The Mountain Says No And Dino Bravo At the Monkey House June 27, 2015

Words by Tim Lewis.

I had a great time seeing music Saturday June 27 at The Monkey House. The Mountain Says No were set to go on around 9pm, so about quarter of, Christopher Larrow, Mike Luoma and I drove over to Winooski and arrived in plenty of time. There was supposed to be a third band on the bill, but they had to cancel, so the start time was delayed a little. Soon enough, Mountain hit the stage to release their killer debut album JV. I thought they might just play it all the way through, but the band started with a groovy riff that signaled Ricky The Rider, and we were on our way. All through the show Andrew Frappier‘s thunderous bass kept the music locked in while Justus Gaston’s lead drumming drove the songs hard. The twin guitars of Ben Maddox and Jedd Kettler weaved a magical spell and their alternating singing painted vivid pictures in my mind. They filled the room with sonic joy on Statistik, and rocked like crazy on Iron And Metal. They eased things up with the mellowish 3,000, which has lyrics like “I prefer my carnage in the woods by the bay”, and those cool whoops. Restaurant brought the pace back to full throttle and King Grifter, with it’s beautifully expansive chorus was magnificent. Since the album had been available on bandcamp for a couple of days already, it was time for them to play a couple of new songs. The first was huge and rocking and as good as anything on JV. The second, Blanket (?) was a bit mellower but pretty cool. They went back to the album for the heavy riffs of Long Term Sermon then released the super catchy, seriously rocking JC And The Beast. They closed the set with The Bomb, which is already one of the greatest songs to come out of Vermont. It’s easy to sing along with, it’s easy to rock out to, and is just a fantastic song. If you are a fan of rock and roll, and you missed the show, you really missed out on something.

After a reasonable set break, Dino Bravo VT hit the stage. Usually, they hold Lily Sickles until the late middle part of the show, but she joined them at the beginning for a killer cover of the T. Rex classic 20th Century Boy. The heavy guitars of Matthew Stephen Perry and Chris Farnsworth churned over the rocking bass lines of Josh Shedaker and the nimble and powerful drumming of Jeff LaBossiere. Matt’s voice was strong and worked nicely with Lily’s as they continued through Song About The Ocean, Bottleneck and Sugar Coated Candy Stix. The whole set was a rocking good time. Even a broken guitar string didn’t stop the fun. The rest of the band jammed the opening part of Cortez the Killer until it was fixed, then they went back into the set. They brought Lily back at the end of the set for Pop music, and I think they closed the set with Don’t Jump In The Water, or Wet Sheddy, or whatever that song was. Either way, it was a fun night of rock and roll, and the $3 it cost to walk in the door was well worth it.

This post was originally published by Tim Lewis at his personal blog, https://timstriangletribune.wordpress.com.