I’ve been
to every edition of the Maryland Deathfest since its inception, from the years
at the Thunderdome (before it became a titty bar), to the miserable experience at
House of Rock Cock, to its relocation to Sonar and its growth into a rather
large outdoor festival on the grimy streets of Baltimore. With age, all day fests have evolved from an
opportunity to see every band I could want to see to becoming a test of endurance
where fatigue usually defeats any desire to see the last band of the
evening. That said, it’s an enjoyable
enough experience; it beats fighting Memorial Day holiday traffic to the beach
or amusement park where I would have to battle hordes of miserable families under
the sweltering sun for parking, concessions, etc. And I get to buy sweet merch that’s pretty
affordable.
So M and I
(because I’ll protect the identity of my spouse from future employers out
there, and if you know me personally you already know her full name anyhow)
both hold steady jobs, perhaps not the jobs we plan to make careers out of, but
jobs that demand we show up most of the time.
So when Thursday sold out rather quickly, we took a look at the MDF
running order and decided that while Napalm Death and Nasum would’ve been
sweet, they weren’t "$50 bucks a person" sweet to fight holiday traffic up I-95
to Baltimore at rush hour over; especially when we both had to work. So we decided (or I guess *I* decided, since
M was less enthusiastic about attending the fest than I was to begin with; she
might be 7 years younger but she definitely behaves like the older person in
the relationship- she collects fucking china!) to just attend the weekend
portion of the Fest.
I guess we
arrived sometime around 2pm, and several bands were playing inside (Looking For
An Answer, Dragged Into Sunlight) but we bumped into some peeps, and M made
with the chitchat while I gravitated towards the merch tables and began wasting
hard earned money on soon to be obsolete media (CDs) and a few kickass shirts to freak out my professors on campus with (like this one, except in white). The
Deathgasm Records table was running all CDs for $5 bucks, which was fucking
awesome, and the Sevared Records table had some decent stuff; I guess Sevared is hosting a Deathfest of their own in Rochester, New York next month with Embalmer headlining .
The first
band outside to play was Hellbastard, who I think are from the UK. Their frontman started off by rambling about
being against bullying then they played a really sloppy, unmemorable sort of
thrash with punk influence? It wasn’t
particularly enjoyable at all, and judging from the crowd, most of whom weren’t
paying attention, I’m guessing I wasn’t alone in that assessment. At some point I walked into club, where Black
Witchery was playing. Black Witchery was
better than Hellbastard, if for no other reason than their extremity. However, I wasn’t particularly enthralled by
their bland sort of straight ahead black metal and went back outside in time to
see Deviated Instinct.
Deviated
Instinct was good. I actually thought
they sounded somewhat Swedish, but it turns out that they are from the UK
also. They played a style of thrash
meets hardcore I guess? It was rough
around the edges and had big meaty riffs and a pissed off vocalist, so I
approved at any rate. Maybe they weren’t
actually that good, but compared to who I’d seen beforehand they were gods.
Maybe I’m
getting mixed up, but at some point here October 31 also played. October 31 is the more melodic band that King
Fowley of Deceased plays in. Truth said,
to my ears they don’t sound that different from Deceased, besides having a more
NWOBHM kind of vibe verses Deceased’s thrashier approach. But as a Virginia boy, I like Deceased
(really, outside of the Richmond scene they’re all we’ve got…) and I respect
the hell out of King Fowley, who believes in heavy metal the same way little
kids believe in Santa Claus (and probably hates 95% of the stuff I listen to). So of course I enjoyed seeing October 31.
At this
point, M and I hadn’t drank all that much beer (because Sonar really jacked up
their prices this year…$7 fucking dollars for a Stella Artois? Does it come with a blowjob?) but we needed
to use the restroom. If you’ve ever been
to a concert of any kind, you know how disgusting and unsanitary the restrooms
at a venue can become. We also desired
food, and we didn’t trust the food vendors; so we took the 3 or 4 block walk to
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and found our salvation at Chipotle instead.
Side rant
here: I can’t understand why people would be willing to pay $9 bucks for a
half-cooked sausage on a bed of noodles (or as I called it, a “bowl of dick”)
or a taco prepared by a “crusty”, especially when better food could be found
cheaper a short distance (and very safe walk) away. It’s like this; even if the people working
the food stalls weren’t actual crustpunks; they’re still fucking carnies. You ever been to a County Fair or
Carnival? You ever see the characters
who work those things? They look like they
come from the movie Gummo. Having just
been recertified in Food Safety at my McJob, I can assure you the health
department would have a field day with the degenerates selling overpriced bowls
of dick.
Having
said that, despite Baltimore’s rightfully earned reputation as America’s
armpit, it is a city with some character(s) and solid culinary options,
including affordable ones. My
favorite? Chaps Pit Beef, which was featured
on Food Network, and one of the favorite meals M’s parents had while they were
visiting America two years ago. It’s
about 3 miles from Sonar down Orleans Street (turns into US Highway 40 and
promptly leaves Baltimore past Chaps, which is located next one of Baltimore’s
finest adult entertainment establishments, the Gold Club!).(/end rant)
I would’ve
liked to have seen Morbid Saint, but the clean bathroom and acceptable food was
more important. I did make it back in
time to suffer though a set by Anvil; Anvil being the Canadian pre-thrash band
that was featured in that documentary 2 or 3 years ago. If you’ve watched this documentary, you realize
that this is the most pathetic band ever.
The band wrote exactly one good riff ever (the main riff to “Metal on
Metal”) and if not for the sympathy the band solicited from the movie, they
wouldn’t be playing festivals, and especially not MDF, where they were an odd
fit, not because they were old (because Saint Vitus is also old) but because
Steve “Lips” Kudlow is the kind of person oblivious to the audience he has and
proclaims that he is a “hippie” to an audience of extreme metal kids. Anyhow, Anvil basically sucked, and I’m not
sure how well received they really were past the first song. Though they are so broke apparently that they
were supposedly crashing on the floor at the house of some 17 year old chick
that attended the fest.
Thankfully
they were followed by Confessor and Brujeria on the outside stages. To me, Confessor was the “Athiest” of doom
metal, really technical to the point of being just out there. As a friend put it to me, the band plays one
song and the vocalist sings another.
Somehow it works, especially because Confessor is heavy as fuck. Though they dealt with the same shitty sound
every band on every stage struggled with all weekend (with one exception), I
thought they were the first KILLER band to play MDF.
Brujeria
is kind of a novelty. Even though it’s
obvious who some of the band are (such as Shane Embury from Napalm Death), they
still bother to wear bandanas on stage.
And they still sing mostly about dealing drugs to please Satan. But they’re heavy, catchy, and they played
the Taco Bell song (“Matando Gueros”) so I was pleased. I guess Horna was playing inside during this
time, but I think Horna is gay, and I’m mostly writing this because I want it
published on the internet that I think Horna is gay.
Speaking
of terrible, Morbid Angel closed the outside stages on Saturday night. It seemed that everyone M and I knew was
excited about this; that they were expecting the old school Morbid Angel of
1991 to get on stage. I knew
better. Reports of the band members
being general dickheads at the Fest aside, their hearts aren’t into it. “Heretic”, the previous album before “Illud
Insanwhatever Inwhatever”, featured 6 songs and a bunch of tracks that were
literally just fucking around in the studio.
“Illud..” featured exactly four death metal songs of average if
unimpressive quality, and a bunch of crap that was um…“Too Extreme”. Making things worse, David Vincent’s voice
sounds shot as hell in 2012. Anyhow,
regarding their performance, which began after what seemed like a 20 minute “intro”,
was horrid. The bass drums overpowered
the mix, making the guitars difficult to hear.
And Vincent’s voice sounded just as shot and weak as it did on “Illud..”. They did focus on their older songs, “Nevermore”
being the only new song I recall hearing them play, but they sounded like garbage. Vincent’s insincere, well rehearsed stage
banter just angered me more, honestly.
How much more fake can a dude be than telling the audience that he’s
surrounded by “his favorite kind of people” while spending the entire day
either hiding on his tourbus or in VIP lounge acting like a primadonna along
with the rest of his band? The tragic
thing is that most of the festival goers will say how great it was to hear
Morbid Angel “play the old shit”, buying into bullshit nostalgia and proving
that metal fans overwhelmingly are not a discerning bunch of music fans. If I want to relive the days when Morbid
Angel was good, I can sit at home and listen to “Altars of Madness” or “Covenant”;
this shit was garbage and fuck people who disagree.
I heard a
bit of Tsjuder, but just like Horna, they’re gay. Okay, Tsjuder is less gay than Horna, but I
wasn’t a fan. So M and I sat outside and
rested our feet.
The last
band we stayed to see was Haemorrhage from Spain. Though the sound inside was worse than at the
outside stages, Haemorrhage’s downtuned, simple style of goregrind was able to
succeed where other bands couldn’t, and they were enjoyable enough. Fatigue set in, however, and though M and I
both wanted to see Winter, we decided it was better to leave. Honestly, I still love doom metal but I’m not
sure if I have the attention span for Winter in 2012 that I would’ve had for
them in 2002 anyhow. Because Winter is
fucking slow.
We were a
bit sluggish on Sunday, and didn’t arrive until nearly 4pm. This meant that I missed Disma, the first
band I had wanted to see this day. I
guess I’ve seen the real Incantation a few times, so missing an Incantation
knock off didn’t hurt my feelings too much.
The first band this day was Demonical, a Swedish band comprised of
ex-Centinex members. They basically
sounded like Stockholm style death metal: high gain guitars and throaty
vocals. Good band.
Morgoth
followed on the other outdoor stage, and totally killed it. I never really got into this band, they were
always a third tier death metal band to me.
With odd vocals, no less. Who
went through a weird semi-industrial phase.
That said, they seemed to focus on their less experimental material, and
totally ripped. I watched most of this
set close to the stage before slipping inside to catch the last 2 songs by
Rwake. I really like Rwake on album;
they’re slow without being too slow, and there’s a lot of variety in the types
of riffs they play. The sound at the
indoor stage was no better Sunday than it was on Saturday, but I thought Rwake
still sounded really good. Not so much
that I regret missing most their set watching Morgoth, however.
The same
dilemma happened with the next 2 bands, both of whom I wanted to see and both
of whom had overlapping sets. This time,
I watched Ulcerate inside before watching Church of Misery outside. Ulcerate released one of my favorite albums
last year, and I would say this was one of the bands I was most excited to see
at MDF. That said, I was really
disappointed. Not by the band, who
appeared to perform competently, but because the sound guy was so inept; every
time Ulcerate’s drummer started blasting, the rest of their music became
inaudible. Really frustrating. After 2 songs, I went outside and watched
Church of Misery, who played their brand of sludgy, gruff stoner rock to a much
larger audience. I ended up digging them
a lot too, and was compelled to buy a sweet shirt from them.
Chile’s
Pentagram (not to be confused with the Washington DC legends of stoner rock)
played next. They were beyond solid,
playing a vicious brand of Slayer-esque thrash.
During this set M and I left the festival and obtained some Subway to
tide us over until the end of the fest.
Surprisingly, the Subway in between the titty bars on Baltimore Ave was
far better than the humourous experience I had several years ago with another
friend, who drunkenly and loudly proclaimed that her sandwich sucked to the
bewilderment of the staff.
Made it
back in time for Suffocation, who I was seeing for the first time with a
drummer not named Mike Smith. I bumped
into Terrence Hobbs walking to my car the night before, and in our little chat
he basically revealed that it was a clash of egos that resulted in Mike leaving
the band. No real surprise there if you
read the story from Blabbermouth. Enter
new (old) drummer Dave Culross, formerly of Malevolent Creation. He played on the “Despise the Sun” EP, which
Suffocation played entirely on this night.
The band sounded extremely tight and furiously fast, basically issuing a
“fuck you” to Mike Smith, who claimed that the current band members couldn’t
competently perform the old material.
Frank Mullen seemed to be having a genuine blast on stage, and announced
that their new album will be out at the end of Summer. Interestingly, Suffocation seemed to be the
only band of the entire fest that wasn’t butchered by the sound guy. My only complaint? No “Thrones of Blood” on their setlist. Otherwise they proved to be the best band to
play at this year’s fest.
Saint
Vitus played after them, and in contrast to Suffocation’s relatively good mix,
Saint Vitus got the shaft. For most of
the set, I could tell that Wino was singing, but I couldn’t understand what; Wino
doesn’t suffer from pronunciation issues.
Midway though their set, the wind picked up and it started raining, and
one of my personal coolest moments ever at the fest took place; seeing Vitus
play “Born Too Late”, (THE doom metal anthem if there ever was one) at night
during a steady rain. Doesn’t get more “doom”
than that. While their sound wasn’t
great, I still enjoyed Saint Vitus, and would look forward to seeing them play
again soon. I guess they’ve got a new
album coming soon, so hopefully they’ll tour for it.
After
Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard closed the outdoor stages with a snoozer. It appeared that most of Sunday’s crowd,
which doubled the turnout on Saturday, was here to see them. As one of M’s Brazilian friends told me, “they
just play one riff”. I don’t hate
Electric Wizard on album, but live they’re boring as fuck. There’s nothing wrong with playing slow, but
play more than one fucking riff, dammit.
So with Electric Wizard being crap, and having zero interest in seeing
the last 3 bands (Sargeist, Bethlehem, and Mortuary Drape), M and I left with 2
of her Brazilian friends in an attempt to find decent food. After an abortive attempt to visit Chaps
(apparently they changed their hours and close at 10pm now), we ended up a
diner on the outskirts of Baltimore (Double T, I think?) which had a gigantic
menu, big portions, and fair prices. A
nice dinner and making new friends seemed like a cool way to end the
weekend. And with that, you have my
journal/report/rant about the last 2 days of the Maryland Deathfest, 2012. If they book bands I want to see next year, I’ll
be back. If not…I guess there’s always
the beach?
