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Buried Treasure and the Freak Flag Flying in Weymouth

Posted in Buried Treasure on October 18th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Weymouth, Massachusetts, is about two minutes down the road from me. I could go out to the road, hang a louie, and be there in three traffic lights. Most of the time, this is knowledge that doesn’t really have any bearing on my day one way or another, but when I put on Nightstick‘s unearthed 2012 album, Rock + Roll Weymouth, and it’s hard not to be taken aback by my proximity to such fucked-up sonics. The local trio — four-piece if you count Padoinka the Clown, credited with “improvisational movement, interpretive dance” — released three LPs on Relapse between 1997 and 1999 and then came back last year on At War with False Noise with the twisted reveries of this work, which may or may not have been recorded circa 2000, but was never released at the time. At the beginning of September, they did a run of shows with Fistula, and it had been my intent to catch them in Allston or Providence (which are further away, but still pretty nearby) on that tour. When that didn’t happen owing mostly to job loss on my part and I happened to be in Providence the next week at Armageddon Shop, it seemed like the least I could do to pick up Rock + Roll Weymouth and get to know the band better.

At 43 minutes that runs a gamut from sludge rock to sample-laden guitar wankery, acoustic sweetness to drones to piano-topped bizarro shenanigans and on to the sludge the Melvins might’ve made if they hadn’t been called geniuses for two and a half decades, Rock + Roll Weymouth makes little attempt to tie together, instead, as the second song title urges, the album lets its “Freak Flag Fly.” Actually, the complete name of that song, which is the longest at a smidgen under 11 minutes, is “(Let Your) Freak Flag Fly (featuring Kenny’s Cancellation Message).” That’s right, a rare double-parenthetical in the title. One might expect all kinds of resounding progressive indulgence as a result, but Nightstick don’t seem to have time for it. “Kenny’s Cancellation Message,” which is legitimately hilarious, is a sample of someone in another band or maybe a promoter more or less kicking Nightstick off a bill because of the potential for violence to erupt at the show from Nightstick‘s crowd and the band being generally unhinged. Probably a fair concern, though neither the pretty acoustic “Lila Claire Blues” — written by guitarist Cotie Cowgill for his daughter — nor the band’s closing cover of “Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001)” does much to justify it.

That duty is left up to cuts like the gleefully strange opener, “Nightstick a.) ‘Call Me… Nightstick!’ b.) Outtro c.) Requiem,” which takes lo-fi garage sludge rumble from bassist Alex Smith (also vocals), feedback from Cowgill and punkishly intense drumming from Robert R. Williams (also formerly of Siege) and devolves initial push first into solo-topped chaos, then sample-infused plod, Smith‘s bass coming even more to the front while periodic bursts of gunfire and sirens gradually take over. Together with the following “(Let Your) Freak Flag Fly (Featuring Kenny’s Cancellation Message),” the first two cuts of Rock + Roll Weymouth comprise nearly half of the runtime, but if you’re looking to make sense of the proceedings in a traditional fashion, you’re doing it wrong. Weird out. In the context of Nightstick‘s three prior outings, the subtitled tracks, unexpected covers (in the past they’ve done Funkadelic and Discharge, both of whose influence is also audible on the 2012 album) and the Star Wars homage, “Ode to Lord Vader a.) ‘The Circle is Now Complete’ b.) ‘Now… I am the Master'” are about in line with where Nightstick left off on 1999’s Death to Music; operating on a plane all their own.

I was bummed out to miss those gigs when I had the chance to see them, and I’m bummed out more now that I’ve had some time to spend with Rock + Roll Weymouth, but hopefully my path and Nightstick‘s will cross at some point soon. Probably at the grocery store, they’re so damn close, but maybe at a show too. In the meantime, continuing to decipher the aural hieroglyphs of the record seems like a worthy pursuit.

Nightstick, Rock + Roll Weymouth (2012)

Nightstick on Myspace (yup, Myspace)

At War with False Noise on Bandcamp

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Fistula and Nighstick Team up for Northeast Tour

Posted in Whathaveyou on August 30th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

If you see a trail of slime across the Northeastern portion of the United States at the end of next week — I’ve no doubt it will be visible from space — don’t sweat it, it’s just Fistula and Nightstick touring. The two bands will start out at O’Brien’s in Allston, Massachustts, on Labor Day and wind up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, leaving I’m sure a slew of blown eardrums and feedback echo behind when they’re done. If it clues you in any further, they’re calling it “Rock ‘n’ Roll Vermin.”

Fistula will make the trip out from Ohio to support a slew of splits and EPs released over the last couple years, while Nightstick will be out behind their 2012 At War with False Noise full-length, Rock ‘n’ Roll Weymouth, named in honor of their hometown of Weymouth, MA, which I’m pretty sure is the next town over from me. If that makes it seem like I don’t know for sure whether or not it is, then please rest assured, I don’t.

Here’s the news off the PR wire:

FISTULA: Cleveland Sludge Kingpins To Kick Off Shows With Nightstick Next Week

Long-running Cleveland ministers of sludge, FISTULA, are preparing to spread their aural disease along the East Coast with a short stretch of live assaults. Scheduled to commence on Monday September 2, the Rock ‘N’ Roll Vermin Tour 2013 will filthify its way through Allston, Providence, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Allentown. FISTULA will be joined by their diseased brethren, Nightstick. Hearing will be damaged. Feelings will be hurt.

FISTULA – Rock ‘N’ Roll Vermin Tour 2013
w/ Nightstick

9/02/2013 Obrien’s – Allston, MA
9/04/2013 Dusk – Providence, RI
9/05/2013 Acheron – Brooklyn, NY
9/06/2013 The Mill Creek Tavern – Philadelphia, PA
9/07/2013 Sportsman’s Café – Allentown PA

In other FISTULA activities, the band has a host of resinated new offerings on the rise including the brand new Vermin Prolificus LP set to detonate via To Live A Lie early next year. FISTULA will be crash-test driving the tunes “Smoke Cat Hair and Toe Nails,” “Pig Funeral” and “Goat Brothel” throughout next week’s live takeover. Additionally, FISTULA will appear on a split cassette with Radiation Sickness to be unleashed through Die Song this October as well as a split 12″ with Ravens Creed through Doomentia in 2014. Finally, the band will be featured on the forthcoming release from XXX-rated funk legend Blowfly. Dubbed Black in the Sack, the eight track offering marks Blowfly’s first studio album in seven years and includes a curious collaboration with team FISTULA, Dave Szulkin (Blood Farmers) and Tesco Vee (The Meatmen) on the track “Dick Stabbath.” Black in the Sack will see release via PATAC Records this Fall.

FISTULA on Facebook
http://www.patacrecords.com

Nightstick, “Nightstick” from Rock ‘n’ Roll Weymouth (1998)

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