Longtime Yakima band Mystery Fluid likes to say it plays metal that would make Ozzy proud. And frontman Joe Alvarez certainly has the long hair, the tattoos, the slightly sinister voice.
But it’s not like Alvarez is attempting to copy the Prince of Darkness. It’s just that he comes from the same heavy metal old-school.
Mystery Fluid — trust me, that name is better than the alternative — makes great, head-banging double bass drum rock in the tradition of Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. They write their own songs and favor stacks of speakers and plenty of lighting effects. And if they blow your ear drums? Mission accomplished.
The core members of Mystery Fluid — Alvarez, guitarist Randy Tilton and drummer Mark Overby — have been together since 1997. Bass player Max Irwin joined last year. But aside from the occasional biker event, the band doesn’t play live much.
Booking a local gig is difficult, they say, especially for a metal band that plays original material. (Mystery Fluid isn’t the only band to lodge this complaint.)
But on Saturday, they’ll bust out of their cramped practice space in Irwin’s basement and into Brews and Cues, the downtown dive bar formerly called Amy Lou’s.
“When I walked in, I saw a dive bar — and I thought this is perfect,” says Irwin, who knows Brews and Cues owner Rick Newcombe, who took over the bar in September.
“It has metal written all over it.”
While that’s a compliment, Newcombe’s been working to revamp Brews and Cues and turn it into a “neighborhood bar,” he says. Live music in the space will only be an occasional thing, notes Newcombe.
Even if live gigs are few and far between, Mystery Fluid has also taken advantage of a couple of other ways to get noticed.
The band, of course, has a MySpace page (www.myspace.com/mysteryfluid) and recently paid to have a song included on a Metal Edge magazine compilation CD (think of it as audible advertising). It’s track 11 on the disk that came in the March issue.
“We never got discouraged,” Alvarez says about keeping the metal dream alive. “We just love the art of creating the darn songs.”
* Mystery Fluid plays at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Brews and Cues (formerly Amy Lou’s), 104 S. Second St. Phone: 453-9713. No cover charge.