Posted in Whathaveyou on February 27th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Once upon a 20 years ago, a tiny baby power trio out of a well-populated New Jersey heavy rock scene came together and blew the doors off most of not all of their peers. It was The Atomic Bitchwax, who with the original lineup of bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik, guitarist Ed Mundell and drummer Keith Ackerman, set in motion on their 1999 self-titled debut (discussed here) a whirlwind that continues unabated to this day. The faces have changed, but the mission remains largely true now to what it was then in terms of making heads spin with riffy acumen while forging an underlying groove that’s as much punk as classic rock, able to careen between pop and all-out thrust or even prog without a measure’s notice. They’ve got a new record in the can, by the way. Their first with Garrett Sweeny on guitar. It rules. It’ll be out this Spring.
Before then, you can grab the self-titled as a 20th anniversary LP reissue, and obviously you should. You already own the album? So what? You can’t possibly tell me you’re doing something better with that $18 than spending it to get The Bitchwax‘s The Bitchwax on clear purple vinyl.
They’re out with Weedeater soon ahead of the new release, so check those dates and more info below:
Tee Pee Records Announces 20th Anniversary Reissue of The Atomic Bitchwax Self-Titled Debut
On Tour in March
New Studio Album Coming in May
New Jersey’s The Atomic Bitchwax are celebrating their 20th anniversary with the re-release of 1999’s self-titled classic. Newly remastered, these CDs and LPs (pressed on clear purple vinyl) are available through the Tee Pee webstore and at TAB shows throughout this year. Order itHERE.
The Atomic Bitchwax will hit the road this March on tour with Weedeater and The Goddamn Gallows. Find a complete last of dates below.
The band has recently wrapped up recording their new album, which is set for release at the end of May. Stay tuned more details.
THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX W/ Weedeater and The Goddamn Gallows 3/3: Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery 3/4: Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere 3/6: Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts 3/7: Boston, MA @ Sonia 3/9: Youngstown, OH @ Westside Bowl 3/10: Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop 3/11: Detroit, MI @ The Sanctuary 3/12: Iowa City, IA @ Wildwood 3/13: Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 21st, 2018 by JJ Koczan
The Atomic Bitchwax, The Atomic Bitchwax (1999)
I think it’s high time the ’90s era of heavy rock — the original run of stoner rock, that is — started to get tagged with the term classic. It’s been 20 years or more for most of it, after all. Think of bands like Monster Magnet, Kyuss, Acid King, Fu Manchu, Nebula, and so on, and to that list I would most definitely add New Jersey trio The Atomic Bitchwax. The band formed in 1993 but it would be six years before their self-titled debut came out on Tee Pee/MIA Records. It was kind of a side-project at first. Bassist/vocalist Chris Kosnik was at the time a member of Godspeed, who were signed to Atlantic during the same era that saw Core and a few others picked up in the wake of Monster Magnet‘s burgeoning wider success, and they made a run touring with Black Sabbath and appearing on the first Nativity in Black tribute to Sabbath with Bruce Dickinson sitting in on vocals. When Godspeed split, it was basically into The Atomic Bitchwax and Solace. Kosnik, guitarist Ed Mundell, also then of Monster Magnet, and drummer Keith Ackerman, who also played in and would later rejoin Solace for a stretch, set to work on their first record, and they came out with a scorcher.
The Atomic Bitchwax‘s The Atomic Bitchwax runs a deceptive 11 songs and 53 minutes. It’s deceptive because they trade back and forth between instrumentals like the opening “Stork Theme” — which also seems to nod at Sabbath with a beginning noise that reminds of “After Forever” — and “Crazed Fandango” and “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Hang Me in My Home,” “The Last of the V8 Interceptors” and 10-minute closer “The Formula” and hook-laden tracks like “Birth to the Earth,” “Hey Alright,” “Hope You Die,” “Gettin’ Old” and “Shit Kicker,” as well as their cover of Core‘s “Kiss the Sun,” which would be a staple in live sets for years to come. The two modes of working are interspersed throughout the tracklisting — they might most come together on the bluesier, throttled-back “Gettin’ Old” — and that helps the trio of Kosnik, Mundell and Ackerman keep the listener off-balance as they build a working momentum from front to back across the release. That, coupled with what has become a signature style of winding riffs, a decent amount of speed in their tempos, a couple samples at the start of “Last of the V8 Interceptors” and “Shit Kicker,” and the extra percussion in “Crazed Fandango” earlier, all give the record a sense of variety that, especially on first listen, can be hard to keep up with. The Atomic Bitchwax has for the most part been a band that dares its audience to hold their pace. On the self-titled, that true in terms of style as well as tempo.
Stoner band being stoner in the era of stoner? Yeah, maybe. But to my ears what makes The Atomic Bitchwax a classic album is the fact that the band are so tight and so loose at the same time. That The Atomic Bitchwax could conjure the sharp, head-spinning turns of “Stork Theme” and still be fuzzed-out and have an overarching groove in the process. Or that they could be so locked in on “Hope You Die” with Kosnik‘s bass comes forward in the hook and still toss out the lyric “Total. Freedom.,” and have it sound utterly natural. It’s not effortless, but it’s not intended to be. They remain the kind of band who should have someone walking through the crowd collecting tips while they play — “Hey folks, these guys are working hard up there” — but for the frenetic changes in “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Hang Me in My Home” and the MC5-worthy gallop of “Shit Kicker,” nothing The Atomic Bitchwax do on their first full-length takes precedent over the song itself. Even the instrumentals each have a personality of their own. Hell, “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Hang Me in My Home” is the centerpiece. Those tracks are crucial the mission of the record overall, right down to the touch of psychedelia worked into the midsection of “The Formula” at the end of the album. They not only highlight the prowess of the band technically, but complement the songwriting of “Birth to the Earth” and “Hey Alright,” etc., making the band a richer listening experience the whole way through, giving flashes of punk immediacy here and there, but ultimately ending up with an unquestionable place in heavy rock and roll.
That a record could be so laid back as it punches you in the face. That’s The Atomic Bitchwax. Still, almost 20 years later.
And quite a 20 years it’s (nearly) been. The Kosnik, Mundell, Ackerman lineup would follow the self-titled with II the next year, also on Tee Pee, and then have the Spit Blood EP on MeteorCity in 2002 before dissolving. Kosnik and Ackerman pressed forward by recruiting Core guitarist/vocalist Finn Ryan for the 2005 album, 3 (discussed here), and thereby embarking on a new era of the band. The Jack Endino-produced EP Boxriff followed — proud to say I did the liner notes for it — coupled with a live set recorded in Seattle, and after losing Ackerman on drums, Kosnik and Ryan welcomed Bob Pantella, also of Monster Magnet, on drums for 2008’s TAB4 (aka T4B), issued first by MeteorCity and then by Tee Pee, which The Atomic Bitchwax rejoined and on whose roster they remain. 2011 brought the all-instrumental, single-song LP, The Local Fuzz (review here), and with that out of their system and a resurgence as a touring act, 2015’s Gravitron (review here) and 2017’s Force Field (review here) marked not only a period of productivity, but a maturity of approach that somewhat ironically dipped back to the modus of their earliest work but made it tighter and even sharper in the delivery.
Speaking of irony, for a band that was so long considered a side-project because of Mundell‘s involvement in both groups — he of course relocated to the West Coast earlier this decade and embarked on The Ultra Electric Mega Galactic — the last several years have found Kosnik playing bass in Monster Magnet in the rhythm section with Pantella. I don’t think anyone’s calling them a side-project at this point though. Classic, maybe. I certainly think so.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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We put the Little Dog Dio down on Monday. The pain from her bone cancer was becoming less and less manageable by the hour. We ended up giving her a percocet Monday morning and she ate nine string cheeses and some chicken after that and she got up to greet The Patient Mrs. when she and the baby got back from running an errand, but she was still clearly in agony, despite also being stoned out of her gourd.
I miss her. So much. I keep looking for her. Thinking about her in her places. The spots that were hers in the house. I’ve been telling Dio stories all week on Facebook. I have so many but I’ll probably do one more tomorrow and leave it there. It’s been hard.
We had a vet come and do it at the house. They do that now, apparently. I’ve had dogs my whole life and been a participant in two euthanasias prior to this one. Dio was different. Special. She woofed at the door when the vet came. She was healthy but for the cancer eating away at her. I figure we got robbed of at least two good years with her. I’d happily shave that time off my own lifespan if I could make a trade to get her back.
I brought her bed from the upstairs bedroom down to the kitchen and laid a sheet on it for her to be on while the vet administered the drugs. High dose of opiates, something else to knock her out, then the pink shit. Always the pink shit. The Patient Mrs. and I sat with her and cried — I’d spent the last four hours just petting her and telling her I loved her — and we were with her through the end. The vet was about to deliver the pink shit and I asked her to let me do it. She did. I did it. Me.
But you want to know the truth? The confession? I wouldn’t have done it on my own. The Patient Mrs. and I had talked it out and we both knew it was time, but even an hour before the vet came I was saying maybe we should call it off. And if she’d said okay, I would have. I wouldn’t have gone through with it. I’d have been selfish and kept my poor sweet Dio in pain just to have a couple more days with her. A little more time. I’m a terrible person.
I cried and cried and cried. When it was finally done, I wrapped her in the sheet and carried her out to the vet’s van, where a bag was waiting. She’ll be cremated and we’ll get her ashes back in the mail next week. I want to be buried with them when I go.
The rest of the last five days has been a blur of grief and baby feedings. I said goodnight to her pillow before I went to bed last night.
I have notes ready for next week front to back but I’m going to keep it to myself. It’s a cool week, busy, but I just don’t have it in me to run through it. Also, by way of a heads up, the next Quarterly Review begins Oct. 8. Nobody cares. I know.
If you get the chance though, I have a show debuting on www.gimmeradio.com this Sunday at 5PM Eastern. Prime time! It’s called “The Obelisk Show” and I host it and talk awkwardly about records and this and that. The Patient Mrs. and The Pecan both make a cameo. It turned out to be a lot of fun to put together and I promise it’s not sad. It’s free to sign up and there’s no subscription or anything, so if you get to check it out, I’d appreciate it. Here’s a poster they made.
That says it all, I guess. I’m just happy they spelled my name right. We’ll see if they let me do a second episode.
While you wait with bated breath for that to start, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Hold your loved ones close, have fun, and please don’t forget to check out the forum and radio stream.
Next year will make it a full 20 since the release of Cleveland heavy rockers Red Giant‘s blazing second album, Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound. If you were a denizen of the Emissions from the Monolith Festival, held in Youngstown, OH, between 2000 and 2004, you’re probably already familiar with the record and its Derek Hess classic-pulp-sci-fi cover art, but otherwise you might be forgiven. Issued by Tee Pee Records in 1998, it’s a strikingly effective blend of post-Fu Manchu heavy groove with elements of punk, unmitigated stoner rock riffing and space-bound psychedelia brought to bear over the course of a 66-minute runtime that now seems unmanageable but was indicative of the (about to be waning) CD era in which it was released. The band, led by guitarist/vocalists Alex Perekrest and Damien Perry — the former lead vocals and the latter lead guitar — trace their roots back to 1990 and self-released their debut full-length, Psychoblaster and the Misuse of Power, in 1995, and while I admit it’s been a while since I last heard that one, the second record is where it’s at.
Marked out by the guitar interplay between Perry and Perekrest — whose shared taste in hairstyling always made them look like brothers on stage, as I recall — and the fluid drum work of Chris Gorman, the 12-track Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound showed no hesitation in its approach, whether it was in taking on the cosmic-grunge riffery of “Saturn Missile Battery” or getting positively cacophonous in “Pervert” ahead of the fuzzy deep-dives that followed in “.865 (The Battle for Longitude),” the nine-minute “Ring of the Acid Pope” and the seven-minute roller “Devils of the Fall,” which hit in immersive succession and built on the molten impression of opener “1960 Starchief,” drawing on influence from classic heavy rock as much as its of-the-day practitioners on the West Coast like Nebula and the aforementioned Fu Manchu, but adding a decidedly Midwestern crunch beneath that keeps its feet on the ground even as songs like “Blue-White Supergiant” and “When Sirius Rises” seem to issue a call well outside the stratosphere. Raw in its production in a way that would probably be lush if it was recorded today, Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound is in part an artifact of its era, but stands out all the more for that since aside from the likes of the sludgier Rebreather and arguably the more post-hardcore Disengage, there were very few acts in Ohio at the time playing heavy rock at all in the fashion that Red Giant were.
That’s evident in the drifting “Floor Girl” as much as the sample-topped winding peak of “Ring of the Acid Pope,” as Red Giant‘s scope expanded despite a feeling of impatience in their execution that worked to unite the material. Compared to the scorching solos of “Saturn Missile Battery” earlier, “When Sirius Rises” turned out to be a relatively straightforward affair, but as Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound pushed onward through the far-ranging “Thread” and the Zeppelin-styled, acoustic-inclusive “Kill for Condors” toward its finish with the righteously stomping “Another Dying Admiral” (plus a hidden track), their breadth steadily kept growing, such that what began an hour earlier showing itself as a multifaceted, hook-laden but immersive heavy rocker lived up to that promise and then some, rewarding those whose attention span, whether through natural inclination or chemical assistance of one sort or another, allowed for Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound‘s complete unfolding front-to-back. Not a minor undertaking, but not without justification for its stretch either.
If it was being made today, again, it would likely be a much different record. That’s part of the appeal though, and I note how long Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound is in relation to modern, made-for-vinyl 38-minute full-lengths and keep in mind that Red Giant‘s last album, 2010’s Dysfunctional Majesty (review here) — you’ll see it’s the same character on the cover art, though the later LP’s execution is tackier, much as I love Alex von Wieding — was also 67 minutes. Part of that might have been the fact that it had been six years since Red Giant had released their third offering, Devil Child Blues, as their debut on Small Stone, though that album was only 49 minutes and it had been more than half a decade since Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound as well. Maybe some bands just want to make 2LPs. Fine. At this point, seven years after Dysfunctional Majesty, I wouldn’t argue with another hour-plus from these cats.
To that point, there’s been no indication of a fifth album from Red Giant one way or another, but they have continued to play shows over the last several years, working as the four-piece of Perekrest, Perry, Gorman (who was out of the band for a while, then back) and bassist Brian Skinner, and they have one booked for the Agora in Cleveland on Oct. 14 with The Great Iron Snake with an event page on Thee Facebooks here for anyone who might be able to make it. So while they’re still active, I guess one never knows until one shows up to the gig whether or not they might have something brewing.
Either way, I hope you enjoy Ultra-Magnetic Glowing Sound, and thank you as always for reading.
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It’s coming up on six in the morning as I write this and prepare to wrap up the week. I’ve got the back door of my kitchen open to outside, where it’s not yet reached the 150 degrees kelvin it’s supposed to be this afternoon, and the birds are chirping as the sun is up. I missed most of the sunrise, but that’s cool. It happens on the other side of the house. If I was in Connecticut and not Massachusetts this weekend, I might be bummed about not having caught it.
I’m not in Connecticut this weekend though. The choice basically became whether to spend the money on gas to get there or groceries for the next week, so yeah, we’re home this weekend. The good news is I got approved to take photos on Sunday at Clutch and Primus in Boston. It’ll be the first non-fest show I’ve been to in I don’t even know how long, and to say I’m very much looking forward to it is an understatement. I’ve been very, very anxious about going out to gigs basically since my ankle was screwed up and I’ve fallen out of the habit. The drives seem longer — the drive into Boston being particularly miserable and taking upwards of 90 minutes at any hour doesn’t help — and between knowing fewer people here, worrying about being early enough to get up front and take pictures, shitty lighting at just about every Boston venue except Royale (which should have a photo pit and doesn’t), being sober, and the massive effort and little reward of putting together live reviews afterward, I’ve chickened out of more shows than I can count. I missed The Atomic Bitchwax and Mirror Queen last week. I’ve missed The Obsessed a couple times. Lo-Pan. The list goes on. I get bummed out about it, but the truth is I miss New York.
Still, I’d like to get a couple shows in before The Pecan arrives in October — you should see The Patient Mrs.’ bump; I’ve yet to say so out loud, but I’ve taken to calling it Sleep’s Holy Mountain because she’s also tired all the time — and Clutch and Primus is a cool way to come out of hibernation. I bought the last Primus album, Green Naugahyde, shortly after it came out in 2011, because I’ve been a fan since I was like 10 years old, but never really dug into it. Will give an extra listen before Sunday, and there are some new Clutch songs floating around on the YouTubes as well that I’ve been digging on. I’m excited to see the gig. It’s been a while since I felt that way. I’ll probably get there and have no credentials at the box office. Ha.
The Patient Mrs. is coming with me too for that. I’m counting it as The Pecan’s first show. Extra stoked on that level. Hopefully the classy bass licks of Dan Maines and the funky punch of Les Claypool reverberate in his still-forming brain and lead to a lifetime of appreciating how utterly essential quality low end is to rock and roll. That would be nice.
But that’s Sunday. In a little while, The Patient Mrs. will get up and we’ll head to the grocery store and start the day for some early productivity. Not much on tap in terms of big plans for the day; she’s out later for a thing, so I’ll watch PBS NewsHour and Mystery Science Theater 3000 this evening to pass time, maybe put together a podcast this afternoon while checking out last night’s Yankees game, if only because they won and it was on too late to see live. We’ll see.
It’s a full week next week though already. Here’s what’s in the notes, subject to change as usual:
Mon.: Clutch & Primus live review; Snail video from The Obelisk All-Dayer.
Tue.: The Judge review/track premiere; maybe podcast.
Wed.: Radio Adds; Marius Tilly video premiere.
Thu.: Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree review; Six Dumb Questions w/ Tim Granda about Planet of Doom; ZOM announcement.
Fri.: Youngblood Supercult review.
Like I said, pretty jammed. Monday and Tuesday are also just about full for news as well, so yeah. Space and time are at a premium these days, and each week seems to bring more six-post mornings and afternoons. Not gonna complain about it. I’m going to do as much as I can, when I can. Same as always.
I’ve gotten some right-on records to review in the last couple weeks of things that are coming out this Fall. Paradise Lost, Monolord, that Slomatics live album, Argus, Pagan Altar, The Quill, another one from an East Coast band that I can’t really name yet, plus Blues Funeral, Ruby the Hatchet, and so on. Really killer stuff. The next few months are going to be fun as I rifle through all of it for coverage. I look forward to it and hope you do too.
And of course I hope you have a great and safe weekend as well. Rock and roll, have an awesome time whatever you’re up to, and we’ll see you back here Monday for more shenanigans. Please check out the forum and radio stream, and thanks as always for reading and listening.
