Halcyon Magazine

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TEXT BY: SASHA LEE

PHOTOS BY: JEN ZILIOTTO

Colin Graham's Wizard Show Flyer

The High Saints opened, casting mandalic compositions that spiral in hypnotizing circles arched around the keystone of heavy riffs. Andrew’s cutting voice complements the wash of spaced out  sound, calling to mind Pentagram’s Bobby Liebling at times. As their name implies, their slightly spiritualist sound has a droning, repetitive element  that makes you want to rock back and forth in a sort of head-bang prayer mantra. Not in an entirely evil way as Sabbath, which makes you infinitely bow your head to Satan, but sort of in a more innocent invitation to attempt to reach some sort of “high”-er consciousness with them. In a…. Come on, let’s get in the van and take peyote in Joshua Tree and sit in a rock to find our spirit animals kind of way; like the desert vibe of Kyuss sans the stoner sludge.

The Yelling

Next was The Yelling,a North Hollywood based quartet, the only band I hadn’t actually seen before. The singer Nathaniel Cox clearly had a major dude crush on Robert Plant’s vocals. It was pretty similar in that fourth generation loving Jack White loving Led Zeppelin loving Robert Johnson type of deal.

Gimme your lunch money!

Night horse played third. Frontman Sam attempts bratty, school yard Iggy Pop/Mick Jagger love child antics, that at times literally go pretty far to make sure the audience knows they’re not chillin’ at a barbeque grillin’ drinkin’ a beer and generally hanging out in the sunshine having a cool time and evening out their farmers tans. He even sat on the bar and drank another chick’s beer to prove that very point. You snooze you lose! Later in the show, he ran into the audience’s faces (mine included), and, in a wrangling move not unlike some drunk cattle roping, he circled and trapped me in his mic chord. Like a helpless dolphin caught in a tuna net, I was at his mercy. To add to the hilarity, my friend Jasmin was all, “Oh hell no vato!” and jumped on his head and started pulling his hair to free me. This chivalrous act by her to release me from the iron claw of the awkward stage antic death trap was heart-warming. Its nice to know my friends care about my life. Anyways, Night Horse is the kind of band that if you sleep for a second during their set, you’ll definitely wake up with boobs drawn on your forehead with a permanent pen.

Last but not least, Trigger Renegade took the stage. I have discussed their most triumphant dual-attack riffage before here-however I will once again reiterate the sheer amazingness of their Iron Maiden riffz/doubled by Thin Lizzy/turned progressive by Queen/made catchy by Cheap Trick sound. My personal theory is that they also make you extremely triumphant feeeling because their tunes sort of sound like a medley of every fucking triumphant part in the video game where you win the princess or get way radder than you were before or discover an epic item or whatever. Just two examples that dawned on me while sifting through a lot of YouTube videos:

Castlevania Goes Electric
 

Dude Shreddin’ Up Xmen
 

(If you have any others, please send.) Anyways, when I explained this to my friend Ned, (who, by the way Dj’s and generally masterminds a pretty rad night for bands, Homework Mondays at Crane’s Tavern in Hollywood) his eyes got really wide. Instead, he offered me an even RADDER explanation of their sound: “Dude their riffs are like the part in Braveheart where Mel Gibson’s on the back of a horse beheading that dude not on a horse!” I’m not sure EXACTLY which part of Braveheart, but I totally know what he means.

Then he proceeded to re-enact swinging an invisible sword while he galloped on an imaginary horse, over and over again for the rest of the show while making various guitar/warrior faces and brandishing his sword high in the air. I’d say if anyone can make you want to rush into the Battle of Stirling pounding your war drum and painting your face and shit and screaming “They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take…OUR FREEDOM!” [Crowd cheers] it’s Trigger Renegade. Yes. They rule that hard.

Tags: Night Horse, November 19, The Echo, The High Saints, The Yelling, Trigger Renegade

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Show Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.