November 8th 2008

There were two people in the venue that night that spoke English remarkably well. Winds up they were from Columbus, Ohio. They were an American noise band named Sword Heaven. I had never heard of them before. They were remarkably polite and soft-spoken.

The drummer mentioned that they did a couple of dates with Skinny Puppy. The shows apparently did not go over very well. According to one hateful email, the band was “too fat” and should focus on eating more cheeseburgers instead of making music. The drummer bared a striking resemblance to Zach Galifianakis.

Sword Heaven usually play on the floor, but the venue was too crowded. So the two-piece set up their portable PA system, drum set, four-track tape machine, and assorted electronics on stage. Then the drummer took his shirt off, tied a rope tethered to three broken cymbals around his ankle, and began to drunkenly stumble and weave through the crowd while growling, moaning, and barking. The cymbals clattered and screeched across the cement floor. On stage, the other half of the duo brandished a metal pipe outfitted with a guitar strap and a contact mic. He dragged a piece of scrap metal along the inside of the pipe, creating a Godzilla-like howl. The drummer finished his rounds through the audience, crawled back on stage, and duct taped a contact mic to his throat. His indecipherable animal sounds suddenly became amplified demonic roars. He picked up a pair of mallets and began to beat the drums. The drum set was worn to shit, but they were outfitted with triggers that made each hit seem impossibly huge and blown out. There was no tempo, no beat, no patterns; just spontaneous bouts of thunder with distorted shrieking on top. The scrap metal player made tape loops while they played, creating strange echoes and Doppler effect pitch shifts. One of the house PA speakers blew.

It was a disturbing and unsettling half hour. The crowd crept to the back of the room, but remained transfixed throughout the performance.