Soul Glo
As contributor Lance Conzett pointed out in his feature on the evolution of Drkmttr and Nameless Fest, the fifth running of the DIY festival over the weekend took place in what feels like a permanent, dedicated home base. Drkmttr’s all-ages space on Dickerson Pike, opened in January, is its third incarnation, and it’s in a building owned by a group that includes veterans of the all-ages music scene in Nashville going back to the mid-1990s. The spot has been renovated and outfitted modestly, but it feels different from pleasantly janky DIY spaces of the past, including the previous Drkmttr locations. That’s not a slam on other venues. This is the level of basic accommodation — ADA compliance, safe exits in the event of a fire, and the like — that many folks trying to serve an all-ages crowd would offer if they had the resources. There’s nothing about the upgrade that feels like a sellout. And that carried over to the music offered during four shows over three days this past weekend.
Thursday afternoon’s intense thunderstorms calmed down toward evening, leading into a laid-back start for Nameless Fest V. Pile frontman Rick Maguire began the proceedings with a solo performance that rendered his pointed and angular songs almost gentle. Some of the folk underpinnings became more apparent in songs like “Rope’s Length,” an audience favorite, as his rich tenor voice wove between intricate but unfussy fingerpicked patterns on his electric guitar. Isaac Q. Horton’s Iven took the stage next as a five-piece, sporting threads that suggested a normcore safari, and played songs that sound nothing like what you’ll hear on the project’s recent release Little Lady #2. Iven seems to be whatever Horton & Co. want to make it, which keeps it interesting. On Thursday, much as it was when Iven opened for R. Stevie Moore last year, it was all about off-kilter guitar-centric anti-pop.
Tom Violence
The evening took a sharp turn courtesy of Tom Violence, which kept the tension high throughout their set. Between ominous instrumental sections at widely varying levels of intensity, there were sternum-rattling waves of Sunn O)))-like feedback, crushing beats that came like boulders rolling down a mountain and the ferocious death growl of vocalist Carson Thomas.
If you were one of the folks smoking outside during the set by Bethlehem, Pa., duo Slingshot Dakota, you missed out on some earnest high-octane pop played on snarling electric keyboards and drums. You also missed a benediction by singer-keyboardist Carly Comando, who praised the dedication and sweat equity required to keep all-ages venues like Drkmttr going for the long haul. “I just want to say how grateful we are that you exist,” she said, “and that you have this incredible all-ages venue with wonderful bathrooms, and it’s accessible to everyone.”
The crowd had dwindled to about 20 people by the time Sad Baxter came up. But they finished the night strong with cuts from across their catalog, getting the remaining audience bobbing along to older tunes like “Sliver” and “Sick Outt” as well as recent single “The Atmos.”
Thirdface
The room filled up early Friday night, and things got heavy quickly. Locals ANTI-HUMAN and Birmingham, Ala.'s Black Hole Kids got everyone’s mosh-pit muscles warmed up. Thirdface, fronted by Drkmttr founder Kathryn Edwards, brought the catharsis to a crescendo with their recently road-tested brand of melodically complex hardcore. The throbbing, blackened death metal of Act of Impalement actually felt like something of a breather, which was much needed.
A high degree of musicality is a thread that connects many of the bands that played Nameless Fest. Even the hardcore punk groups on the bill, who initially impress with their sheer intensity, have interesting arrangements with subtleties and nuances to appreciate. They also tend to have insightful things to say about the world we live in. Both were definitely true of Philadelphia’s Soul Glo.
Soul Glo
“Many people have been saying this song is about police brutality,” said singer Pierce Jordan, introducing the song “27” from the group’s hot-off-the-presses LP The Nigga in Me Is Me at the top of the set. “But what it’s really about is how police brutality is one of just many symptoms of a diseased governmental state that we live under, that abuses us day in and day out. And how when you’re in an abusive relationship with another person and they’re mistreating you. … And you see a lot of similarities between how the state treats you and looks at you and how the person you have committed your heart and your love to also sees you and treats you.”
The quartet sets a high bar for hardcore, through their sonic experimentation as well as the way they make space for black and brown artists in the genre. And judging by the enthusiastic response, the kids are definitely here for it. That’s one of the important functions of spaces like Drkmttr: giving people who haven’t yet turned 21 a chance to get up close and personal with perspectives they might not have considered, and experience firsthand how music can amplify what you have to say.
Waxed
The show wrapped with Waxed, who let loose a barrage of just-tight-enough, somewhat Maiden-y riffage, accompanied by singer Luc Richards’ calculated mic-stand-swinging antics. (It looked reckless at first, but gradually it became apparent that he was being very careful with his aim.) Between self-deprecating jokes, he gave heartfelt thanks for the venue, citing how its previous incarnations (and The Other Basement before it) were critical to the band’s development.
Shell of a Shell
Walking into Grimey’s for the free show on Saturday afternoon felt a bit like walking into the church it used to be, with the sun beaming through the stained-glass windows above the door and parishioners murmuring softly as they dug through the racks for Smiths rarities. That was a stark contrast to the sound of Birmingham’s Bulging, who played second after Sallow. Bulging’s music falls somewhere between Slint and Soundgarden. The self-identified grunge band’s sound is heavy — you get the impression of trudging — and it’s somehow simultaneously sloppy and technical. The group that followed, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.’s Nectar, sounded a lot like Superchunk or Cub. It was their second time playing a daytime Grimey’s gig, having played Record Store Day at the store’s previous location on Eighth Avenue South just as their debut LP Knocking at the Door dropped via Infinity Cat. The winding, teetering, sometimes Pavement-esque slacker-rock from Shell of a Shell made for a good cap on the free afternoon.
Not all of Yautja’s members live in Nashville anymore, but the ferocious doom-y trio came together to do the festival a solid. As night fell over at Drkmttr, they kicked off the final night show as surprise guests, filling a spot vacated by Moru. True to their reputation, Yautja blasted out a half-hour of harsh, noisy rippers, leaving little space to exhale between songs.
Kent Osborne
Rapper-punk Kent Osborne gave a little (but only a little) respite from the thrash, bringing along a DJ, live drummer and a lot of distorted vocal-effects processors. But there was no lull in the energy. The trio occasionally detoured into a chaotic, circle-pit-inducing beat while Osborne rushed the crowd. All three members seemed to feed on the energy they were stirring up in the crowd.
The biggest surprise of the night came when Birmingham outfit Heavy User, featuring Yautja guitarist Kayvan Vaziri, took the stage. The band’s demo, consisting of six songs that clock in at just under eight total minutes, doesn’t come close to capturing how fantastic they are live. The Bama slammers bring together the racket of early New York hardcore, the manic energy of ’80s Bay Area hardcore and the bleakness of Scandinavian punk.
Thou
But the loudest act was yet to come. “I hope you had your fun,” warned Thou frontman Bryan Funck as the band warmed up with a squall of feedback, “because now we are going to bore you to death.” The gnarled art-sludge band is well-known to be a bit antagonistic, and they didn’t disappoint. Their crashing drums and muddy bass, weighing down each beat as if drudging through the swamps of their native Louisiana, set off the despair bubbling out of each guitar chord as it decayed into a foreboding buzz. Thou is at its best when they descend into that nasty crawl, plodding like a slasher-film villain stalking his next victim, while Funck draws you in with the charm of his charred voice. The band called out The Misfits for the decidedly un-DIY arena show they were playing that evening at a soccer stadium in Los Angeles, and launched immediately into a cover of “TV Casualty” so brutally ugly that it was barely recognizable by the sweaty punks down front. Thou has mastered the ability to find the sublime within the wretched.
Grim as it sounds, that can be a useful skill to have today. Over the past five years, the folks who run Drkmttr and Nameless Fest and the young (and not-so-young) folks who attend the shows have come up against one stumbling block after another. There have been times when it looked like the smart move was to quit — and indeed, Drkmttr was on hiatus for most of 2018 while the organizers sought out a new space where they could develop a sustainable business. But persistence has paid off, leading to what could be a model for all-ages spaces throughout the city in years to come. They didn’t do it first, but they are doing it well.
