Portugal’s SonicBlast Fest will mark its 11th go in 2023 with a massive, still-more-to-be-announced lineup that spans styles and geographies, from Norway to Greece to Japan and New Orleans to San Diego, Poland and Los Angeles and New York and sludge to psych-jazz and on from there into however many ethers of prog and rock. It’s easy to admire even from across an ocean what SonicBlast has built over its years, and the photos that emerge from each edition — just a bunch of awesome bands playing in paradise, no big deal — are enviable to say the least, and while I don’t want to be engaging too deeply in promo speak or trying to tap anyone’s FOMO, if you’re thinking of making the trip, however far it may or may not be, it’ll probably sell out.

Check out OFF! hitting the heavy fests, huh? Not quite what I’d expect there, but cool to see Acid King getting out, and good to know Naxatras will be back on the road as well next summer along with a host of others. Over the last couple weeks, a lot of the Spring and Summer 2023 festival season in Europe has taken shape, and with the promise of so much more to come, it looks like it’s gonna be a good one. Call it revelry well earned, and let’s all appreciate it whether or not we can actually be there.

To wit:

We’re so psyched to announce the first bands to join us at SonicBlast Fest’s 11th edition: OFF!, Acid King, A Place To Bury Strangers, Earthless, KADAVAR, Elder, EYEHATEGOD, Death Valley Girls, Church of Misery, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Weedpecker, Mondo Generator, Naxatras, Kanaan, BLACK RAINBOWS, Acid Mammoth, Monarch, Spirit Mother and El Altar Del Holocausto!

*** many more to be announced soon ***

Full festival tickets are already on sale at BOL (https://garboyl.bol.pt/Comprar/Bilhetes/114471-sonicblast_fest_2023-garboyl_lives/Sessoes) and at masqueticket.com

Artwork by Branca Studio

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Good show. Good tracks. Two Acid King songs to start, new stuff from Nebula, Sasquatch, Obiat, Torpedo Torpedo, Les Nadie — with whose debut album I am enthralled; review next week — Chat Pile, Brujas del Sol, Cities of Mars, Freedom Hawk (also reviewing next week). Classics from YOB, The Devin Townsend Band, Yawning Man, Kyuss, Sleep. New classic, anyhow, from the latter and a live cut from Yawning Man that’s gorgeously immersive to end out before the bonus track Freedom Hawk closes. I don’t know how much sense it makes on paper, but it flows well.

I don’t really have a theme here other than “make a good show.” I wanted to mix it up with stuff people might know and not, hopefully keep listeners hooked. Even 89 episodes of The Obelisk Show, I still a little bit live in fear that at some point Gimme Metal is going to be like, “You’re weird, you play weird shit, you never turn your playlists in on time and you suck at this,” and give me the axe. It’s happened to me on radio before (ask me about that some time; glorious story), but hasn’t happened yet here. Still, a nod to accessibility isn’t the worst idea once every 90 shows or so.

Thanks if you listen and thanks for reading.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 07.22.22 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Aug. 5 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Before I turn you over to the playlist — and I’m gonna try to keep this short either way — I want to single out and say thank you to Dean Rispler. He’s the engineer for this show, and with my dumbass voice tracks, it ran long. Instead of cutting out a song or whatever, Dean went ahead and trimmed intros and outros, making it a tighter ‘broadcast,’ such as it is, and enhancing the thing rather than detracting from it. Thank you, Dean. I know the effort that takes, the time that can take, and it is very much appreciated, by me if by no one else.

Some new stuff, some old stuff. I had Ufomammut on the brain and then I had stuff-I-like on the brain, and, well, that’s how you end up with me playing Colour Haze. I give myself points though for managing to leave Author & Punisher out of an episode though. I think he was in the last three. And if you haven’t heard the Charley No Face record, there’s a reason it starts the show.

If you listen, or you see these words, thanks.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 03.04.22

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is March 18 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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Let’s talk about Acid King. I know it says ‘review’ up there, and that’s all well and good, but in this case, that’s really just me needing to categorize a thing. I remember Acid King getting announced for Roadburn 2011 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. I remember the poster art that’s now the cover for Roadburn Records/Burning World Records‘ Live at Roadburn 2011 live album. I remember that they played the same day as Wovenhand. I remember being stoked to see them, not for the first time, but on the Main Stage of the 013 venue. It was the biggest stage I’d ever seen them play on, and the way the San Francisco trio filled that room with sound — it was smaller then, you’ll recall — was incredible. It was like Lori S.‘s fuzz swallowed Tilburg. The whole town. Not even just the Roadburn part. I’m pretty sure they were feeling the rumble over by the university.

Some sets stay with you over time. I’d seen Acid King before and I’ve seen them again since, but on that stage, with that sound system, and with that crew, it was something special. I could say the same of Colour Haze in 2009, Ufomammut in 2011 or Sleep in 2012, among countless others (one should note that Dead Meadow‘s 2011 set has already been released, and so has Ufomammut‘s, and Godflesh‘s; it was quite a year). But even on Live at Roadburn 2011, you can hear it when Lori intones, “Tell all the people/That I’m on my way,” the sense is that, yeah, she means all the people. You want to run out and let the world know. I don’t know what chain is being broken on “Silent Circle,” taken as is the opening title-track from 1999’s ultra-classic, seriously-I-mean-it’s-one-of-the-best-heavy-rock-records-of-all-time-and-if-you-don’t-agree-there’s-a-good-chance-I’ll-think-less-of-you-as-a-person Busse Woods (discussed here, discussed here, discussed here), but clearly it doesn’t stand a chance against the rattling force of Acid King on that stage. Pushed ahead by then-drummer Joey Osbourne and underscored by the low end of Mark Lamb‘s basslines, Acid King‘s sound was engrossing in the extreme. You could stand there and nod, and you could stand there and nod.

As a live album, it runs a tidy-enough 47 minutes. The show begins with a simple “Alright,” and then a pause presumably while the steam engines that powered their Orange stacks that day got going. “Busse Woods,” again, is the opener, followed by the hooky “2 Wheel Nation,” which led off 2005’s III (discussed here), which it’s worth noting was the band’s latest record at the time, already six years old. That tradeoff, Busse Woods into III, plays out again with “Silent Circle” and “On to Everafter,” and in the closing duo of “Electric Machine” and “Sunshine and Sorrow,” but the ride along the way is sweet, thick and for the most part molasses slow, emphasizing just how much Acid King are able to make a riff roll in a way that’s not only been hugely influential over a generation of heavy rock and then some, but in a way that despite the best efforts of many is still utterly the band’s own.

I watched some of the set from the side of the stage — traditionally, at the Roadburns I’ve been fortunate enough to attend, I’ve given myself one band to do that for; I don’t want to be in the way, but just once for something special — and I watched from the back of the house. When they were done, you could hear the crunch of the plastic beer cups on the floor as people filed out, no doubt to grab some munten tokens and purchase their next round, and as I remember it, things felt quiet. That might honestly be me projecting in hindsight, but I kind of stood there for a while, stupefied, exhausted from travel but very much alive despite having been chewed up and spit out by what I’d just seen and heard. These 11 years later, and especially given the events (and in terms of concerts, lack thereof) over the last two years, hearing Acid King‘s Live at Roadburn 2011 feels like something precious.

And yeah, that might be true of any number of live albums that happened to be made at a show you attended. It’s always cooler when you can say you were there. But god damn. Consider the unveiling of “Coming Down From Outer Space.” What would eventually show up on 2015’s Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere (review here, discussed here) — which came out on Svart Records, no less — was aired in the midst of the show, right between “On to Everafter” and “Electric Machine.” There was no grand announcement, no “Here’s a new one” or anything like that. Just feedback and then the riff that would in no small part define that album, itself a landmark that continues to hold up. Immediately catchy, immediately spaced out to suit the title, “Coming Down From Outer Space” here only leaves me wondering why Live at Roadburn 2011 is the first Acid King live outing, and sits easily among the already-then-familiar cuts from III and Busse Woods. And even for being unfamiliar at the time, that it heralded more to come from the band was a joy and a relief to witness.

Understand, as a fan of the band, I want this release to do well because I believe strongly in what Acid King do and I want them — or Lori S., who is now the sole remaining founder and has a different lineup in place — to continue doing it, but I can’t and won’t try to separate this live record from my experience of it, and if nobody buys it and it’s a huge flop or whatever, I’m still happy it got made because damnit, I want it for myself. You either get Acid King or you don’t. They’re either pioneers who helped shape the sound of modern heavy or they’re not, and if you think not, I seriously doubt any ranting and raving from me about how great their Roadburn 2011 was is going to change your mind. But know this — if you don’t appreciate this band, everything we as listeners get from them, it’s your loss. As a member of the human species. Your loss.

Good talk. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a preorder to wait on.

Acid King, “Electric Machine” Live at Roadburn 2011

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Roadburn Records USA store

Burning World Records website

Yeah, I knew this announcement was coming. Didn’t know when, but yes. I tried to drop hints about new Josiah in writing about the UK band’s forthcoming reissue on Heavy Psych Sounds, but I didn’t want to inadvertently give anything away. And you should note that Acid King bringing Jason Landrian aboard as part of an expanded lineup for this release kind of makes that band combined with Black Cobra, since Rafa Martinez, who drums in the latter, plays bass in the former. I do not expect the liner notes to be easy to write. I need to talk to Josiah‘s Mat Bethanourt this week and get on it before I start holding up vinyl pressing. Again. Which I probably already am.

I’m not going to try to sell you on the thing — that’s not my job — but I know a couple other of the NINE — oh my god — releases coming out as part of PostWax Vol. II, and there’s not what you’d call a “filler” in the bunch.

This came down the PR wire. Nine volumes. Oof…:

ACID KING and JOSIAH to release new music as part of PostWax Vol. II series; Blues Funeral Recordings launches Kickstarter for exclusive vinyl subscription!

Blues Funeral Recordings have revealed stoner metal pillars ACID KING and cult heavy psych rockers JOSIAH will join the second volume of their groundbreaking PostWax vinyl subscription series. The label launched a Kickstarter on April 1st to sign up subscribers for the 9-volume project.

The PostWax series presents exclusive limited edition records from some of the best stoner rock, doom and heavy psych bands on the planet. Benefiting from a spectacular Kickstarter success in 2018, PostWax Year One debuted monster releases to subscribers first — including Elder’s “The Gold & Silver Sessions” and the seminal comeback album “Refractions” from Lowrider — which were subsequently released in standard retail versions to the public several months later.

Announced on the PostWax Vol. II series are Bay Area legends ACID KING, who are joining forces with Jason Landrian (Black Cobra) and Bryce Shelton (Nik Turner’s Hawkwind, Bädr Vogu, High Tone Son of a Bitch) for a mind-altering soundtrack-inspired sonic journey created exclusively for this project.

PostWax Vol. II will also mark the blistering return of Britain’s the fuzz-fueled power trio JOSIAH, who are making the most of the Blues Funeral collaboration to present their first studio album in over a decade, the followup to their 2009 Eletrohasch release ‘Procession’. Fans of heavy-psych meets straight ahead riff-rock should take notice!

PostWax Vol. II will unfold as a series of 9 deluxe releases on gorgeous vinyl, with every record set to include at least one exclusive track that only those who join PostWax will ever receive. Blues Funeral also invited each band to contribute one or more riffs to a “share pool” that every other band in the series can dip into and to integrate into what they’re doing, in order to create more connectivity and shared DNA across all the releases in the series.

View the PostWax Vol. II Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bluesfuneral/postwax-vol-ii

https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com

A few classics, a lot of new music, and a final half-hour that I’d have a hard time imagining could possibly be better spent. I haven’t been able to spend as much time in the Gimme Metal chat during the shows as I’d like — my duties as dad/house-husband in terms of feeding, bedtime ritual, diapers, dinner and all that clash pretty hard with the 5-7PM timeslot, and it’s important to me to do those things as well as to be visible doing them, especially to my son to teach him that a man can be a caregiver (as much as I’m able) — but I always at least check in and keep half an eye on what’s going on in there.

It’s been cool to see the Gimme community develop over time. There are familiar names in there week after week and others come and go. That’s a special kind of connection Gimme has been able to forge that I feel fortunate to be a part of in some small way. I’ve never been cool enough to be a part of a scene. I’m still not. But it’s fun to watch.

The Pecan does indeed feature in this one. He broke out “Listenin’ to Obeliks Show on Give-Me-Metal!” from the back seat of the car and surprised the hell out of me. I think you can probably hear my smile.

Thanks for listening if you do. I hope you enjoy the show.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 10.02.20

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Oct. 16 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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You know how Olympic runners push their heads and chests forward at the end of a race to cut their time across the finish line? That’s me getting to this post, only I’m not in shape. And I’m flat-footed. And okay you know what, so maybe that’s not me, but the point is it’s been a long week and I’m glad to see the other end of it. Fine. You got me.

Let’s start over. “Try again?” as The Pecan says these days.

Time for a confession. Acid King‘s utterly brilliant 2015 album, Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere (review here, track premiere here, interview here, slathered praise here and here), is one that — even with that glut of parenthetical “link here” coverage — I still feel guilty about not giving its due. Issued through Svart Records as what was the essential San Francisco trio’s first offering in a decade since 2005’s III (discussed here), it was far and away my favorite full-length released that year. I put it on and it’s still a record that strikes me as an ideal vision of what their kind of heavy rock should be.

It’s heavy — always a good start — and spacious, melodic and reaching outward, flowing and carrying a presence of tone that is established with the immersion that starts on its “Intro” and carries through the subsequent “Silent Pictures,” the superlatively-catchy “Coming Down from Outer Space,” through “Laser Headlights” and “Red River” and “Infinite Skies,” “Center of Everywhere” and the bookending “Outro” with variations in tempo but an unwavering central purpose in its nod and groove. Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere is as gritty as it is gorgeous, and five years later — if the band are feeling social-media savvy, perhaps they’ll put up a post noting the anniversary; that seems to be a thing bands do these days; fan engagement and all that — and from its staff-wielding-bony-fingered-Gandalf-riding-a-tiger-through-space-past-a-pockmarked-moon to the gong in “Laser Headlights,” the record exudes a righteousness that, from the first time I heard it, I knew I was going to be living with it for years to come. It was, unquestionably, my album of the year.

And there’s the rub. Because when December came, it wasn’t.

It’s silly, I know, and it doesn’t really matter, I know, but I put a lot of thought into those year-end lists. Once they’re out there, that’s it. I may update them for a few days, add honorable mentions or something I forgot, whatever, but after that, they’re set, and years later, I look back on them to see what was going on when, how I felt about it at the time and where records and bands sat in relation to each other at least in my mind.

Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere was every bit my favorite album of 2015, but it wasn’t the album of the year. I gave that to Elder‘s Lore instead.

I remember it well, making the decision that morning as I was adding the final part of the post which I’d written over two days, and I decided that the Elder record was too important, too forward thinking and too massive in its immediate impact on the heavy underground to not be the release that defined the year. And five years later, I’d make the same decision. I don’t regret it. Lore was glorious, but I listened to the Acid King more, and I still listen to the Acid King more, so on a personal level, there’s some part of me that will forever feel like I undersold just how much I love these songs.

That’s a bummer, but even that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the album. How could it? How could anything but the end of the universe itself? Follow the river to the hills, man. Pray for the blast off.

Make no mistake, we’re not anywhere near the end of the universe, or even humanity. I’m not going to downplay the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic or my own country’s inept federal response that, mired in politics and petty ratings games, will only prolong it. But the universe’ll still be around another 10 billion years or so without us and, yeah, sorry, we just don’t matter that much. Even the planet feels better when we take a seat for a few weeks, and there’s recent environmental data to prove it.

But people are dying, and the projections are that many more will, and that the next two weeks will prove pivotal in determining the ultimate direction the outbreak takes. I don’t know what magic line exists thereafter to make it start to get better, but at least here in the New York area — which is the epicenter of the US’ woes, as ever — that’s what Judy Woodruff is saying, and hell’s bells, if you can’t trust Judy, then we might as well be done as a species.

The epidemic doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my confession about the Acid King record. I’m not laying it all on the line in case I get sick and my lungs catch fire or some such. But Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere is another record from which I’ve derived significant comfort over the last five years. Something I put on when I’m sick of everything and just want to hear something I love and groove for a while. And so I hope maybe it can do a little bit of the same work for you, if maybe you’re anxious like everyone is, or you’re tired of everything, or you’re overwhelmed by the noise and misinformation that are so, so, so rampant and so unrelenting.

It’s okay to feel exhausted and overwhelmed. This is hard. I don’t even mean social distancing and isolation. I know people are hurting financially and that stress is always a killer — sometimes literally — and that over nine million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the last two weeks and that is both insane and unprecedented and it means that the multifaceted recovery from all of this will take years not the months being promised, but as screwed as we might all seem, at least music still sounds good.

At least there’s still that. Right?

—

Have a great and safe weekend. I wish you the best and continued health. Thanks for reading.

New Gimme show today at 5PM Eastern if you can listen. FRM.

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The theme for this episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio is pretty straightforward if you listen. It’s comfort songs. You would not necessarily believe that of a playlist that opens with Total Fucking Destruction doing the title-track of an album called To Be Alive at the End of the World, but again, once you listen, it’s actually kind of soothing. There’s a fair amount of instrumental material included, led off by Yawning Man, and I think the part with Vinnum Sabbathi and Forming the Void is probably as heavy as it gets, though that new Elephant Tree track certainly has some roll to it. God damn that’s a good song, not that that’s a huge surprise from those guys.

I haven’t cut the voice breaks for it yet but will do so sometime before this is posted, but I intend to talk a bit about the Om song and my association with their early work and seeing them at SXSW for what I think might’ve been the first time. It was a while ago and it’s hard to remember for a few reasons, but anyway, if I can remember it between typing this and speaking that, I hope to speak to it a bit, because I know that’s not their most soothing stuff by a long shot, but the memory I have of it puts it in that framework for me. Closing with YOB’s “Marrow” was, of course, a given.

Thanks for listening if you do. I hope you enjoy, and if you see this and don’t listen, then thanks for reading. If you’re not reading, well, you’ll never know you were being thanked.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmeradio.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 04.03.20

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 17 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

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