Music

Three-for-All

One weekend's shows reveal eternal truths about local bands.

By Nathan Dinsdale 

The prophets tried to warn us. Their ancient wisdom was chiseled into stone tablets and preserved so that all humanity could read the solemn words and understand the perils of nature: Seasons change, mad things rearrange/But it all stays the same like the love Doctor Strange.

OK, so it was the Fugees singing "How Many Mics." But the words are no less prophetic. Musical clans have mirrored the life-and-death cycle of the seasons since homo erectus performed the first guitar solo in a fire-lit cave. Bands are born, they live, they play "Baba O'Riley" at Jimmy Schmidt's bar mitzvah, and then they die.

Ad Astra Per Aspera is an odd little spring chicken that has only started to spaz out; a national tour and impending record deal has made the Esoteric the boys of summer; the Sound and the Fury struggles for a break in the autumn of its career. But each needs only look to the Casket Lottery (page 48) to know that winter awaits them all.

It's Friday evening, the sun is shining, and the weekday lemmings are becoming weekend lushes. The prefunk has only begun for most people, but the crowd packed into the Beaumont Club isn't most people. And while the funk is nowhere to be found, the noise announces its presence loud, if not clear. And it's not even 8 p.m.

Damn all-ages shows.

Nobody starts concerts on time, let alone early. But these kids need to get their mosh on before curfew and the Esoteric is happy to oblige. Killswitch Engage and In Flames are technically the main event, but the fans caught in the churning maw at center stage didn't get the memo.

The five-man Esoteric blurs with raw, hardcore fury that leaves them and the crowd lathered with sweat when the dust settles on the short, ferocious set. Panting fans back away from the knot of humanity to catch their second wind during the break. They wear studded belts and black T-shirts that say "Anti-establishment," "I Hate Everyone" and "I'm all gay about Hobbits and shit." Many hands bear the telltale "X" mark reserved for underage patrons and straightedge types.

"I would much rather play an all-ages show," vocalist Steve Cruz confides later. "These kids are loyal and dedicated. They are so much hungrier than a normal crowd. Other places, we get a lot of deer in the headlights."

And you don't want to be caught in the headlights, lest you be obliterated all over the highway. To some, the band's punishing sonic spasms are hellacious noise; to others, glorious 4-minute hemorrhages of percolating emotion. And there are enough "others" around to warrant a large metal/ hardcore following.

The band's new EP, 1336, just might take that appeal national. Its four songs were intended to be demos recorded in the basement of a house in Lawrence (the title references the address), at least until the songs caught the ear of Black Noise Records, which promptly released 1336.

"It was just us messing around at home," Cruz says. "But I guess it gets the point across."

Although, you might have to be fluent in hardcore to completely understand the message, because many lyrics are a tad, well, esoteric. "Until the Grave Gives up the Ghost," for one, offers salient musings like, Angelic assassin, monkey in reflection, infinity mocks its definition.

Somebody's monkey is doing what now to whom?

And when the trained voice shrieks, Possibility of position/Collapse the mainframe with the stars of the brain/Spots that shine in all directions/ Remembering the birth of initiation, the untrained ear hears "Pwwaaaeedeeaahhwaationn!!!!"

Not to worry. Intelligibility is inconsequential because what the Esoteric says isn't nearly as important as how the band says it. And where it says it -- namely, everywhere.

"Some bands are content with playing their hometown over and over, and that's cool," Cruz says. "[But] this is a way of life for us. If you want to share your music with a lot of people, you have to be in people's faces all the time. It's the only way a band in our genre -- whatever that is -- can support itself."

Not that the band is hurting for work. A full national tour is already scheduled, and the band expects to sign a record label contract within weeks.

"Everybody's feeling it right now," Cruz says. "Everybody's juices are flowing pretty good. The band has never been in as good a position as we are right now."

It's Saturday afternoon, the sun is shining, and the music nerds are swarming inside Recycled Sounds. The crowd of Neutral Milk Hotel T-shirts and Buddy Holly glasses is so thick, in fact, that the congestion forces some people to get much closer to a used copy of Corey Hart's First Offense than any human being should.

The audience isn't here for a rare Kraftwerk bootleg sale or to ask employees what Prince is really like when he's buying giant posters of himself. They're here for Ad Astra Per Aspera, and that makes the band members a little uneasy. They titter nervously and stare at the floor while tuning their instruments, which have somehow been shoehorned into a claustrophobic patch of space in the back of the store.

Five people, three guitars, three keyboards, a drum kit and assorted noisemakers are wedged between stacks of posters. This performance celebrates the release of the band's EP, Cubic Zirconia. As fate would have it, the finished album was flown in that morning, albeit too late for the previous night's show.

"It was a total Spinal Tap moment," lead singer and guitarist Mike Tuley tells the crowd with a laugh. "We had a CD-release party with no CDs."

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