DOWN

Searching my blog archives, I see I haven’t reviewed this band yet.  They could be considered a supergroup, as the band members had already achieved some notoriety in other bands already, Crowbar being the most prominently represented (and I have NONE of their albums).  They have three full length albums, two EPs, and a live album/DVD.   I never got a chance to see them live in person, but recently they played a live streaming show in which they played NOLA, the first album, in its entirety. 

Of the component bands, I have all of Pantera’s albums and have seen them as an opening act at an Ozzfest, never as a headliner.  I have all of Corrosion of Conformity’s albums and have seen them several times fairly recently after Pepper Keenan returned - never as a three piece and never as the pre-Pepper punk band.  It was Blind and “Vote with a Bullet” which aroused my attention back in the day.  Crowbar I saw fairly recently opening for the Obsessed.  I was unaware they were from New Orleans until the band took the stage with fleur-de-lys symbols pervasive and the drummer wearing a Saints jersey.   With the exception of Crowbar, with whom I’m not familiar, I would actually compare Down’s material favorably to Pantera and Corrosion of Conformity, if only slightly so.  Anyone who likes those bands – or who likes Crowbar – should certainly enjoy Down. 

1.         NOLA    (1995).   Temptation’s Wings; Lifer; Pillars of Eternity; Rehab; Hail the Leaf; Underneath Everything; Eyes of the South; Jail; Losing All; Stone the Crow; Pray for the Locust; Swan Song; Bury Me in Smoke

Lineup:             Phil Anselmo (vocals) (Pantera); Pepper Keenan (guitar) (Corrosion of Conformity); Kirk Windstein (guitar) (Crowbar); Todd Strange (bass) (Crowbar); Jimmy Bower (drums) (Crowbar).

Tour 9/20/95 to 12/30/95.  No DC or Baltimore area show.

2.         II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow (2002).  Lysergik Funeral Procession; There’s Something on My Side; The Man That Follows Hell; Stained Glass Cross; Ghosts Along the Mississippi; Learn From This Mistake; Beautifully Depressed; Where I’m Going; Doobinterlude; New Orleans is a Dying Whore; The Seed; Lies, I Don’t Know What They Say But…; Flambeaux; Dog Tired; Landing on the Mountains of Megiddo

Same lineup except with Rex Brown (Pantera) on bass instead of Todd Strange.

Tour:  4/28/02 to 5/25/02.  No DC or Baltimore area show.  They toured Europe for this album and recorded various shows – see below. 

3.         III: Over the Under (2007).   3 Suns and 1 Star; The Path; N.O.D.; I Scream; On March the Saints; Never Try; Mourn; The Tides; His Majesty the Desert; Pillamyd; In the Thrall of It All; Nothing in Return 

 After Dimebag’s death in 2006. Same lineup as II.

Tour:  9/27/07 to 10/14/08.  This tour went much further, including overseas AND Baltimore (10/31/07 at Sonar).

₊          Diary of a Mad Band (CD/DVD).  Live album recorded in London on the II tour in 2006, but released after III (no songs from that album played).  The DVD portion has different songs filmed in different cities (the band members’ clothing abruptly changes during the songs).

4.         IV Part 1 (The Purple EP) (2012).  Levitation; Witchtripper; Open Coffins; The Curse Is A Lie; This Work is Timeless; Misfortune Teller

Pat Bruders (Crowbar) took over on bass from Rex Brown.

5.         IV Part 2 (EP) (2017).  Steeple; We Knew Him Well; Hogshead/Dogshead; Conjure; Sufferer’s Years; Bacchanalia.

Bobby Landgraf on guitar in place of Kirk Windstein.   The band did not tour either EP.  Having listened to them again I’d say there is a substantial drop off in quality from NOLA/II/III and the IV EPs; while the first three albums were enjoyable, I found the IV EPs to be big time MEH.   Your mileage may vary.

Stoner Jesus.  If there is an iconic image associated with the band, it’s the Stoner Jesus, often featured on t-shirts – and a pint glass.  Browsing through the song titles will give you some idea that herbal remedies are popular as subject matter and among the band members.  Anselmo has a bad reputation as a heroin addict, not sure about the rest.  Overall the musical direction is Lynyrd Skynyrd dialed up as heavy as you can make it (too bad Raging Slab aren’t around anymore:  RIP Elise Steinman).  

Mitt Romney

 

I was going to talk about him last week, but this 9/11 thing interrupted.  We all remember that, don’t we?  Anyhow.  I got an email from a GOP fundraiser claiming that “we don’t need another Mitt Romney”.  Hello, SPAM FOLDER. 

Romney is currently a US Senator from Utah; the other is Mike Lee, who also went to Brigham Young (BYU) and leans Libertarian (or so the Interweb claims).  His prior stints were Governor of Massachusetts from 2002-2006 and the Republican candidate for President in 2012, unsuccessfully running against Barack Obama.  He’s the last Republican candidate I voted for, for President.

Son of Michigan governor and AMC (the car company that gave us the Javelin, Gremlin and Pacer) President George Romney, he was born in Michigan and served time in France in the late ‘60s as a missionary for the Mormons.   There he learned to speak French.  He came back, finished college at BYU, then went to Harvard Law School & Business School, and became a business consultant with Bain.   His track record is mostly positive, though with some missteps here and there.

As governor of Massachusetts his major accomplishment was a state health insurance program which closely resembles what Obama got enacted nationally:  RomneyCare (see also: ObamaCare).  Though a Mormon and a Republican he kept away from being too right-wing and Jesus-y, an important issue in highly liberal Massachusetts.  The last MA governor to run for President was our old friend Michael No-cock-is, who was easily defeated by George H.W. Bush, in the first election I voted in, 1988, the only one in which the candidate I voted for actually won (!).    

As senator from Utah he’s the only GOP senator to vote FOR Trump’s conviction after the House impeached the Orange Fuhrer.   I suppose he might have done so to win favor from Utah Democrats and independents, knowing his GOP comrades in the Senate – including my prior favorite, Rand Paul – would all vote to acquit.  I like to think he really believed Trump should be convicted, and voted accordingly.  He’s also marched with Black Lives Matter.   As a frequent nemesis of Donald Trump, he’s earned some scorn from fellow Republicans, but respect and admiration from Democrats and independents. 

By now I’ve gotten fairly jaded about politics, especially about Republicans.   Sadly, some degree of compromise and pragmatism is necessary to get things done in the real world, so it’s hard to consider any politician as being truly conscientious and principled – except at the extremes of the left wing (Bernie Sanders, Paul Wellstone, Ocasio-Cortez) or right wing (any particularly noxious right-wing, Jesus-y Republican).  And with Trump as President, too many Republicans seem to feel that they have to swallow their distaste for him and support him unconditionally.  Now, more than ever, it’s hard to identify any Republican as really being decent. Having said that, Mitt Romney strikes me as the GOP senator who might most plausibly be considered honest and principled.   In fact, in terms of strength of character and integrity, Romney has likewise surpassed Rand Paul in my regard. 

Getting back to his JD/MBA.  I tried doing that back when I was a senior at UMCP applying for law school, but what I was told is that while law schools will take applicants right out of college (about 50% of my colleagues at GMUSL seemed to be recent college graduates, and my former boss Jerry was only a year out of UPenn before going to USC Law) business schools preferred applicants with some prior real world experience.  The other deal is that Romney had a good background at Bain, but also as governor of Massachusetts.  So it struck me that here was a guy who knew what business ideas and concepts translated to politics and which did not.  The main problem otherwise successful business comrades have when they switch to politics is that they don’t realize that many subordinates can’t simply be fired for failing to follow orders – employment at will is not the way the federal bureaucracy works.  And if anyone could understand this, it would be Romney.  So we have a guy who is (A) successful in the private sector, (B) successful GOP governor in a Democratic state (like Gary Johnson in New Mexico – in fact, Romney considered endorsing Johnson in 2016, he obviously couldn’t do so in 2012 when they were running against each other) and (C) someone who has character and integrity. 

I’m not a resident of Utah, so I’m not in a position to vote for him as senator, though I’d hope he’d follow Nixon’s cue and run for President again notwithstanding his previous loss.  In fact, I’d happily vote for him over Biden if he was the Republican candidate, just as I did in 2012 over Gary Johnson, who for me is the strongest Libertarian candidate to run for President.  Of course, that’s not the situation.  I suppose the best we can hope is that he’ll take the party nomination in 2024.  

We’ll see, won’t we?

Nine Eleven

 

Wow, the date itself gave me the topic!  How convenient.

At the time I was working as an attorney for an older, experienced sole practitioner attorney in Fairfax, Virginia, hereinafter “Bill”.   Bill was down in Richmond that day for a bar meeting.  One of the secretaries came in my office and told me, “a plane hit the World Trade Center”.  [North Tower, 8:46 a.m. EST]  A reporter suggested this might be an accident, but the footage showed the plane flying directly at the tower.  Soon enough, the second plane hit the second tower [South Tower, 9:03 a.m. EST], the third plane hit the Pentagon [9:37 a.m.], and the fourth plane crashed in western Pennsylvania [10:03 a.m.], brought down by the passengers themselves storming the cockpit, one passenger calling his wife to advise her the circumstances and to say goodbye to her.

My girlfriend at the time, Leila, lived in Pentagon City and worked in Rosslyn, a commute which took her past that face of the Pentagon, but she was at the office when the plane hit. 

I think I speak for everyone who remembers that day that we were ALL angry and upset.   This galvanized everyone, even Democrats who didn’t care much for President George W. Bush.   When he decided that we would liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban and track down Osama Bin Laden, he had pretty much unanimous support.   That’s why I’m puzzled by some people on the Book of Faces alleging protests in support of the people responsible for 9/11.

Where I live, Skyline at Bailey’s Crossroads, has a large segment of Muslims.  Whether they’re Sunni or Shi’ite, I don’t know.  None of them have given me any problems.  Nationwide, Muslims are 1% of the US population, 3 million out of 330 million.   The Fort Hood guy and the Boston Marathon bombers were Muslim, but we have plenty of homegrown, non-Muslim screwups blowing things up and shooting people. 

The liberation of Afghanistan went fairly smoothly (October 7 to December 7, 2001), but the Taliban simply retreated to the hills, and in parts of neighboring Pakistan, and continue to cause problems – helped by bounties from their erstwhile opponents the Russians.  Osama Bin Laden himself was taken out in 2011 by US forces – under Barack Obama’s administration. 

Two years later, upon GWB’s insistence (later disproven) that Saddam Hussein and his regime were involved in the 9/11 attacks, we invaded/liberated Iraq.   There, the much-vaunted Republican Guards vanished into the hills and we took the country fairly quickly – March 1 to May 1, 2003.  Then a protracted guerilla war erupted, presumably those Republican Guards taking to the hills instead of facing us directly.  Saddam Hussein himself was captured in December 2003, hiding in a bunker in the ground. 

Aftermath.  As noted, 9/11 certainly unified the country behind GWB and public support for the liberation of Afghanistan was fairly widespread, if not unanimous.   Saddam Hussein’s connection with 9/11 was somewhat more tenuous.  Ironically, one of the justifications for the invasion, that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction”, later turned out to be bogus, and Saddam’s own generals, when our invasion began, asked him to deploy these alleged weapons – only to be told by him his hints of having them were merely a bluff to prevent the US from invading.  D’oh!   I do recall that support for the Iraq invasion was far less widespread than the previous operation in Afghanistan.  Partly this was due to tempers calming down over the two year period between 9/11/2001 and 2003, and partly was a suspicion that GWB was overplaying his hand on the matter.  Much of the goodwill we earned on 9/11 was squandered by our invasion of Iraq.  Having said that, I’m not seeing any domestic sympathy or support for the Taliban in 2020 or any time earlier – or for Al-Qaeda, for that matter.

Conspiracy.  Yeah, I zone out on the conspiracies that “9/11 was an inside job”, “jet fuel can’t possibly melt the internal structure of the WTC tower”, etc.  I put those in the same category as “the Civil War was about states’ rights” for credibility.  Getting back to that Suicide Pact book I’m reading, I’ve yet to reach Posner’s analysis of the Patriot Act; if 9/11 was orchestrated by the CIA or US forces as an excuse to impose a form of fascism on us, ostensibly to fight terrorism, we’d see something like a fascist regime in our country.  As yet, that hasn’t happened, but much of what Posner talks about concerns holding alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Circa 2020 the main fascists are the President and his “he’s an asshole who gets things done” supporters who believe both the President and the police to be infallible.  Anyhow.

All Them Witches

 It’s getting harder to figure out what to write about on my Friday blogs.  I’ll think of something, check my archives, and realize I’ve covered the topic already.  Today’s entry is #755, so I’ve had 754 previous ideas.  Fortunately new band bands come out periodically, allowing me to address them, including this relatively new band from Nashville, Tennessee, All Them Witches.  Their first album, Our Mother Electricity, came out in 2012.

Like many of these newer bands – I’d compare them closest to King Buffalo (from Rochester, NY) and Elder (from Boston, MA) – they vary the songs from mellow to heavy and back again, avoiding getting too monotonous, and the singer/bassist, Charles Michael Parks, actually sings, which is a good point.  His Rickenbacker has the top horn cut off, so we’ll see if this band gets big enough that Rickenbacker makes a CMP signature model.  I know they have an Al Cisneros (Sleep & OM) model.  The guitarist is Ben McLeod and the drummer is Robby Staebler. 

I was fortunate enough to catch them at the Rock’n’Roll Hotel in Washington, DC, on March 23, 2019.  Setlist:  Funeral for a Great Drunken Bird; 3-5-7; Diamond; 1^st vs. 2^nd; Fishbelly 86 Onions; Workhorse; Charles William; When God Comes Back; Rob’s Dream; Alabaster; Swallowed by the Sea; encore:  Blood & Sand/Milk and Endless Waters.

Their newest album, Nothing As The Ideal, was recently released.  I preordered it and received the CD (I reserve vinyl for material released before 1988, as only such material, originally recorded for analog reproduction, will make the transition to premium vinyl).  Excellent, similar to the prior releases, though I fall short of being able to distinguish it, for better or worse, from such albums.  For those of you with Spotify, those releases are available on that medium. 

With the COVID still preventing live shows occurring, and the Clutches and Downs being the exception and not the rule, I won’t hold my breath for ATW to tour this album in the US or have a live online show.  I will play NATI over and over again, and as yet I haven’t gotten fed up.   :D

Black Lives Matter

 

Recently I posted about cops misbehaving, “Bad Cop, Bad Cop” and addressed the racial issue tangentially.  In doing so I noted that apologists for police misbehavior are de facto fascists, even if they don’t wear swastikas or worship Mussolini – the way their beloved leader, Donald Trump, apparently does.  Here I’d like to directly address a very related topic, racism.

 First off, I’m white, and always have been.  I don’t expect anything to occur which will retroactively change my ancestry from 75% Polish and 25% English to something else.   I had a Facebook dispute with another white person, whose name will remain anonymous.  This guy posted a meme, obviously a response to the BLM movement, which showed white victims of violence opposite their alleged killers (all of whom were black, of course) and asked if THEIR lives mattered.  So I asked the guy, is someone alleging that the killers in question were released, let go, or not prosecuted for some reason – which would make the meme an appropriate response to BLM.  Instead of answering the question – because he could tell I was challenging the obvious disingenuousness of the meme – he then attacked me as having some sort of “white guilt” and being a liberal social justice warrior.  Whites, it seems, have no business or prerogative to call out other whites for racism.  I suppose Gentiles can’t criticize anti-Semitism, etc., and men can’t call out sexism.  This is not a position I agree with.  It’s a position asserted by racists, anti-Semites, and sexists.  [Apparently, four white males from Birmingham, England, consented to allow their Master of Reality album logo to be used for Black Lives Matter.  Throw your “white guilt” BS at them, huh? LOL.]

 The larger issue is this.  From 1861 to 1865 we had a war in this country, aka the US Civil War, in which the Union states fought to keep the country intact without slavery, and the Confederate states fought to secede so as to retain slavery, a position consistently maintained by Confederate leaders at the time.   Several decades later, apologists for the Confederacy sought to rehabilitate that rebellion by retroactively changing its motivation to “states’ rights”.   Note that some non-CSA enthusiasts like to make a similar argument, doing so less out of latent racism and more out of some misplaced attempt to appear intellectually superior by contradicting “conventional wisdom” (i.e. that the Civil War was about slavery) which in this case happens to be accurate. 

 Anyhow.  Since the Confederacy was defeated in April 1865, there has never been a time in this country when bringing slavery back was even remotely politically feasible.  However, the Union’s military defeat of the Confederacy didn’t instantaneously convince the Racists that blacks should now be equal to whites in every respect.  Rather, the focus of the Racists then switched to a determined effort to put blacks in as close a status to slavery as can be politically managed under the existing climate.  Segregation was the first attempt, even upheld by Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) (“separate but equal” – and almost never equal in practice) which was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).   

 With segregation shut down, now the Racists seem to be using the police to clamp down on blacks, which ties into my earlier argument.   What they want is to give the police unfettered authority to arrest, shoot, and oppress blacks, denying them equal protection and due process of law.  Blacks carrying guns – which would otherwise be protected by the Second Amendment – somehow runs afoul of their sensibility, so they attempt to unilaterally assert, tacitly and through police action, that the Second Amendment only applies to whites.  The end result is a fascist regime which exclusively victimizes blacks, leaving whites, Asians, and other racial groups alone, presumably eliciting support from the majority non-black population.  Would you, as a white (or non-black), be acceptable with a fascist government if it allowed non-blacks the full benefits of a free democracy and exclusively oppressed blacks? [A novel form of selective fascism, I suppose you could call it.]  Reducing blacks to non-people, sounds very similar to treating them as property…  Hmm, that sounds like… slavery?   There we go:  the same outcome pursued by different means.

 Returning to Black Lives Matter, any sensible person can ascertain its meaning: not that black lives matter MORE than whites, or that ONLY black lives matter, but simply that they do matter.  To the extent extravagant and bizarre claims and demands are attributed to the movement, that sounds to me like false flag nonsense asserted by someone not associated with the movement (almost certainly white) who wants to discredit it somehow.  With regard to looters and rioters, it’s less clear whether these are legitimate protestors, or criminal elements who considered it expedient to take advantage of the chaos and disturbance to help themselves to merchandise with a 5 finger discount.  Under the circumstances I would expect the BLM movement people to try to exercise more control over their own people and keep their protests peaceful.   We’ll see what happens.  

Currently Reading

 I like to read, and often I’m reading multiple books, fiction and nonfiction, at the same time.  Often I’ll get bored with one book, start up and finish another, and return to the prior one and finish it out of sheer determination.  As of August 2020, here’s what I’m up to…

Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi – Into the Void, by Tim Lebbon.   Almost done.  An incredibly dull and insipid story of a Jedi girl whose brother is a Sith or something like that.  She tracks him down and they fight.  Remember how everyone bitched and moaned that the prequel movies with Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker were difficult to endure and pretty much crap?  Same deal here.

 West of Eden, by Harry Harrison.   Remember that meteor that hit the Earth 65 million years ago and killed off all the dinosaurs?  Me too.   Well, imagine it missed us completely and the dinosaurs evolved into an intelligent race, but we came along too, so humans and dinosaurs are competing species, and the dinosaurs have their own words, but speak English too.  Imagine that story in very small typeface.  Generally I find Harry Harrison to be an excellent writer, but by now I’m reaching his less compelling stories – like this one.

 Not a Suicide Pact, by Richard Posner.  A Federal judge takes a fresh look at the Bill of Rights, privacy, etc. in the modern age post 9/11 to determine how much of prior case law restricting the government from becoming a fascist dictatorship still applies these days.  What’s interesting is that he’s not looking for excuses to chuck the whole thing in the trash but actually making a conscientious effort to reconcile the two.  And he notes that prior crises, such as the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Cold War, etc. which provided some excuse to suspend some civil liberties remarkably did not plunge us into dictatorship, AND the guys in charge scaled back on the security business while the wars in question were still going on.  As an attorney I’m finding this to be far more interesting than petulant Jedis or talking dinosaurs.

 A Tramp Abroad, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens).   MT/SC follows up his earlier Innocents Abroad with another travel diary, this time in Switzerland in the late 1870s.  His wit and humor remain intact.  While I’m still digesting it – and will happily read it all – as yet the most interesting item concerns travel couriers, which could be described as ongoing consultants who speak the local language, understand the local customs, and above all know how to cut through all the local red tape and BS so the traveler can enjoy the journey without being bogged down in unpleasant inconveniences.   The courier isn’t cheap, but his services are well worthwhile – to the point where whoever can afford him would be an idiot not to hire him. 

 Waffen SS: Hitler’s Army at War, by Adrian Gilbert.   My legal colleague bought this and read it, then lent it to me, knowing my fascination with the Waffen SS.  That’s the military wing of the infamous SS, the evil organization responsible for Nazi Germany’s worst excesses, e.g. the Holocaust.  They trained with live ammunition and hired renegade Army types with unconventional ideas on how to do things.  They also got those impressive dot cammo uniforms and the best tanks and weapons, AND recruited a whole range of non-Germans eager to fight Stalin.  So far I’ve just started, so I can’t tell yet how much Gilbert will tell me that I didn’t already know – but my tolerance for all things Waffen SS is high enough that I will read this whole thing even if there’s nothing in it I didn’t already know.  We’ll see.

 Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump.   The daughter of Trump’s older brother Freddy (deceased), Mary Trump – i.e. his niece – serves up the dirt on her infamous uncle.   She’s clearly in a position to know much of what happened, so I’ll take her word for it.  About halfway through this. 

 A Trick of Light, by Stan Lee & Kat Rosenfeld.   I still haven’t figured out the plot, though it seems to involve superheroes. 

 The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth.  In this alternate history story, Charles Lindbergh – famous for being pro-Nazi before WWII and vanishing into obscurity once his idiocy became obvious – won the 1940 election and jumps in bed with Hitler.  As yet the US hasn’t done anything, but it looks like America’s Jews will be relocated to the Midwest.   The protagonists are Jews living in Newark, New Jersey, so NYC also winds up relevant to the story.  I’m not finding it very interesting, but since they turned it into a movie I will continue to the end. 

 Bonus.  I’m a big fan of LSD.  I’ve probably read as much as there has been written on the topic, including Practical LSD Manufacture, a self-explanatory book which lets me know that my chemistry skills are nowhere near good enough to allow me to even consider trying to make acid myself.  Fortunately, I’ve been able to sample some legitimate lysergic acid diethylamide in the past, but this was decades ago (thanks to the Grateful Dead concert at RFK in 1992).  Anyhow.  The most recent top level “cook” (as LSD chemists are called), William Leonard Pickard, was recently released from prison.  Despite his diligence at keeping his operations discreet, the FBI finally caught up with him and put him away for some time, which legally imposed idleness he took advantage of to write a novel.  As yet I haven’t even started reading it, but rest assured when I finish the Star Wars novel I’ll pick up his: The Rose of Paraclesus: On Secrets & Sacraments.  We’ll see what the man had to say.  

Doom Saloon 1 & 2

 

I think we’re all trying to do our best to survive the coronavirus.  In my case the biggest impact has been a summer of concerts wiped out.   King Crimson and Dead & Company were cancelled outright, Judas Priest, Fu Manchu and All Them Witches were postponed to much later dates, and TOOL is postponed to a date still unknown.

 A few bands have figured out that conducting online concerts is a way to circumvent this whole issue, and of these, Clutch is one. I’ve enjoyed both of their Doom Saloon shows, May 27 and August 7.  If there is one downside – in addition to missing the energy of a personal appearance and a similarly motivated audience – it’s these shows are fairly short, less than an hour each.  Normally a headliner, Clutch included, can be expected to play at least 90 minutes.   Some bands like Dead & Company and King Crimson play closer to 3 hours.  Well, I’d rather a 50 minute online live show than no show at all.

 A few benefits of online shows vs. in person.  1) No obstructed view issues.  None of this business of Shaquille O’Neal deciding that the exact center of the floor area is the perfect place for him to stand and block everyone else’s view.  2) No moshing.  I came to see the band, not some drunken asshole who feels that he’s not enjoying himself if he’s not ruining it for everyone else.  3) Flip side is that you can intoxicate yourself anyway you want with no hassles.  4) Logistics.  Log in, watch, no issues of getting to the venue and back again in one piece.  5)  No virus.  Of course, the most pertinent issue is that you won’t catch the virus from your fellow audience members. 

 Doom Saloon 1:  May 27, 2020.  Setlist: Who Wants To Rock?; Pure Rock Fury; Weird Times; The Soapmakers; The Regulator; Firebirds!; The Incomparable Mr. Flannery; Unto the Breach; Electric Worry; The House That Peterbilt; A Shogun Named Marcus; Minotaur; Evil (Cactus cover); In Walks Barbarella.

 I got a t-shirt, but I did not see that they released the show itself as a recording.  This one actually had opening acts, of which Crowbar was the only band I cared for, though as I was unable to free myself from work until Clutch’s show, it was moot anyway.

 Doom Saloon 2: August 7, 2020.  Setlist:  How To Shake Hands; Power Player; Rock’n’Roll Outlaw; Far Country; Smoke Banshee; What Would A Wookie Do?; Mice and Gods; Profits of Doom; Ghoul Wrangler; King of Arizona; (In the Wake of) the Swollen Goat; Your Love is Incarceration; Brazenhead; Oregon

 I did order the t-shirt and vinyl recording of the show.   No opening acts this time around.  This setlist was submitted by a fan (Marshall Snyder) and includes a fair amount of deep cuts.    A fellow Clutch fan made the astute observation that, even if we picked our least favorite Clutch songs, we’d still have an excellent set. 

 Next up: DOWN.  The supergroup with Pepper Keenan of Corrosion of Conformity, Phil Anselmo of Pantera, and Kirk Windstein of Crowbar, will be playing its first album, NOLA, in its entirety, on August 29.  I have my ticket and I’m ready to go.

 I might as well address this “play the whole album” deal.  Generally I’m NOT keen on it, for several reasons:

1.         No surprise.  I like NOT knowing what a band is going to be playing.  If they announce they’ll be playing a given album, you know at least that part of the set in advance.

2.         Already part of the set.  When bands do this, they pick their most popular album, which is already a major part of the set.  Rush did Moving Pictures, but since “Tom Sawyer”, “Red Barchetta”, “YYZ” and “Limelight” (side A of the original 1981 vinyl) were already set staples, that left “Camera Eye”, “Witchhunt” and “Vital Signs” as the odd ones out.  Priest did British Steel, most of which they were playing anyway.  The exception was Jethro Tull, with Aqualung.  Stuff like “Hymn 43”, “Mother Goose” and “Wind Up” weren’t common in the set (if ever), and Ian Anderson did something very clever:  he didn’t play the album track by track consecutively, he alternated with non-album tracks to mix it up.

I would advise bands to do this at least, or – if they’re feeling really bold – play an entire album, sure, but a different album each show. 

 Anyhow.  Both Clutch shows were excellent, inexpensive, and highly enjoyable, and I eagerly await the DOWN show online.  See you there!