# Primitive Man
logan and i went to see botch this past saturday
we picked up a joint and smoked half of it before going in
the weed hit us both pretty quick, logan more than me
we enter the venue, into the slow, dark onslaught of the opening band, denver's own 'primitive man'
i grabbed a beer, and we made our way into the crowd
even though i was only mildly stoned, i immediately found myself wondering if i was going to be able to deal with the intensity of this band
i've always liked the aesthetic of really guttural, heavy music
but the *idea* of bands like suffocation and disEMBOWELMENT tends to be more appealing to me than actually listening to their music
even gorguts, who i've loved for awhile now, took many stomach-churning attempts with their seminal album 'obscura' before i could claim to *sometimes* enjoy them
and i do mean stomach-churning -- i quite literally start to feel a little sick when i'm in the thick of it with these bands
it does tend to be a matter of balance
although i get the occasional urge to go on a binge of brutal blackened death metal, the reality is that i can
never get far before i need to intersperse with the likes of carly rae jepsen and jimmy eat world
but here, at this concert, i had no way out
i was trapped in the dark abyss created by primitive man
the two upsides were 1. they sounded solid, and 2. i had earplugs to soften the blow
i found myself wondering what the difference was between me and the band members
i'm sure there's a degree of natural inclination, familiarity, and constitution that sustains them
and perhaps they have a more traditional masculine emotional detachment that allows them to explore the depths for prolonged periods
no matter how much i desensitize myself, i just hit my limit much quicker
but i was so stoked for botch that i wanted to come out the other end in relatively good spirits
with weed, i find i can be very introspective, mindful, and creatively growth-oriented, or the opposite: closed off, anxious, almost trapped
here i felt i was at a crossroads, that my enjoyment was up to me
i organically started to imagine a fourth instrument playing, a light + higher-pitched guitar
it was dramatically out place in the mix, almost comically so
i started to enjoy it's role as a counterpoint to primitive man's tone and overall vibe
part of me thought i was ruining the point of their music with this veritable meme of an addition
i realized that as much as i like to preserve an experience in itself, that was also silly in this case
it was either that, or fall into the darkness
so i pursued the experience further
the single notes of my imagined guitar melodically soloed octaves above theirs, enjoying a comfortably distinct frequency space
i'd try to have it periodically land on notes that roughly corresponded to what they were playing, to hit some musical synchronicity in spite of the obvious stylistic contentiousness
i found myself laughing whenever the two would line up so well that it felt premeditated
eventually my bright guitar started to get dragged down, to descend in pitch and become more dissonant, then had to work to climb back up
this felt like the first step toward a more natural melding of the two
i started to fade out my guitar, and let primitive man's material take back the stage
i was appreciating their music more and more as this went on
i faded the guitar back in, transitioning from single-note melodies to more elaborate chord structures
this helped bridge the aural gap between the two extremes
eventually it was adeptly weaving between moods and styles, no longer impeded by the intense doom metal below
i started to imagine an EP-length collaboration between primitive man and my guitar on its little hero's journey
starting with primitive man in isolation, then traversing these various stages as my guitar found its place against and alongside the darkness
the band finished their set
logan and i reconvened
he felt like he'd stared into a dark abyss for the past 40 minutes, like he was being pulled into and engulfed by the dark side of the force
he'd enjoyed it as much as me, but was able to engage with their full force more directly
then botch played and were sick af
