Saturday, April 25, 2015

Morgan's Point Hexcellente




Date: Saturday, April 25 2015
Venue: Morgan's Point Sports Club, Belton TX
Bands: Plebians, Marla Strange, Shfux, Hexlust

It's finally here, folks.

After what felt like a lifetime of obstacles, restarts, nervous breakdowns, and that kooky little thing called "responsible adulthood," our debut album Manifesto Hexcellente has been brought kicking and thrashing into the metal world. 

If you haven't checked it out yet, the tunes are streaming (and totally for sale) at our brand spankin' new BandCamp page

Of course, who better to throw us a CD release party than the man who engineered, mixed, and mastered the thing while also putting up with our naivete and panicky last minute changeups? Walter put together a sweet local show for us, with Plebians, Marla Strange, and his own band Shfux on the bill, and the festivities taking place at a place in Belton called Morgan's Point Sports Club.

Once known as Rockin' Rick's Guitar Bar, the place was, from what I hear, quite the hot spot for Bell County rock fans looking to have a few drinks while enjoying the soaring stylings of Mr Rockin' Rick Bell. The venue closed sometime last year, I believe, and while Rockin' Rick himself now hires himself out as a guitar karaoke artist, the place itself now stands as a sort of rentable event center. 

It's whatever you want it to be for the evening, a club template with no decoration or equipment to ground itsef into a permanent identity. Blank walls, empty tabletops, a bar with nothing on its shelves, a stage with no lights or sound system. There were tables and chairs, though, and power outlets that worked, and even a couple clean and serviceable bathrooms, so it was everything we needed. 

This being a BYOB sort of DIY show, the bar remained unstocked and unstaffed and was set up as a merchandise area, displaying not only wares from the other bands but from us as well! Sure we've had merch before, our one-sided logo shirts that we just kept in the box onstage with us and sold when not performing because fuck having to guard a table, but now we had CDs! And two-sided shirts with the album artwork on it! We made a pretty decent killing, too, so an early thank you to everyone who bought a CD and/or shirt from us this evening!

Speaking of (or, rather, getting back to) the CD, one note of puzzlement I've heard from folks who've received their copy is the sudden presence of psuedonyms in the lineup. Whereas before we had simply gone by our names, Tony, JT, and I have recently tacked on "stage" last names of Morgor, Avakuma, and Nervewrecker, respectively. Tarzan remains Tarzan, the lucky fucker coming with his own ready-made psuedonym from his high school nickname. 

The inspiration behind each man's name is his own, but the purpose is the same: to provide the immersion necessary for us to keep our "stage" selves separated from our "day" selves, to keep ourselves focused on putting on a great show for our paying audience, particularly when things start going weird during a performance.

As they did tonight.

HEXLUST
Tony's amp was to my immediate left, not blocked by any drums or stands, allowing me to hear him loud and clear, so I'm gonna pick on him a bunch. He was having a tough time. His effects channel had chosen this evening to crap out, resultng in dodgy sound whenever he went into his leads. This distracted him and he was getting lost very easily, skipping ahead to the next riff in a song way too early, then catching himself and trying to slide back to the previous one, all while singing.

It wasn't as apparent to me, but from what I hear, JT was having some issues of his own. I do recall holding off a song so he could fix something on his amp, but I'm told he was doing a lot of fiddling during breaks in the songs as well.

Then, just add on to all of that, we had the unbearable, ungodly heat. No wonder the Shfux played what felt like a truncated set, it was broiling up there! I believe that day was our first 90 degree scorcher of the season, and we were woefully unprepared. Any water we sucked down between songs was quickly sweated right out of our bodies, leaving us nauseated and shaky, and causing Tony and Tarzan's dusty throats to crack in their "everyday" voices.

Kinda funny, in retrospect.

If all this had happened even just a year ago, Tony would have shut down. He would have still been playing, sure, but the fire would have been snuffed out. He would have closed his eyes and hid behind his hair, maybe angled his body to where he was facing a corner, and his stage banter would have reduced to a mumbled "This next song we wrote is a song that we wrote and we hope you like it it's called Toxic High." 

Tonight, though, armed with his stage name and his pre-selected "stage clothes," Tony Morgor was on fire the whole set! Through the technical difficulties and sweaty hands he continued playing with full confidence and kept his stage banter energetic and engaging, while we threw out every song from the album plus two covers. Ten songs, most of them very fast, all on one very hot, very cramped stage.

A few things stick out to me: Poor JT having to maneuver his way to Tony's side of the stage to sing his parts for Fucked By Fire; me flubbing the big fill in They Conjure a bit; asking Jake which songs were next, since he pretty much has the whole album memorized by this point, then having him come up with us to do our now-usual rendition of Troops of Doom; and closing the set out with Sodomy & Lust, which I honestly did not think we would be able to pull off but somehow it happened, with our usual ramp-up to "fuck-you fast" after the middle breakdown. 

After that, we were done for. Maybe, MAYBE we could have squeezed in "Evil Dead" if folks were demanding just one more tune, but "Agent Orange" and "Open Casket" were definite no-gos. Of course, it would be really nice to be able to pull out some new material, and trust me, we are working diligently on that. Not rushing it, but still keeping the pressure on, focusing on our goal to have three new songs completed by the end of the year. 

This year's already almost halfway over. Shit.

SHOUTOUTS
For this, Hexlust's album release show, we want to thank Walter first and foremost, for all that stuff I mentioned earlier. Couldn't have done it without you, man. HEY LOCAL BANDS, if you want something recorded, hit up Walter Martin on Facebook. He knows what he's doing and his rates ain't bad.

Also, a personal thanks for his dedication of "Doomsday" to me during the Shfux's set. That eight-minute punk epic is the highlight of every performance for me nowadays. 

Thanks to Marla Strange, for being the best band tonight! No disrespect to Shfux, who ruled as always, or Plebians, who I didn't see, but these dudes shined above all with their energy and surprising catchiness among the odd guitar chords and slamming drums. Speaking of which, Jason is still an absolute monster on the kit, always making it seem like his poor little set is going to get smashed to pieces under his assault. Buy their album, go see them play!

Thanks to my parents, to Gary & Chris; to JT's parents (long time no see!); Joe Rose; Ralph; that guy JT and Tarzan went to high school with whose name I didn't catch; to Rick and John (Desmortes dudes, haven't seen them in forever!); and everyone else who paid their five bucks to watch our Hexshenanigans!

Extra big thanks to Jake, who once again went out of his way to come see us play, help us with our gear, and sing Troops with us! This evening he had on hand copies of his stellar Under The Sign of the Lone Star zine, quality writing with zero ads or scene politics.

(It also include a nifty review of our album!)

And of course a huge thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of Manifesto Hexcellente, and/or one of our album shirts, both online and at our shows!