Posted in Whathaveyou on October 20th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Whatever else Deathwhite‘s Grey Everlasting might be when it finally surfaces through Season of Mist sometime hopefully circa June 2022, I have little doubt it will be one of the most accurately descriptive titles to see release next year. If you heard 2020’s pre-pandemic opus, Grave Image (review here), you know what I’m talking about. The anonymous, Pittsburgh-based four-piece recorded instrumental tracks with Shane Mayer at Cerebral Audio Productions — who also helmed Grave Image and the band’s 2018 debut, For a Black Tomorrow (review here) — and shifted locales to Mana Recording in Florida to do vocals and mixing with Art Paiz. Some dude named Dan Swanö — no big deal or anything but yes most definitely a big deal — did the master.
No, I haven’t heard it yet, apart from the little mixing snippet posted down under their update below. You think it would be tacky for me to hit up the label this early? Probably. On the other hand, I’ve never really been much for class, and with winter looming, it sure does seem like the kind of thing to keep cold with. Alas, maybe I’ll get there or maybe I’ll chicken out and listen to the last record again instead. Should be interesting to have Grey Everlasting show up in Springtime though, if that’s indeed how it works out.
The band was relatively succinct in confirming completion:
DEATHWHITE – ‘Grey Everlasting’ Album Update
It is with distinct pleasure to share that Grey Everlasting has been handed over to the esteemed Season of Mist for a late spring/early summer 2022 release. While we are sworn to secrecy on the album’s particulars, we can share that it features 11 songs, including an instrumental.
Grey Everlasting is our longest album to date but also includes some of our shortest songs. To coin a term from our U.K. friends, we are properly “chuffed” with the album, but, of course, you, the fair, trusted listening audience, will make your determination in due time. – DW
Some three decades on from their founding, Norway’s Funeral will release their first new album nine years, Praesentialis in Aeternum, on Dec. 10 through Season of Mist. And it arrives in form as though founding drummer Anders Eek and his surrounding cohort of vocalist Sindre Nedland, guitarists Erlend Nybø and Magnus Olav Tveiten, bassist Rune Gangrud and orchestral arranger André Aaslie — Ingvild “Sareeta” Anette Strønen Kaare (Ram-Zet, guest spots for Solefald, Borknagar, etc.) has also joined to play violin full-time, but isn’t on the record so far as I know — are working to make up for lost time. That is to say, for a collection of six tracks that willfully sloughs its way across 55 minutes, Praesentialis in Aeturnum is an intense listen. Its component songs, from opener “Ånd” onward, occur with headphone-ready depth and still maintain a raw impact of extreme metal.
The orchestral elements add a grandiose feel even as compares to 2012’s Oratorium, and in the aforementioned lead track as well as throughout “Erindring I – Hovmod” and its subsequent companion “Erindring II – Fall,” in “Materie” (premiering below) and elsewhere, they weave in and out to create a sense of there being movements within the individual songs. Nedland‘s vocals line up priorities accordingly, here resolving an apex in a call and response between low growling and choral harmonies, there meeting the quiet midsection of “Materie” with an almost sweet folkishness. Until it all explodes again, anyhow. Ka-boom.
The word you’re looking for is “dynamic,” and Funeral‘s awaited sixth full-length is easily that. “Erindring II – Fall” builds up with cinematic drama and turns grueling and gorgeous and back again before it finally slams to its finish. Sudden shifts in “Ånd” set an open context for the many turns between louder and quieter fare to come, but this isn’t necessarily anything new in terms of structure for Funeral, the central difference being how well the various sides of the band’s sound tie together and the production being large-sounding enough to contain the material itself. The arrival of the brass section after the five-minute mark in “Materie,” for example, or the choral layering of vocals that precede the final slams and growls of “Erindring II – Fall,” never mind the force behind those same slams and growls when they begin to land.
No matter how much Praesentialis in Aeternum is putting forward at any given moment — and it could be seemingly everything, nearly nothing, or anywhere in between ; see “dynamic,” above — the mix is able to accommodate without letting the audience get lost so much as swept along. As “Oppvåkning” marries classic keyboard-laced slow death — ‘funeral doom’ it’s called, not by happenstance — with these interlaced orchestralisms, the point is hammered just how extra they’re not; the chants backed by rumbling drums; the bombastic horns. These things aren’t flourish. They’re essential to the songwriting. “Oppvåkning” lets go gently into the 11:35 closer and longest track “Dvelen,” which is a lurching, surging, plodding triumph of emotionalist extreme heavy worthy of its place, controlled and precise but still resolute in its humanity.
If it needs to be said — and maybe it doesn’t, maybe it does — the 1990s were a long time ago, and Funeral have never been an album-every-year kind of band. Since their debut with 1995’s Tragedies and its 2001 foll0w-up, In Fields of Pestilent Grief, the shortest stretch between releases was with 2006’s From These Wounds and 2008’s As the Light Does the Shadow, and after that it was numerous lineup shifts and four years before Oratorium surfaced. Still, nine years is the longest Funeral have ever gone without putting out a record — nearly a third of their 30-year existence — and in addition to being their first for Season of Mist, the sheer fact of its realization seems all the more reason to celebrate the actual accomplishments these songs are making. Not only did Funeral make a new album after so long, but they made one that pushes a landmark style forward and speaks to its past while remaining engrossing in the present as well. They sound well at home doing so.
Enjoy the lyric video for “Materie” below, followed by preorder links and whatnot:
Funeral, “Materie” video premiere
Funeral doom pioneers FUNERAL’s official lyric video for the song “Materie!” The track is taken from their upcoming opus, ‘Praesentialis in Aeternum,’ which will be released on December 10, 2021 via Season of Mist.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
By my calendar, the last time Weedeater announced a tour was Jan. 2020. I said it barely qualified as news that they were touring, but for the fact that they were taking out The Atomic Bitchwax and Worshipper as well. I even used the same Scott Kinkade photo. The humdrum nature of that post, and the fact that it was Jan. 20, 2020, that it went up, is laughable now. Sad and laughable.
So yes, Weedeater have announced a stretch of dates in August, mostly in the Southeast heading out from their North Carolina homebase, and it’s definitely news. Also of note is that the band was recently confirmed for SonicBlast Fest 2022 in Portugal, so this is for sure not the last bit of touring they’ll do. Unless of course it is, because the universe as we’ve learned is an unpredictable place, and sometimes reality just turns into the biggest asshole ever. In any case, if you’ve never seen them, they’re a mainstay for a reason, and their live performance is the reason. They are worth appreciating.
The dates follow here as per social media. Tickets are available and the tour’s put together by Tone Deaf.
Behold:
We have just announced our first tour of 2021! More to come soon. Joining us for this leg will be very special guests Joe Buck Yourself Joe Buck Yourself and Adam Faucett Music
08/05/2021 Greensboro NC The Blind Tiger 08/06/2021 Savannah GA El-Rocko Lounge 08/07/2021 Orlando FL Will’s Pub 08/08/2021 Tampa FL The Orpheum 08/10/2021 Mobile AL Alabama Music Box 08/11/2021 New Orleans LA Santos Bar 08/12/2021 Lafayette LA The Freetown Boom Boom Room 08/13/2021 Dallas TX Trees Dallas 08/14/2021 Houston TX The Secret Group 08/15/2021 Austin TX The Lost Well 08/16/2021 Oklahoma City OK 89th Street – OKC 08/18/2021 Huntsville AL SideTracks Music Hall 08/19/2021 Greenville SC The Radio Room 08/20/2021 Asheville NC Asheville Music Hall
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 11th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Pittsburgh melancholic doomers Deathwhite are currently recording their new album, Grey Everlasting, for release not nearly soon enough through Season of Mist. Early last year, the mystery-lineup outfit issued Grave Image (review here) as their second long-player. It was some eight months between the announcement of those recordings and the record’s Jan. 31, 2020, release, so if they keep the same timeline, maybe Feb. 2022, sooner if we’re lucky?
I’ll take it whenever it comes, don’t get me wrong, but the sooner the better. The wildly undervalued outfit only solidified their songwriting even as compared to their 2018 debut, For a Black Tomorrow (review here), which if you click that link and even skim the review, you’ll see I was a total dork for. I expect much the same will be the case when Grey Everlasting — not to be confused with Evergrey; whatever happened to Evergrey?; still kicking, apparently — turns up. Here’s looking forward.
And kudos to them not fixing what wasn’t broken in terms of the production team. I was really hoping they’d be on Maryland Doom Fest one of these years, but so far no dice.
From the PR wire:
DEATHWHITE Enters Studio to Record Third Full-Length, ‘Grey Everlasting’
Enigmatic dark metal outfit DEATHWHITE have entered Cerebral Audio Productions with producer/engineer Shane Mayer to track their third full-length album, ‘Grey Everlasting!’
Comments the band: “It is our pleasure to share we are in the throes of recording our third album, ‘Grey Everlasting.’ We have opted for continuity between studio albums: The same people responsible for bringing ‘Grave Image’ to life will do the same for ‘Grey Everlasting.’ This includes the esteemed Mr. Mayer, who, in his third studio go-round with us, is more invaluable than ever. We will be tracking vocals in July at Mana Recording in Saint Petersburg, Florida, under the supervision of Art Paiz. Mastering duties will fall onto the legendary Dan Swanö (BLOODBATH, EDGE OF SANITY). And, lastly, the artwork will be handled by Jérôme Comentale, who has created our prior three albums covers.
“While we have assembled a familiar cast of characters, ‘Grey Everlasting,’ to our ears, is by no means a rehash of ‘Grave Image.’ We have introduced some new elements, some of which can be described as ‘extreme.’ The songs are also doomier and more atmospheric in their approach while retaining our core stylistic traits. We did the bulk of the songwriting during the pandemic’s darkest and most isolating moments. It is our belief such feelings resonate throughout the album’s 11 songs. In the meantime, we greatly look forward to sharing them with you and wish everyone continued safety.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 18th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
I’ll go to this. Hey, Stoned Jesus and Somali Yacht Club — you got room for one more in the van? Mind if I tag along? It’s been nearly a year since the last time I caught a gig — snuck one outdoor show in last summer, I did — so I’m as due as anybody, and while there’s stuff I miss about live music I miss and stuff I don’t — the music and nearly everything else, respectively — 12 dates on the road plus a four-day break for sightseeing seems like just the kind of thing to cure what ails. Also that’s happening in Australia and New Zealand. I’ll go. Is there a grant application I can fill out somewhere?
Gonna go out on a limb and guess that’s a hard “no,” but hey, it’s worth a shot. These dates were first scheduled for now-ish, and if you’re in that part of the world and have tickets already, hold onto ’em (or, you know, don’t delete the email or whatever) because they’re still good for the rebooked shows. All are presented through Your Mate Bookings and check out Wo Fest making an appearance near the end of the tour. You have to appreciate that.
Info snagged from social media:
Stoned Jesus and Somali Yacht Club – Australia & New Zealand Tour
World renowned Stoner Doom trio “Stoned Jesus”; will finally make their way to Australia and New Zealand in Nov. 2021 and they are bringing their Psychedelic Pals “Somali Yacht Club” with them.
Stoned Jesus is just one of those bands, if you know Stoner Rock, well you know Stoned Jesus. The trio from Kyiv created their sound in 2009 and have released four albums and multiple EPs, singles and splits since; making them one of the most popular bands in the European underground rock/metal scenes to date. Bringing together their Sabbath-esque groove and modern doom tones; the trio make mountains out of their riffs and are responsible for the ever-growing community of stoner rock and doom metal. The single “I’m the mountain” released in 2012 quickly became one of the most respected songs in underground rock around the globe.
The Stoner Doom trio then went on to headline and play some of the biggest festivals across Europe including Desertfest (Berlin, Belgium and London) along with which has now landed them on this much anticipated tour leg of their tenth anniversary tour of Australia and New Zealand. Celebrating their little jubilee, the Ukranian trio will play a unique setlist with both classic cuts and tracks from their most recent Prog-influenced critically acclaimed “Pilgrims” album.
Somali Yacht Club have been making waves for a few years right across Europe via their beautiful blend of Post/Psychedelic Doom Rock and Shoegaze; and just after three albums they have penetrated the world market with their latest offering “The Sea” clicking over to 1.1 million views on youtube.
The Ukranian trio have shared the stage and toured with some of the most respected Stoner/Psych Rocks bands in the world including My Sleeping Karma, Naxatras, Colour Haze, Elder, Wo Fat and Sasquatch; hitting the best of the best festivals Keep it low, Streetmode, Stoned from the Underground and Desertfest (Berlin)
The two groups will hit Scarborough, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Wollongong, Canberra, Auckland (NZ), Wellington (NZ) and headline this years WO FEST 2020 at The Bendigo Hotel in Collingwood and Armageddoom 6 at Civic Hotel in Inglewood.
Friday 5/11/2021 Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough Saturday 6/11/2021 Lucy’s Love Shack, Perth ARMAGEDDOOM 6 Monday 8/11/2021 Whammy Bar, Auckland Tuesday 9/11/2021 Valhalla, Wellington Thursday 11/11/2021 The Flamin’ Galah, Brisbane Friday 12/11/2021 The Vanguard, Newtown Saturday 13/11/2021 Baroque Room, Katoomba Wednesday 17/11/2021 La La La’s, Wollongong Thursday 18/11/2021 TBA, Canberra Friday 19/11/2021 Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy Saturday 20/11/2021 Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood WO FEST Sunday 21/11/2021 Crown and Anchor, Adelaide
All tickets currently held are 100% valid for the new dates and if you have moved in the meantime, we can arrange a ticket transfer to your new local venue (Get in touch via email yourmatebookings@gmail.com)
Posted in Whathaveyou on April 30th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
You might recall Crippled Black Phoenix‘s 2020 album, Ellengæst (review here), featured a host of guest singers in place of a permanent male vocalist. It worked, in no small part, because the band’s overarching sound is so consistently and singularly affecting. The UK-based downer rockers have found a new singer in Stockholm, Sweden’s Joel Segerstedt, and will press on with the new two-songer, Painful Reminder / Dead is Dead, this July on Season of Mist.
Segerstedt‘s other band, post-punk rockers The Open Up and Bleeds released a full-length last year titled Exit Lights and Holy Death, and I’ve included that stream below, which I think gives a sense of how Crippled Black Phoenix might’ve heard him sing and thought it would work, and you can hear Segerstedt in the video below for “Painful Reminder,” which is a cover of SNFU, whose frontman Chi Pig passed away last summer.
Info and preorder link and other sundry whatnot came down the PR wire:
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX Announces New EP, Reveals First Single
Progressive rock collective CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX will be releasing a new EP, ‘Painful Reminder / Dead is Dead’ on July 16 via Season of Mist! The cover art and track list can be found below. In celebration of the EP, CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX has now shared the first single, which is a cover of SNFU’s “Painful Reminder,” along with a music video accompaniment.
In further news, CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX is welcoming vocalist/lyricist Joel Segerstedt to the lineup. The band comments:
“The first thing we’re doing after ‘Ellengæst’ is a special single. A cover version of the classic SNFU song ‘Painful Reminder.’ And it features new vocalist/lyricist Joel Segerstedt. He joins the band to be the male voice and the contrast to Belinda Kordic in the female/male dynamic which is now an integral part of the CBP sound. Being a Stockholm resident, it seems all the more serendipitous that we find each other. And after hearing his vocal talent in his other band The Open Up And Bleeds, we knew Joel could be the missing piece of the jigsaw.
“This release is a way of introducing Joel to our crowd while at the same time, paying tribute to the SNFU vocalist Mr Chi Pig. The song was already on the shortlist of cover song ideas Justin (Greaves) keeps in his pocket, but now was the time to do it because of the sad passing of Chi Pig in 2020. It seemed the right thing to pay our respects to a talented and underrated singer/lyricist and unique character in the punk rock world.”
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hey, that’s awesome. Good for you, Somali Yacht Club. Along with Stoned Jesus being on Napalm, the Lviv trio’s signing to Season of Mist is the biggest heavy-underground inking I can think of — please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s good news in any case, and all the more so since it comes with word of a new album on the horizon. That’ll be fun, especially as it coincides with reissues for 2018’s The Sea (review here) and 2014’s The Sun (discussed here). Sign me up for new stuff for sure.
I’m normally in favor of get-it-all-out-there-as-fast-as-possible-or-at-least-send-it-to-me-early, but in Somali Yacht Club‘s case, if the new record doesn’t show up for a bit, I think that might be okay and give people a chance to get caught up. The Sea and The Sun both resonate on a frequency ill-suited to a quick superficial listen. These are records worth diving into. If a reissue gets an opportunity to do that before being overshadowed by a new album, I think that’d be fine.
On the other hand, new stuff please.
It’s an ongoing debate. With myself. Because I don’t have friends.
Anyhow, congrats to the band and cheers to Season of Mist on the ace pickup:
SOMALI YACHT CLUB Signs to Season of Mist
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of psychedelic stoner rock trio SOMALI YACHT CLUB! The band will be releasing a brand new album as well as their back catalogue via Season of Mist in the near future. Stay tuned!
The band comments: “We’re proud to announce that our new album will be released on the Season of Mist. It’s an honor to be part of their roster, featuring many bands that are significant to us. We’re very excited and hope that this cooperation will be fruitful! “
For a glimpse of what to expect, check out SOMALI YACHT CLUB on Bandcamp!
SOMALI YACHT CLUB is a psychedelic stoner rock trio from Lviv, Ukraine. It started out as a jam session between band members from different Lviv groups, but soon turned into the main act for each of them.
The trio self-released the demo EP called ‘Sandsongs’ in 2011. After this, they played numerous shows in Ukraine and shared the stage with bands like ELDER, KADAVER, RED FANG and others. The first album “The Sun” was released on September 11, 2014 (Robustfellow). After the 2015 release of LP “The Sun” (Bilocation Records) the band went on their first European tour with ETHEREAL RIFFIAN (UA).
In 2018, SOMALI YACHT CLUB released the second album “The Sea” (Robustfellow, Bilocation Records) and toured with STRAYTONES (UA) and STONED JESUS Jesus (UA). The stoner rockers have played at festivals like Void, Swamp, Keep It Low and several Garmonbozia festivals.
Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 15th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Savannah, Georgia’s Kylesa released their final album, Exhausting Fire, on Oct. 2, 2015. The record came out on Season of Mist, and as was their wont, they did a bunch of touring to support it before and after it came out, including playing what was then Psycho California and I’m sure five or sixty others. By the time Exhausting Fire was six months old, though, in April 2016, they announced they were essentially on permanent hiatus, “no set date to reconvene.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen worse, but that was kind of a bummer way for Kylesa to end, and to even look at the title Exhausting Fire, one gets the sense that the group — who had already pared down from being a two-drummer five-piece to just guitarist/vocalists Laura Pleasants and Philip Cope (the latter also bass and keys) and drummer Carl McGinley (Jay Matheson also plays bass on the bulk of the outing) — saw it coming. They’d spent years road-dogging. My prevailing memory of them live will always be sitting on grass watching them play with the two drummers set up on a flatbed trailer on a little hill behind a now-gone record store at SXSW one year, but I saw them plenty of times and they always delivered. From their second album, 2005’s To Walk a Middle Course and 2006’s Time Will Fuse its Worth through 2009’s Static Tensions (review here) and the increasingly progressive trio of recordings for Season of Mist in 2010’s Spiral Shadow (review here), 2013’s Ultraviolet (review here) and Exhausting Fire, they never put out the same album twice, and though their fire may have been exhausting — while the lyrics in bulk feel more about personal relationships (not that a band isn’t one), “Night Drive” could easily be read to be about touring — they still pushed themselves forward in their approach and style.
That resulted in some righteously heavy moments, as with the opener “Crusher,” or the riff-forward side A closer “Shaping the Southern Sky,” or the oboe-inclusive “Blood Moon” on side B, but also a more brazenly and more confidently melodic take than they’d ever shown before. Granted, their reemergence from having two drummers was inherently going to realign the dynamic of the group as a whole, making room for that melody to flourish, but one of the overarching narratives of Kylesa‘s discography is the ratio of shared vocals between Cope and Pleasants becoming a defining element of the band. More even than on Ultraviolet, there’s a sense of individual authorship in the songs — he brought this part, she brought this one, etc. — but both parties are still evolving in this material. Cope takes on an almost gothic New Wave aspect with “Moving Day,” backing himself on keys, while Pleasants offers an ahead-of-its-time heavy post-rock with side B leadoff “Falling,” underscored by the weighted punctuation of McGinley‘s drumming.
Songs like “Inward Debate” and “Lost and Confused” find one or the other in the forward position, or effectively switching or working in a thoughtfully constructed arrangement, and by the time they get to the penultimate “Growing Roots,” they manage to pull together a sound like heavy Weezer — which I have to imagine that, if they saw this, they’d take as the compliment it’s intended to be, since “Growing Roots” sounds like heavy Weezer is what they were going for. With Cope at the helm as ever at The Jam Room in Columbia, South Carolina, Kylesa‘s exploration never really ended — until of course it did — and even while there were signature elements of their style in their deceptively angular riffing resulting in the mounting rhythmic tension of their verses headed toward a chorus release, or even the touches of psychedelia worked into “Shaping the Southern Sky” or the arrival of the last shove in album finale “Out of My Mind,” those came accompanied by evident growth that was no less an essential component of the band’s work.
The melodic burst at the end of “Lost and Confused.” The conveyed monotony of “Night Drive.” The boldness of the verses in “Crusher” and the simple fact that that song leads off while being so dynamic rather than just an up-front rocker. There’s so much on Exhausting Fire to argue for Kylesa as an undervalued, taken-for-granted band. It’s not their heaviest album or their most rawly aggressive — maybe that would be their 2002 self-titled, with Cope fresh off his time in Damad; recall their split with Meatjack if you dare — but Exhausting Fire is also more than a band burning themselves out or already being burnt. It’s them turning exhaustion into expression, and it still resonates effectively.
I didn’t review Exhausting Fire when it came out. I don’t remember why. I’d spent a decade at that point listening to them and considered myself a fan, but I was a little scared off by the title, and it goes back to what I was saying before about the band knowing the end was coming. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear that from a group whose work I’d enjoyed so much. Like how Abbey Road is bittersweet because you know they knew it was over, one last blowout. That’s kind of the vibe that hindsight puts to work across Exhausting Fire, but even in that, their work as songwriters and the chemistry between Pleasants and Cope continued to move forward from where it was a couple years before. It wasn’t until earlier this week that I actually gave Exhausting Fire a fair shot. Now I want the CD. Go figure.
Both Philip Cope and Laura Pleasants have remained active since Kylesa called it a day. Cope produces a swath of acts at The Jam Room and features in the band Oakskin, who have a few singles up on Bandcamp and took part in last year’s Mutants of the Monster virtual festival, while Pleasants has pursued more New Wave and post-punk-inspired atmospheric songcraft with The Discussion, who reissued the 2017 EP Movement Towards a New Beginning (originally just called the European Tour EP) and offered the new single Deathtripper B/W A Forest in 2020. There’s been no word of a reunion and I wouldn’t expect any anytime soon — so it’ll probably happen five minutes after this is posted; that’s how it usually goes when I say something like that — but Kylesa merch continues to be available and their albums still sound vibrant these years after the fact, like they were made to do.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
—
Okay. Everything is awful. Mostly me. I’m the worst. Let the record show.
Oh man, I miss the record show.
Anyway. It was just one of those weeks. Muddling, middling, head down, just-get-through-the-day-to-another-one-for-fucking-what kind of week. I mentioned last week the telehealth appointment about meds. Holy fucking shit that was weird. And awkward, and uncomfortable. Dude was asking me questions like I’m supposed to sit there and do Depression Theater for him and talk about how I don’t want to get out of bed or how daily tasks are hard for me and I just said fuck it. “I’m sorry, this is making me really uncomfortable and I’m going to end the call. Thanks for your time.”
Nothing resolved, but at least pulling myself out of that situation felt good. I was weirded out the rest of the day though. Is this really how people do medicine? I’m a fucking stranger tell me about the time you spend curled up on the floor? Shit. I said to him, “I’ve been in treatment long enough to know when things aren’t right.” Fine. So dance for me, you pill-seeking monkey.
I recorded some vocals last Sunday. Sang clean a bit, which is hard for me because I know I’m not good at it and that’s like the omega of self-fulfilling prophecies. A vocal coach once quickly cut to the core of me and said, “Someone in your life once told you you couldn’t sing,” and that’s true. Anyway, I got through it and then went back on Wednesday and added a bunch more screams to the track, because that I can do and of course that’s what the person whose project it is was into. Can’t blame him. Anyway, it came out fine and I think the song will be out in a couple weeks. It’s a Joni Mitchell cover, but I rewrote most of the lyrics so they didn’t feel misogynist coming out of my mouth.
The Patient Mrs.’ semester begins next week. She’s back on campus not quite full-time, I think. I don’t know. Shit changes daily. She’s worried about getting tenure, trying to get writing done while teaching. The Pecan has been in virtual preschool the last couple weeks because the fucking plague is a thing and he maybe goes back next week too to in-person instruction. We don’t even know yet and it’s Friday. He was just finally sitting in the chair long enough to sing the days of the week (which is to the tune of the old Addams Family theme song, hilariously enough) and months of the year (to the tune of something else I can’t put my finger on just now; if The Patient Mrs. reads this as she sometimes does, she’ll probably tell me and I’ll slap my forehead, which is how I do).
I’m sure there’s more, but between that and the general overhang of dread resulting from impending fascist insurrection, is any more really necessary? Look out for a video interview with Lupus from Kadavar on Monday. I talked to him yesterday. Had never interviewed him before and probably should’ve by now, but he was nice.
Great and safe weekend. Don’t forget to hydrate and wear your mask and social distance and all that stuff.
