BORIS

Neumos

Seattle, WA

10.12.11

Boris has intrigued me since the first time that I read about ‘em.  It was in the early 2000s and, while it may have been on a web forum, it was much more likely from a now-defunct post-rock and experimental record review site.  I knew that they took their name from a Melvins tune, I knew that they were Japanese, and I knew they had a hot lady on guitar.  Over time, I further learned that they have put out noise records with Merzbow, had released a handful of rumbling drone records, and that they knew how to pull a cute trick now and again -like when they encased gummy worms in the jewel cased spines of certain special-edition versions of their 1998 album Amplifier Worship.  Everything about Boris sounded interesting and mysterious.  They evoked an intensity and honesty that made them brooding and yet, somehow, not depressing.  Just reading the way others talked and wrote about them convinced me that this was a band that was creating and playing music because they needed to.  Feedback was not an accident, it was an art.  I instinctively knew that this was a band that already meant something to me and I hadn’t heard a single note.

But what finally drew me to Boris and made me a “real” fan was the 2005 stateside release of their album Akuma No Uta on doom/drone label, Southern Lord (the original Japanese release was in 2003).  I had read about this record and I knew that it was a transition for the band way before I’d ever even heard the thing.  It marked a step away from their reputation as the heavy drone band from the Land of the Rising Sun and a step into the pool of stoner-rock and blown-out speaker sex appeal.  Seeing Akuma No Uta’s cover art told me everything that I needed to know: that this band had heart and that this band had humanity.

The cover art for this U.S. version of Akuma No Uta is a play on the cover image from Nick Drake’s 1970 folk album Bryter Layer.  [Feel free to brush up on Nick Drake over on Wikipedia.  It’ll probably be better than any synopsis I’d pen here.]  That a band would do this told me that they had personality, that they were clever, and that they were both okay folks and cool-ass motherfuckers.  I mean, both images looked nearly identical.  There was nothing kitschy about this and nothing cute.  Boris appropriated a depressing folk classic from thirty-plus years ago and, while there was a “nudge-nudge” that the band and fans alike were bonding over our shared recognition of a pop-culture cipher, there was no “wink-wink” that they had anything but respect for the original.  There was no thumbs-up and there was no smirk.

Fortunately, for all of us (and for me, especially), Akuma No Uta turned out to be a fantastic record to boot.  I immediately liked it, because it married the fuzzed-out drone that I sorta liked (but, wanted to love) with the gyrating sexuality and strutting appeal of acts like bass and drums duo, Death From Above 1979.  Prior to this, I had picked up some albums by groups like Growing, Khanate, and Pelican that I really wanted to like, but I didn’t really feel like I had genuinely and sincerely connected to anything that fell under the “drone/doom”  umbrella until I heard parts of Akuma.  The Japanese trio had crafted a release that contained all of the power chord rock riffs that I’d been steeped in since junior high and all of the inebriated joy and ennui that I’d come to learn about in college.  I later came to appreciate the ambient dooooom of Boris’s Amplifier Worship and Altar -their 2006 collaboration with SunnO)))- but those records affected me intellectually, rather than emotionally.  Akuma had something else going for it and, even when I was only listening on earbuds while strolling to work, it never failed to touch me.

So, it may sound strange to you that I hadn’t seen Boris live until now, especially considering how frequently they tour.  I’ve lived in Seattle for five years now and I’m sure that I’ve missed them no less than four times, within that time period.  Something always happened to prevent me from going or something else has always come up.  Maybe I was just too lazy.  Maybe I was simply bummed that I’d have to go to the show alone.  Maybe I didn’t feel like taking the bus across town.  Or,  maybe, I was just going through another one of my “I don’t know if I’m into this heavy metal thing anymore, I’m just going to listen to John Prine” phases.  But now that I have experienced Boris live, I’m sold, and, God willing, the next time that they come around there won’t be another “maybe” to keep me from being there again.

The band’s performance in Seattle last month was fantastic.  Of course, it was fun and they played well, but, for me, the best part about the show was really my own sense of surprise and discovery.  You see, in spite of everything that I just wrote about Akuma No Uta’s somehow sensual stoner-rock, my knee-jerk reaction was still that Boris was a monolithic drone band.  I still had every expectation that I’d walk into Neumos and, once the band hit the stage, they would unleash an hour of fog-machined Orange amp feedback and follow it up with fifteen minutes of 4/4 power chords.  Then they’d politely thank us and head back to the green room.

And, yeah, while Boris’s hour-and-twenty-minute set contained moments and cycles of drooooone, moments where the band let every note feed back for just the right length of time before they slid that half-step up the neck, and, while there were times when they stared into space and dreeeeew out those arpeggios, more often than not, the band rocked.  And that is to say, they RAWKED!  They stretched out the guitar solos and they indulged in effects-pedal-hopping.  The majority of their set was a Kill Rock Stars take on red-hued psychedelia.  It was fuzzed-out and heavy, and yet, still trashy and joyous and fun.  I could hardly believe it when I heard Boris play what I swear were snare drum samples.  Hearing the conflation of a vaguely danceable Dark Wave beat and a basement make-out vibe with doubled up fuzz boxes and guitar hum was something that I hadn’t quite expected.  To manifest an environment where I felt like I could both sway and leer while, simultaneously, grinning and throwing a fist in the air was somehow genius.

This night made me realize that the reason that I had liked Boris all along is because they take chances.  It doesn’t matter if it’s possible that they can’t always quite pull it off ,or if another band out there can do it better – Boris does it because they want to, and you know that because it’s tangible and you can feel it.  And by “you” I mean “all of you,” because, from what I could tell, everyone in the crowd loved this show.  I saw heads nodding and smiles smiling and frantic grabs for iPhones so that we could try to snap pictures of the nimble-fingered guitar solos and the gaffer’s-taped setlist.

However, the one thing that was absent, and the thing that honestly told me that Boris is a great band, was that I didn’t really feel like most of us knew any of these songs.  I mean, of course, I don’t expect anyone to sing along (the lyrics are in Japanese), but I seldom got the feeling that much of the crowd knew the song that was coming from the stage.  I don’t think it was just me.  We all loved that riff that sounded like “Thirsty and Miserable.”  We all felt those washes of guitar fuzz and feedback.  The smoke and red lights enveloped each and every one of us, as we heard the nine-minute finale that was piano plinks and drum fills and shoe(h)aze backdrops.  How much time did we spend wishing that we had a tattooed girlfriend to touch and a window from which we could stare out into the abyss that is our uncertain future?  Hmmm, how about the entire evening’s worth.

I suppose that if I’d been a bigger Boris fan -by which I mean to say a bigger Boris “completist”, – then I might have had a different take.  More likely, I’m sure that I would have been equally as impressed, albeit in a different way.  I’m glad that I didn’t stand there that night and wish that the band had played “this” instead of “that” or that they didn’t lean as heavily on their 2005/2006 record Pink as I would have liked.  The notion that they should have ridden that over-driven bass feedback tone for maybe just thirty seconds more never crossed my mind.

So, I’m glad that I went in exactly as I did.  There was nothing to get in the way of the band and nothing to prevent me from seeing the musicians perform as a band.  Everything that I witnessed was pure and I didn’t have the wherewithal to second-guess any of it.  I saw Orange amps, Matamp heads, and daisy-chained pedal-boards stretched across the stage. Drummer, Atsuo’s Lucite kit was on prominent display.  Because I not only didn’t know what song the band might play next, but also didn’t always know what it would sound like, I could spend Boris’s set concentrating on the band members themselves, on their interaction with each other, and with their music at hand.  I experienced the music for what it was.  It was sustained chords, sincere melodrama, and barely-buttoned black shirts.  I could feel the real joy in those “whoos” that Atsuo called out into headset mic and the exuberance in every one of those dozen times that he hyped us up by banging the gong that hung behind him.  The stage moves of Boris’s double-necked guitarist, Takeshi may have been few, but I never thought they were anything but legitimate and honest.  I had no expectations of anyone’s technical ability and, even if there were a few times when I thought, “Yeah, maybe those fingers coulda pressed just a little bit harder on those strings” I sensed that it didn’t fucking matter, because, together as a group, Boris was a band that did nothing if not communicate themselves, their ambitions, and their hearts to everyone in the audience.  They had the confidence in themselves to write whatever they wanted and they knew and respected their fans enough to know that, when they saw us standing there before them, we’d all understand.

Setlist:

Riot Sugar / 8 / Statement / Attention Please / Party Boy / Flare / Spoon / Missing Pieces / Window Shopping / 1970 / PINK / Alleron

Photos courtesy of  WT DVL ( http://wtdvl.tumblr.com/).

[scroll down to bottom to enter]

It wasn’t but 2 days ago that the remarkable Melt Banana came through Seattle to unleash their ridiculous Japanese fury all over the Chop Suey club and now we’re already preparing for a visit from the fellow experimental rock powerhouse from the land of the rising sun known simply as BORIS.  Taking their name from a MELVINS track, BORIS has been pumping out a prolific amount of material since 1996.  A decade and a half into their careers, they’ve released a total of 17 studio efforts, 3 live albums, 4 re-issues, 7 collaborations with noise musician Merzbow, and have teamed up for additional full-lengths with the likes of such artists as Sunn O))), Keiji Haino, Michio Kurihara (aka: White Heaven), and Ian Astbury (The Cult).  These guys are relentless and show no signs of slowing down ever.  In fact, they just dropped 3 new albums, this year alone, not to mention another album with Merzbow (originally intended for release in 2007).  The trio isn’t just pumping out the same album over and over again, either -although they did just release an album with the exact same name and cover design as a previous 2002 effort, save a color change- they blend just as many influences and styles into their sound as they have releases.  Psych, sludge, stoner rock, noise, drone, doom metal… even ambient and pop elements.  The obvious influences like SLEEP and MELVINS are undoubtedly present, but BORIS continues to move forward by focusing on progress and refusing to limit themselves.  They’ve even given nods to inspirations so varied as influential metal pioneers VENOM to sombre 70s singer/songwriter, suicide casualty, Nick Drake (dig that Bryter Layter parody on Akuma No Uta).

An acclaimed live act, BORIS is currently on tour and our friends at NEUMOS have offered us up a pair of tickets to next weeks show so as we can give it away to one of yooz jerk offs, absolutely free.  Check out the details for the giveaway after enjoying this classic BORIS romance groove…
(or just buy tickets here)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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THE CONTEST / GIVEAWAY:

*One winner will receive a a pair of tickets to see Boris, Tera Melos, and Master Musicians of Bukkake perform live @ Neumos in Seattle on Wednesday October 12, 2011

HOW TO ENTER:

This contest will revolve around the amazing name of the BORIS-formed record label, “Fangs Anal Satan” that they released their first album, Absolutego, on.

#1)

Using your “absolute ego“, please explain why you deserve to win the tickets above anyone else.  Your entry can be as short and minimal or as long and detailed as you want, but make sure to use ALL 3 of the following words in your entry somewhere: “Fangs“, “Anal“, and “Satan“.

#2)

Post your answer in the comment section below.

#3)

There is no part 3.  That’s all there is to the contest.  It’s pretty easy… but you should probably read the fine print.

The Fine Print:

All entries must be received by Monday October 10th at 11:59 pm to be eligible.

You can enter as many times as you want but, use a valid email so that we can contact you.
Winner will be chosen arbitrarily, based on our personal “favorite”, so try to be interesting.
If we are unable to contact the winner in a reasonable amount of time, a new winner will be chosen.

[If you have any intentions to post comments asking us to pick you, or asking when the winner will be announced... how about, just don't do it?  It's pretty fucking obnoxious and it won't help your chances.]

The first time that I had an opportunity to see Buckethead live was on June 11, 2004 during the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.  While many chose to attend a lackluster performance by Paige Mcconnell’s (Phish) band Vida Blue, I strolled over to a small tent on the other side of the field instead.  Buckethead rounded up the lineup for Praxis, a “super-group” that included Brain (Primus, El Stew) on drums, Bernie Worrell (Talking Heads, Parliament Funkadelic, Woo Warriors) on keys, and the prolific producer/bassist Bill Laswell.  I was completely sober but, that Praxis performance was still one of the most psychedelic and visually disorienting shows that I have ever seen and my mind was swiftly blown like a tenth of molly.  Bill Laswell kicked into the bass-line of “Salt Shaker” by the Ying Yang Twins as Buckethead pop-locked holding an animatronic decapitated head that scanned the audience with its eyes and rapped the lyrics.  Anyone who can’t find entertainment in a spectacle such as that, I don’t think I would want to be friends with.  I witnessed Buckethead perform again at the festival with Material, another Laswell project, and later that year in Seattle with Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, which mirrors the Praxis lineup, with the exception of Les Claypool on bass.  In 2006, I went to another show in Seattle where Buckethead fronted a trio which featured his old Deli Creeps drummer Pinchface, and had a much heavier and more straight-up rock sound.  He’s released a dark dub album called “Devil Dub” with his group Ben Wa, gone in more electronic directions with DJ Extrakd on albums like “Bermuda Triangle“, and even appeared on albums with actor Viggo Mortenson and recorded under the acronym Death Cube “K“.  His eclectic musical resume is beyond impressive but, it still forced me to worry that I may be rolling the dice by attending Buckethead’s 2009 New Years performance.  A few advertisements aired for the show on local television which featured a track with vocals by Serj Tankian (System of a Down), who’s label he is currently signed to.  It made me fear that I would be spending my night with what I feel to be some of his less appealing work.  Unlike many of his fans, I don’t attend G3 Tour performances and have dreams of “surfing with an alien” so, I was actually a bit skeptical about if a mute guitarist with a cardboard chicken bucket on his head could maintain the audience’s interest all by himself.  One thing that I knew I could be sure about is that, at some point in the show, I would witness something so incredible and awe-inspiring that it would make up for any cliched hair metal antics that I may have to endure.

Buckethead

Moore Theatre

Seattle, Wa

12/31/08

We got downtown and hopped off of the metro at around 9pm.   The bus, which reeked of 151 and weed, was packed full of paper-horn blowing assholes with plans to start their new years off “drunconscious” in tacky bile-stained Ed Hardy dress shirts that have embroidered eagles and shit sewn onto the backs.  I hadn’t expected the show to actually start at 8 sharp but, when we arrived at The Moore Theatre, there wasn’t anyone else in line.  I had expressed concern to the promoter that I may have trouble bringing a Digital SLR into the venue however, after 2 checkpoints without issue, I was escorted to my seats 4 rows back from center stage.  We had already clearly missed the opening act, PCP (The Portland Cello Project), and Buckethead was already on stage when we walked in.  He stood alone in front of a Marshall stack and a plethora of pedals and effects racks that provided his rythm section.  His set started off that evening with “Night of the Slunk” (Monsters and Robots 1999) which is very heavy on the kill-switch usage.  What I mean is that Buckethead’s Gibson is equipped with buttons that he presses rapidly to cut out the sound in choppy intervals, like a DJ with a fader.  Halfway through he went into some one-handed guitar work, as he moved around robotically like an anthropomorphic character from Chuck-E-Cheese or Showbiz Pizza.  By his second track, “Crash Test Dummy” (aka: “Crash Victim” from Praxis’ Transmutation),  he was already making use of his trademark elastic guitar strap to stretch his instrument out towards the audience and fuck with everyone’s perception.  His blank mask gives him such a stoic quality that every movement looks even more exaggerated and, combined with his gestures and rapid fire solos, it increases his appearance as being something more than human.  Switching it up, Buckethead pulls the pseudo-ballad “Ghost Host” (“Decoding the tomb of Bansheebot” 2007), out of his repertoire before shifting to the raunchy guitar chops of the “Gory Head Stump” intro, where he momentarily wore a rubber head on his hand.  Mid-way through, he thumps his guitar like a slap bass and takes it into an all out funk jam, before returning back to it’s much grimier start.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8AiJD19KOY

I was already up front and snapping photos by the time he went into “King James” (Crime Slunk Scene 2006), an ode to basketball star Lebron James.  While he was playing, the wireless device that he had been using up until that point, began to fizzle out and his dreadlocked music tech P-Sticks came out mid-song.  His huge goatee stuck out through the bottom of a surgical mask as he connected the guitar through a direct line and promptly exited back behind the equipment.  In continuance of his rock-ballad/Lebron James/basketball theme, Carroll casually jammed that song into “Redeem Team” from his recent release Albino Slug.  I think that was about the time that I was yanked the fuck out by security and taken into the lobby to explain myself.

I dropped some names and got sifted through a hierarchy of security.  There were about 3 different men and each one was less receptive and more condescending than the last.  The first two guys were actually pretty cool about everything, but the last one made me call the promoter from a noisy lobby.  This was even after I stated that I wanted to step outside where it was quieter.  “Can’t you call him from right here?” he asked.  “Sure, I’ll call him from here“.  I had already sent him a text and I didn’t want to interrupt whatever New Years festivities he may be engaging in himself.  When he answered the phone, neither of us could hardly hear anything on each others end.  He was extremely helpful and I heard him say, “Someone’s on their way“.  I thanked him and, right as I hung up my phone, someone was already approaching and asking if I was the “photographer“.  He walked me back in and down to the front where he informed another security guard of my authorization and instructed him not to harass me further.  I started shooting again and, when the original guard re-approached me, he was waved off instantly.  I’m used to this treatment and it wouldn’t be me or Monster Fresh, if I didn’t encounter some sort of issue.  I actually prefer things this way for two reasons: 1) I still feel a connection to the makeshift ghetto roots roots of sneaking into shows that birthed this site and 2) I had only been shooting from obstructed angles off to the side before this all went down.  Once you go through all of the drama of being scanned through upper management and they do eventually approve what you’re there to do officially, nobody below them fucks with you at all.  You’re usually able to get away with a lot more than you might have, if that never happened.  The risk of being removed has decreased so much; the staff has orders to leave you alone.

The crowd, more or less, remained seated as Buckethead went through tracks like the funk-metal “Fountains of the Forgotten” (Cuckoo Clocks of Hell 2004) and the highly popular “Soothsayer” (Crime Slunk Scene). Then it was time for the patented nunchaku and robot routine.  As usual, the guitarist put on a recording of the space-funk “Minute to Forever” by the artist Freekbass and grabbed his nunchucks.  He skillfully wielded them around before tossing them aside for a pair of giant blue foam fingers.  The foam couldn’t quite cover the palms of his giant hands, while he did the robot and glided across the stage.  He was really pulling out his bag of tricks at that point and now it was time for him to grab his bag of toys.  When he walked over to a giant plastic shopping bag, the audience rushed to the front of the stage and I instantly found myself surrounded by a crowd.  Buckethead reached into the bag and handed out random toys to his fans.  Many were prepared with out-stretched buckets of their own to collect the free prizes and others even brought gifts for the performer himself.  Among the gifts that Brian Carroll received were a “Star Wars” vinyl LP and a handmade replica of the Buckethead doll featured on his “Secret Recipe” DVD, complete with the detailed packaging.  I personally was handed a Playmobil Dragon Kinights playset with projectile balliste.  Some of the crowd walked away with Disney related toys representing Carroll’s fascination with the theme park that he grew up close too.  One kid left the Moore Theatre that night with a large box containing an Disney acoustic Hannah Montana guitar.  The interaction between Bucket Clause and the crowd was reminiscent of the classic Frankenstein scene between the monster and the little girl.  He appeared like a kind hearted monster as he curiously, gently, and appreciatively inspected toys and gifts given to him by the crowd.  Someone offered him a plastic hand with a plaid blood-stained sleeve.  Carroll pulled it over his own arm and then did a short routine with it, which involved some more posing, slow-motion, and charging across the stage.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeFLN3y2KLM

After the martial-arts/hip-hop/toy intermission, the audience was treated to a rendition of “Jordan“, a song which was named after Michael and has gained popularity with the kids as an unlockable bonus track from Guitar Hero II.  By the time the toys had been passed out, I had feared that Carroll had exhausted every trick that he had up his extra-long sleeves but, the rest of the show worked as evidence to the contrary.  There was a moment when the lanky musician froze in his typical mannequin-like fashion.  A man dressed like a mad scientist came out to simulate electrical maintenance on Carroll’s back, while mechanical computer sounds pumped through the speakers.  Once when  Brian left to take a brief break, a stocky character entered the other side of the empty stage.  He was wearing an old man mask like one my sister had when we were children.  He picked up an electric mandolin and did a jig while plucking the strings off key.  Eventually, the guitar shredder returned and they performed a little circus tune together.  Later, during another break, the same man came out and placed two singing and dancing robotic chicken toys on a stool with a mic in front of them.  Buckethead had various samples and audio clips that were featured throughout the show.  At one point he mimicked vocals with his hand-puppet “Herbie” and, when he played “The Battery Cage Brawls“, (Bucketheadland 2) P-Sticks re-entered the stage in a mask and top hat to lip-sync the “ghost of Abraham Lincoln’s” dialog, “I didnt understand ya there young fella, would you repeat that again?“  The man in the mask and P-Sticks subsequently came out to perform with  Buckethead together.  The man played the mandolin again but P-Sticks was holding a contraption that looked like a hybrid flashlight/theramin.  Back in 2000 a man approached me in a Phish lot at Mountainview, Ca when heard us listening to Monsters and Robots.  “Oh,  are you guys listening to Brian?” he asked, and then proceeded to tell us how he was friends with him.  Apparently, another of their friends invents crazy electronic instruments which he brings to Carroll, who plays them effortlessly.  I’m unsure if P-Sticks was the inventor that he was referring to but, I’m assuming that he was performing with one of the instruments.  At the end of the show, another character, resembling a space-age version of Devo’s Boojie Boy, rocked out on stage in a silver costume and a purple boombox.

Among originals like “The Revenge of Double-man” (Monsters and Robots) and “Botnus” (Enter the Chicken 2005), the bucket-clad rockstar weaved a few cover songs into the second half of his New Years Eve show.  He incorporated the Hendrix classic “Foxy Lady” and even “Pure Imagination” from the original Willy Wonka soundtrack.  Futuristic robotic sounds were manipulated from his white Gibson guitar and eventually melded into songs from John Williams’ monumental “Star Wars” work.  Buckethead managed to reproduce blaster and R2d2 sounds with his guitar and jammed the medley into a phased-out version of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider“.  Before the show was over, a professionally dressed woman entered the stage with a clipboard.  She referenced the fictional “abusement park” that the Bucketheadland.com website is titled and modeled after.  She thanked us for coming to the park and claimed that teh dead bodies had been cleared from specific rides.  Buckethead finished the night off with “Welcome to Bucketheadland” (Giant Robot 1994) and ended the show abruptly before 11pm.

I was surprised that the show ended so early because I’m used to New Years shows that run through midnight with balloons dropping and the whole shabang.  This was the last show of his tour and, based on what I have read, the show didn’t differ much from the previous set-lists on this run.  I walked out of the Moore and a man was out front trying to hustle blank white buckets to people on the street.  The crowd was very young and the energy was extremely positive, unlike what one may expect from a performer that often draws fans of metal and heavy guitar rock.  I enjoyed the early dismissal, which allowed me the opportunity to get back to my area of town and have a quiet drink before the ball dropped.  I have no regrets in my decision to spend my New Years at the Moore Theatre and wonder why I ever questioned it in the first place.  Buckethead is a multi faceted artist and, although the show contained lots of heavy guitar noodling and sentimental ballads like those found on Colma, the tribute album for his sick mom, the guitarist made sure to incorporate enough elements from his eclectic career to please his fans of any level or genre.  I encourage everyone who has ever had any interest in checking out one of his performances to do so.  I’ve seen him 5 times now and, at every single one of those shows, I found something new and enthralling to come away with.  There is a story about Buckethead unsuccessfully trying out for “The Red Hot Chili Peppers“, much like Les Claypool had for “Metallica“.  Today, both of the men continue to be innovative in their crafts and consistently get better over time, while the groups that rejected them plateaued ages ago.  Brian Carroll’s career and the versatility that he has shown as a performer should be more than just inspiration for aspiring guitarist.  His shows aren’t just concerts; they are elaborate productions, utilized to display a genuine appreciation for those who have come out to support him.

-Dead C

We’d like to thank Swolfy & Kerry, the 2 friends who flew out from the East Coast just for the show.  Swolfy provided us with a quick photo of the set list that she was able to snap while at the show (featured in Gallery below) and Kerry helped us out with the first video featured.  Please take a look at Swolfy’s deviant art page to view her photographs from the show.  We also reccommend checking out the rest of Kerry’s videos from her youtube page.  They are really good quality and she was able to catch tons of footage.

(CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE & VIEW)