Converse Rubber Tracks Live: Mastodon with Mondo Drag
The Converse Rubber Tracks Live concert series that has brought free concerts to music fans across the U.S. and the globe returns to the Chapel in San Francisco's Mission District Thursday night for this special show with metal mavericks Mastodon and local heavy psych purveyors Mondo Drag.
Delivering an innovative style of heavy music that draws on elements of hardcore punk, '70s progressive rock and experimental metal, the Atlanta-based foursome has been turning heads with its original sound and pummeling live performances since forming in 1999.
The band came together when former members of noise-punk band Today is the Day Brann Dailor (drums) and Bill Kelliher (guitar) met Troy Sanders (bass) and Brent Hinds (guitar) at a High on Fire show and discovered a mutual interest in modern sludge-rock powerhouses Neurosis and Melvins as well as the twin-guitar classic rock of Thin Lizzy. While the band originally had a singer, but the time they issued it's debut Lifesblood EP on Relapse Records in 2001, the band had established it's quartet line-up.
That effort and their first proper album Remission the following year established Mastodon as a force to be reckoned with. Powered by the technically accomplished fury of Dailor (who plays like original Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo channeling jazz giant Elvin Jones), the group put out one of the most talked about metal albums of 2004 with their widely praised sophomore effort Leviathan. A conceptual recording that drew inspiration from Melville's epic "Moby Dick" and Dailor's avowed affection for progressive rock, the pulverizing album topped many year-end "best of" lists and is still hailed as a masterwork over a decade later.
For the band's ambitious follow-up Blood Mountain in 2006, Mastodon brought ever-growing complexity to both the quantum-physics riffage of guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher and the conceptual storyline cooked up by principle lyricist Dailor that drew more on heavy psychedelia and featured collaborative input from The Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Queens of the Stone Age principle Josh Homme. Crack the Skye in 2009 found the band going even deeper with an allegorical tale that revolving around the astral projection, exploration of the spirit world and the planned assassination of the mad monk Rasputin in Czarist Russia.
The band would dial back the conceptual element for its next two albums -- The Hunter in 2011 and 2014's Once More 'Round the Sun. But even with a more straightforward and sometimes even pop-minded approach, Mastodon's music remains light years ahead of most of their contemporaries in terms of musical complexity. The group is currently working on its next album and released one new song last year -- "White Walker" -- which appeared on a mixtape promoting the fifth season of the HBO hit show "Game of Thrones." Dailor, Hinds and Kelliher would also appear in an episode that season.
For this Converse Rubber Tracks gig, Mastodon hand picked local prog/psych rockers Mondo Drag to open the show. Founded a decade ago in Davenport, Iowa, by singer/keyboard player John Gamino, guitarist Jake Sheley and guitarist/synth player Nolan Girard (the three have been playing together since their teens), Mondo Drag relocated to Oakland two years ago and added drummer Ventura Garcia and Andrew O'Neil.
The quintet released its first recording with the new line-up last year, an eponymous effort on Riding Easy Records that earned the band some of its best reviews yet with its fuzzed-out guitar leads and swirling Hammond organ and synth grooves. The group will likely preview tunes from its forthcoming album The Occultation Of Light set for release next month. Tickets for this free show got snapped up in a matter of minutes, so the lucky fans who managed to score should get ready for a memorable evening of heavy music.
Converse Rubber Tracks Live: Mastodon with Mondo Drag
Thursday, January 14, 8 p.m. Free (advance tickets sold out)
The Chapel
