NASTY DISASTER/DAMIEN STORM/THOR
Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline MA 10/11/02
An interesting venue for an interesting shows. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to its promise. I'm not one of those geeks who insists on technical perfection and spot on timetables, but as a working guy who has to be in at a certain hour and doesn't have money to burn, I do have a few standards. The event started off promisingly, with an edited version of the legendary Thor's movie "Rock And Roll Nightmare" beginning at Midnight. Great stuff, with all the inane dialogue, gratuitous nudity and amazing battle scenes one could hope for. I'm looking forward to seeing this in its
entirety one day. Nasty Disaster took the stage after a somewhat long delay and this is where the problems began to set in. With kilts, leather pants, and songs like "Metal Sluts" and "Full Metal Jacket" I thought these guys ruled for about three minutes. Then it dawned on me they were being ironic. Why? If you're good enough to play like these guys, why not just go for the full dumb McCoy? Or, if you are a joke, don't let the audience in on it. Maybe I've misconstrued what their deal is, but I felt let down by the time they took off their wigs. Additionally, some of the fliers had advertised that Seth of Anal Cunt fame was going to do his thing. In fact, some advertising I'd seen earlier in the week went so far as to say AC would be playing. No dice. Seth was there, and added some backing grunts to the Disaster's set, but it was hardly an appearance, let alone the full scale AC set that had been mentioned, however vaguely.
Then there was an over long delay. After about forty minutes, Damien Storm took to the stage. His shtick consisted of singing in a weird, high-pitched drone over a backing track and adding guitar as well. All the while clad in a strange beak like mask and red lame gown of sorts. This is the sort of thing that can be amazing under the right circumstances. Two in the morning, after two long delays, is not the right set of circumstances. I really wanted to like Storm, but frankly my patience was already being sorely tested. After yet another delay, this time a good hour,
Thor finally took the stage. And the guy almost carried the whole night on his meaty shoulders. Another thing I should mention at this point is that the sound for the whole evening stank. It conked out several times during Nasty Disaster's set, and Thor was plagued by it throughout the hour or so he played. Thus the full power of his anthems was somewhat blunted. Visually though, the man was stunning. He bent a metal bar with his mouth, smashed at least two skulls on the stage, engaged in duels with the audience and whipped those of us who remained into a Ragnorock-tastic frenzy of rock and rule. In short, he was great. I'm not an aficionado (yet) of his body of work, but it seemed like he played a generous career retrospective. This is one of those events that I'm glad I went to insofar as the big picture is concerned, despite the insane delays (it was about five in the morning by the time the thing ended) and chocolate and vinegar mix of talent on display. It would have been cooler if they had just played the whole Throe movie and had him do a set. I was expecting a nuclear blast that night and got a cherry bomb...
- Sascha Gottschalk(Live Thor pic by John Holstrom, courtesy www.thorkor.com)
Nasty Disaster - http://pages.cthome.net/nastydisaster/
Damien Storm - www.damienstorm.net