Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska
Three men walk into a bar. One is wearing a light-up rainbow afro with a mortarboard hat, one dons a Starship Enterprise uniform, and the last man hides his face with a demon mask.
While this may sound like the set-up to some bizarre joke, it was in fact the sight that greeted patrons of the Moon, a music venue located on Womanby Street, on Friday 11th of November.
While the Moon is not a particularly spacious venue, the room was soon packed to the rafters with an enthusiastic crowd of metalheads and alternative music lovers – most likely also drawn in by the fact that it was a free gig. I had personally not been planning to go out that night, wanting instead to have a lazy night in, however, I chose on an impulse to attend after being invited on a Tinder date. Having said that, I have to admit that the outing turned out to be well worth it, even if it was a full and utter whim on my part, due to the unique and interesting sounds presented by the two bands that played.
Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska, a psychedelic rock band based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was formed in 2015 by Aaron Bertram, Alex Johnston, and Chris Watson and joined by Jarrid Kolodnicki in 2020. However, in early 2022 Watson departed the band, leaving them to function as a power trio. Since the beginning, the band has been formed with the idea of improvisation in mind, with the trio themselves describing their sound as ‘face melting psychedelia’. When discussing the conception of the band’s sound, Bertram stated: ‘We had a gig supporting Laundered Syrup at little buildings in Newcastle, possibly early 2016 and we came up with this crazy idea of not using any of our rehearsed material, just getting up on stage and jamming. The rest is history.’
The band’s most recent release, an album called “INTERSTELLIC PSYCHEDELIC” was made available for purchase on August 5th, 2022. This record may be defined as having elements of space rock, krautrock, and even a unique take on the idea of jazz. Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska was supported by Kong Lives, a post-metal/doom band hailing locally from Newport, formed in 2016 by ex-members of the bands Tradish and Desalvo. Riding off of the high of their 2021 album ‘Thy Kingdom Kong’, the four-piece band played an energetically heavy set consisting of nothing but extraordinarily lengthy songs, including Rose Ascension, a 23-minute piece split into two separate parts – the longer of which hails in at a remarkable sixteen minutes. This is uniquely impressive for this specific band due to the heavy metal vocals sustained over the course of these lengthy tracks. I can personally only liken their sound to bands such as Neurosis or Isis.
Their sound also has elements of shoegaze, with an airy mixture of blended vocals, distorted guitars, effects, feedback, and loud volume.
Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska entered the stage at 10pm, accompanied by a futuristic voiceover that sounded like it came right out of Star Trek. Nobody quite knew what to expect from the relatively unknown band, the majority of the patrons only attending due to the free entry, so anticipation was high. However, from the moment bassist Aaron Bertram began to play, the room erupted into movement, the crowd already riding the buzz of Kong Lives’ dynamic set. What followed was something I could only describe as an hour of psychedelia, with the band improvising a full 40-50 minutes of free-form rock, a constant flow of music that just seemed to have no end, nor even any breaks. This is not to say it was boring – far from it, I found it utterly fascinating to watch how the band responded to each other’s subtle cues to change the music in little ways that kept it interesting. It was amazing to see how you pick up on little things in the music once it had been a constant background noise – I realised I was picking up on even the smallest changes in, for example, the bassline.
Even as someone with zero knowledge about anything technical in relation to music, I found myself deconstructing everything that went into the pure mind-melt that was Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska’s set. After around 50 minutes, the music simultaneously came to an abrupt stop with what seemed like little to no communication, leaving the room in stunned silence as we were confronted with the thought of ‘what just happened?’. One of the band members – the one who wore a rainbow afro – broke the silence by leaning into the mic and muttering what were the first words we’d heard from them for the entire set. “Thank you,” he said, nodding his head towards the crowd. “That was our first song.” With that, the crowd erupted into laughter and applause, giving Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska a warm exit as they dissipated to the bar.
Overall, for saying it was a total whim, I found myself utterly blown away by the uniqueness of the two bands I’d seen. From the absolute riot of the energy provided by Kong Lives – I was half convinced I’d go deaf by the end of the evening – and the pure psychedelia of the jam session played by Snakes Don’t Belong In Alaska, there was something to please any alternative music lover.
Eve Astle
Kong Lives