If there’s one aspect to all the Southern oppression and working class discrimination in this country, it’s that you just can’t keep some folks down. After blowing off his big toe whilst cleaning his favorite shotgun, one might think Weedeater’s “Dixie” Dave Collins would just kind of sit back and feel bad about himself and hate the world for a while — you know, more than usual for a sludger. But no, he’s got a full US tour lined up and he’s rescheduled the sessions for Weedeater’s new album, Jason… the Dragon, with none other than Steve Albini. Here’s to the spirit of persistence, and here’s the PR wire’s take on it:

North Carolina’s Weedeater – in light of the recent loss of frontman Dave “Dixie” Collins‘ toe due to a self-inflicted gun-cleaning wound — have announced the routing for their upcoming US tour, now officially dubbed the “Nine Toe” Tour. The month long tour kicks off a week before this year’s SXSW, where Weedeater will headline the Tone Deaf Touring showcase on March 20th. Support bands for the tour include Black Cobra, ASG, Black Tusk, The Gates of Slumber, US Christmas, and Struck by Lightning.

The band will also enter with Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studios in April to record their new release, titled Jason… The Dragon, to be released later this year again on Southern Lord.

Check out a full statement from the band regarding the tour and recording on the band’s MySpace page.

Because there are a lot of them, the tour dates are after the jump.

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I’m willing to wager it’s not homemade chocolate chip cookies, or puppies, or a Thank You card that says “Just Because” on the inside of it. Whatever else they’ve got in their vault, we can only assume it’s ugly, drug-addled and given to physical altercations. Seems to be the way it went with these guys.

They were only together for about a decade, but the chaotic legacy of North Carolinian sludge bastards Buzzov*en endures even as no one since has been able to capture quite the same level of fuck you-itude that seemed to come so naturally from vocalist/guitarist Kirk Fisher and the sundry musicians with which he surrounded himself throughout the band’s tenure. With the new Relapse collection, Violence from the Vault (Alternative Tentacles released the career-spanning Welcome to Violence in 2005), there surfaces five tracks recorded with Billy Anderson in 1995 featuring the same lineup as was on the 1994 Sore full-length.

Some version of “Mainline” was previously released on the 1997 The Gospel According… II EP, and “Nod” appeared on a ’96 split with Sourvein, but “Paintake,” “Breed” and “I Never” seem to have been unearthed for the first time. The sound is raw, with plenty of cassette wobble in “Breed” and a general tin-can feeling throughout, but who ever listened to Buzzov*en for the pristine production value? When I’m waist deep in the nearly 16-minute noise/drone/slow-riff/screaming stretch of “Nod,” clarity of sound is the last thing on my mind. Making it out alive is much more of a primary focus.

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And how did Weedeater frontman “Dixie” Dave Collins blow off his big toe? Oh, he was cleaning his favorite shotgun. For any of you non-American Obelisk attendees out there, let me explain something to you: this shit happens in this country. All the time. We are all fucking insane, and in case you haven’t watched the news, um, ever, incredibly dangerous people, even to ourselves. Hell, especially to ourselves. Especially ourselves and brown people. Actually, to pretty much everyone.

While I don’t necessarily have a favorite shotgun (or a gun at all, let alone many, which would necessitate an entire rack), my heart goes out to ol’ Nine Toe Collins, who obviously didn’t intend on shooting his toe off, and finds his plans to record with Steve Albini similarly obliterated. It’s a bummer all around. Here’s what the band, via the PR wire, had to say about it:

Hi folks,
As most of you know, here in the Weedeater camp we pride ourselves on a long tradition of shooting our band in the proverbial foot right before we’re supposed to do something important. Whether it’s a big tour, a recording session, or whatever else we’re supposed to do, invariably we will find some way to try and thwart our grandiose plans. Well, it’s no different for this recording session, except that this time we really did shoot ourselves in the foot. In fact we regret to inform all of you that this weekend, Dixie Dave shot his big toe off whilst cleaning his favorite shotgun. Yup, that’s right. When reached for comment, Mr. Collins gave a quote that speaks for itself: ‘It wasn’t my intention to shoot off my big toe. This really fucking sucks and the pain is unbearable.’

Mr. Collins’ doctors have advised that he is to be bed-ridden for the next few weeks during his recovery. This will obviously affect the recording session (and the few surrounding shows in Jan./Feb.), which will now have to be postponed until after the March/April “nine-toe” tour. Said tour is still 100 percent on, however, so check back soon for updates on venues and exact dates. It looks like the support bands will be awesome and the band is really stoked to play this new material after touring for so many years on the same basic set. Yeah… we knew that too, sorry but we’re about to make good on it. And of course after all, we gotta keep workin’, like workin’ men do. Shooting your big toe off isn’t free, for fuck’s sake!

So to re-cap…Keko sacrificed his pinkie for Down/Melvins, Shep broke his hand for Today is the Day, and now Dixie has generously offered up his big toe for Steve Albini to nibble on. Unless overtly fond of Limburger cheese and rotten flesh, Master Steve is advised to decline. Good day. — Weedeater

Mankind is unkind, man…

Not to be confused with the recently-reviewed Worm Ouroboros, or any of the myriad other bands out there who spell that self-munching serpent’s name in various ways, this North Carolina four-piece was brought to my attention recently because of a Buried Treasure piece I did a while back on a band from the same area called Soulpreacher, who share with this Orobourus a guitarist named Michael Avery.

Where Soulpreacher’s album Sonic Witchcraft was bent more toward the Southern-tinged sludge for which their home region is famous, Orobourus have a more straightforward, beery rock sound with elements of Hermano, Down, and metal of the old school (vocalist Antares Nicklow indulging in several high-pitched screams on “The Grinder”) without being overly derivative. They played their debut show last May with Beaten back to Pure and (coincidence divine) Soulpreacher, and judging by the tracks on their MySpace — one of which is instrumental and two of which are improv jams; not necessarily a negative — they don’t have much recorded yet. One assumes they’ll get there.

In the meantime, the jams have that “rehearsal room” feel to them that sounds like there are actual people playing those instruments who are actually having a good time, the instrumental grooves, and the two cuts with vocals, “The Grinder” and “Psych,” hold promise of things to come. Glad to see Avery’s still in it, and hopefully Orobourus keep rocking with a new demo or EP (or something) sometime soon. Goes without saying at this point, but I will anyway, that they’re on the radar.

It’s good to see there’s actually some news again. Things were pretty dry a couple weeks there around the holidays. This time it’s Weedeater, who according to Blabbermouth (and I tend to believe Blabbermouth on these things), are entering Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio to record their new album. Right on. In case you missed it, their 2001 And Justice for Y’all debut was just reissued by Sleeping Village Records. Note how this story doesn’t say whether or not the new record will be on Southern Lord. Curious…

North Carolina sludge pillagers Weedeater will enter Electrical Audio studio in Chicago, Illinois later this month with producer Steve Albini (Nirvana, Neurosis, Pixies) to begin recording their fourth album for a late 2010 release. Song titles set to appear on the CD include “The Claw of the Sloth” and “The Darkening.”

Weedeater will play a few shows on the way to the studio and back to showcase/road-test the new stuff. A list of dates can be found on the group’s MySpace page.

After this, we’re done with 2009, but before January gets here and we all step one day closer to armageddoom, there are a couple experiences I want to share/rehash one more time, since they turned out to be defining moments of the year. There were a bunch of great shows and festivals, good times were had, but there was little that compared with Roadburn and Planet Caravan.

Flying to The Netherlands for the first time was cool enough in itself, but going with a purpose — specifically to see the Saint Vitus reunion — made it all the better. And bearing witness to acts like Ufomammut, Colour Haze (for the second time), Cathedral, Church of Misery, Wino, Firebird, Neurosis and about a million others only added to the excitement. But really, it was the communion with the gods that motivated me to get off my ass and finally get over there, and I can honestly say that Roadburn 2009 was the pinnacle of the year. I’ve mentioned it more times than I can even think of in reviews and interviews with bands, and it has shaped every opinion of shows I’ve been to since — usually to their detriment. Even seeing Vitus in Brooklyn, as killer as it was, didn’t stack up to seeing them at 013 in Tilburg.

By contrast, I drove 10 hours solid to get to Asheville, North Carolina, for Planet Caravan. The vibe was much more American, even though the bands weren’t necessarily — Orange Goblin being a notable import for the occasion — and although it couldn’t really compare to Roadburn in its inaugural state, there were no shortage of incredible acts to check out: Zoroaster, Clutch, Burst, Wino again, Kylesa and Pentagram all ruled, but it was YOB who, like Vitus, got me off the couch. Admittedly, a close second was catching the legendary awesomeness of Pentagram for the first time (I’d missed those shows they did in NYC), and knowing it was probably the only time I’d ever get the chance to see Burst made that all the more special. But true enough to what I expected going into it, YOB destroyed all in their path. Worth pulling out the earplugs for, worth the hearing loss residual.

I’ll stop short of waxing poetic or intellectual about the meaningful nature of these sets since, as Devin Townsend reminds us, “It’s just entertainment, folks,” but there’s something to be said about what you do with your time and the memories you make as you go along. Actually, there’s a lot to be said about it, but I think it’s mostly implied. In any case, of all the places I managed to put myself in 2009 — grad school, this chair (a lot), numerous record stores, etc. — I know as long as I remember anything, I’ll remember Planet Caravan and especially Roadburn.

Woke up not half an hour ago realizing I never said a word about the shops I hit while in Asheville last weekend. An egregious error to be immediately remedied. It was 10:30AM, probably time to get up anyway, but surely I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep again without this task completed. Maybe I’ll take a nap this afternoon.

There were three shops amidst the list of important addresses The Patient Mrs. compiled for me before I left the valley, and they were, in order, those of Static Age Records, Harvest Records and Voltage Records. Both Static Age and Voltage were on N. Lexington — about three doors down from each other; which should say something about the town itself — so I figured I’d hit them simultaneously.

Nice thought, and one complicated by the overarching hippieness of Asheville. Static Age’s listed opening time of 11:00AM was more like 1:30PM. Since they were the shop with a Caltrop show listed on their website, they’d been the one I was most looking forward to checking out, but I hit Voltage first instead. No Holy Grails there, but I’d have probably been more into it if I was buying vinyl, since that’s mostly what they had to offer. Some cool Beatles records, “imports,” but nothing I could afford given my liquor budget.

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I feel compelled to do a wrap of the last day of Planet Caravan in this space, though the longer review will be posted sooner or later over at Brooklyn Vegan and that pretty much covers it. Even so, I humbly offer this quick rundown of the night for anyone interested. Thanks for tolerating the lack of photos here and updates these last several weeks as there’s been a major shift in the amount of available time I have to devote to reviews, interviews and whathaveyou. Rest assured I’m in no way finished with this experiment.

So, Saturday, Sept. 19, Asheville, NC:

The Pentagram Interview: Never happened. Kind of a shitter, but after hearing Bobby Liebling talking on the stage later in the night, maybe it’s for the best.

The Orange Goblin Interview: Did happen. I walked in and found Ben Hogg having a beer with them before any of the bands started. Ben Hogg is a Southern drinker, and I say that with the utmost respect. Interview was with the whole band, and it took a little time to get going, but was good and once I mentioned I knew the dudes from Solace, things were friendly. I should have it up around here one of these days.

Orchid: It’s saying something when even a room full of drunken doomers is laughing because of how blatantly you’ve ripped off Black Sabbath.

Taddy Porter: I missed most of them because of the Orange Goblin interview, but they were crazy young and all kinds of bluesy. They were on at The Orange Peel while Batillus played Mo Daddy’s next door. I don’t know who drew more people because, again, I was otherwise occupied.

Astra: A big bowl of noodles. Also the skinniest band of the festival. San Francisco hipster prog that was disappointing live after somewhat digging the record. I was back and forth between them and Salome and neither really did it for me.

Salome: Had expensive amplifiers, a heavily bearded drummer and a little blond girl doing death growls on vocals. No bass. Needless to say they’ll probably be the biggest thing in the world come two weeks from now.

YOB: Are the reason I made the trip. After waiting for more than half a decade to see them live, I can honestly say it was worth it by the time they were halfway through set-opener “Quantum Mystic.” Everything else was cake. Easily the highlight of the weekend. It was the first time I’d stood up front for a band because I actually liked them in a long while. Also met Mike Scheidt after the set (for not the first time) and he was a super-cool guy.

The Gates of Slumber: They played Mo Daddy’s and I watched from outside in the rain because the entire crowd who had been watching YOB ran over to catch the last 15 minutes of their set. Was worth it to see Karl Simon soloing.

Orange Goblin: Don’t know how to do anything other than kick ass, so that’s what they did. Covered “Into the Void” and still didn’t sound as much like Sabbath as Orchid did. Ben Ward is a monster who eats the souls of children.

Hull: Had a tough slot opposite Orange Goblin, but did their best and were helped by their time on the road. Congrats to guitarist Nick Palmirotto on his newfound sobriety as well. After this weekend I’m considering a dose of that for myself.

Pentagram: Were exciting more in theory than practice, though Bobby Liebling is a madman and Gary Isom killed it on drums. Was a sight to see when Victor Griffin came out and played on the encore of “When the Screams Come.” “Forever My Queen” kicked ass as well, and Liebling announced a new album called Last Rites to be released next year. Should be interesting.

That’s it. The entirety of Sunday was spent driving home nursing some serious heartburn after ouevos rancheros at The Laughing Seed, a vegetarian restaurant in Asheville. I guess now I know what that seed finds so damn funny. I missed the SunnO)))/Eagle Twin show in Philly owing to timing, and will sadly miss them again in Brooklyn tonight due to prior commitments. Bummer all around. Yesterday I spent recovering, doing class work and at my orthopedist. In many ways, I still feel like I’m traveling even though I’m back in the valley at long last and for most of the day today.

Thanks for reading.

Day One of the Planet Caravan fest was last night, and a fest it was indeed, though I could see why they cut ticket prices as the go date drew closer. Even as the evening wore on and it got more crowded, there was still plenty of milling-about room. The bands ruled: highlights were Burst’s set (despite technical problems), Bison B.C. doing “These are My Dress Clothes” over at Mo Daddy’s next to The Orange Peel, Clutch (of course) and Kylesa riffing out “Running Red” and sounding more massive than I’ve ever heard them. Last time I caught a set of theirs was in Austin, TX, a couple years ago and their two drummers played on an open trailer while the rest of the band stood on a back yard. That was cool, this was better.

Sourvein canceled, which was a shitter since they were kind of the sludge representatives for the day. Zoroaster are doomy, don’t get me wrong, but I was looking forward to seeing T-Roy and Co. tear it up in their native habitat. My sorrows I drowned in beer. Finally met Ben Hogg, who didn’t realize he knew me, toasted Ben Ward from Orange Goblin, whom I’m supposed to be interviewing in a scant couple hours, and fists with the guitarist from Zoroaster, whose set I missed entirely. Classy.

The plan for today: Shower shortly, go back to the Early Girl Eatery for another black bean and cheddar cheese omelet (holy shit that was good), kill a couple hours by any means necessary, then meet up with the Pentagram dudes for a sitdown interview. Then a beer with Ben Orange Goblin and probably finish with that in time to catch Taddy Porter about whom I know absolutely nothing. My mission for the show tonight is to make it through Pentagram’s set. Hardly lofty aspirations, but I’m old and lame. Need better pacing on the hooch intake. First night’s always the roughest.

Holy shit, the post page on this laptop is ridiculously small. I made it alive to Asheville, and starting tomorrow, will have reports on the Planet Caravan fest over at Brooklyn Vegan, who were kind enough to let me cover this for them even after I did Roadburn earlier in the year. Some people never learn.

In any case, if you get a chance, please check out the posts over there because, well, the more hits they get, the more likely the site is to let me do more stuff for them. It’s self-interest, I’ll be honest. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out their digs though. And what lovely digs they are. If I could maintain a blog half that bloggy hip, I’d be a god damned internet rockstar. Meantime I’m just drunk in North Carolina. So take that, everything.

More tomorrow.

While in Maryland last Thursday and Friday for Stoner Hands of Doom X — the allegedly last in the 10 year tenure of the festival, which continued without me through Sunday — I managed to sneak away from the main room in Krug’s Place for a while and hit the bar area, where there was set up one lonely vendor with a ton of good shit. Most of it wasn’t necessarily SHoD-applicable, but had I needed to purchase a bootleg copy of Power Metal or Projects in the Jungle by Pantera, I could have done so easily on my way to the bathroom.

Power Metal is hilarious, by the way, if you’ve never heard it.

Uncharacteristically, I only grabbed two CDs from his several laid out boxes thereof. The first was Croatan’s Curse of the Red Queen and the second was Sonic Witchcraft, by Soulpreacher. Both were maybe five bucks, about the price I was paying for a Leinenkugel at the bar, and though the former features such good time hits as “Gravity 1, Sisyphus 0″ and “Rebel from the Waist Down,” it was the Soulpreacher record that stuck out as more of a surprise.

Maybe that’s because I knew nothing about the band and only bought the disc because, like the Croatan, it was released on Man’s Ruin, but either way, when I popped it in my car player to listen, the out and out misery of the sludge emanating from the speakers was unbelievable. I was surprised to learn in the decade since Sonic Witchcraft’s release (and with a new lineup) the band has adopted a more European doom style, influenced by Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, but there’s no taking away from the wholly American tinge to 10-minute opener “Blues for a Blackened World” or the Southern death-boogie of “Empty and Hollow.” They’re from North Carolina, whether they like it or not.

They debuted their new sound and two new guitarists replacing Mike Avery with 2004’s Lost Words demo but eeked out another EP, When the Black Sunn Rises… the Holy Men Burn (Game Two Records) with the original lineup in 2000 and a demo in 2002 before Avery left for law school (“Your honor, I’d like this Eyehategod riff to be read into evidence”). They’ve allegedly got a new album called All the Drugs are Failing, but damned if it’s for sale on their MySpace or website. There’s a couple tracks from it on the MySpace anyway and it’s nowhere near as skin-curdling as their earlier work, so maybe it’s for the best. In the meantime, I’ve got Sonic Witchcraft drilling a hole in my eardrum and I think I’m starting to like it. Hail the fuzz of “Sunday Morning Revelation.”

The flyer for this one pretty much says it all:

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

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

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

Weedeater live:

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Wilmington, North Carolina-based Gollum would be at home in the class of genre-fucking grinders coming out of Chicago if it weren’t for a distinctive Southern sludge bent to the music on their Rotten Records debut, The Core. With the record, the four-piece pay homage to fallen drummer Hunter Holland, who died late last year but appears on the album and has since been replaced in the band by Seth Long. The songs bounce ideas off Soilent Green and Melvins, but create an altogether darker, more purely metallic atmosphere that calls to mind a doom influence largely absent from the music.

The aforementioned sludge — EyeHateGod, Buzzov*en, etc. — manifests not only in the guitar tones or the screams of vocalist Shawn Corbett, but also the sporadic samples Corbett provides. The keyboard work he adds to opener “The Calm Before” or later cut “The Burden of Ubiquitous Scars” (held back from being an album highlight by some out of place female melodic vocals) adds a subtle and unique bent to the material without being overbearing. The keys are hardly ever the focus, even on the interlude “Amor Fati,” which appears in the middle of The Core. The closest they come is the horror movie intro of “Schadenfreude,” but that could just as easily be a sample.

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