The obscene rumble of suggestions and a queef of sarcasm resonated from the stage. Wait, let’s not get forward of ourselves. Lengthy earlier than I arrived on the Bokeh Lounge in Evansville to witness a efficiency from the godfathers of New Orleans, arguably the nastiest band within the sludge style, EYEHATEGOD, there was a definite risk that the entire godforsaken night was about to return crashing down, leaving my drained, damaged soul face down in a pool of its personal lumpy excrement whereas some cataclysmic beast ripped out patches of my again hair with its gnashing enamel.
Let’s simply say the proverbial pecker gnat was a buzzing. I used to be on the verge of a 15-hour day—coal miner hours by Southern Indiana requirements—up towards a decent deadline for Hustler Journal that I might have hit, too, had it not been for these sandbagging porn stars. On the similar time, the in-laws have been on the town and desirous to get collectively for an early dinner—5:30, hell, I simply had lunch at 2—and I quickly discovered myself scouring the Web for low cost fares to Costa Rica the place I might open a banana stand and alter my identify to Frank. To high it off, once I lastly bought house and reached into the fridge for a pre-show brew, all that was left was two cans of pineapple lager that Dos Equis despatched me the opposite day hoping for a overview. Properly, right here it’s: Fucking yuck! I used to be beat, feeling defeated and fairly actually not within the temper for the present.
EYEHATEGOD, I might quickly be taught, wasn’t doing any higher. Though a good crowd got here out to be defiled by these sludge steel vets—lots of which have been outdoors smoking copious quantities of weed in an try and get into the correct mind-set—the venue was merely ill-equipped to deal with the ability. The sound system was puny, the stage wanted coaching wheels, and the freaking disco ball spinning above the gang as Ringworm, the present opener, brutalized the place was a transparent admission of bewilderment. May as properly publish an indication outdoors town limits: Welcome to the Armpit of America, y’all. We love the evening life, we’ve bought to boogie. Yeehaw!
Nope, not except this tour rolled into city on a pair of cocaine-powered curler skates, the Nineteen Seventies afro-glitter aptitude was extra of a humiliation than something of aesthetic relevancy. The place in fuck’s holy identify have been all of the gnarly monochromatic clippings of the gutter tradition that’s turn into synonymous with the picture of this band? EYEHATEGOD is and at all times has been a daring, unapologetic assertion on the spread-cheeks of the societal downtrodden amid a governmental reaming. They’re not a bar band that’s going to be “rockin” the evening away to assist America’s neighborhood watering holes, very similar to this one, promote drink specials and get the 9-to-5’ers laid. These weren’t the piss-ant acoustic folkies that bought booked to play Matchbox Twenty covers on the patio throughout Thirsty Thursday. These boys are entice home storytellers of the nod, completely faraway from the gluttony of completely happy hour society, simply ready for the cops to kick down the door and drag everybody to jail. For Christsake, EYEHATEGOD guitarist Jimmy Bower is in Down with steel legend Phil Anselmo! Substitute that disco ball with a noose once they’re on the town.
No less than everybody was sauced up on one thing, or so it appeared, a mandatory spirit, I think about, for getting probably the most out of an EHG present. I’ve at all times theorized that the explanation some music will get extra attention-grabbing once we’re stoned is as a result of it was recorded and blended that approach. Prefer it was some super-secret portal designed to disclose tunes of their purest type to these people in that exact mindset on the time. I’ve discovered this to be true of EYEHATEGOD information. However I didn’t at all times hear it.
It wasn’t till some buddies and I bought to listening to their 1993 album Take as Wanted for Ache whereas blazing by means of a sack of grass that I, for one, started to grasp the place they have been coming from. Vocalist Mike Williams would later affirm that I used to be onto one thing. “Weed has at all times been part of our writing course of,” he advised HIGH TIMES. “Once we get collectively to jam, it’s uncommon that we don’t smoke. It’s a social factor in addition to one thing that encourages desirous to create music. Not all of us partake, however we’re pals getting collectively to kick just a few jams over a joint and some beers. Weed generally unlocks concepts {that a} sober thoughts won’t contact on,” he added.
It was close to showtime once I sensed the band wasn’t all that impressed with the hand they’d been dealt on this cease. I noticed it the second that Williams was accosted by a bartender throughout soundcheck, simply moments earlier than their set started, asking him to assist find the proprietor of a set of automobile keys misplaced throughout Ringworm’s set. “Um, it’s for a Chevy,” he mentioned awkwardly into the mic, presumably considering: Properly, that is it, boys. We’ve lastly arrived in hell. It was only a matter of time. From the place I used to be standing, it was evident that the band had been getting spoon fed a hefty bowl of Hoosier codswallop. It was written throughout their faces. Or possibly what I used to be witnessing was simply the blatant cynicism oozing from their eyeballs after three many years on this life.
In loads of methods, we shouldn’t even be speaking about EYEHATEGOD. In spite of everything, the band began as a joke. But, their soiled interpretation of the Sabbath affect ultimately took off earlier than hitting a wild, downward spiral that might have absolutely sabotaged higher males. There have been drug arrests, lineup adjustments, hurricanes and even demise, all of which many would argue is par for the rock n’ roll course. After drummer Joey LaCaze died all of the sudden of respiratory failure in 2013, Williams realized that he was proper behind him, recognized with cirrhosis and given a 12 months to reside. He would have bit the large one too had it not been for a fan-funded substitute liver. I considered this as he flipped off the gang and requested a shot of vodka from the bar. “Watch out with that,” I assumed. “They gained’t provide you with one other one.” By Williams’ personal admission, that’s not one thing he does usually. “If I’ve a joint, I’m a lot much less prone to drink,” he advised me. “I’m not a heavy drinker, however I like to change my mind-set and can drink extra if I don’t have weed.”
Nonetheless, tempting destiny the place main organs are involved may finish badly, particularly for these guys. Not even probably the most debauched bands in historical past have suffered such a rotten string of dangerous luck. These mangy scamps of the south are undoubtedly butt mutts of the punk technology, unequivocal proof that tragedy-prone heathens could be spawned if a girl isn’t cautious the place she pees. We’re speaking whole human degeneracy, shitheels, scum of the earth, and I imply that as a praise.
Coming from all instructions, center fingers have been flying, a sure-fire signal that the band was about to play. “We’re EYEHATEGOD,” Williams screamed, as Bower, decked out in a Hank Williams Jr. t-shirt, swooped in with the band’s signature screech and whir seconds earlier than drummer Aaron Hill launched into “Take as Wanted for Ache.” Fucking-A! My photographer, Holly, and I have been, after all, throwing down within the entrance row, stage left in entrance of Bower. “If the gang will get too rowdy for you,” I yelled into her ear, “simply slide out that approach,” pointing to a small opening subsequent to the audio system.
Hear, EYEHATEGOD’s music is a number of the heaviest within the style, however they don’t have a fame for taking part in quick or stability when it comes to cadence. There’s no hooks or something in the best way of tune construction. A big a part of their discography, some would possibly say, a minimum of I do, resides in the important thing of the melancholic and wretched. It’s sonic quaaludes beneath a gray November sky. It’s what one would possibly really feel in whole isolation, surviving off nothing however handfuls of amphetamine salts, benzos, and the occasional bologna sandwich. That mixture makes it troublesome for a flock of lifeless mind cells in fight boots and Vans to throw flying kick spins, windmills, and no matter different spastic mosh pit ways these whippersnappers have embraced today with out showing as if they only contracted a uncommon redneck pressure of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis. As quickly as Williams belted out, Breast fed from a canine /because the day I used to be born, the present was on.
EYEHATEGOD isn’t fodder for parental retaliation, neither is it unbridled angst for teenagers with an excessive amount of testosterone coursing by means of their veins to get pleasure from music with out a clenched fist. It’s extra for those with bruises on their arms, these marred with cigarette burns introduced down by their alcoholic stepfathers. The abused, tortured, and disenfranchised. The aggression isn’t essentially payback for stolen youth. These followers, those who really establish with the sentiment of the lyrics, stand in swimming pools of devoted repugnance, head nodding on time with the chunk-chunk, their epitaphs all destined to learn: Right here lies the self-inflicted.
What I’m making an attempt to say is that I didn’t anticipate a violent mosh pit that carried the distinct risk of turning somebody right into a paraplegic by the top of the evening. We didn’t want that shit! However then once more, these have been godless knaves—speaking concerning the Tuesday evening drunkards and chain-smoking degenerates that simply present as much as these sorts of issues to open a can of whup ass on whole strangers—and the one factor that was sure was that they’d begin a pit to Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14 if it meant they bought to interrupt anyone’s jaw. So, you by no means know.
By most requirements, EYEHATEGOD’s present was precisely what you’d anticipate. Forty-five minutes of ear-piercing suggestions and down tuned anthems for the stoned. It was an intimate presentation that at occasions felt like we have been simply hanging out at their apply spot, ingesting all their beer, smoking their dope, and overstaying our welcome. In a approach, although, they made me hate myself. Their presence was someway a merciless reminder that there aren’t any solutions. Success was not with out peril, life is ache, there’s no preparation for the top—ours, or anybody else’s—and none of this mattered anyway. It was as if I had taken psilocybin looking for enlightenment, and all I discovered in that division was despair and dread. Once I bought house, my serotonin had been undoubtedly sucked from my mind, leaving no speedy hope for restoration, not that I cared. Maybe that was their intention all alongside. I reached into the fridge, all of the sudden reminded that there was nothing left however a pineapple lager to assist me discover solace within the distress.
Hey, EYEHATEGOD, fuck you!
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