Thursday 10. July 2008
Macabre Minstrels

Friday 11. July 2008
12.30 – 12.50 Poppy Seed Grinder
13.00 – 13.20 Rubufaso Mukufo
13.30 – 13.50 Jesus Cröst
14.00 – 14.20 Ass To Mouth
14.30 – 14.50 Keitzer
15.00 – 15.20 Pulmonary Fibrosis
15.30 – 15.55 Fucksaw
16.05 – 16.30 Disturbance Project
16.40 – 17.05 Cerebral Turbulency
17.15 – 17.45 Malignant Tumour
17.55 – 18.30 Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation
18.40 – 19.10 Excrementory Grindfuckers
19.20 – 19.50 Mesrine
20.00 – 20.30 Splitter
20.40 – 21.15 Putrid Pile
21.25 – 22.05 Cock and Ball Torture
22.15 – 23.05 Regurgitate
23.15 – 00.05 Agathocles
00.15 – 00.50 Demonical
01.00 – 01.30 Isacaarum
01.40 – 02.00 Speck
02.10 – 02.30 Androphagous
02.40 – 03.00 Sakatat

Saturday 12. July 2008
10.00 – 10.20 Death Toll 80k
10.30 – 10.50 Demented Retarded
11.00 – 11.20 Anal Penetration
11.30 – 11.50 Dr. Doom
12.00 – 12.20 Rectal Smegma
12.30 – 12.50 Pyorrhoea
13.00 – 13.25 Gonorrhoea Pussy
13.35 – 14.00 Namek
14.10 – 14.35 Reth
14.45 – 15.10 Discarga
15.20 – 15.45 Blood I Bleed
15.55 – 16.20 Dead Beyond Buried
16.30 – 16.55 Voetsek
17.05 – 17.30 Bloody Phoenix
17.40 – 18.05 Dead
18.15 – 18.40 Gride
18.50 – 19.15 Benighted
19.25 – 19.55 Entrails Massacre
20.05 – 20.35 Pisschrist
20.45 – 21.15 Le Scrawl
21.25 – 22.20 Impaled Nazarene
22.35 – 23.45 Macabre
23.55 – 00.30 Extreme Noise Terror
00.40 – 01.10 Desecration
01.20 – 01.50 Alehammer
02.00 – 02.30 Abortion
02.40 – 03.00 Entropic Degrade Behind Phylogeny

Poster

For the first time, this year I got my ass down to what is said to be one of the cosiest outdoor metal festivals, Czech Republic’s own Obscene Extreme. A three day festival held annually in the sleepy town of Trutnov, a couple of hours drive from Prague. Except for the rather crappy vegetarian food inside the festival area (with the occasional sneaking out to the nearest pork chop vendor), I would highly recommend this festival to anyone who’s into grindcore and death metal, if only for the laidback atmosphere, cheap beer, great food (anywhere except the festival area!) and a chance to see the city of Prague or medieval castles in the countryside. Ok, enough tourist talk, now to the bands!

Crowd - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Thursday was sort of an ABCD day; meet, greet, get down and get drunk. Only one concert was lined up, for the first time in Europe: Macabre Minstrels. This is basically Macabre unplugged, performing all of Macabre’s little acoustic ditties plus maybe a few other songs thrown into the mix. To be honest I didn’t have any expectations for this show; if I want to see an acoustic show I’m sure Willie Nelson would be more satisfying. And my expectations were more or less fulfilled. But who cares? Fun anyway! Almost all underground distros in Central Europe had set up shops, so no time to get bored!

Friday brought a steady line of concerts hitting it off every 30 minutes from 12AM to 3AM in the morning. Of course too many bands to see them all, so sorry for the ones I left out.

Poopy Seed Grinder and Rubufaso Mukufo simply was too early for me, so starting off my day was Jesus Cröst, a dynamic duo from Holland that I’ve had the honour of witnessing once before, then on a much smaller stage. As usual the drummer sported a scary mask, and this time the vocalist/guitar player employed a vocal pitch shifter (shifting downwards, of course). Being only a duo, unfortunately their brutal grindnoise didn’t fit this big stage format as much as the last time I saw them on a tiny stage in Holland. 

Ass To Mouth - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Pulmonary Fibrosis - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Ass to Mouth next, goregrind from Poland, doing a decent show. Keitzer, German grindcore. Brutal stuff. Next band up was quite entertaining, Pulmonary Fibrosis from France. The guitar player sported a hospital janitor’s (?) overall, and the singer was wearing a somewhat ridiculous looking surgeon’s uniform (only shirtless), so you may guess this band played some sort of goregrind. The audience was starting to get worked up quite well, with lots of stage diving and crowd surfing. Several people in the audience were wearing costumes like gas masks or ladies’ underwear on their faces (or both). The highlight being a rather obese male individual in a quite sexy negligee, yummie! 

Malignant Tumour - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Fucksaw, two guys and a drum machine, good bye! Disturbance Project hails from Spain and played old school grindcore. Cerebral Turbulency, a local Czech grindcore band. Then time for another Czech band, Malignant Tumour. These guys have been playing very brutal grindcore before suddenly shifting a couple of years ago instead to a brutal incarnation of Motörhead. And they seem to be enjoying a lot of success in their career move; the Czech crowd went bananas from songs like ‘We Are the Metal’ or ‘In Bottle There’s No Law’ (not sure if they played that last one, but how can you go wrong with a title like that?), and the concert turned out to be by far the show with the most stage diving and crowd surfing.

Crowd Surfer - Obscene Extreme festival 2008

Next up, a band with a long and difficult name to remember, Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation, which would lead the thought to some obscure Eastern European goregrind band, but they’re not! This was a full fledged Japanese girls-only band, playing more or less old school grindcore. The singer, being good-looking, wearing a chic Insect Warfare shirt, and having a brutal voice, repeating “Thank you! Thank you!” in the customary polite Japanese fashion between the songs, she was the highlight of this band. Unfortunately I thought the rest of the band sounded much like a garage youth band. The guitar player used something like ten minutes to tune her guitar in the middle of the set, and very loudly so! She didn’t even know the good old beginners trick of turning off your guitar sound between songs to prevent a wall of feedback. The drummer’s attempts of very fast blastbeats sounded futile. All in all this band was worth a listen, but what on earth were they doing in the headlining section of the festival? Yep, the hype of a Japanese girl band. Again.

Splitter - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Excrementory Grindfuckers, “funny” grindcore from Germany. To be honest, I don’t think it was funny at all, and I didn’t like it one bit. I agree that music shouldn’t always be taken so serious. Hell, I’ve even played in a band called Endwarfment, so I shouldn’t be casting that first stone. But if it gets more “funny” than Birdflesh, who still have great songs in addition to the fun lyrics, I’m off to the nearest bratwürst vendor, good riddance! Mesrine, grindcore band all the way from Canada, doing a decent show, but nothing out of the ordinary. Time for some Swedes to play, Splitter. I always find Swedish bands well worth to watch, because they usually are very energetic on stage, as were Splitter. Their self-proclaimed tagline is “Tragedy grind”, which would suggest they play very melodic stuff (how lame), but their show sounded everything but melodic to me. Putrid Pile, one man and a drum machine, as I’m mostly a fan of the good ole’ guitar-bass-drums setup, it was good bye for me again.

Cock And Ball Torture - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Regurgitate - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

After a great sunny day, unfortunately a huge rain shower came during the Cock And Ball Torture show. Well, it didn’t stop them from doing a good show. These Germans’ somewhat mid-tempo songs and constant use of a vocal pitch shifter can feel a bit staccato, but still they are a good live band that gets the crowd worked up. The guitar player and the bass player in the front share the vocals, both sounding the same on pitch shifter, while the drummer in the back looks like a very meticulous person, I’m sure he spends a lot of time alphabetizing his big collection of obscure porn. More Swedes, Regurgitate. Very entertaining performance, as always, simply a great live band! Cramping their set with as many songs as possible, they gave the audience good value for their hard-earned money. Rikard on vocals was so anxious to get on to the next song he simply went “This next song is from our split with yabbedi-yabbedi, lets go!”

Agathocles - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Another classic band next, Belgium’s Agathocles. As always they play old school grindcore, and unlike the last time I saw them, front man Jan seemed more than sober enough to play a quite professional show (the last time he started playing the wrong song a couple of times), as usual not leaving out classics such as ‘Lay off me’. Now to a pure death metal band, Sweden’s Demonical. Not half-bad, but with the huge wave of old school death metal bands in Sweden these days, I can think of many others more interesting. The rain had left everyone wet, and it was time for me to go home, thankful that I had booked a hotel room instead of spending the night in a wet tent.

Gonorrhoea Pussy - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Namek - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Saturday the concerts were already starting at 10.00 AM! No way was I going to see the first bands, so first show was Gonorrhoea Pussy, German porngrind. The vocalist had his face covered by a tight leather mask with a tampon hanging down on each side of his head, which eventually got beaten to big fluffy balls, how adorable! Between the songs the guitar player did all the talking, so the vocalist seemed very much like “The Gimp”. The stage divers in the audience had changed to different costumes today, the best one being a moose with gas mask. Next up a band from Portugal, Namek. Playing fast goregrind, the vocalist seemed very angry, running around the stage with troglodyte facial expressions, sometimes exposing his mildly obese arse to the audience.

Blood I Bleed - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Voetsek - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Reth, new school technical stuff from UK. These guys had the festival’s highest guitars. And I don’t mean the volume. No sirree, Bob! I’m talking about the elevation from the ground and up. Guitar straps are expensive these days, when you buy it by the metre. Discarga had made it all the way from Brazil, and they played more crustpunk stuff. Blood I Bleed, powerviolence from The Netherlands. The focal point of their concert undoubtedly being the vocalist’s constant high-pitched nasal screaming. Vöetsek, this was thrash metal/crossover from the States. The female vocalist surely lived up to the name Obscene Extreme, being rather obese and sporting a bandana with a Japanese style sunrise.

Dead - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Impaled Nazarene - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Now time for some long-runners, Dead from Germany. They played some quite cool death metal/goregrind. Someone in the audience threw a gigantic inflatable ball into the crowd, which at one point seemed to be getting more attention than the band itself. The band seemed to get into some trouble near the end; it appeared as if uncertainty to how many songs they had time to play blew their chances to play as much as they could have. Probably some technical problems, but it didn’t come out as very professional. At one point here there was some rain, so I hit the beer tent instead, missing out on quite a few bands. But Obscene Extreme is just a bit too intense to see them all. I made it back for Impaled Nazarene, Finland’s black metal crew. Although I am not a fan, they kept well within my attention span for the duration of the show. The vocalist was sporting a zebra skin cowboy hat, and the guitar player had a mohawk hairstyle, apart from that I would say they played quite traditional Nordic black metal.

Macabre - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Time for the headliner; from Chicago, USA: Macabre! The sound was better than any other show at the festival, except the drums being a bit over-triggered. They sounded very tight after some initial monitoring problems. Unfortunately they mostly played songs from their latest two albums ‘Murder Metal’ and ‘Dahmer’. A few from the ‘Sinister Slaughter’ album, only one from ‘Gloom’, and none from my personal favourite ‘Grim Reality’. They did a cover of Venom’s ‘Countess Bathory ‘ as well. Before each song Corporate Death told a small story about the lyrics, which was quite cosy, the highlight being when he told how he took his mom to the Jeffrey Dahmer trial. Unfortunately Macabre spent too much time between each song just fiddling around; tuning their guitars, Corporate D. adjusting his Britney Spears style microphone again and again and so on. I’m sure if they had played continuously they could have had the time to play the entire ‘Grim Reality’ album as well. Macabre could definitely learn something from Regurgitate’s relentless appearance here. The encore was the hit ‘Night Stalker’, the first song off the ‘Sinister Slaughter’ album, so Macabre went out with a bang!

Extreme Noise Terror - Obscene Extreme Festival 2008

Yet another classic band now, Extreme Noise Terror, playing their usual brutal as hell crustcore. As always with their trademark, the double vocal attack. Unlike the last time I saw them, this time featuring both original vocalists. If I am not mistaken, they had a new drummer this time, and he did a very good job on the d-beats, at least as far as I could hear. Another good show from this UK crew. And as I had seen Desecration twice before, now it was time for me to seek the Czech beer.

All in all a great festival, except for some rain. Hopefully I’ll return in the following years, and I strongly recommend this festival in particular, and Czech in general, to everyone.

 

This weekend I went to Trondheim to play live with my band Grind Crusher (I play the drums in this constellation), and here’s a small report for you to read.   With its population of 152,000, Trondheim is one of only four Norwegian cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants; the others being Oslo (557k), Bergen (246k) and Stavanger (117k). In addition to the welcoming population and their Karsk, or half-and-half coffee and moonshine liquor, the city is also home to the autonomous youth house UFFA. Punk, grind and the occasional metal concert is held there every other week or so, and this weekend it was time for a very brutal Saturday evening with Oslo’s Grind Crusher along with local bands Sexy Police, Beg For Fire and Laserguys.

Friday was spent on a train on the alternative, non-environmental-friendly diesel fuelled line through the deserted woods of Østerdalen across Røros (even running down a moose on the way!). Arriving late in the evening , we were just in time for a zip of the “Karsk” at a party held in the rehearsal room of local crustcore band Victimised. Saturday afternoon brought the mandatory Spinal Tap incident; the locks in their rehearsal room had been changed by the landlord, accompanied by a note on the door basically saying “You’re thrown out!” After several hours spent on retrieving our equipment we finally made it, late and cold, but alive, to the UFFA house in time for the sound check and some vegetarian pizza (no roadkill!).
 

Around 150 people showed up at the door this evening, which is quite good for a city this size. Laserguys was the first band to enter the stage, a totally new band. To be honest I wasn’t too impressed with what I had previously heard on their Myspace page, so my expectations weren’t that high. The guitar player was sporting a rather large sombrero, and drummer Dr. Amoque von Berlevåg (former Endwarfment guitar player) had been saving up for a nice Mick Harris style moustache in addition to wearing a cowboy hat. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. From the first tone I was thrown off by extremely brutal grindcore! By the end of the Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror covers the Laserguys had left me blissfully doomed to Abraham’s bosom! Technically speaking Kim isn’t much of a drummer, but got away with his enthusiasm (and moustache!). Plantefar on vocals (formerly of Perished) had a great ultra guttural sound and was quite relaxed as a front man in his Macabre shirt and shiny leather pants. Guitar player Knatten proved to be very tight (he also plays in long running black metal band Thorns). As a bass player the Laserguys had brought a black, inflatable sex doll on the stage.
Some more photos here, provided by Trondheim’s own Eternal Terror Webzine:
http://www.eternal-terror.com/gallery/view.php?id=449

Next up was Sexy Police. They have been at it for a few years now (yet without any notable releases), and I knew I was up for a high quality concerto. No surprises here! They did a great show, proving their self-proclaimed motto “Grind declaration of war!” to be of utter correctness. A four-piece with great chemistry among the band members, very professional on stage. The inflatable doll left on the stage by Laserguys embarked on a final crowd surfing tour before ending her life in a quite sad, non-inflated condition.
Eternal Terror photos again:
http://www.eternal-terror.com/gallery/view.php?id=450

 

Beg For Fire played Pantera style metal. I had to go back stage to warm up my fingers, missing this concert. Thus there’s not much to report. But I’m afraid I’m not a huge fan of this style anyway.
Eternal Terror yet again:
http://www.eternal-terror.com/gallery/view.php?id=451


 

Finally the Grind Crusher show, which went quite well. The Trondheim crowd seemed quite pleased with being served a final dosage of brutal grindcore this evening. We blasted our way through 12 of our own songs as well as a Repulsion and a Dead Infection cover (the latter is to be used for an upcoming tribute CD on Ukragh Productions).
ET: http://www.eternal-terror.com/gallery/view.php?id=452

Thanks to the UFFA community, Pål of Sexy Police who lodged us for our stay in Trondheim, and everyone who showed up this evening!

Running order:

Basement Stage
15:10-15:40 Jesus Crost
16:30-17:00 Dr Doom
17:50-18:20 Blood I Bleed
19:10-19:40 Infected Pussy
20:30-21:00 Nice Idiot
21:50-22:50 Massgrav

Main Stage
14:30-15:00 Rectal Smegma
15:50-16:20 Drugs Of Faith
17:10-17:40 Putrescence
18:30-19:00 Dead Infection
19:50-20:20 Agathocles
21:10-21:40 Malignant Tumour
23:00-0:00 Regurgitate

Eindhoven, The Netherlands, is home of the well-known Dynamo scene, which has given name to the once huge Dynamo Open Air Festival. The Dynamo is in fact the local metal pub in Eindhoven, located in a basement with a small scene rooming about 150, and a big scene upstairs with room for around 1,000. I guess about 500 people showed up for this great event.

First band out was Rectal Smegma, a local Dutch porn grind band. According to their web site members are called stuff like Tampon Terror, so you know what to expect. The crowd was still not very full in numbers, but the audience seemed to be quite enthusiastic about their local heroes. Mid-tempo to fast grind here, and the vocalist employed a pitch shifter to it’s maximum capability. Sometimes he lifted his shirt in order to reveal a big “GRIND CORE” tattoo around his belly button.

Dr. Doom was another local Dutch band, playing upstairs at the big scene. They seemed to be playing a quite catchy form of fast grind core with some modern influences. There was no way I could see all bands in their entirety, so it was time for me to run out to the foyer and check out the enormous amount of merchandise, provided by big and small European distros such as Germany’s Power It Up, Regurgitated Semen, Revenge, Civilisation, Rot’N Roll, France’s Bones Brigade, Belgium’s Bringer Of Gore, heaps of other distros that I weren’t able to identify and of course the bands’ own merch.

Time to run down again for another Dutch band and another new band for me, Jesus Cröst. Wow, cool shit! Unlike the well-known band format of the “power trio”, this was a full-blown “power(violence) duo”. Two angry young men playing extremely fast and noisy stuff. The drummer sported a hood over his head, and did most of the talking between the songs. Not the greatest drummer in the world, but still these guys were able to sound very tight, due to lots of practising (I guess), and the guitar player (who also did the main vocals) and his extensive use of a signal on/off pedal for his guitar at the occasional micro-second stop between all the grind noise. The crowd was getting quite worked up by this micro-unit. Unfortunately the space in front of the small scene downstairs was much too small and had a very annoying pillar at one end, and a corner at the other, so it’s not the perfect spot for concerts.

I unfortunately missed Holland’s Blood I Bleed, so not much to report there.

France was also represented at the festival, not only at the merch stand, but also by Infected Pussy, who played death grind/gore grind with just a hint of modern “chugga-chugga” US death grind (though not more than me enjoying their show a lot). One of the guys was sporting a Basque style beret; you know the kind that old people in the Alps wear, which accompanied by his large mutton chops looked quite stupid and chic at the same time.

Nice Idiot was a Swedish band that I unfortunately missed, but featured one of the guys from Massgrav, as well as General Surgery and Sayyadina members. It seems they play more hardcore-oriented stuff.

Putrescence had made it all the way from Canada, and impressed me a lot. Great brutal and guttural (though not pitch-shifted) grind core with lots of death metal influences. A tight drummer who was able to pull of fast blasts and doble bass drums, and a charismatic vocalist who liked to display his rather large arse by having his pants hanging halfway down on it.

Now it was time for some good old Swedish “mangel”, (mayhem or whatever the hell it means). Massgrav played fast and angry power violence. Not too fast, though. I think they said something like “Fuck grind core, fuck [insert a couple of related genres of choice], we are fast Swedish rock and roll!” This trio with dual screaming vocals (by the bass and guitar player) played sort of mid-tempo blast beats most of the way. Their show was fairly tight and well-played, but suddenly there was a song that the drummer couldn’t remember the beginning of, and they had to stop after a few seconds. The bass player seemed quite angry and said something like “I’m sorry, the next time we will bring a proper drummer”. But only minutes later he had to let go of his cocky attitude when the band once again had to stop right after the beginning of a song because his bass amp wasn’t turned on or something like that.

Drugs Of Faith was the last band out on the small scene, but didn’t seem to attract a vast crowd. I was there for a few minutes, and my impression was that this was perhaps the band leaning the most to modern hardcore of all the bands on the festival. A trio with a female bass player, they played a couple of their own songs and a Napalm Death cover before I went up again to have one last peek at the merchandising stands to see if there was anything I had missed.

Finally it was time for the bigger bands. First off Poland’s Dead Infection, who now has taken the form of a trio.

I really love this band, but somehow my expectations weren’t entirely fulfilled this evening. Pierscien, who now handles the vocals as well as the guitar, did a very decent job, but the sound wasn’t optimal. The guitars had a bit too much distortion, as well as being quite down tuned and low in volume to really hear the riffs, and to get on a technical level Cyjan’s drums were totally without any compression, which resulted in no real punch in the blast beats. Of course it was great hearing classics such as “From the anatomical deeps”, but the show also felt much too short for a headliner. I’m looking forward to hearing this band again, with better sound and a longer set.

Belgian grinddaddies Agathocles did a good job this evening, with a totally new line-up except for vocalist/bass player Jan, who’s run the band for 25 years or so. The crowd was very cheerful, and there was plenty of stage diving and crowd surfing, so this was really cosy. I wouldn’t go as far as saying the sound was great, and the new guys weren’t the best musicians around, but Jan’s enthusiasm and dedication worked the crowd up. Brutal grind core all the way here. At least a couple of times they had to stop right after beginning a new song, because Jan couldn’t remember which song they were playing. He excused himself by saying he was close to 40, and the new guys were simply “too fast” for him, he-he. A couple of Jan’s well-known long speeches were served to the crowd as well, like the one about how we should say no to Bush’s USA, and yes to Chavez’ Venezuela. But after that it was back to brutal grind core, moshing and stage diving again.

Malignant Tumour, Czech Republic’s former brutal grindcore band has now turned into a crust’n roll band with some humour, at least in their imagery, with at least one of the guys (I guess two) sporting a silly moustache/wig. Quite professional and charismatic in their performance, these guys got the crowd really worked up with their mix of Motörhead and crustcore. Unfortunately they had to end their show a bit too soon due to each band’s short playing time, and thus had to excuse themselves without any encores.

Time for the mightiest of them all. Sweden’s Regurgitate, who didn’t let expectations down. The sound was great, much better than the previous bands, and they proved to be much tighter than I had expected (especially Jocke, the drummer). Playing a 30+ song set, no classic was left out here. Vocalist Rikard employed a pedal frequently switching his pitch shifter on and off. Urban handled his guitar impeccably; he seemed so comfortable playing there was not much need for him to look at his guitar at all. Nothing to report on the new bass player, he seemed quite fit in his job. That’s the way to do it boys, a really professional gig by a great band.

All in all; a magnificent festival that I hope to attend again next year. The stage downstairs sucks a bit, the beer is not very cheap at all, the sound may not be perfect, and the crowd here is maybe a bit more reserved than in Germany and Eastern Europe, but still a great event with a crushing line-up.

www.dynamo666.nl
www.bloodshed.nl
www.myspace.com/bloodshedfest