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.
Pentagram is one of the oldest doom metal bands not only from the DC area but in the history of metal and they’re playing at Empire (formerly Jaxx) in Springfield, Virginia on Saturday, August 3rd! DCHM is psyched to give away a pair of tickets to see these guys rock the stage the night after Black Sabbath plays to be the second half of an old school doom metal weekend. To enter just leave a comment on this post telling me what song you’d like to hear Pentagram play live the most at this show. You can see their discography here if you need some help. At 5pm EST this Friday, July 26th, a winner will be chosen at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win the tickets. Be sure to use a valid email you check regularly so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any spam lists or sell your info or anything sleazy like that. If you can’t wait to see if you win or the contest is already over when you read this, then you can get tickets from Amped & Alive for $20 here.
Along with Pentagram there will also be a performance by locals A Sound Of Thunder. I have a pretty good feeling they’ll be busting out some of their more Sabbathy stuff for this show and they’ve been known to cover some obscure Black Sabbath tunes too. Sons Of Eddie will be playing Iron Maiden cover songs at this show as well. And you’ll want to get there early to make sure you catch Virgina based Dirt Merchant‘s fuzzy guitars and Despite Charm who are coming down from Baltimore to play. Now check out some of these cool songs by Pentagram and A Sound Of Thunder below and tell me what song you want to hear Pentagram play live!
On Sunday, September 30th of 2012 the New Orleans based southern/stoner metal band Down played the Fillmore Silver Spring. Also on the bill was the doom metal band Pentagram, the Texas based thrash metal band Warbeast and a blues rock band from Ohio called Mount Carmel. I had just seen a great doom and stoner concert with Saint Vitus and Weedeater at the Black Cat three nights before (read that concert’s review here), so would this show live up to it?
The first band to play was Mount Carmel, however I only caught about one of their songs. They did make an appearance on stage later in the night but I’ll get to that later. They’re really more of a throwback bluesy rock band and since this is a metal site I’m not too upset I didn’t catch enough to review them. The second band of the night was the heavy thrash band Warbeast. They’re from Texas and feature members of the old school Texas thrash bands Gammacide and Rigor Mortis. Warbeast seemed to get a good response from the crowd with their catchy riffs and flashy showmanship but they didn’t really do anything I hadn’t heard from a thrash band a dozen times before. The highlight of their set was when Down’s vocalist Phil Anselmo came out to do guest vocals on a song with them (my video of that is posted below). You could tell Phil was really trying to get the audience into Warbeast which makes sense because they’re on his record label, Housecore Records. Warbeast played a lot of material off of a yet to be released full length which was cool for their fans. Overall I thought they were a decent opener but as far as thrash goes they were pretty typical and generic. They just didn’t stack up to the Vektor show I had seen two weeks earlier (my review of that concert is here) and while their energy got the crowd pumped up they just didn’t seem to fit in with the other slower paced bands on the bill that night. The next band to play was the legendary doom metal band Pentagram who were originally based in Washington DC. It was announced (here) the day of the show that this would be guitarist Victor Griffin’s final US concert with the band as he will be leaving them, again, after their upcoming European tour to work on his other projects. While offstage the band’s vocalist and founder Bobby Liebling comes across as a man whose years of hard drug use have left him rather frail and weathered he showed that when he gets on stage he’s still got it. Like most of the older legends of the doom metal scene he knows heavy, depressed and weary, but he also has a quirky side that isn’t afraid to laugh at himself. If you had any doubts about this going in they were instantly dashed when Bobby dropped trou on stage to reveal some skin tight pants covered in eyeballs of various sizes. While I had a photo pass for the band’s first three songs he did this afterwards so I have no photos of said pants, although I have posted video footage you’ve got to see to believe of him wearing them below. The band really was in great form and played a lot of their older classics as well as a few from their latest album, 2011’s Last Rites. The biggest problem was due to no fault of their own as the microphone had technical issues throughout their set. It got so bad that Phil Anselmo walked out on stage and started yelling at the sound guy to get things fixed! Regardless Pentagram played their asses off and really showed that after all these years their material still holds up, their sound is still heavy and they’ve still got it live! Bobby walked around on stage like he owned the damn place and Victor, cool as ever, cranked out those classic riffs and even did some back up vocals on some songs. Had the show ended after Pentagram played it would still have been a great concert but next up was the headlining act, Down.
Down is a stoner band with a strong southern metal bent from New Orleans. They are often referred to as a “super group” since the band’s line up includes such notable musicians as Pepper Keenan of Corrosion Of Conformity, Kirk Windstein of Crowbar, Jimmy Bower of Eyehategod (on drums no less!) and Phil Anselmo of Pantera. Since the members have so many other band commitments Down doesn’t tour very regularly so when you hear they’re coming to town you should probably get off your ass and go because who knows when they’ll be back. That said, if you missed the show the band just released Down IV Part I: The Purple EP so perhaps a part two will be coming soon and Down be touring again in no time. Down started their set off with their song Eyes Of The South and followed it up with their latest single, Witchtripper. The song was just released twelve days prior to the show but already most of the audience seemed to know the words! Down’s frontman Phil Anselmo really had the crowd in his palm throughout the show and while the stage at the Fillmore isn’t small he had a presence that still seemed confined by it. His voice was cracking and going hoarse throughout the night plus he had more of the same microphone problems that plagued Pentagram’s set as well, but none of it seemed to matter much to the enthralled audience. At one point Phil pulled a teenager out of the audience and brought him on stage to headbang with him for half a song. Not because the guy paid extra for a special VIP ticket or was somehow friends with a band member, but just because Phil thought he was so damn metal looking! I actually have some video footage of that so if anyone knows the guy tell him to get in contact with me. Let’s not forget the dual guitarists of Down, Kirk Windstein and Pepper Keenan. The guys have a great chemistry on stage and even though Phil commands a lot of stage presence, and thus attention, Kirk and Pepper reminded everyone that this wasn’t just Phil’s band. Their solos were on point, their timing and exchanges precise and more than anything, you could just tell they were having fun performing for everyone. Down’s sound owes a lot to those dirty southern riffs they cook up and while there were vocal issues throughout their set the guitars were excellent all night. The band walked off stage for the pre-planned encore and came back to play three more songs. Hail The Leaf saw people openly smoking joints in the mosh pit but when Stone The Crow’s instantly recognizable opening riff started people really went wild with the moshing and crowd surfing. Finally Down played the song people had been requesting all night, Bury Me In Smoke, to close the night. They didn’t just play it though, they actually played a 10 minute plus version with members of Mount Carmel and Pentagram coming out to the point that I’m not even sure if any members of Down were playing any instruments by the end of the song! Of course there’s video footage of that below as well. Overall the show was a great performance by a great band that had the crowd moshing, singing along and just rocking out to some great music. Thanks for reading my review and be sure to check out all the photos and videos I’ve posted below. There are more great metal shows coming to the area (calendar here) so get out to some of them and support the scene you’re a part of!
Southern metal super group Down will be playing the Fillmore Silver Spring on Sunday the 30th of September 2012 and DCHeavyMetal.com is giving away a free pair of tickets to one of you lucky readers of the site. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me what song you’d like to hear Down play the most at the show. On Friday, September 28th at 5pm EST one lucky winner will be picked at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win a pair of tickets to the show. If I don’t hear from you in 24 hours then I’ll pick another winner to get the tickets so be sure to use an email address you check regularly (even on the weekend!) so you’ll be able to claim your prize. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any email lists or anything like that, I hate spam too. If you enter more than once then all of your entries will be disqualified. And if you cannot make it to the show please don’t enter because I want people who can actually attend to get the tickets! If you simply can’t wait to find out if you have won or not, or the contest is already over, you can buy tickets to the show for $28.50 from Live Nation here.
Down is a New Orleans based metal band that is often called a super group since it is made up of members of Corrosion Of Conformity, Eyehategod, Crowbar and Pantera. Unlike most bands to get the super group label Down actually kicks ass. They just released a new record titled The Purple EP and you can bet you’ll get hear some of those sweet new tunes live at this show as well as several of their classics. But let’s not forget the other bands who will be playing this show as well, most notably the doom metal legends Pentagram. They’re only playing two shows with Down on this tour but we’re lucky enough to get one of them in our area. Also playing will be the Texas based thrash metal band Warbeast. They’ll be shredding your face off in a good way to really get things going. The opening act will be the bluesy throwback band Mount Carmel from Ohio. Down doesn’t tour very often so you’d be crazy to miss this show. What better way is there to see it than for free? So listen to these tunes by the bands playing, enter the contest below and start getting psyched for a killer metal show!
I was fortunate enough to be asked to guest co-host on the Inverted Umlaut pirate radio show/podcast last night for a special on heavy metal in the Washington DC area. DJ Young Padawan was really cool and let me pick the playlist too, which I’ve posted below. The show plays metal every Monday night from 9pm to 11pm on Radio CPR 97.5 FM on the radio dial if you’re in North West DC, or you can stream it from their website here (just click “listen live” on the right). If you missed the show last night don’t worry, they post every episode as a podcast the next day, and you can download the episode I was on by going here. Thanks to everyone who tuned in, I wish I could have played dozens more bands but I still think I got a good mix in the two hours I had. I tried to keep the playlist current and most of the songs are from the past year or two, some haven’t even been officially released yet. Check out the playlist below and feel free to click any of those bands’ names to find out more info on them, get more music from them, etc… Also, several of them are featured in my free local band downloads, which you can find version 1 here and version 2 here. Keep supporting our scene, there’s some great bands out there that are worth taking the time to check out.
This isn’t really a full review of the concert, it was 2 weeks ago now, and I had been drinking a bit at this concert too so I decided not to review it. Due to a hangover I didn’t get all my photos and videos from the evening posted on time, then they just got kinda put on the back burner, but I finally got them all sorted through and ready to display today. Ol’ Scratch was setting up when I got to Jaxx. Everything must have been running late because I didn’t think I’d be able to get there in time to see them. I’d heard good things about them before and I like their latest album, the Sunless Citadel too. They weren’t the first band to play but they were a perfect local opener for this kind of show. They have more energy than a lot of doom bands, but that’s not a bad thing. They also have a lot of beards! I recorded 2 of their songs, one of which is embedded at the bottom of this post. I don’t know the name of that song so if you do please let me know so I can update the listing. Earthride was on next but they didn’t really hold my interest and that’s when the beers started flowing! They are most known for having the bass player from Spirit Caravan on vocals, but they just sounded rather generic to me, nothing I hadn’t heard before. By the time Gates Of Slumber came on I’d run into some old friends and was rambling away most of the set. I do like them and I’ll have to see them the next time they come around (sadly they’re dropping off the Weedeater tour before they come to DC9 in April). By the time Pentagram got on stage Jaxx was pretty packed. I don’t know if it was a sell out but it was certainly a good sized crowd and you could tell Bobby Leibling was happy to see so many people came out to support him in what is basically his home town. They put on a good show, though they didn’t play Buzz Saw, a personal favorite of mine. However, they did play 2 new songs from an upcoming release that is yet to be recorded. I actually video taped both of these songs, I’m Takin No More and South Of The Swamp and have put them on YouTube (just click their names to see/listen, the visual quality isn’t the best because it was so dark, but the audio isn’t bad). This might be the first time those 2 songs were played live in front of an audience since this was the first show of the tour. There were people of many different age groups all coming out to see the local very-old-school doom legends Pentagram and they really did put on a fun show (and it wasn’t just the beer making me think that). I can’t wait to get to see them again on day 3 of Maryland Deathfest this May. Well, sorry it’s taken so long to get all this stuff posted (the show was on Friday 15 January 2010), but you can see the pictures I took on Flickr here and the videos I shot on YouTube here. Enjoy! Oh, and if you’ve got a review, pics, videos or whatever else from this show, feel free to link to it in the comments section of this post.
the bill was the doom metal band 
DCHeavyMetal.com 