Cloaca Melodia

My life in concerts, by Mike Sauter.

1/03/1998

Monster Magnet

Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ

Here's an external review from the web:
New Jersey's resident retro-psychedelic-metal-troglodyte-hot-rodding
space-cadets Monster Magnet put in an impressive live set last weekend at
this "home town" show. Visuals included rising sun back-drop projections,
rapid-fire stills of newsreel war footage, strobe lights, and clouds of dry
ice. The boys came out in fine, de-tuned, sludgy form, with frontman Dave
Wyndorf repeatedly leaning into the wall of moshers in front of the stage. Ed
Mundell put in some fantastic lead-work all night long, with his usual
wah-wah drenched sound coming thru 2 full Marshall stacks. (He used a lovely
black Les Paul in addition to his usual Strat... Dave also used an SG in
addition to his usual battered old Strats.) Joe Calandra's bass-work was
great, and was FELT as much as heard. Jon Kleiman drummed brilliantly, &
managed to smoke entire cigarettes while drumming, a la Cheap Trick's Ben E.
Carlos....

At one point we thought we'd get no new stuff from the pending album, which
Dave said will now be out in JUNE, not Feb (!@$!$)^!#$!^$!!!) But we got 2 of
the new tunes later in the set, both of which were great. Mix was a bit TOO
muddy for the first 2-3 songs but cleared up eventually. VERY surprising
opener, never thought we'd get this one.... naturally it was severely
shortened, not the 33:00 version on the album(!)

11:05p - 12:25am

* Intro, about 3:00 of delay/flange/feedback noises, into...
* TAB (!!!!!!!!) About a 6:00 version. Barb & I were wondering how long it'd
go on for. Soon as I recognized it from the vamping bass-line I freaked
out!!!
* Dopes To Infinity
* Snake Dance
* Medicine
* Nod Scene
* Power Trip (finally a new one, title track of the new album. Way cool...
"I'm out of control, a million miles away!!"
* Space Lord Motherfucker (another new one, also a great song.... "so polish
that rocket, boy, & swallow your pills..."
* Zodiac Lung (cool little re-arrangment... started out as a creepy "ballad"
as usual, but got LOUD at the end and ROCKED heavily! Another killer
post-Hendrix solo from Ed.....)
* Negasonic Teenage Warhead
* Spine of God (a 15:00 version. Dave did not play guitar on this, some guy
named "Phil" joined them as 2nd guitarist for this one. During one of the
spacey jam segments Dave set a black Strat on fire; he whirled it around
while it was engulfed in flames & bashed it to pieces on the stage. I can
still smell the lighter fluid. Then later on he was twirling one of the
bright white stage floor-lights around, sticking it into the faces of the
pit-kids....)

Encores:

* Tractor (dedicated to the methamphetamine users in the audience...great
back-up vox by Joe..)
* Kick Out the Jams (the MC5 classic, with the Phil guy on guitar again).

It was yet another "Spine of God"-heavy set.... seems to be the norm for this
venue, or the non-tour one-off shows. No tunes from Superjudge, sadly, but
all in all a great show.
(source)

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