|
Skribble Abuses Roseville Shady Bradys Shady Bradys set the scene for Skribble, Bionic Gorilla Project from Tahoe, and Sick of God. The club is smaller than several other live music venues in Roseville—notably, The Sports Page, The Owl Club, The Underground Café, and The Onyx. And its hallway like configuration of close, parallel walls, can often make even the tightest band sound muddy. Still, Shady Bradys can often draw bigger crowds due to its easy freeway access and better diversity to music genres from reggae to death metal. That and the way the bar is set up to allow every seat in the house a view of the band. Also, since the new owners also are the bartenders, smoking is legally allowed inside.
Skribble’s satanic side project, Sick of God took the stage at 10:30pm. The more black metal influenced band features Scott Kapeckas on drums, Matt Robbins on bass, Chris Richards on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Cody Walker on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Cody played a right handed guitar upside down, so his left hand did the picking with the thicker strings on the bottom rather than the top. For most of the short four song set, guitarist Cody stuck to power chords on root notes while lead guitarist Chris either played harmonizing chords or ran through scales played in 16th notes. Chris’s scale work stuck to phrygian and locrian scales, giving an over all effect that was fast and eerie at the same time. Vocally, Cody kept to a lower, baritone type range with Chris screaming out the upper harmonies giving an over all rich texture. The rhythm section of Matt on bass and Scott on drums handled a demanding lobby of time signature changes with plenty of sudden starts and stops just to show off how tight they were as a band. Drummer Scott often switched between fast punk beats, blast beats, and double bass with half time snare hits. Even when the guitars would switch to more open, longer phrases, Scott would keep the fast pace giving a strong contrast of an unrelenting percussion assault as the bedrock for the sometimes haunting guitar work. Taking the middle slot, Tahoe’s giant Bionic Gorilla Project played next. Though the Nevada natives have played through northern California for years now, and are easily one of the best acts on the underground scene, the band remains relatively undiscovered by most California fans.
The singer sounded like a more metal version of Douglas McCarthy of the English heavy weight industrial band Nitzer Ebb. The guitarist, with an array of effects peddles, went from a funky wah wah sound at times like the guitar solo in the tribal song Servant, to a more traditional mainstream rock sound, to at times, a dreamy, delayed effect like in their opening song Suffocate. The bass player did mostly your better standard modern rock bass lines you’d expect, but did add a lot of color to songs like Cold Broken Heart with a lot of bass arpeggio work and a switch over to bongos for the intro to Stumbling. Though normally a five piece, this would mark a very rare performance without their DJ. Bionic Gorilla Project got by though, using a sampler that the singer controlled to provide some seamless transitions between their songs. The drummer also used an acoustic/electronic hybrid kit that added a lot of samples. Skribble closed the show with a seven song set. A far less sober Scott Kapeckas returned to play drums. Matt Robbins this time switched back and forth from guitar to lead vocals. Chris Richards switched with Matt—playing guitar when Matt sang and singing when Matt played guitar. Cody Walker played bass. And again, his bass was a right handed bass that he played upside down with the heavier stings on the bottom. Kenny DiGiordano joined in on guitar. And for one of her very first performances with the band, former Aetheria/Winter Reign keyboardist, Mo Rhines accompanied the band for the first half of the set. Former Skribble drummer Mario Cuadra could be seen in the audience, air drumming along with the six piece.
While far less haunting that alter ego, Sick of God, Skribble took on a more speed metal approach, but with much shorter song lengths than typically seen in thrash. Each song had many sections and changes in their unconventional song arrangements making for constant audio stimulus. Chris took over vocal duties up until crowd favorite Godmade, then Matt took over for Fuck Your Face—a song easily recognizable by the unusual diminished 5th chord work in the verse. Cody, with his more rounded, lower singing tone did a lot of the back ups. As any Skribble fan knows, the band closed out their set with Twinkle, Twinkle. The song starts out with a nails on the chalkboard type vocal intro just enough to irritate the listener right before the pre-chorus explodes into raw energy like an unexpected bomb. The chorus features the words “Twinkle, Twinkle,” which sounds very comical in the death metal style and intensity that the lyrics are sung in, making the song that much more entertaining. Other than a few people, the crowd stuck around until the very end of the show at around 1am. Many of which would follow the band members to the after party leaving the streets around Shady Bradys quiet once more. |
