Several months prior to this show, our sister podcast, the Butt Metal Blast Cast, interviewed Philly grindcore band Bandit‘s vocalist Gene Meyer. At the time, he told us that Bandit was planning on touring the States with New York-based, Nepalese-born experimental grindcore band Chepang, but the closest that they would be coming to Kansas was going to be St. Louis. Lo and behold, when I saw the tour schedule a couple of weeks later, they had included a stop in Kansas City. I’d like to think that the interview we did played at least a small role in getting the tour to come to Kansas City, but who really knows?

Both aforementioned bands have released two of my favorite albums this year: Bandit‘s Siege of Self and Chepang’s Swatta. I did write-ups for both albums on Heavy Blog is Heavy (here and here). Siege of Self is currently sitting at my tentative number-one spot for its complex but memorable songs and technical riff wizardry as much as for its brutal portrayal of (Gene’s very real) mental health struggles. Swatta, on the other hand, is what I characterized as the “grindcore journey of the year” as the album is split into four distinct sections that loosely represent a journey through the darkness of chaos into the light of hope. Fitting that description, the music itself runs the gamut from angularly melodic grindcore to abstract noise experimentation.

The first band to perform at Howdy was KCMO’s own Missouri Executive Order 44 (MEO44). For those who don’t know, or who are too lazy to use the internet (I’m looking at you, Mark Of The Beast), the band’s name references an actual executive order decreed by a former governor of Missouri. This 1838 executive order, often referred to as the “Mormon Extermination Order”, essentially made Mormons enemies of the state of Missouri. Although a hotly debated issue, subsequent violence against Mormons in Missouri at the hands of militiamen is often attributed to the executive order, especially the Haun’s Hill Massacre in which 17 people, including children, were killed.

The band themselves dress up in the way that we often see Mormons dress: white dress shirts, black dress pants, and bicycle helmets as they ride from neighborhood to neighborhood spreading their message. The only difference is that MEO44 wears identity-shrouding black pantyhose over their heads. According to the band themselves, they want to draw attention to the ways in which their own state government has a history of using the specter of state-sponsored tyranny to “alienate the rights of citizens it does not deem as ‘acceptable'”, and how that practice still continues today toward a variety of groups. One can assume that the band is at least referring to African Americans and trans folks considering Missouri’s use of state tactics against both groups.

MEO44 played a chaotic mixture of noisecore and grindcore, presumably drawing inspiration from bands such as Gaza and early Daughters. Matt Perrin, the former guitarist of KC’s now sadly defunct noise rock sweethearts Bummer and current drummer of KC’s premiere (IMHO) post-hardcore band Big Water, goes by the pseudonym Elos Olsen in MEO44. While Perrin often relied on power chords and sheer volume to aurally punish Bummer listeners, his style in MEO44 often indulges in unmitigated dissonance with heavy use of minor second intervals. Vocalist Jarom Johnson’s (presumably a pseudonym) came off as MEO44‘s mentally unwell priest-in-chief as his vocals wavered between psychotic preaching and frantic shrieking.

Besides Johnson’s proselytizing, MEO44‘s set was rife with samples from what sounded like sermons, but they were often filtered through heavy reverb, giving a ghostly, ominous quality to them. At one point during the performance, the vocalist asked the audience to join them in prayer and the crowd immediately fell to their knees. At this point, I looked over at Gene Meyer and his eyes were as big as the Liahona as he looked over to one of his tourmates in disbelief. I think I, like Gene, did not entirely know to what extent the band was being sincere. Were these guys actual Mormons? After reading a copy of their pamphlet, which was right next to CDs shrinkwrapped together with Mormon Bibles, in which they describe the events that took place at the Haum Hill Massacre, I must admit that I was even more confused about whether the members of the band were actually sincere and perhaps even members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints themselves. Fortunately, The Pitch article I linked earlier helped clear things up.

Czech grindcore band Decultivate followed MEO44. Decultivate was a band that played Obscene Extreme last year but one that I sadly missed as they played at some ungodly hour (2:00 a.m. if memory serves). While Decultivate ripped through a short set, I realized that they were scratching all the right grindcore itches for me. They played like a well-oiled machine, had quite a bit of rhythmical variety, and were technical without being overly noodly.

Another band that performed at Obscene Extreme last year but who I actually saw perform was Bandit. During their OE performance, Gene shed his clothes to reveal nothing but SpongeBob SquarePants underwear, jumped into the mosh pit, hit himself in the face with his fist and microphone, and ended the set on his knees puking on stage. While I was prepared to witness a performance as absurdly extreme and entertaining as that, I also figured that that sort of performance is incredibly difficult to maintain throughout an entire tour. While Gene neither stripped nor puked this time around, he did become possessed as the Viking berzerker monk that we ascribed to him in our Butt Metal Blast Cast interview with him as he rolled on the floor, swung his arms and legs around, and pushed some people around (namely, the vocalist from Decultivate).

Considering how technically demanding the material on Siege of Self is, Bandit only had one noticeable mistake in the form of a false start. Otherwise, in spite of guitarist Jack McBride’s kicks and other near-constant movements, the combo of McBride and drummer Gobinda Senchury was lockstep throughout the entire set. It’s also worth mentioning that the lack of low-end as a result of the band being without a bassist was just as noticeable in the live setting as it was on the album itself: meaning, almost not at all. I did not personally spot anything in McBride’s setup that would account for the low end being as filled out as it was in the live setting (aside from the fact that he plays a 7-string guitar, which he apparently got from Scott Hull). But just like on the album version, the ascending tapping guitar pattern in “Siege of Self” was the one time that the low end was noticeably absent.

Chepang was the headlining band of the evening, and having just become very acquainted with Swatta while writing its entry for Heavy Blog is Heavy, I was excited to hear how the tracks translated to the live setting. Unfortunately, Chepang did not have as balanced of a sound as the other bands did. I think this was in part because the guitar was noticeably too quiet when compared to the drums and noise samples. Possibly as a result of this, their sound was noticeably muddier when compared with their recent studio album and compared with the other bands of the evening. Moreso than the other bands, it was difficult to distinguish songs from one another as the noise sampling overwhelmed much of the guitar work. Nonetheless, what Chepang lacked in good sound was made up by the incredible energy of dual vocalists, Sanket Lama and Dipesh Hirachan. Lama and Hirachan bound from one side of the room to the other as they headbanged and howled into their microphones.

At some point before arriving at the venue, I realized that it was my first time seeing an all-grindcore show. This was difficult for me to believe since grindcore is perhaps my favorite subgenre of metal, but you simply don’t see many touring bills through the KC area that are nothing but grindcore. What astounded me even more was a characteristic of the crowd that was pleasantly surprising: the seemingly high representation of LGBTQ+ folks.

I can’t say for certain without assuming the genders of several audience members, but I would guess that there were a fair amount of trans and/or gender-nonconforming folks in attendance, especially relative to most metal shows I’ve attended in the Kansas City area. Anyone who goes to metal shows regularly, at least in the area, would know that the vast majority of fans are straight white dudes.

The question I have is this: what was it about this show in particular that drew so many (assumingly) LGBTQ+ folks? Before making too many assumptions about the draw of the music itself, I do think that the dual venues of Howdy and Farewell KCMO (venues which are literally right next to each other and, I would presume, are owned by the same people) have a very progressive and open DIY culture that creates a welcoming environment for leftist politics as well as a safe space for marginalized groups. While this particular show was going on, for example, there were anarchist/environmentalist activists who had a table outside with different materials (flyers, pamphlets, etc.).

On the other hand, grindcore seems to be a genre that has historically been intertwined with leftist politics, from godfathers Napalm Death and Assück to modern-day bands such as The HIRS Collective and Svffer. However, I have noticed how the emerging movement within the subgenre cybergrind seems to draw musicians and fans who don’t fit into the predominant gender-conforming norms. While I have generally attributed the term “cybergrind” to bands like Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Berzerker, Psudoku, and the criminally underrated Phantomsmasher, there is a new crop of bands, such as Blind Equation, Thotcrime, and DEATHTRIPPA who seem to have a far different take on the subgenre. Instead of taking on stereotypical metal aesthetics, these latter bands seem to have immersed themselves in the internet culture aesthetic similar to that of vaporwave. But rather than producing hypnagogic, nostalgia-inducing music, they instead create a confrontational concoction of post-ironic noise, industrial, and grindcore.

I am still rather ignorant when it comes to the world of nü-cybergrind, but I can only speculate that the historically leftist politics of grindcore combined with (what I imagine to be) 21st-century internet-mediated safe spaces for LGBTQ+ communities might play into the attraction of cybergrind for sexually-marginalized populations.

If anyone has any insight into what, as far as I can tell, is a pretty strong relationship between cybergrind and LGBTQ+ communities, then leave comments below. I want to learn more!