No faint hearts at metal-punk concert

(Special to the Times - Stacy Thacker)

Johnny Whitton, guitarist and vocalist for the California-based punk band Collinz Room, plays in the early hours of Sept. 12 at Day Customs, just west of the fairgrounds, in Window Rock.

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So, the metal and punk rock concert held during the Navajo Nation Fair probably wasn't for everybody.

Anyone within earshot of the Day Customs garage just west of the fairgrounds Friday night, Sept. 11, could tell you that.

The epileptic drums, screeching guitars and barking, acidic vocals that caused a ruckus until 1 a.m. was not for the faint of heart – or hearing.

Instead, the five-hour long show served a specific type of music fan. One that is commonly overlooked by the fair and its family oriented festivities.

"There's country everywhere," said Randall Hoskie, with Rancid Savage Productions, which coordinated the show. "There's hip-hop everywhere. It's the rock, metal and punk where we try to fill the void."

Judging by the screaming crowd of about 75, the void was filled.

Just ask Ryan Hoskie, (no relation to Randall Hoskie). The 15-year-old sophomore at Tolleson Union High School in Phoenix was one of the first fans to arrive at the show. He stuck around until the last note was played and walked out of the venue parking lot as calmly as he had walked in.

"I just wanted to come here and do something different," said Ryan Hoskie, who spent much of the evening alone, occasionally joined by friends who would come and go.

If this were a movie, Ryan Hoskie would have his own soundtrack. The quiet, unassuming young man never broke character throughout the night. During the performances, he would walk to the center of the crowd, directly in front of the stage and watch with nary a fist pump.

The show was as do-it-yourself as it gets. The bands played on two flatbed rigs positioned together in the parking lot of a tire shop. The sound system control box was in the back of a pickup truck, parked just outside the performance area.

The bands were mostly local acts – Demise from Gallup, Salvation's Lost from the Western Agency, One Bullet Away and Ethnic De Generation from Kayenta, and Unsheathe from Tuba City.

Ryan Hoskie's favorite of the bunch was Demise, which played traditional thrash metal. However, the act was the first performance of the evening. At that time, there were more speakers on the stage than there were people in the audience.

Still, the teenage Hoskie said, the group stuck closest to his favorite form of music. Perhaps the guitar riffs were not as fast as the other bands, but made up for it in thick chords that filled the small, enclosed stage area.

"They were definitely my favorite," Hoskie said. "I really like that sound."

However, the biggest crowd pleaser of the night was Unsheathed, the five-man group that played Swedish-influenced black metal. The guitars were more of a buzz than a blast, and the riffs were fast and unflinching. The vocals were trademark, indecipherable screams.

There's something to be said in the adage of one man's treasure, and here the crowd found exactly what it was looking for in a place most people would never even bother to look.

The show also featured Collinz Room as its main act. The Los Angeles-based group was potentially the odd man out with its radio-friendly punk and alternative rhythms standing out in a sea of banshee-like screams.

"They are a little softer than the other bands I booked," said Randall Hoskie of Rancid Savage. He admitted there was a chance the crowd, worked up on hardcore metal, might have reacted indifferently to a pop punk act.

"There's always a chance of that," Hoskie said. "But you just have to take those chances."

It turned out Collinz Room was a perfect end to the night. While the crowd had thinned significantly, the 20 that remained were loud enough to warrant an encore. And it turns out that live, the band managed to roughen up its sound just enough to keep the crowd moving in the freezing morning hours.

Rancid Savage Productions have been organizing the punk/metal concert as a viable alternative during the fair for about six years, Hoskie said.

The event is not an assured moneymaker, though that is not its purpose.

"If we don't make any money, the fans thanking us afterwards, that's enough," Hoskie said. "If we were a business and worried about the bottom line, we would have quit a long time ago."

Rancid Savage has a few shows lined up for the area in the coming months: Bridget Handley and the Dark Shadows, a rock-a-billy group from Australia is scheduled for Oct. 23; The Koffin Kats from Michigan on Nov. 7; and the Rockets from California are scheduled for Nov. 21.

All shows are scheduled at the Juggernaut in Gallup.

Hoskie also said Rancid Savage is planning for a "surprise" event for the Shiprock fair, but couldn't yet elaborate.

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