Trans Am, Federation X, Life Coach (live at Stumpfest )

Mississippi Studios
Portland, OR
25 April 2014

The ramifications of the loop, the power of the riff, the subdivision of the motorik beat. College, krautrock, and working for yr music festival.

This jam-packed free-for-all in the barnlike interior of Mississippi Studios on a Thursday night illustrated exactly how far kosmische musik has come since Trans Am first released its seminal Futureworld on Thrill Jockey in 1999. When I first heard Trans Am in college (I hate even writing things like that. I didn’t finish, though, don’t worry), it seemed like approximately 12 people — most likely all musicians and music journalists — were jamming the likes of Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk. It was the ultimate badge of obscurity, to show you were hip and European and futurist.

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Fast forward 13 years, 13 years of Can re-issues and Neu! re-packaging, to a Thursday night in Portland, OR packed nearly to capacity. It was a right and proper party, with beautiful women and friendly beardly metal dudes thrashing to riffs and sashaying to Klaus Dinger‘s efficient beat. It felt like we had arrived. It felt like we were dancing in the future.

I started off the evening with kind of a fiasco. I just moved across town, and am not yet familiar with the transportation. I ended up getting turned around and wandering aimlessly through the Mississippi/Albina area for hours, undernourished, with repetitive psych rock in my headphones, talking to drunken and deranged homeless men. It was inconvenient, sure, but felt oddly appropriate, with so much of Trans Am’s music focusing on mobility and psychedelia. I was exhausted before I even arrived, but it seemed like the mood was set, to have an actual EXPERIENCE. Remember when concerts were actual events? Things you looked forward to? Could change you?

Amazingly enough, Portland seemed to shake off the detritus of self-consciousness and social awareness and get down, ’til nearly one in the morning. I was proud of all of us. Stumpfest, now in its third year, is primarily a metal festival, (officially defined as “a fantastic amalgam of music, bro love and art”), and I applaud organizer Rynne Stump for adventurous programming and a liberal definition of metal. Stumpfest is doing a great job, throwing a spotlight on many of the great local heavy talents that we have in this town which often get overlooked.

Having missed the first two bands, (Hot Victory, from Portland, and Drab Majesty, which both sound cool and bear further investigation), I arrived just in time for Life Coach, the duo of Trans Am’s guitarist Phil Manley with former Mars Volta (!!!) sticksman Jon Theodore on drums. Against a projected backdrop of sunrise over snow-capped mountains, the pair pumped cascading riffs, chiming, infinite tones and soulful breakbeats into breathing, swelling, evolving loops. There is a sense of hypnosis inherent in the loop, of being caught in the lockgroove. Time stands still, and a theta wave meditative trance is an inevitable side effect. The music builds, coagulates and breaks like sun-dappled waves, giving the format a ritualistic flavor.

Being fairly familiar with Trans Am, I was most curious to see this collaboration, to notice the similarities and discern the differences. The most notable contrast was in the drumming. You could say Theodore, who is such a beast he kicked the drums halfway across the floor, would be the Buddy Miles to Sebastian Thomson from Trans Am’s Noel Redding. Theodore’s got more swerve, groove and soul, while Thomson is a polyrhythmic powerhouse. The guitar playing was the other noticeable difference, and it was cool seeing Manley drawing from a different toolbox. Trans Am doesn’t (seemingly) use any loops, so watching him weave hypnotic tapestries out of thin air was illuminating. Getting up close and personal, I can definitely say, the bastard’s got a wicked tone and technique – his guitar sighing, squealing, singing, inquiring.

The closest similarity I could summon was the now sadly defunct Emeralds, with their blend of prog-synth shamanism, and those that miss that band will love this one. As anyone who has spent any time listening to loopy music, its great when it’s good, but it’s easy to mess it up, with sloppy looping or boring arrangements. Life Coach were tight and refined, seemingly well-rehearsed, bowing and shifting on a hairpin. Inspiring. By the end of their set, the projected sun had fully risen over the mountains, and it seemed the solar ritual was complete. A delightfully uplifting performance.

Next up was Federation X, from Bellingham, WA who brought the stoner hard rock grooves. It could be said that they’re a band that grew up loving bands that grew up loving Black Sabbath. They could be seen as the dreaded ‘hipster metal’, with their fanged kitten album cover art, but that would be a mistake. There is a bit of a plaintive quality to Bill Badgley‘s vocals that reminds us that Death Cab For Cutie were also from Bellingham, and while some might hate, I throw my devil horns in the air for someone singing in their natural voice rather than adopting some embarrassing cookie monster growl to appear “heavy.” Federation X had a wide ranger of emotions and made more of an impact because of it. They were being themselves, and having a great time on stage. Hozoji Margullis from the band Helms Alee filled in on bass with a sly fox grin on her face the whole time, giving the feeling that playing power chords and gravel slide riffs on a bass through a full stack for a living is the greatest job on Earth. I want to be a bass player in a metal band when I grow up! They played several tracks off of their newest record, We Do What We Must, which is insanely infectious and will make you fall in love with your Melvins and Saint Vitus records all over again.

Federation X were probably the fan favorites of the evening, getting everyone in the mood with their feelgood synchronized riffage. While we all wait for that new Baroness record, you’d be advised to check out Federation X and spend some time in the sun.

Lastly, the main attraction: Bethesda, Maryland’s Trans Am. I’ve listened to them for years, but had never seen the band live; in fact, I rarely come across any krautgrooves live, so I was curious and excited to see how it translated. Trans Am illustrate how dangerous it is to label things and stop. Yes, Trans Am do evoke the feeling of driving on a wide-open road and revolves around the boom – boom – chk – boom, but Sebastian Thomson takes that basic, metronomic concept and finds every possible permutation and subdivision. Thomson’s drumming was definitely the grand-slam defining characteristic of the band… what a fucking beast! Instead of rack toms, he had a series of roto-toms that cut through the club like ultrasonic ping pong balls which he hit in every combination as many times as possible during a beat. He’s John Bonham with a gangster chain, pure shirtless rock’n’roll fury! He is the napalm combustion engine over which Nathan Means and Phil Manley’s airy melodies and neon visions coast frictionlessly.

They played a few songs from Futureworld, as well as a few songs off of their forthcoming album on Thrill Jockey, Volume X, which is out on May 20. Trans Am also featured way more synth than I remember, as well as vocoder, which prevented them from being just another instrumental math rock band, with Means and Manley constantly switching instruments, keeping things interesting and clipping along. Brittle, precise mathiness gave way to beefy John Carpenter-esque Minimoog jams, and I was struck by how entirely prescient this band is, predicting the horrorscore dance floor infusion by a decade (they toured with Zombi at one point as well); the interest in psychedelic German music, which has become ubiquitous; and the prog instrumental synthetic fusion of the cassette labels. I know that Trans Am have their loyal following, but now is the time to climb on board their hovercraft.

I stuck through to the bitter end, defying the transportation gods, and almost had to walk five miles home as no bus was coming, but my dedication to the Combustion Deities were rewarded, and a last-minute 2am bus shuttled me, safe and secure, back to St. John’s.

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Before Trans Am, Rynne Stump took the stage and uttered an impassioned, giddy introduction, where she showed herself to be a true lover of metal and good music. “Cuz that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it,” she asked. “Like minded people coming together, building something, climbing higher and higher.”

Amen. At this rate, in a just world, Stumpfest will be bigger than Sasquatch in five years. Fly in next year!

-J Simpson-