Harvey Milk Bassist Breaks Bass Head in Baltimore

"Here's the part where we ruin the set with fifteen minutes of stuff you've never heard before," Harvey Milk bassist Stephen Tanner drawled as he fiddled with the thick strings of his battered instrument before tearing into a handful of bottom-heavy new basslines. The long-running, long-suffering scuzz rock trio's upcoming LP, 'A Small Turn of Human Kindness,' will be out on Hydra Head on May 18, as frontman Creston told Noisecreep earlier this month.

On March 7, Stephen and his brothers in arms Creston Spiers and Kyle Spence were joined in one of Baltimore's less terrifying -- but still pretty damn terrifying -- neighborhoods by Chicago's psychedelic sludge noiseniks the Atlas Moth and Kansas City's metalcore institutions Coalesce at the Ottobar, a rock 'n' roll club with an impressive history and even more impressive array of band stickers plastered across its weary walls.

Harvey Milk and Coalesce were co-headlining this particular tour, and tonight saw Harvey Milk following the 'Moth's ganja-soaked, high-flying, half-hour set. Every time this grizzled trio takes the stage, they cast a new spell of catharsis and wonder, and tonight's show was no exception. From the time-honored stomp of 'Motown' to the aching delta blues of 'I Just Want to Go Home' to the rafter-rumbling aural destruction of 'I Got a Love,' their set was dense, temperamental, sweaty, and heavier than the sins of its architects.

During the last song, Stephen's bass head broke, and instead of stopping the set to find a replacement, he proceeded to pick it up, scream at it noiselessly, pour beer onto it, then punt it across the stage. He then played some gnarly aif bass for a few moments before standing in front of the drum kit and conducting the song's climax like some mad kind of Amadaeus. Afterwards, he ambled offstage with an impish grin, as Creston mopped off his weathered brow and the crowd roared its thanks.