By Diane Griffin
Music festivals – all sorts of festivals, really – are tiny, temporary utopias. One of the reasons I love them is the feeling that the rest of the world has faded into insignificance, and that the enclave you’re in can feel like the whole world. Food and camping and junk for sale in the vendors’ tents and artist’s booths and whatever else turns up make it seem like everything you need is right there.
We could talk about port-a-potties, which I think are the biggest drawback to the experience, and there! they have been mentioned, and we can move on quickly now, as one does when port-a-potties are involved.
If anyone were to notice this old trans lady at all at this event, my hope is that they saw me smiling, dancing, or walking back and forth between the two stages at opposite ends of the Miller’s Falls Rod and Gun Club. This isolated clearing in the woods is, in my opinion, put to its best use on Labor Day weekend. For that brief window in time, it’s filled with people of multiple generations and genders in black t-shirts with various outré images and bits of text printed on them, under multifarious unnatural hair colorations at a variety of uncivil lengths. The sweet smell of zaza wafts through the air everywhere.
It is a metal fest, after all.
This is the second year that I’ve attended RPM Fest Heavy Music Campout in Montague for as much of Saturday (the longest day of the festival) as I can endure. I love the atmosphere, generally love the music (not every band is to my taste, of course) and I feel a twinge of gratification for the fact that I’ve gone and done the thing.
Both years I’ve gone, I’ve skipped out before the headliner because I never want to contend with a crowd all trying to exit after that last act, and because these old ears and legs can only take so much. This year I missed Ghoul and last year I missed Prong. I feel some smidgeon of regret for missing the headliners, but it’s negligible pain compared to how my knees feel by 9 PM, after a long day spent mostly on my feet.
So what about the music? I think a festival is always going to be a mixed bag. I saw bits and pieces of sets from 12 different bands while I was there, and nothing offended me, but there was a stretch in the middle of the day when I found most of the music rather unmemorable.
There was this band Goblet that was doing the “Wacky Party band” thing. The bass player was wearing a shaggy hat with giant Viking horns, there was a cobbled-together sculpture of a pot pipe at the side of the stage made out of PVC tubing and an aluminum funnel, lit and smoking through the whole set. What I found most memorable about them (and this is emblematic of the spirit of the festival) was when the singer had two roadies bring out a big ice chest. While he was singing, all death growls and indecipherable lyrics over blasting chugga chugga guitars, he made a bologna sandwich, which he put on a plate and handed to an audience member. That was the finale of their set.
Death growls and niceness.
Among my favorite bands were Concrete Ties, a local hardcore punk band with a powerhouse female singer named Leyla Eileen, who was completely riveting onstage. I could not take my eyes off her as she prowled around, growling and exhorting the audience to rock.
I thought Mean Mistreater were great, high-powered 80s style metal with another fierce woman vocalist with clear and powerful tones, and a talented lead guitarist. A little research after the fact suggests that their name may have come from a Grand Funk Railroad song, and the strains of classic hard rock also flowed from The Atomic Bitchwax, a band that sounds like they’ve studied hard over every one of Grand Funk’s records.
The other two bands I enjoyed most are Coma Hole and Heavy Temple. Coma Hole is a two-member band: a fine drummer and a bass player who has an extraordinary setup. She plays a stereo bass and sends the two channels through different amp setups, one for the low tones and a separate channel which, on the other side of an octave pedal, goes through a massive guitar amp. All her gear is vintage and sounds amazing. Their music is psychedelic stoner rock with a deep vein of Nirvanna-esque grunge rock running through it.
Heavy Temple is a three piece stoner band who sound like they stepped out of a time machine from 1969. Their guitarist, Lord Paisley, is Hendrix-inspired, uses a fair amount of wah wah pedal and super-sludgy distortion. Their singer/bassist is High Priestess Nighthawk and she is another commanding presence. Drummer’s name is Baron Lycan. I know this because I happily purchased both of their albums and have referred to the liner notes as I’ve spun them.
I love the thread of fantasy that runs through so much of metal music. Of course it calls to me, as a writer of fantasy. It gives an air of freeness and imaginations allowed to run wild.
It’s not lost on me that almost all of the bands I liked best have women singers. There are many reasons for this, but I think I’ll list one here: I think the women are more likely to sing “clean” as they say, though there are certainly plenty who use death growls. I’m not opposed to death growls per sé, though I’m not as enamored of them as most of the younger metal fans are. I have learned how to produce that sound myself.
I did notice that every male singer I saw that day used death growls, with the exception of the two guys in The Atomic Bitchwax. Special mention here for the band Necropanther, who had two growly singers, one who pitched a little higher and one who pitched low. Death growl harmonies, anyone? I know where you can get some of that!
I spent a day in a far-away magical bubble world, and it was fine. It made me forget that there are people in the southern distance who are toiling to take this all away from us. I saw other people my age at the festival. I saw other trans folk there. Both sets of examples helped me feel like I was a welcome part of this ephemeral, idealized landscape.
I’ll go next year, too.
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