Trencher, Unpassing, Mortal, Beheader
- Bleeding Priest
- Nov 12, 2025
- 4 min read
Toot’s Tavern
Crockett, CA
November 7, 2025
Toot’s Tavern in Crockett is a spot I’ve been to only a couple of times. Crockett is a neat little semi-secluded pocket of the East Bay. I was told Toot’s is the oldest bar in Contra Costa County, but then someone else told me a place called The Warehouse in Port Costa is the oldest. In any case Toots is fucking old. It definitely has a local vibe with its own built in crowd.
I had Death Angel rehearsal earlier so I got a bit of a late start heading out there and as a result I missed the opening band Beheader and only caught the last two songs of Mortal which sucks because they were one of the reasons I made the trek out to Crockett. But two songs was all I needed to make the decision that Hectic/Bleeding Priest records should give Mortal’s cassette only full length the vinyl treatment.
Mortal are killer mid tempo (from what I saw) death metal with a crusty edge. I think they would fit nicely on our roster. And they had some fans to boot. That’s always a plus. Keep your eyes and ears open for these filthy death metal upstarts.
Next was another pretty ripping death metal band named Unpassing. I gotta say the name of the band doesn’t thrill me at all. I’m sure there’s some meaning behind it that ties in with music or something but the first thing I think of when I hear that name is kidney stones. Which is something brutal in its own right, but I’m not sure it works for a band name unfortunately.
These players are top notch though. Their style of death metal differs greatly from Mortal’s. Where Mortal leans heavy on an old school crusty vibe Unpassing are more in the technical/precision end of things. The star of the band is the vocalist who has one of the sickest death metal voices I’ve ever heard coming out of the Bay Area. These guys are another band I’d be interested in possibly doing a release with. Time will tell.
Lastly we had Bay Area favorites Trencher. They had a killer show and the bulk of the audience were clearly there to see them. Lots of energy in the room. Here’s the thing, the last couple of times I’ve seen these cats there were technical difficulties either with their gear or something going wrong on the club’s end. Tonight it was all on the club’s sound guy.
This is going to be difficult to explain but I’m going to try my damndest to do so. The new drummer for Trencher (who is a HUGE improvement by the way) plays two kick drums. So both kicks need to be mic’d and going through the club’s mains (speakers) and leveled equally in the mix. When only one kick is coming through the mains double bass parts sound like a mess. Flams sound even worse. I guess the best word to use would be lopsided. And the worst situation is when the main kick drum is the one not coming through. That was the case tonight.
So the only time you heard any kick was when he did a beat that included his second kick drum which just sounded incredibly awkward. The double bass parts lost all their power and meaning. I pointed this out to the sound dude (they love it when people do that by the way) and he seemed completely befuddled by the whole thing. This was during the second song, mind you so to his ears it sounded ok. Look, to some of you reading this it might appear I’m nit picking here and you might be right but when it’s your job to make sure the sound is worthy of the audience's hard earned money this is unacceptable.
Sure, most people in attendance didn’t even notice and had a great time but there was one guy who came up to me and asked “what’s up with the double bass?” Two people noticing is two too many in my book. After badgering him a few more times he finally went up on stage to make sure everything was connected properly. That didn’t solve the problem. I eventually told Marcus from Trencher about it between songs and he started badgering the sound guy as well.
After a few more songs with the problem persisting I couldn’t take it anymore. It was driving me insane. I had to cut out, plus it was late and a long ride back to SF. On the way out I saw the sound guy outside (who was a nice enough guy) and he told me he had never worked with a drum kit with two bass drums. All the other bands that night had one kick with a double pedal. Anyways, because he’d never worked with a two kick set he forgot to unmute the mic on his main kick drum. All it took was a push of a button on his console to fix the problem. He said he had unmuted it and now it sounded fine but this is after Trencher had played more than half their set.
I was already committed to leaving so I didn’t bother going back. It’s not like this small, but major detail ruined my night or anything but things like this are VERY important to me and I did leave semi annoyed. Toot’s has hit up Hellhunter a number of times in the past couple of years to do a show there. I’m not entirely sure how well our Black Metal approach to Thrash would go over with that crowd but I tell ya one thing, If we do ever play there I’m bringing one KICK DRUM!
–Bleeding Priest
