Bass Drum of Death @ Off Boardway | 04.13.23
Rowdy boys Bass Drum of Death brought their slick garage rock vibes to Off Boardway in St. Louis on April 13th, 2023 in support of their new record Say I Won’t.
It’s been over 9 years since I last photographed Bass Drum of Death. It was for Eleven Magazine, a local music publication that no longer exists. I think they ran a photo from the show in an issue, if memory serves me correct. It was at the Firebird, which closed in 2019, amid some pretty depressing circumstances. From early 2010 to late 2012, I was the house photographer for The Firebird. It was an experience that had it’s ups and downs, but I do remember Bass Drum of Death being one of my favorite bands to photograph in that room. I was very happy, and maybe a bit surprised, to find that Bass Drum of Death still have the vibe and presence I found to be so engaging and refreshing way back when.
Bass Drum of Death frontman John Barrett has typically recorded and performed his project’s music on his own. His first two releases, 2011’s GB City and 2013’s Self-Titled have a mythology about them for their lo-fi DIY production. Barrett recording the first album by himself with an $80 Blue USB mic gets mentioned in almost every bit of ink written about Bass Drum of Death. Personally, I think the first two releases are phenomenal. You wouldn’t know by the Pitchfork reviews, but they are from a time when that publication was a painfully unserious organ of some of the worst writing outside of Babylon Bee article. 2014’s Rip This and 2018’s Just Business weren’t really my thing, though they definitely have their high points. For Say I Won’t, John Barrett moved operations back home to Oxford, Mississippi, re-signed to Fat Possum Records, and let drummer Ian Kirkpatrick and guitarist (and his brother) Jim Barrett hop into the recording booth. Patrick Carney, of car commercial sync masters The Black Keys, was called on to produce.
The result may not have the exact grit and edge of Bass Drum of Death’s earlier work, but it is generally a return to form that greatly satisfies a lapsed fan like myself. To a finer point, it might be the first thing Patrick Carney has produced that didn’t make me want to leap head first into the gorilla exhibit at the zoo. Don’t know where this dude was when he produced The Black Lips, but I’m glad he finally showed up on this record.
The weather here in St. Louis has just decided to roll over into spring. We still have cool mornings, but the afternoons are getting warmer and warmer. At Off Broadway, you could tell that folks were glad they didn’t have to decide between fashion and comfort so much. You can still wear that thrift store button up, but you can leave the goddamn parka at home. Tour support Dead Tooth (I heard they’re from New York) started things off right. If they had set up the crowd, Bass Drum of Death most certainly knocked them down. Yes, that was painful to type.
Bass Drum of Death came out to “I Wanna be Forgotten” off their second record. It a straightforward, fast tempo garage rock song, as well as one of the band’s best. It’s not only a great start for the record it comes from, but could arguably best one of the strongest tracks they could begin a set with.
After that came “Nerve Jamming” off GB City and “No Soul” from the new record. From there, the set list followed like a best-of from Bass Drum of Death’s catalog. While Just Business may not be my favorite album, the title track and “Heavy” are among Bass Drum’s best. The crowd, which skewed young, cheered the beginning and end of just about every song with a hearty enthusiasm that seemed to push the band to put just a little more and more ompf into their performance that by time that they played “Shattered Me” near the end of the set, Bass Drum of Death and the crowd were definitely feeding off each other.
When I was younger, sometimes photographing live music as much as 5 nights a week, this would have felt like another day at the races. Here, in 2023, with the current conditions of the world and, most certainly, this country, it felt a bit special. A welcome diversion from the fact that shit kind of sucks right now.
The band finished out their set with “Get Found”, which still contains one of the best guitar riffs and song structures of its time. It’s a crunchy garage rock song, to be sure, but John Barrett knocked it out with that one. The crowd went off a bit for that one, like they should. After a brief moment off stage, Bass Drum of Death returned for an encore to finish off the night with “No Demons” and “Crawling After You”. People were lifting themselves up in the air and jumping around, and yet I got hit with a lost less beer than I expect. It truly was a Christmas miracle.
As the house lights went out, and a small gathering of old dudes flocked to the front of the stage to check out John’s pedal board, I thought to myself, “Man, I can’t wait to see them again.”
I hope it’s sooner than 9 years.
The Shoot
For this show, I had my Fujifilm X100V for my wider shots, and my Fujifilm GFX50sII. I returned the Fujifilm GF50mmf 3.5 R LM WR that I had recently purchased. It’s a nice lens, but the X100V covers the same general focal length, and didn’t really give me the creamy bokeh that one buys a medium format camera for. So I picked up a Fujifilm 80mm F1.7 R WR to see how that would do. It is a much heavier, faster, and expensive lens, but I like it. The GFX50sII autofocus still struggles in low lighting like this. Image quality aside, it reminds me of the first DSLR I had, which was a Sony A200. That was a $200 kit combo I bought for cheap from some random retailer, like Staples. The GFX50sII is not a $200 camera, and I know I am not using the system for its exact intended purpose, but it is one area where I wish the camera was better.
For this tour, Bass Drum of Death brought in a nice reflective backdrop and accent for their amp stands. It looks great. However, at Off Broadway, the lighting on the backdrop was brighter than the light on the band itself, and the GFX50sII wanted to pull focus to the backdrop pretty much all the time. It was frustrating. The 80mm F1.7 R WR focuses fast enough when it wants to, but because of the lighting difference between performer and background, a proper exposure on the band usually meant blowing out the background a bit. Still, I love that I could shoot above a 1/100 shutter speed at 4000 ISO with such a fast lens. Off Broadway is a great venue, but I wish their lighting was a bit more balanced. The room sounds great and the staff is fantastic. That’s just my small gripe as a music photographer.
The X100V was, as always, fun to shoot with. It’s a great camera for so many situations. Small, relatively fast AF and good IQ. I don’t think I’d ever want to be without a X100 series camera.
Check out the full set of photos from Bass Drum of Death’s show at Off Broadway here!