I’m back from our short road trip to Portland for the Neurosis, Tragedy, The Body, Atriarch show at the Roseland Theater. The sun was shining when I arrived in PDX, although the temperature hovered between forty and fifty degrees for most of the day, which is cold by Bay Area standards. That said, I zipped up my hoody and wandered around as much as possible prior to the show, eventually making it as far as Pok Pok for lunch, which was awesome.
The show itself was worth the trip, especially for the Tragedy and Neurosis sets. I was so into both bands that I only attempted to snap one or two pics early during Tragedy’s set, which turned out blurry. During Neurosis’ set I made a conscious decision to just be in the moment and enjoy the show. Early on though I did notice that there were a couple of guys there with nice cameras taking photos, and I figured I’d just look them up online when I got back to the Bay. This Neurosis photo is by Al Case, and you can find more of his photos from last Saturday night’s show on his blog: http://traveljapanblog.com/wordpress/
Here’s some live Neurosis from 1989, which may seem like a long time ago, but when you consider the history of this planet, twenty four and half years is but an indistinguishable blip on the timeline of human existence.
Look Back And Laughvideo from the first night of a Christ On Parade reunion weekend that we booked at 924 Gilman in 2007. This was one of a handful of videos that were shot by UGZ friend and supporter Chris Sickdog, formerly of the dogmalice.com website. Chris' videos utilized the night vision function on his camera, which is why they lack color depth. Here are two more examples taken from the same weekend as the LBAL video above.
It wasn't that long ago that finding videos of GRIMPLE performing live in the early nineties online seemed nearly impossible. I remember scanning the lists of many a video trader way back in the AOL days of the internet and only seeing one, that being a reunion show the band played at a memorial/benefit show for a friend (Lucky Dog) who passed away in the late nineties. The video of that performance, if you could track a copy down, was always a second or third generation copy (best case scenario). In spite of the grainy quality and less than optimum sound quality, that video really captured what was the stand out performance of a stacked bill that also featured sets from ELDOPA(1332), FILTH, and EXODUS.
A few years after tracking down that grainy copy of the GRIMPLE reunion at Lucky Dog's memorial show, I came across a second video from that same night, shot from a different (better) angle. A friend of mine - Carlos Antagony - had master copies of both GRIMPLE and ELDOPA's set, the quality of which blew everything else away. To make a long story short, Carlos and I edited the GRIMPLE set down to include on a GRIMPLE discography CD that I was going to release on my label at the time, but when members of the band mentioned wanting both Vinyl reissues, as well as a CD containing the first LP, 7" EP, and some unreleased songs, we passed the project along to Prank Records. Prank Records was a much more established label, with superior distribution, and of course its owner Ken Sanderson had drawn the cover art for the band's first LP - "Up Your Ass". We gave Ken everything we had at the time, including the video, which was supposed to appear on the Prank version of the CD reissue, but even though it's listed on the CD insert, the video is nowhere to be found. You can probably chalk up the videos omission to excessive cost or perhaps the limitations of technology at the time, but till this day very few people have ever seen a good quality version of what the band's guitar player Greg told me was the best set GRIMPLE ever played.
More recently, Dan Hashthrash from KillThatCat.com has tracked down and posted two different videos featuring live performances from GRIMPLE during the "Up Your Ass" era at 924 Gilman. What makes these videos interesting to me is the way the band mixes in songs from the first 7" with songs from the "Up Your Ass" LP, then they'll throw in a song or two from their considerably more metal influenced split with LOGICAL NONSENSE, before returning once more to the melodic thrash of their earlier releases, after a quick spoken word or freestyle rap by lead vocalist Pat Vigil of course.
Update from Ken at Prank Records: 'Met with Pat Grimple this week, and we are finally going to start rolling the ball on the Split LP and Re-issuing "Up Your ass". Kinda thinking the Split remastered with a gatefold sleeve and the 1st LP as a picture disc. Fall....'
On December 31, 2012 we attended an invite only NEUROSIS show / New Year's Eve party at the Oakland Metro. Here's the announcement that appeared on the NEUROSIS Facebook page:
Neurosis shall perform live at the Metro Opera House in Oakland California on New Year's Eve, December 31st 2012 with special guests Kicker and Young Lions.
This will be a free show and almost all tickets have been issued as invite only. This is a gift from Neurosis to our friends, family and loyal supporters from the bay area to celebrate the spirit of sound that brought us together 27 years ago.
A small portion of the tickets have been made publicly available for pickup only, one per person, at two SF bay area locations.
So, without getting into a full blown show review or critique of the night as a whole, let's just say that I was blown away by NEUROSIS' two hour set, which kicked off just after midnight and featured a great mix of music, old and new, even going as far back as 1992's "Souls At Zero" LP. Here's the set list from last Monday night's show.
I found a couple of videos online that were uploaded the day after, and I thought I'd post them here just to give you a sense of how things looked and sounded at the Oakland Metro. I'm certain that more videos will go up in the coming days and weeks, and I'll do my best to add a few more here as well.
The first video (from top to bottom) is "We All Rage In Gold", followed by "Through Silver In Blood".
