Melvins / Big Business / Ghostigital
By Tim Bugbee
Monday. Oct 30, 10:56 AM
live at Axis (Boston, MA) Oct. 8th, '06.

Ah, Melvins... first thing immediately in your mind is the hair. Can't escape the Sideshow Bob hair that King Buzzo proudly sports. If that 'do isn't rock, then you’re reading the wrong site, bub. But I'm not blameless either... first, a confession: this was the first time I'd seen 'em, and they were augmented by the duo from Big Business (ex-Karp [Jared on bass and vocals] and The Murder City Devils [Coady on drums]). Holy crap what a pair of drummers between Dale and Coady: pummeling, fast, brutal, complex, tight. Not surprising that both wear industrial-grade cowhide gloves for the heavy work. This is music that could fell a first growth Amazon forest and send the inhabiting Yanamamos back to the Stone Age (which, on reflection, isn't that far to go).

Got a pretty sweet teaser from the four as the early birds shuffled into the club just after doors opened at 7:15. They came out, plugged in, and cranked out “Talking Horse,” the leadoff track from the new record. To about 30 people. They were quite talkative too, asking if anyone's downloaded the record (due for legit release two days from when the show was held), and when someone answered yes, they demanded $10. Then they asked for any decent places to eat, either sushi (no answer), then hot dogs. Funny stuff.

Ghostigital took over next, or at least we thought they took over. A couple roadies dragged a table out with a Mac notebook, CD sampler, and some sort of mixing desk. Squelching noise, treated vocals, loops, and other nonsense filled the club for the better part of 40 minutes, so I figured that the joke was that the ghosts of Ghostigital were playing, but us mortals couldn't see 'em.

This was rectified by an Al Bundy lookalike / Germanic-type speaker coming out, with two guys in tow, one headed for the decks, and the other wearing headphones and carting about an Ibanez double guitar (bass and six-string). I learned later that the leader was the infamous Einar Örn from The Sugarcubes. The band's basic schtick was heavy Euro-disco beats as the bedrock, with loads of noise loops and guitar loops on top, but piled heavy with Einar's bizarre delivery and deadpan sense of humor, highlighted by the song where he sat down on his couch, and the couch told him to get his ass out of the couch's face. Maybe you had to be there, or something was lost in the translation. Some people yelled “you suck,” to which Einar (playing up his professed lack of English comprehension) politely replied “thank you.”

Big Business were next, just the two of them, and pummeled. Good Christ is Coady a great drummer. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good shot of him camped behind the impressive, conjoined Melvins kit, but he was all over the place, hitting ultrahard yet never missing anything. Dale came out and played guitar for two songs, they played one or two more, then Buzzo came out in his black tunic and boots, Dale went behind his kit (best part of which was the stuffed animals in the kick drum, complete with suspended witch who went flying with every kick), and the bludgeoning began in earnest with a one-two solar plexus pummeling of "Civilized" and "Oven" and never let up. At this point, it was all business: no banter, just cranking out the heart of (A) Senile Animal and much-loved standbys from Houdini and Stag, such as "Sky Pup," "Hooch," a sped-up "Revolve," and an absolutely ferocious rendering of "The Bit." Once "Lovely" was done, the band were gone, house lights up, and The Doobie Brothers took over the PA. I guess if you wanted the encore, you should have showed up earlier.
www.melvins.com
www.bigbigbusiness.com
www.ghostigital.com

Tim Bugbee

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