Posted in Whathaveyou on July 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
I have said so many times in the past, but of all the festivals throughout any given ‘normal’ year in the sphere of Sound of Liberation‘s booking itinerary, I always wanted to go to Keep it Low in Munich. Yeah, part of that is because Colour Haze regularly shows up — kind of the house band — and any opportunity you can take advantage of to see them in your life is a thing worth doing, but also the general vibe of the artwork, what seems like kind of a laid back feel and intention. At this point it’s been going on long enough (without me in attendance) that I’m sure a community of familiar faces has been built up, and as the first lineup announcement for Keep it Low 2022 on Oct. 7 & 8 comes out, I’m in the same boat as ever thinking that if this was the complete festival, done, one shot, blamo, then you’d say it was looking to be a killer couple days in Germany.
That Friday lineup is unstoppable, and Saturday is more populated but right behind it with Fu Manchu and Unida at the top of the bill so far and a reunion slot for The Great Escape (feat. members of My Sleeping Karma), as well as US imports like The Heavy Eyes, High Reeper and Hippie Death Cult (waiting for that tour announcement any minute now). Maybe they’ll all go together and call it the Triple-H tour, thereby proving that they too remember pro wrestling in the mid-1990s.
Alright, maybe not. Either way, with more to come, here’s what the fest has to say about its own badass doings:
KEEP IT LOW – LINE-UP NEWS & SINGLE DAY TICKETS ON SALE
Dear Keepers,
today we’re happy to reveal the first bands for our upcoming Keep it Low festival 2022! Additionally, Single-Day Tickets are now on sale!
Doors are in about half an hour. From the cursory reconnaissance I’ve done at this point, it’s easy to think the Knockdown Center could become a multi-year home for Desertfest New York. It’s big, which certainly helps, and there’s more space than is being used right now. The second stage room is tiny — the sense I get is that by the time Sasquatch go on that will be an issue, but no one’s here yet except for bands and I’ve got basically a warehouse room to myself to write this.
Got in last night at 1AM, woke up around 7AM, so not the worst night of sleep ever. I was destroyed last night by the end of that show. Utterly bludgeoned. But I made it home and I expect I’ll do the same tonight. Hydrate. Advil. Who wants to hear my litany of old man complaints about my plannar fasciitis in my right foot? Nobody, I know. But it’s there. A presence in my life.
Sasquatch are here, and Mothership, John Garcia and the Band of Gold are soundchecking. Geezer and Howling Giant and various others, some I know and some I don’t. It looks like a show. I still have no idea how I’ll cover it but I’ll write when I can while bouncing back and forth between stages and see as much as I can see. That’s pretty much always the plan anyway. With the support of the egg and cheese on chaffle sandwich The Patient Mrs. made me this morning and the bit of pecan butter I finished up on the ride in, I should buy myself a couple hours of go. After that, will need coffee.
But alas, one crisis at a time.
Leather Lung
They had some new songs and asked if there were sleazy motherfuckers in here or not. If not, I think the general humidity in this room should provide some before the night’s out. Leather Lung were one of the last bands I saw before lockdown, and their heavy swinging sludge-rock-plus-extreme-this-and-that remains as nasty as I remembered. They’ve filled the room and heads are nodding, more and more coming in. I can feel the rumbling of the low end in the concrete floor, so take from that what you will. The start of a fest like this is always nerve-racking. You have to find the groove of the place, the groove of the crowd, the groove of the timing and the groove of your own mindset. Fortunately, Leather Lung have plenty of groove to spare to aid that process, and their taking stage isn’t so much a wading into the river of riffs — the riffver??? — as a full-on crazy old-timey Southern church baptismal dunk. Who says you can’t have aggro songs about getting fucked up?
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Black Tusk
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this band before, but I’m also pretty sure it’s been at least a decade, if not longer. They’ve had their ups and some real-life tragedies along the way — like everybody — but they’re a pro-shop metal band and they play like it. First act on the big stage and similar to Leather Lung, The intent seems to have been to roll out with something meaner rather than a languid style. Hey man, mean works. They’re piping them outside to where the food trucks are through a separate P.A., and I guess if you want furious riffs with your souvlaki, that’s a go. I will abscond momentarily to the smaller room again for Howling Giant, whom I’ve only seen at Psycho Las Vegas, but whose shenanigans are already legion in my brain. I’ve been looking forward to it, as I’ve been looking forward to all of this. Black Tusk though, digging that ferocity. Pummeling. And very much in that way of bands who’ve spent forever touring that they could just plug in wherever and make that happen.
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Howling Giant
These guys are a riot. A lot of bands can goof off and visibly have fun while playing their songs. Howling Giant can do that, play at a humbling level, and base it around killer material. They might be the only even vaguely prog-leaning heavy band out there who balance that against not taking themselves too seriously, and they absolutely refuse to leave their audience behind. Yeah, it was pretty god damned packed in that little room — they call it the Texas Stage, which is a little ironic considering the proportions — but my reason for walking out before Howling Giant were done had less to do ultimately with the heat and humidity and more with the sudden, very powerful urge I felt to buy a Howling Giant t-shirt. So I did that. Then, because there was no getting in whatsoever as the space was slammed with hoo-mans, I scootched over to the main stage again and chatted to some folks about this and that. Trying to remember to do that. There’s something like 1,400 people here this weekend. I feel like everybody’s everybody’s friend. That’s easier to think while Howling Giant play.
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Mothership
Doesn’t matter who you think of from that infinite set of list ’70s heavy rock bands, Mothership do it better. Texas trio, trip on the ship, all that. Just a great time. I guess they’ve been off tour for a while — who hasn’t? — but they made the big stage feel small with just the three of them and a vitality that few in whichever microgenre can match, and that energy is infectious, particularly from Kelley Juett on guitar, who is the classic wildman on stage. I have seen them three times now, at Maryland Doom Fest, in Boston with C.O.C., and here, and in this big room and that small one, they filled the space with sound and a genuine feeling of celebrating rock and roll. Kyle Juett on bass and vocals is more subdued, and drummer Judge Smith sits back there like he’s about to start laughing his ass off any minute. And then he does. Even better. You gotta be doing something right when Orange Goblin are on this stage next and people are asking for one more song.
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Geezer
Seems silly because I’ve seen them a bunch of times over their years — not much recently, duh — but I was really looking forward to Geezer’s set. It’s okay to like a band, right? I feel like I know their new album, Stoned Blues Machine, pretty well, since I was there when most of the basics were recorded and don’t tell anyone but I’m streaming it this coming Wednesday, but it was nothing but a pleasure to hear those songs come to life on stage. “Cold Black Heart,” “Atomic Moronic,” “Logan’s Run.” That’s a good-ass time. And they seemed in high spirits, no implication intended as to lucidity. Kind of a release show for them, since the record’s out next week, but I still haven’t seen any merch from them around. So it goes. The smaller room — I’ve heard a few complaints; it is what it is; be earlier — has a kind of raised floor along stage left and I went up there for a bit and watched. They’re not quite hometown heroes in NYC, but they draw a good crowd and deliver to them. That made it a little extra satisfying to watch them kill as they did.
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Orange Goblin
Orange Goblin. I mean, what do you say about a band like that? This was my first time seeing them with Harry Armstrong — apparently also his first time in New York, as was declared from the stage — but come on, was there any way it was going to be anything less than stellar? My real question is whether Ben Ward will come out for a guest spot with John Garcia later. But I’ve been seeing this band live for well over a decade and a half and I’ve not once been underwhelmed. I’ve seen them here, in London, elsewhere, and all they do is rock and roll. I feel like there are so many other bands I don’t need to see because I’ve seen Orange Goblin, and that’s not a slag on anybody, but god damn. You never know when they’re not gonna come back (to take the living), so I feel like every set should be treasured, and this one certainly will be. That sounds corny as shit, but I mean it. I read they’ve got new material in the works too. How hard will they tour? How feasible is it? I don’t think it’s a question of how much they have in the tank, because watching them play, the answer is plenty, but with all they’ve done, the influence they’ve had, they still get on stage and bring it like a hungry band. They’re one of a kind, much to the chagrin of the many pretenders out there.
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Holy Death Trio
It certainly did get dark in that little room. And I guess not so much with turning lights on. Okay, you make do. Holy Death Trio came up from Texas to play this show, and they played like a next-generation act, like they’ve got it together, have a plan when they go on stage and have put in the work to make their presentation as engaging as possible. One assumes it would’ve been even more so with lights on, but you know, sometimes it can be like a secret. Hey this band is super-cool but shh. Their record came out through Ripple last year in the label’s Blasko-curated splurge and if they’re going to tour for real life, it seems like they’re the kind of act where people are going to ask if you’ve seen them yet. I have now, and I’ll hope to again. They’ve got a party atmosphere — if you want to keep it to Austin bands, they’re like a less frenetic Amplified Heat — but they’re all the more exciting since they seem to be finding and still developing their approach. And make no mistake, asses were kicked. All I’m saying is that if they keep on the way they’re going, more will be in the years to come.
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John Garcia and the Band of Gold
A good mix of John Garcia solo stuff and the requisite Kyuss tunes. “July” from Slo Burn. How could you fit everything from such a career? He said from the stage that they hadn’t done anything in two and a half years. Me neither, dude, one YOB show and a couple outdoor Sun Voyager gigs notwithstanding. Perhaps the weekend’s most brutal conflict is John Garcia on the same time as Sasquatch. That’s a hard one to live through, though not like there’s a wrong answer, except leaving. “Whitewater” felt duly like a watershed moment, the band by then totally warmed up and killing it. I guess you’d say Garcia’s stage presence is quiet. He has his moves but doesn’t go nuts or anything. He thanked the crowd and the Desertfest crew though respectfully and even when Sasquatch went on in the smaller room it was packed. Less all-charge than Orange Goblin, because that’s the music they play, but they tore up that jam in “Whitewater” and earned that whole Band of Gold moniker, even before they kicked into an uptempo take on “Green Machine” to close out. I saw Vista Chino play that song. That was cool too. This is a drunk crowd. Maybe I’m not the only one for whom this is pandemic-breakout, which inevitably is more fun than an outbreak, also happening but let’s not talk about it.
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Sasquatch
I know it’s been a long day because I had to look up whether Sasquatch’s new album, Fever Fantasy, had been announced yet and I’m the one who wrote the announcement. You want rock and roll? There it is. That band. Keith Gibbs, Jason Casanova, Craig Riggs. Holy shit. They are the American heavy rock ideal, unstoppable in their momentum until they pull the rug out from under and lock in another killer groove. They opened with “Just Couldn’t Stand the Weather.” I fucking love “Just Couldn’t Stand the Weather!” How did they know? And I kind of feel like people holding up their cellphone flashlights when the band asked for more light on the stage was as close as the universe was going to come to doing me personal favors tonight, beyond simply being here. But Sasquatch have already been back on tour and they’ve got more in the works as I understand it, but god damn, just go see them. Just go. How many bands pass 20 years since they started and still deliver like that? There are a couple on the bill tonight, actually, but outside this building it’s far rarer. It was packed in the room 15 minutes before they went on, and the lights were low again, but whatever, it’s fucking Sasquatch. Bullshit need not apply.
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Corrosion of Conformity
They went on 15 minutes late, which, you know, so it goes when there’s no one else playing behind you. Plenty of Judas Priest to listen to in the meantime. By the time they were through the jammmy take on “Paranoid Opioid” that opened the set, Mike Dean starting it off quiet on bass — fucking rad — time didn’t matter. Plenty of the standards in the set, including “Vote with a Bullet,” which I wondered if they’d break out (Pepper Keenan said something about it on stage but I didn’t catch what), but I guess it’s been a year since there was an insurrection on the Capitol Hill, so, fair game. Highlight for me might’ve been “Born Again for the Last Time,” which will be stuck in my head forever and that’s just fine, but there was plenty of competition there, and I was just really, really happy to see them again. I wonder if they’ll do another record. That’d be interesting. They probably don’t need to yet, really — I don’t think there was anything from the latest album in the set — but I’d be curious what they came up with after a few quiet years and the road time they put in before and apparently after the covid era, such as it is. Bottom line though is new album or not, I’ve been listening to this band since before I hit puberty and every chance I get to watch them play I’m happy to do it. More so as time goes on.
—
Other Random Observations:
– Dude in the Ween shirt wins shirts. In general there’s a bit of deviance from the black-shirt-blue-jeans norm. I support that.
– I have good friends here, new and old. It’s important to remember that. I have been and continue to be pretty isolated in regular life.
– Lot of couples attending.
– Knockdown Center could have four stages going, easy, and that’s before you put anything outside other than the food trucks.
– I have hugged and been hugged more this evening than in the last two and a half years.
– I’m still not 100 percent sure if I’m in Brooklyn or Queens. Life, huh?
– Still feels a little weird being out, but I brought a mask and I haven’t felt compelled to wear it as yet, so that’s… progress?
Gadzooks! You’d almost think I planned these things out in advance. Please rest assured that this 84th episode of The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal is as conceptually haphazard as usual — I’d say it’s as haphazard in execution as well, but Dean Rispler does a banger job putting it all together, editing, etc. — so it’s really just my end that’s a wreck. In any case, today begins Desertfest New York 2022 proper at the Knockdown Center in Brooklyn, and I’m thrilled to have this playlist as a selection from among the bands playing it.
Some are New York or area natives — Geezer, King Buffalo from Upstate, Somnuri from Brooklyn itself — but whether it’s WarHorse coming down from Boston to play or High on Fire, Brume, Red Fang, Dead Meadow, Sasquatch and others coming from the other side of the country to Orange Goblin making the trip from the UK, it’s a rager. The playlist is killer because the fest is killer. Simple as that.
I won’t be in the chat this time because, well, I’ll be at the fest, but I’ll check in if I can. Thanks if you listen, and thanks for reading.
The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.
Full playlist:
The Obelisk Show – 05.13.22
Corrosion of Conformity
Deliverance
Deliverance
Torche
Mentor
Torche
High on Fire
Hung, Drawn & Quartered
Surrounded by Thieves
VT1
John Garcia
Chicken Delight
John Garcia & The Band of Gold
Sasquatch
It Lies Beyond the Bay
Fever Fantasy
Dead Meadow
Sleepy Silver Door
Live at Roadburn 2011
Brume
Despondence
Rabbits
Red Fang
Number Thirteen
Murder the Mountains
Somnuri
Watch the Lights Go Out
Nefarious Wave
King Buffalo
The Knocks
The Burden of Restlessness
Orange Goblin
They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls)
Healing Through Fire
VT2
Inter Arma
A Waxen Sea
Sulphur English
WarHorse
Lysergic Communion
As Heaven Turns to Ash
Yatra
Terminate by the Sword
Born Into Chaos
Valley of the Sun
The Chariot
The Chariot
Druids
Path to R
Shadow Work
High Reeper
Plague Hag
Higher Reeper
Greenbeard
Diamond in the Devil’s Grinder
Variant
VT3
Geezer
Atomic Moronic
Stoned Blues Machine
Howling Giant
Nomad
The Space Between Worlds
The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is May 27 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 28th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Speaking on behalf of the entire United States with authority granted to me by precisely nobody, I bid a heartfelt “welcome back” to London’s Orange Goblin as they return once more to American shores this Spring to play Desertfest New York 2022 at the Knockdown Center in Brooklyn. This will mark the first time the four-piece have been to the States since bringing aboard bassist Harry Armstrong (also backing vocals) in place of founding member Martyn Millard, and they’ll arrive not a moment too soon, playing in Seattle on May 11 as part of a four-gig stint that quickly spans both coasts.
Tone Deaf Touring is presenting the shows, and Orange Goblin will be joined by High Tone Son of a Bitch, Telekinetic Yeti and The Atomic Bitchwax, respectively, in Seattle, Boston and Reading, Pennsylvania (outside Philly), in addition of course to Desertfest, where they’ll appear on May 13.
One doesn’t expect Orange Goblin to come back to the US this year, so if you’re on the fence, you might factor that into whether or not you choose to show up. The key words there are the last four: “choose to show up.” Tickets do be available.
From social media:
**ORANGE GOBLIN ANNOUNCE US SHOWS FOR MAY 2022**
Orange Goblin will be performing a small number of club shows in the US when we travel over in May to perform at Desertfest New York. This year marks 20 years since Orange Goblin first came to the USA when we toured with Alabama Thunderpussy back in 2002. Since then we have been back numerous times but not since the short tour in 2019, so we are very excited to play these dates and we are bringing some cool friends with us to support!
May 11 – El Corazon, Seattle, WA (with support from HTSOB) May 13 – Desertfest New York 2022, NY (@ Knockdown Center) May 14 – The Middle East, Boston, MA (with support from Telekinetic Yeti) May 15 – Reverb, Reading, PA (with support from The Atomic Bitchwax)
Tickets for all shows are on sale via this link:
https://tonedeaftouring.tourlink.to/OGUSA
Thanks to our US agent at Tone Deaf Touring for organising this and we can’t wait to get back Stateside!
Poster artwork by Dominic Sohor.
Orange Goblin is: Ben Ward – Vocals Joe Hoare – Guitar Harry Armstrong – Bass / Backing vocals Christopher Turner – Drums
Posted in Bootleg Theater on December 3rd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Released in 2002 on Rise Above Records and The Music Cartel (which at the time brought Rise Above‘s releases to the US market), Coup de Grace is the fourth album from London’s Orange Goblin. In some ways it was a departure, and in some ways an affirmation of the band they were becoming and would continue to become. Transitional? Yeah, but a standout too. If you only know their first couple records, or you only know their latter-day output — their latest LP, The Wolf Bites Back (review here), came out in 2018 — it might take a minute or two to understand where they’re coming from.
But, until they actually go ahead and just release an album of Motörhead covers, Coup de Grace is probably the closest they’ve come yet to doing so. Where their 1997 debut, Frequencies From Planet Ten (discussed here), and its 1998 follow-up, Time Travelling Blues (discussed here), had been pretty well dug into the then-formative idea of what stoner rock was, grown out of the band’s origins as Our Haunted Kingdom and inflected with doom accordingly, and 2000’s The Big Black (discussed here) began to expand upon in sound, drawing back on the fuzz and filling that space with a harder-edged burl that, over time, has become a defining element of Orange Goblin‘s craft. Coup de Grace would continue that stylistic movement while at the same time stripping down the approach to as raw as it’s ever gotten in their career.
Aided in their cause by producer Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed, etc.), Nebula‘s Tom Davies and twice-appearing guest vocalist John Garcia (Kyuss, Slo Burn, Unida, Hermano, etc.) — who shows up on the ultra-hooky “Made of Rats” and the late “Jesus Beater” — guitarists Pete O’Malley and Joe Hoare, then-bassist Martyn Millard, drummer Christopher Turner and vocalist Ben Ward brought a new echelon of themselves to the work they did across Coup de Grace‘s 12 tracks and 51 minutes, from the right-on-fuck-yes heavy chug of “Rage of Angels” and the boozy brawl of “Monkey Panic” to the out and out punk rock of opener “Your World Will Hate This” and the Misfits cover “We Bite,” the ’70s heavy blues of “Stinkin’ o’ Gin” and the careening biker vibe in “Whiskey Leech” and the quintessentially-their-own cuts like “Getting High on the Bad Times” and “Born With Big Hands,” Orange Goblin‘s we’re-down-but-at-least-we’re-drunk point of view taking shape amid the fuzz-overdose of “Red Web” or “Made of Rats,” the hook of which is so straight-ahead it feels like the song is punching you in the face with it, which, yeah, it kind of is.
The acoustic-led instrumental “Graviton” notwithstanding, one thing Coup de Grace doesn’t really try to do is hypnotize. “Stinkin’ o’ Gin” is the longest cut at 7:21 and has its jam as it pushes deeper into the second half of the song, but even there, you know in hearing it that Orange Goblin are going to bring it back around to finish out, and they do, letting the album cap with a sample: “What the hell was that shit?” Nearly 20 years later, it’s a record that’s only continued to hold up, and it does so while finding a blend of heavy rock, punk, and doom that feels as organic as anything Orange Goblin have ever done to-date. At no point during Coup de Grace does it sound like the band sat down and said, “Okay, now we need a song that does this” — maybe they actually did, but it doesn’t matter because the finished product of the album doesn’t sound that way. It sounds like they were in the rehearsal space following riffs and this is where they led to.
And at some point you have to give mention to the production specifically, because Coup de Grace doesn’t sound like anything other Orange Goblin release, before or since. Yes, they absolutely built on what they did here with 2004’s Thieving From the House of God, but the charged aggression that began to show its head with The Big Black and seemed to come into focus here would inevitably continue to become a feature for them, on Thieving as well as 2007’s recently-reissuedHealing Through Fire, pairing with the penchant for memorable songcraft that’s been a part of their identity since the first record but that really came forward starting with Time Travelling Blues as well. But the sound of Coup de Grace is distinct, and the balance it strikes on its own is perfectly suited to the material, allowing “Rage of Angels” or “Red Web” to be thick enough to get their point across but still be consistent with barroom throwdowns like “Getting High on the Bad Times,” or twisting speeds of “We Bite” and “Your World Will Hate This.”
Maybe this is the true record that’s not overthought. Maybe this is the one. It doesn’t by any means sound thrown together haphazardly — the sounds are sharp and you certainly wouldn’t call anything missing from the end result of the mix — but Coup de Grace feels almost live-tracked for the energy Orange Goblin put behind their delivery, and Reeder‘s recording job captures that in undeniable form. Maybe it did just happen that way. Wouldn’t that be something? Imagine that for a minute.
OrangeGoblin‘s progression would continue, has continued, to evolve over nearly two decades, and each of their albums is a landmark on their narrative path. Coup de Grace is no mere aside — it’s crucial for what it tells you about where they’re coming from as players and as a group collaborating together on songs — and as much as their output over the last 10 years on the aforementioned The Wolf Bites Back, 2014’s Back from the Abyss(review here) and/or 2012’s A Eulogy for the Damned (review here) has seen them push more toward hard-landing metal, the stylistic foundation on display throughout “Made of Rats,” “Getting High on the Bad Times,” “Born With Big Hands,” “Monkey Panic” and others from Coup de Grace can still be heard in their sound. They are, then, persistently themselves in what they do.
Unfuckwithable? Pretty much.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
Thanks for reading.
—
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to having these songs stuck in my head for the next few days. I had wanted to close out last week with this record, even had the back end stuff on the post ready to roll out once I actually got the writing done, but there turned out to be too many announcements coming in last Friday to make it happen in the time I had available. And I can’t really fool myself into thinking anyone’s weekend beyond my own hinges on what I feel compelled to say about a 20-year-old Orange Goblin album. Truth is, I just like writing about them and was bummed to have to push it back. But we got there eventually.
Here’s how the rest of December looks:
— Next week is not the Quarterly Review.
— The week after is. I need to look over the next week, because I might have two full weeks’ worth of stuff and if I do, I’m going to do half in December and half in January, five days each with 50 records for a total of 100.
— The week after that is the Xmas holiday. My goal is to have my Best of 2021 stuff up by Xmas Eve.
— After the holiday I don’t really have a plan yet, but hopefully I can either wrap up some final 2021 reviews or start on stuff that’s coming out in January. We’ll see.
If past is prologue, I’ll be playing catchup forever with this stuff, but who knows. I’ve managed to successfully get through every year-end whatnot to this point, so I’m reasonably confident I can do so again, no matter how many rolled eyes I might garner from The Patient Mrs. in the meantime. Well earned, all of them. I am, in fact, ridiculous, and I do these things to myself.
I’ve got about an hour until The Pecan’s bus drops him off and I need to make Gimme Metal playlists — two of them, because of the holiday — and set up stuff for Monday so I can write probably over the weekend as much as possible, so I’m going to leave it there. Motivation to get up in the morning has been nil, so I’ve been doing my best to accommodate that. I’m very tired. It’s kind of my thing.
But again, the stuff that (I think) needs to get done does, and even if I end up having to move an Orange Goblin Friday Full-Length down a week, ain’t nobody crying but me. So there.
Please be kind to each other. Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, celebrate love, be cool like you are, watch your head. I’ll be back on Monday and kicking around on the laptop as much as possible this weekend.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 12th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
God damn, Desertfest.
Importing Stoned Jesus, Green Lung, Planet of Zeus and Orange Goblin (as much as the latter count as an import; they’ve certainly been here before) to play alongside Baroness, High on Fire and Monster Magnet, Red Fang, C.O.C. and Torche?
That’s a big frickin’ deal.
If Desertfest NYC 2019 was a testing of waters to see if such a think could succeed and be feasible over a longer term, Desertfest NYC 2022 is an immediate play to become the preeminent heavy festival on the Eastern Seaboard of the US. To be a genuine Desertfest, in other words, of no less scale than Berlin, London, or Belgium. I’m glad to see Sasquatch and Fatso Jetson will be coming from the West Coast — I’d expect Fatso Jetson will be touring with Planet of Zeus, as that was supposed to happen in the long-long ago — and Somnuri are sure to represent NYC well and Stinking Lizaveta and High Reeper likewise for Philly, while The Atomic Bitchwax headlining the Vitus Bar pre-show warms my Garden Stater heart no end.
There are more to be announced (I have a couple picks of my own, not that anyone asked), but already this is the best heavy fest lineup for New York City in recent memory. It will be something special to behold. I hope there’s a photo pit at the Knockdown Center.
Behold Arik Roper‘s gorgeous poster art below, followed by the announcement:
Desertfest New York announces Baroness, High on Fire, Monster Magnet, Red Fang + more for second edition in 2022
Europe’s leading stoner rock collective Desertfest returns to New York in 2022.
Taking place in the unique arts space of the Knockdown Center from May 13th – May 15th, with an exclusive pre-party at Saint Vitus Bar on May 12th. Desertfest are firmly planting their feet back into New York’s underbelly with a mammoth line-up celebrating the very best of heavy music.
Welcoming home-grown talent such as BARONESS, MONSTER MAGNET, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY & TORCHE alongside acts from across the pond like Ukraine’s STONED JESUS, Greek groovers PLANET OF ZEUS & a debut US performance for English doom maestros GREEN LUNG, Desertfest NYC are pushing their second edition to new levels.
Saint Vitus kicks off proceedings as THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX, PLANET OF ZEUS, FATSO JETSON & DRUID warm up the engine for the weekend ahead. Followed by 3 monumental days as Knockdown Center hosts the likes of Grammy-award winning trio HIGH ON FIRE, British heavy metal icons ORANGE GOBLIN, a rock’n’roll bacchanal from RED FANG, insanity from INTER ARMA and much, much more.
4-day passes (includes access to Saint Vitus pre-party on Thursday 12th May) & 3-day passes (Knockdown Center only) are on sale now via the following link –https://desertfest.eventbrite.com
With more to be announced, including day splits, Desertfest are most certainly back with a bang. We highly recommend getting your tickets ASAP, don’t say we didn’t warn you…
Full Line-Up Knockdown Center May 13th – May 15th 2022 Baroness | High on Fire | Monster Magnet | Red Fang | Corrosion of Conformity | Torche | Orange Goblin | Dead Meadow | Inter Arma | Big Business | Green Lung | Stoned Jesus | Left Lane Cruiser | Sasquatch | Silvertomb | Telekentic Yeti | Stinking Lizaveta | High Reeper | Holy Death Trio | Yatra | Somnuri | Leather Lung
Saint Vitus Bar May 12th 2022 The Atomic Bitchwax | Planet of Zeus | Fatso Jetson | Druids
Posted in Questionnaire on November 5th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Christopher Turner of Orange Goblin
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Simply, I play drums for Orange Goblin but after 26 or so years it’s way more than that. I’m part of this family, almost like a sports club that extends beyond the four ‘musicians’ that occasionally get to travel far and wide, play some shows, see some shit, get some free drinks. I’m a small part of this bigger thing but I like to think I can see my fingerprints on it. It’s been a lifelong hobby really.
I ended up here kind of by accident; it was the early-mid ’90s, the band I was in had split up and I was left looking for something to do. A mutual friend told me his mates in a Sabbath-esque band were looking for a drummer so I contacted them and arranged a rehearsal. I didn’t show up. I did however show up a week later (I was used to bands rehearsing on particular days; it’s what we did back then) where, by chance they were there waiting for another drummer who didn’t show up and I’ve kind of been here ever since.
Describe your first musical memory.
I’d have been maybe three, we used to have this little ornamental ukulele thing that was propped up against the fireplace at home and I can remember picking it up and plonking away on the strings, a couple of years later (when it only had 2 strings) I figured out how to play ‘Good King Wenceslas’ on one of those strings, that’s when I realised where music came from.
That aside, I’ve a brother who’s eight years older than me and I can remember him coming home with the latest Sabbath, Led Zep, Deep Purple, UFO, Rainbow, Stranglers (who would be the first band I saw play live) and playing them on the family turntable. I ignored most of that stuff through my teens when I was into punk and hardcore but when things came back to them realised I knew all the songs pretty much off by heart.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
I used to run a skateboard shop in central London, one day after work I was headed into Soho to grab a coffee and bumped into a mate who was on his way to a little gig and asked If I wanted to tag along. Went with him to a little venue to see what turned out to be Kyuss in front of maybe 40 people. I think that was my biggest ‘holy fuck’ moment.
Years later we were playing Soundwave Festival in Australia, I was stood side stage watching Kyuss Lives play (as were a bunch of other people) – they started playing ‘Thumb’ and all the hairs raised on my arms – I pointed this out to the dude standing next to me who also got goosebumps and we fistbumped; was only James Hetfield wasn’t it…
London in the ’90s and early ‘00s was nuts, so many good shows, so many bands who would later go on to be huge playing tiny venues, met so many awesome people.
On a personal level, we’ve played international festivals where I look out across a sea of tens of thousands of people, arms in the air, jumping up and down in unison to the drum intro to ‘Blue Snow’ or some such and I’m thinking ‘I’m doing that!’ – that’s pretty fucking special.
Best sort of music related memory is getting to hang out with Tony Iommi for the day. The music college I work for was opening a campus in Birmingham and he’d agreed to come and do the official opening honours. I got a phone call from the boss who said, ‘You like Black Sabbath don’t you, how do you fancy going there and interviewing him?’ now I’ve never interviewed anyone but said yes immediately because, well just because… So anyway I found myself hanging out with him for the day, chatting, talking crap, having a laugh and we did this little interview thing. In a break between questions while they shuffled cameras round or something we were chatting about the Laney LA100BL Supergroup reissue I’d managed to get for the Brighton college and which I’d bought along as a stage prop. ‘I know what your settings are’ I told him and he looked me in the eyes with a cheeky-childlike grin on his face and said ‘Everything up full’ and we shared this little moment that no-one else was part of and that meant something special.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
‘Belief is a poor substitute for thought’ I’m at a stage now when I’m happy with my own shit. People will disagree with me; I don’t care. People may criticize me; again, I don’t care. I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong. I know people will think differently to me and are motivated by different things with different aims and goals but so long as I’m happy with what I’m doing and how I act then I’m good.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Progression is such a weird word to use when related to art. Progression how? ‘Getting better at doing it’? – by whose standards and who’s judging?
Creating art via any medium is an often cathartic exercise in self expression, if you continue to do it it means you think you’ve still got something to say/express. I don’t think there’s any artist in history who’s reached a point when they step back, admire their work with a wry smile and a nod and think ‘That’s it right there, that’s all I’ve got to say.’
How do you define success?
When you set out to achieve something, a specific goal and you attain it. It doesn’t have to be anything big, sometimes getting dressed and making it out the front door is a success.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I was making a delivery to a surgeon in a hospital and was guided through a security door and down a long corridor. Either side of the corridor were glass windows the other side of which were operating theatres. All theatres were empty except one. On the table in that one room was a human, split open from sternum to navel, surrounded by gowned figures one of whom was literally elbow deep, coated in blood and body fluids, rummaging round this person’s chest cavity.
It’s not that the image was gruesome as such, although it was, but more that it hammered home the vulnerability of the meat covered skeleton that we each pilot.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
The inside of my head is like a badly tuned radio flicking in between stations continuously. Occasionally I’ll kind of half hear a tune and if I tweak the radio a bit it makes a bit more sense and might actually materialize into a riff or some such – I’ve found myself humming tunes before and I don’t know where they’ve come from. Anyhow, if I concentrate on the white noise in my head I get the sense of something there behind all the static hiding, it’s been there a while but I can’t make any sense out of it. Whether it’s a tangible thing or just an idea I don’t know but I’d like to get it out as I think it’ll close a chapter or mark a change or some such; it’s just waiting for its time to come out.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
You know the feeling you get when you’ve eaten or drunk too much and you know you have to get it out of you to start feeling normal again? That’s art to me, you’ve got something inside you that bugs you and you need to get it out of you to start feeling regular again. To me art is a completely selfish, personal thing; you make art for yourself. If you make art for the consumer of that art you’re a salesman not an artist.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Tomorrow, I’m always a little surprised (and pleased) when I wake up in the morning and realise I’ve survived another day.
Posted in Whathaveyou on September 27th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
London’s Orange Goblin issued their digital-only live outing, Rough & Ready Live & Loud (review here), in the dark hours of 2020. The footnote context now is that it serves as the capstone of the Martyn Millard era of the band, who’ve since brought in Harry Armstrong to take on the bassist role. They’ve been doing live shows, have more coming up, and were recently confirmed for a delayed 25th anniversary celebration at Desertfest Berlin next year. No doubt that’ll be a good time. Orange Goblin always are.
Dissonance Productions, which will also oversee a reissue of 2007’s Healing Through Fire, will produce a physical edition of Rough & Ready Live & Loud that will be on CD in November and 2LP the middle of next year. Because that’s how long records take to make these days. Times we live in, and so forth.
In any case, Orange Goblin put word out about the release thusly:
ORANGE GOBLIN – ‘ROUGH & READY, LIVE & LOUD’ – VINYL & CD RELEASE ANNOUNCED
We are very happy with this one!
Due to massive demand from YOU, the fans, we have teamed up with Dissonance Productions to bring you this awesome physical release of last year’s digital live album ‘Rough & Ready’ Live & Loud’.
This beauty will now be released on CD in November 2021 and very limited ‘orange splatter’ double vinyl in May 2022 and both are up for pre-order now.
The physical version comes with an unreleased live track ‘Blue Snow’
1. Sons of Salem 2. The Devil’s Whip 3. Saruman’s Wish 4. Made of Rats 5. The Wolf Bites Back 6. Mythical Knives 7. The Fog 8. Some You Win, Some You Lose 9. The Filthy & The Few 10. Shine 11. Renegade 12. Time Travelling Blues 13. Blue Snow
GO GET SOME!!
Tickets for our ‘The Cold North’ Scandinavian Tour in November 2021 are on sale NOW from the link below:
Support on all dates comes from Swedish rockers Bürner.
Full set of dates as follows: NOVEMBER 2021 THU 11 – BETA, COPENHAGEN, DK FRI 12 – PLAN B, MALMO, SE SAT 13 – THE CRYPT, LINKOPING, SE MON 15 – JOHN DEE, OSLO, NO TUE 16 – FRIHAMNEN, GOTHENBURG, SE WED 17 – DEBASER, STOCKHOLM, SE FRI 18 – KLUBI, TAMPERE, FI SAT 19 – KORJAAMO, HELSINKI, FI
Orange Goblin live: Sat 31 Jul – The Yard, Cornwall, UK Sun 15 Aug – Bloodstock Open Air (Main Stage), UK Sunday 22 Aug – Dynamo Metalfest, Eindhoven, NL Sat 02 Oct – Headbangers Balls Festival, Izegem, BE Fri 05 Nov – Night of Salvation (Damnation Fest), Leeds, UK Sat 04 Dec – Dome of Rock Festival, Salzburg, AT Wed 08 Dec – The Booking Hall, Dover, UK Thu 09 Dec – The Tivoli, Buckley, UK Fri 10 Dec – Limelight 2, Belfast, UK Sat 11 Dec – Grand Social, Dublin, IRE Mon 13 Dec – King Tuts, Glasgow, UK Tue 14 Dec – Gorilla, Manchester, UK Wed 15 Dec – Asylum, Birmingham, UK Thu 16 Dec – The Globe, Cardiff, UK Fri 17 Dec – The Underworld, London, UK Sat 18 Dec – The Underworld, London, UK
Orange Goblin is: Ben Ward – Vocals Joe Hoare – Guitar Harry Armstrong – Bass / Backing vocals Christopher Turner – Drums
