The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Chris Bogen from High Castle Teleorkestra

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

The short music-centric answer is that I am the guitarist (and occasional other instrumentalist) and co-producer of the High Castle Teleorkestra remote ensemble. I fell into this gig through a previous remote collaboration with Tim Smolens when we meticulously recorded a fleshed-out version of Steely Dan’s lost and legendary “Second Arrangement” track. After we finished that recording, we started working on other things that eventually became High Castle Teleorkestra.

In a more general sense, much of what I do is balancing time and attention amongst a lot of demanding and competing professional, artistic, and family obligations. I probably have found myself in this predicament due to excessive curiosity, tolerance for pain, and some mental allergy to the word “no.” I am not and have never been a full-time artist or musician. However, I have enjoyed home recording (and occasional performance) for over 30 years. My journey as a musician/recording artist has been extremely slow and persistent. Since musical time is somewhat limited in my life these days, I have adapted to a workflow that allows me to do big musical things, like High Castle Teleorkestra, through somewhat short, but persistent, sessions and loads of teamwork. None of this would be possible without a tremendous amount of support from my family, friends, my other professional colleagues, and my bandmates.

Describe your first musical memory.

The earliest musical memory that I can recall today is when I vomited and fainted at a pre-school choir performance. I think the same thing happened a few other times throughout my early life. I have no insight into what caused these incidents. Perhaps I was incredibly nervous, tense, and standing in a rigid manner. Or perhaps the music was just really bad (though I have no memory of what music was involved). The most likely culprit is that I have no talent for singing and the cosmos were trying to give a not-so-subtle hint to apply myself elsewhere.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

During my early elementary school days, my young cousins and I would sneak around and listen to their much older brother’s hard rock and metal albums (Ozzy, AC/DC, Iron Maiden). I had never heard anything like that stuff before and it was exciting because listening to that stuff was very taboo. I can remember us sneaking “Diary of a Madman” into my room. We shut the door and started playing the record on my portable Fisher Price record player. My mother knocks on the door and asks, “What are you doing in there?” We tell her we are “listening to jazz” and she goes on about her way. None of us knew what the hell jazz sounded like either so we could probably plead ignorance there if caught. We did know that we wouldn’t be in trouble for listening to jazz though. I can’t say that I really liked Ozzy’s music back then, but I did know that it was a world away from the Wham tape I frequently played on my Fisher Price cassette player.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

My firmly held beliefs are tested daily in my role as a parent of three young children. Once their little minds begin to become independent, they don’t miss an opportunity to challenge my beliefs which are implied by reasonable requests and commands. Additionally, I am frequently challenging my own beliefs and assumptions as I internally struggle to make “good” parenting decisions.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I’m not sure where artistic progression leads, but it certainly expands the bounds of our inner worlds. The destination may be less interesting than the pathway and the stops along the way. Hopefully, my artistic progression will lead to some place with a modest amount of revenue that could justify dedicating more time to artistic pursuits while cutting back on some portion of my other rewarding professional activities that keep my pantry well stocked, my mortgage and utilities paid, etc.

How do you define success?

With regards to music, success is: a) creating musical work that I can bear hearing more than a few hundred times, b) accomplishing item a. while not: compromising my values, putting my family and myself in peril (financially, mentally, etc.), or missing out on other important facets of life (priceless family moments, full-time career goals, couch potato time, etc.).

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

That 1990s Godzilla movie with Matthew Broderick. My buddy Jason and I sat through that whole thing at the theater. After it was over, we realized that we both wanted to walk out but did not raise the idea with each other because we didn’t want to rock the boat. Lesson learned: Life is too short for bogus Hollywood Godzilla movies (long live Toho Studios!), so rock the boat and tell your friend it’s time to walk out.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’d like to record a follow-up to my Doc Booger EP (a Chet Atkins tribute of sorts). I’m getting rusty on my fingerpicking so it may take a while before I can work up some good fingerstyle arrangements.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Art provides a cyclical function by operating in two somewhat opposing modes: communion and mutation. As “communion,” art allows us to share intangible (spiritual, emotional), timeless experiences and create artifacts that contribute to a cultural body of work. In “mutation” mode, art arouses emotion and inspires individual imaginations in unique ways; and thus, art leads to more inner journeys that lead to more art. It’s a farcical, yet essential feedback loop that sustains and evolves humanity for better or worse.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I am a stereotypical South Louisiana dude, so I’m usually looking forward to my next meal. Food is a vice, and the struggle is real. At this moment I am looking forward to a plate of my wife’s delicious white beans, rice, and fresh spicy sausage (from Zuppardo’s Family Market).

https://highcastleteleorkestra.com
https://www.instagram.com/highcastleteleorkestra
https://www.facebook.com/HighCastleTeleorkestra
https://highcastleteleorkestra.bandcamp.com

https://www.artascatharsis.com
https://www.facebook.com/artascatharsis
https://www.instagram.com/artascatharsis
https://music.artascatharsis.com

High Castle Teleorkestra, The Egg That Never Opened (2022)

Doc Booger, Picks the Drive-In (2016)

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Lindsey Baker of Guts Club

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

About 10 years ago, I was making multiple series of lo-fi music videos that I organized by clubs. There was Big Mistake Club, Sad Club, Types of November Rain, Therapy Club, Feelings Club, and more. The music was bedroom recordings of various cover songs and the visuals were found footage from YouTube with really terrible animation. These videos sandwiched a series of long movies where I essentially extracted audio from rock ’n’ roll biopics (8 Mile, The Doors, and Elvis and Me) and replaced then with “normal people” covering the music.

Then came a series of videos actually called Guts Club. Instead of covering batshit ’90s hits like “Everybody Hurts” and “Nothing Compares To You,” like I had done in previous videos, I wrote these really extreme love songs. I was newly in love and as an obsessive scorpio, I thought it would be a great idea to send my new girlfriend these completely insane little videos with songs about stuffing loved ones in the trunk or drowning them. Weirdly, it worked — we’re married now. (We all have our own strange love language!) She thought the songs were cool and sort of pushed me to make the first album, The Arm Wrestling Tournament.

In my mind, The Arm Wrestling Tournament was an extension of what Vic Chesnutt had done with songwriting. I don’t think anyone really picked up on that though — more and more, I don’t think that’s what I was actually doing anyway. I slowly started adding musicians and made two country-leaning albums, Shit Bug and Trench Foot. Playing louder felt amazing and shortly before the pandemic, I started messing around with running my guitar through two amps. Obviously the pandemic sort of shattered everything I had been working on and completely destroyed my mental state. About a year into it, I had reworked what would become CLIFFS/ WALLS, found the current lineup, and somehow ended up playing super heavy music. I blame it on the pandemic and the rise of fascism.

Describe your first musical memory.

It’s a toss up between being completely terrified of the timpani in “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and just simply seeing Bruce Springsteen’s jeans-butt.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Like any musician, I love playing music to rooms of engaged people. But, I’m also a sound tech at a venue in New Orleans. When women, queer, or nonbinary folks tell me how happy and comfortable they feel when I mix their show, I feel like there’s a point a to all of this.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

Buying a used car with low mileage doesn’t mean it won’t be a complete piece of shit.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I’m not sure but for right now, I’d like to keep pushing amps and breaking my voice. I’ve never had so much fun or felt so completely happy playing music until now.

How do you define success?

I don’t think there’s one answer for that. Universal healthcare, free college, federally paid parental leave, and universal basic income would allow for each of us to discover that.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I hate seeing pieces of people’s homes flying through the sky during hurricanes.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’d like to hear Guts Club with a baritone sax. Come to think of it, maybe some timpani too.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Another one with more than one answer. For me at least, art functions to create culture and community.

Making this type of art has also helped me build confidence which is something I struggled with when Guts Club was a solo-project and even when I started adding musicians. Creating this type of music through the pandemic and playing it with Ronna and Alex has weirdly and magically helped me overcome so much of what I had previously wrestled with.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I’m a runner and I’m SUPER excited for the temperature to drop a bit in New Orleans so I don’t have to carry 80oz of sports water on my back just so I can run 10 miles.

[Photo above by Dalton Spangler.]

https://www.instagram.com/musicfan666/
https://twitter.com/puppiesonlsd
https://gutsclub.bandcamp.com/
http://gutsclub.com/

Guts Club, CLIFFS/WALLS (2023)

Welcome to the penultimate day of the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review, and yes, I will make just about any excuse to use the word “penultimate.” Sometimes you have a favorite thing, okay? The journey continues today, down, out, up and around, through and across 10 records from various styles and backgrounds. I hope you dig it and check back tomorrow for the last day. Here we go.

Quarterly Review #81-90:

Motorpsycho, Ancient Astronauts

There is no denying Motorpsycho. I’ve tried. Can’t be done. I don’t know how many records the Norwegian progressive rockers have put out by now, and honestly I wonder if even the band members themselves could give an accurate count. And who would be able to fact check? Ancient Astronauts continues the strong streak that the Trondheim trio of Tomas Järmyr, Bent Sæther, and Hans “Snah” Ryan have had going for at least the last six years — 2021’s Kingdom of Oblivion (review here) was also part of it — comprising four songs across a single 43-minute LP, with side B consumed entirely by the 22-minute finale “Chariot of the Sun/To Phaeton on the Occasion of Sunrise (Theme From an Imaginary Movie).” After the 12-minute King Crimsony build from silence to sustained freakout in “Mona Lisa Azazel” — preceded by the soundscape “The Flower of Awareness” (2:14) and the relatively straightforward, welcome-bidding “The Ladder” (6:41) — the closer indeed unfurls in two discernible sections, the first a linear stretch increasing in volume and tension as it moves forward, loosely experimental in the background but for sure a prog jam by its 11th minute that ends groovy at about its 15th, and the second a synthesizer-led arrangement that, to no surprise, is duly cinematic. Motorpsycho have been a band for more than 30 years established their place in the fabric of the universe, and are there to dwell hopefully for a long(er) time to come. Not all of the hundred-plus releases they’ve done have been genius, but they are so reliably themselves in sound it feels silly to write about them. Just listen and be happy they’re there.

Motorpsycho on Facebook

Stickman Records store

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Abrams, In the Dark

Did you think Abrams would somehow not deliver quality-crafted heavy rock, straightforward in structure, ’00s punk undercurrent, plus metal, plus melody? Their first offering through Small Stone is In the Dark, the follow-up to 2020’s Modern Ways (review here), and it finds guitarist/vocalist Zachary Amster joined by on guitar by Patrick Alberts (Call of the Void), making the band a four-piece for the first time with bassist/vocalist Taylor Iversen and drummer Ryan DeWitt completing the lineup. One can hear new textures and depth in songs like “Better Living” after the raucous opening salvo of “Like Hell” and “Death Tripper,” and longer pieces like “Body Pillow,” the title-track and the what-if-Blizzard–of–Ozz-was-really-space-rock “Black Tar Mountain,” which reach for new spaces atmospherically and in terms of progressive melody — looking at you, “Fever Dreams” — while maintaining the level of songwriting one anticipates from Abrams four records in. They’ve been undervalued for a while now. Can their metal-heavy-rock-punk-prog-that’s-also-kind-of-pop gain some of the recognition it deserves? It only depends on getting ears to hear it.

Abrams on Facebook

Small Stone Records on Bandcamp

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All India Radio, The Generator of All Infinity

Australia-based electronic prog outfit All India Radio — the solo ambient/atmospheric endeavor of composer and Martin Kennedy — has been releasing music for over 20 years, and is the kind of thing you may have heard without realizing it, soundtracking television and whatnot. The Generator of All Infinity is reportedly the final release in a trilogy cycle, completely instrumental and based largely on short ambient movements that move between each other like, well, a soundtrack, with some more band-minded ideas expressed in “The New Age” — never underestimate the value of live bass in electronic music — and an array of samples, differing organs, drones, psychedelic soundscapes, and a decent bit of ’80s sci-fi intensity on “Beginning Part 2,” which succeeds in making the wait for its underlying beat excruciating even though the whole piece is just four minutes long. There are live and sampled drums throughout, shades of New Wave, krautrock and a genuine feeling of culmination in the title-track’s organ-laced crescendo wash, but it’s a deep current of drone that ends on “Doomsday Machine” that makes me think whatever narrative Kennedy has been telling is somewhat grim in theme. Fair enough. The Generator of All Infinity will be too heady for some (most), but if you can go with it, it’s evocative enough to maybe be your own soundtrack.

All India Radio on Facebook

All India Radio on Bandcamp

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Nighdrator, Nighdrator

Mississippi-based heavygaze rockers Nighdrator released the single “The Mariner” as a standalone late in 2020 as just the duo of vocalist/producer Emma Fruit and multi-instrumentalist JS Curley. They’ve built out more of a band on their self-titled debut EP, put to tape through Sailing Stone Records and bringing back “Mariner” (dropped the ‘The’) between “Scarlet Tendons” and the more synth-heavy wash of “The Poet.” The last two minutes of the latter are given to noise, drone and silence, but what unfurls before that is an experimentalist-leaning take on heavier post-rock, taking the comparatively grounded exploratory jangle of “Scarlet Tendons” — which picks up from the brief intro “Crest/Trough” depending on which format you’re hearing — and turning its effects-laced atmosphere into a foundation in itself. Given the urgency that remains in the strum of “Mariner,” I wouldn’t expect Nighdrator to go completely in one direction or another after this, but the point is they set up multiple opportunities for creative growth while signaling an immediate intention toward individuality and doing more than the My-Bloody-Valentine-but-heavy that has become the standard for the style. There’s some of that here, but Nighdrator seem not to want to limit themselves, and that is admirable even in results that might turn out to be formative in the longer term.

Nighdrator on Bandcamp

Sailing Stone Records store

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Seven Rivers of Fire, Sanctuary

William Graham Randles, who is the lone figure behind all the plucked acoustic guitar strings throughout Seven Rivers of Fire‘s three-song full-length, Sanctuary, makes it easy to believe the birdsong that occurs throughout “Union” (16:30 opener and longest track; immediate points), “Al Tirah” (9:00) and “Bloom” (7:30) was happening while the recording was taking place and that the footsteps at the end are actually going somewhere. This is not Randles‘ first full-length release of 2022 and not his last — he releases the new Way of the Pilgrim tomorrow, as it happens — but it does bring a graceful 33 minutes of guitar-based contemplation, conversing with the natural world via the aforementioned birdsong as well as its own strums and runs, swells and recessions of activity giving the feeling of his playing in the sunshine, if not under a tree then certainly near one or, at worst, someplace with an open window and decent ventilation; the air feels fresh. “Al Tirah” offers a long commencement drone and running water, while “Bloom” — which begins with footsteps out — is more playfully folkish, but the heart throughout Sanctuary is palpable and in celebration of the organic, perhaps of the surroundings but also in its own making. A moment of serenity, far-away escapism, and realization.

Seven Rivers of Fire on Facebook

Aural Canyon Music on Bandcamp

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Motherslug, Blood Moon Blues

Half a decade on from The Electric Dunes of Titan (review here), Melbourne sludge rock bruisers Motherslug return with Blood Moon Blues, a willfully unmanageable 58-minute, let’s-make-up-for-lost-time collection that’s got room enough for “Hordes” to put its harsh vocals way forward in the mix over a psychedelic doom sprawl while also coexisting with the druggy desert punkers “Crank” and “Push the Venom” and the crawling death in the culmination of “You (A Love Song)” — which it may well be — later on. With acoustic stretches bookending in “Misery” and the more fully a song “Misery (Slight Return),” there’s no want for cohesion, but from naked Kyussism of “Breathe” and the hard Southern-heavy-informed riffs of “Evil” — yes I’m hearing early Alabama Thunderpussy there — to the way in which “Deep in the Hole” uses similar ground as a launchpad for its spacious solo section, there’s an abiding brashness to their approach that feels consistent with their past work. Not every bands sees the ways in which microgenres intersect, let alone manages to set their course along the lines between, drawing from different sides in varied quantities as they go, but Motherslug do so while sounding almost casual about it for their lack of pretense. Accordingly, the lengthy runtime of Blood Moon Blues feels earned in a way that’s not always the case with records that pass the single-LP limit of circa 45 minutes, there’s blues a-plenty and Motherslug brought enough riffs for the whole class, so dig in, everybody.

Motherslug on Facebook

Motherslug on Bandcamp

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Cheater Pipe, Planetarium Module

Keep an ear out because you’re going to be hearing more of this kind of thing in the next few years. On their third album, Planetarium Module, Cheater Pipe blend Oliveri-style punk with early-aughts sludge tones and sampling, and as we move to about 20 years beyond acts like Rebreather and -(16)- and a slew of others including a bunch from Cheater Pipe‘s home state of Louisiana, yeah, there will be more acts adapting this particular stoner sludge space. Much to their credit, Cheater Pipe not only execute that style ably — Emissions sludge — on “Fog Line Shuffle,” “Cookie Jar” or “White Freight Liner Blues” and the metal-as-punk “Hollow Leg Hobnobber,” they bring Floor-style melody to “Yaw” and expand the palette even further in the second half of the tracklist, with “Mansfield Bar” pushing the melody further, “Flight of the Buckmoth” and closer “Rare Sunday” turning to acoustic guitar and “The Sad Saga of Hans Cholo” between them lending atmospheric breadth to the whole. They succeed at this while packing 11 songs into 34 minutes and coming across generally like they long ago ran out of fucks to give about things like what style they’re playing to or what’s ‘their sound.’ Invariably they think of these things — nobody writes a song and then never thinks about it again, even when they tell you otherwise — but the spirit here is middle-fingers-up, and that suits their sound best anyway.

Cheater Pipe on Facebook

Cheater Pipe on Bandcamp

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Old Million Eye, The Air’s Chrysalis Chime

The largely solo endeavor of Brian Lucas of Dire Wolves and a merry slew of others, Old Million Eye‘s latest full-length work arrives via Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube with mellow psychedelic experimentalism and folk at its core. The Air’s Chrysalis Chime boasts seven pieces in 43 minutes and each one establishes its own world to some degree based around an underlying drone; the fluidity in “Louthian Wood” reminiscent of windchimes and accordion without actually being either of those things — think George Harrison at the end of “Long Long Long,” but it keeps going — and “Tanglier Mirror” casts out a wash of synthesizer melody that would threaten to swallow the vocals entirely would they not floating up so high. It’s a vibe based around patience in craft, but not at all staid, and “White Toads” throws some distorted volume the listener’s way not so much as a lifeline for rockers as another tool to be used when called for. The last cosmic synthesizer on “Ruby River,” the album’s nine-minute finale, holds as residual at the end, which feels fair as Lucas‘ voice — the human element of its presence is not to be understated as songs resonate like an even-farther-out, keyboard-leaning mid-period Ben Chasny — has disappeared into the ether of his own making. We should all be so lucky.

Old Million Eye on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz Records store

Feeding Tube Records store

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Zoltar, Bury

“Bury” is the newest single from Swedish heavy rockers Zoltar, who, yes, take their moniker from the genie machine in the movie Big (they’re not the only ones either). It follows behind two songs released last year in “Asphalt Alpha” and “Dirt Vortex.” Those tracks were rawer in overall production sound, but there’s still plenty of edge in “Bury,” up to and including in the vocals, which are throatier here than on either of the two prior singles, though still melodic enough so that when the electric piano-style keys start up at about two and a half minutes into the song, the goth-punk nod isn’t out of place. It’s a relatively straight-ahead hook with riffing made that much meatier through the tones on the recording, and a subtle wink in the direction of Slayer‘s “Dead Skin Mask” in its chorus. Nothing to complain about there or more generally about the track, as the three-piece seem to be working toward some kind of proper release — they did press up a CD of Bury as a standalone, so kudos to them on the physicality — be it an EP or album. Wherever they end up, if these songs make the trip or are dropped on the way, it’s a look at a band’s earliest moves as a group and how quickly that collaboration can change and find its footing. Zoltar — who did not have feet in the movie — may just be doing that here.

Zoltar on Facebook

Zoltar store

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Ascia, III

Sardinia’s Fabrizio Monni (also of Black Capricorn) has unleashed a beast in Ascia, and with III, he knows it more than ever. The follow-up to Volume II (review here) and Volume I (review here) — both released late last year — is more realized in terms of songcraft, and it would seem Monni‘s resigned himself to being a frontman of his own solo-project, which is probably the way to go since he’s obviously the most qualified, and in songs like “The Last Ride,” he expands on the post-High on Fire crash-and-bash with more of a nodding central groove, while “Samothrace” finds a place for itself between marauder shove and more direct heavy rock riffery. Each time out, Monni seems to have more of an idea of what he wants Ascia to be, and whether there’s a IV to come after this or he’s ready to move onto something else in terms of release structure — i.e., a debut album — the progression he’s undertaken over the last year-plus is plain to hear in these songs and how far they’ve come in so short a time.

Ascia on Bandcamp

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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You don’t need me to tell you to go see Crowbar, but in case you do, go see Crowbar. The New Orleans progenitors of sludge metal are closing on 30 years since issuing their landmark self-titled debut, and they head out on this US run supporting their new album, Zero and Below (review here), on MNRK Heavy, formerly E1, bringing Spirit Adrift along for the ride. You should know by now what you’re getting into going to a Crowbar show — they will deliver — but while we’re on the subject of reliability, I want to say what a goddamn comfort it was to have Crowbar doing livestreams during the pandemic lockdown. I know they needed money and that fiscally that’s a poor substitute for touring, etc., but hot shit it was good to know that in a world busy turning itself inside out on multiple fronts, you could still count on Crowbar. May they outlive us all and tour forever.

From the PR wire:

CROWBAR: Summer Headlining Tour With Spirit Adrift Announced; Zero And Below Full-Length Out Now On MNRK Heavy

CROWBAR will return to the road this Summer on a US headlining tour with Spirit Adrift! The Riff Beast Tour will commence on July 22nd at Ripplefest in Austin, Texas, and run through August 27th at Tattoo The Earth Fest in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tickets are on sale now! See all confirmed dates below.

Comments vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein, “We are looking so forward to our Summer 2022 headlining tour! We truly believe in our latest album Zero And Below and can’t wait to bring you a great set list of old and new CROWBAR. See you on tour!”

CROWBAR will be touring in support of their critically-adored Zero And Below full-length released earlier this year on MNRK Heavy. Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is the band’s most unforgivably doom-driven record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest. Led by Windstein, with guitarist Matt Brunson, bassist Shane Wesley, and drummer Tommy Buckley, songs like “Chemical Godz,” “It’s Always Worth The Gain,” and “Bleeding From Every Hole,” are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness.

CROWBAR:
7/22/2022 Ripplefest – Austin, TX
7/23/2022 Amplified Live – Dallas, TX w/ Mothership
7/24/2022 The Vanguard – Tulsa, OK w/ Mothership
w/ Spirit Adrift:
7/26/2022 Outland Ballroom – Springfield, MO
7/27/2022 Red Flag – St. Louis, MO
7/28/2022 Route 20 – Racine, WI
7/29/2022 Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN
7/30/2022 Cobra Lounge – Chicago, IL
7/31/2022 Piere’s – Ft. Wayne, IN
8/02/2022 Emerson Theater – Indianapolis, IN
8/03/2022 King Of Cups – Columbus, OH
8/04/2022 Montage Music Hall – Rochester, NY
8/06/2022 The Chance Theater – Poughkeepsie, NY
8/09/2022 Saint Vitus – Brooklyn, NY
8/10/2022 Anchor Rock Club – Atlantic City, NJ
8/11/2022 Reverb – Reading, PA
8/12/2022 The Loud – Huntington, WV
8/13/2022 The Broadberry – Richmond, VA
8/14/2022 Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC
8/16/2022 Archetype – Jacksonville, FL
8/17/2022 Gramps – Miami, FL
8/18/2022 Will’s Pub – Orlando, FL
8/19/2022 Downtown Music Hall – Ft. Walton Beach, FL
8/20/2022 Soul Kitchen – Mobile, AL
8/21/2022 Chelsea’s Live – Baton Rouge, LA
8/23/2022 40 Watt – Athens, GA
8/24/2022 Elevation 27 – Virginia Beach, VA
8/26/2022 Empire Underground – Albany, NY
8/27/2022 Tattoo The Earth Fest – Worcester, MA

CROWBAR:
Kirk Windstein – vocals/guitar
Matt Brunson – guitar
Shane Wesley – bass
Tommy Buckley – drums

http://www.facebook.com/crowbarmusic
http://www.twitter.com/crowbarrules
http://www.instagram.com/crowbarmusic
http://www.martyrstore.net

http://www.mnrkheavy.com
http://www.facebook.com/MNRKHeavy
http://www.twitter.com/MNRKHeavy
http://www.instagram.com/MNRK_heavy

Crowbar, “Chemical Godz” official video

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Joey Carbo of Woorms

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I am a Recording Artist and a Writer. I’ve always done those things. It seems like the first thing I decided to do once I learned to write sentences was use them to create stories. And that’s still what I’m doing. I was always an artist. I spent almost all my time drawing, painting, and writing stories up to age 13 (when I went to my two only fiends and informed them that they would be learning to play because we were going to be a band).

I wrote a bunch of songs too, since my first memories, but had no idea how to play them; they were just in my head and, consequently I think, I still write my songs in my head most of the time. Only now, I know how to get them out.

Once I began to teach myself to play different instruments, it was all I ever wanted to do. I recorded with tape decks, I built a homemade 3 track before I got (or even knew that one could get) a little Tascam 4 track.

I still write stories and chip away at book manuscripts when I have time, but I spend very close to all of my time either making or thinking about making music.

Nowadays, I’m also a Producer/Engineer.

Describe your first musical memory.

I was about four. I heard “Big River” and I got a painful lump in my throat and goosebumps all over. I shivered. My chest ached. I didn’t know at the time why I felt this way and I didn’t know what an epiphany was but I DID know that I had to figure out how to make other people feel this way because it was both beautiful and horrible and it seemed to set the whole world right. I still feel that way and I am still only interested in sad songs, tragic songs, murder ballads, sacrifice, loss, intensity. I wasn’t a dark child yet by any means but darkness did move me at that very early age.

Describe your best musical memory to date?

I just did.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I hate to answer the question this way but I don’t believe much in belief. Certainty is reserved for fools. I think I’m paraphrasing Montaigne there but as long as I’m being a pretentious fuck, let’s look at it another way.

Bertrand Russell said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people are so full of doubts.” Something like that. I fit the bill there (if I can call myself a wiser person, and I do) and as much as I like Russell’s work, I am of two minds about his wisdom here. While it may be tragic that “wise men” are not more certain, I’m not sure just how wise they’d continue to be if they strapped on some convictions and started in on finger pointing.

I try to free myself of belief in effort to be less vain and self centered. Not that I succeed as much as I’d like to.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To isolation, to obscurity. My bands have always been too weird for the “intended audience”. And not that I ever “intended” an audience but my first touring band: too heavy for the indie or prog bands and too strangely quiet and sonically dynamic for the metal heads; I had a five piece noise rock/folk/country band: way too goddamn weird for that crowd but no way we could play with metal bands.

I don’t mind that it sounds cynical. For all but a very few, originality is a death knell. Once in a blue moon it catches on and no one wants to admit it but very few of us want to be taken out of our comfort zones. It’s depressing, to be honest. As I’m sure I am being right now.

How do you define success?

I want to be recognized for my work — any artist that says differently is not being honest with themself — but if you consider that during the creation process then the work dies on the vine. The only success is a satisfied mind. And NO ONE has figured out how to get their hands on one of those.

What is something that you’ve seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I’m sorry, I’m not really comfortable with the question.

Describe something that you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

A full film score. Woorms is slated to score a silent film for a live audience this fall (and we’re making a studio record of it) but I’d love to score a movie.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

I don’t think there is time for, nor interest in, a good answer here. This is a huge question. Art is demonstrably inseparable from the human psyche. In a cage, we will sing. In a firing squad, we will imagine a life after death. The earth has turned to ice and trapped us inside caves to face starvation and still we will carve our dreams into the walls. Sappy, I know.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

That’s a tough one …dinner? Haha!

I am traveling to Portugal later this year after tour to see a good friend and I’m learning the language. I do know him because of music but I can’t think of anyone I know for some other reason.

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https://www.instagram.com/woorms_
https://www.facebook.com/WOORMSband
https://woorms.bandcamp.com

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Woorms, Fatalismo (2022)

When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.

So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

Crowbar, Zero and Below

Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.

Crowbar on Facebook

MNRK Heavy website

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Eric Wagner, In the Lonely Light of Mourning

Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?

Eric Wagner on Bandcamp

Cruz Del Sur Music website

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Ode and Elegy, Ode and Elegy

Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?

Ode and Elegy on Instagram

Ode and Elegy website

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Burn the Sun, Le Roi Soleil

The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.

Burn the Sun on Facebook

Burn the Sun on Bandcamp

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Amon Acid, Demon Rider

A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.

Amon Acid on Facebook

Helter Skelter Productions website

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Mucho Mungo, Moth Bath

Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.

Mucho Mungo on Facebook

Forbidden Place Records website

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Sum of R, Lahbryce

Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.

Sum of R on Facebook

Consouling Sounds store

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Albatross Overdrive, Eye See Red

Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.

Albatross Overdrive on Facebook

Albatross Overdrive on Bandcamp

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Guided Meditation Doomjazz, Summer Let Me Down

To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.

Guided Meditation Doomjazz on Instagram

The Swamp Records on Bandcamp

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Darsombra, Fill Up the Glass

Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.

Darsombra Linktree

Darsombra store

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New Orleans sludge metal forebears Crowbar have announced their new album, Zero and Below, will see release on March 4 through MNRK Heavy, which appears to be what at some point eOne Heavy became. Fair enough for sundry corporate restructuring. Of more crucial import for the moment — though I hope no one lost their job in the shuffle from one company becoming the other — is the fact that Crowbar have a new video out for the first single from the record, “Chemical Godz.” And yes, it sounds like Crowbar, fast and slow parts and Kirk Windstein‘s vocals.

Whatever more you might ask, I’ve no idea, and one imagines it’ll go over like gangbusters on their impending tour with Sepultura set for early Spring 2022, the whole affair duly coordinated to highlight the record. Fucking. A.

Just off the PR wire:

CROWBAR To Release Zero And Below Full-Length March 4th, 2022 Via MNRK Heavy; New Single/Video “Chemical Godz” Now Playing + Preorders Available

New Orleans, Louisiana sludge metal pioneers CROWBAR will release their long awaited new full-length, Zero And Below, March 4th, 2022 via MNRK Heavy! In celebration, today the band is pleased to unveil the record’s artwork, tracklisting, and first single/video, “Chemical Godz,” now playing.

CROWBAR songs are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness. Zero And Below, which cements the band’s dense catalog exactly one dozen studio albums deep, is the most unforgivably doomy CROWBAR record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest.

Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is reverently old-school, counterbalanced by a resonant melodicism that’s stunningly mature. Songs like “Chemical Godz,” “Bleeding From Every Hole,” and “It’s Always Worth The Gain” demonstrate what CROWBAR does better than any other band: powerful, evocative, and crushingly heavy music. Celebrating a recent 30th anniversary, CROWBAR is led by one of the most beloved figures in heavy metal, riff overlord Kirk Windstein, whose menacing bellow and smooth drawl put resilient, unrepentant strength behind even the most somber odes to suffering.

Comments Windstein of first single, “Chemical Godz,” “We are all so excited to release the song and video for ‘Chemical Godz!’ It’s been nearly two years since the album was completed. It was such a sad time for so many people going through the Covid-19 epidemic and we felt it wasn’t a good time to release any new material. Get ready because the heavy is coming! We hope y’all enjoy the song and video. Stay safe out there!”

Zero And Below will be available on CD, LP, cassette, and digitally. Find preorders at THIS LOCATION.

Zero And Below Track Listing:
1. The Fear That Binds You
2. Her Evil Is Sacred
3. Confess To Nothing
4. Chemical Godz
5. Denial Of The Truth
6. Bleeding From Every Hole
7. It’s Always Worth The Gain
8. Crush Negativity
9. Reanimating A Lie
10. Zero And Below

In conjunction with the release of Zero And Below, CROWBAR will join Sepultura and Sacred Reich for the North America Cuadra Tour 2022. Initially scheduled as a 2020 run, the journey kicks off March 4th and runs through April 9th. Additional support will be provided by Art Of Shock. All tickets previously purchased for the 2020 dates will be honored. See all confirmed dates below.

CROWBAR w/ Sepultura, Sacred Reich, Art Of Shock:
3/04/2022 Ace Of Spades – Sacramento, CA
3/05/2022 The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT
3/06/2022 Oriental Theater – Denver, CO
3/08/2022 Wildwood – Iowa City, IA
3/09/2022 Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN
3/10/2022 Rave II – Milwaukee, WI
3/11/2022 Harpo’s – Detroit, MI
3/12/2022 The Forge – Joliet, IL
3/13/2022 Thunderbird Music Hall – Pittsburgh, PA
3/15/2022 Irving Plaza – New York, NY
3/16/2022 Opera House – Toronto, ON
3/17/2022 Corona Theater – Montreal, QC
3/18/2022 Big Night Live – Boston, MA
3/19/2022 Theatre Of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
3/20/2022 Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
3/21/2022 House Of Blues – Cleveland, OH
3/23/2022 Blind Tiger – Greensboro, NC
3/24/2022 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
3/25/2022 Culture Room – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
3/26/2022 The Orpheum – Tampa, FL
3/28/2022 Southport Music Hall – New Orleans, LA
3/29/2022 Come And Take It Live – Austin, TX
3/31/2022 Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City, OK
4/01/2022 Warehouse Live – Houston, TX
4/02/2022 GMBG – Dallas, TX
4/03/2022 Rockhouse – El Paso, TX
4/05/2022 The Nile Theater – Phoenix, AZ
4/06/2022 House Of Blues – San Diego, CA
4/08/2022 Belasco Theater – Los Angeles, CA
4/09/2022 UC Theatre – Berkeley, CA

CROWBAR:
Kirk Windstein – vocals/guitar
Matt Brunson – guitar
Shane Wesley – bass
Tommy Buckley – drums

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http://www.instagram.com/crowbarmusic
http://www.martyrstore.net
http://www.mnrkheavy.com
http://www.facebook.com/MNRKHeavy
http://www.twitter.com/MNRKHeavy
http://www.instagram.com/MNRK_heavy

Crowbar, “Chemical Godz” official video

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Eric Fox of Pious

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I’m an amateur songwriter. Really don’t know what I’m doing half the time. If it sounds good and feels right, it works. Growing up in a musical family sparked my interest in creating songs at a young age.

Describe your first musical memory.

First memories of music are running around in diapers listening to mom and dad’s old Beatles records.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Best musical memory is hard to narrow down. Played and seen so many great shows over the years. Went to see the Claypool-Lennon Delirium recently and they were amazing.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I think everyone’s belief in humanity is being tested these days.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Artistic progression should lead to self growth or self destruction. Either way as long as you reach your goals.

How do you define success?

Success depends on what you want to “succeed” in. If it’s money you want, hopefully you get it. I think most musicians really just want the audience to love the music being presented to them. That’s success to me. The main drive should always be the passion and love for creating music.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

The Friday the 13th remake.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

Short films. Maybe a full-length horror movie.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

To affect the viewer or listener as much as possible.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Armageddon… Just kiddin’. Actually looking forward to cannabis becoming more accepted in American society. Hail the leaf.

https://www.facebook.com/piousmusic/
https://officialpious.bandcamp.com/

Pious, The Crawling Head (2021)