I know what you’re thinking, this isn’t really my thing, and you’re right. But when one of your best friends starts making all her plans with the condition “unless the Toil are playing,” eventually you have to go see them. And since tonight’s show was for a good cause (the Neighborhood House’s emergency food pantry), so much the better. Actually, this wasn’t my first time seeing the Toil. No, the first time was after a particularly overindulgent Onion happy hour. Three hours of drinking, nay, pounding, Redhook ESB was perhaps not the best way to prepare. So tonight when USoT lead singer Russell Hall responded “No you don’t,” to my hand-drawn “I heart USoT” hand stamp, “I don’t remember” was all I could say.
So what did I think? I dug it. Their intense, feel-it-in-your-chest rock is pretty hard to resist. They call themselves math rock, which as I understand it, means the time signatures change a lot, but I was still nodding my head and shaking my hips. I can’t really understand any of what Hall is screaming about but I get the feeling it is political and he really believes it. Bassist Bill Borowski (who’s also lead singer and guitarist in the Arge, but he’s always been a bass player to me) often rocks so hard he rocks his glasses right off his face. Drummer Jason Jensen took the place of founding member Chad Burnett last year, and for the entire set he looked like his dream had come true. I probably won’t buy their CD, but I’ll certainly see them again.
Before them on the four band bill was Dissent & Revolt. I actually remember well the first time I had seen them. It was at the tail end of an exhausting eight hour “rock & roll buffet” at the High Noon. At that time lead singer Aaron Miller had massive dreads which he flipped around hypnotically for the bulk of their set. He currently sports what I would call a surfer dude haircut, while the rest of the band could be enrolled in the ROTC program. Their military style haircuts made them look even more intense as they churned out the musical base for Miller’s throat shredding rants. Every forceful tirade concluded with a very genuine “thank you” in a normal voice. Somehow I found myself with one their T-shirts at the end of the night. The irony of the girl who doesn’t swear wearing a “D ‘n’ f’n’ R” T-shirt was too beautiful to resist.
Huh, how about that?
Dissent & Revolt
United Sons of Toil
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