From fans to performers, metal has been primarily a masculine genre with little space for women to assert themselves or be taken seriously. Although I confess I took acts such as Lita Ford, Madame X, and Vixen seriously as a teenager in the 80s, but not necessarily due to their prowess as musicians.
My friends and I regarded all metal and hard rock bands featuring even one female member as mere novelty acts with highly provocative music videos and not the genuine stuff we listened to passionately like Metallica, Accept, early Queensrÿche, and Iron Maiden. Even today female “metal’ bands from a couple of decades ago fit more into the genre contemptuously referred to as “but metal,” “hair metal,” or what we simply called “metal for dime store stoneys” back then (although there are plenty of dude-only bands that fit into these categories as well). I would argue that in the 1980s female artists playing heavy music were exploited by those who produced it as a ploy to generate interest among their imagined market and its tastes (namely oversexed teenaged boys who wanted to see some T&A with their music). The fallout of all this was that more emphasis was placed on sexualizing female artists interested in heavy music than giving them spaces to cultivate their abilities and sounds, and as a result the quality of music produced by the likes of Madame X was pretty low.
I have been attempting as of late to reclaim my musical roots and listen to more metal, especially the kind of Sabbath-influenced, sludgy, doom stuff. So last Friday night in a cool little dive bar in the Mission District of San Francisco, I attended the first metal show that I’ve seen in years, and the first “doom metal” concert since I guess the Born Again tour when I was 13.
The big attraction for me was the headliner Witch Mountain – a band that has been around for about fifteen years now, but underwent some significant changes in the last couple of years (to the extent that they should have probably changed their name). The major addition took place back in 2009 when Uta Plotkin took over as the singer (the band also added bassist Neal Munson this year rounding out the lineup of original members Nate Carson on drums and guitarist Rob Wrong). Plotkin’s pipes makes this act distinctive with her clean vocals (with some occasional grunts and growls) that really draw the band into an intriguing brand of blues infused metal.
I had never heard of the other two bands, Castle and Serpent Crown, both are local San Francisco acts (Witch Mountain is from Portland, Oregon), and trios; but I was surprised to learn that the two opening bands on the bill featured young women as singers and instrumentalists. Castle’s Elizabeth Backwell offers up clean lyrics and plays bass, and Dara Senthai from Serpent Crown growls, screams, and serves as the band’s guitarist. These women, however, are far from showpieces as they displayed legitimate ability to crank out some great doom metal. Serpent Crown took the stage first and was the most interesting as they featured two guys, Dave Dinsmore (bass) and Will Carroll (drums), who looked even older and less healthy than me (a definite bad sign for purveyors of doom metal). In spite of the grey hair and pot bellies, however, these dudes rocked – Dinsmore laid down what I perceived to be the best bass performance of the evening.
As much as I enjoyed the performances of the opening bands, Witch Mountain flat out killed this show. I have given Witch Mountain’s highly regarded new album Cauldron of the Wild a few listens on Youtube, but what I’ve gotten so far from this disc was a little less engaging somehow than their live set.
In addition to Plotkin, the primary strength of Witch Mountain is the chugging guitar riffs laid down by Wrong. The band played mostly from the new album featuring the tunes “Beekeeper,” “Shelter,” and “Veil of the Forgotten.” The highlight in the set (and the night) came at about the halfway point with the performance of “Shelter.” This is a great song, but the live combination of Wrong’s heavy blues riffs, Plotkin’s energetic vocal, and the astounding time changes erupting after nearly four minutes of sludge resoundingly brought home doom metal’s kinship with music ascending from the Mississippi Delta about a century ago. The band was coaxed into playing an encore by the enthusiastic crowd which finished the set with two songs from their recent EP Witch Mountain “Bloundhound” and “A Power Greater.”
I left the show pleased to see women sans miniskirts, heavy makeup, and tight spandex pants making some serious, aesthetically challenging contributions to heavy musical genre. A perusal of some of the new metal records out this year (in addition to Witch Mountain, my favorites so far are from the band Herodias and Katherine Katz’s contributions on the new Pig Destroyer album Book Burner) suggests that women’s contributions to serious, less commercial heavy music are a phenomenon on the rise – and I hope they’re here to stay.
The performance of “Shelter” I include here comes from a show at the Scion Rock Festival in Tampa, Florida.