Despite having heard only a four-track EP by The Black Angels, I thought they’d probably be worth seeing live, so jumped at the chance when they came through Houston. This was again at the Warehouse, but in a different/smaller room than the one I saw The Black Keys in – either that or they have remodeled and significantly downsized. This time the ‘stage’ (a wooden platform that stood at most a foot off the ground) was squashed in a corner of the room, and there were sofas in the ‘audience area’, which I didn’t take as a good sign.
The evening started off with a film – actually more of a ‘rocumentary’ (“…if you will”) – called The Road To Psychedelia. This was about the nascent psychedelic music scene in Austin, TX in the mid-Sixties. The Black Angels play ‘psychedelic’ rock, and are from Austin, so I guess that is the connection. (Actually, the lead vocalist could have directed it, or his brother, or something, as he thanked us for watching… I don’t know.) Anyway, it was interesting enough – not least for the inclusion of some early footage of Janis Joplin (I never knew she was originally a Folk purist who refused to sing ‘rock and roll’) – though seeing it on TV from the comfort of my own sofa may have been more enjoyable. With the film over, the sofas were cleared out, ready for the freak-out to begin.
Support band were The Strange Boys. I’m assuming that their name is ironic, as they certainly didn’t look strange. Boys, maybe. The lead vocalist/guitarist bore an uncanny resemblance to “Howlin’” Pelle Almqvist out of The Hives. Or at least an uncanny resemblance to how Pelle probably looked when he was 15. The music was alright – short, punchy, low-fi songs in the style of the early White Stripes, occasionally reaching highs whenever Pelle Jr shook his guitar at the amps, producing some shimmering reverb. Nice.
Half an hour after The Strange Boys stepped off the stage, The Black Angels stepped up out of the audience and onto it. Despite all being way too young for even their parents to have lived through the psychedelic Sixties, they did a pretty good job of recreating the scene – right down to the trippy oil/water lightshow, and the alternating black-and-white / color film projections on top of the band.   All that was missing was the smell of ‘reefer’ and announcements over the tannoy about a batch of bad acid doing the rounds… (Obviously I’m too young to vouch for its authenticity as well, so I’m guessing here.) Musically, The Black Angels were excellent. It did take them up to four guitars (plus/minus keyboards/drone machine, drums/floor-toms, and some unbridled tamboureen-banging) to create the requisite noise, but that they did.
Major props have to go to the drummer (Stephanie Bailey, a quick web stalk search tells me), who played like a freakin’ human metronome (apart from about 5 minutes in the middle of the set when lead guitarist Shaggy from Scooby-Doo took over (to less effect) while she switched to second guitar so the second-guitarist could switch to floor-toms). She hit up a really powerful, driving rhythym, which just underpinned the whole thing. Best drummer I’ve seen/heard since 65DaysOfStatic. She was just awesome to listen to. And to watch – she’s hot! Maybe it’s just me but there’s something really hot about female drummers. Except maybe for Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground, who I thought was a bloke for ages (I think it was the haircut that did it). Now I think about it, the drummer out of L7 was actually a bit skanky (didn’t she auction off a shag to pay for repairs to their tourbus or something?). And the one out of Girlschool was no prize pig, either. OK, so maybe not all female drummers are hot, but certainly this one is. Anyway, I digress.
Propelled by the rock-solid drumming, the Black Angels certainly delivered what it said on the box. They market the ‘psychedelic rock’ angle pretty heavily, and the sound is right there, but there’s more than enough originality to keep them well away from ‘tribute’ territory. Huge slabs of droning guitar, waves of reverb washing over everything, and the whole slow-churn hypnotic cycles of sound thing… The band are all obviously well into it, pretty much eschewing eye-contact with the audience in favor of watching each other for cues, or just eyes closed, head down concentration. It works well, with no-one mugging for the spotlight (despite their obvious individual talents), giving a whole much bigger than the parts. Actually the one spotlight was largely focused on vocalist Alex Maas, but with his thick beard and cap pulled way down over his eyes, he seemed to be doing his damndest to avoid it…
I think the only thing that ruined the gig for me was the keyboardist / ‘drone-machine’ player (Jennifer Raines). She was good and all, and certainly boosted the sound, but she spent most of the gig trying to look all dreamy, and serious, and ‘into it’, but the façade was destroyed by the fact that during The Strange Boys’ set she was earnestly flogging T-shirts from the merch. stand, all friendly and approachable. I know it’s not her fault – the Black Angels are a small band and everyone has to double-up, but I like my bands to be up on a pedestal; untouchable. A rock band should be seen as something to look up to, to strive for. An acknowledgment that they are much better than we are, that they’re doing something great. But when you see them stuffing T-shirts into plastic bags like someone on the market, it takes away the mystery. It’s like that bit in the Wizard of Oz when the curtain comes back and you see the Wizard pulling all the levers. You just think “Aww, they’re just like us!” And that’s not a good thing.
Anyway, overall pretty damn good! Given that the Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, and (effectively) Spiritualized, are all defunct, this is probaly as close as you’re going to get to a hypnotic state of musical bliss this century. Catch them if you get the chance.
Buy their album Passover from Amazon.com
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