Resistant Culture - Sacred Fire tour diary, pt. 2

In the second installment of their US tour diary (see first one here), Native American crust punk/metallers Resistant Culture continue their journey through the American underground. Hidden communities and better days lie ahead. – C.L.

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RESISTANT CULTURE
SACRED FIRE U.S. TOUR 2010
PART 2

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Saturday Oct 9th
Apocalyptic Crust Fest 4
Chicago, IL

The Chicago Apocalyptic Crust Fest has established itself as the premier annual gathering for crust bands and fans in the U.S. We’ve co-headlined the fest for the last three years.

Chicago has become one of the country’s most flourishing crust/punk/metal communities. The scene is highly sophisticated and well-organized. It’s like a human ant hill scurrying with bulleted, spiked, studded. black denim-clad crust metal punks flowing through an integrated network of collectives, bands, fans, DIY spaces, punk houses, auto mechanics, cooks, screen printers, artists, politicos, and more.

There’s a pride taken in the underground music subculture that’s quite rare. Every time we approach the city, a sense of security surrounds us. We know we’ll be treated as honored guests.

As a band we try to embrace everyone and dissolve genre boundaries, not just musically but socially as well. At our shows we try to make everyone feel at home. With the goal of encouraging the growth of resilient communities, we can seem a bit strange to those who expect a band to come off as cold, macho, and uncaring. It’s always invigorating to play in Chicago where our intent is not only understood, but actually manifested in many ways. It’s not just a dream or a vision of unity and peace; in Chicago, great efforts have been made to make these ideals into realities. Of course, it’s an ongoing process, but unlike many other places, the long process has begun here and has sustained itself for many years now. It’s great role model for up-and-coming scenes and jaded, burnt-out scenes alike.

Back to this year’s fest – we were stoked to experience yet another highly energized crowd who came hellbent to sing along, headbang, circle pit, stage dive, and crowd surf. No b.s., no violence, just positive, cathartic, aggressive release.

It was awesome to play with our home town bros Phobia and to play with anarcho trash/grind greats Dropdead. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to the first two days of the fest, but we want to give props to all the bands that opened for us on Saturday:

Dropdead
Phobia
The Skuds
Doom Siren
Clusterfux
Sanctions
Anti Social Degenerates
La Armada
Morbid Obesity

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Apocalyptic Crust Fest 4 promo video

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Tuesday Oct 12th
Bohemian National
Detroit, MI

Apocalypse is a popular theme these days. Many people think the end of the world is near. The tragic comedy of this millenial meme is that for the most part it denies the reality that apocalypse is more often a spatial than temporal phenomenon. In other words, it’s not a matter of when, it’s a matter of where. Iraq is largely a post-apocalyptic landscape. So is the Cherynobl site in Ukraine, along New Orleans, the Gulf of Mexico, and countless other places. “The end of the world as we know it” is usually a localized end. It doesn’t necessarily mean the entire planet is laid to waste in one single event.

Detroit is one of America’s most apocalyptic cities. What was once the backbone of the U.S. industrial economy is now a rusting corpse. For those who are concerned about the current recession, Detroit may appear to be a futuristic city foretelling the destiny of many more urban landscapes where the economy has collapsed.

What’s very interesting about this unique city is that it exemplifies the old adage that in crisis there is opportunity. There are many efforts to revitalize the community not only by green-washed gentrification schemes, but more importantly by grassroots peoples’ movements. Groups such as Evolve Detroit, Detroit Agriculture Network, Detroit Summer, and Midwest Permaculture are hard at work actualizing the Resistant Culture lyrics: “Beneath the Concrete the Green Future Lies…”

We showed up at the venue at night and hit the road immediately after, so we didn’t get to see much of the cityscape. The only impression we got was from the crowd at the show. People were very receptive and warm towards our presence, and we felt a deep, shared understanding that now’s the time to start growing our own food, coming together to support each other, and making long-term commitments to our individual and collective food, water, health, energy, and security needs.

We’re thankful for all the bands who rocked before us:

Full Scale Panic
Live to Kill
Voice of Anger
Lt.Dan

And to Thom of Defiant Culture productions for hooking up the show and for the great discussion afterward.

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Wednesday Oct 13th
Hexagon Space
Baltimore, MD

This show was at an awesome art gallery space that we’d actually played a few years back when it was under a different name. All the staff were super-nice and appreciative to have us there. We were able to connect with our bro Jason, who went above and beyond and helped distribute our tour fliers around town before the show.

Thanks to Jeff for hooking up the show and rocking the house in his grind band Marrow. Thanks also to Dry Cloud for opening.

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Thursday Oct 14th
Millcreek Tavern
Philadelphia, PA

Our Philly show was much anticipated, as we’d been looking forward to meet Kim Kelly of Catharsis PR, who we’ve been working with in our tour promotion efforts. You’re reading this right now thanks to her help in getting the word out about the tour! Cheers, Kim! She put together a great show for us. It was well attended, all the opening bands shredded, the sound was great, the sound man was super-cool, and the house was well-run and well-set up for bands. We try to stick to all-ages venues for the most part, but for a place that lacks solid venues, sometimes it’s a compromise you have to make. Thanks to Kim’s hard work, it didn’t feel like a sacrifice; it was a great time and successful show. Sorry to all our underage fans, hopefully we’ll see you next time.

Cheers to Cop Problem, Unrest, and Abserdo for opening!

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“Sentient Predator” (official video)

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Friday Oct 15th
The Lake Underground
New York, NY

We love New York! We have a tourist circuit that we always run when we’re in the area, including various parks and restaurants. We’ve developed a tradition to hit up an awesome Cuban restaurant in Jersey City; our waiter immediately recognized us and shouted “California” from across the place. It’s nice to have those little auxiliary connections around the country.

After we ran our course, we arrived at one of the coolest and most unique DIY venue operations we’d seen. It was a typical, Brooklyn-style, long, narrow apartment building unit, but the largest area was converted into a full-on, club-style area. Normally you see this kind of club commune set up in warehouses, so it see it done this way was really cool.

The crowd response ranked a perfect 10, as a large number of people knew the words and the song structures and would sing along and rock in time with the changes. If there’s any measure of how great a show is, it’s definitely by the level of engagement people have with your recorded material. In New York, we were flattered to know we have a lot of love. We always share our love and appreciation with the crowd. We’ve also established a lot of great friends in the scene there over the years. It was a true honor and pleasure to finally play with Death Mold, who we’ve been friends with for years but have never gotten on the same bill. They’re one of New York’s most tight, brutal, and solid acts in the crust/grind/punk scene.

It was an honor also to play with (A)truth, Chris from EastRev’s band. He set up the show for us and has done a great job in working with us over the years. Similar to Chicago, there’s a level of commitment to the scene and the community that goes beyond just throwing a party with bands playing. They really do their best to put together solid events and take care of bands.

We’re thankful also to Sei to Shi for opening.

After the show we went over to Kim Kelly’s (Catharsis PR) pad to discuss the ways in which she may be able to work with us on our goals.

It’s was a very deep and meaningful conversation because it went way beyond just brainstorming on marketing strategies, record labels, tour packages, and the usual indy music industry stuff. We were able to focus on the visionary and transformative objectives of the band. We talked about the role of social/political/ecological consciousness in extreme music and our intention to not be elitist and preachy while trying to sell an ideology, but rather to encourage people to lead themselves and find their own truths.

We also discussed our goal to create a musical common ground for people of all ethnicities and members of all shades of the metal, grind, crust, and punk scenes on the inherent basis that we’re all descendants of tribal societies, and all of our ancestors once knew a way of life that was closer to nature and more sustainable and harmonious. Few within the many global extreme music subcultures are interested in struggling to become independent and autonomous from the modern establishment. Still fewer are interested in rebuilding tribalistic communities. Many would consider it “hippie-ish”. However, we’ve found that in both the anarcho-punk/crust and folk metal genres, there’s an awakening to the consciousness that we’ve all been robbed of our birthright to live in what could be called tribal autonomy, where your culture takes care of you rather than exploits you, and where you’re able to have personal and group level self-determination.

We shared with Kim how the band is working hard to find open-minded, visionary people of all kinds who share the love of extreme music and a sense of urgency and responsibility to confront reality and take whatever personal or political actions they feel necessary in their heart to change their lives and state of the world for the better.

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Saturday Oct 16th
AS220
Providence, RI

We’ve had amazing shows at AS220 over the years. It’s a restaurant/bar/gallery/venue combo that seems to be the perfect environment to attract dedicated fans, hipsters, diners, partiers, and passers-by. It’s kind of a bazaar of nightlife activities on a main drag, which is always fun because you get to play for and meet all kinds of different people that aren’t segmented into specific music cults.

We got to play with some awesome bands including a sludgy band, a crust band, and a black metal band. It was a great mix of styles, and everyone enjoyed the diverse musical array.

Thanks to Rob for hooking it up again, to our bro Derrick for always coming out to support, and to the opening bands:

Bog of the Infidel
Misanthropic Noise
Tongue Dynasty

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Sunday Oct 17th
The Gutter
Somerset, NJ

We have an affinity for New Jersey and had a show fall through, so we decided to book this show on short notice. Nonetheless it was packed, and we had a blast. It was one of those house party shows where it’s total chaos. But when you can play a set that brings people together and provides a focal point for people’s energy and attention, it can really be powerful and amazing despite being blinded by that lone light bulb in the ceiling that never has any kind of shade on it.

Thanks to Josh and the Unmen for hooking up the show and for tearing it up!

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Order official Resistant Culture Merchandise at:
www.SeventhGenerationRecords.com

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