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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin

Posted in Questionnaire on November 5th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin

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: Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin

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

Simply, I play drums for Orange Goblin but after 26 or so years it’s way more than that. I’m part of this family, almost like a sports club that extends beyond the four ‘musicians’ that occasionally get to travel far and wide, play some shows, see some shit, get some free drinks. I’m a small part of this bigger thing but I like to think I can see my fingerprints on it. It’s been a lifelong hobby really.

I ended up here kind of by accident; it was the early-mid ’90s, the band I was in had split up and I was left looking for something to do. A mutual friend told me his mates in a Sabbath-esque band were looking for a drummer so I contacted them and arranged a rehearsal. I didn’t show up. I did however show up a week later (I was used to bands rehearsing on particular days; it’s what we did back then) where, by chance they were there waiting for another drummer who didn’t show up and I’ve kind of been here ever since.

Describe your first musical memory.

I’d have been maybe three, we used to have this little ornamental ukulele thing that was propped up against the fireplace at home and I can remember picking it up and plonking away on the strings, a couple of years later (when it only had 2 strings) I figured out how to play ‘Good King Wenceslas’ on one of those strings, that’s when I realised where music came from.

That aside, I’ve a brother who’s eight years older than me and I can remember him coming home with the latest Sabbath, Led Zep, Deep Purple, UFO, Rainbow, Stranglers (who would be the first band I saw play live) and playing them on the family turntable. I ignored most of that stuff through my teens when I was into punk and hardcore but when things came back to them realised I knew all the songs pretty much off by heart.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I used to run a skateboard shop in central London, one day after work I was headed into Soho to grab a coffee and bumped into a mate who was on his way to a little gig and asked If I wanted to tag along. Went with him to a little venue to see what turned out to be Kyuss in front of maybe 40 people. I think that was my biggest ‘holy fuck’ moment.

Years later we were playing Soundwave Festival in Australia, I was stood side stage watching Kyuss Lives play (as were a bunch of other people) – they started playing ‘Thumb’ and all the hairs raised on my arms – I pointed this out to the dude standing next to me who also got goosebumps and we fistbumped; was only James Hetfield wasn’t it…

London in the ’90s and early ‘00s was nuts, so many good shows, so many bands who would later go on to be huge playing tiny venues, met so many awesome people.

On a personal level, we’ve played international festivals where I look out across a sea of tens of thousands of people, arms in the air, jumping up and down in unison to the drum intro to ‘Blue Snow’ or some such and I’m thinking ‘I’m doing that!’ – that’s pretty fucking special.

Best sort of music related memory is getting to hang out with Tony Iommi for the day. The music college I work for was opening a campus in Birmingham and he’d agreed to come and do the official opening honours. I got a phone call from the boss who said, ‘You like Black Sabbath don’t you, how do you fancy going there and interviewing him?’ now I’ve never interviewed anyone but said yes immediately because, well just because… So anyway I found myself hanging out with him for the day, chatting, talking crap, having a laugh and we did this little interview thing. In a break between questions while they shuffled cameras round or something we were chatting about the Laney LA100BL Supergroup reissue I’d managed to get for the Brighton college and which I’d bought along as a stage prop. ‘I know what your settings are’ I told him and he looked me in the eyes with a cheeky-childlike grin on his face and said ‘Everything up full’ and we shared this little moment that no-one else was part of and that meant something special.

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

‘Belief is a poor substitute for thought’ I’m at a stage now when I’m happy with my own shit. People will disagree with me; I don’t care. People may criticize me; again, I don’t care. I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong. I know people will think differently to me and are motivated by different things with different aims and goals but so long as I’m happy with what I’m doing and how I act then I’m good.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Progression is such a weird word to use when related to art. Progression how? ‘Getting better at doing it’? – by whose standards and who’s judging?

Creating art via any medium is an often cathartic exercise in self expression, if you continue to do it it means you think you’ve still got something to say/express. I don’t think there’s any artist in history who’s reached a point when they step back, admire their work with a wry smile and a nod and think ‘That’s it right there, that’s all I’ve got to say.’

How do you define success?

When you set out to achieve something, a specific goal and you attain it. It doesn’t have to be anything big, sometimes getting dressed and making it out the front door is a success.

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

I was making a delivery to a surgeon in a hospital and was guided through a security door and down a long corridor. Either side of the corridor were glass windows the other side of which were operating theatres. All theatres were empty except one. On the table in that one room was a human, split open from sternum to navel, surrounded by gowned figures one of whom was literally elbow deep, coated in blood and body fluids, rummaging round this person’s chest cavity.

It’s not that the image was gruesome as such, although it was, but more that it hammered home the vulnerability of the meat covered skeleton that we each pilot.

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

The inside of my head is like a badly tuned radio flicking in between stations continuously. Occasionally I’ll kind of half hear a tune and if I tweak the radio a bit it makes a bit more sense and might actually materialize into a riff or some such – I’ve found myself humming tunes before and I don’t know where they’ve come from. Anyhow, if I concentrate on the white noise in my head I get the sense of something there behind all the static hiding, it’s been there a while but I can’t make any sense out of it. Whether it’s a tangible thing or just an idea I don’t know but I’d like to get it out as I think it’ll close a chapter or mark a change or some such; it’s just waiting for its time to come out.

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

You know the feeling you get when you’ve eaten or drunk too much and you know you have to get it out of you to start feeling normal again? That’s art to me, you’ve got something inside you that bugs you and you need to get it out of you to start feeling regular again. To me art is a completely selfish, personal thing; you make art for yourself. If you make art for the consumer of that art you’re a salesman not an artist.

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

Tomorrow, I’m always a little surprised (and pleased) when I wake up in the morning and realise I’ve survived another day.

https://www.facebook.com/orangegoblinofficial/
https://twitter.com/OrangeGoblin1
https://www.instagram.com/orangegoblin1/
http://www.orange-goblin.com/
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/
http://facebook.com/cherryredrecords
https://www.dissonanceproductions.co.uk/

Orange Goblin, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud (2020)

Orange Goblin, Healing Through Fire (2007/2021)

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Orange Goblin Announce Rough & Ready Live & Loud Physical Pressings

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

London’s Orange Goblin issued their digital-only live outing, Rough & Ready Live & Loud (review here), in the dark hours of 2020. The footnote context now is that it serves as the capstone of the Martyn Millard era of the band, who’ve since brought in Harry Armstrong to take on the bassist role. They’ve been doing live shows, have more coming up, and were recently confirmed for a delayed 25th anniversary celebration at Desertfest Berlin next year. No doubt that’ll be a good time. Orange Goblin always are.

Dissonance Productions, which will also oversee a reissue of 2007’s Healing Through Fire, will produce a physical edition of Rough & Ready Live & Loud that will be on CD in November and 2LP the middle of next year. Because that’s how long records take to make these days. Times we live in, and so forth.

In any case, Orange Goblin put word out about the release thusly:

Orange Goblin rough n ready live n loud

ORANGE GOBLIN – ‘ROUGH & READY, LIVE & LOUD’ – VINYL & CD RELEASE ANNOUNCED

We are very happy with this one!

Due to massive demand from YOU, the fans, we have teamed up with Dissonance Productions to bring you this awesome physical release of last year’s digital live album ‘Rough & Ready’ Live & Loud’.

This beauty will now be released on CD in November 2021 and very limited ‘orange splatter’ double vinyl in May 2022 and both are up for pre-order now.

The physical version comes with an unreleased live track ‘Blue Snow’

To pre-order go here: www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/orange-goblin/

Full tracklisting as follows:

1. Sons of Salem
2. The Devil’s Whip
3. Saruman’s Wish
4. Made of Rats
5. The Wolf Bites Back
6. Mythical Knives
7. The Fog
8. Some You Win, Some You Lose
9. The Filthy & The Few
10. Shine
11. Renegade
12. Time Travelling Blues
13. Blue Snow

GO GET SOME!!

Tickets for our ‘The Cold North’ Scandinavian Tour in November 2021 are on sale NOW from the link below:

Support on all dates comes from Swedish rockers Bürner.

https://routeonebooking.tourlink.to/TheColdNorthScandinavianTour

Full set of dates as follows:
NOVEMBER 2021
THU 11 – BETA, COPENHAGEN, DK
FRI 12 – PLAN B, MALMO, SE
SAT 13 – THE CRYPT, LINKOPING, SE
MON 15 – JOHN DEE, OSLO, NO
TUE 16 – FRIHAMNEN, GOTHENBURG, SE
WED 17 – DEBASER, STOCKHOLM, SE
FRI 18 – KLUBI, TAMPERE, FI
SAT 19 – KORJAAMO, HELSINKI, FI

Orange Goblin live:
Sat 31 Jul – The Yard, Cornwall, UK
Sun 15 Aug – Bloodstock Open Air (Main Stage), UK
Sunday 22 Aug – Dynamo Metalfest, Eindhoven, NL
Sat 02 Oct – Headbangers Balls Festival, Izegem, BE
Fri 05 Nov – Night of Salvation (Damnation Fest), Leeds, UK
Sat 04 Dec – Dome of Rock Festival, Salzburg, AT
Wed 08 Dec – The Booking Hall, Dover, UK
Thu 09 Dec – The Tivoli, Buckley, UK
Fri 10 Dec – Limelight 2, Belfast, UK
Sat 11 Dec – Grand Social, Dublin, IRE
Mon 13 Dec – King Tuts, Glasgow, UK
Tue 14 Dec – Gorilla, Manchester, UK
Wed 15 Dec – Asylum, Birmingham, UK
Thu 16 Dec – The Globe, Cardiff, UK
Fri 17 Dec – The Underworld, London, UK
Sat 18 Dec – The Underworld, London, UK

Orange Goblin is:
Ben Ward – Vocals
Joe Hoare – Guitar
Harry Armstrong – Bass / Backing vocals
Christopher Turner – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/orangegoblinofficial/
https://twitter.com/OrangeGoblin1
https://www.instagram.com/orangegoblin1/
http://www.orange-goblin.com/
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/
http://facebook.com/cherryredrecords
https://www.dissonanceproductions.co.uk/

Orange Goblin, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud (2020)

Orange Goblin, Healing Through Fire (2007)

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Orange Goblin Announce Dec. UK Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 8th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

On the heels of their just-issued Rough & Ready, Live & Loud (discussed here) digital live release, UK doom rock stalwarts and emergent social media masters Orange Goblin have announced their annual run of UK December shows for 2020. And hey, we all know the deal, right? These shows will happen so long as anything is happening. If the lockdown continues that long — and it very well might — then it goes without saying that the shows won’t happen. But hell’s bells, even a theoretical return to some kind of normalcy is welcome, and at this point, I’m just happy to see a list of tour dates, whether they come to fruition or not.

In addition to the live record and the tour, Orange Goblin have been holding Zoom Q&A sessions with the whole band, as well as playthrough videos with guitarist Joe Hoare and other such interactive whatnot. It’s encouraging to know that, though they could’ve in no way imagined this would be how they’d mark 25 years as a band, they’re making the most of the situation.

Here’s their post about the tour:

orange goblin uk tour

ORANGE GOBLIN – TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT

We are pleased to announce new headline tour dates for December 2020

As you know we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Orange Goblin, and we’re happy to announce our December headline tour of the UK and Ireland culminating in two very special shows at London’s The Underworld.

Ben explains:
“The world is a very strange place at the moment and we are all affected by the current Covid-19 pandemic. No one knows what the future holds and when we will get back to playing shows but we are very happy to announce that this December, Orange Goblin will (hopefully) be touring the UK to celebrate our 25 Year Anniversary.

Obviously people’s safety is the main concern for us but we wanted to get these dates out there as it’s been eating away at us for a while now and we hope that having something to look forward to will bring a tiny bit of hope and happiness into everyone’s lives right now”

Orange Goblin 25th Anniversary Tour – December 2020

Fri 11 – Dublin, Grand Social
Sat 12 – Belfast, Limelight 2
Mon 14 – Glasgow, King Tuts
Tue 15 – Manchester, Gorilla
Wed 16 – Birmingham, Asylum
Thu 17 – Cardiff, The Globe
Fri 18 – London, The Underworld
Sat 19 – London, The Underworld

December tour tickets are now on sale via https://bit.ly/35BHiGv – looking forward to seeing everyone on these dates and celebrating 25 years of Orange Fucking Goblin Baby!

Don’t forget you can still grab the new live record ‘Rough & Ready, Live & Loud’ via Bandcamp at https://bit.ly/3cMTK8q – comes with an exclusive bonus track and digital booklet!

https://www.facebook.com/orangegoblinofficial/
https://twitter.com/OrangeGoblin1
https://www.instagram.com/orangegoblin1/
http://www.orange-goblin.com/
https://www.facebook.com/spinefarm
www.spinefarmrecords.com/

Orange Goblin, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud (2020)

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Friday Full-Length: Orange Goblin, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud

Posted in Bootleg Theater on May 1st, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Live and Loud was the name of an Ozzy Osbourne live album, and sure enough, it’s only a couple songs into the newly-issued Rough & Ready, Live & Loud before vocalist Ben Ward unleashes his inner Ozz, urging the crowd to go fucking crazy, have the best fucking night together, are you with me?, and all the rest of it. Awesome. The 13-track compilation of recordings from between 2016 and 2019 arrives — today — in time to take advantage of Bandcamp waiving the fees they generally collect from album sales in an effort to support artists affected, as everyone inevitably has been, by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the second time Bandcamp have done it, and with a bit of advance notice and the experience of last time, bands seem to be giving it a significant push. For good reason. I know something like one in six Americans is currently out of work, but if you can spend some time kicking around Bandcamp today and spend a little cash, it’s a good day for it.

So we know where Orange Goblin — as ever Ward, guitarist Joe Hoare, bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Christopher “Ships the Merch” Turner — got the Live and Loud part (it was also the title of a Nirvana VHS), and sure enough, there’s a Rough and Ready to go with in the 1971 third album from The Jeff Beck Group. Both are, of course, decidedly within Orange Goblin‘s purview, and if they were drawing from sources related to classic heavy rock and metal, well, that’s been Orange Goblin‘s modus for the last 25 years. Indeed, the 58-minute Rough & Ready, Live & Loud arrives as part of the band’s celebration of a quarter-century since their inception, though of course the story is rarely so clear as that, with the band having begun previously as Our Haunted Kingdom before changing their name. But 1995 was when that happened, so fair enough, and while their plans have no doubt been somewhat stifled — they also would’ve been at Desertfest this weekend, marking the occasion as the conquering heroes they are on stage — if we as the audience can’t see them lay waste, at least a captured and compiled set is something to enjoy.

And as consolation, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud offers plenty. As one would hope with a catalog of nine studio full-lengths, plus splits and so on, there’s plenty to draw from, and as they mightorange goblin rough and ready live and loud at any given headlining show — as they did last year in New York (review here), sadly without Turner — they build a set that spans front-to-back of their discography, going all the way back to “Saruman’s Wish” from 1997’s Frequencies from Planet Ten (discussed here), while maximizing energy and dynamic in tempo and their ever-boozy rhythmic shove. Orange Goblin have long since established their scope encompassing all things heavy and underground rock, doom and metal, and whether it’s anthems like “Sons of Salem” from their latest LP, 2018’s The Wolf Bites Back (review here), or the ultra-catchy roller “The Fog” from 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned (review here), or the Bandcamp-only bonus cut “Your World Will Hate This” from 2002’s revisit-worthy Coup de Grace, or the has-become-a-personal-mantra “Some You Win, Some You Lose” from 2004’s Thieving From the House of God (discussed here), they readily nail it as one might expect a band picking tracks and assembling them together as a live record might.

That is, one should come into Rough & Ready, Live & Loud expecting a quality product, and though there are some jumps in sound as the band move from Sylak Open Air in France, August 2016, to KOKO in London, December that same year during one of their annual holiday tours, to Fuzz Club in Athens last year, a quality product is exactly what’s delivered. Conspicuously absent are regular live cuts like “Scorpionica” and “Blue Snow,” but “Shine” from 1998’s Time Travelling Blues (discussed here) is an organ-laced highlight, and even a song like “Mythical Knives” from 2014’s Back From the Abyss (review here), which wasn’t a standout in the same way as that record’s title-track, which also appears here, or “The Filthy and the Few” from 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned (review here), proves worthy of the additional airing. Plus, those looking for “Scorpionica,” “Quincy the Pigboy,” “Blue Snow” or even “Red Tide Rising” can easily find them on 2013’s live album, A Eulogy for the Fans (review here), which is still in print so far as I know and, in any case, not hard to come by.

They cap the almost-hour-long set with the particularly Motörheady scorch of “Renegade” from The Wolf Bites Back and “Time Travelling Blues” itself, the latter’s signature introductory guitar figure led into with a simple “let’s get fucked up” before they lock into the song as they have on so many occasions, somewhere between SkynyrdSabbath and apocalypse. Orange Goblin are professionals, and they deliver their songs accordingly, but in the times I’ve been fortunate enough to see them, that’s never held them back from expressing either the passion for what they do or the genuine affection for their audience. This is a band that has a relationship with their listenership, and Rough & Ready, Live & Loud acknowledges this with the digital liner notes that includes fan pictures and others (one of my shots of Millard from the aforementioned New York show is there; thanks to them for using it), as well as through Ward‘s various banter encouragements and frenzy-whippings. All of this is part of the experience of seeing Orange Goblin on stage, and if Rough & Ready, Live & Loud helps bring that experience to mind, then it can only be called successful as a live album.

Orange Goblin may not get to bring their particular brand of chaos to Desertfest this weekend — always next year — and that’s a bummer, but if there’s a lesson to be found in Rough & Ready, Live & Loud, it’s that, as always: some you win, some you lose. And if you lose, you might as well make the most of it, which is exactly what they’re doing here. I can only imagine that after 25 years there’s an archive of Orange Goblin live recordings captured from along the way. Anytime they want to throw one of those up on Bandcamp for a couple bucks or whatever, it’s welcome. In the meantime, it’s worth hoping their label, Spinefarm, picks up this one for a physical release, not the least to see and hold a larger version of the cover art, which puts the four-piece as zombies on motorcycles surrounded by iconography from their studio albums. As a fan of the band, I think it’d make an awfully nice 2LP, and I can’t imagine I’d be the only one interested in such a thing, even after getting the download this morning.

I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

I think a lot about the subject/object divide and how it relates to criticism, the idea of critique itself as a creative endeavor. I know I’ve talked about it before on some levels but there are times when I get a sense of how “the critic” is perceived by “the artist,” and I always find it fascinating. Sometimes disheartening, sometimes not — some you win, some you lose. I consider myself a creative person. My background, such as it is, is in narrative fiction and creative nonfiction. Telling stories. And I very often approach writing a review the same way. Every album has a story — at least one — and if I can find out what that story is and tell that in a way that also puts the work in whatever context it might appear, I consider the endeavor successful.

The idea of “storytelling” has become a commercial buzzword. Advertising “tells stories” now. And while I take that perversion of purpose — let’s make people feel feelings so they’ll buy more shit — as a sign of increased cultural cache for narrative, plot and characterization generally, there’s no question of the manipulation happening. But still, I try to tell stories when I write. Even if, as above, the story is something as simple as “Orange Goblin kick ass, they’ve been doing so for 25 years and they put out a live album,” that’s still a story, with context. There’s still something to say about it, and I’m doing my best to say it in a creative way.

So am I an artist?

Does it help my case if I say I’m broke? Or that I have emotional baggage? I don’t know. As I say every time I’m asked and have said plenty of times when nobody has asked, I think of The Obelisk as an ongoing creative endeavor. I’ve been doing it for over 11 years. It has become, quite simply, my life’s work to this point. It will end some day. I don’t know when or how. But when it does, will The Obelisk be art, even if that art is a comment on and building off the work of others?

Isn’t all art inherently a critique on what’s come before it?

Where’s that line, between creation and critique? Does it even matter? Is there value in the perception one way or the other? In who gets to be the artist and who doesn’t?

To me, I guess there is, or I wouldn’t spend so much time thinking about it.

I don’t have any answers, or I’d give them.

Thanks for reading. Next week, that pesky High Priestess review that got away from me this week. Also hopefully the drawdown of the days of rona series, which — like the lockdown itself — is starting to drag on a bit. Also streams from Pushy, Buss, Itus and Mercury Boys, and some actual news about stuff that isn’t a spiky ball of a virus. New albums and such are happening, and it’s a relief to have something else to talk about, so I’m going to do that.

New Gimme show today. Listen at http://gimmeradio.com or on their app (which is what I use these days). Thanks if you check it out. 5PM Eastern.

Have a great and safe weekend. Thanks again for reading. Forum, radio, merch.

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