Veteran heavy rock duo Big Business headlines Bottom of the Hill
One of the more acclaimed heavy rock bands to emerge from the Pacific Northwest since the turn of the millennium, Big Business came together in 2004 when established players Jared Warren (Karp, Tight Bros From Way Back When) and Coady Willis (Murder City Devils, Dead Low Tide) joined forces to create a monstrously loud bass-and-drums duo.
Marked by Warren's bellowing delivery, Willis' explosive drumming and their mix of frantic math rock and sludgy metal dirges, Big Business built up a solid national following with a dogged touring schedule and their ferocious 2005 debut album on Hydra Head Records, Head for the Shallows. The duo would come to even greater acclaim when they were invited to become one half of the two-drummer line-up of the mighty Melvins. The pair would relocate from their Washington home to Los Angeles to work more closely with the iconic sludge-metal group.
That version of the band would produce some of the Melvins most indelible work ever with a stunning string of albums -- (A) Senile Animal, Nude with Boots and The Bride Screamed Murder -- and earned a deserved reputation as an absolute live juggernaut with Willis and Melvins mainstay Dale Crover unleashing a torrential percussive attack. In addition to opening for Melvins on several tours with the line-up, Big Business would expand with the addition of guitarists Toshi Kasai and former 400 Blows member Scott Martin and produce two more pummeling Hydra Head efforts, Here Come the Waterworks and Mind the Drift.
Big Business would establish their own imprint for the release of their first album with Martin, 2013's Battlefields Forever. The band switched back to a two-piece line-up for its 2015 spring tour supporting Clutch and Mastodon as Martin recovered from nagging health problems and has stuck with that version of the group ever since. The following year, Big Business issued its fifth album and first effort as a duo in a number of years with Command Your Weather on their own Gold Metal Records imprint.
In 2018, the duo issued Solid Gold Metal: 2004-2009, a box set compiling their first three out-of-print albums plus songs from three early tour EPs. Big Business last visited the Bay Area to perform songs from their most recent full-length effort, The Beast You Are on Joyful Noise Recordings. Released in 2019, the album showcases the duo's knack for creating punishing yet tuneful anthems (the furious "Bright Grey" and the epic closer "Let Them Grind") while exploring Warren's recent interest in synthesizers (the lumbering "Time and Heat" and "Last Family"), nodding to the influence of former collaborators the Melvins as well as futuristic, off-kilter punk pioneers Devo. Tracked in San Francisco at El Studio, the new recording may be the duo's most refined effort yet.
The band members also issued a three-song tour EP in 2021 in addition to playing a number of festivals including Psycho Las Vegas, editions of Desertfest on both sides of the Atlantic and last year's Stumpfest in Portland. The musicians have also stayed busy with other projects: Warren toured with reunited post-punk band Unwound, while Willis played shows with the Melvins (filling in for Crover as he recovered from spinal surgery) and officially joined metal juggernaut High on Fire (who release their first album with Willis on drums, Cometh the Storm, in April).
Big Business brings its furious onslaught back to San Francisco Tuesday night, appearing at the Bottom of the Hill with local trio Street Eaters. The lauded Oakland DIY punk trio was founded over 15 years ago in 2008 with the musical partnership of longtime Bay Area punk fixture John No (Geek Festival founder and lead singer for Fleshies and Triclops!) and his wife Megan March (Neverending Party, Wild Assumptions). The band offers up intense songs powered by the pair's strident tandem vocals, March's muscular drumming and No's over-driven, distorted bass tone.
Delivering concise, corrosive tunes at times echo the neck-snapping fury of Canadian punk vets NoMeansNo, Street Eaters the pair has built up a global following with their grassroots approach to touring, playing house parties and all-ages underground punk venues as much if not more than traditional venues. In 2017, the two musicians released what may be the duo's most ambitious effort yet.
Drawing inspiration from noted science fiction author Ursula K. LeGuin (specifically her books "The Dispossessed" and "Left Hand of Darkness"), The Envoy is a concept album that delves into far broader sonic vistas than the band has explored in the past while delivering a fiercely political message about a dystopian future that spoke to the then-current oppression happening in Trump's America. In 2019, the band started a collaboration with Maximum Rocknroll Magazine editor Joan DeToro, who March and No played with in her band Difficult. That year she became Street Eaters' permanent guitarist. In 2021, the band released their first recordings as a trio with the Simple Distractions EP. Big Business will also play a show at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz Wednesday night, joined by hypnotic SF heavy krautrock trio Terry Gross.
Big Business with Street Eaters
Tuesday, Feb. 20, 8 p.m. $20-$25
Bottom of the Hill
