$8. 5 bands. 4.5 hours.
That’s $1.60 per band. Or $1.78 per hour.
Thee Parkside might be SF’s premier dive venue that generally makes me want to take a shower as soon as I arrive and I would never ever under any circumstances ever use the restroom there, but that is cheap. And I just received an email this morning stating that the venue is the latest target for The Man- they want to ban smoking on the back patio. My point is, $8 is a small price to pay to support live music.
Shortly after arriving, Sorrower took the tiny stage. The band is a new addition to the burgeoning Phoenix death metal scene. I thought they sounded ok, especially now that I’m seeing they are a brand new band, but the songs kind of blended. Until they got to the last one, which I think was ‘We’ve Left Scars’. That was a stand out.
Wasteoid is a two piece- drummer and bassist- from Nebraska. They carefully duct taped a banner behind them….which may be the first time I’ve seen any band do that at this venue. It fell by the end of the set. They began their set by announcing it was the drummer’s birthday, and no cell phones were permitted, except for sexting. Many of their songs begin with samples from movies I’m guessing…and then they pummel through them as fast as they can- some lasting as little as 15 seconds. It’s the kind of stuff that could only come from meth infected Middle America. While I’m a faster is not always better kind of girl, they seemed to have quite a few fans.
There was this one kid who was just going insane through all of the sets. It was like every band made him have an epileptic fit. Good thing there were no strobe lights.
Voetsek is local, and they are fronted by the hilarious Ami LawLess. Her delivery of introductions to songs had perfect comedic timing. ‘This is a song about drinking vodka’……’this is about how sexy Lemmy is’. They also have a female bassist. Their sound is more punk leaning than the other bands on the bill, but Ami’s screams kept up with the rest of them. Their last song was announced as a cover of Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’…”go home and google that shit!” At the end, she asked the crowd to squeeze together for a picture.
Last time I saw Oakland’s Stormcrow they really didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I liked them better this time- I think the vocalist’s singing style just took me a second viewing to get used to. They took forever to set up, but this was probably because fitting all of them on that tiny stage was a challenge. Perhaps it was the way the sound felt in this smaller venue, but their doom tendencies were a welcome change to my ears in comparison to the other bands. The crowd was going so crazy during this set that security actually had to intervene.
Cannabis Corpse are pretty much exactly what you’d expect. Four dudes who look like they smoke a lot of weed and drink a lot of beer and sound a lot like Cannibal Corpse. However, the lead singer talks quite a bit between songs, and he sounds like he’s straight from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “Hey, dudes…” That was not what I was expecting, but on second thought, it kind of fits. This band proves that with death metal, it pretty much doesn’t matter what you are saying in your songs because no one can understand it anyway. So they may be going on about bong water, but I’m imagining it’s a cover of ‘Hammer Smashed Face’. Speaking of, this girl was elaborately headbanging near me and clocked a girl in the face with her head at one point. Ouch! Then some guy decided to go crowdsurfing, which is incredibly ridiculous in this venue. Security just kind of walked over for support and to make sure he didn’t rip a light off the ceiling. I was kind of surprised they didn’t light up on stage…I’ve seen many other bands do this….they didn’t even have a pot flag or anything! Oh well. I ducked out a few songs early so maybe I missed a big finale….
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