The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.volcoment.com/tours/default.asp

I have no idea what the hell a Volcom is. What I do know is that when this show was originally billed to come to town on August 28, the show was to include Year Long Disaster, Airbourne, Valient Thorr, The Misfits, and Motörhead. Only two of those bands actually bothered to show, which is a shame. My friend Nancy really wanted to see Airbourne, an AC/DC rip off band also from Australia, and she was interested in Year Long Disaster. Unfortunately she drew the short end of the stick because a couple of weeks before the St. Louis date, Airbourne withdrew citing their lead vocalist had lost his voice. I guess that's better than choking on your own vomit a la Bon Scott. Year Long Disaster left the tour because they got a better gig fronting for the Foo Fighters. As for the Misfits, Jerry Only said that he didn't want to compromise the integrity of the band by playing with Motörhead and a bunch of opening acts, which of course is just laughable. I'm not a big Misfits fan, especially after Glenn Danzig left the band, but I was looking forward to seeing Black Flag original members ROBO and Dez Cardena play. I guess I'll have to wait for another day. So, while it may have been disappointing that these bands didn't show, it just meant there was more time for the headliner to play.

ASG

I didn't know ASG was playing beforehand and after the show I still know nothing about them. The doors to the show opened at 6 and the show started at 7. We walked in at 7:15 and ASG was playing it's last song, which sounded OK. Literally they couldn't have played for more than 20 minutes. I'm guessing I didn't miss much.

Valient Thorr

I've been digging on these guys for awhile now. Not so much for their music, which is pretty decent, but much more for their look. Quite honestly they look like dirty fucking hobos. Almost all of them have beards of remarkable length and every one of them needs a bath. Did you ever see that episode of Sanford & Son where Lamont and Fred cleaned up the homeless guy and it turned out to be Aunt Esther's drunken husband Woodrow? In the show they remarked that they tried to take his socks off only to realize that he wasn't wearing socks. These guys probably wear socks made of dirt too, but I suspect if you cleaned them up you'd find they are really CPA's with degrees in Finance. But as it stands now they are just dirty freaks playing loud, fast, rock and roll music.
Valient Thorr claim to be from the planet Venus and were put here originally back in the 50's. Then they came back again in the 70's, explored Earth, and put a time machine in Virginia. The third time they came back in 2000, they got stuck here because Walt Disney stole their time machine. I tell you, it's getting to the point in this world where you just can't trust a cryogenically frozen, racially insensitive, bastard anymore. Is this what we have devolved into? Shameful. But luckily for us Valient Thorr stayed to fucking rock! And rock they did.
Valient himself came out in a red western snap shirt, jeans that were held together by road dirt and nicotine, the signature beard, and bright blue, patent leather, Mexican, wrestling boots. They appeared to be two sizes too small. Either that or Valient has tiny feet. It's probably an effect of all that time travel. After the first song he tossed the western shirt aside to reveal a greasy wife beater. Two songs after that he stripped off the wife beater to reveal another layer of sweaty hair and a doughy gut of goo. The band played loud and fast and Valient slung his sweaty beard, hair, and gut back and forth above those unlucky enough to be standing in the front. I grimaced. I'm not a squeamish guy but I was pretty grossed out by it. And then he jumped down in the crowd. I was glad we weren't standing down in the pit, but I do have to admit I peed myself a little thinking that if we were down there his disgusting filth sweat would be touching me. Somehow the fans didn't seem to mind.
I have to give the band credit. They were very energetic and they played extra loud and extra fast. I would learn shortly that they were not even close to extra loud, but it did seem so at the time. In between songs Valient would preach to the crowd about the evils of Bush, Jesse Helms, the idea that everyone must vote, and that we should not only support the troops now, we should also make sure that they were taken care of when they returned home. He said it was our responsibility and we should take it seriously. Hey, I don't disagree with him, but I'm not sure this was the crowd that you should be preaching too. It was a KSHE sponsored show. Well, quite possibly it is the crowd you should be preaching to, but who wants to hear that at a rock and roll show. Save it for the Melissa Ethridge concert and I'll watch lesbians make out while you preach to me.
The band sported two guitar players and they alternated lead parts. Both played the obligatory Les Paul. The guy on our side had a pretty nice gold one. I officially want to be a Thorrior now.

Motörhead

When a band has an umlaut in their name, you know they rock.
Bands without umlauts:

• Bob Dylan
• Abba
• Air Supply
• Peter, Paul, and Mary

Bands with umlauts:

• Motley Crüe
• Blue Öyster Cult
• Lili von Shtüpp
• Sönic Yöüth

I may have made that last one up.

I'm not really a big Motörhead fan. At least not until this show that is. However, when a rock and roll legend like Lemmy comes to town you can't miss it. Nancy tried to pull as many strings as she could to get us backstage to get a picture with Lemmy's wart, but it just wasn't in the cards. No matter, it was still a good show. Some bands sound great on a recording and suck live. I'll use the Breeders as an example. Some bands suck on vinyl and rock live. And that is the definition of Motörhead.
Jesus Christ these guys were fucking loud. I put the earplugs in and while those around me may have made fun of me, there was no way I could have made it through the show without them. Even with them in the noise damn near killed me. I don't have much hearing left. I need to conserve what I've got and I don't care if you call me a wus. The band weaved through a solid hour of songs, songs I had no idea what the lyrics were and yet I still had the heavy metal head bob going the whole time. I also had a big shit eating grin too.
Halfway through the show they let Mickey Dee do the obligatory drum solo. I hate drum solos and while this one was technically good, I still gave it the thumbs down. I still stand by my all drummers are pompous asses theory and Mickey gave me no indication otherwise. He had dual bass drums with double kicker pedals. The bass drums were miked up so high that every time he hit them, my balls shook. It sort of hurt and sort of tingled. Ok, I admit it. I kinda liked it in much the same way lonely housewives like to sit on the washing machine. After the ball shaking drum solo, I'm pretty sure if we were in Hungary or Slovenia I might be legally bound to be married to the drummer.
The band came out and played a straight ahead blues tune for an encore where Mickey played an acoustic guitar and a small drum kit with his foot. Phil Campbell played another acoustic guitar and sang backup and Lemmy just sang. WTF?! You play for an hour at 10,000 decibels and then you want to do an acoustic blues number? Give me the god damn Ace of Spades you limey pricks. They did. It rocked. Now I understand why I need to be a Motörhead fan.
Lemmy played his signature Rickenbacker through a Hammer head and five Marshall stacks. That was about 4 Marshall stacks too many for the room. Phil played a variety of guitars that appear to be Gibson Firebird's and Les Paul's, but are in fact custom LAG guitars. Most notably he played a sweet black one cut to look like flames. He also played through four too many Marshall stacks.
At the end Lemmy pounded his bass, walked back and turned up the gain, then banged his guitar on the stage and leaned it up against the stacks. The feedback was incredibly loud. And cool.

Best T-shirt of the night: (there was a tie)
1. Remember kids. Charlie is your friend. (Complete with Charles Manson likeness)
2. Worship Pussy Now. (worn by a blonde MILF ... or GILF ... with fake boobs and way too tight jeans)