Posted in Whathaveyou on March 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
The message here is clear: Desertfest is all-in on New York. Begun in 2019 and resurfacing in 2022 at a new venue, The Knockdown Center, somewhere in the nebulous border region between Brooklyn and Queens, and a corresponding pre-show at the Saint Vitus Bar, which one hopes will reopen well in advance of this September, Desertfest New York 2024 is vivid in taking it to the next level.
It’s nothing less than a generational event to bring Dozer from Sweden to NYC (they toured the US circa 2000, I’m pretty sure), and for that alone, Desertfest earns your weekend ticket price today. Never mind that at the same time they’re celebrating legends like Dozer and Acid King, they’re also extending their reach to up and coming bands. Green Lung will play — gotta be the main stage, right? isn’t their sound too big for anything else? maybe outside at night? — coming over from the UK to do so, and West Coast outfits Kadabra, Abrams, Deathchant (who at this point I count as a secret being a little too well kept) and Hippie Death Cult complement well Acid King near the top of the bill, where you’ll also find instrumentalists Russian Circles, presumably a headliner, and fair enough. Oh yeah, and Truckfighters just in case anyone gets tired and needs a bit of a cardio pick-me-up.
Guhts from New York, Domkraft from Sweden, Belzebong from Poland and an awaited appearance from Boston’s Gozu round out this initial announcement, with more to come. It’s on my calendar. You might think about putting it on yours as well:
Desertfest NYC announces Russian Circles, Acid King, Green Lung, Truckfighters, Dozer & more for its 2024 lineup.
For their return to the Knockdown Center this September, Desertfest NYC has unveiled its first artists set to take the stage for their fourth edition, announcing post-metal giants RUSSIAN CIRCLES as their first headliner. Joining them will be California stoner metal legends ACID KING and London occult metal sensations GREEN LUNG, making their US debut. After they were unable to perform at DF 2022, the festival is thrilled to finally be hosting them stateside.
Swedish rockers and long-time Desertfest friends TRUCKFIGHTERS will return for their first New York performance in four years, along with fellow countrymen and stoner devotees DOZER.
Joining the party will be Poland’s instrumental ‘dudes’ BELZEBONG, Swedish psychedelic hypnotizers DOMKRAFT, and a healthy dose of rock n roll arrives courtesy of Los Angeles quartet, DEATHCHANT and Boston mainstays GOZU.
Elsewhere we’ll be treated to some psychedelic swagger from Pacific Northwesterners KADABRA and HIPPE DEATH CULT, and some heavy gazin’ with Denver’s ABRAMS and NY locals GUHTS.
Posted in Reviews on February 28th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to Wednesday of the Quarterly Review. If you’ve been here before — and I do this at least four times a year, so maybe you have and maybe you haven’t — I’m glad you’re back, and if not, I’m glad you’re here at all. These things are always an undertaking, and in a vacuum, I’m pretty sure busting out 10 shorter reviews per day would be a reasonably efficient process. I don’t live in a vacuum. I live vacuuming.
Metaphorically, at least. Looking around the room, it’s pretty obvious ‘vacuum life’ is intermittent.
Today we hit the halfway mark of this standard-operating-procedure QR, and we’ll get to 30 of the 50 releases to be covered by the time Friday is done or die trying, as that’s also the general policy. As always, I hope you find something in this batch of 10 that you dig. Doesn’t have to be any more of a thing than that. Doesn’t need to change your life, just maybe take the moment you’re in and make it a little better.
Quarterly Review #21-30:
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Deadpeach, The Cosmic Haze and the Human Race
A new full-length from Italian cosmic fuzz rockers Deadpeach doesn’t come along every day. Though the four-piece here comprised of guitarist/vocalist Giovanni Giovannini, guitarist Daniele Bartoli, bassist Mrsteveman and drummer Federico Tebaldi trace their beginnings back to 1993, the seven-song/37-minute exploration The Cosmic Haze and the Human Race is just their fourth full-length in that span of 31 years, following behind 2013’s Aurum (review here), though they haven’t been completely absent in that time, with the 2019 unplugged offering Waiting for Federico session (review here), 2022’s Live at Sidro Club, etc. But whether it’s the howling-into-the-void guitar over the methodical toms in the experimental-vibing closer “Loop (Set the Control to Mother Earth),” the mellower intro of “Madras” that leads both to chunky-style chug and the parade of classic-heavy buzz that is “Motor Peach,” what most comes through is the freedom of the band to do what they want in the psychedelic sphere. “Man on the Hill (The Fisherman and the Farmer)” tells its tale with blues rock swing while the subsequent “Cerchio” resolves Beatlesian with bouncy string and horn sounds and is its own realization at the center of the procession before the languid roll of “Monday” (so it goes) picks up its tempo later on. A mostly lo-fi recording still creates an atmosphere, and Deadpeach represent who they are in the weirdo space grunge of “Rust,” toying with influences from a desert that’s surely somewhere on another planet before “Loop (Set the Controls for Mother Earth)” turns repetition into mantra. They might be underrated forever, but Deadpeach only phase into our dimension intermittently and it’s worth appreciating them while they’re here.
In or out of post-metal and the aggressive end of atmospheric sludge, there are few bands currently active who deliver with the visceral force of Oslo’s SÂVER. From Ember and Rust is the second LP from the three-piece of Ole Ulvik Rokseth (guitar), Markus Støle (drums) and Ole Christian Helstad (bass/vocals), and while it signals growth in the synthy meditation worked into “I, Evaporate” after the lead-with-nod opener “Formless,” and the intentionally overwhelming djent chug that pays off the penultimate “The Object,” it is the consuming nature of the 43-minute entirety that is most striking, dynamic in its sprawl and thoughtful in arrangement both within and between its songs — the way the drone starts “Eliminate Distance” and returns to lull the listener momentarily out of consciousness before the bassy start of centerpiece “Ember and Rust” prompts a return ahead of its daring and successful clean vocal foray. That’s a departure, contextually speaking, but noteworthy even as “Primal One” lumbersmashes anything resembling hope to teeny tiny bits, leaving room in its seven minutes to catchy its breath amid grooving proggy chug and bringing back the melodic singing. As much as they revel in the caustic, there’s serenity in the catharsis of “All in Disarray” at the album’s conclusion, and as much as SÂVER are destructive, they’re cognizant of the world they’re building as part of that.
Ruben Romano, The Imaginary Soundtrack to the Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile
Departing from the heavy psychedelic blues rock proffered by his main outfit The Freeks, multi-instrumentalist and elsewhere-vocalist Ruben Romano — who also drummed for Fu Manchu and Nebula in their initial incarnations — digs into Western aural themes on his cumbersomely-titled solo debut, The Imaginary Soundtrack to the Imaginary Western Twenty Graves Per Mile. To be clear, there is no movie called Twenty Graves Per Mile (yet), and the twice-over-imaginary nature of the concept lets Romano meander a bit in pieces like “Sweet Dream Cowboy” and “Ode to Fallen Oxen,” the latter of which tops its rambling groove with a line of delay twang, while “Chuck Wagon Sorrow” shimmers with outward simplicity with a sneaky depth to its mix (to wit, the space in “Not Any More”). At 10 songs and 27 minutes, the collection isn’t exactly what you’d call ‘feature length,’ but as it hearkens back to the outset with “Load the Wagon (Reprise)” bookending the opener, it is likewise cohesive in style and creative in arrangement, with Romano bringing in various shakers, mouth harp, effects and so on to create his ‘soundtrack’ with a classic Western feel and the inevitable lysergic current. Not as indie or desert chic as Spindrift, who work from a similar idea, but organic and just-came-in-covered-with-dust folkish just the same. If the movie existed, I’d be interested to know which of these tracks would play in the saloon.
With the seven-minute “Earth Blues” left off the vinyl for want of room, German heavy psychedelic instrumentalists Kosmodrom put a color filter on existence with Welcome to Reality as much as on the cover, shimmering in “Dazed in Space” with a King Buffalo‘ed resonance such that the later, crunchier fuzz roll of “Evil Knievel” feels like a departure. While the three-piece are no doubt rooted in jams, Welcome to Reality presents finished works, following a clear plot in the 10-minute “Quintfrequenz” and the gradual build across the first couple minutes of “Landstreicher” — an intent that comes more into focus a short while later on “Novembersong” — before “Earth Blues” brings a big, pointed slowdown. They cap with “OM,” which probably isn’t named after the band but can be said to give hints in their direction if you want to count its use of ride cymbal at the core of its own build, and which in its last 40 seconds still manages to find another level of heft apparently kept in reserve all along. Well played. As their first LP since 2018, Welcome to Reality feels a bit like it’s reintroducing the band, and in listening, seems most of all to encourage the listener to look at the world around them in a different, maybe more hopeful way.
Heads experienced in post-metal will be able to pick out elements like the Russian Circles gallop in The Endless‘ “Riven” or the Isis-style break the Edmonton-based instrumental unit veers into on “Shadows/Wolves” at the center of their self-titled debut, but as “The Hadeon Eon” — the title of which references the planet’s earliest and most volatile geological era — subtly invites the listener to consider, this is the band’s first recorded output. Formed in 2019, derailed and reconstructed post-pandemic, the four-piece of guitarists Teddy Palmer and Eddy Keyes, bassist James Palmer and drummer Jarred Muir are coherent in their stylistic intent, but not so committed to genre tenets as to forego the sweeter pleasure of the standalone guitar at the start of the nine-minute “Reflection,” soon enough subsumed though it is by the spacious lurch that follows. There and throughout, the band follow a course somewhere between post-metal and atmospheric sludge, and the punch of low end in “Future Archives,” the volume trades between loud and quiet stretches bring a sense of the ephemeral as well as the ethereal, adding character without sacrificing impact in the contrast. Their lack of pretense will be an asset as they continue to develop.
Kudos if you can keep up with the shifts wrought from track to track on Our Maddest Edges‘ apparent first long-player, Peculiar Spells, as the Baltimorean solo-project spearheaded by Jeff Conner sets out on a journey of genuine eclecticism, bringing The Beatles and Queens of the Stone Age stylistically together and also featuring one of the several included duets on “Swirl Cone,” some grunge strum in “Hella Fucky” after the remake-your-life spoken/ambient intro “Thoughts Can Change,” a choral burst at the beginning of the spoken-word-over-jazz “Slugs,” which of course seems to be about screwing, as well as the string-laced acoustic-led sentimentality on “Red Giant,” the Casio beat behind the bright guitar plucks of “Frozen Season,” the full-tone riffs around which “I Ain’t Done” and “St. Lascivious” are built, and the sax included with the boogie of “The Totalitarian Tiptoe,” just for a few examples of the places its 12 component tracks go in their readily-consumable 37-minute runtime. Along with Conner are a reported 17 guests appearing throughout, among them Stefanie Zaenker (ex-Caustic Casanova). Info is sparse on the band and Conner‘s work more broadly, but his history in the punkish Eat Your Neighbors accounts for some of the post-hardcore at root here, and his own vocals (as opposed to those of the seven other singers appearing) seem to come from somewhere similar. Relatively quick listen, but not a minor undertaking.
Rolling out with the ambient intro before beginning its semi-Electric Wizardly slog in “Taken by the Black,” Death Unto My Enemy is the 2023 debut from New York City’s Saint Omen. Issued by Forbidden Place Records, its gritty nod holds together even as “Evolution of the Demon” threatens to fall apart, samples filling out the spaces not occupied by vocals, communicating themes dark, violent, and occult in pieces like the catchy-despite-its-harsher-vocal “Destroyer” or the dark swirl of “Sinners Crawl.” Feeling darker as it moves through its 10 songs, it saves a particular grim experimentalism for closer “Descent,” but by the time Death Unto My Enemy gets there, surely your mind and soul have already been poisoned and reaped, respectively, by “The Seventh Gate,” “The Black Mass” and the penultimate title-track, that deeper down is the only place left to go. So that’s where you go; a humming abyss of anti-noise. Manhattan has never been a epicenter of cultish doom, but Saint Omen‘s abiding death worship and bleakness — looking at you, “Sleepness” — shift between dramaturge and dug-in lumber, and the balance is only intriguing for the rawness with which it is delivered, harsher in its purpose than sound, but still plenty harsh in sound.
The psychedelic aspects of Samsara Joyride‘s The Subtle and the Dense feel somewhat compartmentalized, but that’s not necessarily a detriment to the songs, as the solo that tops the drearily moderated tempo of “Too Many Preachers” or the pastoral tones that accompany the bluesier spirit of “Who Tells the Story” emphasize. The Austrian outfit’s second full-length, The Subtle and the Dense seems aware of its varied persona, but whether it’s the swaggering stops of “No One is Free” calling to mind Child or the sax and guest vocals that mark such a turn with “Safe and Sound” at the end, Samsara Joyride are firm in their belief that because something is bluesy or classic doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be simple. From the layer of acoustic guitar worked into opener “I Won’t Sign Pt. 1” — their first album also had a two-parter, the second one follows directly here as track two — to the gang chorus worked in amid the atmospheric reach of “Sliver,” Samsara Joyride communicate a progressive take on traditionalist aesthetics, managing as few in this end of the heavy music realm ever do to avoid burly masculine caricature in the process. For that alone, easily worth the time to listen.
Like a check-in from some alternate-universe version of Fu Manchu who stuck closer to their beginnings in punk and hardcore, Californian heavy noise rockers That Ship Has Sailed tap volatility and riffy groove alike through the five songs of their Kingdom of Nothing EP, with an admirable lack of bullshit included within that net-zero assessment amid the physical push of riffs like “One-Legged Dog” or “Iron Eagle II” when the drums go to half-time behind the guitar and bass. It’s not all turn-of-the-century disaffection and ‘members of’ taglines though as “Iron Eagle II” sludges through its finish and “I Am, Yeah” becomes an inadvertent anthem for those who’ve never quite been able to keep their shit together, “Sweet Journey” becomes a melodic highlight while fostering the heaviest crash, and “Ready to Go” hits like a prequel to Nebula‘s trip down the stoner rock highway. Catchy in spite of its outward fuckall (or at least fuckmost), Kingdom of Nothing is more relatable than friendly or accessible, which feels about right. It’s cool guys. I never got my shit together either.
The fourth EP in the 10-year history of Brazi’s Spiral Guru, who also released their Void long-player in 2019 and the “The Fantastic Hollow Man” single in 2021, Silenced Voices is distinguished immediately by the vocal command and range of Andrea Ruocco, and I’d suspect that if you’re already familiar with the band, you probably know that. Ruocco‘s voice, in its almost operatic use of breath to reach higher notes, carries some element of melodic metal’s grandeur, but Samuel Pedrosa‘s fuzz riffing and the fluid roll of bassist José Ribeiro and drummer Alexandre H.G. Garcia on the title-track avoid that trap readily, ending up somewhere between blues, psych, and ’70s swing on “Caves and Graves” but kept modern in the atmosphere fostered by Pedrosa‘s lead guitar. Another high-quality South American band ignored by the gringo-dude-dominant underground of Europe and the US? Probably, but I’m guilty too a decade after Spiral Guru‘s start, so all I can say is I’m doing my best out here. This band should probably be on Nuclear Blast by now. Stick around for “The Cabin Man” and you’d best be ready to dance.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 14th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Just a quick heads up to anyone not immediately in the borough’s sphere of influence as I am even way out here in the suburbs of my beloved Garden State, the proper pronunciation should be “Brooklyn New York,” three words, no comma. You don’t have to do a fake accent or make it cutesy, but that comma — which is correctly placed in the writing of Winter‘s impending live album, Live in Brooklyn, NY — is silent.
Between that and the fact that there’s a live release at all coming — Svart has it out April 19, like the header says — that’d probably be enough to get stoked on, but Winter‘s Stephan Flam also worked with Svart on the release of his dark experimental/conceptual outfit Göden, who yes, inherited a lot of Winter‘s pioneering extremity of doom, and it’s casually revealed below that a second Göden LP will be out this May. Considering we’re already starting to see release announcements for then, I’d expect word down the PR wire in the next couple weeks, since this will be first a month earlier.
In any case, a live Winter release from 2012 is probably the best thing one could hope for from them — I don’t know that a studio album would, could or should ever happen, but stranger things have — and a new Göden is sure to be far too weird for 99.9 percent of humans and all the more righteous for that. I look forward to hearing both the way one looks forward to plastic surgery — self-mutilation working toward a perceived good. They do that shit in stripmalls now. I feel like that alone makes a Winter live record necessary.
From the PR wire:
Svart Records are proud to release the first official live album from cult death doom band Winter!
In August and September of 2012, Winter participated in the “Power of the Riff East/West” series of concerts held in California and New York. After first playing the West Coast shows with bands like Pelican and Noothgrush among others, Winter returned to their hometown New York on September 2nd and played a show in Brooklyn’s Warsaw with their best line-up; Stephen Flam/Guitar, John Alman/Bass and vocals, Jim Jackson/Drums and original keyboardist Tony Pinnisi who played with the band first time since recording “Into Darkness” LP in 1989.
The rare appearance of this performance in Brooklyn, featuring all their classic tunes like “Servants of the Warsmen”, “Power and Might”, “Destiny, Eternal Frost” etc. was recorded, and is now presented here for all their fans. This isn’t any cheap nostalgia driven reunion cash out, but a real and raw deal. RISE!
Winter “Live in Brooklyn NY” vinyl, CD and t-shirts out 19.4.2024.
Winter’s spiritual successor Göden will release a new album on Svart Records in May 2024. More info on that will follow soon, so keep your eyes and ears open!
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
You’ll forgive, I hope. I know it hasn’t been that long since I closed out a week with Type O Negative, but it’s over a year, they’re an all-time band for me and I’m trying to connect to something and pull myself closer toward out of what I’ll generously call a persistent malaise as regards totality. Life is Killing Me is a surprisingly rousing record.
And not just in its trilogy let’s-be-Ramones-now metal-punkers “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” “I Like Goils,” and “Angry Inch” cast across its sprawling, CD-era 15-song/74-minute runtime. By the time Type O Negative released this sixth album in 2003 — it would be their last for Roadrunner; their final LP was 2007’s Dead Again, on SPV — I thought they were done. When it first came out in September of my senior year of high school, I thought 1999’s World Coming Down (discussed here) was a huge letdown after 1996’s landmark October Rust (discussed here), and I guess I thought that between drugs, the shifting trends in metal of the day, and their own widely reputed misery, they probably wouldn’t do anything else.
Life is Killing Me was released 21 years ago. I was in college. The promo CD from Roadrunner came to me at WSOU — it came to everyone; Roadrunner was tight with the famed NJ-based college radio station; it made us feel important — and had an audio watermark I can still hear in my head over some of the songs because I listened to it so god damned much. “Type O Negative, Life is Killing Me. The new album, in stores this June” in a plainspoken woman’s voice. This was an anti-piracy measure that also just happened to, for many, ruin a given listening experience. There wasn’t a ton that was going to keep me away from hearing this record though, including that.
This was inarguably the most Beatles they ever were in their crucial Beatlesabbath pioneering goth metal/doom approach. Songs like “Todd’s Ship Gods (Above All Things),” “Nettie,” “(We Were) Electrocute,” closer “The Dream is Dead” and even the ladies-of-classic-television rundown in “How Could She?,” delivered with signature humor in Peter Steele‘s lyrics has a sense of nostalgia or looking back that, 20.5 years after its initial release, I find is a nostalgia I share for the tracks themselves. So be it. The sitar-and-tabla-inclusive “Less Than Zero.” The ahead-of-its-time healthcare commentary and playfully gloomy atmosphere of the title-track. Those songs tightened Type O Negative‘s songwriting approach to a degree that October Rust and World Coming Down could only hint toward, and took the loss of Steele‘s parents — specifically the subjects of “Todd’s Ship Gods (Above All Things)” and “Nettie” — and found comfort in unpretentious pop hooks (sometimes also laughably pretentious) and affectingly sincere lyrics.
Bolstered by an emergent dynamic in their sound that found guitarist Kenny Hickey contributing more on vocals alongside Steele on his way to sharing more of the songwriting credits on Dead Again and the always stellar organ/keys and backing vocals from Josh Silver — of course the band was completed by drummer Johnny Kelly, but had a thing for drum machines in the studio until the last album — the emotionality of Life is Killing Me comes through mature and sincere even in its winking irony and willful mischief. And though one doesn’t always think of them as a catchy band, “…A Dish Best Served Coldly,” “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” “Anesthesia” — fucking “Anesthesia”; there it is; the declaration “I don’t need love” before two songs before they cap with “Another lonely Valentine’s Day” in “The Dream is Dead” — as well as “(We Were) Electrocute” and “IYDKMIGHTKY (Gimme That),” among others, take on pop with a rare boldness for anything heavy.
Like a lot of what they did during their years together, which effectively ended with Steele‘s death in 2010, Life is Killing Me has aged better in sound than politically. “I Like Goils” comes off as a kind of weak troll in hindsight, even if it’s Steele laughing about being hit on by dudes after appearing in Playgirl that time, and their take on “Angry Inch” from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch is only loving if you hear it with those ears. They courted controversy in a way that, now, is the provenance of genuine assholes, which perhaps the surviving former members of the band — Hickey and Kelly play together in EYE AM and Silvertomb, and Kelly has drummed for Danzig, plays in Patriarchs in Black, Quiet Riot, and A Pale Horse Named Death with prior Type O drummer Sal Abruscato, who adds vocals on “I Like Goils” here — would say he or they all were. Fair enough.
But I’ll tell you this. After listening to Life is Killing Me for over two decades now since it came out, I just this morning heard the organ “I Don’t Wanna Be Me” in a new way on my headphones than I’ve ever heard before. Just sounded a little different, but it’s still something to appreciate and something unexpected from a release with which I think I’m familiar. But that’s how it goes sometimes with an album. You live with it and you hear things differently because you’re different. No way I hear “Todd’s Ship Gods (Above All Things)” and “Life is Killing Me” and “The Dream is Dead” with the same ears I had when I was in my 20s, but as with the best of things, Life is Killing Me doesn’t evaporate the span of years but grows into something richer with them. An evolving relationship to the music. And if you’re nostalgic about an album, doesn’t that mean you’re still getting something from it?
So, if you want to call it an indulgence on my part to dig into this one again, fine. It’s what I needed this week and in my deepest, most honest self, I see value in connecting to the emotion as well as the craft, hooks, and so on. This was a formative band for me, and this was the record they did that taught me not to count bands out until they were actually done. I am better for it. And better for having dug in, so thank you.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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Dog slept in kid’s room again last night. It worked this time, which I think might mean that happens forever now. Only matters if she pees on the floor, chews the American Girl doll, or whathaveyou. Until then, it’s crisis-anticipation, which is surely the healthiest way to parent.
Hey, it’s worked for me for the last six years, except not really.
This week featured a couple profoundly shitty, overwhelming days. It was MLK on Monday, so no school. Then it snowed and Tuesday had off and Wednesday had a delay and by Wednesday I was just about ready for a cinderblock to the face. Yesterday after school was therapy, which as I understand it has led to just about no discussion of feelings, which The Pecan at age six will sort of acknowledge having but has no real vocabulary for expressing beyond getting mad — my fault — and which is winding down its corporate-appointed 10-session run having perhaps nearly built a rapport. Today The Patient Mrs. is going to Wherever The Hell for a school board training and she won’t be back until Sunday, which makes the weekend full-on on-duty. Then next week is another week.
There’s no break coming. Ever. That month, year, decade you feel like you need where you’re catatonic and you just sort of sit there and stare straight ahead until you have your Buddha moment isn’t coming. It’s never going to happen. It’s going to be a grind until it’s nothing. No meditation, not even the daily yoga challenge, is going to change it. In fact, they’re just more shit you’re obligated to in the day. More more more. How on earth can that be a solution when the problem is everything is too fucking much?
And that’s basically where I’m at. Everything is too much. Everything. I am overwhelmed all the time. It’s not just about music or oh I get so much email because I’m somebody blah blah. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about simple fucking tasks that humans do that I crumple before. Getting gas. Going to the grocery store. God damn. The Patient Mrs. and I took like 25 minutes to go to the hardware store yesterday and it felt like the ceiling was going to collapse on me. Safe spaces are hard to come by. Not-anxious quiet is hard to come by. And as always, the problem is in me, is me. I’ve wasted the better part of the last 30 years shoveling chemicals into my body looking for some kind of ‘answer’ to myself and I still get more out of listening to fucking Type O Negative than I’ve ever had from an antidepressant, anti-anxiety med, whatever, psilocybin notwithstanding.
I’m gonna leave it there. That says what I want to say about music, about the way a record, a band, just a song, can make your life better or more livable, or whatever it is. It can fill a space in you maybe you didn’t know was there.
Have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head, hydrate, stay warm or cool depending on where you live, and don’t forget to breathe. Back Monday.
FRM.
[So, about half an hour after I finished writing this, The Pecan took a spill off the side of the couch, not only landing on my computer, but overturning my full iced tea cup onto it as well. It is, of course, dead. While I try to recover data from it, I’ll be on Little Red, my tiny emergency backup Chromebook, but that’s something I wanted to mark as having happened because, well, it’ll probably be at least another week before the situation is resolved. Cheers.]
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 19th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
I was fortunate enough to run into Castle Rat this past Fall in the smaller room at Desertfest New York 2023 (review here), and such has been the hype around the Brooklynite theatrical doom rockers whose debut album will be out April 12 that that actually felt late. Sex is a big part of the show, but so is medieval fantasy lore, so take that with the appropriate grain of salt, and if you’re ever gonna do this kind of thing, do it while you’re young and hot. I write about a lot of bands 40 and up. Not a lot of them walking around without shirts on. Though some.
But Into the Realm, which is seeing release through King Volume, is probably about to get all kinds of outside-genre crossover attention, and when it comes to that kind of thing, my general tendency is to stay away. But I’ve been turned off my hype before much to my detriment — I can cite examples from Uncle Acid through Spotlights and tons more; sometimes I get on board sometimes I don’t — so I want to give Into the Realm a shot and see where I land with it on a song level. Castle Rat‘s first two singles showed craft and perspective to match the band’s stage-minded focus and presentation.
From the PR wire:
Castle Rat Announce Into the Realm LP
Highly-Anticipated Full-Length from Immersive Medieval Fantasy Doom Metal Visionaries Out April 12 via King Volume Records
Castle Rat — the story-driven Medieval Fantasy Doom Metal band from Brooklyn known for its theatrical, action-packed live shows complete with full costumes, choreographed sword fighting, and fake blood — is releasing their highly anticipated album, Into the Realm, through King Volume Records on April 12th, 2024.
“It’s taken a couple years to see this record through, and it is so exciting and rewarding to finally be welcoming it into the world. A huge part of the time it’s taken to release it has been finding someone we could trust to see our vision and bring Into The Realm into the universe with the same amount of love and passion we poured into it — and King Volume is undoubtedly that label,” wrote vocalist Riley Pinkerton.
Into the Realm – TRACKLISTING:
01. Dagger Dragger 02. Feed The Dream 03. Resurrector 04. Red Sands 05. The Mirror 06. Cry For Me 07. Realm 08. Fresh Fur 09. Nightblood
Into the Realm arrives after a blistering year that marked a successful Southwestern US tour; a lauded appearance at Desertfest New York alongside underground luminaries like Brant Bjork, 1000mods, Monster Magnet, Colour Haze, and Melvins; and their first powerful, doom-laden single, “Feed the Dream,” on its way to more than 500,000 streams.
While the band pulls its visual inspiration from the over-the-top stylings of KISS and uses intricate costumes and theatrics to deliver spellbinding live shows, the band remains rooted in the Doom tradition of Black Sabbath, playing massive riffs and Tony Iommi-influenced licks under Pinkerton’s powerful vocals.
To that end, Castle Rat’s live shows have already grown legendary in the underground community. While performing, the band reenacts the lore behind The Rat Queen (performed by Riley Pinkerton on guitar/vocals): On her mission to expand and defend “The Realm” from those who seek to destroy it, The Rat Queen is joined by The Count (Franco Vittore – lead guitar), The Plague Doctor (Ronnie Lanzilotta III – bass), and The Druid (Josh Strmic – drums). Together they face the relentless wrath of their arch nemesis: Death Herself — The Rat Reaperess (actress Maddy Wright). The Realm of Castle Rat exists for those who crave swords and sorcery; stoner and doom; Frazetta & Sabbath; and battle-babes and beasts.
True to the band’s ethos, Into the Realm was recorded in an abandoned Philadelphia church the band temporarily converted into a studio. Among the flooded floors, decaying plaster, and ornate stained glass windows, the band stacked their Orange amps and tracked over two and half days, with engineering and production assistance from Davis Shubs and Thomas Johnsen.
“The energy within The Church is undeniable,” wrote Pinkerton. “While tracking vocals for ‘Cry For Me’ I was standing there alone in the center of the church, surrounded by stained glass windows as they faded to a pale grey-blue in the twilight. The veil between the spirit realm and the realm of the living became so thin it felt as if I were floating between them. I feel that particular vocal take was aided or influenced by something beyond my understanding…”
Surrounded by the church’s dreadful atmosphere and a certainty that the property was haunted, the band eventually decided to shoot the “Dagger Dragger” music video in the same location.
With their eye for visual storytelling and an ear for writing captivating doom metal, Castle Rat is a force even more powerful than the Rat Reapress. Dive into the lore on April 12th, 2024.
Pre-Orders for Into the Realm are available via Castle Rat’s Bandcamp NOW. This release will be supported by additional vinyl variants from Wise Blood Records and Kozmik Artifactz (Europe). The band will also be celebrating the record release with a show on April 19th at Brooklyn Made with support from Tower and Killer Kin.
Riley Pinkerton – Singer, Guitarist, Songwriter; Rat Queen Franco Vittore – Lead Guitarist; Count Ronnie Lanzilotta III – Bassist; Plague Doctor Josh Strmic – Drummer; The All-Seeing Druid Maddy Wright; The Rat Reapress (Live shows)
Recording, Mix, and Engineering: Davis M. Shubs and Thomas Johnsen Cover Art: Photo by Ronnie Lanzilotta, Layout and Editing by Olivia Cummings Logo by Riley Pinkerton
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 17th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Periodically caustic industrial metallurgist Brandon Gallagher, otherwise known as Trace Amount, has been set in an upward trajectory since before the project’s 2022 full-length debut, Anti Body Language (review here), and with a new single heralding a new EP and tours both behind and ahead, it seems like Trace Amount will look to build on that success. The EP in question is called Simulation Fetish and it was mixed by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Fear Factory, etc.), and “Living Accessory,” the hey-what-did-you-do-with-my-phone-oh-you’re-making-a-statement-with-art cover of which might fill you in as regards theme in a way that’s correspondingly subtle to the beats of the track itself punching you in the stomach.
It’s a slow sway, with sharp jabs and harsh vocal changes, a groove that’s dug-in in its own way, not self-hypnotized, but programmed such that the slog and nod are part of it. Nod on, sloggers. Slog on, nodders. We live in an age where ‘heavy’ means many things. Be thankful and open of mind.
The following comes from Trace Amount‘s Bandcamp:
Living Accessory is the latest offering of new music since Anti Body Language, the debut full-length album released in April 2022 via Federal Prisoner, a label founded by Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Black Queen) and visual artist Jesse Draxler. Since the release of Anti Body Language, Trace Amount has been on a heavy touring grind, bringing his blend of metal influenced harsh industrial far and wide performing over 80 shows in 18 different countries, and most of the US in 2022 and 2023. This included runs with White Ring, King Yosef, Lana Del Rabies, 3 weeks in eastern and northern Europe with The Soft Moon, and a full North American run with Greg Puciato, Escuela Grind, and Deaf Club. There have also been select NYC support shows during this cycle with Author & Punisher, Uniform, Body Void, Thou, Dreamcrusher, Thoughtcrimes, L.O.T.I.O.N. and others.
‘Simulation Fetish’ EP was mixed by Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly, whose mixing work goes beyond his own projects and includes credits with Youth Code, Kanga, Noise Unit, and more. Trace Amount will be releasing the tracks intermittently throughout another leg of international touring, featuring dates in Australia with Greg Puciato, Japan with King Yosef, and the United Kingdom again with Greg Puciato in January through March. The first track “Living Accessory” will hit all streaming platforms on Wednesday, January 10th.
Thematically, these could be considered some of Trace Amount’s most irritated and hostile tracks to date. The first single “Living Accessory” is yet another beef track about the trials and tribulations of being a freelance creative, working without a financial safety net, and battling soul draining corporate companies. In early 2023, months before heading out for 3 weeks in Europe and quickly turning around for 5 weeks of touring in the USA, Trace Amount wrongfully had his instagram and facebook deleted by the gods above for promoting a song that had the word k*ll in it.
“Artists are so shackled to social media because it’s really the only platform you have these days, and that’s what “m3t4pr1s0n3r” is all about. So much time and effort put into creating and building a platform just vanished like that. The algorithm bots can’t tell the difference between art and hate and I paid the price.” Gallagher adds. “Simulation Fetish”, the title track, is an analogy for how badly everyone wants everything to go right for themselves, and that’s just not how life works. Gallagher sarcastically adds, “Sometimes I’ll throw a dollar or two on a well crafted thought out, NBA parlay to win hundreds, and just think damn if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic hit triple doubles tonight I’m buying a new drum machine. It’s pretty fucked up when you think about the root of this behavior. But hey, whatever you need to escape your reality.”
The ‘Simulation Fetish’ EP will be released in its entirety before a yet-to-be-announced April USA tour on Friday, March 22nd. credits
Mixed by Rhys Fulber Mastered by Kris Lapke Artwork by Trace Amount
Posted in Reviews on October 3rd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I broke my wife’s phone yesterday. What a mess. I was cleaning the counter or doing some shit and our spare butter dish — as opposed to the regular one, which was already out — was sitting near the edge of the top of the microwave, from where I bumped it so that the ceramic corner apparently went right through the screen hard enough that in addition to shattering it there’s a big black spot and yes a new phone has been ordered. In the meantime, she can’t type the letter ‘e’ and, well, I have to hand it to Le Creuset on the sturdy construction of their butter dishes. Technology succumbing to the brute force of a harder blunt object and gravity.
Certainly do wish that hadn’t happened. What does it have to do with riffs, or music at all, or really anything? Who cares. I’m about to review 10 records today. I can talk about whatever the hell I want.
Quarterly Review #11-20:
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Samsara Blues Experiment, Rock Hard in Concert
10 years after releasing 2013’s Live at Rockpalast (review here), and nearly three after they put out their 2021 swansong studio LP, End of Forever (review here), German heavy psych rockers Samsara Blues Experiment offer the 80-minute live 2LP Rock Hard in Concert, and while it’s not their first live album, it gives a broader overview of the band from front to (apparent) back during their time together, as songs opening salvo of “Center of the Sun,” “Singata Mystic Queen” and “For the Lost Souls” from 2010’s debut, Long-Distance Trip (review here), melds in the set with “One With the Universe” and “Vipassana” from 2017’s One With the Universe (review here), End of Forever‘s own title-track and “Massive Passive,” and “Hangin’ on a Wire” from 2013’s Waiting for the Flood (review here) to become a fan-piece that nonetheless engages in sound and presentation. If you were there, it’s likely must-own. For the rest of us, who maybe did or didn’t see the band during their time — glad to say I did — it’s a reminder of how immersive they could be, especially in longer-form material, and how much influence they had on the last decade-plus of jam-based heavy psych in Europe. Recorded in 2018 at a special gig for Germany’s Rock Hard magazine, Rock Hard in Concert follows behind 2022’s Demos & Rarities (review here) in the band’s posthumous catalog, and it may or may not be Samsara Blues Experiment‘s final non-reissue release. Whether it is or not, it summarizes their run gorgeously and puts a light on the chemistry of the trio that led them through so many winding aural paths.
Sounding modern and full and in opening cut “Marrow” almost like the fuzz is about to swallow the rest of the song, Restless Spirit step forward with their third long-player, Afterimage, and establish a new level of craft for themselves. In 2021, the Long Island heavy/doom rock trio offered Blood of the Old Gods (review here), and their guitar-led energetic surges continue here in Afterimage riffers like the chug-nod “Shadow Command” and “Of Spirit and Form,” which seems to account for the underlying metallic edge of the band’s execution with its sharper turns. Their first album for Magnetic Eye Records, its eight tracks fit smoothly into the label’s roster, which at its baseline might be said to foster modern heavy styles with a particular ear for songwriting and melody, and Restless Spirit dig into “All Furies” like High on Fire galloping into a wall of Slayer records, only to follow with the 1:45 instrumental reset “Brutalized,” which is somehow weightier. They touch on the ethereal with the guitar in “The Fatalist,” but the vocals are more post-hardcore and have a grounding effect, and after starting with outright crush, “Hell’s Grasp” offers respite in progressive flourish and midtempo meandering before resuming the double-plus-huge roll and pointed riff and noodly offsets, the huge hook coming back in a way that makes me miss doing a radio show. “Hell’s Grasp” is the longest piece on the collection at 6:25, but “From the Dust Returned” closes, mindful of the atmospherics that have been at work all along and no less huge, but clearly saving a last push for, well, last. I’ll be interested in how it holds up over the long term, but Magnetic Eye has become one of the US’ most essential labels in heavy music and releases like this are exactly why.
When did Graham Clise from WitchLecherous Gaze, etc. — dude used to be in Uphill Battle; I remember that band — move to Australia? Doesn’t matter. It happened and Stepmother is the raw, garage-ish fuzz rock outfit the now-Melbourne-residing Clise has established, with Rob Muinos on bass and vocals and Sam Rains on drums. With Clise on guitar/vocals peppering hard-strummed riffs with bouts of shred and various dirtier coatings, the 12-tracker goes north of four minutes one time for “Do You Believe,” already by then having found its proto-Misfits bent in the catchy “Scream for Death.” But whether they’re buzz-overdosing “Waiting for the Axe” or digging into the comedown in “Signed DC” ahead of the surf-informed rager of a finale “Gusano,” Planet Brutalicon is a debut that presents fresh ideas taking on known stylistic elements. And it’s not a showcase for Clise‘s instrumental prowess on a technical level or anything — he’s not trying to put on a clinic — but from the sound of his guitar to the noises he gets from it in “The Game” (that middle part, ultra-fuzz) and at the end of “Stalingrad,” it is very much a guitar-centered offering. No complaints there whatsoever.
Pilot Voyager, The Structure is Still Under Construction
WARNING: Users who take even a small dose of Pilot Voyager‘s The Structure is Still Under Construction may find themselves experiencing euphoria, or adrift, as though on some serene ocean under the warm green sky of impossibly refracted light. The ethereal drones and melodic textures of the 46-minute single-song LP may cause side effects like: momentary flashes of inner peace, the quieting of your brain that you’ve been seeking your whole life without knowing it, calm. Also nausea, but that’s probably just something you ate. Talk to your doctor about whether this extended work from the Hungarian collective Psychedelic Source Records (szia!) is right for you, and if it is, make sure to consume responsibly. Headphones required (not included or covered by insurance). Do not be afraid as “The Structure is Still Under Construction” leaves the water behind to float upward in its midsection, finally resolving in intertwining drones, vague sampled speech echoing far off somewhere — ugh, the real world — and birdsong someplace in the mix. Go with it. This is why you got the prescription in the first place. Decades of aural research and artistic movement and progression have led you and the Budapesti outfit to this moment. Do not operate heavy machinery. Ever. In fact, find an empty field, take off your pants and run around for a while until you get out of breath. Then drink cool water and giggle. This could be you. Your life.
Philadelphia has become the East Coast US’ hotbed for heavy psychedelia, which must be interesting for Northern Liberties, who started out more than two decades ago. The trio’s self-released, 10-song/41-minute Self-Dissolving Abandoned Universe — maybe their eighth album, if my count is right — with venerated producer Steve Albini, so one might count ‘instant-Gen-X-cred’ and ‘recognizably-muddy-toms’ among their goals. I wasn’t completely sold on the offering until “Infusorian Hymnal” started to dig a little further into the genuinely weird after opener “The Plot Thickens” and the subsequent “Drowned Out” laid forth the crunch of the tones and gave hints of the structures beneath the noise. “Crucible” follows up the raw shove of “Star Spangled Corpse” by expanding the palette toward space rock and an unhinged psych-noise shove that the somehow-still-Hawkwindian volatility of “The Awaited” moves away from while the finale “Song of the Sole Survivor” calls back to the folkish vocal melody in “Ghosts of Ghosts,” if in echoing and particularly addled fashion. Momentum serves the three-piece well throughout, though they seem to have no trouble interrupting themselves (can relate), and turning to follow a disparate impulse. Distractable heavy? Yeah, except bands like that usually don’t last two decades. Let’s say maybe their own kind of oddball, semi-spaced band who aren’t afraid to screw around in the studio, find what they like, and keep it. And whatever else you want to say about Albini-tracked drums, “Hold on to the Darkness” has a heavier tone to its snare than most guitars do to whole LPs. Whatever works, and it does.
“Good Night, Ophelia” is the first single from the forthcoming debut full-length from semi-goth Portland, Oregon, heavy rock four-piece Nyxora. There are worse opening shots to fire than a Hamlet reference, I suppose, and if one regards Ophelia’s character as an innocent driven to suicide by gender-based oppression, then her lack of agency is nothing if not continually relevant. Nonetheless, for Nyxora — Vox on, well, vox, guitarist E.Wrath, bassist Luke and drummer Weatherman — she pairs with dark-boogie riff recorded for edge with Witch Mountain‘s Rob Wrong at his Wrong Way Studio. There are some similarities between Nyxora and Wrong‘s own outfit — I double-checked it wasn’t Uta Plotkin singing some of the higher-reaching lines of “Good Night, Ophelia,” which is a definite compliment — but I get the sense that fuller atmosphere of Nyxora‘s first LP isn’t necessarily encapsulated in this one three-and-a-half-minute song. That is, I’m thinking at some point on the album, Nyxora will get more morose than they are here. Or maybe not. Either way, “Good Night, Ophelia” is an enticing teaser from a group who seem ready to dig their niche when the album is released, I’ll assume in 2024 though one never knows.
I hate to do it, but I’m calling bullshit right now on Sydney, Australia’s Old Goat Smoke. Sorry gents. To be sure, your Bongzilla-crusty, ultra-stoned, Church of Misery-esque-in-its-madcap-vocal-wails, goat weed metal is only a pleasure to behold. But that’s the problem. How’re you gonna write a song called “Old Goat Smoke” and not post the lyrics? I shudder to think of the weed puns I’m missing. Fortunately, it’s not too late for the newcomer band to correct the mistake before the entire project is derailed. In that eponymous one of three total tracks included, Old Goat Smoke cast themselves in the mold of the despondent and disaffected. “Return to Dirt” shifts fluidly in and out of screams and harsher fare while radioactive-dirt tonality infects the guitar and bass that have already challenged the drums to cut through their morass. So that there’s no risk of the point not being made, they cap this initial public offering with “The Great Hate,” and eight-and-a-half-minute treatise on feedback and raw scathe that’s likewise a show of future nastiness to manifest. Quit your job, do all the drugs you can find, engage the permanent fuck-off. Old Goat Smoke may not have ‘bong’ in their moniker, but that’s about all they’re missing. And those lyrics, I guess, though by the time the 20 minutes of Demo have expired, they’ve made their caustic point regardless.
German transport-themed heavy rock and rollers Van Groover — as in, one who grooves in or with vans — made a charming debut with 2021’s Honk if Parts Fall Off (review here), and the follow-up five-song EP, Back From the Shop, makes no attempt to fix what isn’t broken. That would seem to put it at odds with the mechanic speaking in the intro “Hill Willy’s Chop Shop,” who runs through a litany of issues fixed, goes on long enough to hypnotize and then swaps in body parts and so on. From there, the motor works, and Van Groover hit the gas through 21 minutes of smells-like-octane riffing and storytelling. In “A-38″ — the reference being to the size of a sheet of paper in Europe; equivalent but not the same as the US’ 8.5″ x 11” — they either get arrested, which would seem to be the ending of “The Bandit” just before,” or are at the DMV, I can’t quite tell, but it doesn’t matter one you meet “The Grizz.” The closer has an urgency to its push that doesn’t quite sound like I’d imagine being torn apart by a bear to feel, but the Lebowski-paraphrased penultimate line, “Some days you get eaten by the bear, some days the bear eats you,” underscores Van Groover‘s for-the-converted approach, speaking to the subculture from within. Possibly while driving. Does look like a nice van, though. The kind you might write a song or two about.
Facts-wise, there’s not much more I can tell you about Hotel Lucifer than you might glean from looking at the New York four-piece’s Bandcamp page. Their self-released and self-titled debut runs 43 minutes and eight tracks, and its somewhat bleak, not-obligated-to-heavy-tonalism course takes several violent thematic turns, including (I think.) in opener “Room 222,” where Katie‘s vocals seem to talk about raping god. This, “Murderer,” “Torquemada,” “The Ultimate Price,” “Picking Your Eyes Out” and 12-minute horror noisefest closer “Beheaded” — only the classic metaller “Training the Beast” and the three-minute acoustic-backed psychedelic voice showcase “Echidna” seem to restrain the brutaller impulses, and I’m not sure about that either. With Jimmy on guitar, Muriel playing bass and Ed on drums, Hotel Lucifer are defined in no small part by the whispers, rasps and croons that mark their verses and choruses, but that becomes an effective means to convey character and mood along with the instrumental ambience behind, and so Hotel Lucifer find this strange, almost willfully off-putting cultish individualism, and it’s not hooks keeping your attention so much as the desire to figure it out, to learn more about just what the hell is going on on this record. I’ll wish you good luck with that as I continue my efforts along similar lines.
Its five songs broken into two sections along lines of “Obscure Fire” pairing with “Of Silence” and “Descending” leading to “Into the Depths” with “Of Eternal Doom” answering the question that didn’t even really need to be asked about which depths the Russian stoner sludge rollers were talking about. The Sleep-worshiping three-piece of guitarist/vocalist SAA, bassist KKV and drummer PAN — whose credits are worth reading in the band’s own words — lumber with purpose as they make that final statement, each side of Obscure Fire working shortest to longest beginning with the howling guitar and drum thud of the title-track at nine minutes as opposed to the 10 of “Of Silence.” At two minutes, “Descending” is barely more than feedback and tortured gurgles, so yes, very much a fit with the concrete-toned plod of the subsequent “Into the Depths” as the band skirt the line between ultra-stoner metal and cavernous atmospheric sludge without necessarily committing to one or the other. That position favors them, but after a certain point of being bludgeoned with huge riffs and slow-nodding, deeply-weighted churn, your skull is going to be goo either way. The route Megalith Levitation take to get you there is where the weed is, aurally speaking.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Today, Brooklynite sunshine heavy rock trio The Golden Grass announce the addition of Don Berger on bass. Berger comes to the group — or ‘groop’ if you prefer — after playing in Rattlesnake with The Golden Grass‘ founding drummer/vocalist Adam Kriney (also La Otracina, etc.) and will take the place of Frank Caira, who had joined in 2015.
Caira‘s time in the band led him to appear on their two latest full-lengths, 2018’s Absolutely (review here) and earlier-2023’s Life is Much Stranger (review here), which saw the band return a bit to simplified traditionalist ’70s structures after a more progressive turn on the third record. It’s early to think about them hitting the studio again, obviously, but they’ve got two long weekenders lined up for this Fall — including the Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in NYC and Baltimore — and those should help the new dynamic get settled.
I’m not sure if Berger is adding vocals to those of Kriney and guitarist Michael Rafalowich — harmony being an important part of what they do — but we’ll find out sooner or later. Maybe even at a show. The band sent the following down the PR wire:
THE GOLDEN GRASS is thrilled to announce new bassist, the fabulous Don Berger, who had previously collaborated with drummer Adam Kriney in the heavier Southern-rock vibed group RATTLESNAKE.
Don joins the band on the heels of the band’s uber successful April 2023 European Tour and the recent release of their 4th studio album “Life Is Much Stranger”, issued on the Heavy Psych Sounds Label.
And in true Golden Grass fashion, the boys wasted NO time getting Mr Berger into the fold, and are happy to now reveal the details of their upcoming November 2023 USA Tour! The Boogie Rolls ON!
THE GOLDEN GRASS 2023 USA TOUR Wed Nov 1 – Allentown PA Soft Machine Gallery w/ THE BIG SHABOOZIE Thur Nov 2 – Pittsburgh PA Brillobox w/ SWEAT, OUTSIDE INSIDE Fri Nov 3 – Asheville NC Fleetwood’s w/ ROCKY MOUNTAIN ROLLER, ROUGAROU Sat Nov 4 – Richmond VA Cobra Cabana w/ SINISTER HAZE, MISTER EARTHBOUND, PHANTOM STEEL ***** Wed Nov 8 – Troy NY No Fun w/ FLAVOUR Thur Nov 9 – Kingston NY Tubby’s w/ SUN VOYAGER Fri Nov 10 – Brooklyn NY Saint Vitus Bar – Heavy Psych Sounds Fest NYC Sat Nov 11 – Baltimore MD Metro Gallery – Heavy Psych Sounds Fest Baltimore
THE GOLDEN GRASS is: Adam Kriney – drums/lead vocals Michael Rafalowich – electric guitar/lead vocals Don Berger – electric bass guitar
