Kyuss & Queens of the Stone Age, Split CD (1997)

If Man’s Ruin Records had never put anything else out, the 1997 Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age split would still make them legendary. The end of one era and the beginning of another. Of course, Man’s Ruin did put out a ton of other landmark albums from the likes of Acid King, Dozer, Alabama Thunderpussy and on and on, but to have the last Kyuss tracks and the first Queens of the Stone Age tracks on the same disc gives the split a momentous feel  in hindsight. Josh Homme had put out the Gamma Ray 7″ in ’96, and Queens would go on to include the track “18 A.D.” on Roadrunner Records‘ Burn One Up: Music for Stoners compilation (discussed here) in 1998, but the three tracks on this split — “If Only Everything,” “Born to Hula” and “Spiders and Vinegaroons” — were the first to surface under the moniker.

And until John Garcia and Brant Bjork picked back up with Kyuss Lives! and continued into Vista Chino, the jamming cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Into the Void” and the two “Fatso Forgotso” tracks (both of which were included on 2000’s Muchas Gracias: The Best of Kyuss, the second under the title “Flip the Phase”) were the last of Kyuss‘ studio output. So yeah, something of a landmark. It was more the grooves of the thing itself than the historical aspect that made me want to round out the week with it, but I figured if the thing can be appreciated on multiple levels, that rarely hurts the actual listening experience.

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Kind of an odd bit of symmetry to the week by the end of it, right? One day, there’s an interview with Mike Scheidt about the Lumbar record, and the next, a live review of Scheidt playing in Providence. Then today, there’s a Black Thai track premiere and a live review of a Jim Healey set. Just a bit ago today, too, some Clutch news about a new live album, and tonight I’m going to see Clutch in New Hampshire as well, so there’s that to add to it. Strange but kind of cool. I wish I could say I planned any of it out, but I couldn’t be that coordinated even if I had mild interest in trying. Which I honestly don’t.

Next week, look out for a new podcast, a review of that Clutch show and hopefully one for It’s Not Night: It’s Space, Olde Growth and company on Sunday night in Boston — I’m going to Connecticut during the day, but provided I get back in time will hit up the show — and then a look at the new Horisont and Sandrider albums, as well as more in the “10 Days of Stoner Hands of Doom XIII” coverage, including a video premiere provided it comes together as scheduled and some words about the new Druglord tape, which is duly fucked up-sounding. I also took a poll today on Thee Facebooks to name a new vinyl column, so On Wax will start next week too.

Much to come, in other words.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend. See you back here Monday and in the meantime, please check out the forum and radio stream.

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Thought we’d do something a little different to close out this week. For my money, Natas‘ Delmar is probably the best album Man’s Ruin Records ever put out, and not to take away from what Kyuss accomplished — you could easily argue records like this wouldn’t exist without them and I don’t think you’d be wrong — but there have been many times where it’s one or the other and I wind up pulling Natas off the shelf instead. A full 16 years after its release, it remains gorgeous and has lost none of its potency.

The Patient Mrs. and I are in Boston for the weekend, which seems even farther away from the desert as I look out the hotel window and see it’s snowing, but I brought Delmar along for the ride and so it’s on my mind. No big change there, since it’s on the shortlist of my favorite albums ever, but with a couple listens through yesterday in the car, I figured another wouldn’t hurt. Still burns me that I haven’t been able to get ahold of the last Los Natas full-length, Rutation, that they released last year. With the band broken up though, what seems like distro only in their native Argentina and guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian moved on to the heavier but continually righteous Ararat — their second album, II (review here), has endured as one of this year’s finest — it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Hopefully I’ll bump into it somewhere along the way.

A bit about being in Boston: I’m moving here. Well, not here exactly, but about 45 minutes south to or near a town called Bridgewater. My brilliant wife — whose smokin’ hotness is matched only by her devastating intellectual prowess — got a professor’s gig at a college down that way that starts next fall, and as this weekend was likely to be my last opportunity to see the place before the holidays hit and the usual chaos erupted, here we are. We’ll drive down there in a bit and the basic idea is to check out the scene ahead of making the move sometime next summer, though apparently there’s a house on the market with an outdoor bar, which is about as close as I’ve ever heard to paradise.

That’s the reason for the delay on the review of the High on Fire/Goatwhore/Primate/Lo-Pan show, which otherwise would’ve gone up yesterday. I also saw Six Organs of Admittance last night up here, figuring they rule and if I’m gonna be here I’d better start getting out to stuff. Both of those reviews will go up early next week, and as I’ve lagged on album writeups lately, I might see if I can do two one day or something like that. I also still need to get that Bell Witch interview up, which I said I’d do this week and then never did. A bit of upheaval over here, and more time than I thought got taken up by adding to The Obelisk Radio. If you click that link and notice albums haven’t been added for two days, it’s only because — whoops — I filled the hard drive. My intent is to pick up a couple terabytes this weekend and get back to it as this week starts up, Monday or Tuesday.

Speaking of Monday, it’s December now, which means time to start the readers poll to find out everyone’s picks for the best albums of the year. Last year’s poll was good times and I’ve been looking forward to seeing what records stood out to everybody. My own list I’ll probably put up somewhere in the middle of the month — just when everyone’s really sick to death of self-important critics’ top 10s and 20s — and I know there are some tough choices in terms of deciding what’s to be included and in what order. It’s been a pretty wild year.

And as it starts to wind down, I hope as always that you enjoy what I’m doing with this site, that you dig the Natas, that you check in on the forum, take a listen to the Obelisk Radio stream and check back here for that High on Fire review, readers poll launch and much more. The one thing that never seems to be lacking is adventure. I’ll take that.

Have a great weekend.