Is the Zoo Bar doomed? The Nebraska Stoner, Sludge and Doom Metal Association sure thinks it will be on 4/20. They have arranged a seven band “earbleeder” to take place at the historic Zoo Bar in Lincoln, NE. The show is scheduled to start at 5pm and wrap up about midnight, fairly early, so now “I have to work tomorrow” bulls*it.
The lineup will be featuring Megaton, King Thumper, Odinson, Monarchs of Speed, Moltron, Caligula and Farmdog. So you do not forget, RSVP right now.
I sat down with one of the organizers of the show, Steve Smith of Megaton and the Nebraska Stoner, Sludge and Doom Metal Group, to talk about the impending doom.
DW: Steve, thanks for taking some time to sit down with me and talk about the Doom at the Zoo show. Tell me a little about what got you thinking to do a heavy music fest in Lincoln.
SS: Well, a few years ago I started a group on Facebook called the Nebraska Stoner, Sludge and Doom metal group. I wanted to find some like minded bands for Megaton to play with. Fortunately I was able to meet a bunch of great guys in Monarchs of Speed, Super Invader (which has since migrated to Odinson), TenDead, Porkbelly, Wet Radio and so on and so forth. Through this group I met a guy by the name of Justice Strong from King Thumper and he really went out of his way to give that group the attention it deserved. Naturally we decided we needed to group these bands on the same show. Using his Lincoln connections and my band connections we booked a 4-20 date at the Zoo Bar.
DW: Is this the first show that you have organized through the NSSD group?
SS: Officially yes. For years I’ve been using the group to meet other bands, but this is the first one that would be considered a NSSD production.
DW: Why did you decide to start your own group on facebook? What makes the NSSD different than other metal promotion facebook stuff?
SS: I’d noticed a lot of similar bands in the area, but no real cohesiveness. I’d been a part of the Nebraska Metal Heads group as well as a few others, but I never felt quite at home among them. I wanted to bring a more specific awareness to my favorite genre of music and more specifically to the bands playing around this area. I’d seen groups dedicated to Death Metal and such, I figured why not bring the same spotlight to sludge and doom?
DW: It seems like the group is pretty active, what do you attribute that to?
SS: I have to give quite a bit of credit to Justice from King Thumper. Had he not stepped up and volunteered to help me, it wouldn’t be nearly as active. I also feel what really has helped us, was that I am friends with every band that contributes to the group. It’s a very fun community.
DW: For someone who isn’t very familiar with doom and sludge metal, what separates that scene from the other sub-genre metal scenes?
SS: It’s incredibly diverse. If you go through our list and listen to each of the bands they sound similar, but not the same. You have my band, Megaton, which takes the aggression of thrash and mixes it with the stoner metal of High on Fire and Mastodon. You have Caligula which is very good at replicating the old grunge sound, Monarchs of Speed who can rock the stoner rock sound and King Thumper who takes the oddities from psychedelic rock and Primus and makes it very heavy. A show with any of these bands on the bill can do a good job of keeping people’s attentions, they don’t know what’s coming next.
DW: That’s great, you’ve really got to keep people glued to the stage, especially on a seven band show! Any last thoughts for our readers, Steve?
SS: Thanks for the interview man. And not to sound cliche, but this interview made me happier than getting my dick sucked off by a wet vacuum cleaner!
DW: We’re here to please! Thanks for chatting!
If you haven’t seen these bands before, this is an awesome opportunity to fill your head with a wide array of Nebraska’s flavor of stoned and sludgy, and on 4/20, no less. Make sure you get the cheeto dust off your fingers first, but…
Get out and pay some cover charges f*ckers!
