Three ticket give aways!

That’s right, in celebration of DCHeavyMetal.com entering its third year of existence, I’ve decided to hold a mega contest giving away a pair of tickets to three different upcoming metal shows! There will be three different winners, not one person getting all three. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me which of the three concerts you’d like to go to and I’ll use Random.org to pick three winners, one for each concert, on Monday the 19th of September 2011 at 6pm EST to win tickets. You can only win for one concert but you can enter to win for all three or whichever ones you’d like. Be sure to use a valid email address when you enter so I can tell you that you have won, though it doesn’t have to be visible in the post itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to any email lists or anything annoying like that. Read below to see what the three metal concerts are, and choose wisely!

Choice One

On Wednesday the 21st of September the West Virginia based Karma To Burn is coming to the Rock & Roll Hotel. Karma To Burn is an excellent sludgy stoner band and they play a lot of instrumental songs, though some have vocals. To make this show even better, DC’s own Borracho will be opening. They are an excellent stoner act that you should be sure to check out if you haven’t already. Borracho recently put out their first LP titled Splitting Sky and this show would be a great chance to save on shipping and pick it up after seeing them play live. Local act King Giant was supposed to play this show but due to an injury to one of the band members they have had to cancel their appearance at this concert. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $10.

Choice Two

On Friday the 23rd of September the brand new 2,000 person capacity Fillmore in Silver Spring will host its first ever metal concert! British metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon headlines a night of some of the best core bands coming from the UK and Australia such as Parkway Drive, Architects, While She Sleeps and Deez Nuts. And come on, if you win you can spend all week telling people you won tickets to see Deez Nuts. The Fillmore will have just opened on September 15th so this will be the first chance to destroy the place with some insane mosh pits! If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $23.

Choice Three

Kyuss Lives! is the name of the reformed version of legendary stoner band Kyuss featuring all the original members of the band except Josh Homme (he’s busy playing with super group Them Crooked Vultures these days). So now the band has Bruno Fevery on guitar but what’s really exciting is that they have been working on a new album and, assuming they play some of that on this tour, this show will be the first chance this area is going to have to hear new Kyuss material in over 15 years! To make things even better Texas based doom masters The Sword and Atlanta’s Monstro are opening. This show is on Saturday the 24th of September at the 9:30 Club and you know it’s going to be awesome. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $30.

September 13, 2011
Categories: Contests, Doom Metal, Fillmore Silver Spring, Hardcore Metal, Nightclub 9:30, Rock And Roll Hotel, Stoner . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 56 Comments

Two Year Anniversary

Today marks the two year anniversary of the first post on DCHeavyMetal.com and the site has come along further than I could have ever hoped! It’s all thanks to you guys who read the site and go to local metal concerts in the area. I put a lot of work into this website and the fact that so many people appreciate the upcoming concerts calendar as well as my various reviews and recaps of live shows, occasional news updates and free ticket give aways makes all the effort and late nights worth it.

But this isn’t just a post about thanking you guys and patting myself on the back, there’s more stuff coming up too. I’m proud to announce that I will be giving tickets away to some upcoming metal shows at the brand new Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland. You can find out more about the venue that is about to open in one of my recent posts here. The first metal shows at the Fillmore that I’ll have ticket contests for will be Bring Me The Horizon, Yngwie Malmsteen and Between The Buried And Me with Animals As Leaders. Assuming they do well I’ll be giving more tickets away to more metal shows there as well so be sure to tell people about the contests when they’re posted. If those bands aren’t your thing though don’t worry as I’ve got some other free ticket give aways coming up for shows like Gwar and Kyuss with The Sword at the 9:30 Club and Cavalera Conspiracy and Karma To Burn at the Rock And Roll Hotel. Stay tuned to the site for more details on all these give aways, there’s a lot coming up in the next few months and if there’s one thing I love doing with my site it’s giving away stuff to readers of my site.

Thanks to everyone who has made this past two years of hard work all worth it. It’s you, the fans of heavy metal music in this area, that make this site what it is. DCHeavyMetal.com has no plans of slowing down any time soon and I look forward to many more years supporting the area’s community around the music I love! Stay brutal everyone.

September 11, 2011
Categories: Fillmore Silver Spring, Nightclub 9:30, Rock And Roll Hotel, Shameless Promotion . . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 1 Comment

Recap of Black Skies gig at the Cellar Door

This isn’t a full review but a fairly quick recap of the house show I went to on Tuesday the 6th of September 2011. It took place on one of a string of rainy nights at a DIY venue I had been meaning to get to for a while, the Cellar Door. This is not to be confused with the historic Cellar Door venue that was in Washington DC from 1965 to 1981. They have nothing to do with each other besides the name. The house in Annandale, Virginia that I was at did in fact have a cellar door and the bands used it to carry equipment to and from the basement area that they were performing in. I looked around a bit, the basement wasn’t very large but it was good enough for a house show. The walls weren’t really decorated down there, other than an old Dysrhythmia show poster hanging by one thumb tack on the wall. Upstairs there was a small bar that was covered in merch, which one of the houses’ resident cats was relaxing on. There was also a back deck area but I didn’t really go out there because I don’t smoke any more and it seemed kind of crowded. The people there were nice and even though I didn’t show up with anyone else I found plenty of people to talk throughout the evening between bands. They also had an interesting collection of books on shelves and stacked around the main living room area covering all kinds of subjects like art, fantasy, politics, science and other stuff as well. I didn’t really thumb through anything but I did see a few people doing so. A hat was passed around for donations to the bands. There was no official cover charge for the show, just an understanding that you’d throw in a few dollars to help support the bands. The people hosting the gig were cool and offered me a burger fresh off the grill and a beer from the fridge, though I had just eaten at Five Guys before the show. Had I known I would have skipped it so as to get there in time for the first band, Ancient Astronaught, which I missed entirely.

The second band to play, and the first I got to see, was Trade from Toms Brook, Virginia (that’s out west a bit past where 66 hits 81). They were a sort of rock/stoner band and I wouldn’t call them bad but they didn’t really stand out much to me and their songs didn’t seem to have a lot of variation. They were a good start for the evening though, and they gave me a chance to practice shooting in the close quarters of the basement.
Trade at the Cellar Door

The next band up was Black Skies from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They’re a sort of sludge/stoner band and these guys had some crazy energy going. You could tell it was going to be a fun set when Kevin Clark started playing his guitar with his teeth during the first song! The three piece played exciting songs and the dual vocals from Kevin as well as bass player Michelle Temple worked really well. The basement got pretty damn hot while they played though and I had to put my camera away eventually because the lens was fogging up. Definitely my favorite set of the night.
Black Skies at the Cellar Door

The next band to play was the local act Akris. I’ve been meaning to catch them live for a while but for one reason or another I hadn’t gotten the chance to until this evening. They are also a three piece with a woman on bass, but the similarities pretty much ended there. For starters the drummer was more prominent in the band’s sound because there was no guitar player. The band’s sound was much more raw as well, but that’s not a bad thing. There also seemed to be a bit of a punk edge in there. And if you weren’t up front you might not have realized the third member of the band, Jon Simler, who was sitting on the floor fidgeting with various DJ tools. For the most part you couldn’t really hear what he was adding to the music, except during the occasional break between bass lines. The audience seemed to enjoy Akris a lot and there was even a semblance of a mosh pit in the crammed basement area they were playing in. Their set ended just before midnight and their performance was a great way to end the show.
Akris at the Cellar Door

This was the first time I’ve been to the Cellar Door. I’ve known of a few previous shows there but schedule conflicts have kept me from showing up in the past. After seeing such a fun show, and with the Corpse Fortress shutting down at the end of September, I wanted to write something here to draw some attention to this place, one of the few DIY venues in the area that will still host metal bands. The basement is smaller than the Corpse Fortress but the place isn’t trashed as much either. No, it’s not going to replace the Corpse Fortress but it is an example of someone else helping to keep the local DIY scene alive. You can be sure that I’ll post more of the Cellar Door’s upcoming shows on the Upcoming Concerts Calendar as I hear about them (you can also find info on the last Corpse Fortress show on Sept 24th there). For more info on local DIY venues and concerts (metal or otherwise) in the DC area I highly recommend regularly checking out Dirty City Shows at http://inyrbasement.tumblr.com. You don’t have to pay a $15 Ticketmaster fee on top of a ticket price to see a great metal show in this area. You might not get all the crazy stage lighting but you won’t pay $7 for a Budweiser either. Go out and see bands, not just the ones you are in or your friends are in, but check out new bands and see if you find something new you like. Get out and support the scene you’re a part of!

September 8, 2011
Categories: Cellar Door, Concert Reviews, Local Band Info, Sludge Metal, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: Leave a comment

Venue Changes Around The Area

There’s been a lot going on at several concert venues in the area recently. The biggest story is probably that the Fillmore will be opening on September 15th in Silver Spring, Maryland. The original Fillmore is in San Francisco and during the 60’s helped spawn many of the era’s biggest hippy bands, such as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Now there are several Fillmores around the country and it’s the DC area’s turn to get one. The Silver Spring location is a two level 2,000 person capacity venue. For comparison the 9:30 Club holds around 1,200. The first concert there is Mary J. Blige on September 15th, but the first metal show will be on Friday, September 23rd with Bring Me The Horizon. There are more metal shows coming as well, including Yngwie Malmsteen and Between The Buried And Me with Animals As Leaders. The venue is located inside what used to be a JC Penny and is run by Live Nation (who have merged with Ticketmaster) who also runs Jiffy Lube Live. I am excited to check out this brand new venue in the suburbs of DC and hopefully they’ll get even more metal concerts in the future.

Another big change happening in the area is the management of Jaxx Nightclub in Springfield, Virginia. The venue has been run by Jay Nedry since June 1994 but he has decided to sell Jaxx to Jason Malhoyt and Jeff Cohen of Outerloop. They will run the day to day operations of the venue starting on January 1st of 2012 though Jay will still book several shows a month for them, mostly the glam/hair bands, death metal acts and various European black and power metal bands. You can read Jay’s statement about the sale here. You can already see some changes at the venue though, the new website design is an obvious one. Unfortunately the calendar is awful to navigate and opening local bands are often not listed on it either. The new logo and site layout does look nice though. Outerloop has also recently taken over Alley Katz in Richmond, Virginia and renamed it Kingdom. It is still closed right now, but it will be opening for the first time under the new management on October 8th when Periphery plays there. Both Jaxx and Alley Katz/Kingdom appear to be switching their ticket sales to a company called Amped & Alive, which also seems to have ties to Outerloop, though I’m not 100% sure what they are exactly.

Up in Baltimore you’ll see that Bourbon Street hasn’t been booking any more shows. The venue is apparently closing down, though the people running it appear to be moving to a new Baltimore venue named the Baltimore Soundstage. This new venue is in the inner harbor area and will hold 1,000 people. However, on select nights they’ll have seated shows that will hold 500 people. I think this is going to be a table setting similar to what you’d find at the State Theatre or the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. There will also be a full menu with things like crab cakes as well as a full bar with wine, beer and liquor. The venue will open on Saturday, September 3rd when Milkman plays there, though the first metal show will be Devin Townsend and Anathema on Wednesday 12 October. The venue is going to sell its tickets through Ticket Fly, the same company that handles ticketing for the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Aside from Bourbon Street, there have been a few venue closings and other problems of late with area venues. The Hexagon, a DIY space in Baltimore, closed on May 20th. Really it was more of an eviction and you can read their post about that here. So Addictive Lounge in Herndon, Virginia had long been holding Metal Monday local metal band spotlight shows every week before they decided they’d convert to being a gay bar seven days a week. However, the Metal Mondays are not entirely dead as the people behind them have been hosting various metal shows at the Old Firestation #3 (aka Firehouse Grill) in Fairfax City. Now you can see local talent as well as touring bands play there, and it’s still just $5 to get in. Hole In The Sky, a DIY venue in Northeast Washington DC, was shut down by police in the middle of a concert on February 16th. They’ve since done things like build a fire escape staircase to get up to code and have reopened, though they don’t seem to be hosting concerts very often and certainly not metal shows. Silver Spring, Maryland’s DIY space dubbed the Corpse Fortress has been condemned after 5 years of awesome shows. Everyone has to be out by October 1st but there will still be a final show there on September 24th. More info on why it is being shut down is here. This is a huge blow to the area’s DIY scene, metal or otherwise. It had just recently gotten a kick ass paint job in the basement where bands perform, which you can see here.

All is not lost though! There’s the Palace Of Wonders and The Red & The Black which have merged to form the Red Palace on H Street in Northeast DC. They get occasional metal shows, including a special free performance by Clutch that’s coming up on Monday the 29th of August. And while Sonar had a big problem with liquor licenses and almost shut down temporarily back in May (more on that here), it seems it was just a hiccup and they are back to running things as usual again now (although the lot across the street from venue is now metered and thus no longer free to park in). The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring, Maryland seems to be getting more metal shows as well (Auroboros will be performing there this Sunday, the 28th of August for a matinee show at 2pm) and I’d expect to see more metal gigs get shifted there once Corpse Fortress is gone. There’s also a new DIY house venue that’s starting to host a few metal shows in Annandale, Virginia that is called the Cellar Door.

So there is a lot changing in the area’s venues and hopefully this article will help encourage some of you to get out to an extra concert or two that you might not have before. Remember, if you’re looking for info on any of these venues’ upcoming metal shows be sure to check out the DC Heavy Metal upcoming concert calendar here. If you want to know more about any of these venues, including their addresses, links to their website, Facebook page or Twitter, or even on how to book a show there check out the Venue page here.

August 26, 2011
Categories: Baltimore Soundstage, Bourbon Street, Concert Reviews, Corpse Fortress, Fillmore Silver Spring, Firehouse Grill, Hole In The Sky, Jaxx Nightclub, Red Palace, So Addictive Lounge, Sonar, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 1 Comment

Review of Proclamation gig at the Ottobar

On Tuesday the 9th of August 2011 there were several metal shows all around the area, quite odd for a random Tuesday. Queensrÿche was playing the 9:30 Club, Emmure was headlining a 14 band concert for the All Stars Tour‘s Baltimore stop at Sonar, and there was also a rare metal showcase at Jammin Java featuring local acts Iris Divine, A Sound Of Thunder and Timelord. However, I skipped all of those and decided to head up to the Ottobar in Baltimore to see Proclamation, a black metal band from Spain. I wasn’t too familiar with them but I figured this will probably be my only chance to see them play live and I’m not one to turn down seeing an obscure black metal band perform live. There weren’t a lot of people at this show though, maybe around 50 by the time the headliner was playing. The bands didn’t seem to mind and played very well regardless.

I get out of work kind of late in the summer and getting to shows in Baltimore on weekdays usually means I’m going to have to miss an opener or two, and this night was no different. I knew I’d probably miss the local opening act, Extermination Angel, but the other three bands on the bill were all touring bands. The first of those scheduled to play was Thantifaxath, a black metal band from Toronto. Apparently they were held up at the border and not allowed to enter the US (something to do with goat heads in their belongings I heard) so they weren’t on the bill. Instead excellent local Baltimore doom act Oak played. I got there just as they were finishing though, which kind of sucks because they’re really good but I’ve seen them before so I wasn’t that upset. When I arrived the door price had been lowered to $15 (even though the Ottobar website listed the show at $18 and said it would increase the day of). A nice surprise though they should have mentioned this and the line up change on their website. The next band up also has quite a mouthful for a name, Abazagorath, who are a black metal band from New Jersey. I’d never heard of them before but they put on a decent show. My main problem with them was their vocalist, a guy who goes by the stage name Nihilist. He seemed to spend half his time on stage hanging out back by the drummer, often not even looking forward at the audience. The vocalist didn’t have a great voice for black metal either, and I saw him reading lyric sheets he had placed on the stage during several of their songs. They were playing some new material for the first time during the set so perhaps that’s something of an excuse but it still isn’t something I expect from a touring band. The guy just seemed unprofessional and hell even the bass player had better stage presence than he did, the guy was decked out in spikes and leather. Regardless, this is black metal and the vocals aren’t the most important part of a band’s sound in this genre. The rest of the band was pretty good and they had some decent songs that got a mosh pit going for a while. There wasn’t a lot of variation in their songs but their sound was good enough that it wasn’t a bad thing really. One of the guitarists was playing an eight string guitar which is kind of weird for a black metal band and seemed a bit unnecessary. I wouldn’t have gone to just see them but they were a good support act on a black metal tour like this.

Next up was the headliner, Proclamation from Madrid, Spain. They’re a three piece black metal band and as far as I can tell this was their first US tour and this was the final stop on said tour. I hadn’t ever heard of them when this tour was announced and I checked out a few of their songs online leading up to the gig but they didn’t seem to stand out that much to me. I found them much more entertaining live I must say. Their songs weren’t overly long, they didn’t try to be ultra dramatic and epic, and their vocalist knew all the words (even while playing guitar). They were just straight up, pissed off Satanic black metal and they were pretty good at it. The band’s drummer really punched it the entire night, the guy just didn’t slow down! He was quick and really kept the pace and energy levels high for their entire set. On top of the relentless drumming, Proclamation had some great guitar riffs in there too. Several songs built up brutal momentum very well and their assault on the ears was quite an energy boost on this Tuesday night. There were no big surprises in their sound but they had just enough variation to keep their songs interesting and I can’t say I was bored at any point during their set. They all came out with sort of corpse paint on, they had black make up on their eyes but no white face paint underneath. They all had necklaces on with various things hanging off of them, bones and upside down crosses and the like. They played 15 songs and they all drank from their beer bottles almost in unison immediately after each song ended. They didn’t really address the audience between songs, other than to bark out the next song’s title. They played a Sarcófago cover and that seemed to please the largely Latin American crown. Otherwise Proclamation kept it straight forward, heavy and blasphemous. No frills and no big surprises but certainly high intensity throughout their set. They did not perform an encore after their set, even though the audience wanted one.

I’m glad I decided to check Proclamation out. The show was worth the drive to Baltimore, even on a week night. I’m going to have to go back and give their studio material a few more listens because I really enjoyed them live. Proclamation won’t change your opinion of the black metal sub genre nor blow your mind, but if you’re into black metal I recommend seeing them if you ever get the chance. As usual I posted photos of both Proclamation and Abazagorath (click their respective names to see them) and I posted some videos from the show below as well. The videos are all pretty dark but you should at least be able to hear the bands alright. I really need to get a new video camera but I don’t see that in my financial forecast any time in the foreseeable future. Feel free to donate one to me, ya know, for Satan or something.

August 11, 2011
Categories: Black Metal, Concert Reviews, Ottobar . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 1 Comment

Summer Slaughter Ticket Give Away

The Summer Slaughter Tour is coming to Washington DC this year and this wouldn’t be DCHeavyMetal.com if I wasn’t giving away tickets to this heavy concert! They’re coming to the 9:30 Club on Monday, August 15th, 2011. All you have to do to enter to win is post a comment below telling me which of the 10 bands on this tour you are the most excited to see play (they’re listed in the paragraph below). One winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries to win a pair of tickets to the concert, awesome! Make sure you enter in a valid email address you check regularly when you submit your comment so I can contact you if you win, though it doesn’t need to be in the comment itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to a list or anything, I hate spam as much as you do. On Friday, August 12th at 5pm EST the concert will end and I’ll select a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the comments below to win the pair of tickets. UPDATE: I’m going to extend this one an extra 24 hours, so you have until 5pm EST on Saturday August 13th! If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours I’ll pick another winner. Don’t be a jerk and enter multiple times or I’ll disqualify all your entries.

This year’s Summer Slaughter Tour is making it’s only area stop at the 9:30 Club on this Monday afternoon in August. There’s a total of 10 bands on this tour, but what really makes this show special is that two of them are a couple of local bands I know you have heard of before, Darkest Hour and Dying Fetus! That’s right, they’re both on the tour and are coming through with headliners The Black Dahlia Murder and White Chapel. If that wasn’t good enough there’s Six Feet Under, which is the current band of original Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes and also features Terry Butler on bass who played in Death on the Leprosy and Spiritual Healing albums. There’s also the video game themed metal band Powerglove who will be doing some sort of half time show. I’m not sure what that entails but they tend to wear costumes that are some sort of cross between Gwar and 90s video game characters. But that’s not all, there’s also several other bands, namely: As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Within The Ruins. This show is going to be big! If you can’t wait for the contest to end or if you don’t win you can get tickets from Ticket Fly for $24 here. Doors open really early for this one, 2:30 pm in the afternoon so be sure to bring a few dollars for food as the evening goes on. The 9:30 Club has a full menu and there’s also several local restaurants within walking distance along U Street that you can hit up as well. There is re-entry, just make sure you get your hand stamped to get back in. If you’re still not sure which band to pick just check out this video which is a short sampler of all the bands on the tour.

August 8, 2011
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Local Band Info, Metalcore, Nightclub 9:30, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 27 Comments

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