{"id":92,"date":"2007-11-29T23:59:50","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T05:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=92"},"modified":"2010-09-19T10:10:51","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T16:10:51","slug":"the-black-angels-the-warehouse-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/the-black-angels-the-warehouse-houston\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Angels – The Warehouse, Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels<\/strong>, I thought they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the chance when they came through Houston.\u00c2\u00a0 This was again at the Warehouse, but in a different\/smaller room than the one I saw The Black Keys<\/strong> in – either that\u00c2\u00a0or they have remodeled and significantly downsized.\u00c2\u00a0 This time the ‘stage’ (a wooden platform that stood at most a foot off the ground) was squashed in a corner of the room, and there were sofas in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcaudience area\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, which I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take as a good sign.<\/p>\n

The evening started off with a film \u00e2\u20ac\u201c actually more of a ‘rocumentary’ (“…if you will”) – called The Road To Psychedelia<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 This was about the nascent psychedelic music scene in Austin, TX in the mid-Sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 The Black Angels play ‘psychedelic’ rock, and are from Austin, so I guess that is the connection.\u00c2\u00a0 (Actually, the lead vocalist could have directed it, or his brother, or something, as he thanked us for watching… I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know.)\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, it was interesting enough – not least for the inclusion of some early footage of\u00c2\u00a0Janis Joplin<\/strong> (I never knew she was originally a Folk purist who refused to sing ‘rock and roll’) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c though seeing it on TV from the comfort of my own sofa may have been more enjoyable.\u00c2\u00a0 With the film over, the sofas were cleared out, ready for the freak-out to begin.<\/p>\n

Support band were The Strange Boys<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m assuming that their name is ironic, as they certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look strange.\u00c2\u00a0 Boys, maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 The lead vocalist\/guitarist bore an uncanny resemblance to “Howlin'” Pelle Almqvist out of The Hives<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least an uncanny resemblance to how Pelle probably looked when he was 15.\u00c2\u00a0 The music was alright \u00e2\u20ac\u201c short, punchy, low-fi songs in the style of the early White Stripes<\/strong>, occasionally reaching highs whenever Pelle Jr shook his guitar at the amps, producing some shimmering reverb.\u00c2\u00a0 Nice.<\/p>\n

Half an hour after The Strange Boys stepped off the stage, The Black Angels stepped up out of the audience and onto it.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite all being way too young for even their parents to have lived through the psychedelic Sixties, they did a pretty good job of\u00c2\u00a0recreating the scene\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201c right down to the trippy oil\/water lightshow, and the alternating black-and-white \/ color film projections on top of the band.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 All that was missing was the smell of ‘reefer’ and announcements over the tannoy about a batch of bad acid doing the rounds\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00c2\u00a0 (Obviously I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m too young to vouch for its authenticity as well, so I’m guessing here.)\u00c2\u00a0 Musically, The Black Angels were excellent.\u00c2\u00a0 It did take them up to four guitars (plus\/minus keyboards\/drone machine, drums\/floor-toms, and some unbridled tamboureen-banging) to create the requisite noise, but that they did.<\/p>\n

Major props have to go to the drummer (Stephanie Bailey, a quick web stalk search\u00c2\u00a0tells me), who played like a freakin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 human metronome (apart from about 5 minutes in the middle of the set when lead guitarist Shaggy from Scooby-Doo took over (to less effect) while she switched to second guitar so the second-guitarist could switch to floor-toms).\u00c2\u00a0 She hit up a really powerful, driving rhythym, which just underpinned the whole thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Best drummer I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen\/heard since 65DaysOfStatic<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 She was just awesome<\/span> to listen to.\u00c2\u00a0 And to watch – she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hot!\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just me but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something really hot about female drummers.\u00c2\u00a0 Except maybe for Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground<\/strong>, who I thought was a bloke for ages (I think it was the haircut that did it).\u00c2\u00a0 Now I think about it, the drummer out of L7<\/strong> was actually a bit skanky\u00c2\u00a0(didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she auction off a shag to pay for repairs to their tourbus or something?).\u00c2\u00a0 And the one out of Girlschool<\/strong> was no prize pig, either.\u00c2\u00a0 OK, so maybe not all<\/span> female drummers are hot, but certainly this one is.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, I digress.<\/p>\n

Propelled by the rock-solid drumming, the Black Angels certainly delivered what it said on the box.\u00c2\u00a0 They market the ‘psychedelic rock’ angle pretty heavily, and the sound is right there<\/span>, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more than enough originality to keep them well away from ‘tribute’ territory.\u00c2\u00a0 Huge slabs of droning guitar, waves of reverb washing over everything, and the whole slow-churn hypnotic cycles of sound thing\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00c2\u00a0 The band are all obviously well into it, pretty much eschewing eye-contact with the audience in favor of watching each other for cues, or just eyes closed, head down concentration.\u00c2\u00a0 It works well, with no-one mugging for the spotlight (despite their obvious individual talents), giving a whole much bigger than the parts.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually the one spotlight was largely focused on vocalist Alex Maas, but with his thick beard and cap pulled way down over his eyes, he seemed to be doing his damndest to avoid it\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

I think the only thing that ruined the gig for me was the keyboardist \/ ‘drone-machine’ player (Jennifer Raines).\u00c2\u00a0 She was good and all, and certainly boosted the sound, but she spent most of the gig trying to look all dreamy, and serious, and ‘into it’, but the fa\u00c3\u00a7ade was destroyed by the fact that during The Strange Boys’ set she was earnestly flogging T-shirts from the merch. stand, all friendly and approachable.\u00c2\u00a0 I know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not her fault \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Black Angels are a small band and everyone has to double-up, but I like my bands to be up on a pedestal; untouchable.\u00c2\u00a0 A rock band should be seen as something to look up to, to strive for.\u00c2\u00a0 An acknowledgment that they are much better than we are, that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing something great<\/span>.\u00c2\u00a0 But when you see them stuffing T-shirts into plastic bags like someone on the market, it takes away the mystery.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like that bit in the Wizard of Oz<\/em> when the curtain comes back and you see the Wizard pulling all the levers.\u00c2\u00a0 You just think “Aww, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just like us!”\u00c2\u00a0 And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a good thing.<\/p>\n

Anyway, overall pretty damn good!\u00c2\u00a0 Given that the Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3<\/strong>, and (effectively) Spiritualized<\/strong>,\u00c2\u00a0are all defunct, this is probaly as close as you’re going to get to a hypnotic state of musical bliss this<\/span> century.\u00c2\u00a0 Catch them if you get the chance.<\/p>\n

Buy their album Passover<\/a> from Amazon.com<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels, I thought they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[32,42],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gigs","category-music","tag-gigs-2","tag-music-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}