Honky, Baroness and the Melvins at the House of Vans 7/31/13

Honky, Baroness and the Melvins

House of Vans

July 31, 2013

As I’ve mentioned a number of times on this site, this summer has been a very busy summer as i’ve had to balance the increasingly responsibilities of my day job with that of this website. Somehow, I’ve managed to do the best I can here – and it’s actually worked to some degree. Of course, naturally some things fall through the cracks a bit …

But back in July I was at the House of Vans in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to catch Honky, Baronness, and the Melvins play a night of the hardest, loudest rock I’ve heard in some time. (In fact, it inspired the crowd to mosh and crowd surf – at one point while in the photographer’s pit I got kicked in the head by someone crowd surfing.) With each band there were subtle differences. Honky’s sound reminded me quite a bit of sludgy stoner rock – I was reminded quite a bit of Queens of the Stone Age and ZZ Top but with a boogie, woogie feel. Baroness’s sound is densely layered and yet intense, and punishing – in some way their sound was decidedly more metal. Playing behind dark red light, the Melvins’ set was full of sludgy, murky material that was punishingly loud and with two drummers, the material was played with an anxious, frenetic urgency.

So check out some photos from the proceedings.