The Black Angels are a band from
Austin, TX . If you listen to KEXP, you’ve probably heard them in your car, and if you’re into psychedelic/industrial/goth/dark/Doors-y but without all that hippy shit/trance-inducing rock and roll, then you probably went “damn, who are these guys?” when you heard them. If you were like me, you probably then went into work and looked online to find out who it was and went, “damn, Black Angels is a great name for a band.” Then you promptly forgot about them, because you had some tedium to get busy with.
Then you found out from a friend that they were playing a show in town with the Warlocks, (in support of their second LP Directions To See A Ghost) and you went, “hmm, yeah, I could go to that show,” then later you went, “damn, I’m dropping off my girlfriend at the airport that day.” You told your girlfriend that you wanted to see this show instead of dropping her off, and she said, “fine.” Later you discovered that they added a second show because the first had sold out, and you went, “damn, I can drop off the old lady AND go see a bitchin’ show.” You didn’t think these words exactly, because your parlance doesn’t really include “old lady” or “bitchin’”, but you forgave yourself immediately when you wrote about it later, because you embellish so that readers want to keep reading. You digressed.
You dropped off your girlfriend at the airport after having a fight about something dumb that you said or she said, you didn’t even know by the time you said goodbye, you just know that you wanted to go see the show and forget about the fight. You went to the show kind of pissed off and getting in was an irritation, but you finally got in and looked at the stage and the people and went, “damn, this is what I came up the Hill for?”
The Warlocks started playing and you kind of tuned a lot of it out because you were thinking about that stupid fight, and you thought maybe you’d just stay for one Black Angels song, go home and mope. You listened to the Warlocks do faithful renditions of their songs and probably some other songs, but you didn’t come to see them, and you felt weird for making a lot of Bauhaus references without ever once having listened to a Bauhaus record. You were and still are a bit of a pretentious asshole, and a liar to boot. You drank a lot of water.
Then the Black Angels came on and you were surprised. The lead singer had a tambourine, for fuck’s sake. You saw the trippy screen in the background and went, “damn, this is going to be another jam band.” There were keyboards involved and then the Black Angels began to play. Loud. They played as loud as you ever heard a band. And they began to work up a sweat, ripping through droning numbers like “Manipulation” and working up to crescendos of sound and fury in covers of Beatles songs. At one point, the strobe lights, pictures, and musical tidal waves conspired to tear open your tiny mind and succeeded, and you felt a psychedelic expansion without the use of drugs, and you went, “damn, that was cool.” You felt like you were going to pass out, but you stared instead, and felt lifted and enlightened for the rest of the night. You were a little out of it, as if you had been on hallucinogenic drugs, but you hadn’t ingested anything but a steak dinner and a ton of coffee that evening. Your experience was akin to a spiritual moment of clarity, when you let go of everything and allowed the music to simply carry you into its thrall. Luckily, you did not pee your pants.
And that’s what you did, if you were me. If you’re not me, I pity you, but encourage you to attend a Black Angels show in the future. “Damn, the Black Angels put on a hell of a show.” If they had a consistent logo, I’d draw it on my binder.
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