The Metal Files

Philm is a project that has been around since the mid-1990s according to their drummer, Dave Lombardo.  It remained pretty dormant until the time(s) he wasn’t with Slayer and apparently they jam a bit.  I had seen some of the YouTube stuff and I was pretty underwhelmed by it.  When I saw that they were playing Austin, I was a tad excited about it because, hey, it’s Dave Lombardo.  While I could never claim him as an influence on my drumming, he was certainly an inspiration.  The guy is a beast of a player and given the chance to see him play outside of Slayer seemed pretty rad.

Originally this show was $15 but a few days beforehand they made it a free show.  Slayer is in town this weekend for the FUN FUN FUN Fest so I guess Dave decided to try and float his other band here.

The opening band was called Unmothered from Austin.  They were pretty good and I’d certainly go see them again.  They were a 3pc sort of droning thing.  There was a weird dark almost black metal undertone but this was no black metal band.  Worth checking out again for sure.

Up next came My Education, also from Austin.  Apparently they are considered “post-rock”, another sub-genre of rock.  They were all instrumental and had a viola player through most of it.  It was slightly prog and gave me somewhat of a Kansas (band) vibe.  They weren’t awful by any means, but a bit boring to watch.  Perfect background music, though.  My friend made a good observation by saying that if they had some sort of film projection along with their live performance, it’d be more palatable in a live setting.  AGREED.

Up next was Philm.  By the time they came on, there may have been 150 at the show.  I’ll go ahead and say it first, they were very underwhelming.  Sure Dave did some cool stuff here and there, but it was pretty boring.  I think if they went all instrumental it would have been a bit better.  The singer killed it for me, not to mention that the music was rather generic.  It was cool to see him do his thing on a tiny drumset though.  Apparently he came out for a few minutes after they played.  A few friends met him.  I didn’t bother as I got to meet him while he was on tour with Testament back in 2000.  It was cool because I got to meet his wife and kid too.

Rumors were flying around that Slayer was going to show up and do an impromptu set after Philm.  I think it was all a set up to get more people to the show and sell some drinks.  Slayer never played.  That was unfortunate as it would have been cool seeing them do a few tunes on a barebones stage.

C’est la vie, eh?  At least I got to see another one of my musical idols play again this week.