Posted in Whathaveyou on July 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Four dates in Tennessee? That’s a Darsombra tour. In accordance with the duo’s perpetual wont, Darsombra have announced a slew of East Coast tour dates that will account for the bulk of September and October as they run north and south and in between, swinging as far as Texas — note the trio of gigs with Austin’s Cortège — as they continue to spread their particular brand of art-rocking drone-out psychedelic bliss. You’ll recall they were on the West Coast this past Spring, so Fall on the Eastern Seaboard makes sense. Colorful leaves to see and all that.
Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton have a remix project in the works, and they’re looking for participants, so if you find you need a bit more weird in your life and you’ve got the software, reach out. I can think of way worse ways to spend your time than tooling around with the open spaces Darsombra inhabit. Like capitalism. And war. And having a day job. You should really quit that.
From the PR wire:
DARSOMBRA: Baltimore Psychedelic Duo Announces Dozens Of Summer And Fall US Tour Dates; New Album Under Construction
Baltimore, Maryland psych/prog duo DARSOMBRA has just rolled out nearly three dozen new tour dates for the late Summer and early Fall months while they slowly continue to construct their next album.
DARSOMBRA released their Call The Doctor/Nightgarden single in April 2021 as a bridge between their 2019-issued Transmission LP and its successor, a massive double-album, which is currently under construction. For their Spring 2022 tour, the band released a cassette maxi-single of Call The Doctor/Nightgarden, featuring two exclusive bonus tracks – “Thunder Thighs” (live 2020) and “Fill Up The Glass” – on the B-side, totaling more than fifty-three minutes of sonic bliss.
Brian Daniloski writes, “DARSOMBRA is excited to report that after a very quiet June and July following our return from our spring tour in late May, we have a fantastically loud rest of the year planned for you all, with local and domestic shows aplenty!”
DARSOMBRA is also working on a remix project, collecting re-imagined versions of their song “Call The Doctor.” Artists interested in taking part in the remix project are invited to contact the band through their website or social media channels.
DARSOMBRA Tour Dates: 8/12/2022 Sacred Root – Ithaca, NY w/ Human Resources, Staticer, and Microbes, Mostly 8/13/2022 Neitzche’s – Buffalo, NY w/ Chloroform, Wickerman, shapesrepeat 8/14/2022 Rosen Krown (early brunch show) – Rochester, NY 9/03/2022 Space 4321 – Baltimore, MD 9/07/2022 Mama Tried – Brooklyn, NY w/ GRIDFAILURE, Breeeze 9/08/2022 Sun Tiki Studios – Portland, ME w/ Cadaverette, Snap! Thee Asparagus 9/13/2022 The Loading Dock – Littleton, NH 9/14/2022 Radio Bean – Burlington, VT 9/15/2022 O’Brien’s – Allston, MA w/ Jarvaland, Blackwolfgoat, This Bliss 9/16/2022 AS220 – Providence, RI w/ Minibeast, Burr, LVMMVX 9/17/2022 Century – Philadelphia, PA w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Kohoutek 9/23/2022 Shadow Woods Reunion @ The Kennel at West York Inn – West York, PA w/ Barishi, Cultic, Seasick Gladiator, Ralph 10/05/2022 Spot on Kirk – Roanoke, VA w/ Dover 10/06/2022 The Hideaway – Johnson City, TN 10/07/2022 Static Age – Asheville, NC 10/08/2022 Corner Lounge – Knoxville, TN 10/09/2022 Springwater – Nashville, TN w/ Weird Sisters 10/11/2022 Hi Tone – Memphis, TN 10/12/2022 White Water Tavern – Little Rock, AR w/ The Lights Inside The Woods 10/13/2022 Division Brewing/Growl Records – Arlington, TX w/ Pastel Dynasty 10/14/2022 The 101 – Bryan, TX w/ Cortège 10/15/2022 Faust Tavern – San Antonio, TX w/ Cortège 10/16/2022 Chess Club – Austin, TX w/ Cortège 10/18/2022 Freetown Boom Boom Room – Lafayette, LA 10/19/2022 The Goat – New Orleans, LA w/ Three Brained Robot, Cloud Powers, Soul Glimpse 10/20/2022 The Kelly – Wetumpka, AL 10/22/2022 Sabbath Brewing – Atlanta, GA w/ Posadist 10/23/2022 The World Famous – Athens, GA w/ Sacred Bull, Rat Babies 10/25/2022 El-Rocko – Savannah, GA 10/26/2022 Tua Lingua – N. Charleston, SC w/ data_corrupter 10/27/2022 New Brookland Tavern – Columbia, SC 10/28/2022 Monstercade – Winston-Salem, NC w/ Elevated Weirdo Gameshow 10/29/2022 TBA – Greenville, NC
Well, it’s 4:20 somewhere. Today, as you may or may not already know, is April 20. High holiday for stoners, or at very least what would be one if everybody wasn’t just high all the time now anyway. By the way, legal weed sales in Jersey start tomorrow. Kind of jerk move to make it April 21, but whatever.
Anyhoo, about two weeks ago, Darsombra‘s Brian Daniloski — a friendly chap if e’er I’ve encountered one — reached out with what seemed like a fairly crazy idea. The duo — he and Ann Everton — are about to embark on their Spring tour going hither and yon, and to celebrate the day and the impending tour and the release of their upcoming 53-minute maxi-single cassette that, no, is not an album so don’t ask, and they wanted to premiere a video for the song “Call the Doctor.” Well heck, I’m on board for that.
Fine. Thing was, Darsombra weren’t just unveiling a video, which is pretty standard. They wanted to premiere the clip at 4:20PM in every time zone across the planet, so that all peoples in all nations could watch “Call the Doctor” at the appropriate moment on the just-right day and bask in the droner weirdness. It seems to have taken some finagling to make it happen, but they’ve done the thing, and today, you’ll find the clip below.
I haven’t even seen it yet. No clue what’s going on in it, flashing lights, whether it’s safe for work, any of that kind of thing. I’ve got a tab open in my browser with the countdown on for when it’s available in my time zone (Eastern US) and I’m looking forward to it, but if you haven’t watched, as of me writing this sentence, we’re in the same boat. Doesn’t matter. Darsombra‘s shenanigans are good times. If you’ve got friends in Secaucus, let ’em know.
Enjoy:
Darsombra, “Call the Doctor” 4/20 premiere
IT’LL BE 420 ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!
Darsombra’s new Official Music Video to “Call The Doctor” will be streaming LIVE in YOUR time zone on April 20th, 2022, at 4:20pm no matter where in the world you are!
Tune in to youtube.com/darsombra (direct link to livestream: https://youtu.be/zMce0VITr9c) to catch the brand new video (a meditation on the Earth origins of every science-fiction/fantasy narrative, and lovingly described as Star-Trek-meets-David-Attenborough), which will be playing on a loop at 20 minutes after the hour, every hour, on April 20th, from 12:20am EDT (UTC-4) through 11:20pm EDT—in other words, from 4:20pm at the International Date Line (UTC-12) to 4:20pm Kamchatka time (UTC +12)! Tell all your friends in Siberia! (and Belize! and Poland! and Micronesia! and Zimbabwe! and Secaucus, NJ!)
At 11:35pm EDT (UTC -4) on April 20, the video will be available on our youtube channel here: https://youtu.be/-s_rb3YlVi8
HAPPY 420!!!
DARSOMBRA SPRING TOUR 2022 Apr 23 – Pittsburgh (McKees Rocks) PA @ Black Forge II Apr 24 – Cincinnati OH @ Northside Tavern Apr 25 – Bloomington IN @ The I Fell Apr 26 – Springfield MO @ Lindberg’s Apr 27 – Oklahoma City OK @ Aces of 8 Apr 29 – Santa Fe NM @ Cirque Du So Gay Apr 30 – Albuquerque NM @ Guild Cinema May 4 – Flagstaff AZ @ Kickstand Kafe May 6 – Tijuana Mexico @ Torre Astral May 7 – San Diego CA @ The Brown Building May 8 – Mexicali Mexico @ Planta Libre May 13 – Los Angeles CA @ The Offbeat May 14 – San Luis Obispo CA @ Mee Heng Low May 15 – San Francisco CA @ Bottom of the Hill May 24 – Colorado Springs CO @ Fritzy’s May 25 – Denver CO @ Skylark May 27 – Lawrence KS @ Eighth St. Taproom May 28 – Kansas City MO @ miniBar May 29 – Dayton OH @ Blind Bob’s
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.
So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Crowbar, Zero and Below
Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.
Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?
Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?
The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.
A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.
Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.
Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.
Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.
To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.
Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Reason #473 to love Darsombra — the ability to put out 50 minutes of music and call it a single. 50 minutes, incidentally, is longer than their last full-length, 2019’s Transmission (review here), which was 43. Granted, the forthcoming “maxi-cassingle” is kind of a hodge-podge of things put together to sell on tour — five weeks in Spring is Darsombra doing like they do — but still. They are a band for whom such boundaries and distinctions hold little meaning. That is, as hinted by the number above, only part of their charm.
Also that I have a release of theirs in the Quarterly Review next week and they’re already doing something new. That’s part of it too.
There are dates to fill in here, and I bet if you asked nicely and had a P.A. handy and some cash to compensate their efforts, Darsombra would totally do a set at your house. You know I’ve wanted to ask, especially as a parent trying to raise my child to be the right kind of weirdo.
This came from Bandcamp, and really I’m just happy to have any excuse to write about Darsombra.
So good for me, I guess:
Darsombra Spring Tour & More
DARSOMBRA SPRING TOUR 2022 Apr 16 – Baltimore MD @ Ottobar – Grim Reefer Fest Apr 23 – Pittsburgh (McKees Rocks) PA @ Black Forge II Apr 24 – Cincinnati OH @ Northside Tavern Apr 25 – Bloomington IN @ The I Fell Apr 26 – Springfield MO @ Lindberg’s Apr 27 – Oklahoma City OK @ Aces of 8 Apr 29 – Santa Fe NM @ Cirque Du So Gay Apr 30 – Albuquerque NM @ Guild Cinema May 4 – Flagstaff AZ @ Kickstand Kafe May 6 – Tijuana Mexico @ Torre Astral May 7 – San Diego CA @ TBA May 8 – Mexicali Mexico @ TBA May 13 – Los Angeles CA @ The Offbeat May 14 – San Luis Obispo CA @ Mee Heng Low May 15 – San Francisco CA @ Bottom of the Hill May 24 – Colorado Springs CO @ Fritzy’s May 25 – Denver CO @ Skylark May 27 – Lawrence KS @ Eighth St. Taproom May 28 – Kansas City MO @ miniBar May 29 – Dayton OH @ Blind Bob’s
Happy spring from Darsombra!
We say a huge thank you to everyone who made our last six shows in the southeast happen—you all really came through, and it was an absolute pleasure to hit the stage for you again! We are aiming to hit the road AGAIN this spring Hopefully we’ll get to catch up with you somewhere along our journey out west!
What’s a 5-week spring tour without new music to share with you all? We are happy to announce the upcoming release of our new maxi-cassingle, “Call the Doctor/Nightgarden EP”. You may ask, “what’s a maxi-cassingle?” It’s a single—a cassette-only release of last year’s “Call the Doctor/Nightgarden” digital-only EP—plus a little extra, with a 2020 live recording of our 2012 song “Thunder Thighs”, and a new exclusive track titled “Fill Up The Glass”, both on the B-side. It’s a 50+ minute single, on cassette—hence, maxi-cassingle!
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 1st, 2022 by JJ Koczan
After cancelation in 2020 and no event in 2021, Grim Reefer Fest returns in 2022 in Baltimore this April with headliners Heavy Temple and a slew of others. If you can’t make it to The Ottobar on April 16 for whatever reason — no judgment here, sometimes you’re busy — they’ve reportedly got some kind of streaming thing in the works, so it’d be killer if that happens, and all the more so since the lineup is so killer. Dirt Woman‘s self-titled was a gem of that wretched pandemic year, and Darsombra are like a joyous UPS of weird — they always deliver.
Some, like Cavern and I think Heavy Temple, are carryovers from the 2020 bill, but of course bands have different plans and so on so it’s not the an exact redux from one year to the other. I’d love to get down there for this one, but even if I end up streaming it, it’s easy to be stoked on the thing.
Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door — reasonable — but I’m not sure on the streaming option pricing, should that come together. In any case, here’s the lineup in all its fucking-a glory:
GRIM REEFER FEST 2022 – April 16, The Ottobar, Baltimore, MD
We attempted to recreate the lineup of the 2020 fest which was canceled, only a few bands from that list were able to join us but we’re hoping to have any band that was unable to play 2022 join us in future events. Due to a slight fear of having to cancel/reschedule again we opted for primarily local regional bands but we’re still extremely excited about this lineup from start to finish.
When/Where Sat 4/16/22 at the Ottobar in Baltimore, MD
The lineup (in general order of headlining at the top): Heavy Temple Grave Bathers Darsombra Haze Mage Cavern TEL Compression Dirt Woman Mast Year
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Everybody’s favorite dronefreak two-piece Darsombra return to the road headed west to begin a round of shows on Oct. 1 in probably-already-snowing-there Minnesota. They’ll nobly be bringing their one-of-a-kind weirdness to venues and what I’ll assume will also be a couple show-up-and-where-can-I-plug-this-in kind of spots, as they’re wont to do. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton do their thing in-person, but the creative freedom they embody remains admirable, and they posted the Call the Doctor / Nightgarden 25-minute two-songer back in April to prove it.
A new full-length? Sure, one of these days, maybe. Honestly, I’m not sure why they don’t just record every show they play and put that out, improving their way into a discography in the thousands over however many years, but we live in a dimension of many yet-unexplained phenomena, so I’ll just go ahead and plop that on the long list of shit I don’t know and roll along anyhow. Blerp blerp. Also I kind of feel like a square thinking of them doing something so mundane as an album at this point. So suburban, this one.
They posted dates on social media and the algorithm very kindly presented it to me thusly:
Surprise! Darsombra is about to go on tour again!
For the month of October, we will be making our way from the east coast to the Pacific northwest and back again. It’s been almost two years since we’ve embarked on a long tour, and touring sure looks a lot different now. There will be both outdoor and indoor performances, as well as sporadic pop-up shows. We will be taking measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as we travel, such as being fully vaccinated, masking, and regular testing. Please check with the venue in your area, as there will be COVID protocols in place at many of them.
DARSOMBRA TOUR FALL 2021 Oct 1 – Duluth MN @ Blush Oct 2 – Fargo ND @ Red Raven Oct 3 – Soldier Creek SD @ Vinyl-ly Alive Oct 5 – Rapid City SD Oct 8 – Seattle WA @ Darrell’s Oct 9 – Olympia WA @ Cryptatropa Oct 15 – Portland OR @ High Water Mark Oct 20 – Boise ID @ The Shredder Oct 23 – Lincoln NE @ 2SMOOV Oct 24 – Rock Island IL @ The Spot
We’re very excited to take the show on the road again! We’ve missed you all immensely! Keep an eye on our social media accounts for the latest updates on pop-up shows, as well as the status of our scheduled shows (changes may occur).
Here’s the deal — last week or somewhere thereabouts, someone on Twitter was bitching about rock music being dead and blah blah the usual good music doesn’t come to me in the ways it did when I was 12 and therefore I think it’s irrelevant. The usual. Gimme Metal was mentioned as an outlet delivering good heavy to those who care enough to invest the minimal effort of clicking ‘listen.’ Dude was all “well if they played Trouble I’d listen” and Gimme rightly responded with a list of DJs who might be on board for such a thing. I was one of them.
Brought into the conversation I said hell yes I’d play Trouble. And as it happens I’ve gone ahead to play them twice, at the start of the show, and then follow it up with a bunch of other killer doom, old, newer and newer still, before circling back on the mother of them all, Black Fucking Sabbath, because when my name is brought into a random Twitter conversation and a challenge is issued, you bet your ass I’m going overboard. So pretty much the first hour of the show is doomed as all get-out. Trouble even through The Quill, who I thought were a good match for Dehumanizer-era Sabbath with that track from their new record.
Sometimes you gotta step up. Or something. I don’t know. I was just happen to have something to talk about in the voice breaks other than my kid or “thanks for listening.”
By the way, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 04.16.21
Trouble
The Tempter
Psalm 9
Trouble
R.I.P.
Trouble
Saint Vitus
Burial at Sea
Saint Vitus
Place of Skulls
Last Hit
With Vision
VT
The Gates of Slumber
The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)
…The Awakening
Apostle of Solitude
Grey Farewell
From Gold to Ash
The Obsessed
Neatz Brigade
The Church Within
Black Sabbath
After All (The Dead)
Dehumanizer
The Quill
Evil Omen
Earthrise
VT
Boss Keloid
Gentle Clovis
Family the Smiling Thrush
Hippie Death Cult
Hornet Party
Circle of Days
NOÊTA
Elm
Elm
Kosmodemonic
Morai
Liminal Light
Hellish Form
Shadows with Teeth
Remains
VT
Darsombra
Call the Doctor (Sun Side)
Call the Doctor / Nightgarden
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 30 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Questionnaire on April 9th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
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: Brian Daniloski of Darsombra
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I define myself as Brian Daniloski, and life is what I do, all the time, until I die. If I had to give a bio to the world of what I would like to be remembered for, I would describe myself as an artist. My primary artistic practices are music composition, playing music, and performing music (which to me is different than, but also involves, playing music), among other artistic practices, like decorating my home, making breakfast, gardening, etc. Beyond that, I am also a yoga teacher and student, bicycle-riding, hiking, nature-loving, peace-loving, kind of a person, and I do a whole bunch of other not very exciting things too.
As to how I came to do the bio-to-the-world stuff, I dreamed of being a musician when I was about 9, soon after getting the (at that time) new KISS album, Rock and Roll Over. KISS changed my life. I started plunking around on a guitar shortly after that. My first guitar was a very shitty acoustic guitar that I picked up at a yard sale. I’m pretty sure it didn’t even have all six strings. It was the kind of guitar that would discourage most people from playing guitar, but I would pick out stuff like “Smoke on the Water” or the Twilight Zone theme by ear, and do pick slides and funny glissando runs up and down the strings all day to amuse myself and anyone nearby.
About a year or two after that, I got my first electric guitar and started taking guitar lessons from a music store in town. I learned several basic chords and some Beatles songs, but never learned to read music very efficiently. Although I could read a chord chart (if the chords weren’t too technically intense, and then eventually there was guitar tablature, which is much easier to read than traditional music notation), I pretty much taught myself to play music by ear, and sometimes, whenever I had the rare opportunity in those days, by watching another guitarist. At some point a neighborhood friend showed me how to play a barre chord, and that was a major revelation. I did the whole jam-by-myself-in-my-teenage-bedroom thing for many years before I felt confident enough in my abilities to play with others.
During the last years of high school, I started performing in some not-so-serious bands with friends, and did that sort of thing on and off for the next few years. We only ever played a couple of shows. I tried writing a tune here or there, but it wasn’t until I bought a four-track cassette recorder that I started really getting into composing.
Around that time, I also started going to underground shows. Before this, I was just going to a lot of arena rock shows, but those musicians were like untouchable gods to me. The chasm between playing in my bedroom or jamming with some friends in a garage, and actually playing a show on a stage to an audience seemed intimidatingly immense. It wasn’t until I saw the Butthole Surfers perform an awesome mind-bending show for a sold-out enthusiastic audience in this small shithole basement punk rock club in Baltimore, that I started to think that perhaps that chasm wasn’t as big as I’d imagined.
Soon after that, now in my early twenties, I started a band with my younger brother. That was in the late ’80s. Very quickly, we started getting serious with it. By serious, I mean we started writing songs, making and releasing recordings, and playing live shows. Within a few years, it went from just playing shows around Baltimore, Maryland, to playing shows that were within a 4-6 hour driving radius from Baltimore, to touring pretty regularly all over the US.
I haven’t stopped doing that sort of thing since. Only the cast of characters that I’ve done it with, and how far away we’ve been able to tour, has changed over the years. Over 30 years in, and I still spend a good chunk of every year as a wandering musician exploring the globe (2020 not so much — although we did get to perform our first show in Mexico before the pandemic shut everything down), and pretty much every day of my life I am involved in music, or some artistic creative process, and thankful of that.
I feel especially fortunate and grateful to have found a partner in crime to do this with. I’m not so sure that I would still be doing this the way I do it at this age, had the circumstances been different. Leaving behind significant others to go driving around in a van full of dudes for chunks of time, like I used to, doesn’t have as much appeal for me these days. I still do the same thing, driving around in a van to play shows, but the atmosphere is much more agreeable with my partner and bestest buddy along for the adventure.
Describe your first musical memory.
I remember deriving a great deal of joy from this enormous record-player-stereo-console-furniture-thing that my parents had. It must have been about the size of a refrigerator lying on its side. This would have been the early ’70s. They would play vinyl LP records on it like The Beatles Abbey Road, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, soundtracks to popular musicals of the time, Smothers Brothers comedy albums, and childrens records. There was a lot of music and dancing in the living room. I instantly loved music.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
“Best” is a really hard word for me, but one of my favorite musical moments was playing music outside by the side of the highway in rural Wyoming during a total solar eclipse. The high from the performance was incredible even though there were only two people in attendance — two tourists from Germany just happened to show up to watch the eclipse right as we were getting ready to start playing, a father and his son. The dad seemed to dig it okay; the son, not so much, as he seemed more interested in whatever he was doing on his smartphone. We were so charged from playing the show that we drove four hours to the Badlands of South Dakota, set up our gear again at the top of a mesa, and played over the Badlands as the sun went down that same day. There aren’t a lot of days like that.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I feel like my beliefs are questioned and tested all the time, so I try not to hold them too firmly. I’m always questioning everything, even myself. I think it was .38 Special that said “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.” I can go along with that sentiment, even if I’m not too crazy about the band or the song.
But seriously, reality is not real, or it is at least highly subjective, and therefore malleable. Once one accepts this, then it’s kind of hard to have too firm of a hold on a belief or idea. I think it’s good to have one’s beliefs tested. If your beliefs can’t withstand a test or two, maybe it’s time for a reassessment of that belief.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Down the rabbit hole, hopefully!
How do you define success?
My personal definition of success is being able to spend most of one’s time doing what one wants. I’ve always aimed at that, to varying degrees of success. ;)
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Well, it’s nothing horrible like being in a war, but on my way home from work one day, I saw two kittens run into a busy intersection and get run over by some cars right in front of me. That was something I wish I hadn’t seen. Other than that, I’m sure there’s a long list of bad movies that would fit the bill.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
We haven’t created the next Darsombra album yet, but we’re working on it, and having a blast! One day I’d like to create an all-synth album, but it’s really hard to put the guitar down, it’s like a third arm. Perhaps a time machine. That might be fun.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Self-expression. Then after that, I’d say inspiration and/or evocation.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I look forward to socializing like we used to before the pandemic, being able to hug family and friends (instead of acting under the assumption that we’re all lepers), and not having to wear a mask as much.
