12th June 2010

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Whoopie Pie OV Life at The Stone

Last time I was at The Stone, it was a considerably different crowd than that which attended last night’s performance. Then, it was hipster dudes, and a bunch of cute Bjorks, but the turnout for Whoopie Pie OV Life, a melding of experimental-jazz-metal groups Whoopie Pie and Angel OV Death, was a bit … hairier … plus, there were heavy metal t-shirts.

I’ll get this out of the way right now: Whoopie Pie OV Life — made up of Jamie Saft on keys, Mike Pride on drums, Bill McHenry on tenor sax, and Andrew d’Angelo on alto sax and bass clarinet — is a lumbering, powerful beast of sound, an unstoppable war machine powered by black powder and constructed on a frame made of heavy, heavy metal.

The Stone still has that same comfortable feel of your friend’s basement, rigged up last minute for a concert thrown for classmates and neighbors, yet still with enough know-how that everything works out alright, despite the “is this really cool that we’re doing this?” vibe.  And the bathroom still has convenient right-behind-the-band location, which I still find baffling. There’s no riser for the performers, but that’s part of what makes it cool; they’re there with you. In fact, before the show, when the awkward beardos were all sitting around silently, Bill McHenry invited us to “feel free to talk amongst yourselves.” Nice sentiment and everything, but not with this crowd, bud. Not until someone steps up to be dungeon master.

The show began when the performers wandered out of the back stage area, and, with no great fanfare or even signal to anyone that the performance might begin, just started going at it. Saft’s keys had the sound of a vintage, b-movie organ soundtrack, setting the mood for much of the set in a dark, atmospheric tone. He provided much of the bed from which the other performers would spring off and rest upon. Pride’s brush-work in the earlier moments of the set were the scratches and slaps of a tweaker, almost schizophrenic rhythmically and visually. For the first several minutes of the piece, d’Angelo took the lead, and the feel of it all was like Dracula’s worst trip. Eventually, d’Angelo sunk further back into the group, eventually ending up behind the drum set, letting McHenry pick things up for a while, occasionally jumping in for some tag action.

Soon, things became more and more aggressive, and Pride dropped the brushes and pulled out the sticks.  Throughout the set, he would occasionally return to the brushes, and at one point used a pair of mallets, but from here on out, it was pretty much all punch.  His frenetic style was impressive, and that made it all the more effective when it was time to drop the spazz fills a bit and fall into a groove. He held it down while still having his way with time.

McHenry and d’Angelo spent much of the set in the lead, d’Angelo lurching forward to positively squeal, bursting with energy, screaming like a demonic eagle before running all around the other musicians, really exploring the space, as Bruce Dickinson would have wanted, before leaving to rest off in a corner, letting McHenry or Saft do his thing. Saft’s solos were volcanic, heavy and unstoppable liquid rock. McHenry’s work was a bit more melodic than the others’, and his tone was deep.

During a moment of duet between Saft and Pride, d’Angelo dropped his alto and picked up a bass clarinet before strolling back into the mix to make the clarinet whine, squeak, and growl. Pretty soon, things went back into full force for some heavy dirge. At this point, the group really sounded like they were taking flight, a black airship cruising through the sky for several moments, only in preparation to rocket out into space. The set was full of moments like this, one moment, just chilling on a space trip, the next, combat between alien birds and out of control machines, their earsplitting digital screams piercing through the cosmic mud.

In all, it was a fantastic performance, but I was a bit disappointed that, when d’Angelo went into the bathroom to wipe the sweat from his forehead that he didn’t also blast out a solo while taking a leak. But I guess you can’t get everything you want.

Check out Whoopie Pie, Angel OV Death, and everything else on Veal Records.

Tagged: getting into a serious thinghonkers and squeakers