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The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio Recap: Episode 12

Posted in Radio on March 18th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

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A few episodes ago, I played Graven and floated the idea of doing a whole episode that was super-aggressive. At the same time, I thought a show that went totally the other way would be cool too; all acoustic or near-acoustic stuff and nothing really aggro about it. Well, then my silly brain got started wondering why not do both? So here we are. The first hour? Oh that’s mad. Lots of sludge, lots of screaming. When you start off with YOB’s “Nothing to Win,” you know you’re throwing down some anger. I probably won’t play Primitive Man that often. This time, it felt important to make the point. So it’s there next to Coltsblood. Point made.

Second hour? Well, it starts with Lamp of the Universe, so things get pretty trippy and pretty mellow and they basically stay that way with T.G. Olson, Conny Ochs, No Man’s Valley, The Book of Knots — because god damn, I love that song — and Scott Kelly and the Road Home — ditto — getting progressively moodier as they go. From there, it’s time to jam to the end of the episode with WEEED and Träden, who I recently saw have a show coming up at Rough Trade in New York. No way I’ll be cool enough to be there, but it’s an awesome idea anyhow.

All told, I’m happy with how this one came out, and for being kind of a hodgepodge conceptually, I think it’s worth exploring different kinds of heaviness and what makes a particular song or moment feel that way. If you listened last night or hear the replay, thanks.

Here’s the full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 03.17.19

YOB Nothing to Win Clearing the Path to Ascend
Mastiff Vermin Plague*
Swarm of the Lotus From Embers When White Becomes Black
Sadhus, The Smoking Community Sobbing Children Big Fish*
BREAK
Horsehunter Bring out Yer Dead Horsehunter*
Primitive Man Sterility Caustic
Coltsblood Snows of the Winter Realm Split with Un*
Lamp of the Universe The Leaving Align in the Fourth Dimension*
T.G. Olson Backslider Riding Roughshod*
Conny Ochs Hammer to Fit Doom Folk*
No Man’s Valley Murder Ballad Outside the Dream*
The Book of Knots Traineater Traineater
Scott Kelly & the Road Home The Field that Surrounds Me The Forgiven Ghost in Me
BREAK
WEEED Carmelized You are the Sky*
Träden När lingonen mognar (Lingonberries Forever) Träden

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Radio airs every other Sunday night at 7PM Eastern, with replays the following Tuesday at 9AM. Next show is March 31. Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Radio website

The Obelisk on Thee Facebooks

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The Road Home Announce Full-Time Members and Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 14th, 2015 by JJ Koczan

scott kelly (Photo by Mootown on Instagram)

Scott Kelly and the Road Home‘s “The Field that Surrounds Me,” taken from 2012’s The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here), is one of those songs I go back to when I’m absolutely out of my mind. Needless to say, it’s come up a couple times since the album was released, and so I’m pleased to see Kelly and his Neurosis bandmate Noah Landis bringing in Munly J. Munly of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots as a full-time member and moving forward with the project. Re-dubbed The Road Home, the trio will embark on a 12-date tour starting Jan. 22, joined for a couple shows by Mike Scheidt and linking up with the Karma to Burn/Sierra tour for a gig in there as well.

Hopefully they come east at some point so I can intend to go see them and, should I actually manage to do so, get pulled over on the way. Because that’s what happens every other fucking time I try to leave the house and go someplace in this godforsaken over-copped perma-gray wintry hellhole where I live. Fuck everything. Cool project though. I got sidetracked. Sorry.

To the PR wire:

the road home tour poster

THE ROAD HOME: Scott Kelly Solo Venture Takes New Form With Full-Time Members Noah Landis And Munly J Munly

West Coast Tour Dates Begin Next Week

With the addition of new full-time members, the project forged as SCOTT KELLY AND THE ROAD HOME — orchestrated by Neurosis’ founding guitarist/vocalist, Scott Kelly — has since taken a new form as simply, THE ROAD HOME.

Neurosis’ keyboard/effects wizard, Noah Landis, has been a part of the project since the creation of SCOTT KELLY AND THE ROAD HOME’s 2012-released debut album, The Forgiven Ghost In Me, providing baritone guitars and keyboards to the record and on stage. Yet, since his role in the outfit has become much more expansive and significant, in both inception and delivery of the tunes, his place in the lineup has therefore become more permanent. Additionally, renowned singer/songwriter Munly J Munly has joined the group in recent months, helping reshape the band’s sound. An iconic folk/country/gospel multi-instrumentalist who has helped shape the contemporary sound of Denver, Munly is part of several current acts, including his own Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots, as well as Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Denver Broncos UK and others, with releases on Smooch Records, Alternative Tentacles and more, in addition to being an awarded author, and so on.

Issues Kelly of the current state of THE ROAD HOME, “We changed the name because with the addition of Munly and Noah’s already prominent role in the process it felt that this had become a band of absolutely equal parts in every way. We will be working on new material throughout the year in preparation for a new record.”

As their next recorded chapter comes together, THE ROAD HOME’s new lineup will be playing live whenever possible, beginning with a newly-confirmed Western US tour which begins next week. From Thursday, January 22rd through Wednesday, February 4th, they will traverse through California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Washington with twelve dates confirmed.

Additional tour and release news on THE ROAD HOME will be confirmed and announced in the months ahead.

THE ROAD HOME Winter Tour Dates:
1/22/2015 1234 Go! Records – Oakland, CA – in-store performance
1/23/2015 Metavinyl – Santa Cruz, CA
1/24/2015 Audies Olympic – Fresno, CA
1/25/2015 Against The Stream Buddhist Meditation Society – Los Angeles, CA
1/27/2015 TKO Records – Huntington Beach, CA – in-store performance
1/28/2015 Yucca Tap Room – Phoenix, AZ
1/29/2015 Dive Bar – Las Vegas, NV
1/30/2015 Heart of Gold Tattoo – Salt Lake City, UT
1/31/2015 Crazy Heart – Boise, ID
2/02/2015 The Shakedown – Bellingham, WA
2/03/2015 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
2/04/2015 Hawthorne Theatre front room – Portland, OR

Neurot Recordings released SCOTT KELLY AND THE ROAD HOME’s debut outing, The Forgiven Ghost In Me, in August 2012. Dissimilar to his previously-released solo outings, on this recording Kelly sought out additional musicians to help bring his written vision to fruition, recruiting the talents of Greg Dale and Noah Landis, as well as guest contributions from Jason Roeder (Neurosis, Sleep) and Josh Graham (A Storm Of Light, ex-Neurosis). The Forgiven Ghost In Me, flows with over forty minutes of foreboding Americana showcasing the ever-evolving artist brandishing some of Kelly’s most expressive hymns of pain, reflection and redemption to date.

http://www.facebook.com/ScottKelly.official
http://www.neurosis.com
http://www.facebook.com/officialneurosis
http://www.neurotrecordings.com
http://www.facebook.com/neurotrecordings

Scott Kelly and the Road Home, “The Field that Surrounds Me” live in Hamburg, 2014

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Scott Kelly and the Road Home European Tour Starts Tomorrow

Posted in Whathaveyou on February 3rd, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Partnering alternately with Syndrome, The Leaving and Oldseed, Scott Kelly and the Road Home will begin a run of European tour dates this week that will carry them through the rest of this month and into next, supporting 2012’s The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here). This will reportedly be the first time the trio of Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Noah Landis (Neurosis) and Greg Dale hit the road together in Europe, so not that you needed an excuse to go if you happen to live or find yourself in that part of the world, but you’ve got one just in case.

Dates and a promo video follow:

Scott Kelly and The Road Home: European Tour 2014

After nearly 100 European Shows Scott Kelly, guitarist and singer of Neurosis, proved that his solo work stands out alone.

Now, for the first time, he will come to Europe with “the Road Home”. His Band. The Band that recorded the highly acclaimed Scott Kelly and the Road Home – “The Forgiven Ghost In Me” LP/CD.

The Road Home are Noah Landis of Neurosis (Keyboards/Sounds) and Greg Dale who lately was on tour with Neurosis.

Together Scott, Noah and Greg continue to explore The Great Mystery.

Scott Kelly & The Road Home European Tour 2014!
Tue 04.02. BE Brussels @ DNA
Wed 05.02. BE Liege @ La Zone (1)
Thu 06.02. BE Arlon @ L’Entrepot (1)
Fri 07.02. FR Paris @ Espace B (1)
Sat 08.02. FR Bayonne @ Atabal
Sun 09.02. ES Mungia (Vizcaya) @ Olalde Aretoa
Mon 10.02. ES Coruña @ Mardi Gras
Tue 11.02. PT Oporto @ Passos Manuel
Wed 12.02. PT Lisbon @ Galeria Ze Dos Bois
Thu 13.02. ES Madrid @ La Boite
Fri 14.02. ES Barcelona @ Hangar
Sun 16.02. IT Bologna @ Freakout Club
Mon 17.02. AT Vienna @ Arena 3Raum (2)
Tue 18.02. CH Zurich @ Ziegel oh Lac (2)
Wed 19.02. CH Geneva @ La Gravière (2)
Thu 20.02. CH Martigny @ Sunset Bar
Fri 21.02. HR Zagreb @ Klub Mocvara
Sat 22.02. SI Velenje @ Klub eMCe Plac
Sun 23.02. HU Budapest @ A 38
Mon 24.02. SK Trnava @ Mala Synagoga
Tue 25.02. PL Krakow @ Lizard King
Wed 26.02. CZ Prague @ Klub Pilot
Thu 27.02. GER Dortmund @ Pauluskirche (3)
Fri 28.02. GER Leipzig @ UT Connewitz
Sat 01.03. GER Hamburg @ tba
Sun 02.03. DK Copenhagen @ KB18
Tue 04.03. NO Drammen @ Union Scene
Wed 05.03. SE Stockholm @ Lilla Hotellbaren
Thu 06.03. FI Tampere @ Klubi
Fri 07.03. LV Riga @ Cinema – K. Suns.
Sat 08.03. PL Warsaw @ Chmury
(1) Support: Syndrome
(2) Support: The Leaving
(3) Support: Oldseed

https://www.facebook.com/ScottKelly.official
http://www.myproudmountain.com/
http://www.neurotrecordings.com

Scott Kelly and the Road Home, European Tour Trailer

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Scott Kelly Takes to the Woods for “The Sun is Dreaming in My Soul” Video

Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 28th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

If it seems like kind of a no-brainer to mix performance footage and nature shots to make a Scott Kelly video, it’s only because the songs are so damn organic. My Proud Mountain oversaw the putting together of this clip for “The Sun is Dreaming in My Soul,” from this year’s Scott Kelly and the Road Home full-length, The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here), which is fitting, since they also released the album in the UK and Europe.

Kelly is on the road currently in that part of the world, and you’ll find his remaining tour dates courtesy of the PR wire after the video below. Please enjoy:

Scott Kelly’s solo tour is now underway and his only UK show at London’s Black heart is looming.

My Proud Mountain have this week released a brand new video for the song ‘The Sun Is Dreaming In The Soul’ – taken from his latest solo album The Forgiven Ghost In Me.

During this tour, Scott Kelly will play songs from his two most recent records which also includes, Songs Of Townes Van Zandt as well as The Forgiven Ghost In Me, both released earlier this year on My Proud Mountain in the UK/EU.

SCOTT KELLY (Neurosis)
Europe Tour 2012

Wed 28.11. FI Turku Klubi
Thu 29.11. FI Oulu Nuclear Nightclub
Tue 04.12. UK London The Black Heart
Wed 05.12. CH Luzern Sedel
Thu 06.12. CH Martigny Sunset Bar
Fri 07.12. CH Moudon Les Prisons
Sat 08.12.CH Delémont SAS
Sun 09.12. IT Parma Bandits Pub
Mon 10.12. GER Karlsruhe Jubez
Tue 11.12. GER Dortmund Pauluskirche
Wed 12.12. GER Leipzig UT Connewitz
Thu 13.12. GER Osnabrück Bastard Club
Fri 14.12. GER Berlin Jägerklause
Sat 15.12. PL Poznan Blue Note
Sun 16.12. GER Hamburg Molotow
Mon 17.12. GER Rostock Mau
Tue 18.12. DK Copenhagen Loppen
Wed 19.12. NL Groningen Simplon
Thu 20.12. NL Tilburg O13
Fri 21.12. LU Luxenbourg Decibal Bar
Sat 22.12. BE Brüssel Ancienne Belgique

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Scott Kelly Interview: Mapping the Road Home

Posted in Features on August 17th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

Listening to Scott Kelly and the Road Home‘s The Forgiven Ghost in Me, it’s almost like Kelly — best known as the guitarist/vocalist of Neurosis — can’t escape the heavy. One doesn’t often think of folk-derived stripped-down singer-songwriterisms as being especially weighted, but even through lyrics about near-religious redemption and forgiveness, there’s a sense the spirit remains heavy. And more, the delivery remains heavy. Kelly, who is joined in The Road Home by guitarist/vocalist Greg Dale and Neurosis keyboardist Noah Landis and whose songcraft is at the core of the project, seems to just bleed the stuff.

Certainly the vast majority of his output over the last 25-plus years would bear that out, but more perhaps on The Forgiven Ghost in Me (review here) than ever before in Kelly‘s career, that sense of weight is given a counterbalance. Sure, tracks like “Within it Blood,” “We Let the Hell Come” and “The Field that Surrounds Me” — which features guests Josh Graham (A Storm of Light, also Neurosis‘ visuals) on guitar and Jason Roeder (Neurosis, Sleep) on drums — have darkened and foreboding atmospheres, but there’s an answer to them in “We Burn through the Night” and “A Spirit Redeemed to the Sun,” or even the title-track, “The Forgiven Ghost in Me.” One need only to look at the titles and find images of hell, blood, burning, the sun and fire, to get a sense of the penance that has been the price of even this partial redemption, but it’s there, anyway.

But more than this offsetting defeat and triumph, The Forgiven Ghost in Me is about the songs themselves. It is a gorgeous listen, reveling in its moodier moments but never quite letting go of its sullen melodicism. Flourishes of tape noise on the darker “Within it Blood” may seem on paper to work against, say, the deep breath that starts off the album before “A Spirit Redeemed to the Sun” begins, but in the actual listen, it’s fluid. Kelly is talking about the sharing of influences below when he posits that, “Music is a stream,” but you could just as easily apply that to the context of these songs and how he’s positioned them on the album.

In the interview that follows, Kelly discusses that positioning process, as well as his songwriting and what it was in these songs that seemed to warrant the input of Dale and Landis, as opposed to his 2008 outing, The Wake, which was directly a solo affair, and what separates Scott Kelly and the Road Home from his prior non-Neurosis collaboration with Landis in Blood and Time, and much more. Neurosis have a new album due for release in October called Honor Found in Decay (info here), but I wanted to focus this conversation more on The Forgiven Ghost in Me and the impact Kelly‘s solo work has had on a heavy underground that might not otherwise have so readily discovered the likes of Townes Van Zandt, to whom Kelly, Neurosis bandmate Steve Von Till and Shrinebuilder bandmate and acoustic tourmate Scott “Wino” Weinrich paid homage on the Songs of Townes Van Zandt three-way split (track stream here) just a few months back.

He was as brutally honest in conversation as he is in his songwriting, as regards his work, what goes into it from and through him, and the influence it’s had on others.

You’ll find the complete Q&A after the jump. Please enjoy.

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Scott Kelly and the Road Home, The Forgiven Ghost in Me: Burning through the Night

Posted in Reviews on July 26th, 2012 by JJ Koczan

The idea of putting The Forgiven Ghost in Me, the new mostly-solo outing from Scott Kelly, in any kind of proper context is ludicrous. It’s like trying to cover a mountain with a tarp. For the better part of 30 years, Kelly has stood alongside fellow guitarist/vocalist Steve Von Till at the fore of Neurosis’ explorations and so has become one of the most influential figures of his generation in underground heavy. In 2001, Kelly released his first solo album, Spirit Bound Flesh, on which he began to incorporate the elements of country and dark Americana and also to refine his gravely, exhausted vocal approach that, while still closely related to his contributions to Neurosis, was on songs like “The Passage” more melodic and given an entirely new perspective. Joining forces with Neurosis keyboardist Noah Landis and others in Blood and Time, Kelly helmed the songwriting for 2004’s At the Foot of the Garden (Blood and Time would also release a Latitudes session in 2007 with a lineup that included Kelly, Landis and A Storm of Light’s Josh Graham and Vinnie Signorelli), and the track “Remember Me” from that album also showed up on his next solo outing, 2008’s The Wake. In the time since Spirit Bound Flesh, in addition to the Blood and Time outings, Kelly had released four albums with Neurosis – 2001’s A Sun that Never Sets arrived almost concurrently, 2003’s collaboration with Jarboe, 2004’s The Eye of Every Storm and 2007’s Given to the Rising – as well as begun the preliminaries for what would result in the 2009 self-titled debut from the supergroup Shrinebuilder, in which Kelly is joined by luminaries Al Cisneros (Sleep), Scott “Wino” Weinrich (Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, etc.), and Dale Crover (the Melvins). It wasn’t necessarily much of a surprise that The Wake found Kelly more developed and clearer-headed about what he wanted his solo aesthetic to be – he’d certainly had time to think about it doing everything else.

But still, The Wake was surprisingly cohesive. One can get a sense of where Kelly was headed with it listening in hindsight to Blood and Time’s Latitudes session, on which both Townes van Zandt and Roky Erickson were covered, but still, for many, it was blindsiding, and in no small part I mark it as a beginning touchstone of a new wave of “acoustic heavy” that in the last several months alone has found the likes of Mike Scheidt of YOB and Nate Hall of U.S. Christmas releasing similarly-minded solo outings, a clear thread between them being an influence from Kelly’s work on The Wake. In  2011, Kelly toured with Wino (then supporting his acoustic solo debut) and released a split single and earlier 2012 brought the Songs of Townes van Zandt three-way tribute between Kelly, Wino and Von Till, so as The Forgiven Ghost in Me arrives via Neurot with Kelly performing once again alongside NeurosisLandis, as well as Greg Dale under the moniker Scott Kelly and the Road Home, the album has no small task ahead of it in drawing together the Americana and drearily ambient styles in Kelly’s past work. This is unquestionably the album’s greatest success, and that the eight songs/41 minutes are executed with no sacrifice of emotional pull or songwriting acumen only makes the record more impressive. As in Blood and Time, Kelly has once again a fitting partner in Landis (who also recorded The Forgiven Ghost in Me) and throughout these songs, Scott Kelly and the Road Home manage to vary atmospherics while never losing a cohesive mood. The vocals play a large role in establishing the overall scope (Josh Graham does a guest spot late into the record on “The Field that Surrounds Me,” as does Neurosis/Sleep drummer Jason Roeder), but if the opening duo of “A Spirit Redeemed to the Sun” and “The Forgiven Ghost in Me” – the construction of their titles being not the only similarity between them – establish anything, it’s that it’s the songs themselves that are the focus of the album, and nothing else.

Even before it kicks in, one can already hear the organ behind Kelly’s guitar on the open-your-hymnal-and-turn-to-page-three opener “A Spirit Redeemed to the Sun,” on which lyrics like, “I’ve washed the blood from my hands/I’ve forgiven myself in my soul/And I stand before you as nothing and no one/But my hands draw the moths to the flame,” are delivered not with hopped up religious zealotry, but subdued resignation – a sort of restless peace. It’s a folk hymn in the end, with another layer of guitar added, but still a relatively sparse arrangement in terms of what’s actually included – organ, guitar, voice – for how full it sounds. That efficiency is at play across the bulk of The Forgiven Ghost in Me, and when it’s veered from, as on the necessarily busier “The Field that Surrounds Me,” it’s clearly done so on purpose. Most of the songs, though, feature some accompaniment for Kelly at least later in the track, as with the added guitar on “A Spirit Redeemed to the Sun,” and presumably those are the contributions of Dale, though I don’t know that to say for sure. In that regard, however, the title cut, which begins humbly with an intake of breath, joins “The Field that Surrounds Me” as one of the busier inclusions, with early-arriving electric guitar behind the central acoustic figure and – preceded by audible creaks of a chair – a multi-vocal chorus underscored by organ. But for the drums to come later, it’s about as “lively” as The Forgiven Ghost in Me gets, and listening to the rhythm of the acoustic line after that chorus, it’s almost “Stones From the Sky” repurposed. Excellently repurposed, at that, and if Kelly had that in mind when he wrote “The Forgiven Ghost in Me,” he certainly wouldn’t be the first to borrow from that pivotal Neurosis moment. Insistent as that musical hook is by its very nature, here it is patient and in service to a far less bombastic atmosphere – the chorus is more the highlight. “In the Waking Hours” begins with louder guitars and what sounds like tape hum in the background, playing up the organic atmospherics before the electrics come in once again, farther back and played with a slide. The progression isn’t a build, as such, but a definite apex comes later into its 4:28, the last minute or so devoted to a memorable guitar strum.

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