Posted in Whathaveyou on May 28th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
It’s beautiful, innit? A perfect mesh of nostalgia for what was and laying claim to what may yet be. Emissions From the Monolith isn’t just returning to remind people it was there 20-plus years ago when the notion of a festival celebrating underground heavy from sludge to psych — that kind of genrefest — wasn’t entirely unheard of but was nowhere near as widespread or taken for granted as it is now. It’s looking ahead. You get Torche (!) and Rebreather, but you also get Howling Giant and High Desert Queen. Fistula and Winds of Neptune. That’s gonna be a wild few days.
I ran into Ben from The Brought Low this past weekend in Brooklyn, and nearly the first words out of his mouth were asking if I would be in Ohio this October. Four-day fest plus a day of travel on either side makes it less feasible, especially coming off In the Key of Doom, also in NYC, the weekend before. It would be a challenge and would require a lot of indulgence on my wife’s part. I’m not sure I can make that ask, actually. And I’m not sure I have a car that I would trust to make it to and from Ohio. I guess that’s a factor too.
But you never know what the next few months will bring, and the lineup is gorgeous either way, so here it is as posted by the fest on socials:
EMISSIONS FROM THE MONOLITH 10 — FINAL POSTER + FULL LINEUP REVEAL
After nearly two decades away, Emissions From The Monolith returns October 8–11, 2026 at Westside Bowl in Youngstown, Ohio.
Four days of underground heavy music presented on a single stage with full sets and absolutely no overlaps.
Built around immersion, discovery, flow, and community rather than festival sprawl, Emissions has always focused on the experience of being there from start to finish.
We’re intentionally choosing not to sell the room to maximum capacity. Comfort matters more.
Final poster artwork by Mercerrock (Brian Mercer Design)
FULL LINEUP Axioma BAT Bongzilla Cavity A.D. Deadbird Disengage edhochuli Fistula Generation of Vipers Great Falls High Desert Queen Horseburner Howling Giant Kowloon Walled City Lake Lake Lo-Pan Minsk O.I.L. rebreather Rwake Shun Solace Stinking Lizaveta Sunrot Telekinetic Yeti The Brought Low THUNDERCHIEF TODAY IS THE DAY Torche Voivod Weedeater Winds Of Neptune
October 8–11, 2026 Westside Bowl — Youngstown, Ohio
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 4th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
Some of the finest the US Midwest has to offer will make its way to Emissions From the Monolith 10 this October in Ohio, with Fistula, Bongzilla, Lo-Pan, Axioma and Minsk, and O.I.L. too if you count Pittsburgh as the Midwest. Alongside those, Voidvod and Torche! Like, oh, no big deal. I knew Emissions was taking some big swings in its return year, with noisier bands like Cavity and Today is the Day, but Voivod are another level of weirdo-unplaceable, and alongside Minsk, who haven’t had a full-length out in 11 years and somehow that just makes the thought of seeing them cooler, and Ryan Waste of Municipal Waste‘s Bat, this lineup feels like it’s moving quickly into the realm of unfuckwithability.
Is the lineup complete? I’m not entirely sure. It doesn’t say either way on the poster, so maybe there are more adds or maybe not. Either way, I don’t see how you could look at the single-stage/four-day sprawl of bands — theoretically I could go to Emissions in October and see all of it; I like that idea — and feel like something’s missing, especially now that the word Torche appears in it.
Some oldschool, some newschool, and not a single not-on-purpose bummer in the bunch:
EMISSIONS FROM THE MONOLITH 10 – TRANSMISSION 3
A third wave of artists joins Emissions from the Monolith 10.
October 8–11, 2026 at Westside Bowl in Youngstown, Ohio.
Previously announced: Cavity Deadbird Disengage Edhochuli Generation of Vipers Great Falls High Desert Queen Horseburner Howling Giant Kowloon Walled City Lake Lake Rebreather Rwake Shun Solace Stinking Lizaveta Sunrot Telekinetic Yeti The Brought Low Thunderchief Today Is The Day Weedeater Winds of Neptune
One stage.
No overlaps.
Four days of total immersion in the heavy underground
Ohio sludge malevolents Fistula release their 11th full-length, Galaxies of Disappointment, this Friday, March 10, with vinyl on Totem Cat Records and cassettes through Bastard Premonition Tapes. And if you’re the type to look at the world around you in absolute visceral disgust, hang your head at the new depths and lows human beings seem to take such stupid delight in discovering hour by hour and feel sick to your stomach, Fistula are there and have been for the better part of the last 30 years. In any incarnation — and lineup changes aren’t necessarily constant, but happen — Fistula remain among the most scathing the Midwestern underground has to offer, with a bite and hard-drugs nod that still sound like sludge taken to its logical, misanthropic extremity. With founding drummer Corey Bing (Sollubi, Morbid Wizard, Ultralord, many others) as the mainstay, guitarists Scott Stearns (also Sollubi, Morbid Wizard, Ultralord, and also many others) and Greg Bacher, bassist Greg “Buddy” Peel (who’s been with them at least a decade now) and vocalist Shane Post (Bird of Ill Omen), the procession is punishing enough to meet the high standard the band have set in that regard, and revels in it with a catharsis most people’s minds would be unable to process even if they were inclined to try.
Opener “You Were Abused… And So On” and “The Unhappy Man,” then, aren’t throwing shit by happenstance, and as they draw a line from punk and hardcore through tonal morass into a pummel that would be death metal if it wanted, Fistula are for sure in their element. Galaxies of Disappointment runs like a seven-track/36-minute endurance test, and it’s one that many, many people who take it on will fail. That’s always been the case, and the level of disaffection in Post‘s raw-throated, high-register screams, in the wash of the cymbals and the distorted rumble of bass at the outset of “Expire” are prime examples of how Fistula occupy their own place in the annals of fuckall. If it seems like I’m speaking in hyperbole, congratulations, you get it. Stylistically, that’s exactly how Fistula operate — they are all in on the in-dark-hallways violence and harshness; letup is rare to the point of nonexistence, and the most accessible thing about Galaxies of Disappointment is that it’s under 40 minutes long — and as they make a centerpiece of the 11-minute title-track, the caustic lumber is like running facefirst into a wall of loathing, trading out the ripper sensibility of “You Were Abused… And So On” for longer-form fire-setting.
Samples are peppered into “Something Real” — the stuff of classic sludge metal — from the 1985 movie Mask and I don’t know where, portraying the outsider, positioning the band as ‘other,’ not that the song surrounding didn’t. There’s a kind of punched-numb feeling after “Galaxies of Disappointment” and the clear (sampled) speech in “Something Real” grounds some, but the onslaught gets correspondingly nastier, so no worries. The penultimate “You Take” follows and ups the tempo some, with Post again losing his fucking mind in sustained, largely indecipherable screaming, and more omnidirectional rage, while closer “Fool’s Choice” slows down slightly and thickens up the low end enough to sound bigger without actually cutting the pace all that much until a quick bass-and-vocals-and-noise break turns around to a slower roll. That seems for a time to be how they’re going to end it, but ultimately they bring “Fool’s Choice” back around to that break and play off that again to cap in as noisy and skin-peeling as possible. You couldn’t ask for more.
The album’s on the player below and you can hear it if you’re feeling bold, but here’s the thing about Fistula: someone’s going to tell you they don’t give a shit. With such pervasive antieverythingism, they might even tell you themselves. But a band like this doesn’t exist for 28 years if the people behind it don’t on some level in fact care very deeply about the expression, the sound, the physicality of the music in their lives. It’s not that Fistula don’t give a shit. What they portray is actively against norms, and the key word is active. They can proffer all the disdain in the world, but they’re still making art from it, and that is a creative rather than destructive process, as destructive as the art itself may feel.
Something to think about while you pound your brains with the record premiering here, followed by more from the PR wire. Please enjoy:
Fistula, Galaxies of Disappointment album premiere
Ohio’s Fistula return with yet another devastating collection of raw punk/sludge/doom on their latest album, titled Galaxies of Disappointment. Marking album number 11, along with countless EPs and splits, since their 1998 inception, Fistula have been impressively prolific to say the least, while also teetering on the edge of obscurity. It’s no easy feat being a band that long and steadily churning out consistent top-notch releases, despite line-up changes, but Fistula – with Corey Bing at the helm – have done it over and over again, and this album is no exception.
Created over the past few years while on hiatus from playing shows, Galaxies of Disappointment features Fistula’s intense and distinct brand of pure, grimy, noisy punk combined with NOLA-esque sludge and gnarly, nihilistic doom. The album is comprised of seven relentless new tracks, incorporating a balanced mix of heavy, mid-tempo aggression with groove-filled low and slow crawling misery. Fistula keep things simple, as all good sludge should be, yet the shift in tempos maintains interest and unpredictability, while the musicianship is legitimately tight throughout.
Each track is as ugly and nasty and Fistula’s moniker suggests. Acidic fuzzed-out guitars and scathing noise are coupled with blood-pumping drums and corrosive vocals, which creates an intense, vitriolic listening experience akin to the likes of crust-sludge legends Dystopia. Even during the moments the tempo slows down, Fistula’s crushing intensity still grabs you by the throat and never lets go. Completely visceral and abrasive, Galaxies of Disappointment is the sonic equivalent to the despondent world we live in. Bing says, “These songs weren’t supposed to see the light of day, it was just a time where this music reflects the life around us, and we just document it.”
Fistula now also have a reinvigorated line-up, with Bing holding it down as the only original member, and they are once again returning to playing live. He says, “We have been getting tons of emails and texts with people showing us love and wanting us to tour and exist again and it is flattering that anyone gives two shits about the noise we make. I’m fortunate anyone cares.”
Galaxies of Disappointment is being released on vinyl courtesy of Totem Cat Records in France. CDs self-released by the band and tapes handled by Bastard Premonition Tapes. (Press release written by Denise McCready.)
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 25th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
With more reportedly on the way, the Pittsburgh-based dark arts heavyfest Descendants of Crom has announced the first round of acts for its seventh — or VIIth, if you prefer — edition this September. Set to take place over two days, Sept. 26-27, at Thunderbird Music Hall, the festival continues its strong run of doom, metal and sludge with this year’s lineup from the rank pill-popped Midwestern apathy of Fistula to Crypt Sermon‘s trad-metal standard-bearing, Black Tusk‘s progressive take on Southern heavy and Valkyrie‘s pastoral, modernized classic rock, and much more besides.
It hadn’t occurred to me until I was grabbing the embed at the bottom of this post, but fest-staples Rebreather — I need to buy a new Rebreather shirt because my last one got a hole in the side and I don’t want to be without one — are four years removed from their killer comebacker The Line, its Width and the War Drone (review here), and I can’t help but be curious if the sludge-rooted Ohio outfit will have anything new in the works. Time for some social media digging? Yeah, maybe after I put that shirt in my Bandcamp cart.
Much continued respect to Descendants of Crom VII headed into its seventh year. I’ve never been — it’s traditionally right around the weekend of my wedding anniversary, Sept. 28 — but it’s always cool to see who’ll be there and to keep up as the fest has expanded its palette and grown into the warrior you see before you on the poster. Killer.
Dig:
DESCENDANTS OF CROM VII – September 26 & 27 – Pittsburgh, PA
The forge is burning hot—it’s time to reveal the first wave of bands confirmed for this year’s gathering of the underground faithful. DOC VII returns with two days of heavy music, diverse in sound and tone, never compromising on originality or quality.
…and more to come, including our co-headliners, regional support, vendors, and sponsors.
EARLY CROW “WEEKEND WARRIOR” PASSES ON SALE NOW: Very limited—only 50 available Available through July 4 or until sold out –After that: regular advance single-day & weekend passes launch
No band submissions please, but vendors and sponsors can still reach out to Blackseed Services.
Come join our celebration this year, after all… We Are All Descendants of Crom ⚔️
EARLY CROW WEEKEND WARRIOR $50, 50 tickets available
Advance single day and weekend pass tickets will be available after the Early Crow options are gone or on July 4th.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 11th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Shit, man. Anybody got a line on a crash spot in Little Rock? Mutants of the Monster Fest — or if you’re on friendly terms you can go with Mutants Fest, like on the poster — has announced its initial lineup for May 16-18, with John Garcia as the first headliner. I’m not sure if it’s a solo show or with the full backing as John Garcia and the Band of Gold, but as noted below he’ll be doing Kyuss songs in addition to his own stuff and if the universe aligns just so, you might even get a track from the catalogs of SloBurn, Unida or Hermano, the latter of whom have reissues out on Ripple now.
But Garcia is just the start and down the line through Weedeater and Telekinetic Yeti (tour partners again?), Spirit Adrift, Deadbird, Fistula, Rebelmatic, Flummox, Medicine Horse, Seahag and Adam Faucett, and the sense of curation remains strong. Mammoth Caravan will have a new record out by the time they play, and they might not be the only ones, but even if everyone showed up with nothing on the merch table (highly unlikely), it’d still be a riotous bill and there’s more to come since, you know, three days and all that.
Tickets are available through Last Chance Records as linked below. I’ll do my best to keep up are more names are added to Mutants of the Monster 2024. Here’s how the PR wire put it:
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST 2024 Reveals First Wave of Bands; Incl. John Garcia (ex-Kyuss), Weedeater, Telekinetic Yeti, Spirit Adrift + More!
Taking place in North Little Rock, AR at the Argenta Community Theater and Four Quarter Bar from May 16-18!
MUTANTS OF THE MONSTER FEST will return in 2024 to Little Rock, AR from May 16-18! The multi-day festival will take place in the Argenta Arts District and has revealed the first wave of bands, which is as follows:
JOHN GARCIA (Formerly of Kyuss playing all of the hits!) WEEDEATER SPIRIT ADRIFT FISTULA DEADBIRD TELEKINETIC YETI DEEPSTARIA ENIGMATICA MEDICINE HORSE ADAM FAUCETT REBELMATIC FLUMMOX WHETHER SEAHAG OROROR CRANKBAIT MAMMOTH CARAVAN SPORTS DIREWOLF
Early bird tickets are now available HERE starting today through Monday, December 11. The pass will cover both stages for all three days of the event.
Posted in Reviews on December 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Based in Brest, France, and founded in 2010, Totem Cat Records marks its 50th release in admirably punishing style with the four-way split Cadaver Monuments. Given the opportunity to say something about the imprint’s ongoing mission, Cadaver Monuments teems with curated filth. You start with 16. Okay? That’s where you start. Then you’ve got Arkansas’ Deadbird, and then Nightstick show up and as will happen in such instances, shit goes right off the rails. And to mop up the innards, outtards, uppers and downers is chemically-preserved Ohio mainstays Fistula, who sound at this point like they should be on tour with Cannibal Corpse. That’s Totem Cat declaring who they are? It’s not the entirety of the label’s scope, but while also giving a home to bands like Karma to Burn and Bongzilla — and let’s not forget releasing the most recent offering from Sons of Otis; peace upon it — founder Ewenn Padovan has displayed a penchant for the nastier end of nasty, and in that regard, Cadaver Monuments is one hell of a party.
But understand, this isn’t a party like you show up and there’s a bounce-house or somebody’s got the grill going and you’re playing some tunes in the back yard. This is a party like oops someone just overdosed. Consider the trajectory of the included 13 songs and 53 minutes of music. First of all, it’s hilarious to find a context in which 16 seem like the voice of reason, but even as they launch the collection with “Crust Fund” — the chorus of which just might be, “You suck” — and all due bloodboil, Cadaver Monuments pushes deeper from there with Deadbird‘s generally-semi-hinged atmosludge, the will-forever-be-avant-garde-because-they’re-ahead-of-a-time-that’s-never-coming garage crust wrought by Nightstick, and Fistula‘s death-spreading pestilent extremity, still somehow rooted in punk if not to the degree of Nightstick, who share a sense of suburban fuckery, hopelessness and disillusion. The progression feels purposeful and it is consuming. “Crust Fund” is the shortest cut at 2:30 save for “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum” by Nightstick still to come, and is backed by the Black Flag cover “Beat My Head Against the Wall,” which is respectfully delivered, and the Los Angeles mainstays finish “Broken Minds,” an easy pick for a highlight of the split with the kind of violence-inducing chug that 16‘s most recent LP, 2022’s Into Dust (review here), so gloriously proffered.
They are well met by Deadbird, whose sound has always spoken to me of some nighttime threat, probably in the woods, but who doom on “Static Pain” with a lurch that’s more in league with the emotionalism of Warning until the screaming starts, if rawer in the recording. As each band gets about 10-15 minutes, Deadbird complement the original track with a take on Celtic Frost‘s “Dethroned Emperor” that picks up from the drone that ends “Static Pain” with amp noise and that classic riff. I don’t know where or when the band recorded this cover, but it’s a shift in production from “Static Pain” (I think) that keeps clarity even as “Dethroned Emperor” grows madder after its initial verse and continues its thrust toward its coming-apart-but-fuck-it ending. Deadbird don’t do a ton outside their local area, but the band goes back over 20 years — you might recall they’re tight with Rwake, whose frontman CT has taken part and I think does at least some vocals here — and if you can catch them, it would be advisable. The transition from them to Nightstick is the most dramatic aesthetic shift Cadaver Monuments has to make. True to form, swagger and fuckall seal it.
If you’re unfamiliar with the oeuvre of the South Shore, Massachusetts-based experimental unit, they are truly a psychological experience. They begin with “The Ballad of Richie Gardner” — who the hell is Richie Gardner? I don’t know but he’s probably dead or in jail — and tell a tale of local sexual abuse that might have happened in real life before breaking the track in half and jamming out on the kind of riff that makes you go up to them after the show. Nighstick subsequently slunk into a cover of The Beatles‘ “Yer Blues” that is so much more about death than the blues as to remove the pop from one of the greatest pop songwriters of all-time — it rules, it’s scathing, it’s certainly true to the spirit of the original and the lyrics, and I have to think that somewhere out there a 90-year-old experimentalist artist named Yoko Ono would approve. “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum” is mostly vocals but has some acoustic guitar and seagulls at the end — folk Americana, about homelessness — and the noise and distortion rumbling in “Elizabeth (For Larry Lifeless)” as the titular name is repeated in drawling fashion, while a woman, presumably Elizabeth, says, “You can’t find me, I’m a ghost,” over and over.
Vague and sad in like proportion and blowing out in the last of its sub-three minutes with jazz drums and consuming static wub, “Elizabeth (For Larry Lifeless)” sounds like what you’d find if American popular culture took off its makeup. Like Swans but working class punk instead of arthouse couture. Of course they finish with a take on Wilson Pickett‘s famous “Land of 1,000 Dances,” grunting out the names of dances from the first half of the 1960s with Hellhammer rawness behind. Solo is a total wash. It’s not the kind of fuckery everyone will be able to level with, but the big end and sampled laughs at the end of Nightstick‘s time are a fair enough lead into Fistula, who begin with outright slaughter disguised as “The Toll.” Denser in tone than when I last encountered them, the last of Cadaver Monuments‘ four features roll disgustingly slow and top their harsh-your-mellow megasludge with gnashing, nodule-forming, actually-sounds-like-a-monster monstrous vocals — the whisper to kill yourself before the mosh riff notwithstanding — and from there “The Toll” hits into grindcore, which is both long established in Fistula‘s wheelhouse and, frankly, called for by the proceedings to this point.
I won’t say much for the sentiment behind “Methican American,” but if you’re so hard up that you’re going to Fistula for kindnesses, I recommend a hasty rethink on your entire life. Going fast to slow to fast to slow to fast and injecting low growls under the manic gnashing, the song comes across, well, like it went to Fistula for kindnesses. It and split-capper “Words Decompose” are thick like the concrete in the foundation of a new federal prison, with double-kick furthering the assault as the third of Fistula‘s three inclusion lumbers through its verse. They’ll finish quiet — which is hilarious — but answer the call to violence of 16 earlier with their own urgency. It is not the wildest, most insane I’ve ever heard Fistula sound, and it’s metal-based more than punk, but if they’re methodical in their killing, they’re no less lethal for that.
16 got together in 1991, Nightstick in 1992, Fistula in 1998, and Deadbird in 2002 with a pedigree that goes back farther. For its 50th release, Totem Cat Records embraced the chance to thank its audience, to give the people who’ve followed the label’s growth something special, and to communicate the ethics by which it at least in part operates. These are not short-term bands who tried to make a flash-in-the-pan impact and faded away when the next thing came along on Bandcamp. These are acts who’ve stood up to time and whose respective approaches vary but are uniformly uncompromising. That’s setting a high standard to attain, but the label should be used to that by now too.
I’ll admit, it was thinking of the festival itself rather than this compilation in particular that brought Emissions from the Monolith to mind. The festival, which ran annually the last weekend in May in Youngstown, Ohio, between 2000 and 2006 (there was also one in Chicago in 2001) before its final installment in Austin, Texas, in 2007, was a pioneer of heavy festivals in the US. At that point, outside of showcase events like SXSW and the roughly-concurrent Stoner Hands of Doom fest, which started in 1999 and ran until 2013 in various cities, there wasn’t a ton happening in terms of heavy underground gatherings of its level. Run by Greg Barratt, then also of Tone Deaf Touring, it was a celebration of sludge, noise, doom and everything else heavy whose early lineups read like pages out of riffy history. Imagine seeing Penance and Bongzilla and Spirit Caravan in 2000, or Pale Divine, Witch Mountain and Dragon Green in 2001. To-date, the 2006 Emissions fest is the only show Colour Haze have ever played in the US, and while its commitment to the deep underground was unquestionable in supporting bands like Test-Site, Wooly Mammoth and Kung Pao, and its aesthetic would continue to expand, its foundation always seemed to be in raw, visceral and heavy noise rock.
Which brings us to the 11-track compilation at hand. The 2003 lineup for Emissions from the Monolith featured the likes of Acid King, The Hidden Hand, Pelican, Dixie Witch, Halfway to Gone, Erik Larson, Solace, Mastodon, The Atomic Bitchwax and Floor, and yet it’s telling that on the Maduro Records assemblage Emissions from the Monolith, it’s groups like Acid Ape, JJ Paradise Players Club, Meatjack — who featured Brian Daniloski, now of Darsombra, and who once upon a time did the best Melvins cover you’ve ever heard — Volume and Fistula. Some bands featured, like Kung Pao or Rebreather, didn’t actually play that year, but were staples enough that it didn’t really matter. Rebreather in particular, whose primo roller “Earthmover” is included as the second track on the CD, were the quintessential Emissions band, and as regards trivia, they were the first act on the stage at the first edition in 2000. Others, like Pennsylvania’s instrumental heavy jazz experimentalists Stinking Lizaveta were on their own wavelength almost entirely, but still kept that overarching sense of rawness to their approach, while Southern sludge riffers like Burnout and Ohio pill-popper sludge eternals Fistula brought attitude and scathe in kind. Kung Pao‘s “D is for Denim” reads like a mantra and also featured on their 2000 full-length, Bogota (see also: that album’s cover art) — their second record was also a gem — and “The Ballad of Sisyphus MacDuff” by The Rubes began a seven-minute loadout with throat singing before a showing of soulful heavy rock the likes of which still makes me want to break out their 2001 Underdogma Records long-player, Hokum.
Over the last couple years, I’ve talked a lot about pre-social media heavy and many bands lost in that shift from one generation to the next, who maybe had one record out, maybe two, maybe three, and then Facebook happened and they missed the party. Looking at the 2003 Emissions lineup, there are plenty who survived — The Atomic Bitchwax, Weedeater, Mastodon, Acid King, etc. — but others like Dixie Witch, Tummler, All Night, RPG and Abdullah, while they may or may not have stayed active, didn’t quite make the same kind of transition. Though they came back later thanks to the enduring affection for their self-titled, I’d put Floor in that category as well. And listening to the echoing forward drive of Volume‘s “Colossus Freak” on the Emissions from the Monolith comp, it’s not at all like these acts didn’t have anything to offer listeners, or like they still don’t some 15 years later. It really was just a matter of timing. Others, like Sons of Otis, who close the comp with the 10-minute drone-into-riff spectacular “Big Muff,” seem to have an audience just waiting for their next offering to arrive, but some of these bands are gone to parts unknown, and especially considering that, the importance of this collection is unassailable.
Emissions was a special event and The Nyabinghi in Youngstown, where it was held, was a special place. A regular stop on the Tone Deaf circuit in no small part because Barratt owned it, for one weekend every year it became a druggy paradise of barbecue, riffs, booze and volume. You can still see the hotel where everyone stayed from Rt. 80 on your way west, and it’s easy to imagine the scars left behind in that building from the years of stoner abuse it took. I’m sorry to say that there’s much of the 2006 edition I don’t even remember, less for the passage of time than the ridiculous amount of beer consumption the weekend brought. I remember seeing Colour Haze (changed my life; ask me about it sometime), and I remember there was some drama with SunnO))). I remember sheepishly handing Barratt a copy of my band’s demo and being “voted off the island” by a group of friends standing outside in back of the place — I actually had to leave and go back inside — and I remember being poorly hydrated. Thinking back on it now, I kind of wish I’d had my head together more. Story of my life.
But the point is that there was only one Emissions from the Monolith, and though US heavy festival culture is currently undergoing a boom, from Stumpfest and Electric Funeral Fest to Descendants of Crom to Maryland Doom Fest to New England Stoner and Doom Festival, the moment that was Emissions won’t come again. Of course, each of these newer fests is making its own contributions, but thinking back on what Emissions was and listening to this compilation particularly, one can hear the undercurrent of barebones fuckall that typified the time, the place and the room. For those who were there and those who weren’t, it remains a happening worthy of document, and as Emissions from the Monolith works to document even some piece of one year of it, it’s all the more worth preserving.
I sincerely hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
The week started off with punk rock guilt at all the shows I didn’t go to over the last couple weeks that I wanted to see and featured a canceled trip to Portugal for SonicBlast Moledo next weekend — surprise, I was going, now I’m not; that’s a week’s worth of suckage in itself, even with Psycho Las Vegas still to look forward to — so yeah, I kind of rolled with the punches as they came. Was bummed at the lack of response the Sleep live review got — I posted three pics from the show on Thee Facebooks the next day and those got a big reaction, so I guess that’s where it went instead of the actual review. I was really happy with the piece though, so I take comfort in that and if anyone else read it, that’s awesome. Making Clutch’s crab cakes was fun and I was glad I got to post that All Them Witches bio. The week kind of ends on a downer with that Ancestors review — the album is awesome, I’m just sulky because I wasn’t cool enough to premiere a track with it — but it was fun to get on a little nostalgia trip about Emissions from the Monolith above. Ups and downs, I guess.
Also had a lot of time with The Pecan this week, and baby-time is good time. He’s getting closer to walking — we’re thinking first steps in the next couple weeks — and he’s got a couple consonants he breaks out if suitably prompted. “Ba,” “ma,” “da,” “la” and the like. That’s fun. I feel lucky to be able to be home with him, especially seeing other parents I know go to work. Less over the summer — I seem to know a lot of teacher-types — but in general. I don’t know. He’s a pretty great little guy, and we got a baby-gate to keep him away from the Little Dog Dio’s food and water dishes, so all the better.
Other shit persists in follow-the-bouncing-ball fashion. I’ve been trying to be mindful of things like my general state, depression and so on. I was trying to stay off my meds for a couple weeks, working pretty hard to make a go of it, but I just flat-out failed, and yes, I recognize the language puts it on my effort when it’s not necessarily about that. Thank you, inner therapist voice which sounds remarkably like The Patient Mrs. Still, it’s been upwards of eight months now and every time I sit still for more than five minutes I continue to just absolutely fucking disgust myself. Even sitting here at the keyboard, I feel my arms at my sides and want to crawl out of my own skin. Part of that is I didn’t get to shower yesterday — grunge parenting — but I know part of it runs deeper and I still have more work to do. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those self-actualized I’m-okay-you’re-okay types, but it would be awfully nice to make it through an afternoon without feeling like I’m going to have an aneurysm. Whatever. Who fucking cares. The pills help, I guess?
Ugh.
Ups and downs. Strikes and gutters. Some you win, some you lose.
He’s a good kid.
Let’s do the notes for next week. Subject to change blah blah blah:
Mon.: The Crazy Left Experience review/video premiere; The Skull lyric video.
Tue.: Jody Seabody & The Whirls track premiere.
Wed.: Mr. Plow full album stream.
Thu.: Mountain Tamer track premiere.
Fri.: The Machine review.
There are a bunch of other videos I need to sort through and decide what I’m actually going to put up, so I didn’t list them other than The Skull, but Weed Demon, Ape Vermin, Black Space Riders and Windhand all have new clips out, so there’s plenty to plug into the week in whatever order I wind up feeling like doing so. I’ll sort it out over the weekend. Have another bio to write anyway, so I’ll be on the laptop one way or the other.
It’s almost six-thirty and I hear The Pecan waking up in the next room, so I’d better leave it there. Hope you have a great and safe weekend. Thank you as always for reading and please don’t forget to check out the forum and radio stream.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 22nd, 2018 by JJ Koczan
Set in Milan across four nights and three different venues taking place over the course of two months, the full VVitch Festival is a season-long experience. It draws bands from multiple regions in Europe, the US and Canada, and is no less eclectic in its sound than in the geography. Each show has a different theme that feeds into the larger entirety of the experience, and VVitch Festival proper will be held as the last night, with Frizzi 2 Fulci, Celeste, KENmode, Belzebong and The Necromancers (who are touring together and also making a stop in Austria at the Heavy Psych Sounds Fest), Birds in Row and Coilguns. Seems like a pretty sick night and all over the place, but again, it’s just the last of four in the series.
Full lineups follow here, along with event links as per the PR wire:
-VVITCH-
Inspired by witchcraft and horror movies themes, between doom, sludge, black, grind, death and post metal, it?s coming soon in Milano, Italy, a new event for metal maniacs called “VVITCH FESTIVAL”. A trilogy of events plus a fourth one, the festival. Three different venues in Milano, 17 bands, some of them for the first time in Italy, some for exclusive Italian shows.
“..dark forces are going to cross the walls of the city, after the Sacrifice and the Ritual, the Evocation..”
VVITCH I – Sacrifice September 19th 2018, Spazio Ligera, Milano DEMILICH (FIN) exclusive Italian show SPECTRAL VOICE (USA) exclusive Italian show CARDIAC ARREST (USA) exclusive Italian show FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1568544103256273
VVITCH III – Evocation November 3rd 2018, Spazio Ligera, Milano BOLOGNA VIOLENTA (IT) “Uno Bianca” full album set FISTULA (USA) exclusive Italian show GRIME (IT) DEATH HAS GONE (IT) FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2063352060550129
VVITCH FESTIVAL November 25th 2018, Circolo Magnolia, Milano FRIZZI 2 FULCI (IT) (live soundtracks by Fabio Frizzi, of Lucio Fulci’s horror cult movies, for the first time in Milano) CELESTE (FR) exclusive Italian show KEN MODE (CAN) exclusive Italian show BELZEBONG (PL) BIRDS IN ROW (FR) COILGUNS (CH) THE NECROMANCERS (FR) FB event:https://www.facebook.com/events/172227866788138
