Posted in Whathaveyou on July 17th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
I accidentally stumbled on this release yesterday while I was kicking around on Bandcamp, and it was a welcome thing to find. Spacey vibe, atmospheric heavy, rich tones and melodies in the single all making for an album I didn’t know I was looking forward to. Wilting Within will be the first long-player from Oakland, California-based Haurun, and it will be out on Sept. 22 through Small Stone and Kozmik Artifactz. The song at the bottom of this post is the six-and-a-half-minute “Lunar,” which is the second cut on the vinyl edition and fifth on the CD/DL, so I guess its flow goes where it has to go, but obviously I don’t know yet how it works alongside the other songs. That’s the whole ‘looking forward to the record’ part. I guess we’ll get there.
Until then, here’s to a bit of oh-what’s-this and the righteousness that can result from following those impulses to meander. From the PR wire:
HAURUN: California Heavy Psych Collective To Release Wilting Within Debut September 22nd Via Small Stone Recordings; New Track Streaming + Preorders Available
Oakland, California-based heavy psych collective HAURUN will release their spellbinding debut full-length, Wilting Within, September 22nd via Small Stone Recordings.
Haurun is the product of five musicians with a love of dark tones and psychedelia. Through the mysterious world of Craigslist, Joel Panton (guitar) and Eliot Rennie (drums) began writing music in 2018 with shared influences of Black Sabbath, Earth, and Kyuss. After a long and challenging search to find the right musicians, they banded together with Lyra Cruz (vocals), Daniel Schwiderski (guitar), and Joel Lacey (bass) to deliver a sound that’s heavy whilst deeply emotive.
Emerging from the cloud of a covid pandemic, Haurun are releasing their debut album ‘Wilting Within’ for Small Stone Records. All tracks were recorded and engineered with the mighty Phil Becker (El Studio, SF) who captured the intensity and melodic soundscape of Haurun’s live performance. Finishing it all off, Eric Hoegemeyer (Tree Laboratory, NY) and Chris Goosman (Baseline Audio, MI) worked their alchemical magic in mixing and mastering.
Wilting Within is a journey through layers of slow burning verses and expansive choruses, infused with the enchanting power of Lyra’s vocals. Haurun transcends genres, blending the hypnotic riffs of doom metal and the gritty essence of grunge to deliver a fresh sound, casting psychedelic spells on the listener.
Wilting Within will be released on CD and digitally via Small Stone Recordings and on limited vinyl via Kozmik Artifactz. For preorders, visit THIS LOCATION: https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/wilting-within
Tracklisting: 1. Abyss 2. Lost & Found 3. Tension 4. Flying Low 5. Lunar 6. Soil
Vinyl Tracklisting: Side 1: 1. Abyss – (08:27) 2. Lunar – (06:30) 3. Tension – (07:41) Side 2: 1. Flying Low – (05:20) 2. Lost & Found – (05:55) 3. Soil – (11:03)
Wilting Within was recorded and engineered with the mighty Phil Becker at El Studio in San Francisco, California who captured the intensity and melodic soundscape of HAURUN’s live performance. Eric Hoegemeyer at the Tree Laboratory in Brooklyn, New York and Chris Goosman at Baseline Audio in Ann Arbor, Michigan worked their alchemical magic in mixing and mastering. Design and Artwork by Orion Landau. All music by Haurun. Lyrics by Lyra Cruz. Published by SH Small Stone Music (BMI).
Haurun is: Lyra Cruz: vocals Joel Paul Lacey: bass Daniel Schwiderski: guitar Joel Panton: guitar Eliot Rennie: drums
So perfect and so raw, the fifth and final full-length from Buenos Aires trio Los Natas, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here), was issued in 2009 through the celebration-worthy triumvirate of Nasoni Records in Europe, Small Stone Records in the US and Oui Oui Records in Argentina. Its 10 songs are inherently transitional in nature — even more so in hindsight, but nonetheless are the culmination of a creative growth that began more than a decade earlier on 1996’s Delmar (discussed here), which is one of the best heavy rock records ever made and one of two the three-piece would put out through Man’s Ruin, with the other being their second LP, 1999’s Ciudad de Brahman (discussed here). Then just Natas, the band would jump to Small Stone for 2002’s Corsario Negro, releasing a flurry of short offerings concurrent to their second and third albums, including splits with Dozer and Viaje a 800 and the Livin’ La Weeda Loca and El Gobernador EPs.
The jammier full-lengths Toba Trance I, Toba Trance II (also compiled together on 2CD) and München Sessions followed in 2003, 2004 and 2005, respectively, the latter a recorded exploratory collaboration with Stefan Koglek of Colour Haze. El Hombre Montaña, their fourth album-proper, arrived in 2006 and was the capstone on the most productive era of the band. Guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian, bassist Gonzalo Villagra and drummer Walter Broide issued a split with Solodolor (which featured Chotsourian and producer Billy Anderson) in 2008, but when Nuevo Orden de la Libertad landed in 2009, it was very much the culmination even then of what Los Natas were going to be. Presented across 10 tracks and 50 minutes, its procession is led by “Las Campanadas,” which on guitar introduces the Western-ish theme that will bookend and flesh out in “Dos Horses” at the finish, Sergio‘s brother Santiago Chotsourian contributing piano, before launching into one of the most righteously gritty A sides an LP could ever hope for. The lead movement in “Las Campanadas” is punkish with Broide‘s snare pops, but the guitar and bass tones around are low and dust-coated, the vocals out front and melodic but able to keep up with the intensity of the thrust. “Las Campanadas,” in addition to its maddeningly cool circular pattern and fuzzed solos, finally opens up its groove at the very end, but the tension holds over into “El Nuevo Orden de la Libertad,” the chorus of which stretches the delivery of the title line as if to teach the audience to sing along regardless of their native language. The words are sharp, precise: “El nuevo, nuevo orden, de la libertad.”
That hook is a big part of the album’s personality, and especially as someone who doesn’t speak the language, its identity as a heavy rock record that dares to be political when most don’t. The subsequent “Resistiendo Dolor” (‘resisting pain’) is mellower for about 90 seconds and answers that intro at its finish, but hits just as hard as either of the first two cuts in between. The song actually sounds like it’s getting up and running as the distorted guitar enters at 1:33 into its total 5:11, and the confidence behind its turn back toward the subdued part is striking, leading to the end of sustained organ notes. “Hombre de Metal” — their own “Iron Man,” perhaps — follows, presumably having resisted the prior pain in order to declare oneself via that riff. Nestled into a groove on the ride cymbal, Broide answers the bridge of “Las Campanadas,” but he’s no less on the snare or toms throughout, and the whole band sounds dug into the momentum they’ve built to that point, which leads them to “Ganar-Perder,” the side B opener that begins to branch out sound-wise from what the first four songs established. Classic in style, melancholy in mood and desert-hued in tone, it takes its time where most of Nuevo Orden de la Libertad has been a shove to that point, and is given flourish of layered acoustic guitar as it moves into its middle, which will gradually come to prominence as they move toward the evocative instrumental finish.
Like much of Nuevo Orden de la Libertad, the expanded-mindset of the 6:44 longest track “Ganar-Perder” is a hint of things to come from Chotsourian, who before 2009 was done would release the first album from his then-nascent Ararat project, Musica de la Resistencia (review here), building in concept on some of the sociopolitical expression here while pushing further into doom and psychedelia, etc. “Ganar-Perder,” as precursor to that, is entrancing by the time it gives over to “El Pastizal,” which is a five-minute build into a last-minute freedom run — at last seeming to break out of the crunch and not look back. It doesn’t last — it is quite literally the final minute of the track — but the point gets across just the same. The shorter instrumental “David y Goliath” throws the listener into a fuzz blender set to puree, giving hints of the gallop of “Ganar-Perder” or its foreshadow in the ending of “Las Campanadas” but seeming to be consumed by its speedy rhythmic churn, which lets the interlude-ish “Bienvenidos” be the exhale with its stretch of acoustic guitar and some light effects swell. That moment becomes all the more appreciable with the feedback entry of “10,000,” a return to the push of the album’s early going that acts as the crescendo for the release as a whole. Intricate with the various stops in its second half, it resolves of course in a gallop growing faster and coming apart even as it fades. It doesn’t sound like a band hitting it hard for the last time together in the studio.
In the first paragraph, I used the word “transitional” to describe the album’s nature, and “Dos Horses” — the closer in the sense of an epilogue or, in our franchise-centric times, a post-credits scene — revives the intro of “Las Campanadas” with breadth in the acoustic guitar and winding course of piano that accompanies, some backward. There are subtle effects behind the ending lines, but the song just kind of stops, and that’s it. But that it and “Ganar-Perder” would show up on Ararat‘s Musica de la Resistencia, the latter with a dramatic rearrangement, began an interplay between projects for Chotsourian that would continue through his solo work under the banner of Sergio Ch., on subsequent Ararat releases and in the late ’10s trio Soldati, his songs becoming open to multiple interpretations and able to withstand the repeat visits. In being the moment of that change, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad was not the final Los Natas release — they put out Death Sessions (review here) in 2016, capturing a live set in the studio — but it was the final new release, and it remains a beautiful component of the legacy Los Natas left behind in their subsequent dissolution. And Broide, it should be noted, currently features in the instrumental outfit Poseidótica.
For as long as I’m alive, I will be grateful to have seen them at Roadburn 2010 (review here) — much as one could see anything when the room was so dark — and to have gotten to hear some of this material in-person. Among heavy rock acts of their generation, who got their start in the post-grunge, post-Kyuss mid and late 1990s, I will gladly put Los Natas among the best, and even more than their seminal first two LPs, which were more directly communing with (and contributing to) the beginnings of desert rock as a global genre, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad was the claim they laid to an individual sound and point of view, and 14 years it remains an album with a presence of its own; some of the stateliest punk-born heavy rock you’ll ever hear.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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I didn’t close out last week, felt kind of guilty about it. The time I would’ve spent finishing that post, I instead took as a chance to pick up something for The Patient Mrs. for Mother’s Day, and that seemed like a warranted use of an hour and a half. If you’re interested, I had a post talking about Entombed on Man’s Ruin. It was the Black Juju EP, which I’ll probably talk about next week if something else doesn’t come along, or at some point in the future either way. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with something. It’s good to know I have two more Los Natas records in my pocket as well. Yes, I do keep track of these things.
This week? It was a week. I feel like a garbage human lately, so whatever. I hope you had a good week. Next week will be another one. Years will pass in this manner as they already have.
Today The Patient Mrs. and I are going to try recording voice tracks for a podcast. We are not often collaborators, but she suggested it and I’ll basically take any opportunity to hang out with her at this point since we so rarely get to do so, so whatever. It’ll have music and probably more talking than the Gimme Metal show did — there’s two of us, after all — but still not a ton I hope. I don’t know. Gonna feel it out and see where it goes, but in the true fashion of keeping up with the times, I figure it’s probably a good moment to embrace a format that arguably peaked a decade ago. As opposed to radio, mind you, which peaked three decades ago. Shrug.
Today is also family class at The Pecan’s tae kwon do school, which we’ll be hitting up after regular school this afternoon. I can’t remember if I talked about this before or not — pretty sure I did — but tae kwon do, the fact that he goes to a place that was branched off the same one I went to — brings up all kinds of emotional baggage for me. I did that from maybe 8 or 9 until I was 14-ish? It’s difficult to explain, but that was a pretty rough time for me, and near the end I had an instructor I didn’t like who hated fat people, and going to The Pecan’s class — let alone taking part, which is what family class is — an emotional trigger for me in ways that I have yet to fully understand, never mind express. But the kid loves it, so there. I just want it to be over so we can go home. Performing parenting is a fucking drag anyway.
I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ve got a bunch of stuff lined up for next week, including a premiere from the High Desert Queen and Blue Heron split on Monday, so that’ll be fun. Totimoshi interview as well, speaking of the ’00s. Hydrate, watch your head, all that stuff.
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 22nd, 2023 by JJ Koczan
It’s about two weeks that Denver now-four-piece Abrams will spend touring the West Coast in support of their 2022 album, In the Dark (review here), the latest and most accomplished manifestation of their songwriting to-date. They’re joined for the stint by BleakHeart, whose Twilight Visions two-tracker was released last February. Thus ‘Twilight Visions of the Dark’ is only suitable as a title for the tour, which begins with a hometown Denver show on May 5 ahead of hitting Salt Lake City, Boise, Seattle, and so on through May 20, when they wrap up in Albuquerque and head back to Colorado.
The part about already having new material to try out on the road is certainly noteworthy — there was a glut of songs for In the Dark, so maybe some of what didn’t get on the record last time around is being carried over? certainly not impossible they’ve just kept writing, though — but what stands out more is the combination of styles here, Abrams complementing the heaviness of BleakHeart and BleakHeart drawing an ear to the more ambient elements at work beneath the surface in Abrams‘ sound, even if the two acts might seem counterintuitive as compatriots. Not rocket science, but it’s the kind of pairing that turns a good show into a memorable night.
The PR wire has dates and whatnot:
ABRAMS: Denver Sludge/Post-Metal Outfit Announces May Tour With BleakHeart; In The Dark Full-Length Out Now On Small Stone Recordings
Denver sludge/post-metal outfit ABRAMS will join BleakHeart for a Western US tour this May! The twelve-date Twilight Visions Of The Dark run begins May 5th in Denver, Colorado and ends May 20th in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Comments ABRAMS, “We are stoked to go on road this May to promote our latest release In The Dark. Our sets will also include some older staples while debuting new songs to prepare for our next recording. We couldn’t be happier to split the bill with our friends in BleakHeart who bring their beautiful blend of shoegaze, doom, and rock. Their live show is incredible. This tour is not to be missed, see you out there!”
See all confirmed dates below.
ABRAMS w/ BleakHeart: 5/05/2023 Hi Dive – Denver, CO 5/09/2023 Aces High Saloon – Salt Lake City, UT 5/10/2023 CRLB – Boise, ID 5/11/2023 Funhouse – Seattle, WA 5/12/2023 The Six – Portland, OR 5/13/2023 The Dip – Redding, CA 5/14/2023 Bottom Of The Hill – San Francisco, CA 5/15/2023 Cafe Colonial – Sacramento, CA 5/17/2023 Permanent Records – Los Angeles, CA 5/18/2023 Transplants – Palmdale, CA 5/19/2023 Tempe, AZ 5/20/2023 Sister Bar – Albuquerque, NM
ABRAMS’ most recent studio offering, In The Dark, was released last Fall via Small Stone Recordings. A fine-tuned, forty-five-minute sonic journey detailing the angers, fears, frustrations, and joys inherent in living in a world gone mad, In The Dark boasts cinematic guitar riffs, brooding leads, and addictive vocal hooks for a record that’s at once mature, polished, and intensely passionate. With hints of early AmRep mixed in with the larger sounds of ‘90s alt heroes Failure, Quicksand, and Hum combined that with the heaviness of recent Mastodon and stoner psychedelia of All Them Witches, ABRAMS delivers a distinct sound that’s fresh yet warrmly familiar.
In The Dark features cover art by Robin Gnista and is available on CD and digitally. A second vinyl pressing of the record in Red is also available. Find all ordering options at THIS LOCATION:https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-dark
Abrams is: Zach Amster – Guitars and Vox Taylor Iversen – Bass and Vox Patrick Alberts – Guitar Ryan DeWitt – Drums
[Click play above to stream Giant Brain’s new single “Fore: (Rage at the Cruelty of Forced Transhumanism).” Grade A Gray Day is out March 10 on Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz.]
It is a difficult album to separate from the context in which it’s been made. Grade A Gray Day is the first offering from Detroit kosmiche rockers Giant Brain in some 14 years since 2009’s Thorn of Thrones (review here), and it arrives four years after the Jan. 2019 death of guitarist Phil Dürr, also known for his work in Big Chief, Luder, Five Horse Johnson and others. Dürr was reportedly in progress playing bass and guitar on what’s the third Giant Brain full-length — the first was 2007’s Plume, also on Small Stone — along with the brotherly rhythm section of bassist Andy Sutton (also vocals) and keyboardist/programmer Al Sutton, both of whom also produced at Rustbelt Studios in Detroit, as well as drummer/keyboardist Eric Hoegemeyer, at the time of his passing, and it is in tribute to his legacy in his home city and to him as an individual that Grade A Gray Day was completed, its six mostly-instrumental tracks holding together variously proggy and cosmic threads across an inevitably varied 41 minutes. There is a narrative thread hinted at in the titles of the songs:
1. Munich
2. Terminator: (Where an Astronaut Dies in Space)
3. The Variac: (His Consciousness Reawakens)
4. Fore: (Rage at the Cruelty of Forced Transhumanism)
5. Systems Failure: (Uprising, Destruction, and the Escape)
6. Between Trains
…and that it is as much spirit as space is appropriate for the music actually contained on the album, which is rife with guest appearances from the likes of Dürr‘s Luder bandmates Sue Lott (also of Slot, Big Chief, etc.), who sings on the meditative and melancholy closer “Between Trains” and Scott Hamilton, who adds guitar to “Systems Failure: (Uprising, Destruction and the Escape) and is the head of Small Stone Records, as well as a slew of others. Even the cover art by Mark Dancey feels like a thoughtful choice considering Dancey used to be in Big Chief. Kenny Tudrick of The Detroit Cobras plays piano on “Between Trains,” Billy Reedy of Novadriver and Walk on Water plays guitar on “Terminator: (Where an Astronaut Dies in Space),” Detroit Symphony bassist James Simonson (also Joanne Shaw Taylor) plays on “Terminator: (Where an Astronaut Dies in Space),” Bob Ebeling of Walk on Water, Five Horse Johnson and Kid Rock handles wine glasses on “The Variac: (His Consciousness Reawakens)” and drums on “Systems Failure: (Uprising, Destruction and the Escape),” Darrel Eubank adds vocals to “The Variac: (His Consciousness Reawakens)” and British Blues Award-winning guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor sits in on “Munich” and “Fore: (Rage at the Cruelty of Forced Transhumanism),” starting each side of Grade A Gray Day with particularly righteous uptempo krautrock-meets-boogie shuffle.
On at least a couple levels, that’s pretty much the story of Grade A Gray Day. The remaining members of the band — the Suttons and Hoegemeyer — joining forces with a slew of others to flesh out what were Dürr‘s concepts and starting foundations for a third Giant Brain record. Invariably, the end result here can’t match what was the original intent — because the original intent was that Dürr would finish the album with his bandmates — but from the most basic level of its making to the likely logistical nightmare of recording all these players to the simple fact that there are so many involved, Grade A Gray Day absolutely bleeds its homage to Dürr.
More even than it’s an album, it is a love letter to Dürr as a player and a human being from his bandmates, friends and loved ones, and if you can get your head around the songs — personally, I’m still trying to figure out the colon-into-parenthetical happening in the middle four song titles, let alone the actual music, the effort you put into listen is duly rewarded. The manner in which “Munich” and “Terminator: (Where an Astronaut Dies in Space)” bop along like cosmic prog and ’70s swing have always secretly been the same thing, the weirdo repeats of “Terminator terminator” looped through that second cut a rare human voice in the outbound instrumental launch that gives over to float and laughter — presumably Dürr‘s — on the cinematic “The Variac: (His Consciousness Reawakens),” capping side A, these are rich culminations and brazen turns from one to the next, and within themselves, but it’s that love at their foundation that draws them together.
Next time you’re in need of a definition of “skronk,” the riff twisting itself around “Fore: (Rage at the Cruelty of Forced Transhumanism)” should serve nicely. Spaced out in shove early and in drift (and then shove again) later, it’s a quick summary of the stylistic blend that Giant Brain — especially considering the swath of personnel involved — make seamless while staying almost entirely pretense-free in the doing. The first couple minutes of “Systems Failure: (Uprising, Destruction, and the Escape)” are set to the backdrop of noise almost like peeping frogs, but just before 2:20, it bursts into life with a keyboard-inclusive fluidity before turning to a bigger rolling riff (presumably ‘Destruction’) and finds its freedom in shred at the finish, a six-minute jaunt through an interstellar badlands of microgenres that’s only easy to follow because your brain is already jelly.
Its ending leaves “Between Trains” with the daunting task of saying goodbye, to Dürr as well as to this album in his honor. Lott delivers a highlight performance from among the many, emotive but subdued over the ambient drones, a ticking clock that fades out, and a wash that rises and recedes into residual guitar, a last gasp of amplifier hum like they don’t want to let go. Fair. Dürr must have been a pretty special person to earn this kind of celebration of his life and creativity. Grade A Gray Day is as sincere in its realization as it possibly could be, and for that, likewise beautiful, sad, loving and — despite all its space prog psych experimentalism, all its far-far-out sounds and antigravity twists — quintessentially human.
Posted in Questionnaire on February 2nd, 2023 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: Danny Gollin of Halfway to Gone
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I make really loud noise by hitting stuff with sticks, and also help in the making of music that hopefully pleases other people as much as it pleases us who think it up and then perform it. I came into it first at around 8 years old when I realized that I might be able to sing like that guy on that record if I try and work on it a little bit. Eventually I wanted to be able to play every instrument in KISS, but I kept being re-directed by parents determined that I not waste my time trying to actually be a musician for a living. I’d ask for an electric guitar and rock lessons, and instead get an old acoustic with action 12” high and folk guitar lessons. I’d ask to get a drumkit and be flat out told “no way are you ever bringing drums into this house.” Eventually persistence and inspiration from Neil Peart, who suddenly was the world’s newest greatest drummer around 1981, won the day and I was allowed to bring drums into the house AND play them (only when my folks were not home—they were ALWAYS HOME!!!!) The rest is history I guess. Oh yeah, I also am a licensed physician and an expert witness in psychiatry, but that’s a whole other story.
Describe your first musical memory.
Now that is a really tough question — I’m gonna have to say my earliest memories were of my mom and cousins playing a little tickle game that involved a little sing-songy thing they’d say while distracting me and lulling me into a false sense of security moving their finger around my palm, then the tickle would come up my arm outta nowhere and we’d all laugh. Silly but true. There are surely earlier musical things sung/played to me as a baby that I don’t even remember at all, because both of my parents listened to music a lot. Another indelible memory is my grandmother singing crazy “Jewish Grandma” things to my brother and me that we still make fun of and tell all our friends about every chance we get — JJ Koczan has almost certainly heard some or all of them. If not, then he should remind me next time I see him and be prepared to pee himself.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Another toughie — so many years… I’ll impulsively say booting up NHL2K6 on Playstation 2 for the first time and hearing my drum intro to King Of Mean come blasting out of the TV as the theme music/first thing you really hear when the game starts. I was not told ahead of time that we were the theme song for the PS2 (Five Horse Johnson was on the Xbox version) — I only knew we had a couple of songs in the game soundtrack, so it was a shock, but a nice one!
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
When an old band I was in, Glueneck, broke up it almost broke me. It was one week before we were scheduled to record at Electric Lady Studios for four days for Atlantic Records. I was always convinced I was capable enough to soothe all the interpersonal bullshit that would come up, and firmly believed that the great music we were pumping out, and nearly-impossible opportunities we had right in front of us would at least carry us into landing a deal and being able to have a shot at doing something with it and realizing the dream, but all that ended and I was wrong. I then thought my dream was crushed for all time and it eventually veered me completely away from any hopes of any musical success ever again. And then I was wrong again, and now I only regret not sticking with it the whole time. Number one piece of advice to talented and aspiring rock stars — do not give up trying no matter what the fuck crazy fucked up shit happens and especially if you’re still relatively young. Number two — make sure you surround yourself with solid individuals who you truly want to be around all the time and who will be there even if shit goes completely fucking sideways and backwards or stalls out and won’t start again for a few hundred cranks of the engine.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For myself, hopefully it leads to being better at getting across whatever it is I’m trying to put out there, and expands the ways I can do it along with the different things I might be able to express.
How do you define success?
At this point any time I play even half decent, I call it a success, since I only really play for the sake of playing anymore. I think being recognized enough to have some music be put into places where tons of people can be exposed to it is another form of success (see NHL2K6 above, but also having songs in TV shows and movies is always surreal when I stumble on something channel surfing).
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
My very elderly parents naked (within the past year).
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
An entire song with all parts and lyrics would be nice.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I think the most essential function of it is for it to exist at all—it’s an expression/communication like anything one says or does, but it hits in its own unique ways (depending what medium you are talking about) that are not so easily expressed in other ways of communicating. And it hopefully benefits both the artist who is processing something inside them and the audience who then may get some similar benefit vicariously.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Being with people I love, but haven’t been able to spend much or any time with for quite a too-long while.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 16th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
The opening cut and advance single from Giant Brain‘s upcoming album, Grade A Gray Day, announces itself with a strum of guitar, then disappears momentarily, as though, having bid welcome, it’s then receding into the jammy krautrock ether where it will subsequently reside. The band’s founding guitarist Phil Dürr passed away in 2019, and Small Stone Records, whose Scott Hamilton (who was also in Luder with Dürr) also appears on the record, stands behind the offering as a tribute from the band (and more) to Dürr’s creative spirit, his work in Big Chief on addition to Giant Brain, and his presence as a figure in the Detroit heavy underground.
No, it’s not gonna be 2023’s most hyped release. It’s an instrumental amalgam of kosmiche and heavy psychedelic pieces, thoroughly dug in and hypnotic, likewise on brand and off trend in its craft and somewhat familial in its sundry guest appearances. Still, Small Stone and Kozmik Artifactz offer it as the final studio output from Dürr, and if the mission is to highlight the vibrancy of his playing in this band and honor a friend, then I’ll say as someone who has listened to it that that mission is likewise honorable and successful.
March 10 is the release date. “Munich” is streaming at the bottom of this post, and preorders are up now, as per the PR wire:
GIANT BRAIN To Release Grade A Gray Day Full-Length In Tribute To Late Guitarist Phil Dürr; Record To See Release March 10th Via Small Stone Recordings/Kozmik Artifactz + New Track Streaming
Experimental electro-prog project GIANT BRAIN will release their Grade A Gray Day full-length on March 10th via Small Stone Recordings and Kozmik Artifactz. The mind-bending offering serves as a final studio tribute to the memory of late guitarist Phil Dürr.
On January 11th, 2019, Dürr returned to the great mothership in the sky, days after suffering a cardiac arrest while in Germany visiting relatives. Between his international familial bonds and his membership in such hard-touring bands as Big Chief and Five Horse Johnson, he was mourned by friends, fans, and family globally. His loss was most keenly felt in Detroit, Michigan, his hometown since moving to the area from Mexico as a child, and where he was amid recording the latest GIANT BRAIN album.
After the pain, tears, toasts and reflection, bandmates Al Sutton, Andy Sutton, and Eric Hoegemeyer endeavored to finish what they had started. Coming out four years after Dürr’s passing, Grade A Gray Day is GIANT BRAIN’s last musical will and testament, serving as both a tribute to their departed bandmate and the final chapter in a collaboration that reaches back to the 1990s, when the band members laid the groundwork for the Detroit rock renaissance of the following century.
Long fixtures of the local scene, GIANT BRAIN coalesced between sessions at Rustbelt Studios, Al Sutton’s recording facility in Royal Oak which has hosted regional and national rock royalty. One of the best guitarists in town, no small feat given the terrain, Dürr laid down six-string ideas that rolled as much as rocked while the Sutton brothers supplied taut rhythmic support and technical expertise. Their mix of Krautrock grooves, Detroit attitude, and ambient textures was first heard on 2007’s Plume. Producer and programmer Eric Hoegemeyer would join the band for 2009’s Thorn Of Thrones, with both albums being released on Small Stone Records.
From its packaging to the songs therein, Grade A Gray Day is a family affair. Sue Lott and Scott Hamilton, who played with Dürr in fellow Small Stoners Luder, guest on different songs, Detroit music luminaries Kenny Tudrick, Billy Reedy, James Simonson, Bob Ebeling, and Darrel Eubank sit in on others. UK transplant and Keeping The Blues Alive recording artist Joanne Shaw Taylor lays down searing guitar leads on two tracks and the album artwork was provided by underground art legend Mark Dancey, whose work has graced album covers by Soundgarden and who played guitar alongside Dürr in Big Chief.
Despite being a studio entity, GIANT BRAIN has always sounded like a band. There’s no denying, however, much of their unique musical voice was centered around Phil Dürr’s guitar playing, his ability to change gears from gritty to dreamy in the course of a single verse, his love of blues rock gravity and post-punk atmospherics, always thinking in the back of his mind, “What would Eddie Hazel play here?” At times sad and at other points a celebration, Dürr’s presence pulses and reverberates throughout Grade A Gray Day, whether in his guitar interplay with Joanne Shaw Taylor on the opener “Munich,” or the plangent chords hovering underneath Sue Lott’s vocals on “Between Trains,” the album’s final track and a moving farewell.
GIANT BRAIN’s Grade A Gray Day will be released on CD (limited to 300 copies) and digitally via Small Stone Recordings and vinyl (limited to 300 copies) via Small Stone with Kozmik Artifactz.
Grade A Gray Day Track Listing: 1. Munich 2. Terminator: (Where An Astronaut Dies In Space) 3. The Variac: (His Consciousness Reawakens) 4. Fore: (Rage At The Cruelty Of Forced Transhumanism) 5. Systems Failure: (Uprising, Destruction, And The Escape) 6. Between Trains
GIANT BRAIN: Phil Dürr – guitars, bass Andy Sutton – bass, vocals Eric Hoegemeyer – drums, keys, programming, synths Al Sutton – percussion, programming, keys
Posted in Reviews on September 29th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Welcome to the penultimate day of the Fall 2022 Quarterly Review, and yes, I will make just about any excuse to use the word “penultimate.” Sometimes you have a favorite thing, okay? The journey continues today, down, out, up and around, through and across 10 records from various styles and backgrounds. I hope you dig it and check back tomorrow for the last day. Here we go.
Quarterly Review #81-90:
Motorpsycho, Ancient Astronauts
There is no denying Motorpsycho. I’ve tried. Can’t be done. I don’t know how many records the Norwegian progressive rockers have put out by now, and honestly I wonder if even the band members themselves could give an accurate count. And who would be able to fact check? Ancient Astronauts continues the strong streak that the Trondheim trio of Tomas Järmyr, Bent Sæther, and Hans “Snah” Ryan have had going for at least the last six years — 2021’s Kingdom of Oblivion (review here) was also part of it — comprising four songs across a single 43-minute LP, with side B consumed entirely by the 22-minute finale “Chariot of the Sun/To Phaeton on the Occasion of Sunrise (Theme From an Imaginary Movie).” After the 12-minute King Crimsony build from silence to sustained freakout in “Mona Lisa Azazel” — preceded by the soundscape “The Flower of Awareness” (2:14) and the relatively straightforward, welcome-bidding “The Ladder” (6:41) — the closer indeed unfurls in two discernible sections, the first a linear stretch increasing in volume and tension as it moves forward, loosely experimental in the background but for sure a prog jam by its 11th minute that ends groovy at about its 15th, and the second a synthesizer-led arrangement that, to no surprise, is duly cinematic. Motorpsycho have been a band for more than 30 years established their place in the fabric of the universe, and are there to dwell hopefully for a long(er) time to come. Not all of the hundred-plus releases they’ve done have been genius, but they are so reliably themselves in sound it feels silly to write about them. Just listen and be happy they’re there.
Did you think Abrams would somehow not deliver quality-crafted heavy rock, straightforward in structure, ’00s punk undercurrent, plus metal, plus melody? Their first offering through Small Stone is In the Dark, the follow-up to 2020’s Modern Ways (review here), and it finds guitarist/vocalist Zachary Amster joined by on guitar by Patrick Alberts (Call of the Void), making the band a four-piece for the first time with bassist/vocalist Taylor Iversen and drummer Ryan DeWitt completing the lineup. One can hear new textures and depth in songs like “Better Living” after the raucous opening salvo of “Like Hell” and “Death Tripper,” and longer pieces like “Body Pillow,” the title-track and the what-if-Blizzard–of–Ozz-was-really-space-rock “Black Tar Mountain,” which reach for new spaces atmospherically and in terms of progressive melody — looking at you, “Fever Dreams” — while maintaining the level of songwriting one anticipates from Abrams four records in. They’ve been undervalued for a while now. Can their metal-heavy-rock-punk-prog-that’s-also-kind-of-pop gain some of the recognition it deserves? It only depends on getting ears to hear it.
Australia-based electronic prog outfit All India Radio — the solo ambient/atmospheric endeavor of composer and Martin Kennedy — has been releasing music for over 20 years, and is the kind of thing you may have heard without realizing it, soundtracking television and whatnot. The Generator of All Infinity is reportedly the final release in a trilogy cycle, completely instrumental and based largely on short ambient movements that move between each other like, well, a soundtrack, with some more band-minded ideas expressed in “The New Age” — never underestimate the value of live bass in electronic music — and an array of samples, differing organs, drones, psychedelic soundscapes, and a decent bit of ’80s sci-fi intensity on “Beginning Part 2,” which succeeds in making the wait for its underlying beat excruciating even though the whole piece is just four minutes long. There are live and sampled drums throughout, shades of New Wave, krautrock and a genuine feeling of culmination in the title-track’s organ-laced crescendo wash, but it’s a deep current of drone that ends on “Doomsday Machine” that makes me think whatever narrative Kennedy has been telling is somewhat grim in theme. Fair enough. The Generator of All Infinity will be too heady for some (most), but if you can go with it, it’s evocative enough to maybe be your own soundtrack.
Mississippi-based heavygaze rockers Nighdrator released the single “The Mariner” as a standalone late in 2020 as just the duo of vocalist/producer Emma Fruit and multi-instrumentalist JS Curley. They’ve built out more of a band on their self-titled debut EP, put to tape through Sailing Stone Records and bringing back “Mariner” (dropped the ‘The’) between “Scarlet Tendons” and the more synth-heavy wash of “The Poet.” The last two minutes of the latter are given to noise, drone and silence, but what unfurls before that is an experimentalist-leaning take on heavier post-rock, taking the comparatively grounded exploratory jangle of “Scarlet Tendons” — which picks up from the brief intro “Crest/Trough” depending on which format you’re hearing — and turning its effects-laced atmosphere into a foundation in itself. Given the urgency that remains in the strum of “Mariner,” I wouldn’t expect Nighdrator to go completely in one direction or another after this, but the point is they set up multiple opportunities for creative growth while signaling an immediate intention toward individuality and doing more than the My-Bloody-Valentine-but-heavy that has become the standard for the style. There’s some of that here, but Nighdrator seem not to want to limit themselves, and that is admirable even in results that might turn out to be formative in the longer term.
William Graham Randles, who is the lone figure behind all the plucked acoustic guitar strings throughout Seven Rivers of Fire‘s three-song full-length, Sanctuary, makes it easy to believe the birdsong that occurs throughout “Union” (16:30 opener and longest track; immediate points), “Al Tirah” (9:00) and “Bloom” (7:30) was happening while the recording was taking place and that the footsteps at the end are actually going somewhere. This is not Randles‘ first full-length release of 2022 and not his last — he releases the new Way of the Pilgrim tomorrow, as it happens — but it does bring a graceful 33 minutes of guitar-based contemplation, conversing with the natural world via the aforementioned birdsong as well as its own strums and runs, swells and recessions of activity giving the feeling of his playing in the sunshine, if not under a tree then certainly near one or, at worst, someplace with an open window and decent ventilation; the air feels fresh. “Al Tirah” offers a long commencement drone and running water, while “Bloom” — which begins with footsteps out — is more playfully folkish, but the heart throughout Sanctuary is palpable and in celebration of the organic, perhaps of the surroundings but also in its own making. A moment of serenity, far-away escapism, and realization.
Half a decade on from The Electric Dunes of Titan (review here), Melbourne sludge rock bruisers Motherslug return with Blood Moon Blues, a willfully unmanageable 58-minute, let’s-make-up-for-lost-time collection that’s got room enough for “Hordes” to put its harsh vocals way forward in the mix over a psychedelic doom sprawl while also coexisting with the druggy desert punkers “Crank” and “Push the Venom” and the crawling death in the culmination of “You (A Love Song)” — which it may well be — later on. With acoustic stretches bookending in “Misery” and the more fully a song “Misery (Slight Return),” there’s no want for cohesion, but from naked Kyussism of “Breathe” and the hard Southern-heavy-informed riffs of “Evil” — yes I’m hearing early Alabama Thunderpussy there — to the way in which “Deep in the Hole” uses similar ground as a launchpad for its spacious solo section, there’s an abiding brashness to their approach that feels consistent with their past work. Not every bands sees the ways in which microgenres intersect, let alone manages to set their course along the lines between, drawing from different sides in varied quantities as they go, but Motherslug do so while sounding almost casual about it for their lack of pretense. Accordingly, the lengthy runtime of Blood Moon Blues feels earned in a way that’s not always the case with records that pass the single-LP limit of circa 45 minutes, there’s blues a-plenty and Motherslug brought enough riffs for the whole class, so dig in, everybody.
Keep an ear out because you’re going to be hearing more of this kind of thing in the next few years. On their third album, Planetarium Module, Cheater Pipe blend Oliveri-style punk with early-aughts sludge tones and sampling, and as we move to about 20 years beyond acts like Rebreather and -(16)- and a slew of others including a bunch from Cheater Pipe‘s home state of Louisiana, yeah, there will be more acts adapting this particular stoner sludge space. Much to their credit, Cheater Pipe not only execute that style ably — Emissions sludge — on “Fog Line Shuffle,” “Cookie Jar” or “White Freight Liner Blues” and the metal-as-punk “Hollow Leg Hobnobber,” they bring Floor-style melody to “Yaw” and expand the palette even further in the second half of the tracklist, with “Mansfield Bar” pushing the melody further, “Flight of the Buckmoth” and closer “Rare Sunday” turning to acoustic guitar and “The Sad Saga of Hans Cholo” between them lending atmospheric breadth to the whole. They succeed at this while packing 11 songs into 34 minutes and coming across generally like they long ago ran out of fucks to give about things like what style they’re playing to or what’s ‘their sound.’ Invariably they think of these things — nobody writes a song and then never thinks about it again, even when they tell you otherwise — but the spirit here is middle-fingers-up, and that suits their sound best anyway.
The largely solo endeavor of Brian Lucas of Dire Wolves and a merry slew of others, Old Million Eye‘s latest full-length work arrives via Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube with mellow psychedelic experimentalism and folk at its core. The Air’s Chrysalis Chime boasts seven pieces in 43 minutes and each one establishes its own world to some degree based around an underlying drone; the fluidity in “Louthian Wood” reminiscent of windchimes and accordion without actually being either of those things — think George Harrison at the end of “Long Long Long,” but it keeps going — and “Tanglier Mirror” casts out a wash of synthesizer melody that would threaten to swallow the vocals entirely would they not floating up so high. It’s a vibe based around patience in craft, but not at all staid, and “White Toads” throws some distorted volume the listener’s way not so much as a lifeline for rockers as another tool to be used when called for. The last cosmic synthesizer on “Ruby River,” the album’s nine-minute finale, holds as residual at the end, which feels fair as Lucas‘ voice — the human element of its presence is not to be understated as songs resonate like an even-farther-out, keyboard-leaning mid-period Ben Chasny — has disappeared into the ether of his own making. We should all be so lucky.
“Bury” is the newest single from Swedish heavy rockers Zoltar, who, yes, take their moniker from the genie machine in the movie Big (they’re not the only ones either). It follows behind two songs released last year in “Asphalt Alpha” and “Dirt Vortex.” Those tracks were rawer in overall production sound, but there’s still plenty of edge in “Bury,” up to and including in the vocals, which are throatier here than on either of the two prior singles, though still melodic enough so that when the electric piano-style keys start up at about two and a half minutes into the song, the goth-punk nod isn’t out of place. It’s a relatively straight-ahead hook with riffing made that much meatier through the tones on the recording, and a subtle wink in the direction of Slayer‘s “Dead Skin Mask” in its chorus. Nothing to complain about there or more generally about the track, as the three-piece seem to be working toward some kind of proper release — they did press up a CD of Bury as a standalone, so kudos to them on the physicality — be it an EP or album. Wherever they end up, if these songs make the trip or are dropped on the way, it’s a look at a band’s earliest moves as a group and how quickly that collaboration can change and find its footing. Zoltar — who did not have feet in the movie — may just be doing that here.
Sardinia’s Fabrizio Monni (also of Black Capricorn) has unleashed a beast in Ascia, and with III, he knows it more than ever. The follow-up to Volume II (review here) and Volume I (review here) — both released late last year — is more realized in terms of songcraft, and it would seem Monni‘s resigned himself to being a frontman of his own solo-project, which is probably the way to go since he’s obviously the most qualified, and in songs like “The Last Ride,” he expands on the post-High on Fire crash-and-bash with more of a nodding central groove, while “Samothrace” finds a place for itself between marauder shove and more direct heavy rock riffery. Each time out, Monni seems to have more of an idea of what he wants Ascia to be, and whether there’s a IV to come after this or he’s ready to move onto something else in terms of release structure — i.e., a debut album — the progression he’s undertaken over the last year-plus is plain to hear in these songs and how far they’ve come in so short a time.
Posted in Questionnaire on September 14th, 2022 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: Taylor Iversen of Abrams
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Well… I’m a bass player and singer in a heavy rock ‘n’ roll band. I’ve been that thing for roughly fifteen years now, which is almost half my life. Though, I’d be remiss to call myself a professional musician, because the god honest truth is I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.
My older brother gave me his busted ass Yamaha bass guitar when he left home for college around the same time a dear friend gave me Sleep’s Dopesmoker (Then known as Jerusalem) along with a couple of Monster Magnet records, and I was like, “yeah, I wanna do that.” So I bought a shitty Crate combo amp off another bass player buddy of mine, and started learning riffs. First thing I got was that “Seven Nation Army” lick, then Sabbath’s “The Wizard” and “Supernaut” riffs. Once I got to the “Funeralopolis” intro from E-Wiz’s Dopethrone, I was like, “alright, big strings make good, big sound, I’ll figure this all out soon enough…”
When I went to college in Colorado, I met some folks and played in several bands. Just jamming and putting songs together. Playing shows, touring etc. Interestingly, Abrams consists of folks from most of those early projects. Then I was just hooked. Still haven’t learned how to play my instrument though. Maybe one day…
Until then, I big. Play big string. Make good big sound.
Shake that booty.
Describe your first musical memory.
It’s my understanding that in this community these days, liking The Beatles is a death sentence. So if you don’t mind, I’ll plead the fifth here.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Oh sweet Jesus H. Cronenberg, what a question.
Is it… All the moshpits I circled in with friends at shows in my youth living in suburban Minneapolis? Maybe the first time I saw Sunn O)); they were on tour with Boris for Altar and played at the Walker Art Museum, I was 16 and remember my body coming apart into drifting particles. Maybe it’s when I got to see Sleep for the first time, and Al was using my very own amplifier onstage. Does it have anything, anything at all to do with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, or Rubber Soul? Maybe. Or perhaps listening to Godspeed! You Black Emperor for the first time? The first time I saw Soundgarden? “So, bleeeeEEEEEEEEEEDDDD your heart!, OUT!” Ooh! Or the only time I saw Portishead, when the bass drum during “Machine Gun,” moved me a whole foot backward in the crowd. Or when John Garcia from Kyuss joined my band onstage to sing a song once… that was cool. Or when I opened up for Dillinger Escape Plan at a tiny dive bar, but the only reason I got to do that was because Chris Cornell had just died so it kinda sucked? Or when Michael Akerfeldt of Opeth told a young me, after a firm, yet supple handshake, that I looked just like Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon? Could it be that time at Maryland Deathfest when I swore I was going to lose my eye after a nasty hit in the Black Breath pit, but then it didn’t even bruise? Or this one time, a few years ago, when I sat with my legs in a pool at Psycho Las Vegas; a joint in one hand, a beer in the other, cradling a plate of fried chicken in my lap. Fu Manchu was ripping through “King Of The Road…” I remember wondering if there had ever been a better moment? Or many years before, my first time playing Seattle, when I sat on the stoop of The Black Lodge with a pug in my lap wondering the same? I remember seeing Torche with a bunch of friends during a particularly heavy bout of Post-Tour Depression, and I swear that show saved my life. My first time being on tour, maybe?
Any moment of being on tour, really… Shitting my pants and almost dying from diarrhea in Philly… Any of the countless, joyous, frightening memories from those great adventures… Playing a helluva show with some of the best friends my life will ever give me…
Or just enjoying music with any permutation of the same. I mean, there’s just too many moments to pick. Music IS memory, my dude.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I’m ‘starting to think’ that this whole capitalist system is unsustainable, and unable to be fixed. I remember even just a few years ago being like, “nah it’s cool… we’ll figure it out.” and now I’m like, “Oh shit… Well, the whole point of the system is to not figure it out…Because the people at the top have it all figured out for themselves, already.”
Now, I know this pig’s gotta bleed.
Also, I really thought, for a time, that David Gilmour was the best part of Pink Floyd. And then I saw Live At Pompeii and realized that Nick Mason… that guy is the star of that band.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Left.
How do you define success?
My wiiiife.
But seriously,
Whatever floats your boat man. If you’re happy, doing what you’re doing, who’s to tell you you’re not successful? Happiness, I think: That’s success. Content with one’s achievements? Maybe, not necessarily, but that’s what I used to think of when I thought of success…
But now, the more I hear, it seems to be more about the journey than the destination.
So why not just enjoy doing what you’re doing, if doing what you’re doing makes you happy, even if you’re not done. Even if it’s not, “Complete.”
Maybe it’s about following through to some level, but it can’t all be about the end.
Cuz at the end, you’ll be dead, and then who gives a fuck?
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
The other day I ‘accidentally’ stumbled onto a video of a guy being obliterated by an industrial lathe. See, I thought it was a different video of a guy being obliterated by an industrial lathe, one that I’d seen before. But this one was way worse.
I frequent some channels pertaining to morbid curiosity now and again. Mostly true crime stuff, and awful, crimes against humanity stuff… Podcasts, documentaries, internet pages… I’m courted by what Dan Carlin of Hardcore History calls a, “fascination with the extremes of humanity,” but watch-people-die stuff really fucks with me… Painfotainment as he called it. Check that episode out. It kind of obviously used to be quite a regular thing with people.
Sometimes, these days, you just fly too close to that old, old flame. Usually for me it surges around 9/11, deep diving into that whole tragedy …shit.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Ah, fuck.
I want to die with a robust catalog of artistic creation. Whether it be music, or writing, or any kind of creativity. I feel like I have a lot of interesting ideas and I really want to get them out there before I’m not here anymore. (See, do I gotta wait that long for ‘success’?) Ever since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to be a rockstar, and I’ve always wanted to be a novelist. And I’m really, desperately attempting to realize that latter dream right now. And have been for the last, like, seven years, and probably, hopefully, for the rest of my life. I’ve got two manuscripts in the can, a 400 page horror (about being in a band), and a 600 page sci-fi… Currently I’m editing and editing and editing the sci-fi, cuz in 2019, in the middle of an editing slog with the horror, which I’d been working on for 5 years by then, I got a wild hare up my ass to just start something new. Now, I’ve gotten better at this part, and am almost done editing ~150 of its 600 pages, enough for friends to read so they can, you know, tell me I’m wasting my time. In which case, I probably won’t listen, because I have, like, dozens of book ideas in my head and this emergent, needling compulsion to get them out. Like a whole interwoven universe of worlds and stories. Bare fiction, fantasy, horror, short stories, screen-plays… I really like writing… And I write a lot… (perhaps not so well.) Can you tell?
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Fuckin, like… Engaging the mind dawg. Blowin’ your mind, duuuude.. “ What’s that all about, maaaan?” “What’s the deal with that?” Fuggin, like makes ya’ think, bro.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
What the hell in this world is non-musical?
I could say “Fall; I fucking love autumn.” But, what, you’re gonna tell me that Fall is not musical?
Maybe I could say, “Getting my garden, just right…” but that’s super fucking musical too, isn’t it?
“The third Person-I Get-To-Be-The-Uncle-Of, being born?” C’mon.
“The two cats that hate each other, currently living in my house, learning to get along?” Meow.
It’s all fuckin’ music, man. And I’m excited for it all.
