Posted in Whathaveyou on June 18th, 2026 by JJ Koczan
With shows lined up for July throughout the Iberian Peninsula, culminating in a slot at SonicBlast 2026, Arizona-based doom wretches Goya will return to the road Stateside in September to support Norwegian rockers Kal-El on a West Coast tour. The three-piece recently welcomed new drummer Ben Wise in place of Marcus Bryant, who contributed to last year’s In the Dawn of November (review here), which marked the band’s first LP to be released on Blues Funeral Recordings.
The trio have been in progress on new material, as guitarist/vocalist Jeffrey Owens notes below, and no doubt the West Coast run will help keep momentum on their side as we move into Fall and start looking toward what might be in the works for 2027. I have no idea what Goya‘s plans are or timing on the next record, but you can bet that by the time they’re done in Colorado Springs on Oct. 10 to cap the tour, the dynamic will be on lock. I could think of worse ways to lead into writing and/or recording.
Word came down the PR wire:
Doom metal punishers GOYA announce European & North American shows!
Arizona doom metal unit GOYA are set to hit the Western tip of Europe with a short summer tour that includes various festivals. The band will also join their labelmates Kal-El on their upcoming fall US tour to support their acclaimed new album “In the Dawn of November” released on Blues Funeral Recordings.
Guitarist and vocalist Jeffrey Owens comments: “We’re excited to move into a new era of Goya with our new drummer, Ben Wise. CJ and I have been working with him on some fresh songs. We hope to have enough to make our next record before too long, and we think it’s the best iteration of our music yet, as well as a natural evolution. Bringing this vibe around the world couldn’t make us happier.”
With sprawling compositions, titan-heavy riffs drenched in fuzz and haunting atmospherics, GOYA don’t just play doom music: they embody it to the core. Unrelenting and immersive, their fourth studio album and Blues Funeral Recordings debut In the Dawn of November is raucous, hypnotic and defiantly punishing. Recorded by Jack Endino (High On Fire, Soundgarden), this new sonic onslaught from the heavy desert trio takes no prisoners while sweeping everything in its path. Watch their latest videos Depressive Episode and In the Dawn of November!
European summer shows 29 July – Madrid – Wurlitzer Ballroom 30 July – Getxo – Txirinfest 31 July – Santander – Rock and Beer the New 01 Aug – Langreo-Asturias – Castru Garganta 02 Aug – Leon – Doomnight – Xana del Torio 07 Aug – Vila Praia de Ancora, Portugal – SonicBlast
North American fall tour 2026 w/ KAL-EL 9/23 – Phoenix, AZ – Last Exit Live 9/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Dive Bar 9/25 – Landers, CA – The Annex 9/26 – Palmdale, CA – Transplants Brewing 9/27 – Los Angeles, CA – Redwood Bar & Grill 9/29 – San Francisco, CA – DNA Lounge 9/30 – Sacramento, CA – Cafe Colonial 10/1 – Eugene, OR – John Henry’s 10/2 – Portland, OR – The High Water Mark 10/3 – Seattle, WA – The Funhouse 10/4 – Vancouver, BC – Astoria 10/6 – Spokane, WA – The Chameleon 10/7 – Boise, ID – The Olympic 10/8 – Salt Lake City, UT – Aces High Saloon 10/9 – Denver, CO – Black Sky Brewery 10/10 – Colorado Springs, CO – What’s Left Records
Goya is: Ben Wise – Drums Jeffrey Owens – Guitar/Vocals CJ Sholtis – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 3rd, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Branca, killing it again with the SonicBlast Fest poster art. Year after year, that partnership continues to flourish.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Portugal for SonicBlast Fest in 2023, and it was a great time from the pre-show through the end of the last night. I’m sick as a dog at the moment, so thinking of breathing the fresh air on the Atlantic Coast is perhaps a little more vivid in my mind, as much as I can smell anything right now or keep my head up while I’m typing or stay awake, etc. I took some DayQuil and I’ll go lie down in a bit.
The assemblage here is rad. You don’t need me to tell you having Turbonegro, High on Fire, Elder, Kylesa, Conan and Dead Meadow on the same bill is going to result in a good time. It’s something of a given. Cool to see Necrot included though. I like a bit of riffy death metal, and SonicBlast hasn’t been shy in years past about reaching outside the heavy rock umbrella for punk and hardcore — note The Casualties here — so an extension of that makes sense. Note also industrial punker N8noface and Early Moods. Both of those I believe are managed by Daniel from RidingEasy Records, so I can’t help but wonder if they might be touring together next summer. Guess we’ll find out eventually.
Also Jon Davis from Conan pulling double-duty with an Ungraven set, and more still to come. The following comes from social media:
Get ready for the 14th edition of SonicBlast Fest ⚡️
We’re thrilled to announce the first confirmed bands:
Turbonegro High On Fire Chat Pile Deafheaven Kylesa The Casualties Midnight Frankie And The Witch Fingers Snapped Ankles
Elder Levitation Room Dead Meadow Conan N8noface Adult. Necrot
Margarita Witch Cult Early Moods Primitive Ring Goya Hög Ungraven
Tickets are already on sale at Bol and Masqueticket
Eight wretched years after their last missive, Harvester of Bongloads (review here), depressive Arizona riffers Goya return with In the Dawn of November, which is unmistakably their most miserable work to-date. Of course that’s a compliment, since misery is what they’re shooting for. All your faux, on-the-internet spiritual enlightenment, toxic positivity and birthday wishes can fall down a well; it’s time for “Sick of Your Shit.” It feels like a hallmark of our age that something dark and downer is automatically considered more realistic, but if you can look at the world around you in 2025, planet and people, and feel good about it, you’re either clueless or an asshole.
It’s not with pseudo-Buddhist posturing that guitarist Jeffrey Owens opines that “Existence is pain” so much as casual observation. As Goya close in on the band’s 15th anniversary next year, Owens is the remaining founding member and as In the Dawn of November rolls out with its eight-minute title-track, his delivery and cynicism become a major part of the impression and persona of the album. Not surprising, right? That’s kind of always been the case with Goya, but — and this might be maturity creeping into their approach; this is their fourth LP after all — the weed-worship and horror-cinema themes have been largely put to the side in favor of honing in on the despondent.
Production by Jack Endino — as if to say ‘we’re not screwing around this time’ — who of course is known for his work in the heavy underground with High on Fire, Windhand, Nebula, etc., never mind CV lines like Nirvana, gives life to the lumbering roll of “In the Dawn of November,” and from CJ Sholtis‘ bass intro onward, a current of Type O Negative creeps into Goya‘s sound instrumentally, offering sympathy in the culminating leads, but coming across as resigned more than hopeful with the repeated line, “Please let me go.” This ending is backed by the declarative, righteous, highlight swing of “Cemetery Blues,” punctuated by Marcus Bryant‘s thudding toms and marching to the hi-hat and smooth kick.
The underlying influence of Electric Wizard is still there — the Dorset doom mainstays have always been a factor in Goya‘s approach — but “Cemetery Blues” is less stoned, swings more and hits lands harder. Preston Bryant‘s synth later on gives a sense of flourish that “In the Dawn of November” seemed to purposefully withhold, and there’s more lead guitar antics, but “Cemetery Blues” is still about the riff at its foundation. It holds its direction for the duration, and is right to do so, sounding inspired in addition to making a show of its wretchedness and wanting to die. In succession, “Depressive Episode” and “Sick of Your Shit” follow. The former is faster, speeding up the swing, and “Sick of Your Shit” brings lines like, “You think you’re fucking cool/You’re just another piece of shit I despise,” that, if you’re the ‘you’ in question, is probably enough to ruin your day.
So much the better, then, to be in the proper headspace for the remainder of In the Dawn of November. It’s noteworthy that “Depressive Episode” manages to speed up the proceedings without losing the clarity in Sholtis‘ bass or Owens‘ guitar. The rumble is there, it just moves, and the Endino mix gives it the space to do so, even amid the wah-insanity atop the gallop in the back half. “Sick of Your Shit” is slower and marks the presumed start of side B. It makes itself welcome with a quick intro groove before a “blech” marks the transition to the riff-proper, and goes on to position itself in the running for your feel-awful hit of the summer. Just in time for wildfires, continued daily numbing to corruption and political violence, and ongoing genocide. The song isn’t about any of that stuff, at least not outwardly, but again, it for sure feels like it’s speaking to the moment we’re in.
To that end comes the 12-minute “I Wanna Be Dead.” With just the instrumental epilogue “Comes With the Fall” after it — which I think makes the penultimate track ‘the fall’ in this case — “I Wanna Be Dead” is as much a blanket musical statement as it is a straightforward lyrical declaration. In Sabbathian tradition, it starts with a storm and a bell tolling, and it gradually unfolds around that backdrop with crashes and a pointedly doomly cast. It is Goya at their most Goya, with Owens layering vocal lines for emphasis on his way to shouting into the void, “There’s nothing after this/To be a corpse/But of course,” in unmitigated and winking glorification of death.
The next lines lay it out: “It’s just the fantasy within my head/I’m hoping/I’m praying/I’m waiting/I wanna be dead,” and then the title lyric repeats to really nail down the hook. That chorus is definitive for the song itself, but at 12 minutes, obviously there’s more going on than Owens saying he wants to die. The spacious, organ-laced break in the middle allows for atmospheric flourish in a way that a lot of the album has eschewed — preface for “Comes With the Fall,” which is more obscure with its vague speech sample, noise and meandering layers of guitar — and gives over to the solo in an effective reveal of the build the band has just begun to pay off.
It finishes by casting ‘a pox upon the human race’ and pushing into deeper heft after a last run through the chorus, complemented by the returning keys. A lot of how a given listener approaches In the Dawn of November will probably come down to their own disposition in the world around them. How much misanthropy can you take? How much negativity is too much? How low can you go? Goya make a show of their depression, and dare to make it a very specific kind of fun — again Type O Negative feel like a factor — but if you can’t hang with a dude talking straight up about how he wants his life to be over, well, this probably isn’t the first time you’ve run into the problem in doom.
There’s a challenge in there as well, though. Doom, as a genre, as a worldwide community, has a problem with mental health and the ongoing spate of suicides and early deaths to prove it. I don’t know if it’s something to be reconciled with or just sad about, but In the Dawn of November is unflinching in accounting for its own joylessness. If Owens or anyone else in the band needs help, I hope they get it, but I’ve been in that place where it feels like there’s no point in moving forward and found myself repeatedly turning to music to prove myself wrong. Perhaps there can be catharsis here, in such a vivid expression.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 15th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
If you missed it — and I know you didn’t, but stay with me — Arizona worshippers Goya posted their video for the second single from their impending album, In the Dawn of November, toward the end of last week. It’s called “Depressive Episode” and you’ll find it below. The band will release the album on June 13 through Blues Funeral, and before it’s even out, they’ll be on the road headed east for a round of shows in the Midwest and along the Atlantic Seaboard, keeping sludgy company with their labelmates in Toke-offshoot Bronco, whose self-titled debut (review here) came out at the end of February.
The two bands will be out together for about two weeks, and Goya have a couple shows after as they make their way home. The list of dates is below and the video for “Depressive Episode,” the prior clip for the title-track, and the audio stream of both all follow here, because one likes to be thorough while also probably missing out on a bunch of whathaveyou.
The poster and dates came from socials:
Tour with Bronco starts in one month.
JUN 12-Chicago, IL-Reggie’s/Music Joint JUN 13-Indianapolis, IN-State Street JUN 14-Cleveland, OH-The Winchester JUN 15-Melvindale, MI-Parts and Labor JUN 17-Toronto, ON-Bovine Sex Club JUN 18-Montreal, QC-Bar Blue Dog JUN 19-Portland, ME-Geno’s Rock Club JUN 20-Jamaica Plain, MA-The Midway Cafe JUN 21-Brooklyn, NY-The Wood Shop JUN 22-Philadelphia, PA-Nikki Lopez JUN 23-Richmond, VA Banditos JUN 25-Winston-Salem, NC Hoots JUN 27-Atlanta, GA Boggs Social and Supply* JUN 28-New Orleans, LA Gasa Gasa* JUN 29-Houston, TX White Oak Upstairs*
*no Bronco
Goya is Marcus Bryant – Drums Jeffrey Owens – Guitar/Vocals CJ Sholtis – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Goya will release their first album in eight years, In the Dawn of November, on June 13 as their label-debut for Blues Funeral. Led off by its weighty-grooving title-track, the follow-up to 2017’s Harvester of Bongloads (review here) reaffirms the Phoenix trio among the dankest of riff worshippers the heavy ’10s wrought, whether it’s the title-track’s crawling catchiness, “Cemetary Blues” rolling out like Electric Wizard jamming with Type O Negative, organ and all, or “Depressive Episode” kicking the tempo for a dark stoner shuffle, “Sick of Your Shit” bring lumber and a standout vocal from guitarist Jeffrey Owens, “I Wanna Be Dead” bringing back some of that gothy vibe but doing it in a what-it’s-all-about 12 very, very stoned minutes of heavy pummel and suitably lethal hookmaking, or the vague outro “Comes With the Fall” thereafter — oops that’s the whole record; I guess it goes down smooth.
But while it does all that reaffirming, In the Dawn of November also offers clear growth in songwriting, performance, production and stylistic scope, and while celebrating their influences is still a part of Goya‘s purpose as a band, they’ve never come across as identifiably their own as they seem to in this material. I’m looking forward to getting to know the album better, but it’s a striking first impression, and I know nodders will be nodding. Will hope to have more to come. Video and audio for the title-track are at the bottom of the post.
From the PR wire:
Phoenix doom metal trio GOYA to release new album “In the Dawn of November” on Blues Funeral Recordings; stream title track now!
Phoenix, Arizona doom metal torchbearers GOYA have signed to Blues Funeral Recordings for the release of their fourth studio album “In the Dawn of November” this June 13th, and present the spine-shivering video for its title track today.
Goya is a Phoenix, Arizona doom metal band known and revered for delivering mountain-heavy riffs drenched in copious amounts of fuzz on top of haunting psychedelic atmospherics. Formed in 2011 by guitarist and vocalist Jeffrey Owens, the band takes its cue from genre pioneers like Electric Wizard, Acid King and Sleep, crafting a sound that is as hypnotic as it is defiantly punishing.
In the fall of 2024, Goya entered Soundhouse Studios in Seattle with legendary producer Jack Endino (High On Fire, Year of the Cobra, Soundgarden) to lay down a monolithic work of graveyard grooves and bleak reflections to herald their towering return with their most accomplished and unwaveringly bone-crushing record to date — leading the trio to ink a deal with revered Albuquerque-based label Blues Funeral Recordings. “We are proud to welcome these Arizona desert doom stalwarts to the label with a new LP of crushing cosmic sludge! Goya has historically done almost everything themselves, and we’re grateful for the trust they’ve shown by allowing us into their fortress to do what we do and help spread their monolithic riff-heaviness farther than ever before,” said label founder Jadd Shickler.
Let Goya crush your souls with new video “In the Dawn of November” + listen to the single on all streaming services: https://lnkfi.re/goyanovember
About the song, frontman Jeffrey Owens comments: “The eight years since the last Goya record have brought me face to face with some hard truths about life. I’m getting older, and mortality has struck me in new ways, so this album is largely a meditation on death. In the Dawn of November is the natural evolution of the band, and the culmination of everything that came before it, simultaneously signifying a new era for Goya.”
TRACKLIST: 1. In the Dawn of November 2. Cemetary Blues 3. Depressive Episode 4. Sick of Your Shit 5. I Wanna Be Dead 6. Comes with the Fall
Goya’s 2012 demo showcased their early potential, but it was their debut full-length “777” (2013) that announced their fearsome arrival in the doom underground. With sprawling, riff-heavy compositions and occult-tinged lyrics, “777” resonated deeply with fans of titanic sludge-metal. Continuing to evolve, Goya released “Obelisk” in 2015, a concept album that refined their blend of psychedelic doom. They followed this with their magnum opus, 2017’s “Harvester of Bongloads”, another concept album that leaned as heavily as ever into their fuzz-laden, riff-driven aesthetic and further cemented their legacy of unrelenting doom and immersive sonic landscapes.
In the summer of 2024, Goya returned to the road for a month-long US tour after taking a few years to write their fourth album “In the Dawn of November”, to be released in the spring of 2025 via New Mexico-based label Blues Funeral Recordings (Acid King, Lowrider, Dozer).
Goya is Marcus Bryant – Drums Jeffrey Owens – Guitar/Vocals CJ Sholtis – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 13th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Phoenix, Arizona, stone-worshiping sludge gutter-outers Goya have returned and will release their fourth album, yet untitled, through Blues Funeral Recordings. Once upon a mid-2010s, the trio led by vocalist/guitarist Jeff Owens were a flagship band for STB Records, but 2017’s Harvester of Bongloads (review here) was issued through the band’s own Opoponax Records. Full-lengths have been part of what Goya have done since their outset circa 2011, but not all of it. Their most recent offering was 2021’s The Universe Wails, an acoustic EP. Before that, a 7″ single in 2019 called “200 and 4.” You get the idea.
I have no concrete info on the state of Goya‘s next record, unfortunately. They say the album will be out in the first half of 2025. If that means late March, this announcement times out well enough for a PR plan to start rolling maybe this week — maybe there’s a press release in my email now? if I get one in the next day or so I’ll replace the social media post below, after that it is what it is unless there’s actually new info or a/v — but if it’s not actually all the way 100 percent done, it could be May or even June before the record shows up. So yeah, I guess that’s me taking an entire paragraph to explain something potentially happening between now and five months from now. Rest assured, I feel accordingly stupid.
This is a good band to have back at it. I’ll keep an eye for more news, but yeah, here’s what they put on Instagram:
We are excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Blues Funeral to release our upcoming fourth full-length album. If you aren’t familiar with the label, we suggest you pop over to their page and get familiar. They’ve been blazing a trail with killer releases, and it’s an honor to be on the roster.
Expect to see the new record in the first half of 2025. The proceeding days will never look the same.
Issued by the band in the final days of 2013, Goya‘s debut album, 777, is a beast of stoner doom riffing and unbridled weedian disillusion. From the marching chug of “Rites of Hashage” at the outset through the faster-till-it-isn’t “Necromance” and into the shovel-to-dirt riffing of the extended pair “Night Creeps” (11:59) and “Death’s Approaching Lullaby” (12:54), across the righteous bombast and cutting-through wah solo of “Blackfire” and landing on the lyrical summation amid the disaffected slog of “Bad Vibes,” the second verse of which, “I see this world, it’s not gonna change/At least not for the better anyway/So fuck you, fuck you, fuck you and you and you and you/I know you’re gonna die” really putting a pin in the general perspective as delivered by guitarist Jeffrey Owens in a post-Electric Wizard moan that would be a defining element of the band’s sonic persona, Shane Taylor‘s drums crashing and bassist Jirix-Mie Paz (who also recorded; Brad Boatright at Audiosiege mixed and mastered in Oregon) rumbling low at the foundation of the tracks, lurch or shove take your pick it’s all filthy. Hunter Hancock‘s get-stoned-and-stare cover art like a bestiary of stoner rock iconography, lyrical references and so on. I think I saw some broccoli in there. Can we make broccoli a stoner rock thing 10 years later?
Topping out at 52 dead, rotting, and yet very much alive minutes, 777 tells you it’s going over the top right from the outset in its titular of-the-beast equivalent to Spinal Tap‘s legendary “this one goes to 11.” Goya‘s riffs one-up (or 111 up) the number of the beast, and since it’s all made up anyhow there’s really no way to argue. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, the three-piece had offered a demo (review here) in 2012 that featured “Blackfire” and “Night Creeps,” and to-date they’ve put out two subsequent full-lengths in 2015’s Obelisk (review here) and 2017’s Harvester of Bongloads (review here), as well as sundry shorter offerings in EPs, splits, singles, the 2021 acoustic EP The Universe Wails being the most recent — “Blackfire” and “Bad Vibes” appear on it, obviously in reworked fashion.
I don’t mind telling you that when 777 came out, I absolutely missed it. Between being released in mid-December and having been a quicker-than-expected turnaround from the demo, I just whiffed. I’d covered the band already and I’d do so later in 2014 with their split with Wounded Giant (review here), but I always felt like I was playing catchup with Goya and having missed out on 777 at the time of its release is why. 2013 brought highlight records from Clutch, Monster Magnet, Vista Chino, All Them Witches and a slew of others, and I guess I was too busy putting together my top 20 (which even back then went to 30) to catch the smell of smoke on the wind blowing from the Southwest at the time. This ain’t Pokemon. You’re not gonna catch ’em all.
What I failed to appreciate about 777 in the moment — and to be fair to myself, this would’ve been a tough one to call — is how throughout 777 and even in the album’s basic construction and style, the grit of its production, the combination of mindfulness of sound and purposeful largesse with a brazen fuckall attitude and the counterintuitive fluidity between them, Goya were speaking to genre from within genre in a new way and with a new generational voice. Consider Monolord‘s Empress Rising wouldn’t arrive until April 2014, and that’s widely regarded as a landmark (not arguing with that, by the way), but in addition to being more miserable, Goya were ahead of that curve even before the curve existed. Did they sound like Electric Wizard? Oh yes. But the production on Dopethrone sounds like shit and Goya took those lessons and at least here were starting to internalize the influence and craft something of their own from it.
Even in the way “Rites of Hashage” unabashedly engages lyrically with stonerly tropes with the chorus, “The highest council has filled this bong/With water from the River Styx/We’ve packed this bowl with weed from distant galaxies/Come forth my child it’s your hit,” 777 represented a fresh mindset, and it’s the difference between Generation X’s ‘we don’t even get high’ protestation against being stoner rock (not universal, but not uncommon among that late ’90s/early ’00s set of bands) and the elder-Millennial, reinforced-by-social-media embrace of THC-infused everything. Coupled with the wretched sprawls of “Night Creeps” and “Death’s Approaching Lullaby,” the self-awareness of the nod and the will to crush as an essential element of the work — “Forever dead, forever stoned,” as “Night Creeps” lumbers toward its and the album’s middle — the frame of reference on display throughout Goya‘s debut would become a hallmark of the style throughout the next decade. They didn’t invent weed puns or stories about getting high in space, but they wore them on their collective sleeve in a way that continues to impact what stoner doom is today.
They broke up at some point after Harvester of Bongloads, which will happen. I’d go back through their Instagram to find the exact date but I have this thing where I take it personally every time someone is flipping off a camera and I’m not sure I could handle the emotional stress. A few weeks back, however, a trio of middle fingers appeared out of the algorithmic ether with the caption, “Still here. Still writing. Still sick of your shit.” Because I’m wont to do so, I specifically asked if that meant they weren’t still defunct, and the answer I got from Owens could hardly be more direct: “For better or worse, Goya will die when I do. -Jeffrey”
They’ve got a show lined up for June, and I have no idea what their writing is leading toward, whether it’s a fourth long-player, or an EP or a single or maybe just riffs just because, but at least they’re active, and in marking a decade since the release of 777 later this year, Goya can look back even as they move ahead toward whatever that next thing might be. Six years after their last record, you’d say they’re due, but baking takes time and Goya have always been well baked. Nonetheless, one hopes for news sooner or later. Wouldn’t want to miss it.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
The Patient Mrs.’ grandmother died this week, which has been a lot to take. We knew it was coming. She was 97 and had started a pretty stark this-is-for-real decline in November. So it’s been months, and The Patient Mrs.’ mother, who is incredible, has been primary-caregiving all the while through that emotional and physical slog with a strength that one can only call preternatural and emblematic of the conviction (and, since it’s Connecticut, the compartmentalizing) toward which she was raised.
Helen went peacefully, not in pain, with family around her, and most importantly, she was ready. That’s more than most of us will get, whether we deserve it or not. When I was a kid and started going to The Patient Mrs.’ family functions, learning their processes for Thanksgiving and Xmas around the time I was 17 or 18, Helen was kind to me in ways she most definitely did not ever have to be, and as a matriarch, she welcomed me into that family in ways that I barely understood let alone appreciated at the time. She always had a formal streak — again, Connecticut — but had a laugh that always seemed to hint at delight in mischief. Prepared as I was for her passing, I’ll miss hearing that.
We told The Pecan on Wednesday after school. I just wanted to get through the school day, get some food in the kid, and so on. The Patient Mrs. had shot up to Connecticut — we’re headed up there this evening as well, will stay over and through probably much of the day tomorrow — to be with her mother and sister, and when she got home we delivered the news together. We’ve been talking about it for months, but The Pecan has been pretty fragile since and is clearly doing some processing. It’s the first loss where kiddo is conscious enough to really understand what it means, so we tried to ease into it to the extent possible. Once more, we knew it was coming.
Grief is like fingerprints; everyone has their own. I remind myself of a long life well lived and someone I was fortunate enough to know and love. She came to The Pecan’s birthday party last October. It was her last real outing. And she took me aside then and said, “I have to talk to you before I leave.” I thought it was some important life advice or maybe she just wanted to call me a terrible parent or who knows what, but it turns out what she wanted to know was what size flannel shirt I wanted from L.L. Bean for Xmas so The Patient Mrs.’ mother could order it on her behalf. I got that flannel, wore it all winter. That that was the super-important, kind-of-grave-seeming thing she wanted to discuss is pretty representative. I was glad that when I went up to see her in January/February, she knew who I was and we got to chat for a minute or two before she nodded off.
That’s the weekend plan, really. To coincide, next week is the Quarterly Review — because of course my timing would be thus — with a full 50 releases to follow up the 70 a few weeks back. Still calling it ‘Spring 2023,’ I finally decided. I know I’m the only one who cares about what that kind of thing is called, but somehow it makes a difference to me. I get hung up on shit like that constantly.
Also had a foll0w-up with my neurologist this week. She put me back on Wellbutrin, which I don’t like but I’m giving a shot because, well, my father never did and if I can do incrementally better than that then at least I’ve done more than him to try to be well in my head, and back on whatever ADD dexomethylsomeshit I was on before, both titrating up to an increased dose. I go swimming. I take vitamins. I do what I’m told. I try not to be a dick when I can help it.
The Patient Mrs. and I are going to record a podcast together. I might put her in charge of distribution, so if anyone has hints in that regard, I’d love to hear them so I can pass them along. I think we’re going to record in two weeks, so I’ll post after that. Need to make a playlist and somehow put it together myself. Open-source audio software here I come. I’m lousy with that stuff, but will try to pick some good tracks anyway, and if nothing else, it’ll be fun to chat with her about music and whatever else. She’s not into the sounds really at all and I find that perspective fascinating.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head, tell someone you love them, drink water. All that stuff. Back here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with the Quarterly Review and I’ve got a full stream slated for The Machine’s new record besides. Will be a good time.
Posted in Whathaveyou on October 24th, 2018 by JJ Koczan
With the advent of the Psycho Smokeout in Los Angeles next April 20, Psycho Entertainment partners with RidingEasy Records and enters the fray of a busy Spring festival season, pushing Elder and Monolord into headliner positions that both deserve and importing other Psycho veterans like Amenra and Belzebong alongside RidingEasy groups Here Lies Man, Electric Citizen, BlackWater HolyLight, R.I.P. and Zig Zags. If you don’t see the significance of this, think of all the fests happening in Europe at the time, whether it’s Roadburn just one week before or Desertfest the first weekend of May. Lineup-wise, the first-ever Psycho Smokeout would seem to be more in line with the latter than the former, but still, it’s a packed Spring for those up for a bit of intercontinental travel.
However, a killer lineup is a killer lineup, and the Psycho Smokeout has one. Looks like it’ll just be the one day — fortunate that April 20 is a Saturday in 2019 — and I’ll assume it’s two stages, though I don’t have confirmation of that or really anything other than the groups playing, which, frankly, is enough for the moment. April’s a ways away, so there may be changes and whatnot, but especially if this takes off, it’s an important happening in the market and bound to turn heads.
RidingEasy‘s announcement and the lineup info follow:
The rumors are true! We’ve teamed up with Psycho Las Vegas For the first annual psycho smoke out on 4/20 in LOS ANGELES. We’ll be vending and loads of our bands are playing including but not limited to Monolord R.I.P. Electric Citizen Blackwater Holylight Here Lies Man Zig Zags and more!!!!
