If you’re looking for insight into the Psycho Las Vegas 2021 lineup, I have precious little to offer. What started out being accused of being an American answer to Roadburn has become a spectacle unto itself, operating at a scale that’s more in competition with the likes of a heavy metal Riot Fest or Coachella, and has likewise developed a community of its own. As for what catches my eye here, Cephalic Carnage for sure, as well as a few carryovers from what would’ve been 2020, and the likes of The Sword, who I guess are back together now? Fair enough. Oh, and the GZA, for good measure. Katatonia and Mercyful Fate and Elder and a couple others aren’t making the trip, but there’s certainly plenty here to occupy your weekend. If the Vegas-in-August heat don’t melt your brains, the riffs surely will.

What’s a guy gotta do to get invited to do a DJ set at Psycho Las Vegas? I’m gonna send Nate Carson an email and see if he’s got any tips.

Ty Segall next to Satyricon. Fatso Jetson and Profanatica. Immolation and Dengue Fever. The Flaming Lips and Cannibal Corpse. If you’re asking for it to make sense, you’re doing Psycho wrong. This is an event that defines its own parameters.

Approach thusly:

PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2021 Lineup

America’s rock n’ roll bacchanal returns to Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino August 20th through August 22nd, with another resort-wide casino takeover unlike any of its kind.

Now approaching its fifth year in the swirling neon decadence of Las Vegas, PSYCHO will feature over seventy artists across four stages including the world-class Events Center, the iconic House Of Blues, Mandalay Bay Beach, and the vintage Vegas-style Rhythm & Riffs Lounge in the center of the casino floor.

PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2021 will continue to redefine America’s conception of what a festival can be.

Psycho Swim “The Official Psycho Las Vegas Pre-Party”
Old Man Gloom, Bongzilla, Death Valley Girls, Polyrhythmics, The Skull, Blackwater Holylight, Here Lies Man, DJ Scott Seltzer

PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2021 Lineup:
Emperor, GZA, Mayhem, Obituary, Ty Segall, Satyricon, Watain, Paul Cauthen, The Sword, Cephalic Carnage, Health, The Bridge City Sinners, MGLA, Intronaut, Exhorder, Pinback, King Dude, Khemmis, Mothership, Toke, Lord Buffalo, Psychlona, Claude Fontaine, Hippie Death Cult, Foie Gras, ALMS, Mother Mercury, DJ Ethan MCCarthy, DJ Scott Seltzer, DJ Nate Carson, DJ Painkiller, Danzig, The Flaming Lips, Thievery Corporation, Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Red Fang, Cursive, Pig Destroyer, Poison the Well, Eyehategod, Primitive Man, Death by Stereo, Curl Up & Die, Boysetsfire, Fatso Jetson, Profanatica, Adamantium, Silvertomb, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Withered, Flavor Crystal, Highlands, Vaelmyst, Black Sabbitch, The Tim Dillon Comedy Hour, Down, Exodus, High on Fire, Osees, Amigo the Devil, Drab Majesty, Crippled Black Phoenix, Weedeater, Full of Hell, Midnight, Repulsion, Cult of Fire, Zola Jesus, Tsol, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Guantanamo Baywatch, Immolation, Dengue Fever, Creeping Death, Kanga, Warish, Glacial Tomb, Relaxer, Vitriol, DJ Scott Seltzer, “Ask Doc” Q&A with Doc Mcghee

https://www.facebook.com/events/2513255765662644/
http://www.vivapsycho.com
http://www.facebook.com/psychoLasVegas
http://www.instagram.com/psycholasvegas

Psycho Las Vegas 2019 aftermovie

Plenty of this lineup looks familiar from what Psycho Las Vegas would’ve been in 2020, and duh, that’s the idea. You’ve still got Danzig doing Lucifuge, still got At the Gates and Katatonia and Emperor and Mercyful Fate. Still got the possibility that if I go, I can hang out after Pinback‘s set and bother Rob Crow about how badly he needs to do another Goblin Cock record. Wino, Fatso Jetson, Elder and Blackwater Holylight playing the pool party, six or seven curveball emo bands — all that fun stuff. Spectacle unmatched in heavy music, set in the Planet Earth’s official home for damned souls. It’s as perfect as it is incongruous.

Makes me wonder what Crowbar have going on next August.

But what you probably want to know is whether your ticket if you had one for 2020 is still good for 2021. Yes.

Behold:

Psycho Entertainment presents Psycho Las Vegas 2021

Psycho Las Vegas has been rescheduled to August 20th – 22nd, 2021. Psycho Swim has been rescheduled to August 19th, 2021. If you already purchased a pass for either event and want to attend in 2021, there is nothing you need to do – your passes will automatically be valid for the new dates.

80 of the 83 bands originally booked on the lineup are returning in 2021. The bands who are not joining us next year are Ty Segall, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Crowbar.

Danzig, Mercyful Fate, Emperor, The Flaming Lips, Blue Oyster Cult, Down, Mayhem, Satyricon, Obituary, Warpaint, Blonde Redhead, HEALTH, Watain, Ulver, Katatonia, At the Gates, Poison The Well, Paul Cauthen, Amigo The Devil, Exhorder, Wolves in the Throne Room, Thursday, Pinback, Zola Jesus, Drab Majesty, Boris, Eyehategood, Repulsion, Immolation, Midnight, MGLA, Windhand, Cursive, Tsol, King Dude, Pig Destroyer, Brutus, Profanatica, Lower Dens, Cult of Fire, Intronaut, boysetsfire, Death by Stereo, Curl Up and Die, Adamantium, This Will Destroy You, Khemmis, Mothership, Guantanamo Baywatch, Dengue Fever, Kaelan Mikla, Black Joe Lewis, Fatso Jetson, Wino, Creeping Death, Mephistofeles, Frankie and The Witch Fingers, Toke, Foie Gras, Flavor Crystals, Silvertomb, Lord Buffalo, Warish, Alms, Bombers, Glacial Tomb, Relaxer, Black Sabbitch, Hippie Death Cult, Vaelmyst, Mother Mercury, Two Minutes to Late Night

America’s rock n’ roll bacchanal returns to Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino August 20th through August 22th, with another resort-wide casino takeover unlike any of its kind. Now approaching its fifth year in the swirling neon decadence of Las Vegas, PSYCHO will feature over seventy artists across four stages including the world-class Events Center, the iconic House Of Blues, Mandalay Bay Beach, and the vintage Vegas-style Rhythm & Riffs Lounge in the center of the casino floor. PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2021 will continue to redefine America’s conception of what a festival can be.

Psycho Entertainment presents Psycho Swim “The Official Psycho Las Vegas Pre-Party”

Old Man Gloom, Elder, Polyrhythmics, Death Valley Girls, The Skull, Blackwater Holylight, Here Lies Man, DJ Scott Seltzer

America’s rock n’ roll pool party returns to DAYLIGHT Beach Club on August 19th for the second annual PSYCHO SWIM. This official all-day pre-party celebrates the best of previous PSYCHO LAS VEGAS lineups with performances from a host of festival alumni as well as new PSYCHO additions.

DAYLIGHT Beach Club is nestled next to the Mandalay Bay Resort And Casino and features a 4400-square-foot main pool, daybeds, cabanas, and bungalows, with an elevated stage offering unobstructed, up-close-and-personal views of artist performances.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2513255765662644/
http://www.vivapsycho.com
http://www.facebook.com/psychoLasVegas
http://www.instagram.com/psycholasvegas

A Message from Psycho Las Vegas

Danzig doing the Lucifuge record, plus Emperor and Mercyful Fate on US exclusives. In the age of spectacle, Psycho Las Vegas stands apart from its otherwise-might-be peers. There’s a method to all this madness. A plan in action. These people aren’t stupid — this isn’t a stupid lineup, unless you mean “stupid” in an emphatic sense. That’s what Psycho Las Vegas is: emphasis realized. The chaos is the mission. How could there be a more suitable complement to this year, this moment in human history? This is happening at a fucking casino. In Las Vegas. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Do you understand you surreal that is? Repulsion are playing a god damned casino. On a bill with The Flaming Lips and Katatonia. This is your brain on… fire, I guess?

A couple weeks ago — days ago? hours? I have no idea what day it is or why I should be expected to know; I’ve actually set an alarm to post this at the right time in an effort not to screw it up which I probably will anyhow — I happened to have some quick email correspondence with the souls behind the genre-consuming beast of a festival that is Psycho Las Vegas 2020 and I made my BIG PITCH for coverage. Want to know what it was? What it basically boiled down to was, “How about you guys bring me out to the festival and put me up for four days, I take a bunch of mushrooms, maybe go see some bands and write whatever the hell I want?”

Their answer was yes, so that’s my plan. I think Psycho deserves nothing less than me ranting about I don’t know probably cultural decay, self-hate manifest as pretentious judgmentalism, and not eating for four days? Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll go with that.

The schedule isn’t out yet, but it’s clearly a choose-your-adventure festival. For those seeing HOT TIPS from an internet influencer, you’re on the wrong goddamn site. I’m the guy who spent half his morning cleaning up animal piss at his mom’s house. I’ll say though that along with the gargantuan proportion of the headliners — come on, Danzig doing Danzig II is brilliant and you know it — and all the indie, emo and post-hardcore stuff that, yeah okay, I get it, the aughts were a thing for some people (not for me; was too drunk to remember any of it), it’s righteous to see such a huge event in addition to telling Coachella to suck its ass continuing to commit to the heavy underground. My chosen adventure will include but not be limited to placing priority on Lord Buffalo, Blackwater Holylight, Fatso Jetson (of course), Mothership (the context is too good to pass up), Hippie Death Cult and… yes… Katatonia. Because they’re the wintriest band ever and it’ll be 100 degrees. The most Psycho move ever would be to put them on the pool stage. Keeping my fingers crossed that’s how it works out. Shit, put Mayhem out there while we’re at it.

That’s all provided I’m not too out of my mind to leave the hotel room.

Here’s a poster and words in blue. See you there, sort of:

PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2020 – COMPLETE LINEUP

DANZIG (Celebrating 30 years of “Lucifuge”)
MERCYFUL FATE (2020 USA Exclusive)
EMPEROR (2020 USA Exclusive)
THE FLAMING LIPS
BLUE OYSTER CULT
DOWN (Celebrating 25 years of “Nola”)
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
TY SEGALL
WARPAINT
MAYHEM
SATYRICON
WATAIN
BLONDE REDHEAD
HEALTH
OBITUARY
ULVER (2020 USA Exclusive)
KATATONIA
AT THE GATES
POISON THE WELL
TSOL
CROWBAR
EXHORDER
WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM
THURSDAY
PINBACK
ZOLA JESUS
DRAB MAJESTY
BORIS
KING DUDE
PAUL CAUTHEN
AMIGO THE DEVIL
EYEHATEGOD
PIG DESTROYER
REPULSION
IMMOLATION
MIDNIGHT
MGLA
WINDHAND
CURSIVE
BRUTUS
PROFANATICA
LOWER DENS
BLACK JOE LEWIS
INTRONAUT
BOYSETSFIRE
DEATH BY STEREO
CURL UP AND DIE
ADAMANTIUM
THIS WILL DESTROY YOU
KHEMMIS
MOTHERSHIP
GUANTANAMO BAYWATCH
DENGUE FEVER
KAELAN MIKLA
BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT
FATSO JETSON
WINO (ACOUSTIC)
CREEPING DEATH
MEPHISTOFELES
FRANKIE AND THE WITCH FINGERS
TOKE
FOIE GRAS
FLAVOR CRYSTALS
SILVERTOMB
LORD BUFFALO
WARISH
ALMS
BOMBERS
GLACIAL TOMB
RELAXER
HIPPIE DEATH CULT
VAELMYST
MOTHER MERCURY
DJ SCOTT SELTZER

Psycho Entertainment & MGM Entertainment present PSYCHO SWIM

Lineup:
OLD MAN GLOOM
ELDER
THE SKULL
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS
BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT
HERE LIES MAN
POLYRHYTHMICS
DJ SCOTT SELTZER

Tickets for PSYCHO LAS VEGAS as well as the PSYCHO SWIM pre-party, which requires a separate ticket from the main festival pass, are on sale now!

Tickets for all PSYCHO LAS VEGAS events can be purchased at VivaPsycho.com or AXS.com.

https://www.facebook.com/events/3255628101138593/
http://www.vivapsycho.com
http://www.facebook.com/psychoLasVegas
http://www.instagram.com/psycholasvegas

Danzig, Danzig II: Lucifuge (1990)

In the fine tradition of, well, last year’s Psycho fest, 2016’s Psycho Las Vegas has announced an overwhelmingly impressive initial group of acts for its lineup, including some of the finest North America has to offer and choice imports. Notable in that category are Candlemass, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Colour Haze, Mars Red Sky, Belzebong, Øresund Space Collective and The Cosmic Dead, and they’re joined by returning figureheads Sleep and Pentagram, who headlined the 2015 Psycho California fest, along with YOB, Down, Mudhoney, Acid King, Fu Manchu and a whole host of others listed below.

The truly insane part about Psycho Las Vegas is that, like last year with Psycho California, the lineup is staggered, so this isn’t it. On Valentines Day, the festival will announce its full lineup of acts, which I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume includes everyone else on earth, and then after that, in March, they’ll follow up again with the headliners. So what we learn today is that 2015’s headliners will have someone playing over them. I don’t know who, or how that could be possible, but you can bet your ass I’m anxious to find out.

All the details so far unveiled about Psycho Las Vegas, as well as the link to purchase tickets, appear below:

PSYCHO LAS VEGAS 2016

Neon Knights arrive and ignite the the city of light in a sleepless celebration of heavy culture. High rollin’ low lifes will low roll the high life at the world famous Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in “Sin City”, Las Vegas. For three straight days, from August 26th through the 28th, born losers win as Psycho Las Vegas holds a rock steady hand of bands, performance artists, tattoo artists, art exhibits, a black light chamber, custom van and chopper show, pinball arcade, and much more.

Psycho Las Vegas sins and grins two blocks south of the strip at the expansive Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The high-octane Rock ‘n’ Roll-themed casino resort hosts three stages; The Joint, which is a main stage, Vinyl, the rock club and out under the desert night sky is the second main stage, The Pool Stage. Experience live music, 24 hours a day.

In between bands and bets, ride outside to the venue’s open lot and witness the most bitchin’ rides this side of Death Valley at Psycho’s first ever custom van and chopper show!

Psycho Las Vegas features some of the most revered screen printed poster artwork with an exclusive exhibition from commissioned Psycho Las Vegas artist David D’Andrea. D’andrea, who returns to Psycho for a second year, created all the official festival artwork. Attendees will be able to eternally commemorate the event on their own walls with signed, limited edition works from D’Andrea.

Psycho Las Vegas acts and events were co-curated with music scene stalwart Sean “Pellet” Pelletier. (“Last Days Here” documentary) “Thief Present’s ‘Psycho’ festivals are visionary and have consecutively been the number one music event I’ve want to attend since they’ve started”, said Pellet. “I’ve been dreaming about putting on a cool culture and music festival for quite some time and I jumped at the chance to help us all go psycho in Las Vegas! The event is a celebration of subculture and a spiritual gateway for all of us into sonically connected sub-genres of heavy rock that hopefully, some of which, may be new to our senses. I’m booking bands that I’ve always personally wanted to see and have requested setlists that we’ve all wanted to hear.”

Among the first string of live acts announced will be hard rock legends, BLUE OYSTER CULT with a set heavy on their early songs that have inspired so many great bands over the years. Mark Arm and Steve Turner, also both of Green RIver-fame, will remind us why MUDHONEY are heralded as essential grandfathers of grunge. English psych rock pioneer, THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN returns to America with a performance sure to highlight where groundbreaking artists such as Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Ghost may have gotten some of their ideas. We’ve reunited proto-metal masters TRUTH AND JANEY who will appear for an exclusive live set to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their underground classic debut, “No Rest For The Wicked”! “A Band Called Death” documentary film stars DEATH, pulsate the pool stage and will show us why they are finally considered one of the first Detroit punk bands. Germany’s top psychedelic stoners COLOUR HAZE have chosen the festival for a rare US manifestation that’s sure rise us all high above the neon. Swedish doom metal ministers CANDLEMASS come crushing in yet another one of Psycho Las Vegas’s special performances. Stay tuned for the announcement of even more acts, over 60 in total, over the next few months.

Thief presents
Friday, August 26, 2016 at 12:00 PM – Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 12:00 AM (PDT)
Las Vegas, NV

SLEEP
BLUE ÖYSTER CULT
CANDLEMASS
DOWN
THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN
MUDHONEY
COLOUR HAZE
PENTAGRAM
FU MANCHU
ACID KING
DEATH (Detroit)
YOB
BELZEBONG
ORESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE
DANAVA
TRUTH AND JANEY
GOLDEN VOID
JUCIFER
BONGRIPPER
MARS RED SKY
A STORM OF LIGHT
CAVE OF SWIMMERS
THE COSMIC DEAD

ACCOMMODATIONS
Join the bands and crew at the Hard Rock Hotel & use the code: Psych16 at checkout to recieve 30% off your rooms.

ANNOUNCEMENT SCHEDULE
1/20 – “Warm up” Tickets Onsale 8am pst
2/14 – Full Lineup (60+ acts)
3/15 – Headliners Revealed
5/4 – Van/Chopper & Alt Exhibitions

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/psycho-las-vegas-2016-tickets-20777507083
WWW.PSYCHOLV.COM
WWW.HARDROCKHOTEL.COM

Sleep, Live at Psycho California

Down IV Part One: The Purple EP is a pretty complex title for a band who, when they released their first album in 1995, couldn’t be bothered to say the entire phrase “New Orleans.” The project seems to be that over the next year, Down — the supergroup of (do I even need to list them?) Pepper Keenan (C.O.C.), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar), Jimmy Bower (EyeHateGod), Pat Bruders (Crowbar) and Phil Anselmo (Pantera) — will issue four EPs that will make up the whole of Down IV, which follows 2007’s Down III: Over the Under, an album that was watered down sound-wise and had stripped much of the edge off of the band’s songwriting. Anyone remember “Pillamyd?” I’m sorry I brought it up.

My appreciation for Down‘s recorded output has been on a decline since 2002’s Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow, though I liked that album and still consider 1995’s Nola a masterpiece, if one I can’t really listen to anymore. I don’t begrudge the band their commercial success. All of them — even Bruders, who came aboard at some point after the last album as a replacement for Pantera‘s Rex Brown, now in Kill Devil Hill –have put in more than their share of roadtime. Hell, for Wiseblood alone, Pepper Keenan should be a millionaire. Down III, however, sucked. Plain and simple. Everything that worked about Down‘s prior output fell flat, and even the songs that were memorable, such as the nonsensical Dimebag Darrell paean “Three Suns and One Star,” were more memorable for being annoying than being good.

So when it comes to Down IV Part One: The Purple EP, I’d rather just write the band off and go my own way, them onward to wider audiences, me onward to… a wider ass, I guess. Whatever. The point is I’m annoyed at feeling obligated to even put on Down‘s six-track collection — which is full-length enough at 33 minutes — and annoyed at the thought of reviewing it. It’s not like my opinion on this record matters. No one’s going to read this and have their mind changed about Down. If you like the band and liked the last album, you’ll probably like the EP. If you didn’t, you won’t. Down‘s legacy, pedigree and commercial breadth doesn’t allow for much ambivalence. You’re either going to feel one way or another.

A chugging riff fades up slowly to begin opener “Levitation,” and already Down IV has more meat to its tonality than its predecessor, Keenan and Windstein working well together as they always do. Bower, a more than capable drummer, is in the pocket with Bruders, and all more or less goes according to plan as Anselmo counts in with a “one, two, three, go!” apparently unaware the song has already been on for two minutes. From there, he’s all over the verse and chorus, his unfortunately influential clean vocal mewling layered in with one or two ambient background screams and the toughguy spoken word he’s used since Pantera‘s heyday. And well, it just goes from there.

I’ll grant that for a band of this scale — releasing music on Warner Bros., touring the world in large venues, etc. — to put forth anything as stoned-sounding as “Witchtripper” (on which Bruder‘s bass offers ultra-low rumble that’s legitimately killer) or anything even close enough to be vaguely compared to Pentagram as “The Curse is a Lie” can be, is admirable, but that’s not really enough to save the songs themselves, which sound written to type and, as “Open Coffins” shows, lack the punch that the beginning of “Levitation” seemed to promise. And though he’s actually made himself into a decently-stylized singer of reasonable range, Anselmo is also a cartoon character who sounds like he doesn’t know how to be anything else than this persona he’s created for himself over the last 20 years. Every time he opens his mouth, I just hear him telling VH-1 viewers to, “never underestimate the kid.”

“This Work is Timeless” is an overestimation from the start, if a decent riff, and closer “Misfortune Teller” (get it?!) locks in a solid groove and features a rougher vocal — not quite the screams of old, which were among metal’s most vicious — atop effective lumber in the guitar that Bower meets with heavy-thudding fills. They fade out on a chugging riff at about seven minutes in, and for the last 15 seconds of the track’s total 9:05 bring up a melody that’s perhaps a preview of things to come on the next installment of Down IV. Sounds like Down, anyway.

Objectively, Down IV Part One: The Purple EP is an improvement over Down III. On a basic songwriting level, the band seems to search out a niche between accessible doom-tinged Southern stoner riffs and commercial metal, and while there are at least 75 records I’ve heard this year that I’d put on before it, the fans who’ve stuck with them to this point will find it easy to continue to follow them onward to Part Two, whatever stylistic shifts or changes in mood it may hold. For me, even the best stretches are undercut by the ultra-gendered posturing, and already being mostly out of the fold (apparently not enough so to ignore the record altogether), I hear few reasons to return to it, comforting though the familiarity might otherwise prove. Somehow, I imagine the band will survive.

I have my issues with Southern metal supergroup Down, but there’s no denying they kill it live. Do I remember the first time I saw them? No I do not. It’s that kind of epic.

Documenting their first European tour (which they booked to escape from the wrath Hurricane Katrina had recently wrought on their New Orleans home) and beyond, Diary of a Mad Band is slated for release next month, but you can preorder it now at the band’s webstore. The PR wire has the goods on the tracklist and whatnot:

New Orleans, LA’s Down is pleased to announce three killer pre-order bundles, available for purchase now in preparation for their upcoming three-disc (2CD plus DVD) release, Diary of a Mad Band, hitting stores on Oct. 5, 2010. All pre-orders include an instant MP3 download of “Stone the Crow” live in Dublin.

Diary of a Mad Band features a 2CD full concert, live in London! The DVD highlights documented footage marking the 2006 return of Down from the practice room through their first European tour, and a bonus behind-the-scenes featurette, Tyrades and Shananigans. The DVD closes in at a blistering 130 minutes! See below for a complete tracklisting of the set:

DVD: Diary of a Mad Band
w/ Bonus featurette Tyrades and Shananigans
1. Lysergic Funeral Procession
2. Lifer
3. Losing All
4. Rehab
5. New Orleans is a Dying Whore
6. Ghosts along the Mississippi
7. Learn from this Mistake
8. Underneath Everything
9. Temptation’s Wings
10. There’s Something on My Side
11. Hail the Leaf
12. Lies
13. The Seed
14. Eyes of the South
15. Jail
16. Stone the Crow
17. Bury Me in Smoke

2CD: Live in Europe
1. Losing All
2. Lifer
3. Lysergic Funeral Procession
4. Rehab
5. Temptation’s Wings
6. Ghosts along the Mississippi
7. Learn from this Mistake
8. Hail the Leaf
9. New Orleans is A Dying Whore
10. Lies, I Don’t Know What They Say But…
11. Underneath Everything
12. The Seed
13. Eyes of the South
14. Jail
15. Stone the Crow
16. Bury Me in Smoke

If that isn’t enough for a rabid fan, a 180 Gram triple vinyl version with a bonus DVD will be available on Oct. 26.

Like many afternoons at 3pm, today, I was downstairs making myself a sandwich, carefully pressing down the panini grill to be sure none of the Swiss cheese comes out between the slices of bread. I had an orange juice ready and some cashews (roasted, unsalted; death to false flavors) set to accompany. Then the phone rang and the caller ID says, “HSE CRE RECORDS.”

Ah hell.

So much for my 3:30 interview with Down singer Philip Anselmo, who in the days of fronting Pantera was able to give voice to my teenage angst in a way few others could match. I asked Kate, the pleasant-sounding young woman on the other end of the phone who would connect me with Phil, if she could call back in two minutes so I could run upstairs, plug in my recorder and switch. She said no problem.

Then, two minutes into the interview, the call is dropped.

But fear not, intrepid attendees, the interview with Philip Anselmo did happen. We talked about his label, Housecore Records, the bands he’s working with, and about plans for the next Down album, which is apparently set to be recorded at the end of this year. The actual interview will be posted probably sometime in the next two weeks, but because I was so damn relieved to actually get it done, I thought I’d celebrate with this video of “Underneath Everything” from 1995.

While the thought of another Down tour saddens me because it means we’re that much less likely to see a new Crowbar or (gawd forbid) C.O.C. album anytime soon, I’m glad long-running North Carolina dirtball sludgers Weedeater are going to get the exposure of a major corporate tour. Should be pretty funny to see how the dudes in the denim BLS vests react when Dixie Dave starts puking all over the stage. Not to mention what’ll happen if some gets on Danava‘s $400 shoes. Yeah, they should fit in just fine. Here’s the PR wire news and the dates:

That is right, sound the alarms: North Carolina‘s sludge pillagers Weedeater have been confirmed as support for a full-on North American Down tour! The lineup changes throughout the routing; The Canadian dates feature secondary support from Voivod, while the bulk of the American dates feature The Melvins. Other opening support for the tour will be Danava for the first half and Evil Army for the latter half of the dates.

Weedeater will play several shows in North Carolina and Tennessee on the way to the opening and after the closing of the tour, and will headline sporadically in chunks throughout the main tour. And of course they will do what they do best: sonically reduce every venue they enter to a resin-coated heap of rubble.

Weedeater live:

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