Man's Ruin Records, Headquarters of Stoner Metal

by Adam Heimlich & Ben Sisario

Man's Ruin

"The original premise of the label was that it was gonna be a hobby label, y'know, a lot of vinyl and whatnot," Kozik says. "But we immediately got a massive amount of press and a distribution offer. All within six months. Then we started making CDs. Suddenly the bands and the customers were like, 'We want more. We want a real label.'"

Five years and about 200 records later, the label remains casual, a crash pad for heavy bands: some smart, some dumb, some doing great work but nobody making much of a fuss about it. There's no overall scheme or agenda for the label, so the bands are pretty free to follow their noses. Do what thou wilt, loudly, seems to be the whole of the law at Man's Ruin.

"There's not a lot of politics or ego involved," Kozik says. "We don't stand for anything. There's nothing to prove. I don't go to the conventions. I don't care what anybody thinks of me or us. All I care about is, are the musicians happy? And does the record sound good? We're not tied into the larger record-label system, which is completely corrupt and fucked and impossible to deal with?a psychotic bureaucracy where no one cares about music. It's not even about money because they're all losing money out the ass. It's all about whose dick is bigger. Personally, I'm 38 years old, we're doing our thing. If it lasts, cool, if it doesn't, that's reality."

On Friday, Oct. 20, five Man's Ruin bands will play a showcase at the Continental. High on Fire, from Oakland, CA, stand proudly before their Green Matamp amplifiers, channeling deeply masculine riffs with a fearsome confidence. Guitar and bass meet in elemental form, molten yet fast and explosive?this is the sound of a volcano, not as slow, gurgling sludge, but in action, erupting and destroying the top of a mountain. The band features Matt Pike, formerly of Sleep, who showed a surprisingly earthy sense of humor at HOF's recent CBGB appearance, greeting the crowd between songs with an occasional "I love New York?you guys rip!" The band knows how to use its instrumental skills in the service of a big group sound, and despite a lack of publicity and press, High on Fire has the potential to become the first great underground metal band of the new decade. They go on last, at 12:15 a.m., and it'll be worth the wait.

Alabama Thunder Pussy and Suplecs have a fairly typical Man's Ruin love for sleaze and warped genre simplicity. They could be the embodiments of Kozik's hyperrealized images of degenerate superheroes, or the music David Lynch might put in his movies if he were 15 years younger and liked 70s rock instead of rockabilly. ATP, from Richmond, play fast, raunchy Southern metal with a slightly slicker production than most of their labelmates. They avoid (just barely) a good deal of the cliches that claim their nearest relative, Nashville Pussy?like starting every song with "Waaaayyll" and singing about cars too much?and break character enough to keep you from thinking you have them totally figured out. The best parts of their latest, Constellation, are the few moments when the big rig finally stops for gas, letting piano, acoustic guitar and other mellow, forgotten elements of 70s Southern rock get a chance to step out. But we're guessing they'll be none of that when they go on at 11:15.

Suplecs, from New Orleans, features members of Eyehategod, one of the most godawful noise-metal bands of the 90s, though you probably couldn't guess it from their sound. Like Clearlight, another Eyehategod offshoot, they play groovy, fuzzy riff-rock, which is comforting to those of us who endured the Earache catalog over the last decade. At its best, it's Mountain; at its worst, it's bratty Mudhoney vocals set over flavorless Fu Manchu buzz. As Kozik sees it, it's a new direction: "I think what you're seeing there is the other side, and the influences they have as musicians, as opposed to just capitalizing on the Eyehategod thing. Which they could have easily done. Some people like it, some people don't. I think it's interesting that their base band is this sort of brutal noise machine and they're playing other kinds of stuff. They did an unexpected thing." Dig them at 9:45.

Men of Porn and Tummler take the slow-moving lava approach, carrying on a tradition of sludge metal that goes back to the Swans and Flipper in the 80s, and the Melvins and Earth in our time. Guitars retreat into the background and are replaced by round, fat bass sounds that find grooves and toy with them slowly, swelling up and dying down over long periods. It's more attuned to the long, slow flux of dance music than metal, which needs quick riffs like junk food to fuel a short attention span. Men of Porn are described elsewhere in this issue; frontman Tim Moss is formerly of Ritual Device, which Kozik calls "sort of a Butthole Surfers kind of thing, but way harder. They were one of those really brilliant bands that had no place to play at that time. They were ahead of their time, or behind their time." See Men of Porn at 10:30.

Kozik signed young Tummler, from Illinois, on the strength of a demo that arrived "out of the blue." (Actually, bands "signed" to Man's Ruin have simple licensing deals, and so retain their freedom.) The promise of their debut, Queen to Bishop VI, should be apparent to Sabbath/Kyuss fans. These guys have the rarest sort of heavy-riff talent?the ability to progress smoothly from one lurching, grinding melody to another, then the next and so on. It's as impossible to fake as funk. Besides that, the album is unrefined, garage-y, with vocals an afterthought. It's a tossup as to whether intuition or inexperience will characterize their live set, which starts at 9 p.m.

The Man's Ruin showcase is Fri., Oct. 20, at Continental, 25 3rd Ave. (St. Marks Pl.), 529-6924.