Strange to check out without any other posts on a Friday, I know. There’s actually a lot of news that needs to go up — Witchcraft were announced as headlining Desertfest in Berlin, Trippy Wicked were added to the London fest and I’ve got a new song from Endless Boogie and a new single from Radio Moscow that I’d like to post — as well as a review of sludge madmen Fire to Fields that I said I’d post this week, but this morning a dog my sister got me in high school — that’s me trying to distance myself from it and not say “my dog” — had to be put down at 15 and to be honest, my head’s just not in the right space for reviewing anyone’s anything. I’m gonna go home, get in bed, and watch Futurama in the dark. The other stuff I’ll post tomorrow.

Not telling you this in some internet bitching plea for sympathy, just trying to explain why there are no other posts today. In the meantime, when it comes to my own particular vision of escapism, nothing quite does it like Duna Jam. The above clip of Zagreb heavy psych rockers Seven that Spells was filmed in 2010 and I guess the best thing you could say about it (or anything else, ever), is that the band stands up tonally to the gorgeousness and lushness of their surroundings on the beach in Sardinia. Maybe one of these years I’ll get there. I think I’d probably have to win the lottery, lose 100 pounds and buy $20,000 worth of photo equipment first, but hey, could happen.

Thanks to all for reading as always, and even though I’ll be posting tomorrow and I’m not really signing off, I hope you have a great weekend. A quick last-minute kudos to Clamfight, who’ve been added to Stoner Hands of Doom XIII along with Lo-Pan, Freedom Hawk, It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Order of the Owl and others. More news on that to come as well next week, and though I’m loathe to promise something and then not have time to deliver on it, my plan is also to post the 20 albums I’m looking forward to in 2013. I started just with 10 and then it turned out there was too much good stuff in the works for this year to leave it at that, so yeah, keep an eye open.

Okay, I split. Back at it tomorrow, and if you were waiting on something in particular to go up, your patience is appreciated.

I feel like Duna Jam, the semi-official festival at which the above Yawning Man clip was shot this very year, represents the ultimate rock and roll pipe dream. Here are a few truly special, truly great bands — 2011’s incarnation featured the desert rock progenitors among some of their more celebrated offspring in Colour Haze, Sungrazer and Highway Child, among many others — getting together in an environment that’s completely intimate, but still totally open and probably among the most beautiful spots on the planet. Looking at the video from this year and the photos and clips that have emerged from years past, it’s not just a matter of being jealous of those fortunate enough to attend and wishing I was there, but of wishing I was there and was one of those people, was someone worthy of witnessing that, which I know completely that no matter what I do, I will never be.

Back here in reality, this week caps off with the start of what’s sure to be a beery kind of weekend owing to sundry unrelated social obligations throughout the course. Whatever. If all I was using those brain cells for was wishing I was at Duna Jam, they weren’t doing me any good anyway. Nonetheless, provided survival, next week we’ll do the numbers for July (I haven’t looked, so I can’t give some clue as to how they are), as well as reviews of Blut, Sleestak and, hopefully, Freedom Hawk.

I’ll also have an email interview I conducted with the dudes in Borracho, in which they provided some insight into how the band came together from the remnants of Adam West and Assrockers, as well as hopefully some new audio from a certain British heavy rock band getting ready to land an impressive self-titled debut full-length on an increasingly well-reputed label. Apologies for the vagueness, but I don’t want to leave myself on the hook for something and not deliver, as I did last week when I promised a review of The Re-Stoned without remembering I’d already written up the album. Boy, is my face… dumb?

But enough of this ultra-self-aware, semi-intoxicated me-bashing. It’s well after two in the a period m periods, and I’m late for sleeping. I hope wherever you are or whatever you’re up to, you have a safe and air conditioned weekend, and I hope to catch you on the forum and back here Monday for more zany fun. Dig yourself, Lazarus.