Cantrell breaks chains 

Peter Kimmich
Copy Editor

Chico's grunge scene is usually about as active as a pile of dirty flannels. But for 3 1/2 hours Sunday, its emaciated skeleton got up and thrashed around to the crushing grind of a well-known guitar.

The guitar was held by Alice in Chains guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell, who shook The Brick Works to its foundation. San Francisco four-piece Swarm opened at 9 p.m., followed by Comes With the Fall, a band from Los Angeles.

At around 11 p.m., after the first two bands had worked the crowd for a while, the restlessness could be physically felt as fans crammed onto the floor to wait for Cantrell.

When someone offstage started strumming bars from Alice songs, people got loud.

At 11:05 the lights went out. When they came back on, Cantrell was at the front with Ozzy's bassist Robert Trujillo, Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin, Mirv guitarist Brian Kehoe and backup vocalist Ken Mooney.

"I'm Jerry Cantrell, and I'm here to kick your ass," he said.

From there, it was a dark, gravely ride into kill-your-eardrums-and-vocal-chords land. Cantrell tore through a few new songs and several Alice songs, including "What the Hell Have I," "Brother," "No Excuses" and "Got Me Wrong," which blew the crowd away with unusually heavy distortion.

The audience helped out on vocals at Cantrell's frequent invitations, but the concept of moshing was as far away as the concept of hip-hop. Cantrell lit a cigarette, stuck it into the strings of his Gibson Van Halen-style, and went into a cover of "Sweet Home Alabama" as the crowd totally took over vocals.

After a brief pause to put strings back in tune, during which Cantrell entertained the audience with distasteful jokes, the band blasted through more songs, then left the stage at 12:30 a.m.

More chanting brought Cantrell back out; the audience was not done. He finished the crowd off with some old-school Alice in Chains Chunk-rock, with a capital "C." The ultra-heavy throbs of "It Ain't Like That" and the sledgehammer riff of "Them Bones" brought out the raging storm in the crowd, and chaos took shape on the floor of The Brick Works.

After the musical riot, Cantrell slouched on a sofa in a small room with black, graffiti-covered walls and reflected on touring solo. Without the same band formula for each old song, new twists find their way in, he said.

"Music's something to (mess) around with," Cantrell said. "You get variation from individual players."

Touring as the front man is also new without Alice in Chains' Layne Staley.

"It's cool now, but it was kind of weird during the first tour," Cantrell said.

Cantrell toured with Metallica during the summer of 1998 to promote his solo album, "Boggy Depot."

A promoter of Cantrell's band who goes by the name Naturegirl called that tour "a big waste of time," as Metallica fans and Cantrell fans tended to mix violently.

"You don't get in a crowd full of Metallica people wearing a Jerry Cantrell shirt," she said.

But Cantrell said he does not usually have a problem with mayhem in his audiences.

"We're not into people hurting each other," he said. "You can still keep your teeth in your head and have a good time."

Cantrell's new album, "Degradation Trip," is due for release in a few months, he said.

Much earlier, the chaos started with Swarm. The San Francisco slammer is made up of vocalist Mark Osegueda, guitarist and vocalist Rob Cavestany, bassist Michael Isaiah and drummer Andrew Galeon. The word "incredible" was used in the audience, and comparisons were made to old Alice in Chains and Rage against the Machine. Galeon pounded furiously despite a cymbal stand that refused to stay standing, and Osegueda's scream rivaled that of any turbine engine.

Comes With the Fall was made up of vocalist and guitarist William DuVall, with an impressive afro and a Black Flag T-shirt; bassist Adam Stanger, with dreadlocks and a bass with a Stevie Ray Vaughan-style finish; guitarist Nico Constantine and drummer Bevan Davies. Their songs, which were heavy and churning, wandering and acid-like, or distraught and filled with chords glancing off each other at sharp angles, contradicted the lazily-moving mirror balls on the ceiling and added to the acid atmosphere.

This trio of heavy, grungy, fame-destined bands will tour together on the west coast for the next few weeks, occasionally appearing in various college towns. Their next stop is in Los Angeles. If you missed them in Chico, I would sincerely apologize, but my voice is shot.