Made Out of Babies at The Satyricon in Portland, OR
Synthesis PDX correspondent Ryan J Prado Esq. & Associates LLC checks in with the following live report:
If ever there were a more befitting cathedral for the crust-pungent hierarchy of heavy metal, it might just be the dank confines of Northwest Portland's Satyricon. It's rife with all manner of finicky, pushy, mascara'd assholes sloshing cheap swill down their tattooed throats and setting world records for leering. It exudes an alcoholic musk, with the lingering overture of over-fried calamari playing “Chopsticks†on your olfactory; a place where bar flies sits to read Bukowski and never notice the irony. When I accidentally brushed shoulders (witnesses might have described is at “collidedâ€) with a fellow show patron in the crowded slit between the bar and the tables, I was awarded a slow-burn turnaround, with a splash of facetious bitchery and a middle finger dividing the vertical plane of my face. Clearly, I was fucking with the wrong club. But that's mainly on the “bar†side, a sticky saloon corridor with helpfully dim bartenders and the vintage ping of pinball symphonies double-helixing with the cries of Trailblazers color commentators. It's a spectacle of depressing proportions, which is why it seems perfect for the throes of such an aggressive sub-culture.
The “club†side sprawls like a sock-hop nightmare, with checkered dance floor tiles chipping up at corners, seemingly arbitrary pillars jutting out just in front of the stage, expelling or just absorbing some kind of tar-thick ancient drip texturing that makes it appear as if the place had been ravaged by fire at some point, then just given a once over and a nice Fabreze-ing. The stage is mod-podged with ancient loogies.
If it appears as though I'm reporting on the club more than I ought to, it's because the club held down most of the mystique on this bill of cusp-toeing metal juggernauts. Nary a riff shattered my spine so much as the cavernous black dementia encircling my visage. Luckily, I was mainly in attendance to see but one band, whom I was certain would make the trek worth the wreckage.
Made Out of Babies emerged amidst a swirl of a sound check, wherein vocalist Julie Christmas (also of Battle of Mice) paced stage left to right, mumbling and screeching to herself like a deranged toddler in a B-movie horror film. With a substantial, though nowhere near teeming crowd sauntering up toward the hazy green dim of the stage lights, the band erupted into a furious din of mid-tempo, punishing, crunchy metal that pierced the ear drums of most, and pinched the tepid nerves of the Satyricon faithful. Guitarist Brendan Tobin manipulated his gear into a swirl of dissonance, alternately tapping frets and fingering eerie leads on songs like “Cooker†off the band's latest Neurot Records release, The Ruiner. In spite of themselves, and perhaps due to the miniscule number of paying patrons, MOOB blistered through mainly newer tunes, the most notable exception being “Mr. Prison Shanks†from the full-length Coward. The rhythm section held down a ferocious beat, while Christmas executed the kind of sassy vocal acrobatics that have made the band a heavy hitter in the Neurot roster. Christmas' between song routine alone was enough to baffle the appreciative throng, as she flaunted cryptic verbal utterances under her breath, then above it, prowling the stage with a cut-off T-shirt sporting a vampiric Kirsten Dunst, whipping her locks in a whirlpool askew like a schizophrenic dumping her meds in the toilet.
The band ended their monstrous set with venerable crowd-pleaser “Swarm,†after which I witnessed a still-seething Christmas behind her merch table, presumably still within the hyperbole of her stage-presence, spit on a gentleman asking how much her albums were selling for. It took her a full second to realize what she'd done; it took me less than that to realize this band is no joke.
Words and Photos by Ryan J. Prado
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