I was lucky enough to see Man Is The Bastard a lot. The first Goleta Fest w/ Enewetak, Disembodied, Endeavour, Guyver One, etc; H.B. Library w/ Mens Recovery Project (and Clikitat Ikatowi?); Showcase w/ Neurosis, Dead America, and Bloodlet; Koos w/ Assuck, Swing Kids, and Still Life. I'll detail these stories later (hopefully with flyers).
For now, I'll discuss my first experience with the legendary M.I.T.B.. I think it was the Fall of '94? Josh (later the drummer for Gehenna) and I drove out to Santa Ana's Koos Cafe in my '67 Mustang to check out M.I.T.B. and Lack Of Interest. At the time I think we just knew them as the band that had a split with Born Against. Man, were we in for a treat. M.I.T.B., as I would later learn quite well, was absolutely crushing. I have no clue what songs they played, but I was impressed enough to become a lifelong fan.
As inferred, M.I.T.B. would quickly become one of my favorite bands, especially live. I hear a lot of talk of crushing live performances, "heavy this" and "heavy that". I can honestly say that Coalesce is probably the only other band that ever held a candle to M.I.T.B. on this level. I've heard stories of Infest shows, and it sounds like a similar experience. Maybe it's a true West Coast Power Violence thing. I don't know.
On the way home, my car broke down at that Chevron next to the 5 freeway entrance. It was pouring rain, so Josh and I took shelter at that donut shop next to the gas station. Some bum came up and tried to sell us an answering machine in a plastic bag. I think we may have actually purchased it out of charitable concern. Eventually, I crawled under my car in the pouring rain, fixed the problem, and we were on our way.
Oh yeah, I remember nothing about the Lack Of Interest set.
Pointless story? Sure. A nice memory for me? Absolutely.
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I remember leaving the Showcase show after Neurosis played for what seemed like five hours. We were headed east on the 91 and it was completely empty because the show didn't end until almost two. We saw something in the middle of the freeway underneath the 15 overpass. As we got closer we realized someone had parked their car on the overpass and jumped onto the freeway and was dead in the middle of the 91. No one was there yet but we saw flashing lights coming up behind us and we kept driving. I talk about that show a lot.
ReplyDeleteI saw MITB quite a few times as well, mostly at much smaller venues with much less famous bands. I agree with you that MITB is among the heaviest live bands ever. The best thing is that no one really ever tried to do what they did, they were just too weird and the opposite of what was going on at the time. One of the bands i might actually get out of the house right now and drive more than ten minutes to see.
I've enjoyed reading through these articles and posts, I'll visit frequently and post if i can add to the discussion. Maybe I'll write something on GT, Riverside, and the PositiveXKids and submit.