Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Times Picayune - New Orleans
Chris Rose

Metal of dishonor
Even for a death metal rock crowd, this one was over the line

I see in the music listings that the band Mastodon is playing at the House of Blues Wednesday night.

I had the eye-popping opportunity to catch this band the last time they passed through town last fall when they opened for the life force of the death metal music movement, Slayer. Also on the bill that night were Killswitch Engage and a band out of Ruston, La., called Squint.

We're going to come back to Squint in a few minutes, because the treatment they received at the hands of the sold-out House of Blues headbanger crowd that night was flat-out stupid. It was a turn down a dark and stinky back alley of rock 'n' roll that makes you say: What the hell is wrong with those boys?

Disclaimer: This story is not meant to be an indictment of all death/heavy/speed metal aficionados. No indeed. Just an indictment of a whole lot of the ones I saw that night at the Slayer/Mastodon show.

We're all war correspondents in one way or another, I guess, and this was my battleground: The mosh pit of a 21st-century death metal extravaganza, an exuberant, self-conscious, heavily inked, sometimes amusing, sometimes terribly alarming alternate universe of aggression, frenzy, comic violence and indecipherable content.

Basically, every guy in the joint looked like that guy who married Carmen Electra -- lots of piercings, skull accessories, Mohawks or shaved heads and those really long, dark and pointy chin beards.

No muted fall colors. No Lance Armstrong bracelets. No LSU baseball hats. No snippets of conversation at the bar that began with, "My favorite Desperate Housewife is . . ." And, mostly, no chicks, unless they had serious Goth cred and a tattoo of Satan on a shoulder.

Mostly, the personal décor was lots of black T-shirts featuring the names of bands within the broad categorization of contemporary metal: EyeHateGod, Hatebreed, Poison the Well, Cannibal Corpse, etc.

They certainly make my current favorite bands -- the Jayhawks and Jimmy Eat World -- sound like a bunch of girlie men.

Jimmy?

The show that night was sponsored by Jagermeister, which presented the first of the night's many philosophical conundrums. For instance, if it was sponsored by Jagermeister, why were the shots five bucks a piece?

Then again, I don't want to grouse about any company that supports -- with money and buses -- a road tour by bands of any stripe or sound that operate outside the traditionally lame confines of American pop radio.

I mean, it's good to see liquor companies branching out beyond promoting bikini-clad coeds and their cheesy posters, calendars and beer koozies. Not that there's anything wrong with . . . well, you get the point.

The show was hosted by a guy named Lizardman. If you frequent the gritty side of Decatur Street at all -- perhaps Molly's, Coop's or the Abbey -- maybe you've encountered this one-man traveling road show: Implanted devil horns on his forehead. A surgically forked tongue. Teeth filed to razor tips. A body tattoo from head to toe.

You know, just the boy next door. Whipping out a portable drill, he announced to the crowd: "This is my 9-volt electric nose picker." Then he shoved it way up his nose and turned it on.

It certainly had the promise of being an evening like no other I have experienced. And it was.

Squint was the first band on stage. It was a bad scene. But again, I'll get to that in a minute.

As for the other three bands, when their music started, the melee began on the dance floor, though the word "dance" seems entirely out- of-place for this frenetic tableau. More like mortal combat. A physical and emotional death match. Elbows and knees flailing, foreheads knocking; the blood, sweat and beers of shirtless and muscle-bound strangers mixing.

One look and you think: These guys could rip Fallujah apart in two days. We don't need body armor. We need MASTODON!

Anyway, the music -- guitar, bass, drums, vocals -- was an unholy grind of sound, filled with taunts of hopelessness, praise for suicidal tendencies, faux-Satanism, blood worship, us-against-God-and-society screeds, calls for violence and pain.

At least, I think that's what it was about.

That was another curious socio-political phenomenon that stood out at this show: During a time in which the old traditional Goldwater conservatism has been so profoundly infused with near-fanatical religiosity of our current administration, you listen to these guys' lyrics and take one look at them and absorb their clear siren call for anarchy and you think: They voted for Kerry? A WINDSURFER? I don't think so.

I'm just saying.

The mysteries of life: These fans with bolts in their noses and black jackboots with blood stains on them live far outside the mainstream world and therefore require a certain wellspring of tolerance so that they can have jobs, get library cards and not be passed over when trying to hail a cab.

But you get a sense this ain't the most tolerant bunch.

And here's the example, the thing that made me lose my taste for going to this kind of show ever again, despite its fertile grist for a culture vulture like myself. I mean, I love to be almost anywhere that is alien to me, open to all manner of alternative forms of engagement and entertainment, but for all the energy and adrenaline this show provoked in me, I basically left bummed out.

And that's because the mutually-agreed-upon notion that Tonight We Rock Together Against The World that should and usually does infuse events like this -- that's the glory and power of rock, after all -- took an ugly turn when the fan base turned on the opening band.

I don't mean jeered them. Pelting would be too soft a description. They assaulted them. And in the brotherhood of rock -- any kind of rock -- it was a maliciously self-degrading group action and one I was sorry to have witnessed.

The band, as I've said, was Squint. Some young guys out of Ruston trying to make a name for themselves and lucky enough to attract the attention of whoever it is that pays the bills in Jagermeister's entertainment division.

I thought it was cool that some local guys got to take the stage with metal's current and future legends, but I was wrong. This would be a night for Squint to remember for all the wrong reasons.

The lead singer had a shaved head and the guitar player grinded out a full repertoire of AC/DC knock-off riffs and, though it wasn't my bag -- and I certainly couldn't decipher any lyrics -- the music seemed to fit the energy and general theme of the evening. Problem was, it was dangerously melodic and way too close to pop punk.

From the moment they began, boos were rained down upon them, After a couple of songs, the lead singer said: "How's everybody doing tonight?"

He was heckled and greeted with at least 40 guys giving him the finger. Then came a revival of a questionable rock tradition that I haven't witnessed myself in maybe 25 years: Throwing stuff at the lead singer.

A cup of ice. A full beer. A shoe. Cigarettes.

The singer pleaded: "I understand that we're not a metal band. But we are sponsored by Jagermeister!" More boos. Even from the Jagermeister VIP lounge. Welcome to rock 'n' roll boys; your dream fulfilled!

Me, I would have guessed by their sound that they were metal. Then again, I thought Kenny G was jazz.

"We're from Louisiana," the singer implored. "- - - - you!" was the communal response. More debris was hurled. They tried and faltered through a couple more songs and then got the hell out of there.

I went out to the sidewalk to watch them load their gear. The lead singer's nose was swollen way out of proportion, his face mottled with welts and one eye was squeezed shut because a lit cigarette had found its mark there.

It conjured a bad pun to the name of the band.

I watched them load up and be consoled by the girlfriends and buddies who had witnessed their coming out party at the House of Blues. I didn't even have the heart to try to interview them. I mean, what do you say: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

A woman at the upstairs bar -- keeping a safe distance from the riot down below -- explained to me the fan reaction: "These people are from Kenner, Chalmette, New Orleans East, Mississippi. They want hardcore. They want screaming."

Lizardman analyzed it this way: "They're not Slayer. It's that simple. It's a tough crowd. I have to physically abuse myself just to keep them on my side."

Say what you want about Lizardman, he's certainly got commitment to his craft. You gotta admire that.

As for the implications and possibilities for Wednesday night's show, I don't know. It's a heck of an eye-opening experience to watch the death metal headbanger ballet in full bloom -- a grandly entertaining spectacle -- but when the genre's Mad Max posturing turns into an attack on a bunch of guys just trying to make a living out on the road, I don't know.

All in all, it was just so unnecessary.

The opening bands for Mastodon Wednesday are Burning Bridges and Cephalic Carnage. Going by the names alone, I'm assuming they'll fit in better than Squint.

For the sake of rock 'n' roll, I hope so.

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