Saturday night The Black Dahlia Murder and Chelsea Grin played at Ace of Spades along with one of my girlfriend's boyfriend's band called Alterbeast (yes, that sentence was awkward, but it's my blog, so I don't care).
Some friends of ours from high school also came from our home town to watch the show, so it ended up being a super late night.
Alterbeast. They just got back from touring and played Knotfest with Slipknot. Super brutal local metal band. A pleasure to watch.
This is my friend Brittany's dude. He's the guitarist in Alterbeast. We were enjoying the show but also happy to support our friends.
Alterbeast was my favorite band of the night to watch. I'm not super into death metal like Black Dahlia Murder or Chelsea Grin, so it always helps to know the people you're cheering for.
Chelsea Grin from the back of the room.
A closer, albeit blurry pic of Chelsea Grin.
I learned that it's super hard to catch a picture of death metal bands mainly due to the fact that the members NEVER stop moving.
"Heartburn."
A very small picture of me and a new friend. I don't make friends easily, so I was pleasantly surprised to meet someone without a formal introduction. Not to mention that the Sacramento metal scene is so small that it's rare to meet someone you have something in common with after going to the same venues for so long. Also, the photo is really small because it was stolen off of Facebook and when it's enlarged, the quality suffers.
My next posts should be about a week or two away as I'll be on vacation this weekend/mid-week. Kyle and I are heading to LA for Halloween Horror Nights, Comikaze (possibly), Disneyland, and a Danny Elfman/Tim Burton concert!
If you're at all a fan of music, talented musicians, and technical guitar and bass work, you need to listen to any of Les Claypool's many projects…if you haven't already (hopefully you have). The man is seriously a creative genius - he can wail away on the bass in just about any style, he has written a book, he's done scores for movies, and toured the country with about five different groups fronted by none other than himself. I will always gladly give him money to see him perform live. Always.
So when I heard he would be in Sacramento at none other than my very favorite local venue, Ace of Spades, there was no way I wouldn't be going to the show.
Les Claypool and Bryan Kehoe twanging away in front of a fireplace. Low lighting made the image pretty blurry - sorry about that!
The Duo De Twang is a bluegrass country-style act, and Les Claypool himself has quite a prominent sense of humor, so it made sense that The Reformed Whores would be the opening act. I've gotta say - usually I'm sitting through opening acts just waiting for them to finish. The Reformed Whores, however, were able to hold their own and kept me quite entertained.
The group consists of two women dressed in old-style country dresses crooning away a la June Carter Cash. The only difference is that the Whore's music is quite raunchy. They happily sing away about very vulgar topics and the juxtaposition of the genre in which they sing and the topics that they sing about creates an amazingly humorous atmosphere.
The Reformed Whores
Les and his pal Bryan played pretty much the entirety of the only existing (currently) Duo De Twang album entitled "Four Foot Shack." The stage was set up like they were playing at a campfire and the banter between the two was a welcome addition to the set. The show really did play out as two really good friends enjoying each other's company while messing around on their instruments of choice. It was a really laid-back performance without all the hoopla and aggressive energy that comes along with a Primus show.
The highlights for me were when Les played the South Park theme song and a cover of "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. Check out the videos below to watch.
Kyle and I had a really amazing time at this show and both of us hope to see Mr. Claypool again soon, whether he's playing in Primus, performing as Les Claypool, or with one of his many other projects.
For more videos from the show, check out my Youtube page.
Bat flight cropped tank, strappy vinyl garter belt, chiffon top from Forever 21, zombie heart bag from Iron Fist, boots by New Rock
Friday night Les Claypool's Duo De Twang played at Ace of Spades. I can never have enough Claypool in my life and being a huge fan of Les' bass work (and the bass guitar in general!), naturally Kyle and I had to go. But more on that in a separate post. Stay tuned!
Any and all concerts are excuses for me to get dressed up, so even though the show was a twangy bluegrass country show, I still went all out.
I have a really sweet vinyl strappy garter belt that I hadn't worn out of the house yet, and of course in order to be able to show it off, I had to sport a crop top. I've got a lot to choose from, but the bats tank hadn't seen the light of day in about six months, so I went with it. I'm only 5 foot two inches tall, so I layered a high-low hem blouse over the top to make sure I didn't make myself look too truncated. That's often a problem with short frames and crop tops.
Stag skull ring from eBay, razorblade and curb chain bracelet also from eBay, and zombie heart purse from Iron Fist
To match my horror-themed bat tank, I chose a small Iron Fist zombie purse. It's rather small, but since I only needed to fit my camera inside, it worked perfect for an evening on the town. It comes with a chain strap that you can tuck inside or detach altogether if you'd rather wear it as a clutch. But for convenience's sake, I chose to wear it over the shoulder.
The razor blade bracelet is actually a necklace, but I didn't feel like wearing it the way it was supposed to be worn, so voila - it became a rather unwieldy bracelet. It takes up my entire wrist top.
I had the stag skull ring from a Halloween costume from some years ago and decided it was time to break it out again. It's something I can really only wear sparingly because if I'm doing anything with any sort of activity involved, the antlers tend to get caught on things!
Hope you enjoyed reading. Check back for more on the Due De Twang show!
