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Metalheads, funksters – live music in the valley

Wren Wertin Arts andEntertainment Editor
Special to the DailyLipslide plays with Metallikids today at 8150 in Vail.
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MetalliKids and LipSlideTrevor Mills thinks new-school Metallica blows, which is why his group, MetalliKids, only focuses on their first three albums. The Metallica cover band plays two sets today at 8150 in Vail, while LipSlide plays one in the middle. Music starts at 10 p.m.How do they approach the music?”We’re not making fun of it, we’re super stoked on it,” he said. “It’s been my favorite band since 1984. Everything else sucks.”He discovered Metallica when he was in high school. Somebody gave him “Jump in the Fire,” and he was hooked.”I was one of those pissed off kids,” he said. “I like the power, the energy, the complexity, the melody, the crossover-ness of it. It’s not as big a deal now, but they forged the way for heavy music.”Mills is in his 30s, but he’s playing with a trio of 18-year-olds – hence the Kids of MetalliKids. They’ve been gigging since last summer. Despite their lack of disc or press photos, they’re all booked up.”If you would have seen Metallica in 1990 just after the Black Album came out, that’s what we’re going for,” said Mills. “Similar breaks, similar medleys. Metallica nowadays will start a song and not finish it. But we’ll play it from start to finish. We play the whole damn thing.”According to Mills, his other project, LipSlide, is an art-rock-funk-metal sort of sound.”The best way to describe it is the Deathtones meets Chili Peppers meets Black Sabbath,” he said with apparent sincerity.FluxInstrumental funk band Flux plays the Half Moon Saloon tonight at 10. Recently heard at Red Fest, the band is known for its sassy funk and in-your-pocket grooves.Rhythmic cohorts Jeff LaMascus (bass) and Dave Nichols (drums) keep the others in line – guitarist Matt Cheek, B-3 man Barry Nease and tenor saxophonist Dave Laub.It’s all about putting the boogie on the floor. Though they used to play around with vocals, those have become a thing of the past.According to Laub, who has long desired to be in an instrumental group, getting rid of vocals doesn’t significantly change the music. But it does relax their boundaries.”The layering is completely up to you,” he said last November. “You’re still looking for the melody, but you don’t have to match the lyrical message with the music.”The members share composition duties, and those can be quite specific in terms of melody lines for individual instruments or simply loose ideas of where they should end up.The funk is in Flux.


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