Billy Boy Poison
Wave of StoneFuzz Manta, Hjortene, Wave of Stone, Billy Boy Poison - Studenterhuset, København 5/30/09
From Aural Innovations October 2009 update
This was the Fuzz Manta official CD release party and there were a lot of young people here tonight as Lene from Fuzz Manta has something to do with members from many of these bands are taught music by her or at where she works. Some of these bands even played Fuzz Manta songs, which was pretty cool to hear. It was nice to meet up with my friend Alex from Berlin. It was almost one year to the day that he was here for Motorpsycho. Also met with Anders, Jan from Kildemose Festival, Ralph (doing sound), the guys in Fuzz Manta, Lene (of course), some of the girls from Cherry Overdrive, etc, but mostly quite young people, some under 18 for sure!
Billy Boy Poison started at 21:15 and played two tracks. One of their own and a hardcore thrash version of Desire, a Fuzz Manta track. It was unrecognizable except for maybe the very first chords. Young band that can't really decide if they want to be hardcore or thrash. They are not tight enough for thrash and the vocalist is caught in the middle of being a hardcore punk singer and metal growler. Good luck guys. Next up was Wave of Stone, a very promising 70’s inspired young trio, who I saw last year open for Colour Haze. They were also really good and I think they played about 25 minutes and went for a cover version of the FM track, Night Fright. Quite a special choice I would say as both the vocal part is tough and it is really a dual guitar track. Anyway, they did a pretty cool version. I liked their own blues stoner jamming tracks more. This will be a great band if they just keep jamming in the basement and come out every now and then to play for us.
Billy Boy Poison
Wave of Stone
Hjortene were next and I had never heard of this Danish band. I was told they were quite a strange and funny band but I found out this is because they sing in Danish and about strange subjects like Weber Grills and stuff. Anyway, they opened with a super cool space echo driven space out that I totally dug and the guitar player would come back and use the space echo on several other occasions as well. Some of their tracks were almost stolen from Fu Manchu with the riffs, structure and the way he would deliver the vocal. Anyway, they were best when they were not too normal or Fu Manchu like and just spacing. They played about 45 minutes. Pretty cool. Crowd liked them.
Set List: New song (Jam), Razor, Best, El D, Sar, K40, Weber, Austral, Gerimax, 180,000
Hjortene bass player
After Hjortene, most of the audiene left and went outside and did not actually return so it was a small crowd packing the front for Fuzz Manta but they were ready to bring it on! The band really rocked, jammed and spaced out but Lene was nowhere near on top form this night. Her voice was a bit hoarse, and flat but damn she put 100% into her performance but her voice was just not there. She probably was talking too much with friends, etc, smoking too much and not warmng up. Oh well, it goes that way sometimes. Ralph thought she was a bit drunk as well. Anyway, who cares, the band was having a great time and rocked the place and played a mix of tracks from the CD and quite a few new songs. A lot of great guitar solos from Freddy and Morgan who were really enjoying playing off each other and Morton and Per just held down the bottom end. I think they could jam more though but it is nice to see they do some improvisation and certain sections of some songs are not always the same every night. I think they played about 65 minutes or so.
Set List: Mystic Thoughts, Mountain, We said it All, Cage of Glass, Night Fright, The Killer, Strange Days, Smoke Rings, Wind sees You?, Corporate H, Sickness (without the doomy intro), ?
Fuzz Manta
Reviewed by Scott Heller