Steve Austin of Today is the Day, which performs in Ithaca on Saturday, August 21. Photo provided
THOUGH THE VAST MAJORITY OF BANDS music promoter Bubba Crumrine books toil in the margin of popularity and critical acclaim – Ithaca Underground is well-known for unsung and virtually unknown acts and providing them a stage to perform among a like-minded locals – this Saturday, August 21, Crumrine and company will welcome one of the biggest acts yet: Nashville’s Today Is the Day. The band will be joined by two of the most promising metal acts in town, the expansive black metal of Lux Carentes and the grindcore Hiroshima Vacation as well as Cleveland, Ohio’s Keelhaul – a minor legend in its own right; tickets for the 5 p.m. show at The Haunt are $10 in advance and $15 at the door.
Led by the visionary Steve Austin (not the wrestler), Today Is the Day is one of the most influential bands of the past 15 years, whose hell-bent marriage of metal, noise, psychedelia, and rock has won them worldwide acclaim. With albums released through indie labels Amphetamine Reptile and Relapse, and with a roster of musicians who have graduated into even better known bands – Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher of Mastodon, and Marshall Kilpatrick of The Esoteric – Today Is the Day reigns as one of the most important bands in the history of extreme music.
With music that is difficult to define (think equal parts Slayer, Motorhead and Converge) Austin’s band has experimented brazenly with sound, tone, and style, utilizing everything from found samples to acoustic instruments to synthesizers to all-out death metal and grind-core beats. In doing so, the band has earned the distinction as one of extreme music’s most talented, peculiar, searching, and influential acts.
Today Is the Day formed in the early 90s; Austin’s musical heroes were Black Flag’s Greg Ginn and King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, and Today Is the Day resulted in an epic, almost schizophrenic scope. 1994’s “Supernova” was a challenging first record, and even more sonically diverse records followed. The band’s most recent record, 2007’s “Axis of Eden” is metal with melody – a sure sign to suggest that Austin hasn’t slowed. Late in July the respected metal label Black Market Activities announced that it would release Today Is the Day’s ninth studio album next year.
Cleveland’s Keelhaul has been gaining traction in the last year, owing to a nod by the influential psychedelic metal band Tomb’s Mike Hill, and mainstream music blogs like Brooklyn Vegan. The cleverly titled “Triumphant Return to Obscurity” wa released last year, and was the band’s fourth in its ten year history (Its last, “Subject to Change without Notice,” was released in 2003).
According to the band’s Chris Smith the band draws on a range of influences: “post hardcore progressive acid rock.” Smith told the magazine Utter Trash: “To me it’s progressive in the sense that it’s not typical in the song structures, and we don’t play the same riffs all the time. I think it’s kind of psychedelic in some ways. If you want to put us in the ring, then the turnbuckles would be like King Crimson, and Neurosis, and Jesus Lizard, and the Melvins.”
Two local acts will join Today Is the Day and Keelhaul, and both are perfect pairings for the music. Poised to quickly become of Ithaca’s top extreme act, Lux Carentes creates a devastatingly raw, epic black metal attack fronted by the performance intensity of vocalist Brian Dayhart and backed by the skilled musician ship of Brian Patrick Burke, Brandon Kane, Adam Morris, and Jason Dengler (also of Agog/Abandon My Head). The quintet is picking up speed in the underground supporting F*ck The Facts in May and headlining the first evening of Ithaca Festival Inside at The Shop. The band should have its demo available for the show.
Hiroshima Vacation, meanwhile, comprises the Caso brothers – Vii and Tenor – who, along with Severin Heads, create some viscously delicious grindcore with just enough old school hardcore, sludge, and death metal influence to keep things interested. Recently seen at this May’s Big Day In and Ithaca Festival Inside at The Shop, the band is fresh out of recording 10 neck-snapping tracks at The Pirate House and have their eyes on the next level. When friends and family get together, good gridcore should always be the outcome.