Astoria Metal Night: Savage Master, High Spirits, and Oxygen Destroyer, plus two bands I did not see!

Savage Master at the Astoria (by me)

What are the odds that, by no design at all, I'd see two bands in two nights who perform masked? First the Mummies, then Savage Master..,!

Except for Stacey Savage, mind you. She doesn't wear a mask, but she does wear a costume, kinda Hammer-horror-y. Her presentation was noticeably different once she got onstage from the Ramones shirt she had sported when setting up. While it pleased me to see a metal singer in a Ramones t-shirt, it feels more respectful to post photos of her fully done-up.

I actually didn't see a whole lot of Savage Master's set last night, but I made up for it by buying two of their albums, Those Who Hunt at Night and Dark and Dangerous. And I shot their opening number. They were the band that inspired my recent post on Facebook about the scene in The Wrestler where Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei are talking about how great 80s metal was before "that pussy Cobain fucked everything up."

As Rowan Lipkovitz commented on that post, whatever went wrong with heavy metal probably wasn't grunge's fault. I'm not sure it was hip hop's either, which was his suggestion. All I know is, Rourke's character is right: popular just isn't what it was back then. I'm in fact a child of the 1990s, musically, but as I was growing up in the early 80s, there was tons of terrific, tuneful metal on the radio, from Maiden to Priest to Ozzy to G'nR to lesser (but still kind of fun) stuff like Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, and the band Rourke dances to in that scene, Ratt (remember "Round and Round"? Heavy rotation on CFOX and Much Music back in 1984...). 

Actually, the approach to metal in that Ratt song was the first thing that Savage Master's "The Edge of Evil" brought to mind. Mostly I think they credit for inspiration, or at least get associated with, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (Priest, Maiden, Saxon, that sorta thing). And horror movies, of course. I would like to have a Hammer-off with Adam and Stacey (they're a couple) to see who has more blu-rays of Hammer movies in their collection (and what their faves are -- speaing for myself, I'm going for The Reptile, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and Twins of Evil) But there's clearly a bit of 80's American metal in what they do, too. I wish I'd gotten to interview the band -- they got my messages too late! -- because I'd love to know what American metal acts and specific horror movies inspired them...! (Adam did, when pressed, credit The Night of the Hunter as his favourite movie. I'm more a Night of the Demon guy; was even wearing the t-shirt--but I wouldn't say it's my favourite film). 

To be honest, being on the other side of a tribal division between punks and headbangers back in those pre-crossover years -- which saw people like us (the punks) randomly beaten and insulted by headbangers in Camaros and such -- I grew pretty snobbish about metal, back in the 1980s; plus I didn't really respect the meat-headedness and misogyny of a lot of metal lyrics. Even Iron Maiden, who have some amazing riffs, also have some extremely daft lyrics ("I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind?" 'Scuse me? You're going to think away your memories, from a mind that you have already told us is blank? What the fuck are you talkin' bout, here, Steve?). But I always enjoyed the music. Before I ever heard "Bodies" (the ground zero explosion that brought punk screaming into my life as a young teen) I was in love with Let There Be Rock, you know? Saw arena-rock tours for Maiden (Piece of Mind tour), saw Priest (Screaming for Vengeance) and Van Halen (The "Lock Up Your Sheep" tour) and opening acts like Saxon and Fastway and Kickaxe (okay, Kickaxe weren't so great). I only found out about punk a bit later... it came slow to the suburbs, and my parents were into Charley Pride... 

But within a couple of years of my walking away from it, metal disappeared from mainstream rotation on CFOX. Even songs that had been in heavy rotation ("Run to the Hills," "You've Got Another Thing Comin'") became mysteriously unplayable, like the genre had been unofficially blacklisted; unlike all the other recycled culture from the 1980s, you NEVER hear that stuff now. And once metal was pushed back into the darkness, stuffed into its niche with pitchforks and torches, you had the rise of thrash metal and death metal and later black metal and all sorts of intense, evil varieties of metal that never had a hope of radio attention. Metallica shook that up a little with And Justice for All, I guess -- that DID get a bit of radio attention, as did the next album -- but they seem pretty anomalous. And compare "One" with Ozzy, for example... it's such a heavy, downbeat song compared to the joyousness of "Crazy Train."

So why did metal go underground, and how and why did metal become so joyless, so humourless, so SERIOUS? Maybe it was the PMRC? All I know is, the only metal I have any craving for these days dates from the 1960s to the 1980s. Just hearing "death" or "black" in the genre description of a metal band will put me off (there is actually stuff in both categories I really like but 9 out of 10 times, I don't...). 

Anyhow, I wrote some of that in question form for Savage Master, who bring that 80s joyfulness back in full force, albeit with ample occult/ horror trappings, as with "Devil Rock." But menacing they are not; it presents like occult LARPing, is more Alice Cooper than Mayhem, and it's really hard to imagine anyone but the stiffest-collared Mormon getting the moral fears from this music these days. And I bet, unlike, say, that dude from Deicide, if you challenged them about not being "real Satanists," they would laugh and say, "Of course we're not!  Who would want that?"

I might be wrong, there, but... that's my suspicion, anyhow. My hope? The whole eviler-than-thou thing in metal is destructive juvenile bullshit.  

But it wasn't a great night for me to be out, to be honest. I had come in exhausted to the Astoria, having slept poorly, my ears still ringing from the Mummies. I was shocked how different it all felt since I was last there. Is the neon sign new? I didn't remember it being this colourful, with the different colours... that's a real pretty sign! 

I missed, more or less, both opening bands. Tuff Duzt (who I have seen before) must have gone on at 7:15 or something. I am not sure how a five-band bill makes money, TBH: the more slices in the pie, the smaller each one is, such that surely someone must have played for next-to-nothing--but the show was definitely efficient in its presentation. Hellslaught was playing as I came in but I was preoccupied with getting merch squared away. There was an amusing moment afterwards with Bruce Stayloose, the man who had pointed me at this gig, where we were looking at Hellslaught's font and trying to read it, so he could tell me who had just played. He knew that they had been called Kommand -- with a K -- at some point but had to change their name when someone else laid stake to it, but he had forgotten their new name and neither of us could figure it out, another thing about metal that kind of puzzles me. It's just this side of looking like actual letters, unlike many of the black metal fonts, say, but it's still stylized just far enough that I had to look it up later. I've read things in my alphabet soup with more ease. 

Bruce knows Adam and Stacey of Savage Master and made introductions, bringing me over with my records to get them signed. The Astoria has changed since I was last there, when Flipper gigged there with David Yow on vocals. More plants, possibly fake. They made for an odd framing device for the first band I got to see. Oxygen Destroyer, dry ice, and fronds. 

I think the angle of the pool tables has been shifted, too. I remember how delighted the punks that night there were to shoot pool with Flipper. I wonder if it's still free?

The dry ice was a bit out of control last night, in fact, but you only realized just how out of control it was if you went to the washroom, where it was hanging out ("Smoking in the Boys Room," ha -- that was on classic rock radio too, back in the day). 

I did not immediately twig to the the reference with the name Oxygen Destroyer, until they say in introducing themselves that they "manifest the power of the kaiju." But of course! ...it's a concept adapted from the first Godzilla movie. If you've never seen it -- the original black and white Toho movie -- the scientists in the film beat Godzilla by imploding (?) a device underwater that sucks all the oxygen out of the water and basically suffocates him. It's by far the best Godzilla movie ever made, if you've somehow missed it -- it's deadly serious and poetic and is as much about heroic sacrifice and love (and atomic radiation) as it is about a giant monster (here's an Oxygen Destroyer song inspired by that movie with a little blurb by the band, for more). It was all I could do not to buy one of the band's t-shirts. I sorely wanted to, but my t-shirt collection is pretty out of control. In another life, with a larger closet, I would have gotten all three. Here's the design for Bestial Manifestations of Malevolence and Death:  

You will note that the "Godzilla-looking" creature in the image has horns. It is INSPIRED by Godzilla, the singer would explain to me later; it is NOT GODZILLA. Thus have they survived the scrutiny (so far) of the litigious, protective Toho (and long may they do so). Something about the band made me very happy, though see above re: death metal; I haven't craved this kind of music since my father was dying back in 2009 and I was taking the West Coast Express every day to my dayjob listening to Deicide and Cannibal Corpse. Turns out I can enjoy death metal a lot more if there are kaiju involved.

The next band -- and the only one I really watch, sitting up front by the deejays -- is High Spirits, who have been together for 17 years, the singer explains, but have never before been to Vancouver; they did a quick run of West Coast shows and then drove back to Seattle to catch a 7am flight home. But they're obviously committed! If Savage Master draw from 1980s metal and horror movies, High Spirits are rooted in 1970s hard rock: Rainbow meets Thin Lizzy meets... I ain't sure (Nick Jones says they sound like The Hellacopters) but they were propulsive and positive and got the audience singing along (and hugging each other!) so songs with choruses like "Thank you for being my friend." They dress all in black and white, white pants and black t-shirts with nothing else on them, no logos, nothing, just black and white. 

Bassist Darren (the sole member with a personalized flourish, a headband that perfectly suited his curly mane) explained to me outside the Astoria as I made my way out that the clothing choice was Chris's. I presume Chris is the singer? Best Darren could explain it, it was about cutting away distraction, getting people to focus on the message, which was one of inspiration, rather than having them reading what other band shirts people were wearing and such. Which is kind of cool, but in fact, in practice, actually distracted me a smidgen once I noticed it: "Why are they all wearing the same uniform? Is this some sort of cult?"  

But they were very very fun, very very committed, if a bit shockingly wholesome for a sorta-metal band (they're really more 70s hard rock, I think -- they would have been maybe called heavy metal in 1973, but things have changed a bit). I shot two songs: "In the Moonlight," which is a very Thin-Lizzy-ish title, and "Restless." Check out their bandcamp here. I wasn't totally sold on buying any High Spirits merch this time out -- I mean, I barely even listen to Rainbow or Thin Lizzy these days, am broke, and had already bought two Savage Master records -- but one thing I can say: if they come back, I'll be there. 

And it was particularly nice to see Adam and Stacey of Savage Master come right to the front to catch the band, Stacey even recording them on her phone. (There was a fun bit of business where a super-tall skinny guy who had been blocking my view realized it was HER behind him and he hugged her and got out of her way. Pretty positive crowd last night, really).

Oh: and when their drummer started making little compulsive biting gestures as he played, baring his teeth, I suddenly flashed on Dennis Hopper and couldn't stop thinking about how cool it would have been for Dennis Hopper to play a heavy metal drummer. He would have looked just like this:

That's about all I've got. It was just fun to be out at a metal show, even if it was too much, after being at the Rickshaw the night before. It was fun watching the stage hands drag a coffin out onto the tiny stage (next to another floral accoutrement).  

And it was fun reading people's patches. Tons of bands I don't know, some I did, almost all metal. Is there really a band called Ersatz Revolt? 

...Nope, it's a song by a Polish black metal band called Mgla, that happened to feature on the back of a guy's shirt. 

I'm mildly disappointed. 

All photos by Allan MacInnis