Supahead
with Incus at Rockpile North
by Scott Hefflon
A new club has opened, just north of the MA border in Nashua, New Hampshire. Booking both hard rock and hardcore from the area, Rockpile North provides a stage in an area that has always had the potential but not the outlet. The Friday night shows in Nashua are organized by the same people who run the Rock ‘n Roll festivities at the Rockpile in Saugus. While the name may cause confusion at first, the focus is different and should clarify itself in time. To make a broad generalization (there are almost as many exceptions as not), Rockpile Saugus books local rock bands, major tribute bands, and has a few big name blasts from the Rock n Roll archives grace its stage. The New Rockpile mixes local heavy acts from southern New Hampshire, Northern MA and Boston. This fall, “heavy alternative” (for lack of a better phrase) national acts are being booked as their tours swing through the area. According to Chris, the booking agent for the Rockpile, “The Rockpile owned the the dance club complex (in Nashua) and built the stage, brought in a new sound system, lighting and so on. Northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire didn’t have a sizable club they could call their own and there are a lot of heavy bands in the area. Sometimes there will be national and larger tribute bands headlining, but local bands of the same style will be opening.”
We checked out a show up there to get the scoop and caught Incus and Supahead (formerly Headcleaner). The sound system was massive for mid-capacity room and seemed to have all the right hardware. Now if they only had a technician to run it properly…
Incus was reduced to a thundering of bass until the last few songs when I could detect other instruments. They seemed to rock hard and heavy, but it was hard to tell.
By the time Supahead came on, someone had figured out how to twiddle knobs in a semi-professional manner. As plastered as he was, Darryl Shepard led fellow ‘heads (Seth Farrel on guitar, John Bean on drums and Bob Malloney on bass) through the heavy, stomp/dirge paces that made Headcleaner nominees for numerous awards. Supahead got a better light show than previous bands and the bottom end roar was offset by Seth’s snarling guitars and Darryl’s vocal growl. The new release, Caulk, is a lumbering elephant – plodding, methodical, massively powerful and not to be confused with cute and furry animals. Supahead is an untamed obstinate beast and is likely to stay that way.
