I�d never met the guys and gal from Sour Vein before and, of course, they turned out to be super nice, friendly people. For some reason I always expect these band members playing the southern hate-core type sound to be wacked-out crazy or just plain assholes � but they never are, of course, this is Stoner Rock remember!

Matt Pike is on the road with Sour Vein because they�re getting ready to record their next album in Spokane. Actually, I think they might be recording it right now as I write this, I could be wrong though. Matt is producing this one, his debut production effort as a matter of fact, and he�s also using the road-time with Sour Vein to �get his head clear� so he can write the most inspired and heaviest High on Fire album imaginable. At least that�s his plan. He told me that he�s planning to spend a lot more time on their new album then they did on the last one, it�s going to be much more intricate and well-thought-out, and, as if you thought otherwise, it�s going to PUMMEL AND SLAY!!

It was great to catch up with Matt and discuss all his current projects, but this feature isn�t about High on Fire, so let�s get back to Sour Vein. On Wednesday night they played a show at the Satyricon in Portland (I forgot my camera, so no pics of this one unfortunately). Some thrashcore punk band called Aftermath opened the show and they weren�t my style so Matt Pike, Oatmealrock Steve and myself watched Elvis (a local weirdo) spank these two blonde girls (who�d been dancing on the bar since we got there, surprisingly enough) really fucking hard with his hand and also with a big plastic pirate sword. We all watched in gleeful trepidation and wondered where the fuck he got the pirate sword from?? Haha! Funny shit!

Sour Vein was on next and they put on a killer heavy set. This was my first time seeing them live and really, it was my first �quality� experience with their music. I�ve heard their songs on the �He�s No Good to Me Dead� compilation a few times but they never really struck me that hard. Seeing them live definitely enlightened me to the Sour Vein vibe. Although, the vocals were nowhere near loud enough during this show, but other than that it was a great experience. Troy (Sour Vein singer) fell off the tiny stage mid set and nearly landed on Nate Mountain while the mic stand he fell with nearly cut my left arm off. When I jumped out of the way I spilled half my beer on the bassist from Last Empire (the headliner) � scared the shit out of me! Haha! Can you say excitement?

Last Empire hit the stage after Sour Vein and they certainly made a few eyeballs buldge with their true-metal sound and true-metal look. The singer of Last Empire is straight out of a local Judas Priest tribute band called �British Steel� and he was dressed up in full leather and spikes regalia ala Rob Halford. Their songs were, not surprisingly, very Judas Priest in nature. Very talented, very energetic, VERY METAL!! Not really my thing, Nate fucking loved them though and so did most of the rest of the 50 or so people who showed up at the Satyricon for this show. I can�t honestly say that I didn�t like them but I might be too embarrased to admit that I REALLY LIKED THEM A LOT! Hehe!

Oh.. And the notorious �spacecakes� was there handing out spacecakes to all takers. I was smart and only had one this time but I witnessed Matt eating at least 3. The next night in Seattle he reported to me that he was equally as fucked up as I was the last time I ate 3. Unable to speak, unable to walk, pretty much incapacitated in a psychedelic wonderland. This seems to be the typical reaction to eating 3 spacecakes! So take heed, if a wacky guy calling himself �spacecakes� hands you a newspaper filled with a brownie like substance, only eat one! Hehehe..

The next day had Johnny (Witch Mountain) and I running around Portland trying to get the best deal possible on renting a U-Haul trailer to hook up to the back of my van which was to be used as the Witch Mountain tour bus for the Sludgeplow, Witch Mountain and Sour Vein show in Seattle that night. We then did a quick stop at the Witch Mountain practice pad so they could warm up and practice a bit and then we loaded up the trailer and headed for Seattle.

We ended up getting stuck in a major traffic jam between Portland and Seattle for an hour or so due to a serious car wreck and we weren�t even sure that we were going to make the show at all. Luckily we did. We got there just in time to see Sour Vein hit the stage at The Breakroom in downtown Seattle. On this night Sour Vein were much better than they were in Portland the night before. I think this can be attributed to a better soundman � Sour Vein sounded incredible and the vocals were turned up much louder � which really brought their sound together. If you�ve never heard Sour Vein before their overall sound might be described as a cross between Eyehategod style hate-core and Dixie Witch style southern power-groove stoner rock. Simple, but very heavy and effective riffing with very few leads or frills � just straight up, heavy as fuck, stoner rock! Very enjoyable.

Unfortunately there were only about 10 people (above and beyond the various band members of the other bands) there to see this set and there were really only a few more people there when Witch Mountain hit the stage next. Witch Mountain, who played suitless for the first time, opened with Iron Long 3, a longish instrumental which I�m not sure was the best song to open with. I don�t think they usually open with this song. Iron Long 3 seems to go better in the middle of the set, in my opinion anyways. So the pace of their set was a bit lacking from the get go. I�m sure playing to so few people had a lot to do with this though. Of course, being Witch Mountain, they managed to play a blazingly tight and heavy set, but lacking in inspiration this was definitely not the best show I�ve seen them play. But, a slightly lame Witch Mountain set kicks much ass over many other bands that I�ve seen so I�m definitely not complaining.. Very cool.

Up last was a local Seattle band called Sludgeplow, who you may know already from reviews on StonerRock.com. And still, there were only about 20 non-band members in the audience. Possibly one of the audience members was a Sludgeplow band member�s mother too! I�m not sure but that�s what it looked like, she was definitely older than the rest of the crowd, but she was standing up in front the of the stage rockin out, tappin her feet and bangin her head � now that�s motherly love (unless I�m totally mistaken of course! Heheh) � The first two songs that Sludgeplow played seemed to have a Seattle grunge vibe that didn�t do anything for me so I thought I wasn�t going to enjoy their set at all. But after a couple/few not-so-great songs they really picked things up and played some awesomely heavy and creative songs that reminded me a little bit of Witch Mountain�s intricate and unique song writing style mixed with a bit of Karma to Burn or Tool instrumental jam parts. Sludgeplow turned out to be very good despite a somewhat uninteresting start.

Immediately after Sludgeplow left the stage the big lights came on and the night was over just like that. DOH! Oh well.. We all had a great time and I got some killer group shots of Sour Vein, Witch Mountain and Matt Pike at the bar in The Breakroom. One benefit to having an empty club � lots of room for photo ops!

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