By Ben Richardson
The spotlight will be on Isis this Sunday, Nov. 18, at Slim’s, and deservedly so – surviving as a band for a decade is quite an accomplishment. While many concertgoers will wonder if the retrospective mood will inspire the group to trot out some of their older material, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the opening band, who have the unenviable task of greeting somebody else’s party guests.
If anyone’s up to the challenge, it’s Big Business. Having cut their teeth this summer opening for Tool, the LA-by-way-of-Seattle pair is poised to burst out of the avant-garde annex of underground metal and make their butt-rumbling mark on the world. Bassist Jerry Warren and drummer Coady Willis are a dynamic duo of low-end, hewing huge riffs out of slabs of E-string and floor tom.
Warren and Willis have been moonlighting in the Melvins, surely a dream come true for any fan of heavy music, and they appeared on A Senile Animal, the seminal sludgemasters’ most recent disc. Their own material hasn’t flagged, however, and Warren’s distinctive, frenzied vocals were recently joined above the hard-grooving fray by the guitar and Minimoog stylings of David Scott Stone, who joined the band for the recording of their second album, Here Come the Waterworks.