MUSIC REVIEW: CALIFORNIA BLEEDING (San Diego, CA)

It was a slow Friday night; folks had just finished working their weeks away, and now with the opening band finishing up their  rather heavy and sluggish set, some of us felt like going home to bed instead of seeing, yet another, “atmospheric” band.

California Bleeding was up.

At first glance, you see a pair of friendly looking chaps- one wearing a black band shirt, the other in flannel. Their first impressions leave you remembering the good old days of backyard punk shows and drinking too many beers in a dark alley in the middle of the night. Good times, those.

What can this duo bring us? It was a tough crowd.

To start us off, we hear some funny quips pouring out from the frontman, Aaron, as he works with the sound guy.

“Is the reverb on?” Aaron asks.

The sound guy replies, “Ya, it’s there.”

Aaron then makes sounds into the mic, the echo of reverb obviously missing from his vocal output.

“Argh, I hate reverb anyway!” he yips.

With that, he flings the little black cap off his head, with a jerk of his torso, as he sets his pick against his electric guitar strings in a sound flare. Ross, the drummer, then steals our attention as he fills the room with a thunderous and zealous beat; not unlike Indian war drums. Aaron answers the call with attacks of unpredictable intuition. First, he takes you down with the deep pulsing lows of doom metal; you sit there for one to two minutes and your head starts to “bang” involuntarily. Without warning, he then makes his guitar scream with high pitched trills of beautiful terror. As he toys with the highs and lows, Ross then throws his voice furiously into the mic set up over his kit. You want to hear whatever this man is proclaiming, because at this point you are LISTENING, but some of it is drowned in the ordered chaos of noise the duo are emanating.

Just when you think the boys are losing it...when you think it’s going to garbage, California Bleeding syncs back up to secure the audience in, what feels like, a collective musical subconsciousness. Their music is cerebral, yet a delight for hungry ears, exciting, unique, and at times, spills just enough drama to tickle deep-seated emotions. It is a harmonious mix of blues, jazz, metal, rock, noise, punk, doom, and kind of like Jimi Hendrix French-kissing the Beastie Boys. 

California Bleedings' voices are widely ranged as well.  While Ross yells into the mic with a Baritone voice, Aaron will travel from Tenor to Baritone with different textures like yelling, screaming, singing, even poetic speaking, or absolute non-poetic raunchiness. All the while, they command your attention and you’re more than happy to lay it out for them.

Here is a brief interview MAT had with California Bleeding, after enjoying the show:

MAT: Aaron mentioned being influenced by some Japanese noise bands, which ones? Why?

ROSS: We live for noise in general. As far as Japanese noise goes, one of my first real introductions to the genre was Merzbow. From there, I branched out into bands like Zeni Geva, Melt Banana, Ruins, Green Milk from the Planet Orange, and one of my absolute favorites, Maruosa. If you want to experience something chaotic, just throw on the Maruosa video for “Muscle Spark”. That kind of stuff just puts music in a different perspective and changes your state of mind for short periods of time. It’s just really f------ fun.

AARON: He forgot the Boredoms.

ROSS: I can't believe I forgot the Boredoms. I'm a horrible person.

Maruosa-"Muscle Spark"
Boredoms-"Soul Discharge"

MAT: Briefly explain your sound/genre, "Avant-garde-core?" on Bandcamp. What influenced your sound?

AARON: I came up with “avant-garde-core” because I thought it sounded pretty stupid. And, it is pretty inaccessible by most people (our music). I think on our first jaunt up the west coast is when I said "avant-garde-core" and we both started laughing.

ROSS: It’s experimental, but it’s also driving. There’s a lot of jazz, avant-garde, doom, math, hardcore, and noise influence. It’s just kind of a mash of everything that we like. I think there are equal parts Lightning Bolt, Stooges, The Locust, Daughters, Misfits, The Birthday Party, Neurosis, and Arab on Radar influence.

MAT: How did you two meet and why did you form a band together?

ROSS: We met at the Casbah. I was with a friend at a show where they had no cover and free food. We were talking about the Monotonix show coming up, and Aaron chimed in, ‘You boys like Monotonix?’ He had just moved from Missouri and was living out of his truck and crashing with a friend. He actually asked me if he could crash at my place that night, but my roommates were kind of like, ‘You just met him?...No.’ [Aaron] couldn't find anyone to jam with, so I had him come by and play with my old stoner band for a bit.

AARON: We formed a band, I think, because we're both pretty aggressive when it comes to playing and addressing the audience. And, I think when we jammed the first time, we both were like, ‘Whoa! What the f--- was that? I never played no s--- like that before!'

MAT: What do you want for California Bleeding in the future?

ROSS: To write and release more music, play more shows, and tour more. Also, maybe one day, to not lose money playing noise rock, but that’s a pipe dream.

AARON: What I want is for people to have fun at our goddamn shows. It's a party for me and I'm always trying to get responses from the crowd; good or bad, I don't care. Drink, have fun, dance, and let your hair hang down, ya know? This is why I hate playing up on a stage. It separates us on one side from the other…For the future? A guerrilla tour: no venues, no sound guys, no middlemen; a string of pop up shows in random places across the world-short notice and set up by the audience. The 10 people who know about it tell their homies and we show up, do a fifteen minute set, illegally, and leave before the fuzz even knows what happened.

MAT: What motivates your writing?

ROSS: For me, it’s literally everything. My approach to writing is very in the moment. Aaron or I will come up with something that we think sounds cool, then the other will try and compliment it. If those parts strike me with any particular memory, feeling, thought, etc., that’s what the song becomes about to me. That’s also how I remember them aside from having Aaron play his parts over and over until I get the timing right.

AARON: I really try to tell a story with sound and almost always fail. It's really hard because there are infinite words and phrases to use, but only twelve musical intervals in Western music. So, I think we really write a song and say, ‘What sounds good next? Find that,’ then do the complete opposite. My writing lately, has been influenced by smoking and drinking heavily, and then listening to the sound of the city. It's waaaay heavier than us.

MAT: What song of yours would you want Godzilla to listen to?

ROSS: 'No Work.' Hands down. Aaron plays this super hi-pitch riff that sounds like Mothra’s laser. We played a show in Bakersfield with this band called The Blacksmiths and the bassist kept referring to it as 'The Mothra song.'

AARON: Spot on. ‘No work.’

California Bleeding-"No Work"
Also, see their Facebook: California Bleeding Facebook

The band is loud. The band is fun. Monster Attack Team approves!