Blake's on Telegraph -- Opener Shawn Brown padded his sneakers into the ground with his eyes shut during most of his mellow folk-jazz set. Crooning in a John Meyer fashion broken into Adam Duritz-like scat syllables, Brown played his sentimental ballads with sax accompaniment by Charles Cooper. Cooper adds a smooth twist to the folk formula in contrast to Brown's tendency to fret on a twangy, buzzy place on his guitar. Not exactly a candidate to expect Megadeth covers out of, although that would have made for an interesting scene.

The likelihood of fetus references, Slayer covers, or the appearance of foxy boys in eye makeup seemed to decrease as the night wore on. The clean-sounding Company Car uses a relatively basic though time-tested approach to rock music, which can lend itself to comparisons to Incubus or the Foo Fighters as well as possible Smashing Pumpkins allusions in the quality of their arpeggio segments. Birthday boy Noah on bass held down, accompanied by drums, a solid rhythm section. The drum lines add some of the most distinctive moments in Company Car's music, as well as the band's penchant for a dramatic ending. Company Car writes songs that take some patience, the more dramatic developments build towards the end and often have intense results, which may account for the seemingly terrorist endings that come all too fast. The vocals have a certain similarity to a cheerier Carlos Mendoza of Displace but work well for layering with background vocals from the guitarist and bassist.

Facing New York, who came on for the late-night bill take a cue from some of the references of Company Car, but with an added psychedelia and some Sonic Youth-like tendencies, but still probably not the best possibility for throwing secret metal signs up at. Every Facing New York song has this haunted feel, like an abandoned city with reflective surfaces and angular empty corridors possibly as a result from the looming twinkling atmospheric keyboard usage. There's a Minus the Bear resemblance in the keyboards, namely Minus the Bear on "We Are Not a Football Team" but generally faster and with more accidentals. This is anxiety rock. If "Full Turn", a new song Facing New York played that evening, is any sign of what is to come from them, you will be hearing Facing New York on a radio station somewhere. Not because they are user-friendly, but because they pull off an intricate thematic layering unlike anything else out there on this particular song. This is an auditory photo of chaos with organ reverb effects and climbing guitar lines.

Drummer Omar Cuellar plays with such tensed shoulders and anguish he destroyed a kit pedal mid-set and had to go running about stripped to his boxers in order to borrow another. No blood sacrifice, but instrumental carnage and male quasi-nudity will do for the evening's metal ritual.

Turkish-inspired rockers Hazerfan have a psychedelia-by-deduction aspect. The Beatles' foray into the introduction of Indian instruments into their music can be viewed as a predecessor to the general direction of Hazerfan; however, Hazerfan are not merely a Western rock band with an Eastern timbre--Hazerfan is a fusion in the true sense of the word. Not as Eastern as Kula Shaker nor as Western as Nile, Hazerfan is somewhere between the two. Certain Eastern qualities stand out in Hazerfan's music, such as the use of electric violin to lend a gypsy quality especially in the emphasis of the raised 7th tone in harmonic minor and the airy often reverb-pedaled vocals with the Eastern-style shifting between accidentals. Vocalist Beth Hada is not as cold tonally as Natasha Atlas but at apex points reaches a similar though warmer brassiness, which compliments the cool minor quality of the violin playing in approximately the same note range as the human voice.

Hazerfan Bass

The guitar, bass, and drums alternate frequently between Eastern and Western characteristics, drawing on an exhaustive supply of influences from classic rock to blues and funk roots as well as more Eastern phrasings and devices. Hazerfan's flavor resembles that of Zeppelin's "Kashmir", which the band covered--the driving violin line, strong drum/bass unity, and a fuzzy/scratchy guitar sound. The music has a spinning momentum to it, like a whirling dervish or plumes of smoke. There is a metal element at play here, although a more classical one, such as that of old Ozzy or Aerosmith, particularly evident in Hazerfan's use of stop/start devices. Compositionally, Hazerfan layers elements equally as complicated as those which Facing New York coordinates, going in at least as many different directions thematically but also unifying well at crux moments. "Hyperspace" being the absolute standout track, epitomizes the cohesive catchiness of these East-West blues/folk-metal elements in harmony.

Another option that Hazerfan might compliment well would be Cechomor, a band that Czech folk-rock singer Lenka Dusilova, who appeared later on the bill, worked with. On albums, Dusilova sounds Dido-like, yet live her voice is richer, rounder, and edgier--like a saner PJ Harvey. Note that Dusilova is the recipient of the equivalent of the Czech Grammy, denoting her popularity in Eastern Europe. Slavic popular music emphasizes different elements from American music, most significantly the element of lyrics because of the long history of censorship in these regions. Accordingly, Dusilova's music showcases the vocal melody. Although one may question the relatability factor of English-speakers listening to mostly Czech-language lyrics, Dusilova communicates beyond the linguistic barrier. Dusilova is an example of the stuff that stars are made of: charisma. She struggles with English, but her voice and demeanor radiate warmth, serenity, sensuality and moodiness. The music aside from Dusilova's vocals is super-mellow, but terse--every note change is significant.

While this show did not cause rioting in the streets and no one wore spiked arm bands, this show is Berkeley-friendly, calling on influences popularized in the late sixties from an eclectic, diverse, and musically fluent set of musicians. It is important to protect the works of those who are different from whatever group one associates oneself with for the key interest of drawing on what they do well. Hazerfan is a particularly excellent example of the virtues of absorbing as many influences as possible, even if it doesn't invoke certain stereotypically metal tropes.

Be sure to check out more photos from this event in Powerslave's Picture Gallery.

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