The honorable craft of hand-to-hand combat

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Today’s modern warfare is distant and impersonal, with triggered drums and packaged guitar effects taking the human element out of the mayhem. Landmine are students of the ancient and, some would say, more honorable craft of hand-to-hand combat. They get into the face of their opponent in order to smell their sweat and fear as they plunge their volume dagger into the soft underbelly and rip the blade upwards.

So saith Umlaut, an old-schooler who knows that of which he speaks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the promixity between performer and audience. This issue came to a head recently when I saw Megadeth play at the 4000-capacity Hollywood Palladium. I saw their set from seemingly a mile away. That was fine, as they exuded incredible power, which I didn’t need to see to feel. And if I had been up close, I would have seen old guys wearing dress shirts and playing expensive guitars: not that exciting.

That experience felt very strange. I don’t see large shows like that often because (a) those aren’t my favorite bands, and (b) it seems lame to drive 20 miles to see a band play from a mile away. That’s metal as rock ‘n’ roll. I prefer metal as hand-to-hand combat, as Umlaut puts it.

Above is a video Umlaut took of Landmine Marathon at SXSW. The audio is crap, but that doesn’t matter. The video could be silent, and it would still be violent. Not violent in the “drunk meathead shoving elbows in your face” way, but violent in the “this could go in any number of directions, all of them good” way.

Grace Perry of Landmine Marathon is a master of hand-to-hand combat. As I’ve said before, she gets away with more than usual due to her gender and size. But that doesn’t make her any less potent. No one taught her how to do combat (I believe Landmine is her first band); she’s a natural at it.

Here are two quotes from Umlaut reviews of Landmine shows:

It’s funny when a gap opens up between Landmine and the audience as the boyz in the crowd get intimidated by Grace. Her Velociraptor presence was magnified in the small, confined space of Hoek’s patio… and maybe the fact that she “accidently” kicked a dude in the nads early in the set gave the boyz reason for concern.

During the set-closing ‘Rise With The Tide’ Grace kicked a hipster in the front row in the chest who was wearing a V-Neck tee and sunglasses. Then she charged back into audience to exact a final body count… After the set audience and band members alike stumbled out the front door into the sunshine and fresh air… and the first thing Grace said to me was “Did you see me kick that Hipster in the chest?!”

And here’s a quote from a participant in Landmine’s recent video shoot (source, photo stills here):

As soon as the music started, it lost a lot of the awkwardness as shit got REALLY rowdy quick. The first take was probably the craziest as no one was exhausted from the heat yet. I’m pretty sure Grace got thrown into the ceiling?

Finally, here’s a picture of Grace doing her best Andrew W.K. impression. I believe the story is that she broke her nose on the first note of the set (or something like that).

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Grace, I hope you have health insurance.