KALX Live: Dread Spire

Oakland’s very own Dread Spire was featured on KALX, at UC Berkley!

We here at CASS are big fans of the bass and drums duo Dread Spire. They exemplify the very best of the stoner doom scene in the Bay Area. And, this writer feels especially lucky to be the California kid on the team who gets to go see them live often.

Dread Spire is having a great year. They put on one heck of a show in January for Richie’s (bassist) birthday. The well-known and on-the-move band, Snakemother, was one of the groups playing the event. The Dread Spire guys weren’t anticipating such a huge turnout! They were just hoping for a fun evening with friends and a few other bands. But,the event sold out fast and the little venue, Elbo Room, was packed out and there was barely any actual elbow room to be had.

…almost like it was a competition to see who could out nice each other. And if that doesn’t sum up the doom community, nothing does.

Along with a few other shows, Dread Spire has been writing songs and sharing them with the world as soon as they are ready. Rolling out a song at a time is one of the ways they stay closely connected with their followers.

On Saturday, July 19, Dread Spire put on a kick-ass performance for KALX Radio at UC, Berkley. I was thrilled to be on the guest list. The hosts and crew at KALX were incredibly friendly, welcoming, and super professional. The other guests were equally cool to hang out with. Everyone was so nice, that my plus-one later described the people as aggressively nice, almost like it was a competition to see who could out nice each other. And if that doesn’t sum up the doom community, nothing does.

But getting back to the music, the guys were in sound check when we arrived. We were given a tour of the station and met the team. There was an audio crew, video crew, and a D.J. Once everything was ready to roll, Richie and Erol stepped into the small, very warm studio and got to work. We observers got to enjoy the show on the other side of the glass in some nice air conditioning.

Dread Spire always puts on a great show full of energy and powerful dynamics that get the attention of everyone in the venue. This radio performance meant playing not in front of a sweaty crowd of metal heads. Rather, the duo was playing to each other. The hand full of onlookers were well on the periphery, if that, of the bands sight. What was captured that night was two friends, who go way back and have worked really hard together, just kicking ass and having fun. Well done, guys.

Check my interview with Dread Spire on our YouTube channel!