Issued in memory of and tribute to Raging Slab‘s Elyse Steinman, who passed away in 2017 after a long fight with lung cancer, the new Raging Slab LP, Sisterslab and the Boogie Coalition: Vol. 1, is a collection of covers that appears on Joyful Noise Recordings as part of a vinyl series in this case curated by Dale Crover of the Melvins, whose new solo release is out on the same label and who also drums here. I saw the post about the album in the middle of the night last night and most of the copies have already sold — the ones through Raging Slab‘s own Bandcamp and Dale Crover‘s are gone — but perhaps you can chase one down if you continue to dig. Either way, it’s worth hearing, so I wanted to at least post the stream and info, wrenching as it may be. The digital version is $8, and, frankly, you could do much, much worse for the money.

Here you go:

RAGING SLAB – Sisterslab and the Boogie Coalition: Vol. 1

RIP Elyse Steinman; Jan 9, 1961 – March 30, 2017
Joyful Noise “White Label Series” Dec 2020 Release

It was on an August afternoon when my wife, Elyse Steinman learned she had stage 3B lung cancer. She had been experiencing intense upper back pain for months that couldn’t be explained by any physical stress or activity, and after several months of her doctor treating it as a back/spine issue, it was suggested that she get a CAT scan which revealed a golfball sized tumor in her right lung that was pressing on her aorta and another smaller mass in her left lung, A subsequent biopsy showed the growth as malignant and, with that news, so began a daily series of doctors appointments, scans, scans, scans, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, surgical procedures, lung drainings, (scans, scans, scans) and countless other indignities that could only serve to prolong her life as a “cure” was very very unlikely.

The ?rst thing Elyse said to me after learning her diagnosis was; “No more fucking cooking or cleaning!”

The second thing she said was; “I want to do some recording”

As bucket lists go, this was relatively easy…we had shared housework duties anyhow, (although I think Elyse preferred her cooking to mine so she tended to cook more often) and our band, Raging Slab had maintained a “home studio” since the early 90’s.

And so began our new routine, chemo appointments three days a week and radiation in between, We’d get home, eat and then go in the studio and Elyse would sing until she couldn’t. Elyse was a slide guitarist as well, but because her cancer had spread to her bones, she was unable to play or even hold a guitar without excruciating pain. Singing, however was as she put it; “ The only thing that makes the pain stop.”

So I made sure Elyse sang as much as she wanted to. Because she received radiation in her chest, and because the radiation literally burned her esophagus and vocal chords, her voice would change tone and timbre by the day, and because I didn’t know how long she was going to be with us I tended to roll tape and not erase anything, her chemo made her quite ill sometimes and there are vocal takes of her throwing up mid-song, or having a coughing ?t so bad I can be heard dialing an ambulance, as well as many MANY takes that end in crying and/or screaming…most sessions ended up with 30 or more full or partial vocal takes. Elyse lived for another 3 1/2 years, beating all expectations, and during which time we were able to record 25 songs in total. Having these songs released on vinyl would would have been a dream come true for a record collector like Elyse, my most sincere thanks to Dale Crover and Joyful Noise for making this LP possible.

All the songs are covers, All of them chosen by Elyse. And ALL of the singing made her pain stop for a little while. Please, sing along.

—Gregory Strzempka, Nov 5, 2020

Raging Slab are:
VOCALS — Elyse Steinman
GUITARS, BANJO, SITAR — Gregory Strzempka
BASS — Alec Morton
DRUMS — Dale Crover
Background Vocals — Dale Crover, Toshi Kasai
Slide Guitars — Gregory Strzempka, Michael Barron
Lap Steel — Michael “Sleeves” McMahon

Recorded and Mixed by Gregory Strzempka at Slabbey Road, Indianola WA
Drum Tracks Recorded by Toshi Kasai at Sound of Sirens, Los Angeles, CA
Mastered by Kramer
Cover Painting by Stephan White

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Raging Slab, Sisterslab and the Boogie Coalition Vol. 1 (2020)

Raging Slab, Raging Slab (1989)

If you’re the sort of person who likes a clean, clear narrative to your rock and roll history, you’ll probably want to avoid Raging Slab. An anomaly if ever there was one, here was a band based out of New York City playing Southern-style heavy boogie rock… who released their first album in 1987. And then signed to a major label! If you can make any sense of it or put it into any kind of discernible context, go for it. It’s almost like Raging Slab were sent back from the future to disrupt the timeline, is how out of place they were for their day and age. And yet, listening to their 1989 self-titled — released by RCA Records as the follow-up to ’87’s charmingly-dubbed Assmaster debut — one can hear flashes of the era in the semi-metallic “Shiny Mama” (on which Ray Gillen provides backing vocals) and in the post-Motörhead freight-train progression of “Get off My Jollies.” But at its core, Raging Slab is a work of ’70s loyalism that was as much ahead of its time as it was behind it. The band, founded by guitarists Greg Strzempka (also vocals and songwriting) and Elyse Steinman, here featured bassist Alec Morton, lead guitarist Mark Middleton and drummers Tony Scaglione (everything but “Get off My Jollies”) and Steve “Doc Killdrums” Wacholz (“Get off My Jollies”) — though credited in the liner and in the cover photography one finds Bob Pantella, who’d go on to join Monster Magnet, The Atomic Bitchwax, etc. — no doubt earned some sideways glances in the heyday of glam, but in hindsight, it’s just as easy to read their work as boldly defying both the mainstream and the underground of its day.

To wit, the aforementioned glam. Imagine Raging Slab coming out the same year as Mötley Crüe‘s Dr. Feelgood. Sure, there was plenty of metal to be had — the NWOBHM had arguably crested some years earlier, but thrash had by then hit its stride as America’s major contribution to a heavy metal aesthetic. Doom festered in the likes of Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, and Cathedral, but while Molly Hatchet and ZZ Top were still around, they were more Southern than heavy, and Raging Slab were more heavy than they were metal. And elsewhere in the underground, the likes of Earth, the Melvins and Nirvana were solidifying what would in a couple years break out internationally as grunge. Raging Slab didn’t fit there either. In a self-written 1996 bio, they called themselves, “TOO hard for country and western fans, TOO slow for thrash fans, TOO cerebral for hard rock fans and TOO rock and roll for alternative fans.” All true. The self-titled tells that story in cuts like “Geronimo” and “Bent for Silver,” which are too brazen in their hooks to be chic in an underground sense and too weighted to really be pop or country rock. Hell, to listen to opener “Don’t Dog Me,” it’s a cut that today would be right at home in the Ripple Music lineup. 27 years ago, I guess it wasn’t so easy to place.

However they wound up on a label like RCA, they did, and they’d go on to work with Rick Rubin‘s Def American/American Recordings on subsequent outings, Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert (1993) and Sing Monkey Sing! (1996), but in the meantime, a generational shift and the arrival of bands like Corrosion of Conformity — whose Deliverance came out five years after Raging Slab, in 1994 — working under a Southern heavy influence kept wider commercial success elusive, and Raging Slab faded for a time. The turn of the century found them returned to activity on Tee Pee Records with 2001’s The Dealer and the next year’s Pronounced Eat Shit, but apart from a compilation appearance here and there — they notably took on Grand Funk Railroad‘s “We’re an American Band” for Small Stone‘s first installment of Sucking the ’70s in 2002 — that would be their swansong. Strzempka found a home in Sweden’s Backdraft, and there were rumors of another Raging Slab resurgence and a new album as part of that, but a decade later, it’s yet to surface.

Never say never in rock and roll though. If you dig the self-titled, it was reissued in ’09 on Rock Candy Records, and Assmaster also saw a re-press in 2013 through Cherry Red with a bunch of bonus material, including the True Death EP from 1989.

Whether you know this one or not, I hope you enjoy.

—

Man, this week can’t fuck off fast enough to suit my tastes. Like here’s the week fucking off as fast as it possibly can and here’s me standing with a stopwatch shaking my head going, “Not even close, yo.”

Awful.

Let’s be optimistic together. 2016’s almost over, and we don’t yet know what fresh, astounding lows the New Year will bring.

Hey, we got over 125 entries in the first day of the Top 20 of 2016 Year-End Poll. That legitimately ruled. Made my week, actually. I was nervous. If you contributed a list, thanks. If not yet, please do. Any help sharing the link is also greatly valued.

In the notes for next week:

Mon: Album stream for Leafy and a Year of the Goat video premiere.
Tue: Albinö Rhinö album stream and the new Lord Loud video.
Wed: A list of 10 album covers that kicked ass in 2016. Because art is fun and talking about it is a fun way to kick off list season.
Thu: A review of The Second Coming of Heavy, Chapter 4.
Fri: Track stream from a Denver band I’m not sure I’m allowed yet to name.

Gonna be a good one. This week should’ve been a good one too. The problem is me. I’m the problem.

It’s okay though. I’ve been down this road before. Gonna spend the next couple days drinking coffee leisurely, playing Final Fantasy XV and hanging out with Slevin, who’s coming north for a visit. It’ll be nice to see him. It always is.

I sincerely hope your week was better than mine and that your weekend is no less stellar. Be safe and have fun, and please make time to check out the forum and the radio stream.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

A mere two weeks ago, I posted notice that the kind souls at the All That is Heavy webstore were having a mega-sale with discs and t-shirts at 25 and 50 percent off. I also confessed that I did this only after going in and solidifying my own purchase. Well, the box showed up Wednesday and I’ve been making my way through the goods ever since. Here’s what I picked up:

The Body, All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Paul Chain “The Improvisor,” Cosmic Wind
Church of Misery, The Second Coming (Diwphalanx reissue)
Leif Edling, The Black Heart of Candlemass
The Gates of Slumber, Villain, Villain
500 Ft. of Pipe, Dope Deal
500 Ft. of Pipe, The Electrifying Church of the New Light
Masters of Reality, Pine/Cross Dover (American version)
Mustasch, Parasite!
OJM, The Light Album
OJM, Under the Thunder
OJM, Volcano
Ponamero Sundown, Stonerized
Raging Slab, Raging Slab (2009 Rock Candy reissue)
Sgt. Sunshine, Black Hole
Sin of Angels, In the Grip of Despair

Stuff like the 500 Ft. of Pipe and Mustasch I’d had my eye on for a long time. The psyched-up Fu Manchu fuzz of the former has been a delight long awaited. With The Body, I felt like I was finally giving into the hype, but at the sale price, decided it was now or never. Ponamero Sundown I wanted to listen to again before reviewing the new one and couldn’t find my old sleeve promo — apparently I’ve never heard of YouTube — and Masters of Reality I bought solely for the different label name on the side of the disc. It’s not the first time I’ve done that with them.

OJM I wanted to backlog since reviewing Volcano, and I included Volcano too because I didn’t have a full copy. The Raging Slab I very much enjoyed last night after work, imagining what new wave/no wave New Yorkers must have thought of them busting out those songs in 1989 and seeing the old pictures of drummer Bob Pantella, now of The Atomic Bitchwax. Sgt. Sunshine‘s a little stranger than I expected, but still pretty cool, and listening to it now, I think I might’ve already owned this Sin of Angels CD.

The rest I haven’t gotten to yet, but it’s worth noting that even with the drastically slashed prices, Dan and Melanie — the above-noted kind souls — included a freebie in the form of Black Materia, by Black Materia, which is rife with Anathema-style sorrow and metallic melody, in addition to being a Final Fantasy reference. Dig it.

The sale’s still on, but I don’t know for how long or anything like that. Hopefully I’ll have time to recoup some funds for another round before it ends, but even if not, I think I did alright the first time. If you missed the link above, check out the list of goods here.