Notes From The Record Room: Off Pause (or, Let’s Pretend July Doesn’t Exist), Tomahawk & Melvins - 7/27 at Union Transfer
Record Room: Sunday, 8/2
Current listening: Ghost Town by Dan Friel
July of 2026 was a bad month. As I’m sure is customary when a death in the family occurs, attention toward the immediate matters at hand take center stage and all other attachments and extracurriculars fall by the wayside out of necessity. My mother-in-law, following a stage 4 cancer diagnosis in early September of 2025, passed away early July 8th. Leading up to that day, my wife was a 24/7 caregiver while trying to manage her full-time job as a project manager and I did everything I could to help. Needless to say, this part of my life was on PAUSE and I’m not completely sure I can commit to keeping up with it as well as I’d like.
If you’re reading this and you sent over music for me to check out, I’m sorry that I failed to get back to you, but just know it was because my family comes first and I had no time to spare. Honestly, I’m still not sure I’ve completely processed the entirety of what we went through.
Tomahawk & Melvins
7/27/26
Union Transfer
Philadelphia, PA
The last time I saw Tomahawk (Duane Denison, Mike Patton, John Stanier, Trevor Dunn) and Melvins (Buzz Osbourne, Dale Crover, Steven McDonald, Coady Willis) perform together on tour was in 2003 for the Geek Tour. I have still have the T-shirt, though it’s certainly seen better days. Noise-hop group Dälek opened that gig and then-Tomahawk bassist Kevin Rutmanis also provided anchor for Melvins. For this tour, the announcement titled it A Huge Waste of Your Time and Money, no band members were shared (though bassist Trevor Dunn supported Melvins toward the end of their set) and no one opened.
‘Twas a sold out event, a crowd of salt-n-pepper scalps and Gen-X nursing home escapees accompanied by their offspring, band logos emblazoned on the backs of countless T-shirts which I read over and over between attempts at peaking around shoulders for a view of the stage. My sneakers were locked onto the floor until I made my way to the bar, peeling them from the surface like velcro—likely some sugary alcoholic concoctions had been mishandled—as I pushed my way through bar patrons to buy a couple cans of beer. I made the mistake of doing this while Melvins played, their deafening brand of sludge forcing me to use the notes app on my phone to communicate with the bar tender. I tipped her $6 for her trouble.
Buzz Osbourne, trademark cotton Medusa head swung in every direction, generated a mud-caked speaker-bled colossus as Crover and Willis doubled-up the percussion. McDonald was animated, probably the most showman like component of this current Melvins iteration, happy to bend and twist himself into an array of rock poses. The summary? Melvins do love their slow builds and gratifying payoffs, invested tension crawling its way to venue-leveling crescendos. My right earplug lost its seal during Melvins’ set and I got to hear for a moment their actual volume and very quickly had to push the plug back in as best as I could. I was thankfully spared the all too familiar hum of temporary tinnitus.
A highpoint for me was hearing “Honey Bucket,” which has maybe my favorite drum arrangement from a Melvins track. Two drummers running through that intro took its intensity up a notch. Dunn had come out to add some low end by then and helped the band close out their performance with “Night Goat.”
Tomahawk started their set with “Flashback” from their 2001 self-titled debut. Myself more familiar with that album and its follow-up, 2003’s Mit Gas, I was admittedly waiting to hear songs from those records. Their last album, 2021’s Tonic Immobility, came out while the world was still under the pandemic-mandated lock-and-key, so the band hadn’t really had a chance to road test that material or tour for that album. That said, there wasn’t a weak moment to be heard.
Banter was kept to a minimum, Patton occasionally gifting us a couple exuberant check-ins, a tightly wound and wiry network of braids on his head, his nods and gestures sharp as he sang and manned effects and samples. Denison is a noticeably reserved-looking guitar player, focused and steady while delivering texture and intensity. As Tomahawk worked through their setlist, I began to notice how much the band seems to relish in atmosphere, many of their selections projecting mood and tone over volume and haste.
That said, “Capt. Midnight”—which is introduced by a hyper-paced drum machine that’s eventually followed by Stanier, who’s able to manually keep the pace—paired with “Rape This Day” certainly stood out as one of the evening’s more energized moments.
We were treated to the live debut of Tonic Immobility’s “Valentine Shine,” the performance of which was preceded a bit by some implication of uncertain results (it sounded great). Two tracks later (“Point and Click” and “Sidewinder”), the brief and obligatory pre-encore pause took place. We stood, watched, and waited and the band (unsurprisingly) strolled back out to much applause and offered up a playful Charlie Ryan cover of “Hot Rod Lincoln” before the much-anticipated “God Hates A Coward” pulled the crowd into its last episode of amp’d frenzy. Following “White Hats/Black Hats” from 2013’s Oddfellows, the band played “Totem” from 2007’s Anonymous, an album that’s thematically set apart from the rest of their discography, so much so that the song’s inclusion garnered some (albeit pleasant) surprise.
Sincerely,
Letters From A Tapehead
