Ideal Venue for Dirgey Funeral Doom

[clockwork green]

So I saw Aldebaran open for Graves at Sea the other night and I thought they were fine but could have used some more dynamics in their songs.  I love the minimal yet layered, melodic funeral doom that incorporates atmospherics and post-rock elements.  There were many people around me saying how boring it was but I've been reading How Music Works by David Byrne of the Talking Heads and he starts off talking about how music and the venues it's played in are interconnected both for atmosphere but more importantly for acoustics.  You couldn't pull off prog/fusion in a cathedral because of the natural reverb would make it all just sound like a blur and singer-songwriter folk music unamplified works fine outdoors if you can sit without 5' of the person but much beyond that and they just disappear.  With my last band, our singer wouldn't play the last half of my favorite song of ours because it had a quiet ending that might have worked for a crowd ready to see Low but not for most crowds looking to raise doom claws (not that we could even satisfy those folks anyways).

So two things....where would be the ideal setting (anything in the natural world at all) to see contemplative, at times delicate and minimal and at other times a wall of sound type doom bands? Two, how can venues (doesn't have to just be bars and clubs) add elements to improve the experience these bands.  I'd hate see bands like this solely go the way of studio projects only but hearing 50% of a crowd of 200-300 talk about bullshit while a band is trying to play an interesting piece of delicate music to set the mood for the upcoming crushing riff is frustrating for the band and for the audience that is trying to buy into the mood.  So matter what my music gear is like at home, it's never the same as seeming a band really lay into a heavy riff live.  There's got to be ways to improve this.  I figure our collective intelligence should be able to come up with something. 

[Jake]

I'm know this doesn't answer your questions, but I saw Low the other night and they played so "delicately" that no one in the capacity crowd dared to talk. I've read that as they were just starting out, when crowds would be loud, they would turn down even more instead of turning up. I suppose this has a peer pressure type effect to keep noise down for the people that really want to hear the music.

Carry on.

[clockwork green]

Yeah, Low can definitely get away with that but I've yet to see a heavy band pull it off. As a teacher I know a lot of other teachers that do that....I'm more of a just stop talking and wait or yell through their face kind of guy in the classroom. 

Back when I thought Sleep was never going to get back together I was trying to talk some people into doing a one-off Dopesmoker tribute, the entire song played in a room full of bean back chairs.  I've also been thinking about alternative venue locations, abandoned factories, outdoors (open fields, deep woods, warehouses etc...).  There are so few chord and key changes in many doom bands and some things are sustained for long enough where you could get away with playing in a cathedral setting...you'd just have to make sure that you didn't play faster than the natural reverb of the room.

[jibberish]

rocks and cliffs or little ledges/canyon/ravines.  those places where if there were elves and sprites, they would probably be around that place.

there are places that seem to have their own "music" .    go to those places, you are halfway there and only have to enhance



wrong venue wrecks everything:
like seeing monster magnet midday on the huge open outdoor nautica stage NOOOOOOOOO. dave just couldn't conjure the vibe he needs in the little dark smoky Peabody's downunder sized place.

[Lumpy]

Remove the bar from the equation, and you'll cut way down on talking and audience distraction.

[agent of change]

Got nothing to suggest but thought that book was pretty interesting and definitely schooled me on some things I'd sort of considered but not fully.

[justinhedrick]

Remove the bar from the equation, and you'll cut way down on talking and audience distraction.

yep. I have often times wanted to play in/around old farm buildings (barns/corn cribs/bins).

Actually, i think it would be really heavy to play in front of a field that is being harvested, mid october . . . hmm. i DO live in front of a field.

[VOLVO)))]

I wish there was a big enough doom/funeral doom/mellowsadheavy scene to support a place that only jams that type of music. I see a no shoe policy and Barcelona chairs everywhere lit by suspended candles. Funeral doom strikes me as lounge music. I think Akercocke had it right, tuxedos on stage.

[The Bandit]

That book does sound interesting.  May check it out.

[clockwork green]

I'm only 75 or so pages in and it's got some thought provoking shit in it so far.  He's got an interesting part with a guy that does traditional japanese theater about subtle ways of getting audiences to feel more apart and engaged in live shows.  Little stuff that isn't schticky or a gimmick and something anyone performing in front of anyone else could take inspiration from. 

The thing with really depressing, doom bands is that it's enhanced by the volume of a live show and it's diminished by the social aspect of live shows and the environment is usually negative to neutral at best. There's a certain solitary nature to it.  It's the kind of stuff I almost never put on in the car when I'm driving with someone else.  I think visuals on stage like a projected video or something could be a simple addition but if you could really get people to deeply get into that mood and relax where there in that near-sleep like feeling I think it would be an amazing experience. 

[Lumpy]

Re: loungers in the Doom Room... Heavy doom is (when it's working aka "good") a rush for me, it's not relaxing. It's a body-high. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

[dogfood]

In Columbus there used to be a bar/venue called Stache's.  Dan was the owner (the last owner to be more precise).  Stache's was small, had hot bartenders, all the shows worth seeing, and had the same crappy board like all the venues we've ever been to.  Stache's booked'm all, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Butthole Surfers, Pixies, White Zombie, Cows, Cop Shoot Cop, Unsane, you fucking name'm they played there before they played solid mid sized venues.  Dan did so well there he wound up getting a larger, prettier, cleaner, better located, venue and it god damn tanked.  Sorry Dan, it, the venue, sounded like pure shit.  It might as well have had inch thick steel floors, walls, and ceilings (ie painfull).  Sound rang off the walls and turned into blurry noise compared to his little hole in the wall, Stache's.  See, Stache's had commercial, short, loop, polyester like, carpeting glued to the walls.  The carpeted walls must have struck everyone as a dirty, smelly, roach infested, bad idea.  WRONG.  The carpeting tamed most of the shit acoustics of the venue. Shame Dan didn't carpet the walls of his nicer bar, really.
Orchestras and orchestrall halls have been refined over centuries.  Orchestras are stable, rock bands are moving targets sound wise.  I think we need neutral/quiet/dampened spaces, large or small, due to the fact we can add all the brightness, reflectiveness, reverb, echo, swirlyness, ping pongyness, warped dementia to our sound we so desire.  What we can't get is a neutral sounding venue. 

Peabody's, HAH, saw Jesus Lizard there and L7 and Urge and ?, Long White Haired Male Caucasian God I can't remember who else.

[I,Galactus]

I agree with dogfood.  I've posted about it before, but one of my favorite venues for heavy is The Buccaneer in Memphis, TN.  The whole place has this equally cornball/awesome nautical theme:  erotic mermaid murals, ship's wheel above the bar, and most importantly tufted leather paneling everywhere that does a great job of sound absorption. 

[JemDooM]

I would LOVE to see Aldebaran....

I like small, bar basement type venues, especially for that kinda stuff, people don't tend to talk bullshit over the music because the sound is so all encompassing and the intimacy of a small venue tends to mean people just focus on the band rather than talking, yeah, I like fairly low ceilings too, basement venues, don't trust my opinion though I'm finding I tend to like stuff most people think is bad...

[bbottom]

I always thought that it would be cool to do a show in a Laundro mat. I don't know why, it just seems neat

[clockwork green]

I always thought that it would be cool to do a show in a Laundro mat. I don't know why, it just seems neat

Geddy Lee with his washing machine rig must have agreed with you.

[clockwork green]

I would LOVE to see Aldebaran....

I like small, bar basement type venues, especially for that kinda stuff, people don't tend to talk bullshit over the music because the sound is so all encompassing and the intimacy of a small venue tends to mean people just focus on the band rather than talking, yeah, I like fairly low ceilings too, basement venues, don't trust my opinion though I'm finding I tend to like stuff most people think is bad...

There are several places in Oakland that run regular shows like this out of their houses.  I think any time you take stuff out of a bar/club it relaxes things up quite a bit.  I used to live in a warehouse that we'd have shows at and it was always pretty relaxed in there especially because those that wanted to talk while bands were playing had a deck or several other rooms to go into so they wouldn't have to yell over the music plus we had couches and shit like that which is a hell of a way to listen to  the slow and heavy. 

[bbottom]

I always thought that it would be cool to do a show in a Laundro mat. I don't know why, it just seems neat

Geddy Lee with his washing machine rig must have agreed with you.

nah, I've never been much of a Rush fan.

Someone posted a picture on here a few years ago of them playing at a Waffle House late at night. I thought that was freaking awesome

[dogfood]

Sudsy Malone's in Cincinatti.  Laundymat & Live venue.  I think I saw the Cows there or maybe it was Cop Shoot Cop?  I heard it was closed now.

[MichaelZodiac]

I've seen a couple of shows in abandoned churches, those were pretty much the coolest.

[khoomeizhi]

Sudsy Malone's in Cincinatti.  Laundymat & Live venue.  I think I saw the Cows there or maybe it was Cop Shoot Cop?  I heard it was closed now.

my band in college got banned from that place. it was just bringing outside whiskey in, underage drinking high-spirits.

[xayk]

I got to see Earth (and The Body and a few others...) at a music hall built in 1894, so that's a plus.

My next music project is supposed to be recorded live to disk at 20 acre farm, inside of a barn. Here's hoping.

[clockwork green]

I got to see Earth (and The Body and a few others...) at a music hall built in 1894, so that's a plus.

My next music project is supposed to be recorded live to disk at 20 acre farm, inside of a barn. Here's hoping.

Recording in a barn sounds awesome. Maybe not acoustically but there's also something really important about being in an environment that inspires. I'd love to be able to write in a few unique places as well as record in them.

[AgentofOblivion]

There's an old sand mine about an hour south of the city.  They've turned it into this nightlife place that's basically a huge underground hang out in caves.  They have underground lakes, a bar, projectors that put sports onto the huge cave walls, kayaking, disc golf, and all sorts of goofy shit, all underground.  They have live bands too.  I'm trying to get the next Gathering of the Groove show booked there.  Something about psychedelic/stoner rock being played in caves seems pretty righteous.  The sound was decent when I went too.  No matter where you were in the caves you could hear the music. 

[clockwork green]

That sounds awesome, where is this?