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| Wolf Eyes September 15, 2005 UICA, Grand Rapids, MI Who are these bozos tonight? Noise-jazzers on vacation? This is WOLF EYES! The last time I saw this I was DEVASTATED. I thought I was in hell. Absolute ice-cold hell for the dudes that pissed off Dante. Brutal, hairy-legged goat Hell, and I loved it. Thought it was the future, or at least something to get excited about. But now, now they're hot shit. They get mentions in BIG-TIME rags, get reviewed by CREEM. These aren't the mythical guys who work at the record store in my (least) favorite college town. So what's with the slow build-up and rubbing the sheet metal till it goes pssshhhhh-pshh! And then taking a break to drink a beer? Last time they were all straight "FUCK-YEA" right from the gate, pumping fists and taking lives. Tonight they seem lazy to me. But maybe that's maturity. Mature trash. Hell, what do I know about noise? I've never even heard one note of Metal Machine Music once. So anyhow, I'm at an art gallery-movie house, sitting down, watching three guys slowly develop a crescendo of death, listening to the rattling gurgle coming from their contraptions, waiting for the big beats and the echoed screaming, waiting for them to raise the dead from hell, thinking, "C'mon Wolf Eyes, raise the Goddamned dead already!" when this light bulb starts singing. First quiet: pit.pit.pit.pit.pit., then louder, faster: PiPiPiPiPiPi, and then full-blown PIIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIIIIIII-IIIIIIIII. The room is black and this light keeps flashing as urgently as the sound it seems to be making, blinding me as it deafens me. Now I'm assaulted. Now this is getting interesting. The guy on the left's got a one-stringed painted up bass-machine that growls and the guy on the right does sweet stoner-rock vibrato moves on his guitar when he's not just mashing it up to pieces. 15 minutes. I'm into it. They walk off stage. The crowd is dumbfounded, me included. I feel cheated. I brought friends to this. The band pokes its head out. This is a test. They come back and one of them explains, "We thought we'd played for like an hour," and then they play more. This time with the beats and the shrieky saxophone and some of the yelling. The show progresses. I'm no longer thinking of telling them that three dudes from Ohio called Sword Heaven have outdone them at their own game. 10 more minutes. Gone again. Some people leave. My friends and I stay. Wolf Eyes is back. Guy on the left says, "Sound check was cool. We're Wolf Eyes," and now they are WOLF EYES. Microphone fiend's head shakes violently; both stringed instruments are playing doom, music machines are blaring piercing sounds. They rule the stage for 10 more minutes and leave for real. My friend says this is music for orcs. He is, of course, correct. Wolf Eyes are 21st Century druids. Not musicians. But noise is music now, affirmed by commercial breakthroughs in the past several years. If this is true, what is the measuring stick of success in the craft? Critics will now have to decide the merits of manipulated sine waves next to the latest Springsteen record. "The Boss falls short on his latest attempt at capturing the heart of the working man and women, but the record by SZGRAWL is genius, just pure, unintended, accidental, bullshit noise. Knocks me right out." And I'm OK with that, but it seems some sort of standard is in order, so I don't have to keep telling my girlfriend why or how there's a difference between her taping a keyboard to her back and rolling on the floor and some guy on stage doing it while his friends wiggle PVC pipes. Take a listen to almost anything on the Scratch and Sniff label out of Kalamazoo, Mich., in particular, an artist named Mammal, who, legend has it, can't get his records cut into vinyl because his music breaks the presses. This fact astounds me. This guy must be at the peak of the game in his scene. But I can't get into it. Nothing grabs hold of me and says, "LISTEN!" Perhaps this is the role Wolf Eyes is playing --maybe they'll turn kids on to the underground like another Sub-Pop recording artist did about 15 years ago. But it seems this secret's got to stay in the basement to survive. It will always evolve and stay a step a head of co-option. It wouldn't exist if that wasn't the point. Besides, it's bad enough watching loads of replicant melodic-metal bands, let alone second-rate eardrum destruction rookies. The furthest limits of punk and jazz meet at the same place and, seemingly, anyone can do it, but not everyone can do it well. Wolf Eyes can (if they feel like it).
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—Eric Gallippo October 2005 |
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Photos: Doug Coombe
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