Shock Mountain

At 9:08, The Grog Shop was empty. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest, but I did expect there to be a few more people hanging out earlier on. I was attending the show alone because I had already bought my ticket a week prior to the show and all of my friends had prior engagements or just didn’t feel like spending the cash. I stopped over at the merch table to see if Black Moth Super Rainbow had the new album on vinyl, but the girl in the band (I’m unsure of her moniker) told me that it wouldn’t be pressed until the fall. I did happen upon something that I would buy later on in the night though. The band’s name is The Lava Children and a mention of BMSR in the liners, the fact that BMSR was selling it for only $10, and the purple and green vinyl made it too good a deal to pass up. I told the girl in BMSR that I was surprised that they don’t come to Cleveland more often since they only loie 2.5 miles away in Pittsburgh. She told me that it was actually their first time ever playing in Cleveland, so it was a first for both of us. I sat alone in the front of the stage as I eagerly waited for the show to start. A girl in front of me yelled that she ‘got gum on [her] party pants!’ I suggested she find the nearest person with minty fresh breath and punch them.

Having had very little sleep over the past week, I had bought a large coffee before the show to keep my energy uyp, but I was crashing before it was even starting so I decided to get some fresh air outside to clear my head. I happened upon my friend Haley, who I hadn’t seen or heard from in about six months and we caught up as Jon walked outside to give me the aspirin I had asked him for. By the time I got back inside about 15 minutes later, the place was packed and I quickly got my spot back at the front of the stage. There were two girls sitting near me who were obnoxiously tripping on ecstasy who just ‘wanted to feel the music’. Their level-headed guy friend, who seemed pretty cool, was unsuccessfully trying to calm them down. The one kept on complaining that ‘X doesn’t work on some people. AND I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE!’. Her friend assured her that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that she couldn’t get roll properly, but I made sure to voice my strong opposition to his statement. Instrumental trip-hop played over the PA for far too long.

It was now 10:30 and the first act was just setting up. It was at this point that the kid in the center of the crowd yelled that he was on acid and the girls contemplated going camping on mushrooms. Being a kind person, I helped them coin a phrase to describe such an activity and came up with Shroomping. They all repeated it about 6 times. It seems I was the one of the only people at this show who wasn’t under the influence of hallucinogens. The first act never addressed the crowd or even announced his name. He simply came on, played some drone guitar for about fifteen minutes, then messed around with a synth to make some space noises that his drowned out vocals struggled to explore. I asked him his name and he told me that it was Sam Goldberg and that he was from Cleveland, then smiled and asked me the same. Apparently, he works downstairs from The Grog Shop at B-Side and was headed there as soon as he packed up his equipment. He looked at the tripping girls and said “thanks for being so respectful during my set” in an obviously sarcastic manner, but the girls had a bit of trouble understanding this. They even asked their level headed friend if he was being sarcastic and, as he said ‘yeah, he was’, I snickered to myself as I jotted down some notes. Once the girls had finally realized what had just happened they decided “fuck him, he can’t even play an instrument.” One asked if the other cared and she replied, ‘of course not’. They then proceeded to repeatedly hi-five one another in a veritable display of how awesome they truly were.

The second act, Red Falcon Project came on stage decked out in 80’s gear, ties tied around their foreheads, and what I can only pray were fake mullets. A dancable beat filled the room with notes played on a synth that sounded like a lazer beam played to make way for low pitch-shifted vox that they sampled on their MacBook Pro. Slowly, but surely, the crowd started to loosen up. To accompany their music was a film montage of some of the creepiest stuff I have ever seen in my life. One moment, you were seeing a loop of someone being shot in the face and the next it was tripped out children’s television. The great contrast from lame stuff you would never watch to gory and disturbing images, from what had to have been dugg out of hundreds of lo-rate sci-fi movies, made for one of the creepiest sets I have ever been a part of. Local heroes, Big Chuck & Little Jon, made an appearance and everyone cheered. In the sketch, Little John is trying to hit a gong with a mallet and ends up hitting Big Chuck in the testicles who falls into the gong. OMG, THAT’S FUNNY! One of the last themes in the montage was dedicated to former Minnesota Governor, Jesse Ventura a.k.a. Jesse The Body Ventura. However, there were no quick clips of him supporting the legalization of prostitution, just him kickin’ ass and takin’ names in the ring.

When you go to as many shows as I have lately, it’s a good idea to bring ear plugs. They served a double purpose at this show though because I was able to ignore all of the obnoxious durggies surrounding me. A kid who was standing next to me asked me why I was writing in a notepad and I told him that I have a music blog and I was planning on writing something for the show. He asked “Oh, like you mean on myspace?”. His friend had pointed out that he had probably just insulted me and I laughed pretty hard. BMSR’s opening montage was as bizarre as the one that had preceded it. Photos of Juggalo’s filled the screen and then it cut to a fake vlogger who complained about how he ’saw MGMT and was subjected to the shittiest band ever that only douche-bags would like.’ Suddenly, one of my heroes appeared on the screen. Eric Wareheim appeared to comfort us. To tell us that we’re not “douche bags, not even d-bags”. He did point out that perhaps Black Moth Super Rainbow should shorten their name. He suggested ‘Black Rainbow because they’re so dark, like The Cure’. They could even do collaborations like ‘Black Rainbow feat. Super Moth’. He then told us to ‘put our hands together and enjoy the shoooooooooooooooooow!’

During their first song, people already started partaking in marijuana, which is admittedly dumb no matter what venue you’re at, but especially in Ohio since smoking of any kind is against the law. That didn’t seem to bother the people around me who smoked cigarettes without a care. Speaking of Tobacco, he was sitting on the floor on the other side of the stage throughout the show, so I didn’t really get a great look at him, but the sound was fine and the video playing in the background was more than enough visuals for me. A group of men and women who were wearing tu-tu’s and strange masks made out of water jugs with flashing lights came onto stage and then danced through the crowd. The kid in the center kept on grabbing my neck and screaming in my ear throughout the show, which was really starting to get on my nerves, but he was having a good time and seemed to be good natured so i tried to ignore it as best I could. Jon eventually found the kid smoking a cigarette and pulled him out of the crowd only to have him return moments later to say that he let him go. For some reason, he didn’t take his warning seriously and decided to light up another cigarette before one of his friends called him a dumbass and told him to put it out. The band was incredibly well synchronized and didn’t miss a beat, yet they still managed to get a good deal of jamming going on. I really wanted them to play Gold Splatter, my favorite song on the new album, and while they did play many new songs, that was not one of them. When it was time for the band to take their encore break, they didn’t. They congregated in one corner of the stage for about 20 seconds and then came back to finish it off with their hits.

After the show was over, I went back to the merch table and waited in line to buy the vinyl i had mentioned earlier. The kid in front of me bought every single cd they had on sale and they threw in a t-shirt for free, but damn, $80 is a lot of money to drop on merch. After buying the vinyl, I left and walked next door to grab a beer with some friends before my girlfriend came to pick me up and I realized that I didn’t have my wallet. I sprinted back inside The Grog and when I got to the merch table and the girl from BMSR had my wallet in her hand, she looked just as relieved as I was. All of them seemed to be really nice and approachable people, which greatly surprised me due to their image of being enigmatic.

- James