Thursday Night War: St. Patrick's Day Style
Swerving around a light pole In the March darkness, a van raced through the Montgomery World Plaza parking lot and tore onto 28th Street. “Hold on, we’re gonna go fast,” came a voice from the front seat as the van rounded a corner. Sitting in the back of the van, my adrenaline raced. I had already almost fallen over as we careened onto F Street. I slid across a rubber floor mat while the van straightened, then chugged its way toward Chester Avenue.
Inside, the van was dark and ominous—faces reflected street lamps, downtown buildings and bright shop signs. There were no seats, and the air within strangely reminded me of the death that often fills such space. I imagined a gurney strapped and locked into the van’s metal floor, with the quiet dead resting in eternal slumber on top of that. If you don't know by now, this was the mortuary van owned by Kenny 'Motor' Mount. I was on a phone with a girl in Chicago. She said, “How does someone forget something like a bass?” I didn’t know. I hadn’t even asked that question yet. I was too busy trying not to get smashed into the van door as we sped along. I just tagged along for the adventure. The last band on stage at Montgomery World Plaza was winding down. The final band should have been set to go. But now two of its members and a strange novelist were taken away from the scene onto Bakersfield’s dim lit streets…
Exithead, the first band of the night promised me a demo. During the course of the evening such thoughts were forgotten, lost in a sea of great music and adventurous Thursday Night War antics. Not to worry, the night was filled with so much goings on that not everyone can ever remember a writer passing through the evening like a ghost himself. Who is this band, Exithead? I didn’t spend much time talking to these guys from Kernville, but I did listen to their thrash metal style that blasted their song Boiling Point as if these guys were on a metal mission supreme. What a fresh angry sound to hear in Bakersfield; to know these guys are up in the mountainous lands of Kernville tearing it up, creating, being angry rebels in a conservative river community. They must be a great outlet for the community to come listen to, hang out, have some brews on the lonely Kern mountain weekends. Put a stage up by the river, guys and blast your hard sounds to the whole mountain! You can’t ask more from a group of guys having so much fun with their metal genre.
I’m assuming this was Kenny Filthy’s comment on these five thrashers’ myspace site the night of the 17th. Who else could it have been? “What’s up fella's? Are you ready for tonight? Hell yes......Sorry to hear about you being English, : ) it's not your fault......looking forward to seeing you guy's live. Kenny.” I look forward to more Exithead and appreciate bass player Paul’s follow-up email thanking me for attending the show.
I had never heard of This Plain Morning until they took the stage St. Patrick’s Day. These guys have as much energy as any band I’ve seen in this town. Another mystery band to me. Just who are they and where are they going? Another demo slipped through my fingers. I am getting quite a nice collection of local music and wish I had these guys songs to spin on the cd player. Give it up for This Plain Morning. They have a lot of energy and I saw the bass player hanging out at Gigantic the next night. These guys are seriously fun musicians, in the scene, and having as good a time as any band out there hitting the local circuit.
I heard through the grapevine about Gramercy Riff and how good they are. But I had to hear for myself their raucous style and intricate layers of hard-guitar edges before I became a believer. Blend their fist-flying fast-riff sounds with some screaming vocals and genuinely nice guys and you might have an idea of the character of Gramercy Riff. I have to admit that when I first heard them start playing I thought, “Oh no, here comes another screamo band wanting to shake up the mosh pit.” After hearing the energy and hard metal/post-metal sounds of the first two bands I admit wanted a change of pace. Call me an old softy. Now don’t you all kick me down by thinking I didn’t like the first two bands, because they rocked, and they gave 150% of their souls to us concertgoers.
It’s Gramercy Riff’s tempo changes that hooked me. Their songs take you from emotionally angry adrenaline-engine highs down into melodic brooding valleys of sound. It’s those tempos and rhythms that crystallize a song’s lyrics and ambience—the melodies of such slow moments allow listeners to breathe, to escape, to find themselves at a deeper level within the song. From there, song intensity rolls onto a hard edge and Gramercy does it with passion, building songs back to an angry plateau that captured me as they kept with their template of song structure. Hats off to Gramercy Riff for being the competing band that captured me the most. I look forward to listening more to their sounds as well as the high-energy antics of Exithead and This Plain Morning.
Just off Chester Avenue and 18th Street the van came to a quick stop. The adventure, half way through, now seemed to freeze in time. The Filthies, due to be on stage were split up and blocks apart from each other and their fans. Kelley told me he had been at work and didn’t doublecheck if his bass had been packed. I hate when I show up to the hockey rink and I’m one glove or skate shy and it’s fifteen minutes until game time. Kelley soon disappeared downstairs to the Filthy Lair. He seemed gone an eternity.
Sporting a cool tattoo and listening to tunes
Pick my flowers
Outside stood Mark Chavez, former frontman for Adema, as well as Sharon and Gary of B2 Studios. Kenny, the driver of his silver bullet werewolf killa van now stood outside deep in conversation. “Take a picture, N.L.!” he yelled. Little did I know Kenny was a superstar photo addict with a hidden star map in his glove compartment. “I’ve had pictures with Coolio, with Kramer from Seinfeld… and now Mark!” Here was Kenny, a kid in a cotton candy photo shoot. Soon afterwards Kelley finally returned, so we jumped into the van and were off…
Returning to Montgomery World Plaza was more of the same dark streets and fast turns. Back inside, I bumped into Gerhard Enns and Nico Rhodes of the Dalloways. What? Had they become closet Filthies fans too? “Hard to resist, aren’t they?” I said. I hear there’s a rumor of Brit Pop meeting Rock Punk on April 15th. Is this true? Dalloways and the Filthies? Say no more. I’m there.
Nico Rhodes and Gerhard Enns of the Dalloways
Oh, and a few next generation punks were hanging around...
St. Patrick gets ready to scare the snakes from Ireland's shores.
The Filthies hit the stage to classic rock punk song stardom. Kenny, a bit out of breath from all the fast driving to catch a runaway bass was sharp as always, hitting the chords, the notes, the tempo changes, the dastardly cool lyrics of impending road smashing ends and love lost in a way only a punk like him could have ever lost it. And by that I mean he’s been around the punk block more than a few times. While the band tore into a tight set, I was reminded why these guys are the hottest act in town. No one plays punk like the Filthies, and no one quite has their cohesiveness, energy and expertise. With that said I do have to say that Empty Handed and Ridicule are both up and coming and holding their own on the punk scene. All three bands have wide appeal to punk and mainstream audiences who like their punk flavored with a bit of today’s soulfoul rock edges. They’re all a slightly different variation of punk sounds. And none of them are to be missed.
Kenny played a St. Patty’s Day tune on some Irish flute he’d picked up at Thistle N Rose a few days ago. Unfortunately Gus didn’t bring his accordion; but that didn’t mean we didn’t have a great St. Patty’s Day time of it. Kenny’s Irish tune was a foot-stompin’ song followed by several Outer Limits T-shirts and Skateboards thrown into the audience.
The night’s adventure ended with the Filthies in a potty-talk session with a few of my friends that had faces blushing. This was a classic night, with bands playing all over town while the Thursday Night War left many with an excited after-party feel that will go down as a classic night in Bakersfield alt music history… oh, and thanks for the ride in the van; I still see dead people, Kenny…
Inside, the van was dark and ominous—faces reflected street lamps, downtown buildings and bright shop signs. There were no seats, and the air within strangely reminded me of the death that often fills such space. I imagined a gurney strapped and locked into the van’s metal floor, with the quiet dead resting in eternal slumber on top of that. If you don't know by now, this was the mortuary van owned by Kenny 'Motor' Mount. I was on a phone with a girl in Chicago. She said, “How does someone forget something like a bass?” I didn’t know. I hadn’t even asked that question yet. I was too busy trying not to get smashed into the van door as we sped along. I just tagged along for the adventure. The last band on stage at Montgomery World Plaza was winding down. The final band should have been set to go. But now two of its members and a strange novelist were taken away from the scene onto Bakersfield’s dim lit streets…
Exithead, the first band of the night promised me a demo. During the course of the evening such thoughts were forgotten, lost in a sea of great music and adventurous Thursday Night War antics. Not to worry, the night was filled with so much goings on that not everyone can ever remember a writer passing through the evening like a ghost himself. Who is this band, Exithead? I didn’t spend much time talking to these guys from Kernville, but I did listen to their thrash metal style that blasted their song Boiling Point as if these guys were on a metal mission supreme. What a fresh angry sound to hear in Bakersfield; to know these guys are up in the mountainous lands of Kernville tearing it up, creating, being angry rebels in a conservative river community. They must be a great outlet for the community to come listen to, hang out, have some brews on the lonely Kern mountain weekends. Put a stage up by the river, guys and blast your hard sounds to the whole mountain! You can’t ask more from a group of guys having so much fun with their metal genre.
I’m assuming this was Kenny Filthy’s comment on these five thrashers’ myspace site the night of the 17th. Who else could it have been? “What’s up fella's? Are you ready for tonight? Hell yes......Sorry to hear about you being English, : ) it's not your fault......looking forward to seeing you guy's live. Kenny.” I look forward to more Exithead and appreciate bass player Paul’s follow-up email thanking me for attending the show.
I had never heard of This Plain Morning until they took the stage St. Patrick’s Day. These guys have as much energy as any band I’ve seen in this town. Another mystery band to me. Just who are they and where are they going? Another demo slipped through my fingers. I am getting quite a nice collection of local music and wish I had these guys songs to spin on the cd player. Give it up for This Plain Morning. They have a lot of energy and I saw the bass player hanging out at Gigantic the next night. These guys are seriously fun musicians, in the scene, and having as good a time as any band out there hitting the local circuit.
I heard through the grapevine about Gramercy Riff and how good they are. But I had to hear for myself their raucous style and intricate layers of hard-guitar edges before I became a believer. Blend their fist-flying fast-riff sounds with some screaming vocals and genuinely nice guys and you might have an idea of the character of Gramercy Riff. I have to admit that when I first heard them start playing I thought, “Oh no, here comes another screamo band wanting to shake up the mosh pit.” After hearing the energy and hard metal/post-metal sounds of the first two bands I admit wanted a change of pace. Call me an old softy. Now don’t you all kick me down by thinking I didn’t like the first two bands, because they rocked, and they gave 150% of their souls to us concertgoers.
It’s Gramercy Riff’s tempo changes that hooked me. Their songs take you from emotionally angry adrenaline-engine highs down into melodic brooding valleys of sound. It’s those tempos and rhythms that crystallize a song’s lyrics and ambience—the melodies of such slow moments allow listeners to breathe, to escape, to find themselves at a deeper level within the song. From there, song intensity rolls onto a hard edge and Gramercy does it with passion, building songs back to an angry plateau that captured me as they kept with their template of song structure. Hats off to Gramercy Riff for being the competing band that captured me the most. I look forward to listening more to their sounds as well as the high-energy antics of Exithead and This Plain Morning.
Just off Chester Avenue and 18th Street the van came to a quick stop. The adventure, half way through, now seemed to freeze in time. The Filthies, due to be on stage were split up and blocks apart from each other and their fans. Kelley told me he had been at work and didn’t doublecheck if his bass had been packed. I hate when I show up to the hockey rink and I’m one glove or skate shy and it’s fifteen minutes until game time. Kelley soon disappeared downstairs to the Filthy Lair. He seemed gone an eternity.
Sporting a cool tattoo and listening to tunes
Pick my flowers
Outside stood Mark Chavez, former frontman for Adema, as well as Sharon and Gary of B2 Studios. Kenny, the driver of his silver bullet werewolf killa van now stood outside deep in conversation. “Take a picture, N.L.!” he yelled. Little did I know Kenny was a superstar photo addict with a hidden star map in his glove compartment. “I’ve had pictures with Coolio, with Kramer from Seinfeld… and now Mark!” Here was Kenny, a kid in a cotton candy photo shoot. Soon afterwards Kelley finally returned, so we jumped into the van and were off…
Returning to Montgomery World Plaza was more of the same dark streets and fast turns. Back inside, I bumped into Gerhard Enns and Nico Rhodes of the Dalloways. What? Had they become closet Filthies fans too? “Hard to resist, aren’t they?” I said. I hear there’s a rumor of Brit Pop meeting Rock Punk on April 15th. Is this true? Dalloways and the Filthies? Say no more. I’m there.
Nico Rhodes and Gerhard Enns of the Dalloways
Oh, and a few next generation punks were hanging around...
St. Patrick gets ready to scare the snakes from Ireland's shores.
The Filthies hit the stage to classic rock punk song stardom. Kenny, a bit out of breath from all the fast driving to catch a runaway bass was sharp as always, hitting the chords, the notes, the tempo changes, the dastardly cool lyrics of impending road smashing ends and love lost in a way only a punk like him could have ever lost it. And by that I mean he’s been around the punk block more than a few times. While the band tore into a tight set, I was reminded why these guys are the hottest act in town. No one plays punk like the Filthies, and no one quite has their cohesiveness, energy and expertise. With that said I do have to say that Empty Handed and Ridicule are both up and coming and holding their own on the punk scene. All three bands have wide appeal to punk and mainstream audiences who like their punk flavored with a bit of today’s soulfoul rock edges. They’re all a slightly different variation of punk sounds. And none of them are to be missed.
Kenny played a St. Patty’s Day tune on some Irish flute he’d picked up at Thistle N Rose a few days ago. Unfortunately Gus didn’t bring his accordion; but that didn’t mean we didn’t have a great St. Patty’s Day time of it. Kenny’s Irish tune was a foot-stompin’ song followed by several Outer Limits T-shirts and Skateboards thrown into the audience.
The night’s adventure ended with the Filthies in a potty-talk session with a few of my friends that had faces blushing. This was a classic night, with bands playing all over town while the Thursday Night War left many with an excited after-party feel that will go down as a classic night in Bakersfield alt music history… oh, and thanks for the ride in the van; I still see dead people, Kenny…
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Saturday, March 19, 2005.
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