If Jeff Spicoli was an actual person, in between partying and catching tasty waves, he would most definitely be listening to Fu Manchu. The California stoner rock outfit has been laying down heavy grooves since 1990, and Monday, 4/22 at the Black Cat, Fu Manchu took us back 16 years, playing all of 1997′s The Action Is Go album.
Local support for the night was handled by DC’s Borracho. By the time they took the stage, the small room was already gathering a decent crowd. With singer Noah Greenburg going on hiatus, the band continued on as a three-piece, with guitarist Steve Fisher taking the reins on vocals. With the mic above his head and pointing down, reminiscent of Lemmy, and a gruff snarl to match, Fisher led Borracho across their set like Hannibal leading his elephants through the Alps.
Mid-tempo songs and heavy, low, churning chords gave way occasionally to fast-paced neckbreakers, and back again. Bassist Tim Martin and drummer Mario Trubiano provided the audio equivalent of a thunderstorm and an earthquake, yet did it with a cool, focused calm about them. As the set went on, Borracho alternated between songs with and without vocals, and it made for a perfect mix of their material. As they closed their set with “Concentric Circles,” the crowd showed their appreciation for the hometown boys and began their mingling during the set break.
Prior to the show, I had never even heard of the next band, Bloodnstuff. I truly had no idea what to expect, and this two-piece out of Minneapolis, MN was definitely a surprise. Summed up in one word? Interesting. The band consists of guitarist/ vocalist Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouert, both previously of Economy Team.
For most of the first song, I spent my time looking for other members of the band. For the amount of sound produced by these two, surely there were more people up there, and maybe my view of them was obstructed, or they were standing in an odd spot. No, it was just the two of them, and through technology and an array of pedals, Holmberg is able to play guitar and bass at the same time.
Each song was a musical journey of smooth, soaring vocals, complex rhythms and time signature changes. The music also used a variety of different sounds – on one song, Holmberg used effects to make his guitar sound like a pipe organ. Gouert provided the backbone of the music, leading and handling the time changes with ease. The music ranged from deep and sludgy one minute, to bright and proggy the next, yet it was seamless and never confused or muddled. The crowd, slightly unsure at first, showed increasing appreciation as the set went on. Bloodnstuff finished their last tune and wished the crowd goodnight, and the majority of the audience made their way to the cooler outer bar area, which was about 20 degrees cooler at this point in the night.
A few minutes later, Fu Manchu took the stage, made a few monitor adjustments, and went right into “Evil Eye,” the first song on The Action is Go. The guitar tone of this band is so ridiculous, it’s hard to put into words. It’s a huge, fuzzy tone that comes through crisp and clear, and as they made their way through the album (the track listing of the album would serve as the night’s setlist), it just sounded better and better.
Guitarist/ vocalist Scott Hill led the festivities, his blonde hair shaking like he just stepped out of the California surf. Guitarist Bob Balch and Hill would play in tandem, then branch off from each other, always forming a huge cohesive wall of wonderful guitar sounds. Drummer Scott Reeder sounded as if he were mounted behind a .50 caliber machine gun, beating the drums without mercy, while bassist Brad Davis made an art out of using a wah-wah pedal with his bass.
As they moved into “Anodizer,” Reeder started the song with a drum solo, then in the middle of the song eased into a trippy, spacey jam, which came back again to give the song a huge finish. Moving through the album on songs like “Trackside Hoax,” “Laserbl’ast,” and “Hogwash,” Fu Manchu were flawless, perfectly nailing each song with precision.
Their sound seemed to get bigger as the set went on, and the crowd went a little more wild with each song, not having heard many of these songs live in years, if ever. Fu ended their set with the last song on the album, a cover of SSD’s “Nothing Done,” a brutally fast minute-long song.
After a quick break, Fu Manchu returned to the stage, and Hill told the audience they would do one more, asking them “What do you wanna hear?” There was an unintelligible slew of yelling from the crowd, and everyone roared approval when he announced “King of the Road” as their last song of the night. Everyone was singing along, with fists in the air as he repeated “King of the road says you move too slow!”
BLOODNSTUFF
BORRACHO
