So This Band.... WHITECHAPEL

 

This Saturday night:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1573371082907865/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming&source=1

WHITECHAPEL (all caps.)

    There’s a lot that can be said about WHITECHAPEL (all caps.)

     The internet says this:

    

Sounds broot4l.

SO BR00T4L!!!

          While I'm quite sure that the East London district (which interestingly enough is the 

birthplace of several "footballers", "wind surfers", and Damon Albarn of the Gorillaz) is not 

levitating it's way angel-island style across the Atlantic to the Hi-Tone Saturday, it's important to 

note that the well known, near decade-old deathcore act...

yeah that sounds better....

....is indeed named after the neighborhood where "Jack the Ripper" committed a series of murders back in '88.  

The same year Phil Bozeman's first band White..SNAKE was topping the charts! 

          More like 1888.............

"Like a drifter I was born to walk alone..."

Gruesome murders aside; another historically relevant piece of information to note about the band Whitechapel is that these gems exist:

&

I honestly can't tell which one is my favorite. Please don't make me choose. 

    A more relevant note about Whitechapel I can make is that I saw them with Glass Cloud on the "Our Endless War" tour last year and they ruled.

Turn up. 

Memphis may have been jipped of Upon a Burning Body playing during this leg of the tour, but that didn't hinder my attendance in the slightest. I was there for Glass Cloud, dude.

Glass Cloud! Djenty breakdown band or funk-folk quartet? With a name like Glass Cloud who knows! 

One thing I enjoy about The New Daisy is how close you can get when the crowd moves....

I had a pretty fun night that night. It was the second time I had the pleasure of conversing with ex-Sky Eats Airplane, ex-Of Mice & Men, Glass Cloud vocalist Jerry Roush.

circa 2014 with Glass Cloud

circa 2010 in Of Mice & Men with my buddy Darrion and I...

Circa me snapchatting Darrion in 2014

Roush kind of...remembered me. He also "liked" my instagram post of the night so that's pretty cool.

We're basically going into the studio next week to track the new "Sky Eats Mice & Clouds" EP so...

Gotta give it up to ol' Hawk Scream. Come to think of it, it is a bizarre thing to be way more drawn to the supporting act rather than the headliner of a concert, but this was a pattern I had fallen into throughout the course of my New Daisy ventures in 2014.

There was the Atilla show where I was moreso excited to see I See Stars and Myka Relocate...

There was the Circa Survive show where I was way more stoked on Title Fight than Circa...

And yet still somehow got closer to Anthony Greene than 90% of people who knew more words than just the chorus to "Get Out."

Going to shows to see the non-headliner, the "supporting act" (i.e. Glass Cloud) was again, just a strange pattern I had fallen into. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with 2nd place, contrary to popular belief.

FIRST OR LAST!

Supporting act or not, I got a kick out of Glass Cloud; witnessing Joshua Travis tease New Daisyans with his djentified 7(?) string...

     ....Enjoying Jerry (whom I am on a first name basis with) jump and stomp around the slippery stage executing his ballsy hawk-esque screeches/groans wearing strange trousers that ....may have been designed by Rhianna.

   

Here's one from Roush's insta; "getting air in Memphis" 

     Cloud was good, and I felt as if I was witnessing a new chapter in the band as they broke in their new rhythm section during the tour....

Nameless bassist on the Endless War tour

'Snot me bruh; I just joined Atilla...

     However, they must have neglected to teach their new members the first single made popular by 


Cloud's full-length The Royal Thousand. After their set I had to agree with the rhetorical question 

posed by the animated hardcore dancer behind me...
    
 "So.................you guys aren't gonna play White Flag?..." 

                                  

          


     Regardless of Metal songs that share the names of singles released by late 90's singer-songwriter 

Dido that weren't played that night...I felt a strange train of thought come over me during the set 

change wait between 'Cloud and 'Chapel.

Dave, Chapel. This one's my favorite. 

       A healthy bit of 20-year-old pessimism lightly grazed over my mind. I had seen the band I had 

come to see. Sitting through sets and sets of metal bands I wasn't majorly familiar with at the 

New Daisy was something I had done for years. To get specific; since my sophomore year of high 

school. I knew the drill, and since I was so-close-to but NOT 21 at the time I couldn't even top off 

the experience with a cold beer. 

Best slogan ever. 

     Something told me to stay however, and as Whitechapel took the stage I felt a presence that even 


Glass Cloud didn't achieve that night. 

WHITECHAPEL (all caps) killed it. There was an immense love for the band that pulsed through the venue. As red and blue stage lights glazed over the crowd to set the aura of their extremely danceable breakdowns Memphians responded. Many got involved: 

     Whitechapel was groovy, dude. During the first third of their set I vowed to myself to stay out of the pit; enjoy the tunes but admit to myself that my energy had been depleted and that was I just there to spectate at that point.

     By the end of their performance, however, I just couldn't help it. I found myself on the ground floor briefly "windmilling" and joining the ranks of Whitechapel fans headbanging and cheering for the knoxvillian death/core/metal/group of dudes.

      

  And maybe that's what solidified the reaction that the band got from fellow Tennesseans that night...Prior to this outing I was completely unaware that one of the biggest names in Deathcore, a genre now practically a decade in-the-making, was from our own volunteer state. I mean, besides Elvis and the blues and folk and dirty south crunk music what else is TN musically known for?  

This next one's called "Prostatic Fluid Asphyxiation" y'all. It's from my old record "Somatic Defilement." 

      
     I suppose 'Chapel's TN-connection is what intrigues me to check out their set this Saturday...

     I want answers, and I intend to get them (We'll see if Bozeman plays as much GTA as Jerry Roush) I also want to see the place bounce like I know Memphis can make it. 
     'Chapel's brand new (and gory) music video is a great indication of the steady rhythms and intense guttural lows Hi-Toners can expect to get down to. (Check out about 1:38 when dude Tom-Hanks-Castaway's himself.)
      Local act What We Do in Secret are set to play right before Whitechapel. You can catch my review of their awesome EP here, (available on Itunes) and peep their music video below: 

     Also joining in the lineup are Chariot/Norma Jean-esque Indiana groovers Foreign War, whom also have a music video prepped. It's as subtly hilarious as it is super sick.

     You can catch all of them with Our Dearly Departed and Altruria Saturday night.

I do not know when Whitesnake is coming to town but I am ready for it.




\m/