Hope you didn’t have anything to do for the next 84 minutes, because the entire documentary, Such Hawks, Such Hounds, has made its way onto the Tubes of You. I’ve never seen the whole thing before, so my afternoon is pretty much shot. I figured if you haven’t either, or maybe if you wanted to just skim through and hear stories about Pentagram or the desert or Sleep signing to London Records for Dopesmoker, that works too. Here it is:

Buy the Such Hawks, Such Hounds DVD here: http://www.suchhawkssuchhounds.com

World traveler that I am (ha.), I’m in Maryland for the weekend, and while I hope to do some record shopping before I leave — it’s a maybe at this point — far more pressing in my head at the moment is the fact that I left the leather carry-case with all my clean clothes and toiletries back in Jersey, meaning I have nothing but the brown khakis and the Saint Vitus shirt on my back to last me through till at least Sunday afternoon. Not a crisis, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note how incredibly stupid I felt as The Patient Mrs. left the hotel room a bit ago to go replenish our stock of toothpaste, deodorant, etc.

Tomorrow, it’s off to the fat-guy-clothes store. One can only hope they sell Black Sabbath t-shirts. This is me, not holding my breath.

A cool note for the curious: You might recall last year when I interviewed Greg Anderson about the Goatsnake reunion amongst other things. Well, Japanese blogger Keisuke Iwaya of waya-waya.cocolog-nifty.com just yesterday posted a Japanese translation of that interview, and though I’m completely ignorant of the beautiful Japanese language as I am of so many other things in this world, I think it’s fucking awesome anyway, so please check it out if you get the chance.

We end this week with Drunken Monkey‘s footage of Ghost from Roadburn. They’re playing NYC in early June, and I’m looking forward to that, but it was cool to catch them in Tilburg as well, as you’ll see in the clip above. Several of the songs from their Opus Eponymous debut have been in heavy rotation both in the mental jukebox and the actual CD player of late, so I figured it was a good way to go. I wonder if anyone has told them yet that the backing band behind Evil Pope Guy has the same stage costumes as Goblin Cock. Sometimes life is fun.

Next week I’ll have a fucking awesome interview I did yesterday with Justin Broadrick about Jesu‘s new album and the apparently ongoing Godflesh reunion, as well as the numbers for April (not as dismal as I thought) and reviews of new albums by Virginian progressive space rockers Corsair and Indianapolis trad-doom frontrunners The Gates of Slumber, among others. I don’t know how, but there always seems to be something killer on the horizon, so although I say it more than Yankees radio announcer John “Pure Radio Gold” Sterling says that you can’t predict baseball, stay tuned, because there’s good stuff to come.

Here’s a fun mathematical fact for you: I took over 2,100 pictures last night at the NYC stop of the Metalliance tour. Between pics of The Atlas Moth, Howl, Red Fang, Kylesa, Saint Vitus, Crowbar and Helmet, that’s how many I came out with. It was un-fucking-real. Of course, the vast majority of them are unfocused crap, but who among us can’t say the same about life? Am I right?

Speaking of images, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I installed a new image viewer on the site, and as of last week, all you have to do is click on a picture to blow it up all fancy-like. To wit, the below:

Simple as that. Feel free to try it on any of the pics currently on the frontpage. It should work for all of them.

Tonight I blew off several partially-mandatory obligations in favor of dinner out with The Patient Mrs. and a goodly amount of wine. I have zero regrets. Last night at Irving Plaza was amazing enough to fulfill a whole weekend’s worth of stimulation anyway (I’ll have a review and fished-through pics on Monday), and it’s nice to spend some time with the lady when she and I don’t get to see much of each other these days — different lifestyles, different career paths, etc. I’ll take what I can get when I can get it.

News came in this afternoon that Swedish fuzz-gods-in-waiting Truckfighters are going to hit the East Coast of the US in July for a tour with soon t0 be On the Radar-ized Cincinnati outfit Valley of the Sun, so stay tuned this coming week for more on that. I’ll also have reviews of Batillus, Monkeypriest and more, as well as my long-awaited (by me, anyhow) Q&A with bassist/vocalist Danny Nick of Suplecs, who, apart from being awesome, was a killer interview. The two (as you know if you’ve seen more than three interviews on this site before) don’t always go hand in hand.

In the meantime, I figured some Goatsnake was as good a way as any, better than most, to close out this week, so “El Coyote” it is. Tomorrow I’ll be trying to bust through the homework I blew off today to take a long nap and watch the Yankees spring training, but I’m sure I’ll be checking in regularly on the forums in my ongoing effort to distract myself from that which must be done. Because that’s how I do.

Things to listen to tomorrow: Bevar Sea‘s demo and the new Indian and Bong albums. Much to come on hopefully all three.

If you can believe it, March is almost done too. We’ll have the numbers posted this week and a preview of the next month, including the official announcement of the third release on The Maple Forum. Stick around for that, because like both the previous releases, I’m super-stoked on the next one and very much looking forward to sharing it with you.

If you do or don’t have to work tomorrow, hope you enjoy it. We’ll pick back up Monday with that Metalliance review and much more.

I never closed out last week. I’ll admit, at first it was just because I hit the wine Friday night, but then I thought I’d use that as an excuse to try something different. Certainly I did nothing on Saturday except sit on my ass and not work on that thesis I’m supposed to be writing, but even so, I decided we’d open this week with a Mundee video instead of close the last with a Frydee one. Doesn’t even make a difference in terms of where the post appears, but what the hell. I take my changes where I can get ’em.

Good stuff to come over the next five days, in any case. I went and saw Monster Magnet last night at Starland Ballroom and I’ll have a review and photos up before today’s out, and before this week is over (and also before Friday at 5PM, which is a terrible time to post anything) I’ll have a new interview posted with acclaimed visual artist Brian Mercer and Six Dumb Questions with NJ rockers Boss 302, whose album was reviewed last week. Reviews on tap from Bulletwolf (that’s today), Evoken, Curse the Son and Graveyard, and the usual bunch of On the Radars, Buried Treasures and Whathaveyous.

It’s a snow day here in the valley, but I still have to get to class later, and I have some homework to do before that. I’ll get there. In any case, I hope you had a great weekend, hope you have a great week going forward, and hope you enjoy the Dozer above. “Man of Fire” from their excellent Through the Eyes of Heathens album. I thought a little something energetic would be good to start the week off right. Like eggs in the morning.

Mmm… eggs. Looks like I just added another line to the to-do list.

As I said yesterday, Diane Kamikaze‘s DJ set at the Iron Man show has me on a big kick for the first, self-titled Queens of the Stone Age album. I was initially just going to post the studio version of “Mexicola,” maybe with some homemade picture slideshow or whatever I could find, but then I came across this excellent live version filmed for the From the Basement tv show in the UK last year. Killer stuff. In case you’re wondering who’s in the band, other than Josh Homme, it’s Joey Castillo, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman and Dean Fertita. Enjoy.

In the interest of full disclosure, I put that “‘Fairies Wear Boots’ Edition” in the title just to sound more official. Truth be told, I’m just using New Year’s — like I’ve used several other holidays — as an excuse to post some bootleg Black Sabbath. This time it’s the aforementioned track from the renowned Paris 1970 show. The video rules, the song rules, you can’t really lose by watching it. Be sure to rock out to it later when you’re all boozed out. I know I will.

This is it for 2009, so before I go grab the evening’s first adult beverage, I’d just like to take a second to say thanks to all the attendees, bands, labels, stoppers by, comment-leavers and everyone else for making this year such an incredible start for The Obelisk. It’s been killer beyond belief for me and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well. Be safe tonight, enjoy yourselves, and we’ll see you back here next decade — IN THE FUTURE!

Denmark‘s Causa Sui, who recently released their three-volume vinyl Summer Sessions series as a triple-CD box set, are a prime example of the differences between European and American hippie rock. Where US hippies are still sucking the long-dry teat of Grateful Dead-aping jam bands and pretending they’re anything other than commercial ’90s alt holdovers, European bands like this trio are throwing a hefty dose of psychedelic originality into what they do and making something that’s as much worth hearing as it is doubtless fun to play. Point: fucking jam bands suck, heavy psych kicks ass. Here’s Causa Sui live at this year’s Burg Herzberg Festival to back me up. Don’t let the fact that they look like a bunch of guys who’d try to hit on your girlfriend at the airport in Luxembourg stop you from grooving out.

After spending most of the day oot and aboot, it’s good to be back in the valley having managed — for the time being — to escape Frydee traffic. And just when I was thinking about how lucky I was to have skirted that obstacle, picturing something that moves really, agonizingly slow and is a force over which I can exert no control, wouldn’t you know it, Blabbermouth posted some new footage of Crowbar! Sometimes these things just work out.

This show was Nov. 18 in the band’s native New Orleans, and Crowbar played with Hate Eternal, Unearth, Cannibal Corpse and Hatebreed, which is three-fifths of a pretty cool show. Take away the breakdown-junkies and that’s a good time. Fortunately, here at The Obelisk, we don’t have to deal with it. Here’s the two-part Crowbar video: