Showing posts with label Motorhead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motorhead. Show all posts

Jan 31, 2018

Live Review: SLEEP, Moody's Theater, Austin, TX



by Robert Dean 

If there’s anything you can count on when seeing Sleep plow through their songs live, it’s that you’re going to get stoned even if you aren’t the one pulling off the joint and the wall of amplifiers will be so loud it’ll rattle the skeleton inside your meat suit.

At Sleep’s recent stop at Austin’s Moody Theater, best known as the location of Austin City Limits, the doom masters didn’t disappoint with almost two solid hours of riffing and off the cuff jamming. Wandering through classics like "Dragonaut" and "The Druid," Sleep maintained zero communication with the crowd and let their riffs do the talking.

If there was any shining star in the constant chugging Twilight Zone, it was Jason Roeder’s precision, almost mechanical drumming that sounded more like a box factory than a heavy metal drummer. Bassist Al Cisneros and everyone’s favorite Lemmy stand-in, Matt Pike ripped through off the cuff renditions off their much-lauded records Holy Mountain and Dopesmoker.

It’s easy to dismiss Sleep as the premier stoner rock band or Black Sabbath tribute act, but once seeing Sleep, it’s apparent that the group are much more groove reliant than any Sabbath tune. While Black Sabbath ventures off into the weeds, sometimes crafting riffs from the middle of nowhere, Matt Pike instead hovers around three or four sonic ideas and explores them endlessly. While a spaceman might traipse around the stage, giving the already enchanted crowd a nod to the otherworldly experience, the presence of the music relies on the ever-building sense of wholeness and the slow, muddy groove that is unrelenting.

Experimenting on moments, ideas, feelings, Sleep might have stuck to the setlist as a means to have guidelines, but once in the music, they never relied on track length or what was expected, but instead traveled down sonic back alleys, looking for new ways to stake out territory in their universe. For a setlist comprised of eight songs, it took two hours for Sleep to find their way through them. There’s more to Sleep than meets the eye and certainly more musically going on than many give them credit for. There’s a little Black Flag and Motorhead in there, despite what sludgy slowness might bubble up from the murk.

As the packed room gave every inch of themselves over to the masters of the riff, there’s one hot take that’s unavoidable: Sleep is a jam band for dudes who like Motorhead.



Not from the same show, but it'll give you a sampling of Sleep.

Dec 19, 2017

If _____ Wrote a Christmas Song 2017


If Walker Hayes wrote a Christmas song

Need some joy in your stockin'? Well baby I gotcha
It's lit and it's bae and I ain't throwing shade
I Snapped you a clue, Word, hit me up too
We gone be totes chillin' this Christmas day



If Future wrote a Christmas song

You know it's enchanting baby, let it snow
Let it snow, let it snow
We here just waiting on santa, girl, so let it snow
Let it snow, let it snow



If Loretta Lynn wrote a Christmas song

Santa came home smelling like peppermint perfume
Lately he's been losing weight, doing Crossfit too
Heard he's got himself a little elf skank round the way
Well, Mrs. Santa's bout to bust that hussy in the face



If Mark Kozelek wrote a Christmas song

I watched a film about Venezuelan crop dusters
Under a chartreuse blanket on my veranda
Pondering what Belinda said last Christmas day



If Colt Ford wrote a Christmas song

Got that icy mud all up on my GMC
Alpines blasting Run DMC
Christmas in Hollis and Christmas in Macon
Woman at the crib got country ham bakin'



If Lemmy wrote a Christmas song

He's got a whip of leather
Skeleton reindeer crew
Snow or sunny weather
He's coming after you

Satan Clause, Satan Clause, 
Watch his black sleigh take flight
Satan Clause, Satan Clause,
Naughty or nice, you'll die tonight


Dec 28, 2015

R.I.P. Lemmy

This sucks.




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