Thursday, July 28, 2011

Hexhibition Bout

Videos from the second day of drum recording, Friday July 8, 2011.



Flubbed take of "They Conjure," one of the more interesting tracks I play. Drumming-wise, it is a fairly straightforward song book-ended by:
  • A two-part intro, part one consisting of triplet double-bassing and part two having an odd time signature (0:00 to 0:44)
  • An outro featuring some of the busiest, most fill-happy drumming I do in our set. It would have been captured in this video but I didn't make it that far before I messed up.
The fact that the latter involves so much "heavy lifting" for me is the main reason I spend most of the tune keeping a steady kick-snare-kick-snare thrash beat, with a few flourishes here and there. Things pick up with the double-bass section after the first chorus, but it never really gets more intense than that. That way I store up enough energy to really slam into the long fills I do at the start of the outro.



Right at the start of the up-tempo middle section of "Baphomet Dawn." This was obviously one of the unrecorded "dry runs" we do to warm up on a tune before actually setting it in stone; otherwise Walter surely wouldn't be playing Chess and would be doing actual engineering. (Right? Right???) As you can see, we had been at this for a while by now and cameraman Tarzan was pretty bored. Not that he's a particularly... "focused" cameraman all the time; he shot most of the videos I've posted so far, and you can see it's pretty hard for him not to make his short attention span evident. We say nothing about it because it almost always produces amusing results.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Loss and Curse of Hexcellence

Videos from Hexlust's studio work, laying down drum tracks. All three took place on the first session, Wednesday, July 6, 2011.

Studio tour


Recording drum tracks (and everything else) for Hexlust's as-yet-untitled debut full-length took place in a sort of loft office over an old auto garage. Every day we recorded we get to the garage in the afternoon, with temperatures inside peaking at 110 F. The studio room itself was the only place in the joint that had precious air conditioning and a ceiling fan, both of which had to be turned off so as not to have the noise bleeding into the mics. The irony was not lost on us.

Competence


Of the nine songs to be included on this album, eight of them were recorded with Tony laying down a "scratch" guitar track along with my "official" drum tracks. What he would do was plug directly into the computer through an effects processor and have the sound sent out to us through our headphones, so as not to have amp noise bleed into my drum mics. The only tune I recorded with Tarzan playing along was "Meganecropolis," which was written, and therefore easier to follow, on bass. This was a pretty solid run of "Fucked By Fire," interrupted by a pesky stick flying right out of my hand.

Mercyful Banjo


As usual, we in Hexlust offset our devotion to efficiency and diligence with a horrifying penchant for buffoonery. Here, Tony attempts to play the beginning lead part from Mercyful Fate's "Into the Coven" (not "Duelling Banjos") on a four-string banjo (with one string broken) that was among the wall of guitars in the studio room. Fun fact: Tarzan cut the video right after Tony demonstrates the "typical" black metal riff. What you folks miss out on is Tony following that up with Averse Sefira-style dissonant chords, which sound oddly awesome on that instrument.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Night of Surprises at the Music Vault

Date: Saturday, July 16, 2011
Venue: Music Vault, Killeen TX
Bill: The Final Burial (didnt play), Of Ruins (didnt play), Hexlust

PRE-SHOW/OPENING BAND
Notice something about the band listing up there? Yeah, SURPRISE, two bands dropped out at the last minute. To their credit, Of Ruins let us know that they were having van troubles and wouldn't be able to make it. The Final Burial... well, no one's sure what happened to those guys. I think they were on tour with Of Ruins, so maybe van trouble for one meant van trouble for the other. Anyway, this brings me to a valuable lesson for bands: exchange phone numbers if you get an opportunity!

See, Randy from Of Ruins (and formerly of A Devoured Deception) had sent me a message on Facebook that day asking me if the show was still on for that evening. I told him that as far as I knew, yes it was, that the Music Vault are fantastic about not just quietly canceling gigs out of nowhere. It then dawned on me, for a fleeting second, to give the guy my number and tell him to shoot me a text if any problems came up. Then came the thought "Balderdash, all he needed was reassurance, I'm sure everything will be ok!"

Yeah.

So of course I'm feeling like a jackass come nine o'clock, when it's just Hexlust at the Vault with some other band who I guess were added at the last minute (and whose name, unfortunately, escapes me). I called my roommate and asked her to check my Facebook for me, and sure enough there was the message letting us know of the vehicular issues. To this day I'm kicking myself for having not given the guy my digits, it would have saved us and the Vault staff an hour of confusion.

It was then decided that this other band would go on at ten, and we would follow at eleven. I think the Vault wanted to stretch this gig out for as long as possible, and also to see if more people would show up in the meantime. Compared to the usual crowd we play to, there was hardly anybody there: a couple guys I had never seen before, a few bar regulars, a handful of friends of ours, but that was about it. I felt a little guilty; we didn't have time to promote as strongly as we usually do since we had just been added on to this bill a week before, and at that time we were still in the midst of laying down my drum tracks for our recording and preparing for the Headhunters show two days ago. Also, again owing to the last-minute nature of the gig, our usual group of strong supporters (including my parents and all their friends) already had plans for the evening.

Gotta say, that first band went on like professionals. I don't think I ever once heard them complain about the circumstances of the show, and, watching them from the backstage area as I warmed up, I saw them headbanging, smiling, and having fun. They were a "-core" type group comprised of two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, drummer, and a female vocalist. Thankfully, this chick wasn't an annoying Iwrestledabearonce clone; she kept her vocals clean, without being too Amy Lee about it. In fact, they were often very bouncy and whimsical, reminding me of the singer from Morningwood. Kudos to them.

HEXLUST
Once again, we were without the git-box services of Mr JT Bass, since he insists on devoting himself to such trifling fancies as education and employment. On this, our third outing as a trio, we were better than we were at Headhunters, tighter and more energized, without the emotional burdens of equipment issues. What helped immensely was the crowd; though only consisting of like fifteen people (including the opening band), they were actually very responsive and had a lot of fun thrashing along with us! These folks headbanged to every song, sang along to our catchier choruses, busted out some rave-style chem lights, and even played along when Tony implored them to do the "Candlemass stomp" during the slower parts of "Baphomet Dawn."


"Candlemass stomp" at 5:50

Taking advantage of our headlining status (and the fact that it was still very early) we pulled out all the stops in our setlist, bringing back "Hellhammer" and doing a double encore of "Agent Orange" and "Troops of Doom." If JT had been here, I'm sure we would have also thrown in "Toxic High," although "Imminent Retardation" would have stayed off the set as we haven't rehearsed it in a good while. Even as it was, though, tonight has got to be the most songs we've performed at one time since possibly 2008! I didn't even know we had such stamina and was pleasantly surprised.

In spite of the gloriously lengthy set, the lively crowd, and the invigorated playing of my bandmates, I was having a rather embarrassing evening as I could not for the life of me keep a stick in my right hand. I'm almost positive I set a pesonal all-time record, dropping a face-palming total of five. The exact reason eludes me, as I was perfectly warmed up, experienced no tightness or muscle pain throughout our performance, and actually haven't dropped a stick at a show in a while. I guess if I had to blame it on anything, it would be that I set my kit up with everything in a little closer than usual, since on more than one occasion I came out of a fill on the floor tom to unexpectedly smack the underside of the ride cymbal. I play with a pretty relaxed grip so's to avoid horrifying joint problems, so things like that take the stick out of my hand every time.

Set List:
Intro
FBF
Hellhammer
Conjure
Baphomet
Meganecropolis
Tombs
Encore 1: Agent Orange
Encore 2: Troops of Doom

POST-SHOW
Our limited crowd may have been the most fun audience we've played to in a while, but that didn't erase the fact that there was still hardly any of 'em. After tallying up the door money and paying the sound tech, the Music Vault had no money for the bands, and we ourselves sold zero T-shirts. This makes the second show in a row from which we brought in no dough, which wouldn't be as disheartening if not for the fact that we have costly studio time coming up. Hopefully our next gig, which at this point is at the Dirty Dog in Austin, will yield a more substantial (read: any) profit.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Thanks again to the Music Vault, for once again providing us a local venue in which to play fast music and act like dorks under bright likes for forty minutes or more. Particular thanks to B Rich and Pete, for always being fair, professional, and best of all supportive. [Edit from the future] Not long after this show, the Music Vault announced it would be closing down, I guess due to all the not-populated shows lately. Which makes me wonder: were we the gig that broke the camel's back? Anyhow, they have since decided to simply re-model the place as a dance club with live music on Fridays. So far it seems to be very successful, with a full house on their special "theme" nights, so Hexlust may in fact still have a quality place to play in the future! Until next time!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Omelette Table

Date: Thursday, July 14, 2011
Venue: Headhunters, Austin TX
Bill: Trench Wrench, Feral Rex, Hexlust, Humut Tabal

PRE-SHOW
I love surprises. One time while I was at work, my dad took my car using his copy of my key, had some repair done that it needed, filled up the tank, and had the interior cleaned. He also turned down the dial that controls how bright my headlights and display lights are, and deposited the car back in the parking lot, one row back and two spots over. All without even letting me know he was going to take the car in the first place. I had never felt more fucked with. SURPRISE!

So we get to Headhunters and SURPRISE, there's an imminent cluster-fuck going on in the lineup. Apparently one of the opening bands had dropped out due to their drummer breaking his arm, but he ended up saying fuggit and deciding to play the show anyway. In the meantime, a Facebook post went up asking if any band could fill in; according to Humut Tabal members, one band just showed up without confirming, leading to some confusion when it turned out the original band was playing after all. Complicating matters further, later word came that somebody in charge of the show had offered the opening slot to a whole 'nother band, who I think also showed up. I'm not sure if that actually happened, or who went about fixing this mess; all I know is that after a tense, confused hour, the club finally put up a list of bands on their front door:


SOME BAND? / TRENCH WRENCH / FERAL REX
The chalkboard in that picture up there says the band Terror Eyes went on first, but according to the blog post of Humut Tabal's Prokingu, the first act to take the stage was actually Parasitic Reign. I'm not sure who they were, all I know is that they played a Pantera cover. We in Hexlust spent the majority of their and Trench Wrench's sets in either the pizza parlor next door, talking to members of Humut Tabal, or on the outside back patio area chatting it up with Jeff A.D. When I was in the club proper during Trench Wrench's performance, I saw that they had quite a decent-sized crowd even at this early point in the evening. I had never heard of them before this show but apparently Austin metalheads have been shown a good time by this band on prior occasions.

Feral Rex's set was spent running gear into the club from the parking lot across the street, assisted by the ever-supportive Michael B. I had wanted to set up my drumkit stands in the little area by the front door, but the drummer from one of the previous bands had just left his gear there instead of breaking it down (thanks buddy) so I ended up doing that in front of the sound booth, right up against the back of the audience. Thankfully, though the crowd was sizable, they weren't particularly rowdy, so I was able to set things up in peace.

HEXLUST
Well folks, we had to play as a three-piece this evening. After our performance as a trio last year, we've been trying to avoid having to do it again due to how awkward it feels, but JT's academic commitments forced us to become the Hex-Trio once again. The good news is that since JT's been living in San Antonio for almost a year now and therefore not able to make as many practices, we've since gotten more comfortable playing without him in terms of stage presence and song structuring.

Not that this was an evening without its setbacks. Right off the bat as we were setting up, Tony discovered some frustrating amp issues, made all the more aggravating for him by the fact that he had just that week shelled out good money to have his amp head fixed. He was still able to play, but the frustration brought out a side of his personality which rarely emerges but always leaves me with mixed feelings. Sure he was loud, confident, and energized, but he was also cynical and a little derisive toward the audience, at one point openly mocking them after a weak cheer. Thankfully nobody seemed offended and everyone still had a good time. Guess that's the great thing about extreme metal audiences; you have people like George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher telling the crowd he's gonna rip off their heads and shit down their throats, and folks'll just be like "Yeah! SHIT DOWN OUR THROATS!"

Tarzan also admitted to having issues with his own playing, with a few notes missed and some parts just messed up entirely. He offered that he was just having an off night, though, nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little more diligent practice. I myself spent our set struggling with my hi-hat stand. For some reason the little bastard kept sliding away from me, often being beyond my reach by the mid-point of a song. After "Baphomet Dawn," I grabbed Tarzan's bass case and braced it against the hat stand. Since the case was empty it didn't do a perfect job, but it at least kept the cymbals within my reach for a whole tune.

Beyond those issues, however, we had ourselves a good set, one which came with a little surprise for the audience. After "Meganecropolis," Tony called Prokingu onto the stage to provide vocals for "Troops of Doom," a song we use as a warm-up at almost every rehearsal but haven't performed live in I can't remember how long. A little bit of awkwardness preceded the song, though, as we had worked out everything about Prokingu's participation except how to announce "Troops." See, when he gets into stage mode, he prefers to keep human interaction to a minimum, barely speaking at all. So he gets onstage and just fucking stands there, and of course we're just standing there, listening to crickets chirp. Finally, Tony grabbed the mic and announced the song, and we ripped into that Sepultura favorite full speed ahead, an absolutely ripping performance that had the audience headbanging and fist-pumping (not like champs!)

We finished up with "Tombs" and called it a night. Or so we thought. The audience weren't ready to let us go yet, and called for one more song. An awkward situation we've experienced before. On one hand, YAY they think we're cool! One the other, we're not the headlining act, there's still a whole 'nother band set to go onstage after us, and the last thing we want to do is be that dick band that eats into everyone else's set time by playing an encore. The sound guy assured us that we had time, though, so we gave the crowd what they wanted: a toxic dose of Agent Orange! The performance almost killed me, I had forgotten to bring water on stage and was going through the whole set with just one swig from Tony's bottle, but it was well worth it to hear those cheers.


Favorite audience interaction
Jeff AD: "Play someone else's songs!"
Tony: "Whoa, sounds like somebody's a fan of the new Morbid Angel album!"


Set List:
Intro
FBF
Conjure
Baphomet
Mega
Troops
Tombs
Encore: Agent Orange

HUMUT TABAL
Through some miracle of metal science, we had all our stuff packed up and squared away in our vehicles in time to catch the majority of Humut Tabal's set. Mystical black metal which I'll take a stab and say is influenced by a mixture of high-concept black metal, such as Emperor and Averse Sefira, and thrashier BM like Absu and early-to-mid Immortal. Drummer Njord is an off-the-wall ball of energy, constantly blasting away on his hats or pulling off some long fill on his many toms. Although I had jammed with Prokingu before in a different musical context, this evening was when I really got to see what an able bassist he is, able to hold a steady under-rhythm at such high speeds while occasionally throwing in a fitting fill. Hravan and vocalist Grimzaar have excellent guitar chemistry, with many harmonized parts. I just wish Hravan would play more solos, I don't know how one could have a guitar that awesome and not rip out some leads.

In the midst of this fantastic performance, a point of awkwardness arose in the form of an enthusiastic audience member. This large, bearded man heckled the Humut Tabal guys between songs, with such utterances as "Play some FUCKING EVIL SHIT, goddammit!" Sure, in retrospect we can all easily say he was doing it affectionately, but at the time nobody was really sure if the dude was seriously getting pissed or not, and I could see it made the band members a little uncomfortable.

By their set's end, it was almost two in the morning, and the Humut Tabal guys were ready to pack it in. The audience, however, had been served a scrumptious helping of metal-thrashing evil and wanted them some dessert, bombarding the band with requests for one more tune. The guys were initially resistant, none more so than Njord, who looked like he didn't feel well. I know from experience that when the drummer doesn't feel up to it, the band should just quit while they're ahead. I also know from experience that that sentiment is utter horseshit, and we should just pick up our sticks and man up, because these fine people want more and deep down we really do want them to go home happy. Oh, and fuck you, drummer, that's why! Sure enough, Humut Tabal turned their amps back on and blasted the audience with "Misanthrope ov the Barren Waste," which the crowd received with many cheers and much headbangery. Joke was on them, however; that song is like two minutes long.

Favorite audience interaction
Audience member: "Play one more song!"
Hravan: "No."


POST-SHOW
After lending a hand in taking Njord's drum kit apart, I joined my bandmates in saying goodbye to our friends and hitting that dusty trail. No T-shirts were sold tonight, but I think at this point people are more excited about the full-length we just started recording (drum tracks finished earlier this week!) than anything else. Tarzan goes in to start plugging his bass tracks this coming week, and until then we have another show at the Music Vault on Saturday with San Antonio friends Of Ruins. Although we'll be a trio again, it'll be great to show off our new tunes for our family and friends, and hopefully sell some shirts to help pay for studio time.