All Entries in the "Music Features" Category
SCRATCH ACID live at Webster Hall, New York City; November 7th, 2011
Most musicians never start one good band, but Dave Yow and David Sims did it twice as charter members of Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard. While each guy posses a singular vision of what it is that they do —Yow with his garbled manly warble and Sims with his intricate and implacable bass figures—they [...]
DEATH RATTLE #5
As the Winter hung around for a bit longer this year–winding up being my favorite seasonal spectacle—the promise of Spring seemed to have been just that, a promise that would never come to fruition. But, goddamn, that first day smelled like life (that smell that has been forgotten in the icy banks) it was impossible [...]
DEATH RATTLE #4
Cold wind biting means only one thing and that is that it is goddamn cold out there… at least in this part of the country that has seasons. As the nights get blacker and bleaker (how about that Solstice/lunar eclipse, huh?) so does the metal… and that is a wonderful occasion. Where I celebrated thrash [...]
Also, a tin teardrop. On the passing of CAPTAIN BEEFHEART
“Once you’ve heard Beefheart, it’s hard to wash him out of your clothes. It stains, like coffee or blood.” -Tom Waits Don Van Vliet, better known to music fans everywhere as Captain Beefheart, died last month after a lengthy battle with Multiple Sclerosis. While his death was certainly not unexpected, and the man hasn’t recorded [...]
WIZZARD SLEEVE: Codeine-Sharting in the Confederate Glue Goth Tard Wave Pool
Wizzard Sleeve is not for everyone. The vast majority of Hipsterslovakian provincials in remote outposts like, say, Brooklyn, aren’t hip enough, or, more to the point, they’re so hip, they’re unhip. Negative and/or condescendingly (“Can you believe these guys are from Alabama? That’s CRAZY!”) dismissive reviews of Wizzard Sleeve’s debut album, written in prose redolent [...]
DEATH RATTLE #3
With the sunshine-y days waning and bowing to the lengthened nights and the Harvest Moon well behind it is time to shut oneself in for lengthened periods of time and delve deeper and deeper into our favorite homestead habits. For myself, as you may have guessed, that means the music input is doubled and the [...]
NOBUNNY: The Horniness of The Long-Distance Rabbit
The tabloids are full of rumors that Nobunny is, in “real life,” this friend of mine named Justin Champlin. Fair enough—and it is a little strange how you never see the two in the same place at the same time—but it’s more fun to imagine Nobunny as some kind of inter-planetary being—hailing from some magical [...]
DEATH RATTLE #2
Though summers can be either harsh or mild the one constant for me has been the overwhelming presence of thrash and death on my sunny play lists. As the recent resurgence of each has been both celebrated (by music fans) and lamented (by music purists) the fact remains that gems are sprouting up all the [...]
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS 25 Year Anniversary Bash Recap
If anyone would have asked me more than twenty years ago if I ever thought I’d see the day where a large percentage of AmRep’s roster would get together in Minneapolis and celebrate Amphetamine Reptile’s 25th Anniversary—I would have probably said yes just based on the talent Hazelmyer had collected at that point. If you [...]
AMPHETAMINE REPTILE RECORDS Is Back (for 3 days)
About twenty-five years ago, Tom Hazelmyer started his own label, Amphetamine Reptile Records. He had a band of sorts, Halo Of Flies, more of a project at that point than an actual band but he wanted his records released, so he did it on his own. Printing and constructing the record jackets himself using a [...]