The night after I got back from SXSW, I got a text message from High On Fire bass player Jeff Matz — who I was fortunate to hang out with in Austin a few weeks ago, before their SXSW show — letting me know that his other band, bass-and-drums duo Omens Of Awe, was playing their inaugural show at The Stork Club in Oakland.
I was wrecked from SXSW, but The Stork is about five minutes from my house, I think Jeff is a monster bass player and a really nice guy, and Ovipositor drummer Mark Pino and I have fiddled around a bit with heavy bass-and-drums duo stuff on the side, so I thought I should check it out. I’m glad I did.
As a bass player with an appreciation for minimalism, I’m always interested in how other players fill sonic space without the aid of traditional melodic instruments like guitar or keys. Some players do it with effects and loops; others do it through playing technique, approaching the bass as more of a chordal instrument, expanding the sonic palette by fattening up the notes and pushing sustain; and others do it by the sheer power of force, using a massive array of amplifiers to split and enhance the sound, or just make everything really fucking loud. Jeff sorta pulls from all three methods in Omens Of Awe.
Playing his black First Act Delgada — which has a big, fat, round P-Bass-y sound — through a Line 6 looper, an old orange Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, and a switch pedal, Jeff pushed the sound out to several amps: a beat up SVT 8×10 driven by an old Acoustic Pro head, and Marshall guitar heads powering Marshall 4×10 and Mesa Boogie 4×10 cabs. His approach to playing included lots of scalar madness, chordal accents, and massive single-note riffage to create a full arsenal of technique, and the results were pretty awesome. The songs were long and ran through a litany of changes, but they were lively and heavy, nothing dragged or lingered or droned. We only heard about five songs at this show, but they made up about 45 minutes of music, and every second of it was fully engaging. Omens Of Awe drummer Peijman is an absolute beast on the drum kit, but he’s not just an overactive basher, there’s a musicality in his playing, even at full-throttle, making it as much a part of the song structure as the bass. At times he simply punctuated the music, other times he was fully involved in the structure of the songs, playing with or around Jeff’s bass lines to add unanimity to some parts, counter dynamics and rhythmic shift to other parts. Anyway, they were dope, you should see ‘em if you can. Here’s why:
I took a buncha photos (you can click over to the set on Flickr to see ‘em all huge-ified), and I opted to not use a flash, which I probably should have because Jeff’s head is in constant swivel-mode (like any good metal bass player), so I couldn’t get clear shot of his face — but whatever, I think it works (and apparently they do too; one of these photos is currently the profile pic on the band’s MySpace page)…