It was the last night of the big trip to Detroit. The Patient Mrs. and I had seen some friends, done a lot of touring around the city, drank no shortage of Motor City Brewing Works’ Ghettoblaster and other assorted local brews, and I figured the best possible way to cap being in Michigan was a drive to Flint to catch Clutch at the Machine Shop.

Seeing Clutch in Flint was something special because of the much-enjoyed Live in Flint, Michigan live CD, but also because the timing of the trip had meant I didn’t get to catch either their stop in Brooklyn or the two boat shows they did on a cruise liner around Manhattan (though they did have the exclusive t-shirts from the latter for sale with their merch). These things happen. I also got married on a night they were playing Starland Ballroom. Sometimes schedules conflict, but the chance to see them in a place they deemed supportive enough to record a live album there wasn’t one I was going to pass up, so to the Machine Shop we went.

The venue was basically a cement box, and on the walk inside, I saw several bumper stickers that said, “The driver of this vehicle owns a gun” in varying clever ways. One was just the word “Flint” in all capital letters with a handgun replacing the ‘L.’ At times like that, I always have to remember to keep my wiseassery in check. In any case, the bikers outside seemed to have security in check. Inside, it was crowded and hot and though the reformed trio incarnation of C.O.C. had been slated to support Clutch on the tour, there was on stage some reggae-influenced Sublime-sounding band who were very much not the Animosity lineup.

C.O.C. had, as Clutch vocalist Neil Fallon later explained, pulled out of the tour for “medical reasons.” Pretty vague, and no appendectomies were mentioned, so I don’t know what the deal was. They didn’t play. The douche rock band, whose name I never caught, ran through their set and seemed to appreciate the crowd, but it just wasn’t my thing. Several drunk dudes standing immediately to my right ate it up, so I guess there’s that.

Clutch came out in good time and kicked into a set half-full with surprises. They opened with “Sea of Destruction” from Slow Hole to China, and “Promoter (of Earthbound Causes)” from Blast Tyrant was especially cool to hear, and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster led “Mercury” jamming right into “Child of the City” from From Beale Street to Oblivion. The single, “50,000 Unstoppable Watts,” from their latest album, Strange Cousins From the West, was right on the money, “Immortal” thrilled the crowd and a plugged-in blend of the acoustic and electric arrangements of “Tight Like That” from the self-titled was ultra-grooving — bassist Dan Maines in the pocket while Fallon and Tim Sult doubled up on guitars — but “Animal Farm” sounded slow coming out of “Struck Down” and overall, the band looked kind of tired.

And if they were, it’s certainly understandable. The aforementioned boat shows were basically comprised of two full gigs in one night, with a show the night before and one the night after in Pittsburgh. I don’t think Clutch have taken significant time off from touring since Strange Cousins From the West was released in 2009, but no matter how used to it you might be, five shows in four days — with another one still to come the day after before finally getting a night off — is a lot. Still, part of me can’t help but think it’s time Clutch got off the road, took a month or two away from it, and came back to write another album.

If the “The party’s over/You all got to go/The wolfman is coming out” (or thereabouts) chorus to the unnamed new song they played is any indication of the level of morale — which, admittedly, it could just as easily not be — then yeah, maybe it’s time to step back on the gigging and focus on the creative side of the band for a while. That said, Clutch never fails to satisfy as a live act, and the Machine Shop show was no exception. That new song sat well alongside “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” in the band’s latter-day bluesy style, and the biggest surprise of the evening came as they began to round out the set and threw in “Subtle Hustle,” one of Blast Tyrant‘s catchiest and least-celebrated songs. It’s a personal favorite, anyway.

They ended the pre-encore set with “Electric Worry”/”One Eyed Dollar” from From Beale Street to Oblivion and came back after long enough to let the room cool down a little to do a few acoustic cuts. Fallon once more joined Sult for the ensuing three songs, which felt more like a miniaturized second set than an encore. The first cut they played, I didn’t recognize, but featured heavy lyrical mention of Abraham — could be new, could be a cover, could be old and reinterpreted, but so far as I could tell it wasn’t “Abraham Lincoln” or anything else from the back catalog. They followed that with “Basket of Eggs,” originally from Jam Room and more recently the title-track of the bonus acoustic EP from the Weathermaker Music reissue of Blast Tyrant, and finally closed out with “The Regulator.”

Kind of a morose note to end on, especially when I’ve seen other Clutch shows that cap more like a party than a concert — the time they were joined on stage in Atlantic City by then-touring partner Scott “Wino” Weinrich for “Red Horse Rainbow” comes to mind — but I like to think it was more the band’s knowing how in their element they were and how much the crowd was willing to go with them that let them make a few unexpected turns for the night. I mean, it’s one thing to get on stage, blast out “Burning Beard,” “Big News I & II,” “Elephant Riders” and “Careful with That Mic” — and nothing against that; I’ve seen and enjoyed that many times from Clutch — but though exhausted, they also seemed completely at ease. Why not relax and do something different when you’re among friends?

I was out of the Machine Shop on the quick and back to Detroit, from which I’d launch the long ride back to New Jersey that was then looming overhead. No regrets, though. If anything, I lost more sleep being excited about the show afterwards than I lost by going, and The Patient Mrs. was kind enough to start the drive in the morning anyway. Definitely it was the right choice to make.

More pics after the jump.

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Last night after work, The Patient Mrs. and I hit the road north and west and got up to Buffalo, New York, where we stayed the night. This afternoon, after an unsuccessful attempt to hit a record store there called Spiral Scratch — whose noon opening time was, to be fair, qualified with an “ish” on their website — we made our way into Canada to cut west to our final destination, Detroit, which is where I’m posting from now.

Hell of a ride. I don’t think Canada was any more or less boring than western Pennsylvania or Ohio might have been, but it’s another stamp on my passport, anyway. Every time someone asked where we were headed and we told them, the response was, “Why would you go to Detroit? Nobody goes there.”

Fair enough question, but I like a lot of shit people don’t like, and yeah we saw some bombed-out looking shit on the way here, but whatever. No more than Newark or Paterson back in Jersey. Anyway, it’s a road trip, and I’ll be here through the weekend, so I don’t know how many posts I’m going to get up, so if you’re wondering why there isn’t the usual obsessive amount of output today and tomorrow, that’s why.

I should have known though that the second I wasn’t in front of a computer the site would crash. Big thrill sending “my shit is broken” emails to the hosting company from my phone, believe you me. Really nails down that whole “getting away from it all” thing. At least it’s back up now, though it always seems as soon as I say that, it implodes again. Ugh.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the Blue Cheer video above, taped at the soundcheck of a show I later attended at the old Knitting Factory in Manhattan. That was a good night. In case I don’t get to post again before the weekend, thanks everyone for checking in this week, and next week I’ll have an interview with artist Sean “Skillit” McEleny and a Six Dumb Questions with the recently-reviewed Threefold Law, as well as reviews of The Re-Stoned and hopefully the Clutch show that I’m going to in Flint on Saturday. Good stuff to come, and in the meantime, if you haven’t checked out the forum, it’s like YOB-city in there. Lots of fun.

This past weekend, I made my way south to Philadelphia to catch the current YOB/Dark Castle tour. I’d already seen the two bands as they stomped Manhattan into the ground earlier in the week, but the prospect of another show within a meager two hours’ drive, on a Saturday, was too much to resist. When I got to the Kung Fu Necktie and saw it was basically a small bar with a stage area in back, I was all the more thrilled at the chance to witness YOB‘s powerful live sound in such a confined space. It was gonna rule, I assured myself.

I assume because Kung Fu Necktie is in a residential neighborhood and they’ve had noise complaints, the show had an 11PM curfew. When irono-post-punkers Psychic Teens finished at 9PM or so and neither Dark Castle nor YOB were to be found in the venue, it was immediately apparent something was up. As it turned out, they’d been stuck for however long in traffic coming from their Canadian show the night before. They were rushing to get to Philly, but for the crowd standing there, we didn’t know if or when they’d arrive.

And if they’d canceled the show, saying that they wouldn’t have enough time to play and get done by the curfew, well, shit happens, that’s life. But they didn’t. YOB and Dark Castle rolled in a bit after 9:45, immediately set up their gear and got to work kicking ass. Even Rob Shaffer — Dark Castle‘s drummer pulling double-duty filling in for Travis Foster in YOB — breaking his bass drum pedal didn’t curb the momentum. Curfew was extended till 11:30PM, YOB got to play four songs in 40 minutes, and peace and doom reigned in the City of Brotherly Love.

What was most striking about it, though — aside from the fact that they did it — was that before their set started, YOB guitarist, vocalist, principle songwriter and, on this tour, sole founding member Mike Scheidt told the crowd, “We’ve got 40 minutes and we’re going to give it everything we have. We are YOB” (or something thereabouts), before launching into the most righteous rendition of “Quantum Mystic” from 2005’s The Unreal Never Lived that I’ve ever heard. By the time they finished playing, the delay didn’t matter, the lost songs didn’t matter. There was nothing that was going to stop that crowd from loving every minute of YOB‘s performance. Damn what could have been, we were there for what was, and Scheidt, Shaffer and bassist Aaron Reiseberg kept true to his word.

YOB‘s second album for Profound Lore, called Atma, will see release Aug. 16. The record, as Scheidt explains in the interview to follow, takes its name from the spiritual concept of the self as being a part of an underlying current of selves, all joined in one essential experience. Where Western tradition has gummed this into theistic dogma, the notion of “atma” is more obscure and thus even more universal: The self as connection to everything around it. As I stood in Kung Fu Necktie and watched the crowd around me get absorbed into Atma opener “Prepare the Ground,” it was hard not to feel some understanding of what Scheidt was talking about. They were transcendentally heavy.

We spoke at the beginning of the tour, via phone, as the two bands ran errands in Iowa, and I’ll say flat out it’s the best interview I’ve done in a long time. The guitarist’s openness, honesty and genuine nature is apparent in his every answer, and his discussion late in the conversation of the nature of ambition and how it relates to YOB presents an awareness of perspective that, much like his musical approach, is entirely his own.

I won’t delay it further. Please find enclosed the 5,700-word Q&A transcription of my interview with Mike Scheidt of YOB, and enjoy.

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The march continues! I guess that’s what happens when you have something like 35,000 bands playing on three stages over the course of four days — you come out of it with a motherload of audio. This time around, new sets surface from Black Math Horseman, Aluk Todolo, Incredible Hog and Dutch natives Beaver, who were actually the only one of these four that I saw at the fest. Plenty to dig into, as always. Here are the links:

Aluk Todolo
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44948646#ondemand.44948646

Beaver
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44948782#ondemand.44948782

Black Math Horseman
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44948803#ondemand.44948803

Incredible Hog
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/44948794#ondemand.44948794

Perpetual gratitude to Walter and Roadburn for allowing me to host these links. Roadburn‘s audio streams are recorded and mixed by Marcel van de Vandervoort and his team at Spacejam. Roadburn 2011 took place April 14-17, at the 013 Popcentrum in Tilburg, Netherlands.

With the widespread availability and relative affordability of recording software, it’s pretty easy for a band to make a decent-sounding record these days. You hear a lot of albums that sound clear, but ultimately flat; albums that give little more than a general sense of what the personality of a band might be. It’s all the more encouraging, then, when a band like Cincinnati, Ohio, trio (they may have been a foursome at the time) Valley of the Sun present a collection of tracks like their five-song The Sayings of the Seers EP. Without a label backing them, the rockers aligned themselves with producer John Naclerio, who’s worked on albums for the likes of Bayside and My Chemical Romance – say what you want about those bands, despite being wretched, they’re professionally produced – and put The Sayings of the Seers to press in a limited vinyl edition of 250. Then, to support, they booked a run of American dates alongside Truckfighters, pairing themselves with one of the most potent heavy rock acts today. You have to really believe in what you’re doing to partner with a band like that, and with the professional presentation of The Sayings of the Seers, it’s clear Valley of the Sun stand behind what they do. In short, they’re going for it.

That’s respectable in itself, but what’s even more noteworthy are the songs they’re going for it with. Valley of the Sun’s 2010 EP, aptly-titled Two Thousand Ten, had clarity of sound and formidable stoner rock fuzz – more of the latter even than does The Sayings of the Seers – but what “Hearts Aflame,” “Deep Light Burns,” “Mariner’s Tale,” “Aquarius” and “Riding the Dunes” lack in genre tropes, they make up for in excellence of songwriting and execution. Guitarist/vocalist Ryan Ferrier leads the charge on “Hearts Aflame” with a John Garcia-esque vocal dexterity, and though that track is more Hermano than Kyuss in how modern it sounds, there’s no question that Valley of the Sun are placing themselves at the forefront of the new generation of American heavy rock. And in the case of “Hearts Aflame,” the distinction between heavy and stoner rocks feels like it needs to be highlighted, because it’s definitely the former over the latter. Where fellow Ohioans Lo-Pan have taken up the fuzz mantle and injected the sound with a soulful edge, Valley of the Sun, take the groove and are less reliant on tonal weight than catchy hooks and riffy drive.

It seems like a fine line, and I suppose it is, but on a cut like the stripped-down barn-burner “Deep Light Burns,” it’s virtually a world of difference. Valley of the Sun might share their countrymen’s penchant for upbeat, energetic songwriting, but they take it in a different direction altogether. With the straightforward punch of bassist Ryan McAllister and drummer Aaron Boyer propelling the song, Ferrier offers madman riffs and another Garcia-inspired inflection (the most Kyussian moment of The Sayings of the Seers is yet to come) vocal, but the appeal of the song is more the overall movement of it than any single performance within. It allows Valley of the Sun to up the momentum from “Hearts Aflame,” so that by the time “Mariner’s Tale” kicks in – only about nine minutes into the EP – you’re already locked into it.

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The thing about “V.L.A.” the lone posted track from Portland, Oregon, outfit Stoneburner is that it hits really hard. It’s not the most original track ever — it’s slow and growly, with an atmosphere as grey as the band’s picture that serves as the album cover for their 2009 Demo — but it doesn’t just plod. It stomps. There’s heavy-footed, and then there’s this.

And yeah, it’s an older track, too. Information about the four-piece is sparse on their Thee Facebooks, but they’ve reportedly got more recording in the works for later in 2011, and hopefully they’ll be able to grow a bit stylistically while also keeping this thunderous lumber to their step. I dig it, thought you might too, so here’s “V.L.A.” from the Stoneburner Bandcamp page:

Even before you press play on Battle Stations, the third self-released album from Maryland instrumentalists Admiral Browning, the album is provocative. With fantastic, intricately-drawn artwork from the Los Angeles-based Sean “Skillit” McEleny, there’s a narrative happening across the album’s fold-out visuals. The digipak of Battle Stations opens as normal, and glued to the inside liner is a four-panel foldout poster that joins with the cover to reveal a full picture of three battleships (no coincidence, I’m sure, that Admiral Browning is a trio) going up against a giant, futuristic robot. To look at the cover image above, only the bottom left-hand corner is what you see at first on the digipak.

I’ve included the images after the jump, but what you can see immediately is that there’s a story playing out. On the outside cover, the fight is beginning and the ships look doomed. On the inside, guns ablaze, it looks like the invader is done for, and on the back cover, the alien robot’s carcass smolders on the horizon while the three ships look on, victorious.

All this interesting enough in itself, but taken in the context of Admiral Browning’s back-cover dedication – which reads, “Battle Stations is dedicated to all those remaining positive while battling life-threatening illness or disease, to those that persevere and overcome in the face of insurmountable odds, to those that rebuke thoughts of turning pain into suffering, and to survivors that refuse to give up” – Battle Stations becomes even more thematically loaded. The giant robot becomes a metaphor for some invading disease (cancer seems an appropriate example; tumors have long been depicted as outside invaders in art and literature), and with the musical notes surrounding the battle in the second panel, Admiral Browning are saying that music is at least part of winning the fight against whatever it is being fought.

Aside from being fodder for a deeper read of the album, the visual side of Battle Stations speaks to the conceptual breadth of the band. Doubly curious, then, that the theme and/or story arc doesn’t carry over into the music – or, at least not if titles like “Dreams of Mammurabi” or the Star Wars referential “The Binary Language of Moisture Vaporators” are to be taken on their face. One could easily imbue the five component tracks of Battle Stations as depicting a journey of overcoming conflict, but with well-flowing progressive-edged instrumentals, I get the sense you’d probably be able to do that anyway if you tried hard enough. Particularly as the album presses on to its later cuts, the Eastern-style “Interlude” transitioning smoothly into aforementioned closer “Dreams of the Hammurabi,” there is some feel of resolution in the tracks, but how much of that is put there by Admiral Browning and how much by me listening, I really couldn’t say.

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Well, this should be pretty killer. I wasn’t in love with Black Cobra‘s Chronomega, but the news that they worked with Kurt Ballou this time around is welcome indeed, as the Converge guitarist is a master at capturing inhuman tone (to wit, Trap Them, Kvelertak and Swarm of the Lotus). Maybe Invernal could be the album that finally puts Black Cobra‘s absolutely merciless live attack to plastic. More rampant speculation to come, I’m sure.

In the meantime, here’s some actual info from the PR wire:

The Bay Area’s devastating duo Black Cobra have completed the recording process of their upcoming fourth full-length album, set for release in the Autumn months ahead.

For the recording of this, the band’s second release for Southern Lord Recordings, Black Cobra recently ventured across the continent to pound out their anticipated new album, the follow-up to 2009’s massively well-received Chronomega. This time around the outfit enlisted the talents of Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou and his God City Studio in Salem, Massachusetts, for the first time. After a brutal week-and-a-half in the notorious lair, Black Cobra hammered out what will soon be known to the world as their almighty fourth full-length album, the title now confirmed as Invernal. A full track listing, album art and other specific details will be announced in the shortly, but from an advance listen to the unmastered output of this savage outfit, we are confident in confirming that this is Black Cobra‘s most honed and diversified material to date, and will definitely tear your face off completely.

While Black Cobra‘s full-on tour cycle for Invernal has not yet began, as it undoubtedly will very shortly, the band have in the meantime been confirmed for several shows over the coming weeks, including an appearance at The Power of the Riff Festival in Los Angeles on Aug. 18 alongside Eyehategod, Pentagram, Winter, Pelican and more, a direct support spot for High on Fire in Oakland on Aug. 27, an appearance at MusicFest Northwest festival in Portland and more. A rigorous amount of touring will continually be announced through the rest of 2011.

Black Cobra Live:
07/30 El Rio San Francisco, CA w/ Hot Lunch, Lecherous Gaze, Hightower
08/13 Echo/Echoplex Los Angeles, CA @ The Power of the Riff
08/27 Uptown Oakland, CA w/ High on Fire
09/08 Dante’s Portland, OR @ MFNW
09/22 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts San Francisco, CA