Shhhh! No — scream! It's BloodHag, the library band
Laying eyes on BloodHag's four members is its own entertainment, especially surrounded by the other patrons of Ballard's Sunset Tavern. Sporting thick glasses, white button-down shirts and ties, they're easy enough to pick out from the ironic-T-shirt-wearing, dyed-haired masses. When they take the stage, one guy at the bar wonders who the ska band is.
Not ska, friends. Speed metal. They're named BloodHag. Think about it.
And not just any kind of speed metal, but tunes extolling the praises of science-fiction authors. These metal kings sing songs of George Orwell and Isaac Asimov, as well as Franz Kafka and William S. Burroughs. Usually author Octavia Butler would be represented in a set, but her ode has been nixed from tonight's lineup, since they've played it so much.
Like a good self-proclaimed professor should, lead singer Jake Stratton (aka Professor J.B. Stratton) quickly sets the Sunset crowd straight. He opens a book, one of about 15 the Seattle band's brought with them destined to sail into the faces of the audience, and begins reading a passage about other weird existences. Just when you think you're starting to understand what he's saying, guitarist Jeffery "Dr. J.M." McNulty pipes in with a second way-out oratory, followed by the bass-toting Sir Zachary Orgel's voice, until it's an incomprehensible flat drone. Ambassador Brent Carpenter, BloodHag's drummer, says nothing.
Then Stratton breaks in. "This is Edu-Core!" he bellows. From that point on, class is in session. As the singer introduces the first ditty, the debut of their ode to Kafka, McNulty declares, "Some of you naysayers may say, 'Not science fiction!' We say, nay!"
A voice shouts back from the audience, "We say play!"
With a piercing riff from Carpenter, BloodHag begins.
Books and science fiction are both in Stratton's blood. Both his parents are librarians who instilled in him a love of reading. His adoration of sci-fi and fantasy came once his father read him J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," the same book that turned on the other members of the band to alternate realms. "The Hobbit" led to Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, then authors such as Ursula LeGuin, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein. In their teenage years these guys, all in their 30s except for 28-year-old Carpenter, read as much as they rocked.
Energy, intelligence and humor
BloodHag is a certified literacy program, Stratton proclaims, according to a piece of paper presented to the band by a librarian at some point in the past. Pedigree notwithstanding, it definitely has a fan in Jeff Katz, the young-adult outreach specialist for the Seattle Public Library System. Katz gave the band library gigs through the Shake the Stacks program, a series of free all-ages, after-hours shows aimed at getting teenagers interested in the library.
So far, he says the band has rocked the books in at least five concerts, and "it's always a really incredible literary and music explosion when they perform."
Granted, Katz may be a little biased. Not only is he a librarian, he's a die-hard punk-rock fan. Nevertheless, this much is true: "It's got a great combination of energy and intelligence, and humor.
"And," he continues, "just playing flat-out good songs."
This melding has earned them considerable notice among both bar hounds and highbrow intelligentsia, the latter enlightened by a profile on the band on National Public Radio.
Better still, BloodHag helped Stratton finagle himself some sweet, sweet librarian lovin'. Twice.
For all these reasons — the music, the books, the brainy babes — BloodHag is hoping to tour libraries around the country next year, provided they can secure some funding.
That said, listening to them takes a bit of fortitude. A few libraries canceled them when they found out they played metal. This is not surprising when you actually hear their music. The best way to describe it is aggressive.
First, read the lyrics to their songs, all of which clock in at less than two minutes. For example, the words to "Kurt Vonnegut." (These and other lyrics can be found at www.bloodhag.com.)
"Along with Asimov, he's on a list of the most gifted Secular Humanists in history
Along with Asimov, he's on a list of the most gifted Secular Humanists in history
When the bombs dropped
All time for Kurt stopped
Saw the future and past
in a transdimensional hop
It's a slaughterhouse, and you're the steer
Smile in the face of your darkest fears."
Now. Encase this poetry in a swarm of guitar noise resembling the soundtrack to some cinematic barbarian horde, backed by thousands of hellhounds, trampling down on little old you. Stratton cups the microphone and gutturally growls the words, and the audience hears this:
"AUROROROOOAR! HWAAHOOOAROOAGH! BWAHOOROOARRR PAH! AUUUGH, AUUGH, AUUWAH!!!!!"
Orgel jokes about this during the interview. "My mother wishes he would" — he adopts a clipped tone — "e-nun-ci-a-te."
Walking biographic references
The BloodHag boys have read and researched countless science-fiction authors over the years, to the point that they're walking bibliographic and biographic references. Throw out a name at any of them, and he'll share an interesting tidbit of trivia. H.G. Wells? A philandering genius. Orwell? Fought on the side of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. Thomas M. Disch? A weirdo, but the good kind.
But why metal? Why not take up an acoustic and sing gently to the toddlers in the stacks as opposed to opening up an audio assault on young ears?
"Well, initially, our thing was to show the debt owed to science-fiction and fantasy authors by heavy metal music," Stratton said, citing bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Blue Oyster Cult and Rush among those that crib the geeky genre. So they're not singing to little ones but surly teens.
This is all part of the trick, you see. "In high school, it was cool to be dumb and not into school," McNulty mourns.
Stratton agrees. "To be cool, you had to ignore everything and not read. Assigned reading kills people's desire to read."
"That's so sad," the usually quiet Carpenter pipes in.
The blistering rock brings in the teenagers and young adults, prying open locked minds to pour in the wonders of fantastic literary possibility.
Among the Sunset crowd, it seems to be working. By the time Stratton wails out the first few unintelligible lyrics of "Isaac Asimov" — "AH-AH-AH-AH-AAAUGH!" — heads are in full tilt and a few people are making the two-fingered international hand sign for "metal rawks." One girl in front is jumping up and down. Then, somewhere between "George Orwell" and "William S. Burroughs," Stratton drops to one knee and opens a small case at his feet.
Then the books start flying.
The first hits the floor, and three people dive for it in a piranha feeding frenzy.
I turn my face back toward the band just in time to feel the spine of H.G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau" pop me in the lip before the tome lands on my shoulder. As the spot under my nose starts to tingle, the woman in front of me gamely catches A.E. Van Vogt's "The Mind Cage" and Asimov's "Pebble in the Sky." That brings her BloodHag bounty to three in two shows, she says.
A few more songs, and class is dismissed — all in less than 30 minutes.
Everyone has ringing ears, some have bedtime reading. And I and my fat lip go home to recuperate and read about beast men while waiting for my eardrums to heal.
BloodHag plays Tuesday night at the Re-bar. Melanie McFarland: mmcfarland@seattletimes.com.
