Clutch, Bakerton Group, and The Company Band

“Bang bang bang bang, vamanos, vamonos” - Clutch

 Finally I saw Clutch at the Artscape Festival in Baltimore – a free show with a full regular set, even including some new, as yet unreleased material.  Quality entertainment!  I had been meaning to see this band for ages, but something always came up: I was up in NJ on New Year’s Eve 2009 when they played the 9:30 Club in DC, a show they filmed and released on DVD.  Other shows were as opening acts for bands I didn’t care enough about (e.g. Black Label Society).  But persistence paid off.

 Clutch themselves come from Germantown, Maryland, and have been around since 1990.  They’ve kept the same lineup:  Neil Fallon (vocals), Tim Sult (guitar), Dan Maines (bass), and Jean-Paul Gaster (drums).  I haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve progressed past the club circuit in all those 20 years, besides maybe opening for larger bands at larger venues.  The largest local venue they’ve headlined was the 9:30 Club.

 In addition to remaining together all these years, putting out albums and touring with a stable lineup, they’ve also managed to be interesting without having any special gimmicks.  No outlandish costumes, no fancy instruments, no lasers, fireworks, no movie screens, nothing more than either a backdrop or a Maryland flag.  They’re also the only major band from Maryland.

 Tim Sult is stocky (not fat), keeps a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes like Beetle Bailey, and hunches over his Gibson SGs or Les Pauls, standing in one place, often adding some wah-wah.  Maines simply stands up and plays his bass, and Gaster plays his drums (he reminds me of Jean Reno).  They’re fairly competent and articulate, but nothing special.  They just play their music, and play it well. The music is 95% hard rock with 5% funk or groove added in, but such a slight hint, far less than Faith No More or Head Rot Chilly Peppers.  The most exciting part of the band, live-wise, is Neil Fallon.  He barks his lyrics – somewhere in between “ok, that makes sense” and “weird word salad” – like an angry preacher or soapbox demagogue.  He has a compelling intensity.

 By now the band have several albums: Transnational Speedway League (1993), Clutch (1995), The Elephant Riders (1998), Jam Room (1999), Pure Rock Fury (2001), Blast Tyrant (2004), Robot Hive/Exodus (2005), From Beale Street to Oblivion (2007), and Strange Cousins From The West (2009).  The first album is thrashy, with the second album marking the beginning of the band’s current sound.  Like AC/DC and Motorhead, the albums pretty much sound the same.

 They even have two side projects.

Bakerton Group.   This is an instrumental jam band, no lyrics, though Fallon is listed as being a member.  On half of Clutch’s material, he plays rhythm guitar anyway, so that’s probably his role in this group.  In fact, the lineup is the same as Clutch.  Material: 3 song EP, Space Guitars; Bakerton Group (self-titled album); and El Rojo (second album)  I’m not aware that they’ve ever actually toured this material.  It’s very funky, somewhat like Particle or Zappa’s Hot Rats album.

 The Company Band.   This is a “supergroup” featuring James Rota of Fireball Ministry (guitar) and Brad Davis of Fu Manchu (bass) with Neil Fallon…singing.  They have two EPs, Sign Here, Here, and Here, and Pros and Cons (no mention of hitchhiking), and a full length album, The Company Band.  The first EP is done up to look like a corporate report, whereas the album looks like a stock certificate.  The music is straight ahead rock, sounding (due to Fallon) very much like Clutch.  As with BG, I’m not aware that this band has ever actually toured.