The Suggestion of Menace

There’s a revolution underfoot in the music scene and it’s being led by women.

Something is in the air.

Aaron and I circled Harlow’s in Sacramento looking for parking, having just made the two-hour trek to see this show. I had convinced Aaron to make this trip with me, he wasn’t overly familiar with the night’s lineup of Faetooth, Iress and Nightosphere but we’ve learned to trust each other’s taste in music and he’s become my de facto concert companion.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to make the two-hour drive so of course we were extremely early. And that was when I first felt it. At 615 or so on a show that didn’t even begin until 830 there was already a line forming outside the venue.

“That’s odd,” I commented to Aaron “wouldn’t have expected that.” He agreed. I chalked it up to the warm spring evening. We found somewhere to park and made our way around the block, ostensibly looking for something to eat, mostly to just stretch our legs after the car ride.

Somewhere along Highway 99 just before we exited for surface streets, we’d started talking about the current state of music – the conversation picked back up as we ambled through Midtown – I pointed across the street to the park where one of my twins and I had spent hours playing while the other was in surgery just up the road.

“That was an interesting day,” I said as a moment of real fear washed back over me – I held it for just a second and moved on.

“Think about it,” I said to Aaron “they killed their golden goose and now they don’t know what to do about it.”

Our conversation had taken a turn toward the corporate greed of the music industry that ran headfirst into the streaming model at the expense of the artists. Did you know the average band on Spotify makes .003 per stream? Somewhere around the late 2000’s bands realized the only way to make a living was to hit the road.

“Yep,” Aaron replied. “Concerts became the go to and now no one can afford the damn ticket.”

We’re not breaking any new ground here — anyone who’s gone to a show in the last few years has uttered some version of those exact words. It all seemed to reach some kind of peak with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. That tour burned so brightly it blinded us to everything happening in its shadow. When a star that large finally burns out, you start to see what else is in the sky.

Do you think the kids watching the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June of ’76 had any idea they were witnessing history? When you’re busy being in the midst of something that notion doesn’t really occur to you. We all have visions of grandeur from time to time but there’s no way Bernard Sumner had any idea he and his friends would go on to form one of the most influential post-punk bands.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves -- as at this point the history is still to be written. Over the years I’ve found myself at the forefront of plenty a monumental occasion, so I will say at some level, I’ve got a gut for these things. There’s a revolution underfoot in the music scene and it’s being led by women.

But the parallels.

In 1973 economies the world over were crippled when the Arab members of OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the United States and other nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This isn’t a history lesson, but we need something of a framing to see history rhyming. This oil crisis caused crippling stagflation across the western world as a nearly 300 percent price hike trickled into all sectors of the western economy. Historians call this the lost decade for the British economy and on this side of the pond, the consequences were much the same. Any of this sounding vaguely familiar?

Social unrest caused by widespread unemployment fleeced what little remained in people’s pockets. And what was the establishment’s response? Doubling down in the form of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who came to power with a conservative outlook and an austerity gameplan. The economic misery of the mid-70s didn’t just create hardship — it created a generation with nothing to lose and nothing to believe in. The counterresponse was inevitable. You can only tell people there’s no future so many times before they start building their own.

The music industry didn’t need a conglomerate of oil producing nations implementing an embargo for its economic woes - this was a self-inflicted wound. The funny thing about making a deal with the devil is you always walk away thinking you got what you wanted. It’s always the devil who wins – Lucifer Morningstar is undefeated. Streaming was the devil’s bargain but deep in that contract was the algorithmic commoditization of art, the collapse of a fan driven support infrastructure, generative AI, and platform fatigue. The working musician didn’t just struggle — they nearly ceased to exist.

But no one told the underground musicians or the music lovers that such a diabolical deal had been struck. The message began reverberating out; the infrastructure is gone, your livelihood in jeopardy -- save yourself. Many a calamity facing our world today can be laid at the feet of the Covid pandemic but there is an interesting footnote – physical media sales began increasing and with it, the desire for something real, something beyond the algorithm. The message heard, scenes began reacting, coalescing, consolidating. Some version of this argument had been playing in a loop in conversations between Aaron and me -- tonight was no different.

“So what are you drinking tonight,” I asked Aaron as we stood at the bar. I had initially confused the line for Faetooth’s merch table for the bar line and had to ask a young man which was which. Directions received, I disengaged from the one to step into the other.

“Are you seeing this,” I asked Aaron as I handed him his drink. The merch line was across the bar. I spotted the man who had clarified things for me, in front of him was a young girl, she couldn’t have been more than 11 or 12. I walked back to him.

“Excuse me, is this your daughter?” I asked.

A hesitant look in his eye he gave me a nod and an affirmation.

“Dude, you are the coolest fucking dad in the world,” I said and walked back to Aaron.

By seven or so the place was mostly full as bodies jockeyed for stage position – Aaron and I had found a table and were sitting down for a minute somewhat in disbelief at what we were seeing as people continued to flow in. The spell was broken when a waitress came over and asked us if we’d like to purchase the table – um, no, so sorry, we’ll be moving along now.

By eight, moving from one side of the venue to the other had become a series of starts, stops, excuse me’s and finger gestures.

“How did you discover music when you were a kid,” I ask Aaron leaning in close to his ear the better to be heard over the din.

He thinks about it for a minute and while we’re twenty years apart in age, the answer is strikingly similar for the both of us.

The coolest friends were the ones who always had something amazing you needed to hear or you caught them lost in the music and you interrupted just long enough to ask them what they were listening to. After they got past their annoyance at the disturbance they would typically tell you with more detail than you could possibly imagine. Around my sophomore year of high school, I received a package from a friend of mine living in Seattle at the time - it was a TDK cassette tape with a note that read simply - LISTEN TO THIS. Scratched across the cassette tape were the words BLEACH. The closest we have today is the music we chose to accompany a social media post most notably on Instagram or TikTok. I was scrolling along one night and was stopped by an entry from my friend, Niki. We had recently become friends working together with the Sierra Mutual Aid network, a loosely formed group of like-minded individuals working to support each other in damn-the-man type stuff. I don’t even remember what Niki’s post was about, what I remember was being stopped cold when I heard the sounds of “October” by Faetooth coming from my phone.

The next morning I went to the bands webpage and ordered the vinyl of Labyrinthine. A few days and many streams of the album later I was looking up their upcoming shows – Sacramento, May 16. I immediately texted Aaron – whatcha doing on the 16^th? Wanna go see a fairy doom metal show? In Aaron’s typical deadpan the response was “Um, sure…”

Nightosphere was wrapping up. The three piece from Kansas City plays an interesting sleight of hand on the audience — members Claire Delaney and Brittany Sawtelle trade bass and guitar throughout the set, and the rule is simple: she who holds the guitar wrote the song. As the opener I came in, like many others I suspect, not knowing who they were. I went home with one of their CDs.

I am of the mind that concerts are best experienced with just a bit of intoxication – not stumbling drunk, not even slurred words drunk, just a slight letting down of one’s guard to better appreciate what is often new. I slide into the end of the bar, order another drink and watch as the band disassembles their set.

I am somehow both surprised and completely unsurprised when I look over and see Niki. She recognizes me as well and we both hug each other in something akin to deep recognition. She utters her disbelief in me being here – why do the cool kids never realize they’re cool? We talk for a few minutes, she introduces me to her partner and we separate, melting into the crowd.

Iress took to the stage.

Michelle Malley, Iress’ lead-singer and guitarist, is often cited as the Adele of Doom and the comparison holds. Commanding in presence and demanding in delivery, Malley forces you to hear her going from lilting and delicate to confrontational and powerful within a few breaths of each other. This was a band that had spent 16 years building their chops together. That cohesion and familiarity wrapped the crowd in a spell, drawing them closer with Malley’s delicacy before exploding them backward in a sonic assault.

Iress done, Faetooth in the wings, I made my way through the crowd to the bathroom. Maybe it’s cause I’m 52 and kind of just don’t care all that much anymore but coming back from the bathroom I spotted a concert poster of the night’s show on the wall. Quick look left then right, pulled it down, rolled it up, stuck it in my pocket and made my way back to the side of the stage.

All three of the acts on that Friday night stage at Harlow’s were amazing. Every single one of them deserves your time. They deserve your money so they can keep doing this.

For the uninitiated doom metal carries a significant amount of weight and most of it wrong. What comes to your mind? For many, it brings forth images of Phil Anselmo – esque guys, shirtless, sweating, guitars screaming in an unabashed display of testosterone. In the hands of the women, it becomes something else entirely. To be sure Faetooth is heavy, they can grind with the best of them but if the boys bring the obvious, the girls bring the suggestion – the suggestion of menace, of an atmosphere that will transport you to the land of nightmares. The play here is not to intimidate you with a vulgar display of power but instead to merely whisper something in your ear and let your imagination do the rest.

Aaron and I make our way toward the front of the stage. At the edge of my awareness I feel a presence and turn to see Niki’s partner next to me, Niki next to him. We all embrace, talking over each other about Iress, about what’s coming. My triangle is complete — to my right the one who brought me, to my left the one I passed it to. A woman, Niki, started this as we all marvel at the women on stage. Nascent though it may be — the gauntlet has undeniably been thrown down — it’s our turn.

Faetooth took to the stage opening the set with the album’s initial entry – Iron Gate. As strong a show opener as it is on the album, the song begins with a slow, chugging bassline and a meditative drum rhythm that establishes a hypnotic and chant-like energy. From this very moment you feel it in your bones — these three women are channeling something ancient, something ritualistic. Whatever misgivings you had when you walked through the door slip away as you come under the band’s charm. For more than an hour they lead you on the journey they want you to take, let us pray you have Charon’s obol in your pocket.

While the team of Ari May and Jenna Garcia are both credited with vocals on the album, it was Jenna who drew me in – her voice was the scream of a fae scorned and hell was in her wake. This is a doom metal outfit after all and doom metal is anchored by the bass guitar. Rah Kanan drove the whole thing from behind the kit, buried behind the amps and stacks the way drummers in small venues always are — felt more than seen, the invisible architecture everything else is built on. Holding her Dunable Gnarwhal Jenna’s presence feels almost impossible, this tiny, petite woman screaming with a fury that summons demons while driving the band forward with an instrument nearly as long as she is tall. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe that such a person could bring forth such Valkyrie like power.

The set ends and I feel I’ve been released from a trance. Exhausted Aaron and I make our way back to his car. In an ultimate, embarrassing call back to my younger days through a series of events for the both of us, we’re taking Aaron’s Mom’s car. Aaron unlocks the door and I turn, stretching one last time before the journey home. About 50 feet in front of me I see the young father and daughter walking away. I don’t know what to yell out but an impulse is pulling me so I yell out DAD and he stops and turns. I run up to him, pull the slightly crumpled poster from my pocket – I look at him, I look at her.

“For your daughter, man – have a good night.”