If this was GQ magazine and not The Obelisk (and if the idea had any appeal to me whatsoever), this piece would be about how I finally had a threesome and was pissed when the two chicks spent the whole time making out and I was left in the cold. Since it’s The Obelisk, it’s about record shopping. Hey, you get what you pay for.

This past weekend, I paid for a copy of The Desert Sessions Vol. I/Vol. II on Amazon. It was the cheapest I’d ever seen the CD for sale — and believe me, I checked regularly — and I knew from habitual eBay browsing that I wasn’t going to do any better in terms of price, so I grabbed it for $28. Even with the couple bucks shipping, it was a bargain, and as I’ve been pining away for this lost Man’s Ruin gem for longer than I at this point care to admit, I figured it was high time to bite the proverbial bullet and shell out the cash. So it was done.

Showed up in the mail yesterday and I popped it on this morning for the first time, and well, there are some cool tracks. “Girl Boy Tom’ has a good feel, and “Cowards Way Out” is among the more developed of the ideas present, and the few cuts at the end with vocals — “Johnny the Boy” might be my favorite of the bunch — pretty much rule, but there’s no way these songs could have lived up to my expectation. My life remains as it was yesterday: mostly in need of caffeine.

Still, I don’t have buyer’s remorse in the traditional sense because (1:) I know I got a good deal and (2:) I legitimately wanted to own The Desert Sessions Vol. I/Vol. II enough to justify the price. So what if the music didn’t reshape my perception of the world? Even if I listen to it two or three more times out of obligation and stick it on my shelf forever, at least I’ll be glad to see it every time I look over there. It’s not everything it could be, but it’s everything it is, and that’s enough.

A while back I purchased a promo of the Man’s Ruin release of High on Fire‘s first album, The Art of Self-Defense, and posted the bio included with that. It didn’t get much of a response, but when I received the promo of Brant Bjork‘s Jalamanta (which I’m certain is exactly the same as the final Man’s Ruin release sonically, though the wah-guitar on “Automatic Fantastic” sounded higher in the mix when I listened this morning), I was interested to read how the album was pitched to the press at the time.

Of course, we think of desert rock now as a given, but in 1999, the idea was still pretty new, at least to those outside the geographic locale. So in coming up with a description for Bjork‘s unique blend of soul, funk, punk and classic rock, the record gets called “12 tracks of ghetto vibe wonder,” which is just awesome. Plus, it’s got different cover art than either the final Man’s Ruin release or the subsequent Duna Records reissue. That’s gotta be worth $15 in itself.

So here’s the bio for your perusal. Click the image to view full-size:

NOTE: Gonna leave this post in the first spot for a couple days. New ones will appear underneath.

Since starting The Obelisk, I’ve made no secret of my unbridled fanboy status for all (or at least most) things Man’s Ruin Records. The now-defunct label headed by artist Frank Kozik put out some of the best music I’ve ever heard, and the bands released under the Man’s Ruin banner went on to influence an entire generation of underground rock, virtually defining and redefining The Heavy for the better part of a decade.

This podcast only scratches the surface of Man’s Ruin‘s impact crater. Some of the bands were Kozik discoveries, some were established acts he picked up for a release or two, but what is always assured with Man’s Ruin is that you’re going to get a work of quality, passion and genuine aesthetic. I can only hope Transmission 005 from the audiObelisk captures some of that. Like the banner above (made from an original Kozik poster), it was compiled in a spirit of reverence and with the utmost respect for those involved.

I didn’t exhaust my Man’s Ruin collection to put together all these songs, but also there are some things I just don’t own. Vinyl, for example. And Chrome. And Killdozer. And the first Desert Sessions. Nonetheless, these are all my personal rips from CDs and I think they’ve made for the best podcast yet. I’m optimistic you’ll agree when you download the file by clicking the image above, follow this link, or stream it on the player below.

aOT5

Just because I found the timeline interesting, I included the years the albums were released in the track listing. We start off with Tummler in 2000, and you’ll find the rest after the jump…

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Did you vote for which podcast you want next? If not, get the deal here. I know I said voting stops at the end of the week, which is today, but if you have an opinion on the matter and give it before Sunday, I’ll take it into consideration. So far, Man’s Ruin tribute by a nose. In honor of that, here’s a little Coping with the Urban Coyote-type Unida. Killer.

Well, my friends, we come to the end of an astonishingly regular week around these parts. I’ve been in Connecticut since Wednesday, but you’d never know it. I can’t remember the last time I had a solid Monday to Friday of normalcy. March maybe. Been a while, in any case.

Good stuff to come next week. I just got my grubby mitts on the new Zoroaster record and am listening to it for the first time as I type this, so hopefully I’ll have heard it enough to get a review together by the end of next week. I’m also slated to interview J.P. Gaster from Clutch about their new DVD, and this past Tuesday I had a chat with Greg Anderson of SunnO))) and Southern Lord Recordings fame about the Goatsnake reunion and the possibility of more shows and new recordings. So that’ll be up in who knows what order, but it’s definitely worth sticking around for, in any case.

Until then, enjoy the weekend, and don’t forget to pick a podcast!

I always try to pay attention to international exchange rates. Aside from being interested in the political implications thereof, it’s interesting to see what our tiny pieces of paper are worth compared to everyone else’s tiny pieces of paper. Occasionally you can get a bargain too, if you play your cards right.

As of today, the euro is worth $1.36, which isn’t bad. Of course, the market is turbulent (if you don’t believe me, search your favorite news site for the words “Greece” and “economy”), but I managed recently to hit up The Stone Circle, the mailorder of Spanish label Alone Records and come out of it on the positive side of the equation. Not financially, of course, but existentially.

It was Fatso Jetson‘s 1999 outing, Flames for All, that hooked me. Aside from being a Man’s Ruin release — anyone who’s been around this site for a while should know of my Kozik fetish — it’s also the only record they did as a four-piece, the lineup including Mario and Larry Lalli, drummer Tony Tornay and, as the fourth for doubles, Gary Arce of Yawning Man. It’s like a desert party pressed to plastic and I had to have it, so after a relatively exhausting search for comparison prices/conditions, The Stone Circle won out.

And I figured, hey, while I’m on the site, might as well see what else they’ve got lying around, right? If you could have just one CD, they wouldn’t have shaped them so similarly to potato chips (krinkle-cut notwithstanding).

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Whatever moniker they happen to be using when you encounter them — Porn, The Men of Porn, Porn (The Men of), etc. — they are quite possibly one of the most stoned bands on the planet. I recently picked up a copy of their 1999 Man’s Ruin debut, Porn American Style, and it’s the kind of album you can just smell the resin coming off of while you hear it. A sticky-icky mix of punk fuck-all and sludge disgust, one listen and you can officially get pulled over for a DUI. Yes, it is quite stoned.

Notable since for guitarist Tim Moss solidifying a lineup around him including noted producer Billy Anderson on bass and Melvins‘ Dale Crover on drums (not to mention the three albums), on Porn American Style, Moss had a range of players across the 12 tracks, making the record even more disjointed and haphazard than it already was. “Comin’ Home (Smoking Pot on a Saturday Afternoon while UFO’s Drone Overhead)” is exactly the kind of album opener I love; nearly 17 minutes long and basically daring you to sit through the whole thing. “Dancing Black Ladies” and “Porch Song” both have killer riffs, but as the record goes on, it twists and turns in different directions, never quite landing in the same place twice.

And yet it’s totally ridiculous. “Ballad of the Bulldyke” and “Ode to Theodore’s” are over the top silly, and even the noisier crush of “Double Don” or the instrumental “Pyleven” clearly aren’t about to start taking themselves seriously. Porn American Style is one of those albums that kicks your ass even as it’s flipping you off because it just doesn’t care and that’s how cool it is and take that, nerd. These are the kids who said “fuck school” and meant it.

However, a word of warning to anyone who might try and search out the album: Be careful how you phrase your Google search. Just saying. A YouTube query might not be the way to go either.

Woke up not half an hour ago realizing I never said a word about the shops I hit while in Asheville last weekend. An egregious error to be immediately remedied. It was 10:30AM, probably time to get up anyway, but surely I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep again without this task completed. Maybe I’ll take a nap this afternoon.

There were three shops amidst the list of important addresses The Patient Mrs. compiled for me before I left the valley, and they were, in order, those of Static Age Records, Harvest Records and Voltage Records. Both Static Age and Voltage were on N. Lexington — about three doors down from each other; which should say something about the town itself — so I figured I’d hit them simultaneously.

Nice thought, and one complicated by the overarching hippieness of Asheville. Static Age‘s listed opening time of 11:00AM was more like 1:30PM. Since they were the shop with a Caltrop show listed on their website, they’d been the one I was most looking forward to checking out, but I hit Voltage first instead. No Holy Grails there, but I’d have probably been more into it if I was buying vinyl, since that’s mostly what they had to offer. Some cool Beatles records, “imports,” but nothing I could afford given my liquor budget.

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“Infernal” Keith Bergman — drummer/vocalist of The PB Army, former editor of InfernalCombustion.com (Wiffley Snidegarb!), contributor to Blabbermouth and numerous other outlets and regular feature in the stoner rock scene — has opened an eBay shop called Exile Toledo. While perusing the tubuwebs recently I came upon an original Man’s Ruin promo copy of 1999’s The Art of Self Defense by High on Fire, not even knowing it was Keith selling it, and it was simply too cool to not buy.

Yes, I know it seems like a long time ago, but before they were the overlords of beast metal, blessing black wings and communing with Death himself (or herself if you read Saramago), High on Fire were just the nascent offshoot of stoner kings Sleep. They were just getting going, and the promo for The Art of Self Defense was the first exposure a lot of people had to them. There may have been press releases beforehand with their self-titled EP, maybe a live track on Napster or something, but remember, there was no Facebook or MySpace, and if you were a member of the media, unless you were really searching it out, you’d be hearing “Blood from Zion,” “10,000 Years” and “Fireface” for the first time. How fucking awesome is that?

Needless to say, thanks to Keith for the listing and prompt shipping (positive feedback ahoy) and I’m happy to share with anyone who feels free to click the “Read More” link the bio that came in the back cover of High on Fire‘s first record.

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