As life began to get a bit more back to normal around the Spring of this year shows and tours started popping up everywhere. We all thought things were going to be A-OK right? Ah, that was a really nice month or so wasn’t it?
That being said, the third iteration of the No Coast Fest in Texas seemed to be a solid option for a fun thing to do, even if it’s in Texas.
The initial lineup looked bonkers- a dream come true for noise rock heads and aficionados of weird, heavy music in general.
However, as society in general took a big dump on otherwise responsible types and set us all back to… I don’t know… confusion and a lot of maybes about the safety of actually attending shows or counting on bands to be able to follow through with tours the lineup for this shindig shifted considerably.
I already had my plane tickets and a clean bill of health so I wasn’t going to back out. If anything, I could just have myself a weird adventure. And I did! So kudos to uncertainty.
I arrived in Austin a couple days early because I was connecting with the Exhalants dudes, who were set to play No Coast and figured I would ride up with them. Additionally, one of my best friends from childhood (and throughout high school) lived in Austin and we hadn’t seen one another in at least 5 years. And I’d also been in Austin exactly one other time to play a show on tour and that was 15 years ago. So it was high time to see what all the fuss was about regarding this supposed ‘live music capital of the United States’, as well as sample the massive gentrification that likely has mowed down the local culture like a reaper’s scythe across the Red River and surrounding community.
My man Steve picked me up from the airport and put me up for a couple days while my old pal Nate showed me around town to see the well-known End Of An Ear record store, a great vegan lunch spot called Project Pollo, and a little bakery with the ‘wink, wink, nod, nod’ name Zucchini Kill (complete with a hearse out front stating ‘our cupcakes are to die for’). Let me tell you this- Austin has way too many strip malls literally everywhere. Just thought I’d put that out there.
But you came here to read about bands and stuff so I’ll get to that.
On Friday I set out with the Exhalants dudes, who all traveled separately for logistical reasons, up to Denton for the first night of the fest. Texas got itself a traffic problem because that stretch from Austin to Denton should have been around 3 hours and took like 5. For whatever reason I did not blow my top, which I’m prone to do in traffic and it’s probably because I wasn’t driving.
So we show up in Denton and people are just loading in. For those unfamiliar, Denton is a small college town between Fort Worth and Dallas. It’s quiet, quaint, extremely chill and is host to a music school, which lends itself to being amicable to live events. It doesn’t seem to fit the stereotype of Texas as some backwards hick-filled, God-fearing conservative hellscape. It just seems chill and easy going.
Additionally, the venue- Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Space- is an incredible spot with an indoor stage that has a big wide opening to a giant patio space with another stage, as well as being close enough to the downtown area to be super walkable, but situated between railroad tracks and a concrete factory so as to leave absolutely no one to complain about excessive noisy racket. It was awesome.
I quickly met a few people I’d only talked to online up to that point, as well as saw a few familiar faces I hadn’t seen in a long time. The Grizzlor dudes traveled all the way from Connecticut to play and I hadn’t seen them in well over four years. Plus, their new record (which I released, ahem) had just come out today. So it was a pretty special event.
Things started off not long after with openers Sub-Sahara, who I was wholly unfamiliar with. They had a sort of post-punk vibe going on with very topical lyrics and weren’t afraid to talk about them between songs, which is always cool with me. The bounced between rhythmic grooves and abrasive chaos and it was a good way to set things off.
Moon Pussy, out from Denver,was next. I was a little slow to catch on to them but once I gave their record some attention it stood out pretty strong. Seeing them live was interesting as it provided some insight into how they get all those weird sounds and effects from their guitars… in part because the guitarist built his own instrument and added plenty of bells and whistles to it. Pretty neat!
Salvation from Chicago followed and did their thing of crazy heavy rock with a lot of leads and a weird, unsettling swagger. Definitely greasy.
So I’m totally partial here but Grizzlor followed and put on a hell of a set. I know a lot of people in attendance were very excited for them since the band had never made their way this far South, or West. This was my first time seeing them play with their drummer Warren and it was probably the best time seeing Grizzlor overall. They were incredibly loud, crazy energetic, and sounded super tight. They played a bunch of stuff from “Hammer Of Life” as well as sprinkling in a few older tracks as well. I know they’re supposed to be really anti-social types but I may have had the longest in person conversation with Vic ever at that show at over 10 minutes. It was beautiful.
This was my first time (since I think they hardly ever leave Austin) seeing Easy Prey and they may have had my overall favorite set of the weekend just because of how wild they were and how much their music kicks ass. It’s definitely a thing of hardcore kids playing noise rock… so too hardcore for the noisy boys but too noisy for the HC sticklers. I feel you. This is my life. Also, dudes had a solid shirt game going. When your members can sport both classic Napalm Death t’s as well as a Garfield shirt, I mean, you gotta love that.
As much as Easy Prey kicked everyone’s butt the room truly filled up for Exhalants. They’ve received a great deal of praise over the last year for “Atonement”, which was well deserved. It’s a great record. Personal preference aside, it was easy to see that most everyone present was very excited for them. And by god, it was one of the loudest sets I’d seen in a long time, completely blowing my ears out in the best way possible. I hadn’t seen them since before they recorded the LP so I was catching a lot of these songs for the first time and I was so satisfied and blown away by the volume and heaviness in which they were played I found myself at several points being physically pushed back a bit by the sound and excitedly ‘whooooooah!’-ing during songs.
And, of course, everyone was very interested to see what was up with this iteration of Unsane who closed out the night. I have seen Unsane many times in my life and they have always been amazing. However, as the band officially split up a couple years ago one had to wonder what this was all about. So main dude Chris Spencer found himself living in Texas and Eric Cooper, a former band mate from another project (and an arm’s length resume of other awesome bands) also lived there, as well as drummer extraordinaire Jon Syverson (Daughters) residing nearby. Spencer had recently recovered long lost demos from early Unsane sessions and finally released them to the public. Since the original Unsane lineup is either musically retired, or passed away recruiting these two musical talents to perform some of these old songs just for fun seems like a fitting and respectable tribute. Not so much a reunion, just a worthy version of a thing that would be nearly impossible to do otherwise. And they sounded perfect. Syverson played with the intensity and determination of Vinnie Signorelli mixed effortlessly with the late Charlie Ondras chaotic swing. Cooper already had a bad ass bass tone so he was a shoe in who energetically bounced around on stage to fill the spot otherwise commanded by Dave Curran (and Pete Shore before him). And Chris Spencer remains Chris Spencer, just as vitriolic as ever. They played mostly tracks from the demos record, but threw in a few other random songs I was happy to hear- “Body Bomb”, “Committed”, “Scrape”, and a couple others.
The next day I had mostly to myself since nothing was getting started until the evening and I was happy enough to spend it wandering around town solo. I love towns/cities that are walkable versus just driving all the time so I must have schlepped a solid 7 or 8 miles through the day to check out a wildly overpriced record/used book store, a vegan taco joint, a great little coffee shop, and stumbled upon a massive pro-choice rally/march in progress outside city hall. Not a bad day! Oh, and it’s still totally summer out here as opposed to the rainy fall weather that has suddenly engulfed Portland that I am accustomed to.
However, upon the start of day 2 the lineup on this particular night had varied so much over the last few weeks that I had to basically just show up and see what was happening and go from there. To say I was a bit let down by some of my favorite bands canceling for reasons outside their power is a bit of an understatement, but some of the replacements proved to be a good bit of fun so whatever.
Whep opened things up and played a really fun set of tight and wild sludgy rock. There were a few others that did their thing in the mean time but I got a bit caught up in conversation with others, as well as getting some food so I missed out a bit.
And, if I may put in an aside here, when I think of the noise rock scene and food it’s often an image of Waffle House (or other grease ball establishment with plenty of meat) chased with hard liquor or beer. I don’t roll with any of that so I often feel like a bit of an outlier. However, set up on the patio on the venue was a full-on vegan pop-up with some of the best food truck style dishes I’d had in awhile (this coming from a spoiled Portlander residing in the vegan capital of the USA). Ah, noise rock, you’ve truly entered the 21st century. AmRep would be so disappointed in us all. But I was a happy camper for sure.
OK, back to fest stuff. I’d also like to add the idea of this being a ‘fest’ but there were really just a couple hundred folks present total. Like, the perfect sized crowd really. It wasn’t a huge event. Most everyone was masked up all night, things were safe, the promoters did a fantastic job of ensuring safety protocols were followed… it definitely put me at ease.
OK, so a last minute band addition happened and a duo called Honduh Daze played. I had no idea what to expect. Their whole shtick was ‘dealership punk’ and goofing on the Honda corporation. It was wacky. They both dressed in Honda uniforms, spouted off radio-ad styled skits between songs about getting free key chains, not being sellouts (yet obligated to give the sales pitches), and making everyone in the audience sign up for a lease. The songs were blistering mindfucks of caveman beats and guitar-pedal overload noise freakouts. It was bizarre and wonderful. The best part: generally if you’re going to have a gimmick-y project this ridiculous it’s contained to an in-joke between friends who play twice a year locally and that’s it. These cats were ON TOUR. Like, doing this every night. How’s that for commitment to a thing?
Dug is a duo, formerly of Minneapolis riff-masters Buildings. Dug is something different- droning amp worship that is typically not my thing. I’ve listened to a bit of Dug and personally I just don’t find that sort of obsessiveness over playing a single note for several minutes with an occasional scream to be all that interesting. But I’ll give ‘em this- watching Dug live they definitely added in some chugging Sumac-styled parts and Harvey Milk-inspired sludge, and they seemed to be having so much fun doing it. So that really changed my mind on it. Sure, I’m not all that keen on droning, but watching a person having a ball while playing it brings about a bit of joy in an otherwise sullen subgenre. Good on them.
I also cannot say their name without thinking of the old The State sketch show character of the same name.
Alright, Bummer came up and totally deported everyone to riff country without hesitation. I haven’t seen these dudes in a few years and my neck is still sore from too much headbanging. It was joyous and heavy with plenty of joking on the audience, fucking around, and killing everyone with riffs. No one survived so Season To Risk followed up and played to no one because we were all dead. Just kidding. I think everyone was just tired by that point and Season To Risk really did play to very few people. I stuck around for a few songs but called it a night soon after.
I didn’t go to the Sunday show. Honestly, none of the bands were of all that much interest to me, with the exception of a curiosity about Chat Pile. Apparently the whole thing was moved to the outdoor stage and watching a couple post-fest videos of them it looked as if they killed it.
I walked out to Spiral Diner in the morning and had one of the most pleasant outdoor breakfasts ever before leaving town, heading back to Austin and chilling out for awhile before I had to catch a flight back to Portland at like 5 in the morning on Monday. Airlines and airports blow, but the trip overall was a whirlwind of activity and noise. I can hang alright with that.
Here’s to hoping No Coast continues on with a quality set up and only grows in stature to an event people from all over can convene upon and enjoy!
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