Day 2, Saturday, of the endurance competition known as Emissions from the Monolith IV began with the early awakening of most of us for the "StonerRock.com meet and greet breakfast." Well, except carsongirl, who spearheaded the whole idea of having a meet-and-greet at 11am Saturday. She sauntered in after the buffet breakfast was long over and most of us were just getting up to leave. Nice going carsongirl! hehe - And that wasn`t the only potential hinderance to the success of the meet-and-greet. We had all agreed via a forums thread to meet at the hotel restaraunt at 11am. "Well, lookee see here ma! Says here dis darn place ain`t be openin` till noon!" Bugger me! So, with some quick thinking from oatmealsteve he made some quick calls and secured us a buffet breakfast reservation at the ritzy Holiday Inn down the road even though they were technically closed already when he called. The fact that there were gonna be 20 or 30 of us wanting breakfast and bloody marys changed their minds about closing on time that particular morning. The bloody marys were absolute shit, they just tasted like tomato juice to me, but they did the trick and soothed the old hangover gland noticeably.

But how would everyone else who came later than 11am know where to find us?? I didn`t know. This was quickly looking like it could turn into a great disaster and The Fear made it`s first appearance of the day. But, somehow people seemed to manage. All up, there were upwards of 25 forums members there at the peak of attendance. And there are pictures directly to your right. Usernames of some of those from the forums who did make it to breakfast are listed on the photos themselves if you click to enlarge them (instead of me listing all of the names here, and possibly forgetting some :) Unfortunately I neglected to take photos up the other side of the table (I was in the middle) as well as the table behind me. Oops. I try to do smart things. Really I do...

The meet-and-greet was a great success and carsongirl showed up fashionably (very)late and charmed the pants off of everyone so no harm done on her part :) - And then it was back to the Nyabinghi to resume our punishment. After all... We had been naughty, we deserved it and there was much pleasure to be had in the pain.

After grabbing a proper bloody mary at the bar it was time to catch Sofa King Killer who were already on stage. (I guess we accidentally missed the first band) Bruhaha. Whooops! Sofa King Killer is one of the bands that I was really excited to see for the first time. Their split CD with Leechmilk was one of my faves of last year and we host their website at http://www.stonerrock.com/sofakingkiller/. They were pretty much exactly what I expected them to be like! The Sofa King Killer sound is heavy and very aggressive with sludge-core vocals but with a Fu Manchu riff-groove thing going on that puts them in a different arena than other sludge-core bands. And I fucking love it! Sofa King Killer is alright by me!

Fistula was up second and was another sludge-core style band ala Eyehategod but unlike Sofa King Killer`s upbeat and catchy vibe Fistula`s groove was slow, evil and dark with an obvious lack of feel good fun parts. I like this kind of stuff. I`m actually listening to the brand new Crushers, Killers, Destroyers disc right now. It`s a five way split featuring Fistula, Mugwart, Goatsblood, Molehill and Sloth which is fucking heavy!

And continuing on with the Noise Core Trilogy of Terror up came Jumbo`s Kill Crane, a band that I`ve seen twice before. But, whereas Sofa King Killer has the groove and Fistula has the evil darkness Jumbo`s Kill Crane has the smokin` energy. It`s AmRep inspired noise rock with just the slightest touches of that infamous polka/desert rock rhythm sprinkled sparsely here and there. To put it another way: full-on noise rock with quirky rhythms. Great stuff!

Right about this time I was probably on my 5th drink of the day and I was feeling just about exactly as toasted as I would usually feel at a normal rock show where the next band would be the 4th and last band of the night. Oh-oh. And I was habitually following my usual four-bands-in-an-evening drinking schedule. I suddenly and powerfully realized that I would be totally trashed by the 6th band of 14 if I kept drinking at this pace. I turned emergency thinking mode on and pondered my options. There were many. A significant number could have had potentially severe consequences. After much deliberation I decided to split a super potent spacecake (provided by spacecakes himself!) with psofire and started drinking the free Red Bull that was available at the bar. Ahhh.. Crisis narrowly avoided! But for how long could I maintain my composure once the spacecakes kicked in?

No sense worrying about that now. The more pressing question at this point in time was "where the hell is Sherman?" Earthride, who was playing in Superhighway Carfire`s slot (they had to cancel), was up on stage vocalistless and noodling out some nervous jams for about 15 minutes wondering just exactly when their frontman would show up. I guess he thought they were playing the following slot and didn`t even realize that he was supposed to be on stage yet. Oh well. He showed up eventually and it seemed to me that they played a whole set`s worth of music. At least it felt that way to me. I don`t feel jipped at all either way so I guess it doesn`t really matter. Does it? What does matter is that Earthride totally smokes! Super fuzzed out power doom coated thickly with a Motorhead vibe and tuned down to the nether-regions. I get that Motorhead impression mostly from Sherman`s vocals. Very cool stuff. Most people that I talked to stated clearly that Earthride was one of their faves of the weekend. Hey! Hold on! Wait a second here... Did I just say "Super fuzzed out power doom coated thickly with a Motorhead vibe and tuned down to the nether-regions."???? I think I did. I obviously need a break! Back shortly. In the meantime - enjoy the photos! :)

Ok.. I`m back.. I took the night off last night and watched Harry Potter on DVD.. I think I`ve returned to normal now :) Immediately following Earthride were the now legendary leaders of loudness Dragon Green. These guys had the back wall of the stage completely covered with cabinets of all varieties (Green, Sunn, Mesa Boogie) that were powered by excessive Green amplification. They also had a large projection screen behind them playing psychedelic imagery throughout their set. Very cool. Very heavy. Very, very loud. And stoney too! If you`re a big fan of Sleep and High on Fire then you`ll definitely *get* Dragon Green.

During Dragon Green`s set the half-a-spacecake I`d ingested ealier had come on strong and I was in a seriously heightened state of conciousness when locals Rebreather hit the stage. I believe these guys pretty much hold the Nyabinghi "house band" title. I believe they`ve played at previous Emissions festivals as well but I`d never caught them myself. Man am I glad I caught them this time! They were one of the biggest "surprise" bands of the weekend for myself and many other`s who I talked too. I can`t really pinpoint their sound, or really even remember it that much considering the state I was in, except to say that Rebreather is INTENSE and POWERFUL and they FUCKING ROCK! I was totally and completely taken away to another dimension while they played and was awe-struck when they finished. Awesome!

Halfway to Gone was scheduled to be up next after Rebreather but, as was becoming the trend, they had to cancel with very short notice. Another local band called Gil Mantera`s Party Dream was somewhat suspiciously selected to fill their slot. To call them a "band" is a bit of a stretch actually. Party Dream is more of a comedy duo. A comedy duo that utilizes extensive sexual and homoerotic subject matter, dresses in full body spandex, strips down to their g-string speedo underwear over the course of their set, stuffs things between their ass cracks as part of the performance and just generally gets up on stage and acts altogether queer while playing synthesizer pop music of some ambiguous description. But hey, they drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and completely improvise each performance so they`re O.K. in my books! Besides.. They were funny as fucking hell! The room was packed for their show - which was surprising considering the 99.9% macho rocker dude audience quotient. Actually, that`s not even true. There was a very ecclectic bunch of cool people in attendance at Emissions IV. Unfortunately I`d used the first 3/4 of

Party Dream`s set to get some fresh air, food and water inside of me. I wish I`d gotten more photos.

I poked my head in for Rammer, realized that they were way too classic-metal for my tastes and took this opportunity to recouperate a bit and catch up with old friends and new aquaintances as much as possible. The one unfortunate thing about the festival being run so efficiently was the lack of free time to socialize. We were there for the ROCK after all but it`s not often that there are so many people in one room that you want to talk to. Personally I could have dealt with less bands and more time in between sets because there were StonerRock.com Community Members from all over the world in attendance that I would have loved to take the time to have a proper conversation with. I actually spent most of the little socializing time I had between bands catching up with old friends who I hadn`t seen in months. There just wasn`t enough time to meet everyone. Maybe next time! :(

The infamous Boulder was up after Rammer with their Judas Priest inspired dual flying-V punk-metal attack. Super high energy, brilliant lead work and a healthy dose of humour to lighten things up. I fucking love these guys live and on CD but the back room was packed for their set so I didn`t manage to get any useable photos of them at all.. Bummer.. And then during Penance`s set my camera started acting up. I thought I had it fixed and continued snapping photos all through the rest of the night but the film was apparently light-damaged in the process so there will be no photos from Penance, Mastodon, Weedeater or Electric Frankenstein. Fuck and Double Fuck! (Edit: I managed to find one good Boulder shot after all.. here it is...)

And while we`re on the topic of photos let me also mention that a lot of the "good" photos I took had headless band members in them :( You can tell that they would have been great shots but they`re not much use without the heads! This was due to the Nyabinghi being so packed! I could only take pictures from right up against the stage without getting the backs of crowd-heads in every shot. I was obviously too close! I need more practice taking pictures at packed shows but they hardly ever happen in this scene! Maybe the tides are turning? Startin` to seem that way....

Uhh.. and social commentary aside... I love some of Penance`s stuff, especially their Turn for the Worse EP and their brand new Alpha and Omega but their older stuff doesn`t really do a whole lot for me. Seeing them live was great though. Mary, whom I`d spent a lot of time over the weekend chatting with, is a great bassist and also a pleasure to hang with. She looked like she was having a blast up on stage too - I`m really bummed that the photos of Penance didn`t turn out cuz I think they would have been really good! One of their guitarists had also broken a finger on his fretboard hand only days before the festival and instead of standing down they spent all night on Friday rehearsing so that he could learn to play the entire set using only 3 of his fingers! Sorry, I can`t remember the exact details but still, how dedicated is that?

And.. Mastadon was the third big surprise of the festival for myself and most people who I talked to. Super-heavy, mathy, aggressive, precise and technical. I totally enjoyed their set, even though it`s not really my kinda thing and can definitely appreciate why they`ve successfully shared bills with High on Fire and other stoner-rock bands. Intense!

Wow.. I`m really surprised that I can even remember anything from this point in the evening but I can. I was still using my willpower and discipline to remain standing and coherant! Quite the accomplishment for me :) I also made it until around 11pm or midnight before I had my first cigarette of the day. Damn impressive! Sunday was not quite the success story of Friday and Saturday so please bear with me while I get some bragging out there before I have the "hey look at me, I`m an idiot" day of confession in Part 3.

Weedeater were up next-to-last and just CRUSHED. I`ve reviewed them many times before so there`s not much new for me to say. They sounded the best I`ve ever heard them this time though. The tone was thick and immaculate and beautiful.

Headlining Saturday, and somewhat out of place at this festival, was Electric Frankenstein. I am not a fan of their bad-ass-rock/punkabilly thing that they`ve got going on and they were plagued with equipment problems. They simply paled in comparison to all of the top-notch acts of the day and the Nyabinghi backroom emptied out quickly.

At this point, believe it or not, the Nyabinghi was totally fucking packed!! It was almost impossible to move in the front room of the club but we stuck around for a while, continued drinking and got as much last minute socalizing in as possible before last call. At which time I bought a dozen bottles of Miller from the bar and we all headed back to the hotel where Nolan, sapling and I were sharing a hotel room that was connected by a door to Tony and psofire`s room. Yes, we`d been at a rock festival in a smoke filled club since noon and we were still fit to party and drink the rest of the night away until dawn.

The rest of the night was spent inebriated and laughing our assess off to sapling and Sativa71`s non-stop Terrence and Phillip impressions until long after the sun came up. I actually laughed myself to sleep. Believe it or not, Sativa71 has the entire Silence of the Lambs movie memorized and can recite any scene upon request! Holy shit! I should have taken photos in the hotel rooms! Oh well..

Well.. That`s the end of Part 2. Stay tuned for a report on Sunday`s activities in Part 3! Coming soon! :)

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