-string guitar is split between two amps--
a guitar amp/cab and a bass amp/cab-- with a variety of pitch pedals to expand his frequency range. David's drum kit is two kick/snare setups at ninety degrees from one another, letting him play tight, focused blasts, shift on the drum throne, and dig in for huge, heavy beats 
(seriously... can you believe the size of that second kick?) David rotating between the fast side of his kit to the heavy side is a lot of fun to watch throughout a Lb.! set... I've never seen a drummer set up this way before.I saw Lb.! as the opening band for one of the Mars Bar's Radgoat Fridays, and they slayed the crowd. They claim grind and sludge in their description, and they slip between blistering, breakneck grindcore and heavy, stomping grooves effortlessly. As an instrumental band, Lb.! keeps the crowd's attention with a combination of "can you believe that just happened?" wizardry and crushing, headbanging riffs. With David cranking out blinding, mathy, intricate beats, Ryan grinds out complicated riffs that bend, slide, and lock in on the complex rhythms, sometimes using tapping to play multi-octave rhythms across the 8-string guitar (rhythm-tapping, not Steve Vai meedley-meedly-me). Then the groove shifts, Ryan drops to heavy riffs on his low strings, David switches over to his massive kick, snare, and the audience falls in line with the monstrous sound chugging through the room.
Lb.! are fairly extreme; their shifting rhythms could leave calculus majors scratching their heads, certain to alienate patrons who come to shows for AC/DC, straight ahead bar rock-- but they're infinitely rewarding for people who want the extreme. They've got technical math grindcore lunacy and heavy sludge in equal measure, they're tons of fun for anyone who can keep up... but they're not big on internet presence. If you want to hear Lb.!, you have to go see them live (I'll list all of their shows on the calendar at the bottom of this page)-- then you can add yourself to the ranks of people who invariably start the next day with "I saw Lb.! last night... you have got to check these guys out."
Lb.! on Facebook
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Adios, Funhouse
October 31, 2012
Bye
bye, Funhouse; you were good, but I'm certain the condos that replace you will
be great. The Funhouse is still looking for a place to
re-spawn, and I hope they find a good spot, but this is it for now: the final
night of the Funhouse. Fitting, I
suppose: if you're going to have a final bash at the place with the big scary
clown on the marquee, it may as well be on Halloween.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Mars Bar
For the record: the food at Cafe Venus is pretty good. They have traditional bar food as well as a lot of vegetarian/vegan options.The venue itself is fairly small and intimate, with a mid-size stage (much improved from the first time we played here) and a solid PA (appropriate for the size of the venue). Bands split the door, and there are tables across from the stage for merch.
Not unlike the 2 Bit's Monday Metal Madness, the Mars Bar is currently hosting RadGoat Fridays, which is hosted by ubik.s Michelle, and has been building up Mars Bar Fridays as a punk and metal event night in town. Saturdays are being booked by Daswasup GIG, setting up a more garage-style night, and giving the Mars Bar a solid lineup.
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