This blog specializes in heavy metal music and how it relates to Washington DC and the surrounding area. Featuring info on upcoming metal concerts in Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia, as well as info on local bands, area concert venues, reviews of live gigs, and lots of give aways.
On Tuesday, July 24th of 2012 there is going to be a birthday metal concert/party at the Red Palace for Ben Bones, the head of security at the Rock & Roll Hotel. Luckily Ben has some great musical taste as the night’s line up will be Balaclava from Richmond as well as locals Auroboros, Borracho and Above The Silence. You don’t have to know Ben to go to this kick ass show though, you just have to be 21 or older. Since Ben is a friend of mine and I like you all so much, DCHeavyMetal is going to be giving away a free pair of tickets to this rare metal show at the Red Palace. All you’ve got to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which of the bands playing you want to see the most (you can pick more than one if you’d like). Be sure you enter with an email address you check regularly so I can contact you if you win, and as always I won’t put you on any email spam lists or anything like that. On Friday, July 20th, 2012 at 5pm EST I’ll pick a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the valid entries to win the tickets. If you are under 21 please don’t enter because even if you win this contest they still won’t let you in the door. There’s more info on this show, including set times, on the DCHM upcoming concert calendar here. Also, the artwork with the woman on the sofa will be printed on posters that will be for sale at the show for about $5. [UPDATE: Turns out the posters will be given away for free upon entry, first come first served.] The artwork is by El Jefe Design, a local company who does great work. I’m pretty psyched for this kick ass line up and seriously, what else do you have to do on a Tuesday night? Get your ass out to this!
But wait, there’s more! This show is also the EP release show for my friends in Auroboros and the winner of the tickets will also get a free copy on vinyl that is signed by all of the band members as well as a digital download of the EP. The prize will be awarded at the concert so please don’t enter if you cannot attend. Even if the Auroboros guys weren’t friends of mine I’d recommend you pick this up because it sounds great! I pretty much have to mention that the band features ex-members of Baroness and Salome, but the pasts of its members isn’t what makes a band great. It’s the songs and Auroboros really comes through big on those. Check out the song Tired Grip from the new EP below and see for yourself. You can pick up the EP on vinyl from Australopithecus Records right here for $13 (includes a digital download) or get a digital copy in the format of your choice for just $3.50 from the band’s Bandcamp page here. Of course they’ll also have copies for sale at the show.
What the hell are you reading this for? Enter the contest by leaving a comment below!
I was asked to write a guest post for one of my favorite metal news websites, MetalUnderground.com, and it went live on the site today. They have a weekly column called Unearthing The Metal Underground where each post explores a different area’s underground metal scene. They asked me to write the one about underground metal in Washington DC and let me pick three bands to go into detail about. I chose to write about Ilsa, Midnight Eye and Borracho for this post, however if the post gets a decent response they said they might let me write another about Northern Virginia or Baltimore or even another DC post. So feel free to leave a comment there or share it with people on Facebook or something if you enjoy it and maybe I’ll get to help expose more of our kick ass local acts to a national audience! You can read the post on Metal Underground here:
And one more thing, and it’s totally unrelated and is really just shameless promotion hardly related to my site, but some good friends of mine have been in a non-metal rock band for years and I have finally convinced them to play a live gig. I got them booked at the Velvet Lounge this Wednesday, the 28th of September and I certainly recommend checking them out. They hit the stage at 9pm, and are playing with the Megaphone Barons and Electric Grandmother (bands I admittedly don’t know much about). Again, they’re not metal but they are a damn good band, and they have three guitar players! You can check out the event’s Facebook page here but even if you can’t go feel free to check out the Garage Hoppers on Facebook here. Ok, I think that’s enough blatant non-metal promotion for one post. Stay metal everyone and support the scene you’re a part of!
On Sunday the 18th of September I had two shows I was trying to catch live. The first was a special free show that the Frederick, Maryland based band Clutch was holding at the Red Palace. This show was listed as a special five song acoustic set that was part of a promotional “release party” for their own beer, Clutch Dark Sour Ale, from New Belgium Brewing. The show was originally scheduled for Monday August 29th but it was postponed due to Hurricane Irene. This night everything seemed to work out ok though. The people from the Colorado based craft brewery, most famous for their Fat Tire Amber Ale, were mingling in the audience who had gathered. I have bought a few of the Clutch beers already, and they’re actually pretty damn good. They’re dark but with a sour taste that builds up the further you get into the 22 oz bottle, sort of like how some spicy foods’ heat builds up with the more of it you eat. It’s not a fruity sour though and is not actually very sweet at all (which I think is a good thing). I recommend trying it if you can find yourself a bottle. At this concert however, they were selling the bottles for $20! I still had a bottle in my fridge at home that I bought for $7.99 at Total Wine so there was no way I was going to fork out that much cash just to drink one at the Red Palace. Hell, even Clutch’s Neil Fallon said on stage that he was drinking a competitor’s beer.
The show started with the one of the guys from New Belgium Brewing taking the mic on stage and introducing the band as well as presenting them with the bottle that had serial number 10001110101. That’s the name of one of the songs on Clutch’s 2005 album Robot Hive/Exodus. The guys then went into their setlist, starting off with and “acoustic” version of The Regulator. While guitarist Tim Sult played an acoustic guitar, they were all using pick ups, pedals and amps, so don’t think this performance was something like those old MTV Unplugged specials. What made the show cool was that the Red Palace only holds about 200 people, and Clutch is a band that usually plays much larger venues, they had just played at the HFStival the day before at Merriweather Post Pavilion. However this night the band played their five song set and pleased the crowd by having Tim plug in his regular guitar before playing a new song, apparently titled Newt. They played a few more songs, sort of a best hits style thing with songs covering their back catalog and ending with Elephant Riders. In all they played for about an hour and it was a fun show and a great chance to catch Clutch up close.
When Clutch had finished I didn’t linger around for too long since I had another show to catch at the Velvet Lounge. I made a stop at the 9:30 Club‘s basement bar for a quick bite to eat just before they closed their kitchen. Apparently they had some Mexican band playing upstairs named Molotov, but luckily the 9:30 Club has a separate door on the side of the building you can enter the bar at if you don’t want watch the show. The bartender down there was wearing a Clutch shirt and he said he was pissed he had to work that night because he had wanted to see the show at the Red Palace. Anyways, I had a nice panini and an organic oatmeal stout and then I walked around the corner to the Velvet Lounge.
The Velvet Lounge had a pretty sweet line up this evening. They haven’t been getting a lot of metal shows of note lately but this one definitely stood out on their calendar. The headliner was the New Orleans based sludge band Suplecs and they were touring with the Columbus, Ohio band Lo-Pan. Shows at the Velvet Lounge tend to run late but even so I missed the first band on the bill, Weed Is Weed from Maryland. The band has two former Spirit Caravan members in its ranks, Dave Sherman and Gary Isom. I hope to catch them another time. The first band I saw play at the Velvet Lounge that evening was Lo-Pan. I’ve never seen a band’s lead singer stand all the way to the back of the stage before. I mean way back, he was even behind the drummer. Despite their strange stage positions, they were pretty good live. They made for a good opener act on this kind of tour. They wrote their set list on pages torn out of some porno magazine, certainly the most graphic set list stationary of the night.
After Lo-Pan finished their set local act Nitroseed performed. Typically an instrumental band, they played several of their songs with lyrics at this show. I’d never seen them live before but I was very impressed, certainly worth checking out if you see them listed as an opener at an upcoming show. Also, it turns out their drummer, Phil Adler, also plays in the local doom band Wooly Mammoth. Their music had some good energy and they kept the momentum rolling forward throughout their set. They finished up and the last band of the night was next, Suplecs.
Suplecs is from New Orleans and they mentioned many times between songs that they were excited to be playing in front of a DC audience as they were big fans of the DC doom metal scene. The band was good live, they had some high energy parts but also slowed it down for a few songs. Their songs really had a dynamic range to them that many sludge bands simply don’t have. This kept the show interesting and fresh throughout their set, which is a really good thing after watching three bands with a similar sound earlier in the evening. They mentioned that this was the first time they played their song Pissing In The Wind on the East Coast. They closed their set with a cover. After all their praise for DC’s metal scene I thought for sure they’d play a Pentagram or Spirit Caravan song, or something similar at least. Nope, they played Working Man by Rush. Totally out of left field if you ask me. It was ok but really didn’t seem to fit into their set that well. Regardless, I will definitely go see them again if they come through the area another time, and you should too!
If you’d like to see more images from the bands I saw that night you can see them on my Flickr page here. And be sure to check out all the videos below of Clutch, Nitroseed and Suplecs. The first four are Clutch. The first one is acoustic and the second is their new song. The last two videos are of Suplecs, the last of which is their Rush cover. Thanks to the guys in King Giant for the beers and thanks to you for reading all of this. Stay metal everyone!
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.
On Thursday the 5th of May 2011 the Red Palace is hosting their second metal concert ever and to celebrate DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a pair of tickets! The band playing, Holy Grail, is a newer metal band that plays in the traditional style of bands from the 70s and 80s. They put out their first full length album, titled Crisis In Utopia, last October on Prostetic Records. The album has been a hit with fans of power metal and thrash and now they’re coming to Washington DC to support it with a headlining concert at the Red Palace. Along with Holy Grail on the tour is Toronto’s Cauldron, also a traditional metal band and a great support act for this gig. There’s local support from the excellent band To The Teeth and this is their first show inside the district so be sure to get there early to see them. To win the pair of tickets to this awesome concert just tell me in the comments below which of the three bands playing you are most excited to see, Holy Grail, Cauldron or To The Teeth. On Monday 2 May 2011 at 6pm EST the contest will close and I’ll pick a winner from the valid entries below at random to win the tickets. Make sure you use a valid email when you enter (does not have to be in the comment itself) so that I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry I won’t put your email address on any annoying spam lists or anything like that, I hate that crap too.
The Red Palace is located in the heart of the burgeoning Atlas Theater district of North East Washington DC on H Street. It was created when the Palace Of Wonders and next door neighbor The Red And The Black knocked down a few walls and merged last year. The upstairs stage area has been expanded and is much improved. You can read my review of the first metal show at the venue here. The address for the Red Palace is 1212 H St NE, Washington DC 20002 (click the address to see it on a map). Tickets to the concert are $8 advance or $10 the day of the show (for those of you who don’t win) and can be purchased online here. It’s ages 18+ with the doors opening at 8pm and the first band at 8:30. There’s only a few days to enter this contest, so don’t wait and help spread the word to any friends you might have that could enter, they could win and give you the extra ticket, right? Now, check out this awesome Holy Grail video for their song My Last Attack as you leave a comment to enter to contest.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve gotten out to a good metal show, so I was glad I could make it out to see Priestess, Naam and King Giant at the newly opened Red Palace in Washington DC on Tuesday the 9th of November 2010. This was a concert that almost didn’t happen because it had originally been booked at DC9. After the recent incident there, and subsequent cancellation of their entire upcoming concert schedule, many of those concerts were moved to the Rock & Roll Hotel, but this one wasn’t. Luckily the Red Palace had just passed all their code inspections and such and were opening the new upstairs stage area just in time to host this gig. And I’m glad they did because it was a lot of fun! Plus, being one of the first to check out a new venue is always fun.
The Red Palace is on H Street NE in the Atlas District and was formerly the venues The Red And The Black and the Palace Of Wonders. They have now combined to become the Red Palace, and by combined I mean they were knocking down walls. The entrance to the Palace Of Wonders has been completely shut off, and now the only way to enter is on the side of The Red And The Black. A bouncer outside was checking IDs and gave me a wristband. Once inside, it didn’t look too different, the bar on the right, the booths on the left. Once you make it past the booths though, there is a hole in the wall with a couple steps down that leads to the Palace Of Wonders side. There’s a small stage right in front of you, though I spoke with one of the bartenders and he said they’d be getting rid of that and the dressing rooms next to it at some point and the space would become the kitchen. Anyways, you have to go left once you step into that side, and there’s another bar on you left and a stairwell that leads to the upstairs on your right. They took the cover charge at the base of the stairs and stamped my hand and let me upstairs into the show space. Now, I’d never been inside the Palace Of Wonders before, but I had seen a few shows at The Red And The Black, and it was tiny, along the lines of the Velvet Lounge in floor space. The new set up greatly improves not only the space for the audience but also the stage is at least three times the size. A sign over the upstairs bar said the maximum occupancy was 106. Previously the stage had been set up so the band was facing away from the street, towards the back of the building, but now it’s been rotated 90 degrees so that the band performing will be facing the Palace Of Wonders side with the street to their left. There is a big seam on the floor that lets you know right where the wall had been knocked down, and a large I beam runs parallel above it. There’s a third bar at the top of the staircase, and the mixing board is set up above the lowest part of the stairwell. Aside from the space being much larger, the sound quality was great. An interesting little thing I noticed is that they placed a pair of subwoofers under the stage itself that face towards the crowd, which sounded really good. Well, enough about the new set up, lets get on to the bands…
The first band of the night was one of my favorite local bands, King Giant. The kings of southern darkness played a short but fun set. Their staples Solace and 13 To 1 kicked off the set and really got the show started with a bang. Their southern rock/stoner/sludge sound with it’s well thought out song structures and just downright catchy riffs really got people into the concert from the start. The biggest problem I had was that the set was short, but then, this was the first time I’d seen them open for a show and that just comes with the territory. Also of note, their bass player, Floyd Walters III, had an eye patch on his right eye, though it wasn’t too noticeable under his sunglasses. Hopefully he heals up quick, eye injuries suck.
The next band up was Naam from Brooklyn, New York. They’re a three piece doom metal/stoner rock band that I was pretty unfamiliar with going into the show. They were pretty entertaining, a bit on the atmospheric side at times but they had some really fun parts where they’d build up and just jam out some metal for a bit. Their heavily reverbed vocals, from both the guitarist and the bass player, was a rather haunting touch to their sound. After the first song they had the board op bathe the stage in red lighting for the rest of their set. They didn’t play a whole lot of songs, though some were rather long such as their closing song which was over 10 minutes. They weren’t bad and a good choice to be in the middle slot for this show.
Finally it was time for the headliner, Priestess, from Montreal. Sadly, as they started there weren’t many people still there for the show and the lead singer, Mikey Heppner, started off by saying jokingly thank you to “the five of you who stayed.” Once they began playing people started appearing from the stair case though. I can see that being an issue with this venue, as the upstairs bar is the smallest and also in the most cramped space, so when a band ends and there’s a rush to the bar, I’m sure many people head to the bigger downstairs bars and probably stayed there for a while. Anyways, it seemed most of them did return to the stage area upstairs, and it’s a good thing they did! Priestess slayed with their thrashy version of sludge metal and the entire show was exciting. At the beginning of the song Lady Killer one of the strings broke on Mikey’s guitar, but he didn’t miss a beat and even managed to adjust for the missing string rather well even getting through the solo decently. I had missed Priestess last time they came around, when they played at the Black Cat back in April, even though I caught the headliner High On Fire (my review of that show is here). I’m glad I finally got a chance to see them, it was great! The songs were fast paced and catchy and their drummer was insanely good. He really was the star of the show and he was punching it all night. He even did lead vocals on the song Lunar. I’m not familiar enough with them to know if he does that on the album or not, but it was still impressive to see him throw those tight drum fills in between verses. The show was a lot of fun and I’m glad I stuck around for the headliner as they really entertained with an action packed setlist that totally made me forget how late it was on a Tuesday night (though the beer helped with that a bit too). Overall it was a great show with one of the best local acts to open, a new band to check out, and a killer headliner. You can check out the videos I shot there below, some might be a bit dark but as usual the audio quality is good if nothing else.
to go to this kick ass show though, you just have to be 21 or older. Since Ben is a friend of mine and I like you all so much, DCHeavyMetal is going to be giving away a free pair of tickets to this rare metal show at the Red Palace. All you’ve got to do to enter is leave a comment on this post telling me which of the bands playing you want to see the most (you can pick more than one if you’d like). Be sure you enter with an email address you check regularly so I can contact you if you win, and as always I won’t put you on any email spam lists or anything like that. On Friday, July 20th, 2012 at 5pm EST I’ll pick a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the valid entries to win the tickets. If you are under 21 please don’t enter because even if you win this contest they still won’t let you in the door. There’s more info on this show, including set times, on the DCHM upcoming concert calendar here. Also, the artwork with the woman on the sofa will be printed on posters 
DCHeavyMetal.com 