For me, the two nights of motley mahem began with Johnny and me running around all over Portland trying to rent ourselves a U-haul trailer. Just like last week, but this week it took much longer. It was a very surreal afternoon. Knowing that this very night I would be seeing The Wizard caused my brain to overwhelm my body with excess doses of anticipatory chemicals and hormones and what not. I felt extatic, I felt euphoric, I felt happy! I�ve heard that The Wizard has that effect on people though� AND!!! We got the trailor for 3 days for the price of 1 day! Does it get any better?

Then it was off home to get Robwrong, Nate Mountain and Dave before cruising up to the Witch Mountain practice pad for a pre-show practice session. After practice we all marvelled at the amount of Stoner/Doom reviews that were in the latest Terrorizer Magazine (which I read pretty near in it�s entirety during the Witch Mountain practice session). After that we loaded up the gear (I supervised!) and headed off to the Satyricon for the first show of this two show weekend! (Well, Thursday and Friday are sort of a weekend, but not really)..

Thursday night was Yob, Witch Mountain and Warhorse with Electric Wizard headlining. The Doom Rock bill straight from hell and conceived by Satan himself! �but we were there way too early so we still had some time to kill. Robwrong, Johnny and myself hung out at Fellini�s (a restaurant attached to The Satyricon) and had some dinner and beers (and I ate my super-killer shrooms in the bathroom. Chewed �em up and chased �em with beer. YUM! I�d been saving them for weeks just for this show!). By the time we�d eaten our meals (fucking amazing gyros from the Gods!) YOB was summoning us from our table with their sound check. Which we mistakenly thought was their set starting. YOB�s sound check was awe inspiringly heavy and then it ended.. suddenly.. DOH! Everybody, including myself, wanted them to simply continue on with their set. But we had another hour or so left to wait before the doomentia began! Oh but �spacecakes is here! Yay!� One spacecake consumed, beer money withdrawn from the ATM, one decision made to visit the �24hr Church of Elvis� between YOB and Witch Mountain and one assailant taking an extended beating from the police and the hour had passed. It was time for YOB!

YOB�s set was even better than the last time I�d seen them. It was long enough, it was energetic enough and it was definitely heavy enough. Of course! These guys are killer heavy Doom Metal with Judas Priest and Iron Maiden influences � and, surprisingly enough, a vocalist that can pull it all off! After their set I talked to Lowell (their bassist) and it turns out that he was shockingly ill. Really! He looked nearly about ready to die right there on the spot. Fuck he put on a good show for such a sick dude. I couldn�t even tell that he was sick until they�d finished playing! But as they say, the show must go on!

Whoosh! Out the door with �spacecakes� and his friend Eric(!?) to the �24hr Church of Elvis� � the mushrooms were kicking in hard with the change of environment � where a crazy lady runs a tour of her wacky living environment which was the entire top floors of this building in downtown Portland. She makes money from Tshirt sales, but we doubted she could make enough to pay for all that office space! Where does the money come from? Just who exactly is paying the bills around there? Who funds the �24hr Chruch of Elvis?� Is it the government? I think so� Anyways � it was so trippy. The crazy lady had coke-bottle glasses and she talked super fast. She had the world�s first �coin operated entertainment booth� (but it didn�t work yet, she is getting to that) and an sparkly old bench seat from a 50s diner that you sit down in, pull it around with your feet and lights flash on the back of it (it doesn�t work yet either, but we got to test it in it�s current state, everything works but the flashing lights!). Then she basically said, in so many words, �buy a tshirt or get out� � so we bought a Tshirt and she quickly showed us another room � �spacecakes� offered to buy her Jesus Christ needlepoint rug picture thing right off her wall for $200 and she wouldn�t sell it! ..Again, where does she get all the money from??

We had time to consume a second spacecake outside before Witch Mountain went on. And they Cained! I�ve seen Witch Mountain a lot of times now and this was definitely their best show yet. They really went off and got right into it. Robwrong was moving around the stage a lot more than usual and striking a bunch of cool rock-star poses. I can�t really remember any particulars about their set, except for it was pretty much what they�ve been doing recently, except this time they fuckin� nailed it! (Get Witch Mountain�s CD EP �Homegrown Doom� from the All That�s Heavy store!)

Between-show-adventures while Warhorse was setting up were equally as trippy and weird as our Church of Elvis foray:

Spacecakes: �Let�s go to Hung Far Low?�
El Danno: �Why?�
Spacecakes: �To see what people are doing tonight at Hung Far Low!�
El Danno: �OK! Let�s do that!�

Once we got there though, �spacecakes� started inquiring about renting their event room for some kind of computer LAN party and all of a sudden we were smack dab in the middle of a cafuffle! He was asking them all these questions about how many people it could hold legally and how much it cost per night/plate etc. I thought he was serious about renting the place but it turns out that he was just doing it as a joke. Doh! Funny shit though� Surreal.. Again..

Warhorse was already playing when we returned to the Satyricon but their tone was so incredibly low and fat that I almost couldn�t tell there was a band playing. This was from less than 50 feet away too! Ahhh, but once I got right up front I could hear it loud and clear! I think they played Lysergic Communion first which was a very slow build up to their full heavyness! Black Acid Prophecy was up really soon too and that song just fucking crushed the place. WOW! So good! I�m not so familiar with their stuff so I�m not sure what other songs they played exactly � all I know is that their set absolutely fucking slayed! (Get Warhorse�s debut full length album �As Heaven Turns to Ash� on CD or Double LP from the All That�s Heavy store!)

Oh. Another spacecake? I don�t think I should. Well.. Maybe just one more! Hehehe! And Electric Wizard decended on to the stage and I was �in the zone!� Awesome! And they opened with Supercoven!! Fuck yeah!! Man it was soooo goooooood! Supercoven is by far my favourite Electric Wizard song and I was really really hoping that they would play it.. They also played Chrononaut � which is my second favourite Ewiz song! I think they ended this set with Dopethrone and some other new songs � I�m not sure exactly what they played or which song was last � but it was all good! The thing that surprised me the most was how closely the live songs sounded to the CD versions. Especially since I�d envisioned The Wizard to be more loose and improvisational � cuz that�s what it sounds like they�re doing on their albums � but since they nailed all the songs I�d have to guess that they are very precisely and deliberately composed. Which made their set all the more enjoyable for me. I�m normally of the opinion that live songs should sound considerably different than the recorded studio versions but it just seemed right for Electric Wizard! (Get Electric Wizard albums from the All That�s Heavy store!)

This night was so much fun! The fact that Electric Wizard are from the UK and it�s very possible that they may never make it over here to play again made the night especially exciting. YOB set the pace with their incredible opening set and each band�s performance just got better from there on. I�ve heard others describe The Wizard�s set as �Off. Like they were tired� but I thought it was phenomenal and right on the money! Better than I expected! I was also �in the zone� though, which might explain my alternate interpretation of their performance...

Please Note: that the live photos used in this feature were taken at The Breakroom the following night so unfortunately I didn`t get any pics of YOB. Forgot my Camera at home. DOH!