Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Tour Diary #2: Jagged Mouth

11/01 Seattle, WA
The show was at a small bar called The Kraken in the "U district". We played with only 3/5 of a band called Morrow because the rest of the guys were underaged. A God Or Another played some good local short haired black metal next. Good stuff. Having friends in attendance who had transplanted to the area was a nice highlight. We played next and Ol'Dagger headlined.
So far the formula of having several genres of metal represented each night has really worked out well.
11/02 Portland OR
After all of us spending the night scattered in three different locations, we departed the Seattle area in the early afternoon, stopped at Trader Joe's in Olympia for lunch and supplies, and it was nice to have time to just enjoy the area and travel at an easy pace.
The show was at a house called Bloodshed. Without getting into details, it was just intolerably uninhabitable. We were invited to stay the night there but it was quickly evident that that would not be a viable option.
On the bright side, it actually turned out to be a good show. Snakes started the night with their two-piece "Stoner Violence". They burned through a 20 song set in about as many minutes. Blistering grind performed with just the right combo of super quick riffing and flawless blasts.
Mindshroud played morose death metal that was just suffocating. Perfect basement metal. Their set was a focused performance of their dense brand of metal.
By the time Ol Dagger went on, the place was packed. The band and the crowded basement just completely went off. People were slamming into each other during the whole set, and Ol' D just commanded the room. Those D-beat parts really hit hard at these smaller shows.
We played last to a stoked crowd ready to be crushed by doom. We have found that even though our music is slow, if the room is energized people are still moving around and going off. Our song "Fallen to Incarnadine Loam", which has a quicker pace and a skronky sludge riff, went off especially hard. We got our first basement show under our belts now!
11/03 Off day
These off days are enjoyable, but it would've obviously been preferable to have shows every night. We fought this one really hard, trying to get a show booked in Sacramento, Chico, Arcata, Bay Area, etc, and to no avail.
We got ready and went to get food with our hostess for the night, Warrior from Mindshroud. We then spent the day driving the northwest coast of Oregon, which was amazing, and camping on the beach in Lincoln City.
Best quote regarding Portland of the day; " A lot of people just sit on the ground here", courtesy of Ben.
11/04 Eureka CA
Highlight of the day; driving along the coast all day and listening to Subrosa. Seeing the redwoods.
We had another unwanted day off on our hands. Despite multiple efforts to make something happen for us, nothing was shaking loose. And then the last minute, barn burner surprise. A show at the Little Red Lion in Eureka! We were walking around Arcata to stretch our legs and get a plan together for the night, when we saw a flyer for a legit metal show at a place in Eureka.

One of the Dagger dudes rang them up, asked if they had bands scheduled, and got us on for the night. So we got in the van and drove the short distance out there, talked to dude at the bar, did the whole Facebook event page thing, and then realized that we were in the worst part of town surrounded by meth ghosts.

We ended up playing to a few people playing pool, and a small handful of dudes that were getting increasingly agitated that we weren't playing Pantera covers.
Oh well, the worst show of the tour is over.
Onwards to Oakland!

Pick up Jagged Mouth's latest album here.

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