Reverend Beatman at Paekakariki 14 July 2011

Above pic: Boss Christ

There really couldn't be a more perfect venue than a small town church hall when you've got rock and roll prechers Reverend Beatman and Boss Christ on the line up. It was my first ever show at Paekakariki St. Peter's Hall, which is similar to every other community hall I've been to. The BYO alcohol policy suited me fine.
Boss Christ was in fine form with his rawer thanTom Waits metal on metalgrater vocals. My flatmate who'd never seen him before made the comment that his whiskey blues music is great until he sings. I disagree but then again I love Tom Waits and Howling Wolf. There's a great video of him in Christchurch here. At Nick Oliverei he sported a clean shaven appearance but his wolfman appearance is back.

Reverend Beatman got up and sat down. Delaney Davidson got up introduced the Reverend played his own song "Homeward Bound". After that Delaney beat the drums while Reverend Beatman instructed everyone to get on their knees. Delaney then took the stage again and instructed people to waltz with the possibilty of a marriage proposal to keep Reverend Beatman in the country, which lead to a lot of people on the dance floor.



Reverend Beatman pointed out that he was strange-looking but came from a small town in Switzerland like Paekakariki. And that the thousand inhabitants look like him. Before playing "I see the light" The two alternated for a
while with Delaney either playind drums or guitar. Eventually Reverend Beatman played a couple of songs in a row and the show was over.



Above pic: Reverend Beatman, pic taken while he stood like a Madame Tussauds wax statue for about a minute.

Nick Oliveri/ Boss Christ - Bar Bodega, Wellington Wed Oct 14, 2009

Above pic: Boss Christ

Below pics: Nick Oliveri

Boss Christ walked on stage unrecognizable as the man from the video from the previous post. He was clean cut except for a moustache. Wearing opened with a song just using footstomping, handclapping and completely foregoing the microphone Boss Christ opened his one man band set. His set consisted of bluesy songs, with deep whiskey drenched vocals played on guitar with occassional use of his kick drum. The Boss' main song topics are about drinking which always goes down well in a bar.








After a short break, Nick Oliveri stepped on stage and played a number of songs. He played a cover of Subhumans' "Wake Up, Screaming", Dwarves and GG Allin covers. Those who came to see him because he was once a member of Queens of The Stone Age walked away happy because a number of their songs were included in his set.
"Autopilot" being the best received as it had been shouted for a number of times.

Bruce Springsteen is a dick!

Boss Christ - Bruce Springsteen Sucks from A LOW HUM on Vimeo.

The Mysterious Tapemen/Boss Christ/The Damned Evangelist at Bar Mode

After going to Hurricanes vs Brumbies Super 14 warm up game in Levin I headed to Palmerston North with the intention of seeing Boss Christ play at Bar Mode then take off and catch up with an old friend.

First up was a guy in a Boy Wonder type mask playing garage rock on a guitar. Pretty cool, really. I believe the guy's stage name is Bad Evil.




Next up was solo performer Boss Christ. This time he sang and played the guitar, snare drum and hi-hat cymbal sometimes all at once. He included a country song and seemed doubtful that the Bar Mode crowd would like the song. It was fine though. His set was too short for my liking and he had played an extra song in exchange for a beer. The Boss is without a doubt one of the best solo acts in the country. It should aso be mentioned that the Wolfman is now rocking a full beard.


The Damned Evangelist played next. They were a band I knew nothing about but they were awesome that nightan d played surf rock. Two of them played in motorcycle helmets and the drummer played wearing a wrestling (?) mask. Both the band's get-up and music reminded me of Man or Astro-Man?. The drummer played standing up and gave the drums a very tribal feel not unlike past Palmerston North bands The Skeptics and Lung.





These three guys walked into the bar wearing white shirts, bow ties with VHS tape wrapped around their heads and then The Mysterious Tapemen proceeded to rock surf style. Some metal bands were due to play afterwards but I didn't stay around for that. I was so impressed with what I saw of The Damned Evangelist and The Mysterious Tapemen that I went and watched them at the San Francisco Bath House in Wellington the next night. The Damned Evangelist didn't seem quite as good but despite breaking a string The Mysterious Tapemen seemed much better. The crowd was bigger and better too.

All photos on this post were not taken at either gig referred to in this post nor were they taken by me. However they were stolen from various places around the inter-web. No thanks to Harvey Norman.