The Big Scion Rock Fest Recap Review Thing Part 5 - The Wrap Up

Well, I was just going to let this thing die but instead I think I'll finish it. So after the complete sensory overload that is seeing Neurosis I had one last show to "get through" (isn't my life tough?). Rumors and scandals abound about black metal at Scion. The first and definitely most fucked up of these was that Nachmystium was kicked off the bill because a German Anti-Fascist group somehow wrongly convinced the head of Toyota events that they are a nazi band. Dude, there are Jews and like a Puerto Rican guy in the band. For fucks sake, did you even read the lyrics? I wound up grabbing some beers with one of the dudes and they are, understandably, fucking pissed about it and are in the process of taking legal action. Blake from the band had this to say:

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Nachmystium Accused Of Being Nazis, Booted From Scion Rock Fest

by Scott on March 2nd, 2009

Nachmystium I didn’t make it to Scion Rock Fest on Saturday, but I saw last last week that Nachmystium was not going to be playing the gig. At the time I didn’t know why, but this morning the new comes that they were rumored to be a Nazi band and when the promoters of the event got wind of this, they denied them their show. Lambgoat.com posted the following statement from frontman Blake Judd:


“Nachtmystium has sad news today with a once-again recurring issue surfacing from the wake of our past. We’ve been forced, at the request of the promoters and the folks at Scion/Toyota, to pull out of the Scion Rock Festival, scheduled for Saturday, February 28th. This news came to us just this past Tuesday and was very disheartening to say the least. A troubling, and unjustly-applied notion that we are, or ever have been, in any way, a “Nazi” band or a political band on any level, is completely absurd and we are disgusted that there is someone out there who really believes we are of this ilk. It made it as far as the sponsors of this events desks, and now we are forced to pull out of it after some political threatening on the part of these ridiculously uneducated person/people who have caused this ruckus."

So with that casting a weird shadow over the whole day, there was a much more happily exciting rumor knocking around that Norwegian Black Metalers 1349 had their legendary drummer Frost with them in the states for the first time. In other words, the gnarliest fucking black metal drummer in the world was supposed to be in a small room shredding shit up. For free. I wasn't gonna miss that. Despite hunger (there was NOTHING to fucking eat there that cost less than like $7 and for that you got one of the shittiest burritos ever), overwhelming drunkenness, exhaustion (we were heading in to our 12 hour of metal at that point), and the associated delirium, we headed back in to the appropriately named Hell/room 2 to catch 1349's set.

Aside: This is after a brief stop in Purgatory to catch some of our friends' Zoroaster's set. Since we saw them the week before at a better venue and hung with them for a while, we figured they'd be ok with us checking out some other bands. If you ever get a chance to see them, do it, it's like standing in the world's loudest fucking lightning storm. Lemme put it this way, roughly $25,000 of amplifiers for two dudes, a custom hand made light set up "played" by Dan the drummer, and more fucking smoke machines than your tiny mind can process. Heavy. Very, very heavy.

Sadly, the rumors of Frost finally making it to the states were false, however, their fill drummer Tony, fucking held that shit down. Hard. While there was no firebreathing, there was nothing but a wall of the blackest of metal. Ravn & Co. spew a churning, roiling, brand of noise that lives true to the spirit of the 2nd wave of Norwegian Black Metal while taking it to the next level. The riffs are tight, the drumming is unspeakably fast, the sound was fucking killer (actually surprisingly so for a black metal band...), and they keep shit interesting by changing it up with some straight brutal shit, some rockers, and they even had a few that had a definite new Darkthrone metal punk feel (which they pulled off with aplomb. Fucking blew me away actually, I'm pissed I can't remember the name of that song. Best of the set). Fortunately for my tastes at the moment, 1349 isn't really super in to the whole atmospheric thing so it was pretty much just a straight thrash-off the whole set. Highlights include "I Am Abomination," and something about like Maggot Foetuses (the punk song). I'm not super up on their back catalog but through my exhausted, drunken haze those definitely stuck in my mind. Since seeing them I've definitely been stoked to hear their new album. I'm way in to the recent direction that Norway has been heading in terms of a more "rock'n'roll" black metal harkening back to the first Bathory albums and Swedish/English first wave d-beat/crust. It's good shit.

After 12 straight hours of metal, we dragged our asses over to El Myr for some Burritos with Sammy Shred of Apocalyptic Visions to discuss the finer points of passing out at the bar, douchebag yuppies who get in the way of us getting more beer, playing some shows in NYC, and burritos. Skot Webster, a fucking gentleman of the highest order dragged us home and will forever be a saint.

While not going in to too much detail, Vic and I spent the next 2 days SNOWED THE FUCK IN IN ATLANTA! What the hell was that all about? This, while putting a damper on my plans of getting the hell out of that shit hole also allowed us to experience the joy of more southern food, the wonder of an ATL strip bar, the company of new friends, and the pain in the ass of getting to and from the airport a few times and having to reschedule 6, yes SIX fucking flights before finally getting on a plane back to NYC.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.