On the 2nd December I saw The Atomic Bitchwax” (TAB) at the Craufurd Arms in Wolverton, Milton Keynes. TAB headlined the gig and “Desert Storm” was one of the bands on the undercard. A separate review, published on 10th December, addressed Desert Storm’s performance (for completeness why not read it too); it has clearly taken me a while to get around to finishing this follow on post.
Prior to the outing, I’ll admit that I hadn’t come across TAB before so didn’t know what I was going to be exposed to.
My question to my buddy, Hughesy, who had alerted me to the gig that very morning was “I have never heard of Atomic Bitchwax - am I in for a treat?”
Some verbatim comment follows “Whaaaaat??? I thought I would have bored you about them at some point. Yes, they are awesome.”
A fine recommendation then – I was going to have a good night.
In between Desert Storm (DS) and TAB, a band called “Champions of Euthansia” (CofE) took to the stage and played a half hour set that, if I am frank, was largely forgetable. One thing of interest about this act though was that it only featured two musicians. The singer/guitarist/bass player and the drummer.
I was interested to understand how the guitar could emulate the bass as well and so got chatting to Chris White from DS. He advised that a device called a splitter was involved that took the guitar signal and dropped it an octave to create the bass sound. One guitar and a box of tricks created two instruments. Cool stuff although the bass lines can only follow the guitar.
CofE left the state at 9:15 and The Atomic Bitchwax (and what a great moniker for a band, there must be an interesting story around how the name was dreamed up) stepped up at 9:30. The band is a three piece from the States and plays stoner, sludgy type metal but with prog/psych-rock influences and occasional funky elements - the bass player (Chris Kosnick) and guitarist (Finn Ryan) share singing duties.
Chris Kosnick (who has an old school, Francis Rossi kind of look about him) is a great bass player; I watched, with something approaching awe, his fingers racing around the length of his Fender’s fret board. Finn Ryan, with his long curly, sandy coloured hair, reminded me a little of the lion from the "Wizard of Oz", which in an odd way was appropriate because the music the guys produced certainly cast a spell over me.
The band played a number of great tunes but being unschooled in the back catalogue, I am afraid that I can’t relay what the set list was, though the music had energy, speed and variation.
What I can share was that the set was thoroughly enjoyable (so much so that I bought the band’s latest CD “Graviton” at the gig to listen to some more on the way home).
The guys played though to 10:30pm, did an encore and were well received by the audience. I particularly like the fact that the band appeared to be enjoying the gig as much as the punters. Though TAB is considered a super-group and plays in some huge venues around the world, it was clearly quite at home in a small venue in a small town on an innocuous Wednesday night.
So having been exposed to the band and its music, I can confirm that Hughesy’s positioning statement (as shared earlier) was/is spot on. TAB is indeed an awesome band and if you have never heard anything by the group, I recommend that you make an effort to track down a tune or two.
By way of a further endorsement, since the gig, I have ordered and received the album “The Local Fuzz”, it’s a one track, multi movement, 42 minute wonder. "TAB4" has now been ordered too.
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Prior to the outing, I’ll admit that I hadn’t come across TAB before so didn’t know what I was going to be exposed to.
My question to my buddy, Hughesy, who had alerted me to the gig that very morning was “I have never heard of Atomic Bitchwax - am I in for a treat?”
Some verbatim comment follows “Whaaaaat??? I thought I would have bored you about them at some point. Yes, they are awesome.”
A fine recommendation then – I was going to have a good night.
In between Desert Storm (DS) and TAB, a band called “Champions of Euthansia” (CofE) took to the stage and played a half hour set that, if I am frank, was largely forgetable. One thing of interest about this act though was that it only featured two musicians. The singer/guitarist/bass player and the drummer.
I was interested to understand how the guitar could emulate the bass as well and so got chatting to Chris White from DS. He advised that a device called a splitter was involved that took the guitar signal and dropped it an octave to create the bass sound. One guitar and a box of tricks created two instruments. Cool stuff although the bass lines can only follow the guitar.
CofE left the state at 9:15 and The Atomic Bitchwax (and what a great moniker for a band, there must be an interesting story around how the name was dreamed up) stepped up at 9:30. The band is a three piece from the States and plays stoner, sludgy type metal but with prog/psych-rock influences and occasional funky elements - the bass player (Chris Kosnick) and guitarist (Finn Ryan) share singing duties.
Chris Kosnick (who has an old school, Francis Rossi kind of look about him) is a great bass player; I watched, with something approaching awe, his fingers racing around the length of his Fender’s fret board. Finn Ryan, with his long curly, sandy coloured hair, reminded me a little of the lion from the "Wizard of Oz", which in an odd way was appropriate because the music the guys produced certainly cast a spell over me.
The band played a number of great tunes but being unschooled in the back catalogue, I am afraid that I can’t relay what the set list was, though the music had energy, speed and variation.
What I can share was that the set was thoroughly enjoyable (so much so that I bought the band’s latest CD “Graviton” at the gig to listen to some more on the way home).
The guys played though to 10:30pm, did an encore and were well received by the audience. I particularly like the fact that the band appeared to be enjoying the gig as much as the punters. Though TAB is considered a super-group and plays in some huge venues around the world, it was clearly quite at home in a small venue in a small town on an innocuous Wednesday night.
So having been exposed to the band and its music, I can confirm that Hughesy’s positioning statement (as shared earlier) was/is spot on. TAB is indeed an awesome band and if you have never heard anything by the group, I recommend that you make an effort to track down a tune or two.
By way of a further endorsement, since the gig, I have ordered and received the album “The Local Fuzz”, it’s a one track, multi movement, 42 minute wonder. "TAB4" has now been ordered too.
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