Caught In A Mosh

Yesterday I had got my hands and filthy rock n'roll fingers on tickets to the exceptional free show by Anthrax and friends really close to work. The arena it self is called the Best Buy Theater and looks a bit like a spaceship from the original Star Trek series, and according to hearsay takes about 1500 people, enough said.
Anthrax with Joey Belladona on vocals is a musical catastrophe. He never was a good singer and the as the band played the only song from their most important record it became painfully apparent how far Joeys register is from that of the good old days of John Bush. His own songs Joey managed to deliver somewhat without disgrace, but it was far from a shimmering performance. I did how ever not feel in any way cheated on my time there. I mean even a weak Anthrax is worth a look, especially if you get it free. There where some other features to the gig that made it interesting: Kerry King was acting as waiter, serving the band, those who are allowed to drink, some thing strong in between songs and Phil Anselmo came in and played some base. I missed some of the action on scene though because there was such a commotion going on in the mosh area, several incidents that lead to fist fights. I must say, compared to Nordic standards shows in the US suck in that respect. I really do not see why fighting should be part of a concert, for me the moshing is enough. But there where many angry young men, and even more angry old men with big bellies and gigantism. Or at least several of them where very large. The most interesting part was that one guy who got taken away by the guard after fighting and head butting other hapless men came back in after some first aid.
We can conclude that there was much to see and a gig which left most wishes ungranted. Please do what ever it takes to get John Bush back!

Bushwick

Last Friday I headed to Bushwick, the shadiest part of Brooklyn yet to see a show by Red Dwarf. The venue was something resembling a mall crossed with a squat-joint. It goes by the name of "the Loom" and they are having shows or happenings every first Friday of the month.
I do not know how many shows Red Dwarf has played before but my guess is none at all. Their biggest problem this night was the room that they played in, next to that I would mention the sound system before getting to the music. The room, sound system and rigging made it impossible to hear the vocals of the three singers who all shared one microphone. I guess that kind of illustrates the problem somewhat, could you also see how the mic hung limp from it´s stand that would be an even more telling picture for a band playing "dick-wave".
The whole ensemble was loud though: the rest of the evening I felt sorry for not finding my earplugs and the next morning my exposed ear still had a bit of tinnitus wave in the distance. Good or bad, well it depends on what you set out to accomplish.
I like the performance in that the guys had energy, the talking in breaks was less interesting, for one we learned that the base player lead a busy life running between concerts, his own and other peoples.
Any way now I am doing the same disfavour to you, let me instead tell you about dick-wave: It is pretty much like FM rock, but add some small harmonies sounding like 8-bit console games played out on guitar, quite fast. Apparently one of the singing guitarist made the word up but when I later talked to a friend working in the music industry she related it to some musician that she knows... might all have been a misunderstanding. I will go on believing that Red Dwarf play FM or Collage Rock. They certainly looked the part.
I would see Red Dwarf again, I would bring earplugs and hope for a better place to play so I could hear a few words from songs about if I understood it correctly "giving head at truck stops". Sounds interesting, Turbonegro might have done a song about that, only they did not, but they could have. That is reason enough to listen.

Hey Bushwick, you shady hoe, you!