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Friday Full-Length: Olde Growth, Olde Growth

Posted in Bootleg Theater on August 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

It’s a pretty rare album that sounds better a decade after the fact. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the self-titled debut (review here) from Boston duo Olde Growth when I first heard it, and don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty raw either way, but even if you factor in that the two-piece were probably three or four years ahead of their time in sound and configuration, that’s still an admirable stretch for their first and, sad to say, only LP to have not only held up, but flourished in its earthy, sludgy way.

Initially self-released in 2010, the seven-song/46-minute offering was picked up in 2011 by MeteorCity for a CD release. Comprised of bassist/vocalist Stephen LoVerme (who also handled the artwork) and drummer Ryan Berry, they were arguably the last new-band release from the pivotal imprint, which had changed hands a year prior after being purchased by Dan “El Danno” Beland and Melanie “Hellmistress” Streko and tied in with the fate of the then-active stonerrock.com outlet and forum. Then married, the two had gone on a tear of adding label roster additions in in 2009-2010, and that saw releases from Freedom Hawk, New Keepers of the Water Towers, Snail, Flood, Ararat, Egypt, WhitebuzzSardoniS, Valkyrie — some you still hear about today, some you don’t — and Olde Growth were at the tail end of that bunch. Even the cardboard digipak, which the band still has available, was forward thinking, printed on recycled paper with soy ink used. The stamp-looking artwork and hand-scribbled fonts gave it a DIY look that suited the organic nature of the band’s sound and, well, moniker.

LoVerme and Berry were young at the time, and recorded in 2009 with guitarist AJ Peters of the band that was then called Riff Cannon and would soon become Summoner — a bit of irony there for a band without a guitarist making their album with one at the helm. Perhaps what’s most continually resonant about Olde Growth, however, is the sense of space in the tracks. As a unit, Olde Growth were maximally flexible, by which I mean they were able to make a song like the lead cut “The Grand Illusion” chargePhoto by Erin Genett, design by Stephen Loverme. ahead with a gallop that sounded haphazard without actually being so, pulling influence maybe from what High on Fire had done circa Blessed Black Wings but owning each progression as their own, much aided in that regard by LoVerme‘s malleable vocal approach, sludgy, shouted verse coursing into a more melodic chorus. Not by any means anything new for heavy music — such duality drove a surge of metalcore based in New England at the turn of the century — but few and far between were those who could pull it off 10-12 years later without sounding hackneyed, fewer still were those doing so in a heavy/stoner context, and I can’t think of another outfit who did it in a duo configuration. If I’m wrong about that, it doesn’t matter anyway. The point of rarity stands.

And as Olde Growth shoves through “The Grand Illusion,” it meets with the breadth and heft of “Life in the Present.” The tinny sound of Berry‘s snare, the wash of cymbals, the low-end effects as the song nears its melodic stretch in the midsection, it’s all a shift in structure that builds on the opener, so that as they turn it around into punker thrash it’s not a huge surprise, but ties together smoothly — or as smoothly as they want it to, anyhow — with a return to the lumbering (get it?) march at the end likewise setting up  the grimmer launch of the three-part “Cry of the Nazgul/The Second Darkness/To the Black Gate,” a Lord of the Rings-based lyric that saves Aragorn’s triumph for a layered-vocal in its third part, surprisingly soulful given the trudge through Middle Earth mud in most of the first five minutes. Some growls right at the end bring it together, and offer a resolution that, unlike the book or movies, didn’t require a slew of appendices or two hours of comedown epilogue.

“Sequoia,” however, might be called a comedown in itself. It is the slowest of pieces on Olde Growth at its outset, but nestles subtly into movement as it unveils a hook worthy of “The Grand Illusion,” and from there continues to add speed before cutting back again. The riff, low, slow, is rootsy stoner sludge idolatry, but well done with Berry‘s hi-hat keeping the nod punctuated as they cycle through the next verse, ahead of the ending slowdown and shouts, which end with amp hum and let the effects of minute-long interlude “Red Dwarf” arrive naturally and transition accordingly into the also-instrumental “Everything Dies,” which though it’s not as long or broad as the three-parter or the 10-minute finale “Awake” that follows is no less epic in its build, perhaps more so for the relative efficiency with which it’s brought to bear.

The closer opens righteously mellow following the intensity at the end of “Everything Dies,” and explodes with a snare hit for warning shortly before it’s four minutes deep. Yeah, there’s a ripper part in the middle and second half, and they plod to a finish with a lead line over top, but if you want to hear underscored just how much potential Olde Growth had, it’s in the methodical way they end the record. They could be brash, they could punk out, play fast, play slow, etc., but hearing “Awake” start out with such barely-there hypnotic minimalism while keeping that surge in its pocket is emblematic of what the two-piece might have accomplished going forward. Seems hard now to overstate the potential, in aesthetic, songwriting or performance.

So it goes. Olde Growth released the self-titled in 2012 on vinyl through the also-ahead-of-its-time Hydro-Phonic Records (that version had “Red Dwarf” and “Everything Dies” combined, which is fair), and would go on to play shows, tour a bit, and offer the Owl EP (review here) in 2012. Last I got to see them was in Boston in 2013, and they still made it worth the drive to the city. If you’ve never been to Boston, that is a significant compliment.

Also known for his video work with Treebeard Media and the Somerville, MA, venue ONCE Ballroom, LoVerme would reemerge circa 2014 as part of the more stylistically diverse SEA, and has recently been involved with the more extreme-minded Lunar Ark, who as it happened played a live show last week. How about that. What times we live in.

Nonetheless, this album could stand a reissue.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

I woke up this morning at 4:10AM. My program of training my body to get up earlier has resulted in the increase of productivity I sought. Not a magic bullet to get everything done in a day that I want to — it’s only an hour and 20 minutes different from my luxurious 5:30 days — but it helps. I’ll hope to have it to 4AM by Monday. I remember clearly now putting my head down at the kitchen table in Massachusetts and falling asleep at the keyboard.

Of course, the tradeoff is fatigue, decrease in patience with myself and others, a brutally long-feeling day, and things like not being able to find the new toothbrush I left right frickin’ there on the table for myself this morning when I got up. Coffee, as ever, provides the single set of footprints in the sand while carrying me.

I’d be further remiss if I didn’t again note the blow that was the death of Eric Wagner at the week’s outset. The Skull and Trouble have both since commented on his passing, but the level of shock through the heavy underground is a testament to the career and life he led. Why he didn’t get a vaccine before going on tour, I don’t know. Could’ve been politics, could’ve been additional health risks. It doesn’t matter now.

This morning I also found a message on Facebook from July from a kid I went to middle school with that one of our classmates apparently died in 2019 and I never knew. Seems like maybe he killed himself. We didn’t keep in touch or anything after going to different high schools, but he was a nice enough kid at that age. Troubled. Loved golf, which was odd in an eighth grader. But yeah. I’m not sure I’d be justified in grieving the loss since it happened two years ago and I hadn’t spoken to him in about two and a half decades, but it was a bookend to the week that I hadn’t expected. I didn’t really know Eric Wagner either, though we spoke a few times.

That brings to mind how Chris Peters from Fuzz Sagrado/Samsara Blues Experiment wrapped up that interview that went up yesterday. I don’t know that anybody will watch that in its 80-minute entirety (maybe I should learn video editing, but that just seems like something that would take away from time I’d otherwise want to spend writing), but in the last couple minutes, he encouraged anyone watching to speak to more people, to reach out, because it’s so amazing to interact with others. I admit that’s not the kind of advice I’m likely to take. I will rarely initiate conversation with someone I don’t already know. Introverted is a grown-up way of saying shy, but either way. The truth of the matter is that I have always believed that when someone meets me who might not’ve known before, they’ll either be put off by my physical appearance or something I say. It is better, then, to not engage.

Obviously I have never had many friends. Further, among the oh-let’s-say-a-few challenges of parenting is encouraging my son to be outgoing or teaching him how handle simple social interactions to when my own impulses and unconsciously-demonstrated behaviors are so contrary to that. It is not a thing I’m good at.

We’ll throw it on the list that hopefully I’m the only one keeping.

I need to turn in the playlist for the next Gimme Metal show. It’ll be all Eric Wagner. More on that next week, and stay tuned as well for premieres from Old Man Wizard, Embr, Lurcher, Wang Wen and an interview with Sons of Alpha Centauri, whose new LP is out today on Exile on Mainstream.

Today is The Pecan’s last day of summer daycamp. He had a good time. Next week he’s home with me, which is a thing that I’m sorry to say I’ve been dreading in terms of getting work done, but will probably be fine. It’s been 12 and a half years and I haven’t lost the thread yet, so seven business days with the kid won’t kill me, even with The Patient Mrs. back at her office for most of the week as her semester has also started. If I need to work before bed, I can. That would mean less tweeting about Star Trek, but we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.

Whatever your next week brings, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Have fun. Watch your head. Hug someone who has consented to be hugged. Buy an Obelisk t-shirt. Life is short.

FRM.

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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jadd Shickler of Blues Funeral Recordings, Magnetic Eye Records & Ripple Music, Etc.

Posted in Questionnaire on April 23rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan

jadd shickler

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: Jadd Shickler of Blues Funeral Recordings, et al

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

I own and operate Blues Funeral Recordings, I’m the label director for Magnetic Eye Records, and I’m the label manager for Ripple Music. If I had to define it, I guess I’d say I’m a music industry professional in the independent heavy label world, although “music industry professional” sounds like a title crafted to sound good on LinkedIn. Basically, I work with underground heavy music for independent labels. I also sing for Blue Heron, the band that original Spiritu guitarist Mike Chavez and I started in 2018.

I came to do what I do when my best friend and I started All That’s Heavy, the world’s first online heavy rock mailorder, back in 1997 at the dawn of the internet, as well as launching our record label MeteorCity. We sold All That’s Heavy about 4 years later, and then sold MeteorCity in 2008.

I was a little bit disillusioned and left the industry for about a half dozen years, but started getting slowly drawn back in 2014 or so. I did some writing for The Ripple Effect and The Doom Charts, then finally ended up falling into a role with then one-man label Magnetic Eye Records in 2016. I had a day job at the time, but as my duties with Magnetic Eye expanded, my interest in doing more grew as well.

I got the idea for what would become the PostWax series around that time, and started working on it in the background of my day job and MER work.

In the spring of 2018, a couple things happened: the prospect of releasing a record myself propelled me to create a new label of my own so that I’d have the infrastructure in place for PostWax whenever it was ready. Ironically, the release which motivated that ended up not happening, but I’d already gone through so much of the setup to get this new label (Blues Funeral) off the ground that it inspired me to give it some attention.

Around the same time, I came to realize that I wasn’t super invested in my day job. My boss realized it too, and she started getting really toxic, which is somewhat understandable given what she was paying me while I was sneakily working on Magnetic Eye stuff from the office, but it still soured me on the job.

I finally decided to quit that summer, which I find a bit funny because I’ve been fired from nearly every “real” job I ever had, but for the first time, I took the step of leaving into my own hands, even though it was the best-paying day job I’d ever had by that point. I nearly took a new day job the following month to replace, but in a moment of passion-driven risk and with support from my wife, I decided to pass on it to see if I could try to make an actual living in the music industry for the first time in my life.

We racked up debt for the next year or so, during which time I joined Ripple Music to handle production and a variety of logistical stuff, as well as launching the first PostWax series. In mid-2019, I was able to facilitate the purchase of Magnetic Eye Records by a larger label group, and part of the deal was that they’d keep me on as label director once the buyout took effect. So, after getting my start in the music industry in late 1997, it became my full-time career on January 1st, 2020, and that’s how I got where I am today, running two labels and working for a third, and not having to supplement what I do with having a traditional day job.

Describe your first musical memory.

I’ve got a few and can’t recall which one is first, but it’s one of these two:

jadd hit explosionThe first record I ever asked for and got which wasn’t a kid’s record was a vinyl compilation called Hit Explosion that came out in 1983 from K-Tel. It’s got tracks from Joan Jett, Rush, REO Speedwagon, Rod Stewart, the Steve Miller Band, and Survivor (yes, “Eye of the Tiger.” Hell yes.). I saw TV ads for it and my parents got it for me, and I would play it down in this big den with high ceilings and a red brick floor where the record player was set up on this wide wooden bookcase, and I’d lay in this brown beanbag chair on the floor with light streaming in from the huge sliding glass door and listen to those songs till I knew every word to every song, even the ones I liked less than others. I think it laid the groundwork for me to appreciate compilations and the idea of someone with a certain level of musical intelligence choosing songs from different artists to put together. It was also the first music I ever found for myself, instead of just listening to whatever my parents played. By the way, I still have this record, nearly 40 years later. It’s warped as hell and beat to shit, but it’s still with me.

My other early memory is listening to my Dad’s Neil Diamond records in that same den on that same stereo and record player. When you’re a kid and before you start to develop your own tastes, you just kind of absorb whatever those around you (like your parents) care about, and my God, did my Dad love Neil Diamond. So I was just kind of always around when he’d be listening to various albums and it got in my DNA. This was obviously not the beginning of my love affair with heavy rock, but it does give me a great connection to caring about music a ton from an early age, always having it playing, always spinning records, and listening to albums from start to finish and flipping the sides. I can still visualize that den and that record player and bean bag chair perfectly, better than I can remember a lot of other stuff from the past 20 years, haha.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

It’s impossible for me to pick just one as THE BEST, but here’s one I love: At the end of my sophomore year of high school, so May of 1990, my best friend Aaron and I went to see Motley Crüe on the Dr. Feelgood tour. It was my first concert. I’d never been to a real show before, and going inside after showing our tickets, we emerged from the tunnel at the far end of Tingley Coliseum and looked longways down the huge oblong auditorium. We were up in the area with the seats above the railing because we hadn’t paid for floor tickets (not sure why, maybe they were sold out, or maybe too expensive). So we were standing basically all the way down the other end of the place looking at the stage from about as far away as we could be. Just then, within like 90 seconds of us coming up from the stairwell and trying to decide what to do, we saw a fight erupt down on the floor between a concert-goer and several of the show’s security guys. All the other security people started running toward the fight, and as soon as they did, attendees on the other side of the auditorium started jumping the railing and pouring down onto the floor and running to go mix in with the rest of the crowd. Aaron and I looked at each other, and I don’t remember saying anything, we just jumped the railing and ran straight into the crowd. That was the start of our first concert – a risk of getting our asses kicked by security and a successful upgrade of where we’d see the show. The concert itself is a bit of a blur, but the two highlights I remember are Lita Ford, who was opening the show, playing “Close My Eyes Forever” and having the crowd sing the Ozzy part, which we did, and then Tommy Lee doing a drum solo during Crüe’s set where he rode some kind of suspended cable car drum kit out over the crowd, so he was basically hanging above us doing his solo as we watched from below. I don’t really ever think about Motley Crüe as a musical influence, but that concert was a great musical memory among many many many that I’ve got.

For good measure, another great music memory is when my old band Spiritu toured as an opener with Clutch and Spiritual Beggars in Europe in 2003. We shared the opening slot with Dozer, so every night for three weeks, we played all over Europe, trading the first and second slot with Dozer each night (and then getting to go watch Dozer, which was awesome), and then I would go out into the crowd and watch Clutch DESTROY. As a Clutch fan, getting to travel to dozens of cities across Europe and watch one of the greatest live bands of all time, who also happens to be one of your favorites, who you also happen to be opening for, is just indescribable. The highlight was somewhere in Germany when, during a short pause between songs when the noise briefly dropped, this giant 6′ 6″ dude yelled out, “Like Marlon Brando, but bigger!” in an almost comically-exaggerated German accent, carrying through the whole theater and making Neil and the whole band briefly crack up, then look at each other immediately launch into playing “John Wilkes Booth.” Three weeks of that! Amazing times.

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

Well, I’m not sure if this fits what you’re saying, and it’s going to sound like a sales pitch for PostWax, but it’s not, this actually happened: Maybe two months ago, my creative director Peder (from Lowrider) and I were talking about filling the last couple slots on PostWax, and he mentioned a band to me that basically has an all-star lineup but who I really don’t care for. I’m not going to say who they are because I don’t want to shit on them for those who dig what they do, but PostWax (to me) is about putting together a lineup of bands that at least one of the three of us choosing artists for the project absolutely loves, and never letting our decisions be guided by how big of a name someone is or whether having them on board might help sell the project. So I basically told Peder, if YOU love them, I might consider it, but if not, let’s not do it.

I’d consider this a test of a firm belief because otherwise, why don’t we go try to lure on some huge emo-metal band to join the project just so we can blow out another 2,000 signups? I’d rather pick bands we love that satisfy the ethic of only working with bands at least one of us deeply believes in and loves musically. And by the way, this belief was established quite a few years ago when I was running MeteorCity and put out a couple things that I did mainly based on the idea that they would sell, and not because I thought there were awesome bands. I did that Hermano record, and the Gallery of Mites record, and the Orquesta del Desierto albums, all first and foremost because of the names involved. There were moments on all of them that I enjoyed musically, but I didn’t go into them feeling moved or inspired as a listener, I was thinking of who the musicians were and how their names would get people to check out the records, not about what I thought of the actual music. So yeah, I’ll never do that again, and would much sooner get behind an unknown band with a niche sound and no fans but whose music I love than ever put my money or label name on something that’s coming from a place of, “people will buy this” ever again.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Ha, probably to eventually making a record that not a ton of people besides the artist likes. Not trying to be cynical, but if you’re an artist, there are probably two paths: you make music you like and no one ever cares but you’re happy with what you’re doing, OR, you make something that some people like, and that sets an expectation for everything else you’ll ever do, and eventually, whether it’s your next album or your tenth album, you’ll be sick of trying to deliver something that lives up to what everyone else liked and just make a record you dig, and people will be like, “Too bad, I liked his old stuff better.” I think that’s inevitable, but not a bad thing really. You have to progress, even if followers and fans of your art aren’t always willing to stick with you while you go. I mean, if you just try to rehash what’s already been done, they’ll see through that as well and call you on it.

How do you define success?

Thank God you’re asking easy questions.

I’d probably say success is feeling great about what you’re doing. I’m earning less these days than in at least a couple of my previous “career” jobs, but I’m far happier with what I do and thus feel more successful. I know that being able to buy whatever you want, travel wherever you want to go, eat out every night probably feels pretty fantastic too, but I have a hard time imagining being able to do anything I didn’t love or believe in what I was doing in order to reach that point. If I could have that AND do something I feel great about, then awesome. But if they’re mutually exclusive, then for me the road to success will always need to be paved by personal and artistic satisfaction first and foremost.

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

Literally this morning I saw a dead dog, a pit bull, in a dumpster. It was in its crate, which means this was someone’s pet, and regardless of how it died, the idea that someone felt that the way to lay this dog to rest was to pick up the whole crate with the dog inside and drop it into a dumpster on the street is fucking revolting. Some human beings are just slime, and this world loves to remind us of that fact.

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

Well, I’d like to make a record with my band that I want to listen to from end to end without questioning whether it’s good or if I’m being objective or noticing the flaws. This is probably something that’s impossible for any musician, so I’m not holding my breath, but yeah. My old band only recorded and released a few things, so I’m hoping that Blue Heron is able to make a record that I can enjoy without caveats as a listener, and just dig musically and be proud of.

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

I love this question, because I think about this a lot: I think art is the only value humanity actually has. When I think about all the awful shitty things we do to the planet, animals, each other, etc., it’s hard not to wish for a comet to hit the planet and reset everything. But we create art, and that to me is our only saving grace. We transcend our urges and our pettiness and our destructive tendencies and tap into something more meaningful and lasting when we create art, whether that’s music or paintings or books, and if we didn’t do that, I’d have no hope for us whatsoever. So, I guess the specific answer to your question is, the most essential function of art is justifying humanity’s existence. A bit dark, I guess, but how I feel.

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

New Ghostbusters and Top Gun movies, which will probably both suck, but for the moment I’m excited. I know you said non-musical, but I have to say, being able to go to small-club shows again also. And my wife and I will be taking our first trip to Europe together later this year. She’s never been out of the country, and I haven’t been in fourteen years, so I basically haven’t been abroad as a grownup. Can’t wait.

https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com

http://store.merhq.com
http://magneticeyerecords.com/
https://www.facebook.com/MagneticEyeRecords
https://www.instagram.com/magneticeyerecords/

https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

Spiritu, “Throwback”

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Friday Full-Length: Misdemeanor, Five Wheel Drive EP

Posted in Bootleg Theater on August 14th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Maybe you know this one and maybe not. Sweden’s Misdemeanor‘s origins date back to an initial four-song seven-inch that showed up in 1997, but it might be what they did the following year for their second EP, Five Wheel Drive, that they’re most known for. Naturally, they weren’t the first European band to travel to America to record, but they might’ve been the first specifically to do so within the realm of desert-style heavy. In Feb. 1998, the five-piece — the only lineup I could find was vocalist Vera Olofsson, guitarists Jenny Möllberg and Sara Fredriksson, bassist Jenny Lindahl and drummer Mia Möllberg, but I’m not sure if they were all in the band at the time — made the trek to California to work at Rancho de la Luna alongside luminaries like studio co-owner David Catching (earthlings?) and Brant Bjork (the latter ex-Kyuss and then of Fu Manchu).

Not an insignificant journey to cross the Atlantic and the North American continent to put just under 14 minutes’ worth of material to tape, but the results speak for themselves on Five Wheel Drive. The band would track four songs — “Snowballing,” “Gizmo,” “Venom” and “Love Song” — at Rancho de la Luna and take a producer credit alongside those of Catching and Bjork, and further make the most of their time by having the studio’s other co-owner Fred Drake (also in earthlings?) misdemeanor five wheel driveappear on keys for the opener and sign up Slo Burn-era John Garcia for a guest vocal spot backing the chorus in “Love Song.” They were in the studio for three days. Imagine that experience. In 1998.

And again, the EP reaps the reward of their efforts. “Snowballing” is the longest inclusion at 4:21 (immediate points), and begins with a swaggering, fuzzy riff and a post-Kyuss push that shows Misdemeanor as contemporaries of Dozer and Lowrider, but has that added crunch that Rancho de la Luna was able to capture at the time, the melodic vocals carrying smoothly over grit-toned distortion. The title manifests in a building wash of noise at the end that’s either a swirl contribution from Drake — if there are actual keyboards or organ on the song, they’re obscure in the mix — or a guitar effect, but either way it subtly plays off the innuendo in the name of the song.

This leads to “Gizmo,” which is catchier and holds its own tonally, moving a bit faster and with an underlying edge of punk. It’s not quite riot-grrrl aggro, but makes the point well with quick turns on drums and a lean toward its chorus that makes its 3:25 runtime feel equal parts short and sharp in its execution. “Venom” is about the same length (3:22 if you want to be precise) and goes deeper into the grunge aspect of Misdemeanor‘s sound. Especially in the verse, it seems to be more in conversation with the northern end of the Pacific Coast, though it still holds its desert place tonally, and as it crosses the two-minute mark unfurls a surprisingly massive-sounding, did-I-just-hear-that riff for all of a measure before running back into the hook. Noisy and buzzing, they don’t pull back for the verse again as they had earlier, but it’s an effective finish for another efficient run of quality late-’90s heavy rock.

Tucked at the end, “Love Song” is even shorter at 2:49 and welcomes Garcia with a choice central riff and yes-we-like-Kyuss shove through the verse leading to the energetic chorus that he joins, echoing the lines and drawing out the “you” behind the lines “Babe, you know I love you so/And babe, I’ll never let you go” with his trademark flourish. They’re into the hook twice in the first minute and a half, which is fair enough, and a short wah solo follows. Back to the verse, back to the chorus, finish with a charge and that’s it. Structurally, it’s as barebones as Misdemeanor get on Five Wheel Drive — get it? because there were five of them? — but they’re nonetheless able to make an impression through basic songwriting in addition to tone, groove, melody, and the company they’re keeping. Like the EP as a whole, the last component track does a lot more work than it might at first seem.

Five Wheel Drive wound up released in 1999 through original-era MeteorCity, which was then run by Albuquerque, New Mexico, natives Jadd Shickler (now of Blues Funeral Recordings) and Aaron Emmel. Its catalog number, MCY-006, places its between the UnidaDozer split (discussed here) and Spirit Caravan‘s Dreamwheel EP (discussed here). Again, fine company to keep all around. Misdemeanor would have another 7″ out before they released their self-titled debut full-length in 2002, and another as well before 2004’s High Crimes and Misdemeanor, which was their second and apparently final album. A 2005 EP, Stay Away, was released digitally — which at the time basically meant it was posted to MySpace; it’s still there, in that sad abandoned corner of pre-mobile social media, though I wasn’t able to actually make the songs play — and that was Misdemeanor‘s last offering to-date. They have no current online presence to speak of — Facebook, Instagram, website, etc. — and one suspects that like so many bands, they fizzled out.

Fair enough — hey, we’ve all been there — but that only serves to make what they did on Five Wheel Drive feel even more special. A then-relatively-nascent band embarking on what was a once-in-a-lifetime trip together to do what they thought would best serve their music. It’s a beautiful idea, and 21 years after the fact, the work they did stands up stylistically. They’d never get the kind of attention as some of their male contemporaries/countryfolk, but this EP, short as it is, is fueled by such passion that to consider it on any other level would be an injustice.

I’m somebody who believes strongly in the power of sharing music. Obviously. If you know this one, take the reminder and give it another visit. If you are unfamiliar, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to get yourself introduced. Maybe, if you’re up for such a thing, you can chase down a copy of the CD. In any case, I very much hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading.

So, my father died this week. Monday? Tuesday? Aug. 10, so Monday. I’ve talked a couple times in this space about his health issues over the last couple months, his fall in July and subsequent long hospitalization, emergent dementia, transition to a rehab center, and so on. He was at a place called Weatherwood in Pennsylvania, finally having left the hospital, and reportedly went in his sleep Monday morning. About 40 minutes before I got that call, I had been on the phone with someone else from the facility and asked how he was doing. “About the same,” was the response. He was dead at the time. So it goes.

My response, for the record, to being told: “Fascinating.” Spock would be proud.

We did not get along. Ever, really. He was 40 when I was born, and as he once told me, too tired for a second kid from an unintended pregnancy, which I was — the irony of my own inability to produce biological offspring is not lost on me. I am thankful The Pecan does not have to carry my genetic baggage.

But my father. Ultimately, he was a man who despised himself and a long sufferer of mental illness, never able to put himself in a position to do the work of healing from his abused childhood. Knowing that might have made him a more sympathetic character in theory, but it hardly made him easier to be around. He was a zealot Catholic and a bigot, and abusive in his own, non-physical manner.

He and my mother split up in 1995 but never divorced so he could remain on her medical insurance. At the end of his life, I was the one of my family who had the most direct contact with him, and as such, I have been spending most of this week in touch with his sister and her husband in North Carolina, where he lived before deciding in his decline to move to senior housing in Allentown, PA — he hadn’t moved yet, but fell while staying with a friend — and sorting out the particulars of his burial with a funeral home. He’ll be buried in PA. No service, both because of the firelung pandemic and because he wished it.

I’ve certainly written his obituary in my head many times. Many times. In the last few months, even. I reserve the right in the next couple weeks to post something of the like. Whether or not I actually get there probably depends on time, which is in short supply as ever.

To wit, The Pecan is up and will want retrieving momentarily. The urgency of a dirty diaper.

But that’s been my week. There is a kind of preternatural upset that comes with his death, but I wouldn’t say I’m in mourning or struck by grief. The Patient Mrs. lost her father, with whom she did not speak, a couple months ago and felt the same way. I’ve done my time mourning the fostering relationship we didn’t have when I was a child and the friendship we never developed as adults. He loved me in his broken way. The lesson has always been who not to be.

Great and safe weekend.

FRM.

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Friday Full-Length: Snail, Blood

Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 31st, 2020 by JJ Koczan

snail blood

At the core of the album, the lessons of Snail‘s Blood (review here) are relatively straightforward: rhythm and melody. The mostly languid grooves and the overlaid stoner drift from the originally-Seattle-based then-four-piece came across as revelatory in 2009, but their roots of course went back much further in that Blood was the first Snail record in 16 years. That time differential, and the fact that most the 11 songs on the 57-minute offering dated back that far — only opener “Mental Models,” “Underwater” and “Via/Penny Dreadful” don’t appear on Snail‘s The ’93-’94 Blood Demos collection released in 2012 (the band talk about their demo process here) — are important for understanding where the album was coming from at the time of its release. Indeed, 16 years before 2009 was 1993, and that was when Snail issued their self-titled debut (review here), following the next year with the All Channels are Open EP (review here) before the trio of guitarist/vocalist Mark Johnson, bassist Matt Lynch and drummer Marty Dodson called it quits, leaving the demos for what would’ve been Blood at the time unrealized.

When they came back and finally recorded the album proper, JohnsonLynch and Dodson recruited second guitarist Eric Clausen, who fleshed out the riffs and leads fluidly, meshing well with the founding members. Really though, the overarching atmosphere of Blood is so laid back that, even 11 years after its release, it still feels like all are welcome. True, Blood‘s just-under-an-hour runtime feels honest to its CD-era origins and borders on unmanageable by today’s standards, but they use the vast majority of that time well, setting up immersive tonality and an underlying psych-grunge atmosphere that permeates “Relief” and the speedier, hookier second track “Sleep” — originally “Sleepshit” on the demos — as well as the later push of “Cleanliness” and the nonetheless-airy “Not for Me” which appears ahead of the predominantly-mellow-but-still-volatile eight-minute closer “Blacklight,” itself a testament to Snail‘s ability to change up their songwriting approach while staying united by tone and general sonic resonance, the use of effects and so on. Even now, the depth of mix Blood conjures draws the listener in, and the strength of the underlying structures in place — the verses and choruses to songs like “Underwater” or the especially-blissed “Relief” — gave Snail the ground on which to build this towering sound. The initial surge and chug of “Mental Models,” following a quick intro, is righteous, but doesn’t by any means tell the whole story of the album. It really does require the time it takes to flesh out.

And the patience of Snail‘s tempos when they’re not meting out punkish rush is especially noteworthy. Dodson sets a march in “Mental Models” and a push in “Sleep” and a crash and thud and shuffle in “Underwater” and a pull-back, in-pocket riff-surfing progression in “Committed” that could easily serve as a clinic in heavy rock drumming, and while Johnson‘s vocals and riffs, Clausen‘s leads and Lynch‘s oh-hell-yes bass tone are of course no less crucial, the drums are somewhat understated but accomplished in their versatility and able to find just what the song most needs at any given time, whether it’s the rim hits in “Cleanliness” like a ticking clock counting down to the next explosion of soloing and Johnson repeatedly urging “get high! get high!” or the masterful roll in “Via/Penny Dreadful” and “Screen” that becomes a defining element of Blood as a whole. With the shifts in tempo and style, it’s the tone and songwriting that bring cohesion, and Snail‘s consistency in that regard is at a high level from front to back, and they use that diversity in their approach as an asset in shifts like those between the nodder “Blood” and the more upbeat “Cleanliness,” which on vinyl would probably be side C of a 2LP version that, frankly, feels like it’s ripe for some label to get behind.

Blood appeared during an era of rebirth for MeteorCity after original owners Jadd Shickler (now of Blues Funeral Recordings) and Aaron Emmel sold it, Stonerrock.com and the All That is Heavy webstore to Dan Beland and Melanie Streko (now of Hellmistress Records). Along with Snail, releases from Let the Night RoarLeeches of LoreHumo del CairoFreedom Hawk — not to mention the first Elder record — helped reestablish the label’s presence in the heavy underground, so in that regard, Blood was all the more a good fit for the label, given that it was essentially a rebirth for the band as well.

It’s worth noting in listening to Johnson‘s wailing on “Screen” just how dated Blood doesn’t sound. To give some context to revisiting the album, I went back and listened again to the self-titled as well as The ’93-’94 Blood Demos and it’s kind of astonishing how much the songs hadn’t changed when one considers the modern feel of Blood as a whole. The production is more fleshed out, certainly clearer, etc., but the underlying method is largely intact. Its grunge-era origins aren’t forgotten — Seattle? yup. early ’90s? yup. — but the band succeeded in drawing a line to the past while representing a forward potential as well, and one that, thankfully, they’d go on to realize on subsequent offerings.

By the time Clausen left the band in 2013, they had already put out the follow-up CD, Terminus (review here), and they signed to Small Stone for Feral (review here) in 2015, which subsequently saw them come to the East Coast for the first time in 2016 to play The Obelisk All-Dayer in Brooklyn and other shows around that, as well as do Psycho Las Vegas and more besides. They’ve never been a heavily touring band whether a four-piece or trio, but they bring a chemistry to the stage just the same that, from my own experience as a fan of their work, adds another layer of enjoyment to the proceedings. Some bands work together. Snail come across more like a family, eyes rolling at each other and all.

They reportedly have a new album in the works — they’re recording — that will see release this year, and that’s only good news as far as I’m concerned. Feral was their best work to-date, and five years after that and some 27 years after their debut, it’ll be exciting to hear where they take what has become their signature style. You can dig on Snail or don’t, but if you don’t, you’re missing out.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

New episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio today. 1PM. It’s moving to 5PM and will be on every week at that time with new episodes every other week. That’s starts Valentine’s Day. Because love.

Next week is totally full. I can’t talk about some of it yet, but holy shit it’s gonna be awesome. Cool streams, cool announcements. Couple good reviews thrown in. Really, stay tuned.

The week after already has reviews and premieres booked too. And the Monday and Wednesday after that. And shit is happening today like Elder announcing their record and Candlemass announcing an EP. What’s a boy to do about trying to keep up? Even if I had a staff of 20 writers they’d look at my notes and tell me to kiss my ass.

Oh my poor notes.

I went to the doctor this morning, got a flu shot. I needed to update my prescriptions since I ran out of refills from my primary care doctor in Massachusetts, and hell, Boston’s a long way to go for pills. There was a whole hullabaloo with switching insurance plans. I take 40mg of Citalopram a day for depression, and I have off and on for the better part of a decade. At this point it’s been at least the last three years? Something like that. When I think about it I find it amazing I still manage to be such a miserable bastard on the regular. Nothing like overachieving.

There was a lag of about 10 days between running out of one supply of pills though and convincing our insurance to give us the month we were still owed — I’d be totally lost without The Patient Mrs.; imagine a human being, but like, actually competent; she’s like a higher lifeform — and in that time, if I’m totally honest, I could feel it. The first couple days were fine, but there’s a kind of severity that emerges in my framing of myself and what’s around me. I can feel it. It’s hard to explain, but I know when it’s there. They call it a weight — that’s a whole different issue for me, of course — and that’s fair, but it’s like if your blood got more viscous.

I also mentioned the doc some trouble I’ve been having with anxiety, and contrary to my being anxious about mentioning it — dude knows my history; he was my doctor when we lived in NJ previously and treats most of my family — and I thought maybe it was time to do something about it. The way I’ve seen it manifest is big-time reticence to go to shows at unknown venues. I’ve been to Saint Vitus Bar a few times, and Ode to Doom at Arlene’s Grocery in Manhattan, but social anxiety and the thought of being in a new place and a strange place, even at a gig, right now already I can feel the hair on my arms stand on end. I’ve missed several good gigs. I didn’t go see Om in New York.

So yeah. Try something out to help. We’ll see how it goes.

Maybe I’ll be a little easier to live with.

I am going out tomorrow though. It’s Warhorse at Saint Vitus Bar with Yatra and Green Dragon. I’ve never seen Green Dragon and I like their recorded stuff a lot, so that’s a bonus, and I know Yatra and Warhorse will destroy. I expect it to be crowded. Hydration, as ever, will be key. As will earplugs.

Review of that on Monday.

The Pecan started preschool this week, which I’ll note mostly for self-posterity — I might happen upon this post years from now writing about Snail and appreciate seeing the memory; to that end, I was also reminded of feeding him off my finger when he was super-little. He’ll go Wednesday and Thursday to a place about 10 minutes from my ancestral homestead for four hours each day. He apparently got frustrated and tried to bite another kid (or two, ugh) on his first day, but he sat at the table for lunch, which he never does with me. You take the bad with the good. Some you win, some you lose.

Alright, this post has already gone on longer than I’ve intended. I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, be kind. Please don’t forget The Obelisk Show is on at 1PM Eastern (which is coming right up). Thanks if you check it out.

FRM: Forum, Radio, Merch at MiBK.

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Friday Full-Length: Egypt, Egypt EP

Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 6th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

 

First issued in 2005 by the band themselves, Egypt‘s four-song self-titled demo was picked up first by Lyderhorn Records in 2007 and then by MeteorCity for release as a debut EP (review here) in 2009. That latter version, coming at a time when the label was under new ownership and revamping its lineup with bands like Freedom Hawk, Elder, Leeches of Lore, Olde Growth, WhiteBuzz and New Keepers of the Water Towers, seemed to find an audience that has stayed consistently loyal to it over the last decade, and Egypt, who had already disbanded, wound up getting back together as a result. A reboot! Oh what a difference distribution can make.

Egypt formed circa 2003 in Fargo, North Dakota, and as the trio of bassist/vocalist Aaron Esterby, guitarist Ryan Grahn and drummer Chad Heille, they’d embark on their debut EP very much as an initial demo. In fact, the only things that really make it an EP at all are the quality of Heille‘s 2004 recording/mix/master and the fact that it was later released as one. Otherwise, the four-track 31-minute outing could just as easily be called a demo and left at that — while we’re at it, you could also call it a full-length if you wanted to; it’s long enough and there’s nothing in particular lacking to hold it back from being an LP. At least nothing lacking by accident. There is one pervasive lack that defines in no small part the release as a whole: the lack of bullshit. You’ll find none in catchy, on-that-wah bass of opener “Valley of the Kings,” the massive-sounding “Queen of All Time (Red Giant),” the smoky stoner blues roll of “Dirty Witch” or the fuzzy jam-out in “Touch Ground.” Tone and groove, verses and choruses — Egypt‘s Egypt took the approach of slowing down and revamping classic heavy rock swagger as a languid, flowing thing, not necessarily prone to jams in the finished product, as even “Touch Ground” touched ground eventually, but representative of the take of a new generation of heavy rock playing off that which MeteorCity helped define in the post-Kyuss mid- and late-’90s. Each riff, rumble and crash was made to count for maximum impact, and in a changing rock underground marked by the rise of take-it-with-you social media listening experiences and word of mouth, Egypt thrived at a time when, effectively, they were already dead. Put it in your ‘Go Figure’ file; I know you have one.

The shortest song on Egypt‘s Egypt is “Dirty Witch” at 7:27. That, “Touch Ground” and “Valley of the Kings” all hover around seven and a half minutes, while “Queen of All Time (Red Giant)” tops nine. Why that matters is it means each track has enough time to establish its own presence. The songs aren’t just about building up to a hook or an instrumental exploration, they’re a place to dwell, at least for a time. To be sure, “Valley of the Kings” has its chorus, but it’s also got its fuzz-caked gradual unfolding, a stick-click leading into the egypt egyptwah-bass bounce and the flowing vibe that Egypt keep holy throughout the entire release. What was the *new* stoner rock at the time did not lack for self-awareness, but there’s consistently something organic about the listening experience of Egypt‘s self-titled, which was less sludgy than some of their later output would become and proffered a kind of heavy blues that ran concurrent to the work of an act like Texas three-piece Wo Fat with whom Egypt would share the Cyclopean Riffs (review here) split in 2013.

A sometimes gruff character in Esterby‘s vocals was offset by the warmth of the guitar and bass tone surrounding and even in “Queen of All Time (Red Giant),” where the band married together Sleep-style riffing with a vintage-heavy mentality, engaging a hugeness of nod neither to be understated nor discounted. The ’70s flair came forward more on “Dirty Witch,” with its classic rock misogyny playing off notions of Deep Sabbath (or would it be Black Purple?) might’ve been, and “Touch Ground” dug into a more patient motion that made its impact all the more vital upon its arrival after a long, mellow intro. The short version? Egypt killed it. They absolutely did. What was their demo did more in terms of sound than a lot of first records, and did so with an overarching natural feel that became central to its whole character. It was like they plugged in, hit record, and went for it, threw a bird on the cover and were done. It’s never that simple in real life, of course, but especially when the finished product continues to sound so good even a decade/decade-plus later, it’s nice every once in a while to pretend otherwise. If you want to call that escapism, so be it.

The aforementioned Cyclopean Riffs split with Wo Fat came out just a couple months after Egypt‘s return from the abyss/debut album with guitarist Neil Stein, Become the Sun (review here), and that began a run that would find the band increasing their reach domestically and abroad for the next five years until they called it quits in 2018. During that time they were consistently productive, following Become the Sun with the split as well as two more LPs in 2015’s Endless Flight (review here) and 2017’s Cracks and Lines (review here), which showed them continuing to grow in terms of style without letting go of the central heft that that seemed always to be so essential to their process. A cover of Thin Lizzy‘s “Suicide” would be the capstone included on Glory or Death Records‘ tribute compilation, and since the second breakup, Heille and Stein have gone back to their prior instrumental outfit, El Supremo, which Heille founded in 2008, to issue the debut album, Clarity Through Distortion, this summer.

One tries never to say never in rock and roll in any situation, but whether or not the second Egypt disbanding will hold, I honestly couldn’t say. They managed to put out three killer records and made it to Europe in 2015, touring with Tombstones and playing Freak Valley Festival, so if they were the type to tick off boxes, they certainly ticked off a few good ones, but on the other hand, Cracks and Lines seemed to leave a few things unsaid, so I don’t know. Whatever happens in the future, the band never seemed to forget the initial impact their self-titled had in getting them going again. They’ve reissued it a couple times and have CDs available through Bandcamp for a whopping $5, presumably while they last. Which reminds me…

As always, I hope you enjoy.

To answer your next question, yes, I really did just buy that CD. I know I have the MeteorCity version and I may or may not have the original CD-R from the band, but screw it, the price was right and it’s early so impulse control is low.

Kind of an up and down week, but whatever. I ate a lot of garlic, I hung out with The Pecan, watched some baseball. The Patient Mrs. started her new job. This weekend is Nebula, Sasquatch, Mirror Queen and Geezer at the Saint Vitus Bar and the show’s going to be so good I’m actually kind of nervous for it. I’ll have a review up Monday, but hell’s bells, how am I supposed to even talk about something like that? “Duh, bands are awesome,” for like 1,500 words. What a wreck. If I have a brain left, I’ll see what I can do.

Also a couple premieres next week, from V, Alunah, Fire Down Below, and reviews of Monolord and High Fighter. An interview with Lori from Acid King that’s scheduled for tomorrow that was originally supposed to happen on Wednesday, which was The Patient Mrs.’ first day of classes, which meant I was on toddler-duty full-on and therefore by 2PM ready to bash my brain into the wall and very much not ready to give due attention to the 20th anniversary of Busse Woods. I love that record. I’d rather not fuck up the interview, if I can avoid it. Fortunately, Lori was kind enough to reschedule.

Look for the audio of that to come. I don’t know if anyone actually listens to those things — should I maybe break them up into parts? — but they’re fun to do. I like talking to people about their work, I just don’t have the will 15 years later to transcribe that conversation, nor the money to pay someone else to do it. That’s also time I could be reviewing something, and the hours of my day are limited and precious. I’d rather be writing about a record than misquoting someone talking about one. Call me crazy.

So anyway, more streaming interviews, I guess. Parker Griggs from Radio Moscow has a new band that I think I’ll be talking to him about, and I’ve floated Alunah and Heavy Temple as future possibilities. I wouldn’t mind hitting up Monolord either, frankly. Or Ufomammut, if I could make it happen.

I also need to write a piece about the art showings at Høstsabbat sometime in the next week or so that I have no idea yet how I’m going to frame. These things are complicated in my head sometimes. I’ll get there. Will I get there before I do the Lowrider PostWax liner notes or the Acrimony liner notes I need to do? I don’t know. I’m trying my best.

Alright, I’m gonna go read for a couple minutes before The Pecan wakes up and sets about dismantling the world around him, one choking hazard at a time. Please have a great and safe weekend, and please check out the forum and radio stream and get a t-shirt from Dropout if you haven’t yet.

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Friday Full-Length: Elder, Dead Roots Stirring

Posted in Bootleg Theater on May 10th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

So yes, I’ve been thinking about what are some of the best heavy records of the decade. We’re almost halfway into 2019, it’s time for a bit of reflection on what the heavy ’10s have wrought. I’ll probably do a poll at some point in the next couple months instead of my own list — frankly, I’m more curious what everyone else thinks — but I have to imagine Elder‘s 2011 second album for MeteorCity, Dead Roots Stirring (review here), belongs somewhere in that discussion. I don’t think it’s album of the decade, or even the greatest achievement Elder have had in the last 10 years, but it was an important moment for the Massachusetts then-trio of guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo, bassist Jack Donovan and drummer Matt Couto, when they began to really show who they were becoming as a band and how their songwriting process was beginning to realize a more progressive vision. Their prior 2008 self-titled debut (discussed here) made its impression via riffs and grooving largesse. Dead Roots Stirring, at the time, was an entirely different level of achievement for Elder, and it set them on the path toward not only emerging as a touring band, but becoming an essential voice of progressive heavy rock and an influence for others to follow.

That’s hindsight, so I’ll stress that when it came out, no one knew that was going to happen. Elder had played some outside of their native Boston and gained a reputation for blowing much older bands off the stage, but I can remember vividly putting on Dead Roots Stirring for the first time, making my way through “Gemini” and the 12-minute title-track that follows it, and being fairly blindsided by the leap in their sound. Now, that’s just what they do, right? Every album is a considerable step forward from the one before it. They’ve done it four times. But Dead Roots Stirring was the first leap, and I still feel the impact of that when I listen to the record. The turn to acoustics in the intro to the instrumental “III” and the graceful build-up from there; the way they embraced not only the longer-form work of the debut, but shifted that to tell a story with the music as well as the lyrics. Elder‘s songwriting process has long since defied conventional logic. That is, they’ve never really been a verse-chorus-verse-chorus band. It’s always, “We’ll take this part and put it next to this part and sometimes we’ll maybe repeat a part and it’ll be awesome because Matt half-times the drums or something.” And why the hell should that work? Aside from Couto half-timing the drums, because I’m sorry, but that’s always going to be great. But seriously, Elder manage to turn a part played once into a hook, and one can hear that throughout Dead Roots Stirring, on “Dead Roots Stirring” itself, certainly, so elder dead roots stirringthat when a riff does come back around, its effect is all the more highlighted. It’s dumbfounding. It shouldn’t work. Other bands do it, and it just sounds like part-mashing. Elder do it and it’s brilliant.

I won’t take away from the opening salvo of which that title-track is part. “Gemini” into “Dead Roots Stirring” is probably one of the strongest one-two punches a heavy rock record has offered in the last 10 years — and yes, I mean that — but “III,” “The End” and “Knot” showed even more how far their reach had expanded in the three years since their debut. Already noted was the poise of “III,” which not only served its individual function, but fed into the overarching flow of the entire album as its centerpiece, leading to the tumbling fuzzout of “The End,” which was probably the most guitar-led of an album that’s still very much guitar-led. Peppered throughout with leads and backed by a solid groove, the song moved through a long instrumental passage at its end to cap with undulating volume swells and give a direct transition into close “Knot,” which was just a few second shy of the title-cut’s 12 minutes. The finale showed rare swagger on the part of the band, much bolstered by Donovan‘s bass, and swung its way into a overload wash of noise at the end, something Elder‘s cleaner tones on subsequent work would never really allow them to do again. I recall hearing a lot of Colour Haze in Dead Roots Stirring at the time, and I hear some less now, but there’s no question Elder were already pulling from more than just the conventional heavy-rock-riffout playbook even eight years ago. This was something special. Still is.

And of course, Elder have continued to build on it to a point where they’ll be back on tour in Europe starting next week (click here to pop out tour banner). I was fortunate enough to see them two weeks ago headlining the inaugural Desertfest NYC (review here), and they were every bit the headlining act, professional in their delivery but still clearly passionate about what they do and with the kind of draw to anchor a festival lineup. Their last two albums, 2015’s landmark Lore (review here) and 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World (review here), have pushed them further along the progressive path, growing increasingly clearheaded in their purposes as they step forward from what Dead Roots Stirring and its 2012 companion EP, Spires Burn/Release (review here), accomplished, and their profile has only grown to match. The last album was doubly notable for being the point where they added a fourth member in guitarist/keyboardist Mike Risberg, and allowed themselves a little more room to explore different textures touching on psychedelia and jamming in ways they never had before. They’re slated to release a new EP along those lines called The Gold and Silver Sessions of instrumental work — kind of a one-off — but it will be interesting to hear when they embark on a fifth full-length if and how that plays into their sound.

Because if Elder‘s output over the last 11 years been anything, it’s been a narrative thread of progress, with each offering using the one before it as a springboard to new modes of expression. I won’t guess where their next record will take them in terms of sound, but I’ll be glad to find out when the time comes, just as I was that first time I put on Dead Roots Stirring years ago.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

Oh, my aching head. Whenever I get a real-deal toothache, I think of that scene in Cast Away where Tom Hanks goes DIY-dentist on his mouth with an ice skate. Something on the stage left side of my mouth has been giving me similar impulses all week, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a distraction from writing. Last night I was up a few times overnight from the combined pain of the toothache plus the inevitable jaw clenching I do in my sleep because, well, unresolved trauma, I guess? I don’t know. Anyway, it hurt like a bastard to the point that 2AM found me downstairs digging the tube of Orajel out of the couch cushion to numb it up. Good fun.

So yes, this week, as American democracy develops yet-more cracks in its imitation-Roman marble and the UN says like a million species are dying because humans exist, I’ve been busy thinking about my hurty tooth. Is it the worst thing that’s every happened to anyone in the existence of mankind? Yes. It is. Sorry. It’s the worst.

It’s been two weeks since I properly closed out a week. Whoops. Two weeks ago was Desertfest NYC. That was fun. Last week was the New England Stoner and Doom Fest, and though I didn’t end up going — family matters; it happens — I didn’t really pull the plug on it until Friday afternoon, and as I was already in the car and driving, just didn’t have the opportunity to put something together. I only mention it because it was noted in a comment. If you’ve been aching for a Friday Full-Length, I thought Elder would probably do the job nicely. I hope that’s the case.

This past weekend was The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio. The 15th episode. I’ve been talking this week to the program director, Brian Turner, about swapping out for a weekday shift, since apparently the Thursday replays have been going well. I think that’s pretty nifty. I didn’t really imagine doing the radio thing would last this long. I thought it would be a couple episodes, the audience would be like, “This isn’t Dave Mustaine — screw you!” and I’d get summarily shitcanned. Not to say it couldn’t still happen, but it hasn’t yet. I’ll keep you posted when the next episode is going to go live, but it looks like maybe Friday the 24th at 1PM Eastern? We’ll see if that’s final. I need to email Brian back, which I’ll do as soon as I finish writing this.

Neat either way, though, and twice as encouraging, because basically with that show I’m trying to play so much new stuff. I don’t know. It feels good to do a thing and have it be well received. That’s all. Give me my moment. I know it won’t last.

Next week is packed. I’ve been getting to the point where people hit me up for coverage and stuff and I’ve had to issue flat turn-downs. Not because I don’t want to cover whatever it is, just because everything’s already slated. It’s madness, I tell you.

Here are the notes, subject to change blah blah:

MON 05/13 LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE REVIEW
TUE 05/14 ETHEREAL RIFFIAN VID PREMIERE; LANGFINGER LIVE ALBUM TRACK PREMIERE
WED 05/15 SLOMATICS PREMIERE
THU 05/16 KALEIDOBOLT TRACK PREMIERE
FRI 05/17 VALLEY OF THE SUN ALBUM STREAM

There might also be another video premiere on Monday if I can properly coordinate it in time. If not, maybe later in the week? I don’t know. This week was oddly light on news, but I’ve already got stuff slated for Monday — friggin’ Truckfighters are putting together a festival in Stockholm; thanks guys, I was gonna do that! — so that’s good. I feel better when I’m playing catchup.

But seriously, new Slomatics, Kaleidobolt, Valley of the Sun and Langfinger next week? All premieres? And a new Ethereal Riffian video? Even if nothing else happens, that’s a pretty badass week right there. I’m stoked to be doing a Slomatics premiere. Their new album frickin’ fantastic. Likewise Valley of the Sun. Two year-end-listers for sure.

Alright, this post has gone on long enough and I won’t delude myself into thinking anyone’s still reading, but if you are, thanks for doing so. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, and I hope you check out the forum, radio stream and merch over at Dropout.

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Friday Full-Length: Unida & Dozer, Double EP

Posted in Bootleg Theater on March 30th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

Unida & Dozer, Double EP (1999)

Unida and Dozer in 1999. Each with an EP, teaming up to put them out together on CD via a then relatively-nascent MeteorCity. I ask you, what’s not to dig about that? And if you can ever get past the hook of Unida‘s “Red” — no easy feat, mind you — you’ll find the whole release has something to offer as regards peak post-Kyuss-era heavy rock. The Californian desert and Sweden never sounded closer together than they do here.

The Best of Wayne-Gro was the first Unida release, and it was put out by MeteorCity as a standalone in 1998 before being included in this split. Of course, Unida was John Garcia‘s next project after the dissolution of Slo Burn and Kyuss before that, and with the fuzz of guitarist Arthur Seay (now of House of Broken Promises), the bass of Jerry Montano (HellyeahDanzig, etc.) and the drums of Miguel Cancino (also now of House of Broken Promises) behind him, the band was a powerhouse from the start. They’d hold on to some sense of jammy looseness with Garcia‘s “what the fuck?” freakout shouts in “Wet Pussycat,” which finished out their section of the split, and “Delta Alba Plex” before that began to depart somewhat from the more rigid structure of “Red” and opener “Flower Girl,” but one way or the other, Unida offered primo desert rock in this first outing and filled the listener with hope for what they might go on to accomplish together.

The groove was immediate on “Flower Girl,” and Garcia rode on top of it as only he seems to be able to do, his cadence and the guttural push in his voice entirely his own. Unida‘s always been thought of as a “John Garcia band” along with the likes of Hermano and Slo Burn — that is, I don’t know if the group would’ve worked with a different singer, which is likely part of why Seay put together House of Broken Promises and left Unida to reunite as their own thing when the time came in 2013 — but the entire band was on point. Listen to Cancino‘s drumming at the start of “Red.” He’s carrying that entire build himself, moving to his toms and cymbals before taking off on the crash for the chorus. The fuzz features, naturally, and I won’t take away from Seay‘s solo later in the track, but in terms of propulsion, it’s the drums all the way, and they hold together the nod of “Delta Alba Plex” as well before “Wet Pussycat” kind of pulls itself apart at the end after that sweet, laid back roll in its first half. I’m not the first person to say it, and this is by no means the first time I’ve said it, but what a band. What potential. And do you know what the craziest part is? If you put SeayCancino and Garcia in a studio today, they’d absolutely crush it. I’m sure I don’t need to recount for you the story of their lost albumThe Great Divide, which would’ve followed up their 1999 debut, Coping with the Urban Coyote (discussed here). Bottom line: some you win, some you lose. We all lost on that one.

Of course, Unida wasn’t the only act brimming with potential on the release, and like them, Dozer had issued their four-song Coming Down the Mountain EP as a standalone the year prior. Recorded in the band’s native Borlänge, Sweden, it stands as an ultra-early release for them as well, following their 1998 demo, Universe 75 (discussed here), and preceding a why-the-hell-has-no-one-compiled-these-for-reissue series of three splits with fellow Swedes Demon Cleaner that would be released over the course of ’98 and ’99. At the time, Dozer were guitarist/vocalist Fredrik Nordin, guitarist Tommi Holappa (now Greenleaf), bassist Johan Rockner and drummer Erik Bäckwall — the latter two now of Besvärjelsen), and the same lineup would go on to make three full-lengths together, 2000’s In the Tail of a Comet (discussed here) and 2001’s Madre de Dios on Man’s Ruin and 2002’s Call it Conspiracy (discussed here) on Molten Universe before parting ways with Bäckwall and working with producer/percussionist Karl Daniel Lidén — by then formerly of Demon Cleaner — for 2005’s more aggressive Through the Eyes of Heathens. Here though, they sound raw in comparison to the more experienced Unida, and man does it work for them.

I’m a big fan of what Dozer ultimately became. I think Through the Eyes of Heathens and their 2008 swansong, Beyond Colossal, were nothing short of incredible achievements of individualism in heavy rock, and if you want to know where they might’ve gone next, pick up Greenleaf‘s 2012 album, Nest of Vipers (review here), and go forward from there. That said, early Dozer — along with earliest Natas and just about no one else — offers some of the most natural sounding not-from-the-desert desert rock you’ll ever hear. “Headed for the Sun” is a near-perfect execution of what at the time was barely a genre, and to follow it with the roll of “Calamari Sidetrip” — the watery effect on Nordin‘s vocals almost acting as a tie to Garcia‘s — and the psychedelic guitar work there offset by the all-thrust of the drum-led “From Mars” and the consuming fuzz of “Overheated,” Dozer sound like a young band, to be sure, but their energy is infectious as it would remain throughout their career. Something else they still have in common with Unida? Put these guys in a studio today, and yeah, they’d absolutely destroy.

I thought maybe I’d bug former MeteorCity honcho Jadd Shickler and see what he had to say about it as one of the guys who put it out. Here’s what he had on the subject:

“Within our first year of trying to figure out what the hell it meant to run a record label, we’d managed to open a communication line to ex-Kyuss/Slo Burn singer John Garcia and his new band Unida. We were also on the forefront of exploring the new contingent of Kyuss-inspired bands in Sweden. With the Nebula/Lowrider double EP coming together so beautifully, we wanted to continue on that magic path. Debuting the first recordings anywhere from Unida, which saw a more in-your-face vocal style than anyone had heard from John with Kyuss or Slo Burn, paired with (I think) the first worldwide release from Dozer, who would grow into an internationally-known stoner-rock juggernaut themselves, was perfect synchronicity. The songs were badass, and the sense of significance was palpable. It was pretty much impossible to ever tap into that early sense of trailblazing discovery in quite the same way again.”

The Double EP split has a special place in stoner rock history, and the quality of the material on it is unmistakable and a banner example of the best of its era. MeteorCity reissued it circa 2005, so I think copies still exist someplace on the planet.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

I just went for a walk in the parking lot of the townhouse where I live. Back and forth with the little dog Dio. Apparently that’s a thing I do now. It’s quarter-to-six in the morning. I’ve been up since three. Somehow though, if my impressions during semi-conscious rollovers and getting up to go to the bathroom twice (11PM and 1AM, like clockwork) are anything to go by, I think The Patient Mrs. slept even worse. I was out early. I don’t know that it was 8:30PM. Pretty soon I’ll be asleep before the sun goes down. Hell if I care. I’m up before it’s up, so that makes some kind of sense. As much as anything.

I hear next week is the Quarterly Review. Well, I’ve done all of jack shit to prepare for it at this point and I think I just might decide to make it a six-dayer unless at the end of next week I’m so mentally burnt I can’t handle the prospect of going the additional day — which is certainly possible given everything else slated for the week as well. Dig the notes, subject of course to change:

Mon.: QR1, Greenbeard video premiere.
Tue.: QR2, Black Rainbows review/stream.
Wed.: QR3, Gozu review/track premiere.
Thu.: QR4, new Green Druid video.
Fri.: QR5, Rancho Bizzarro EP stream.

My brain aches thinking about it. Also I’ve got family in town this afternoon and tomorrow and I’m going to a Passover Seder tomorrow night at the home of one of The Patient Mrs.’ longtime friends down on Cape Cod. None of my pants fit. None of my shirts fit. If you need me, I’ll be drowning my anxiety in bran flakes and soy milk and sumo oranges. Also meds.

Oh yeah, plus five-month-old. The Pecan had a banner week. Dude’s clean vocals need some work, but he’s a screamer with the best of ’em.

I was in the grocery store the other day though — I grocery shop like every fucking day; it’s a thing to do with the baby and an unfortunate side-effect of eating food — and this leaving-middle-age dude in front of me in line turned around, saw the baby in the car seat in the cart and said, “I did that for 15 years before it was really accepted,” obviously talking about house-husbanding because it was the middle of the day. He had a pretty thick Massaccent, so I didn’t pick up everything he said, but I told him in response that it turns out it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. That’s not really true — I also want to write, all the time — but in terms of work, it’s incredibly difficult and only going to become more so once he’s verbal and mobile, but it beats the living shit out of every single job I’ve ever had. So yeah. Dude looked surprised. I was a little surprised too, I guess.

Then I went home and walked in the parking lot and told the little guy about snow melting and becoming water again. Somehow I doubt that’s the last time I’ll have that conversation.

Times continue to be hard in my head. Really hard. I see things and they set me off, like the dinner jacket that used to be my grandfather’s that I wore to my grandmother’s funeral that will never fit me again, and I get really sad. My nutritionist keeps telling me not to think about my body as a number, i.e. a weight. I’m not. I’m thinking of it as a thing that doesn’t fit into any of its clothes. Given where I was three months ago, it sucks to be where I am now. The doctor took more blood this week. I can’t even remember why.

Alright, I don’t really want to turn this post into a poor-fat-me piss party, so I’m going to leave eating disorder discussion there. I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’m expecting a call any minute now from The Patient Mrs. for me to go upstairs and change the baby, so that’s something. Anyway, have fun and be safe. Quarterly Review starts Monday and don’t forget the forum and radio stream in the meantime. Thanks for reading.

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Friday Full-Length: Spirit Caravan, Dreamwheel

Posted in Bootleg Theater on March 31st, 2017 by JJ Koczan

Spirit Caravan, Dreamwheel EP (1999)

To my ears, Spirit Caravan is the blues, plain and simple. Like the best of the classic blues, it could be, but didn’t always have to be dark or depressing or aggressive in order to be heavy or to convey a sense of weight. It’s been a couple years at this point, so if you don’t remember, you’re certainly forgiven, but I used to run a regular weekly feature around here called Wino Wednesday. I quite literally did 200 of them. And yes, Spirit Caravan‘s 1999 Dreamwheel EP (on MeteorCity) was discussed as part of that series, but as we move toward Springtime, it’s hard for me not to go back to this band and this short release in particular, precisely because it’s that combination of hopeful and heavy that’s so rare, not only in the canon of Scott “Wino” Weinrich, but in the wider sphere of heavy as a whole. And where there is happy heavy, it’s almost never done so well or to such a degree of each as it felt natural for Spirit Caravan to represent. They hit the balance just right.

And yeah, I could have closed out the week (and probably will at some point close out a week) with Spirit Caravan‘s landmark 1999 debut, Jug Fulla Sun (discussed here), or that record’s 2001 follow-up, Elusive Truth, or even their 2003 swansong compilation The Last Embrace, but Dreamwheel has a special feel about it. I won’t take anything away from Jug Fulla Sun, and if we’re picking favorite Spirit Caravan records, that’s my pick, but for the fact that Dreamwheel clocks in at under 20 minutes long, has five easy-rolling tracks, and asks nothing more of its audience than a bit of nod, I just feel like it’s the sonic equivalent of an unexpected compliment. Right? Like someone coming up to you and saying something nice out of the blue. “Oh, here’s Dreamwheel,” and instantly your day is better. I don’t know a lot of releases, full-length, EP, or otherwise, that can pull that off in the kind of lasting way that Dreamwheel does, beginning with the six-minute opening title-track’s examination of spirituality, bouncing groove, aliens or who knows what else is going on in there. I won’t profess to, but it rounds out with the line, “You’ve got to dream and keep on rollin’,” and as rock and roll sentiments go, that’s a tough one to beat. As happens with a lot of short releases (and albums, for that matter), Dreamwheel becomes in large part defined by its titular cut. Not only is “Dreamwheel” the longest inclusion (plus opener equals immediate points), but the tone it sets plays into the following “Burnin’ In,” the cymbal-abrasion-into-guitar-led-scorch of “Re-Alignment / Higher Power,” and into the closing pair of “Sun Stoned” and “C, Yourself” as well.

Through it all, Wino, bassist/backing vocalist Dave Sherman (who’d shortly move on to his first release with Earthride) and drummer Gary Isom showed with no small thanks to the Chris Kozlowski recording job their utter mastery of that righteous, potent brew that was their own and that has never been anyone else’s, even among other “Wino bands,” whether that’s The ObsessedThe Hidden HandWino (actually, the shortlived Wino band came closest), Premonition 13 or whoever. All at the same time, it’s a sound that’s classic in its construction and influence, modern in its presentation, natural in tone, laid back, heavy, consuming but accessible, at once of Maryland doom tradition and working in defiance of it. That scene — and please don’t take this as a slight against Maryland doom, which if you read this site, ever, you know I hold dear — has never produced another band like Spirit Caravan, and Spirit Caravan only made one Dreamwheel EP.

It’s a moment in time that never came again. As they moved on to Elusive Truth in 2001, their sound took on a doomier feel, and in 2002, Spirit Caravan would call it a day as Sherman went on to focus on EarthrideWino joined Place of Skulls for a time and launched The Hidden Hand, whose debut, Divine Propaganda, arrived in 2003, and Isom floated between a host of acts, among them NitroseedValkyrieUnorthodox and Pentagram. Of course the band got back together, first with the original lineup, and then not, in 2014 and played live shows and started to work on new material, but would disintegrate again as that reunion transitioned into one for The Obsessed, whose new LP, Sacred, is out next week on Relapse Records with a recording lineup of WinoSherman and drummer Brian Costantino, who had replaced Isom in Spirit Caravan‘s final to-date incarnation.

Got all that? Bottom line is Dreamwheel, while short, is a record of which it’s worth basking in every minute. There is no moment on it that does not satisfy or does not enrich the listener, and I hope that as you make your way through it, you have the experience I referred to above, and you come out of it feeling better than you did going in. Think of it as my way of saying something nice.

Even if you don’t get there, as always, I hope you enjoy.

I took today off work. One doesn’t want to oversell it by calling it the best decision I’ve ever made, but it certainly is glorious. Don’t get me wrong, most days, I don’t hate my job. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. But as I roll steadily into middle age — I’m 36 in October — I realize more and more that office life, working for someone else, corporate or small company, isn’t what I want to be doing with my days.

As a kid, I watched my father sweat and travel and stress for a series of jobs he hated because he felt like it was what he needed to do to support his family. He wanted to die. Literally. For years. Part of that is chemical, as I know from my own experience, but as I sit in my kitchen on this morning off and watch the sun come up across my backyard, I know that while on some levels he was right — my family wouldn’t have gotten by in the same way on my mom’s public school teacher’s salary — there’s another kind of value at play as well, and that’s the value of making your existence bearable. Because when you’re miserable like that, it bleeds into everyone around you. I know this.

So yeah, I don’t want to work anymore. Not in an office. Not full-time. It might take me years to make something else happen, but that change is something I need to do to make my life what I want it to be, because I’ll tell you, right now I have the greatest job I’ve ever had and probably the greatest job I’ll ever have and there are still plenty of days in the week where I wake up dreading going to it. The commute, the air, the loud people, the commute back. All of it. It’s just not where I want to be. I don’t even feel like a person some days. I counted minutes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday to get to this morning.

And I know we need money even though we’re broke no matter how much we bring in, but I also feel like I owe it to The Patient Mrs. not to be so god damn wretched all the time. That’s where my head is at.

Appreciating the day, then, and trying to make it as weekend-y as possible. I’ve got my huge YOB shirt on (I call it “my weekend YOB shirt,” and rest assured, I’ll be wearing it until Monday) and my lined pajamas and my warm socks (those I’ll change), and I’m listening to the new Siena Root for the first time and sipping my coffee. The dog’s in her bed in the corner and life is good and restorative, and moments like this are what it’s about. In a while The Patient Mrs. will come downstairs and have breakfast and I’ll make another pot and put some protein powder in one of the cups, and we’ll talk about the day to come. It’s going to be a good one. I can feel it already.

We’re heading into April; deeper into 2017. I hope you’re doing well.

Thanks if you got to check out any of the Quarterly Review this week. That means a lot to me, and I appreciate it when people can put eyes to things like that. I know 50 reviews is a lot to keep up with — believe me — but if you found something you dig, that’s awesome.

Next week is slammed as well as of now. Here’s what’s on tap, subject to change as always:

Mon.: Closet Disco Queen review/EP stream and Elder Druid video.
Tue.: Lord Loud review/premiere, Greenbeard video premiere.
Wed.: Ides of Gemini Six Dumb Questions, The Obsessed review, maybe Cultura Tres video.
Thu.: Arc of Ascent review/track premiere, Beastwars video (NZ day!)
Fri.: Electric Moon review, other stuff.

Truth be told, I’ve got reviews and premieres planned through the better part of April already. I know what I’ll be doing every day between now and Roadburn, and there’s some stuff locked in already for May and more to come, so yeah. Plenty going on. Things are getting full earlier, which is validating in a way, but as I finish one Quarterly Review I’ve already started to think about the next, and there are times where it’s overwhelming. Mostly Tuesdays, oddly. Tuesday’s always my roughest day.

A note about The Obelisk Radio: We’ve been running on the backup server for the last several weeks since the hard drive crashed. I bought a new drive — it’s 4TB, so eventually there will be even more space to work with — and Slevin is in the process of switching everything over, but it’s taking a really long time because the old busted drive apparently has a shit-ton of bad data. Turns out maybe running it 24 hours a day/seven days a week took a toll in some way? Crazy, I know. In any case, it’s still going to be a while. I have another round of radio adds slated for April 10 and I’m not sure if we’ll be back on the full playlist by then, but it’s a work in progress and if you listen regularly, I appreciate your patience with it.

Alright. Can’t imagine I haven’t gone on long enough. If you’re still reading this, thanks.

I hope you have or have had a wonderful day, depending I suppose on your time zone, and that you enjoy a great and safe weekend. See you back here on Monday for more, and in the meantime please check out the forum, the (backup) radio stream, and the new The Obelisk page on Thee Facebooks.

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