The Melvins, Big Business & Giant Squid

Before leaving for the show on Thursday evening, I asked a friend a few specifics about directions to The Boardwalk, to which I had never been. “You’re gonna think you’re in Orangevale, and then you just keep going.” Couldn’t have put it better. There’s no direct route to the city off highway 65, and it kind of felt like we were traveling through a bizarre land of strip-malls. But low and behold the venue appeared, looking much like a roadhouse from a time long forgotten.

San Francisco’s Giant Squid opened the affair, fresh with new material and a new drummer. Fronted by guitarist Aaron Gregory, Giant Squid pumps a prog metal sound with at times near-Eastern vocal melodies, somewhere in the realm of System of a Down’s Serj Tankian. Jackie Gratz lends the talent of cello to enhance the progressive style, and chimes in with spot lead vox and harmonies. Giant Squid also has roots in Sacramento, and wound up being a perfect opener for the main courses.



In the two slot was Big Business, who, for those unfamiliar, are as powerful a rock duo that you will find anywhere on the planet. Comprised of Jared Warren (Karp) and Coady Willis (Murder City Devils), the pair has bludgeoned their way into a fiery brand of metal, with Warren’s bone crunching bass fuzz and Willis’ frenetic smash mastery of the drums. Coming out hot, with a touring guitarist alongside, Big Business whipped through “Hands Up,” with Warren’s unique operatic bellow coming through on point to the records. Within ten minutes the group had launched into “Grounds For Divorce,” a perennial favorite of most any fan, but along with the blistering pace came the unfortunate — Willis threw a chain (or something to the effect) on his kick pedal. The band was forced to stop mid song and take several minutes off for the “technical D.” This ultimately proved to be quite the bummer, as Big Business, though still ferocious, never quite regained the initial momentum of the set.

But none of this mattered. Why? Because 30 minutes later both Coady and Jared headed back out on stage alongside King Buzzo and Dale Crover to drop the tandem beast that has become the Melvins. With Crover and Willis’ monster kits set side by side and Warren and Buzzo’s fat amp tones and throaty vocals, the Melvins are quite simply poetic heaviness in motion. Their latest record, Nude With Boots, is chock full of mangy licks and riffage, with Coady and Dale thumping skulls like a modern day pair of John Bonhams. To watch these two perform on the same stage, pounding away beat for beat the tastiest odd-time rock rhythms imaginable, was nothing short of a drummer’s wet dream. The audience ate up the new material and was also treated to revamped classics such as “Honey Bucket,” “Tipping the Lion” and “Boris.” The Melvins played for well over an hour without a moments rest, and never said a single word to the crowd — it does not get a whole lot heavier.         

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