https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Steve Janiak of Devil to Pay, Apostle of Solitude & The Gates of Slumber

Posted in Questionnaire on March 15th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Steve Janiak Devil to Pay Apostle of Solitude Gates of Slumber

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: Steve Janiak of Devil to Pay, Apostle of Solitude & The Gates of Slumber

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

I just spin my wheels, wondering if there’s a point to it all. I got here by years and years of self-delusion. As a kid I wanted to be a drummer, but my parents bought me a toy kit and I knew it was a toy so I hated it. I think I poked a hole in the bass drum and stuck it in the closet. One day a friend was over and we saw a commercial for Arthur’s Music’s year end sale. He said something about wanting a guitar and I replied “Me too, but my parents would never buy me one” and Mom overheard. I ended up with my first acoustic guitar on my 11th birthday.

Describe your first musical memory.

Either singing songs with my Mom in the car, or wearing little tiger sunglasses and singing Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “Southern Nights” for my babysitter or maybe sneaking my Dad’s records into my room like The Ventures and Johnny Horton. Listening to 8-tracks of Paul Anka and the Fifth Dimension’s “Age of Aquarius,” which I thought was dark and ominous. I remember hearing Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2” on the radio and thinking it was evil. The first record I bought was Boston’s “Don’t Look Back”, obviously because it had a cool UFO on the cover.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Probably the Gates of Slumber 2020 Euro Tour, or when Apostle played Hammer of Doom in Germany. Or in college, the Pub Sigs endless jamming. But maybe when I first heard myself on the radio, WTTS played a Neurotic Box song, “Open.” We sent them a reel-to-reel copy. That was 30 goddamned years ago.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

In 2020 when I lost both of my parents in a stupid pandemic full of hypocrites, idiots and fuckwits.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think it leads everyone to wherever they expect it will lead them, down a rabbit hole that ends somewhere between worldwide success and bankruptcy.

How do you define success?

When you make a connection and someone tells you how your art or music has inspired them, or maybe if you could pay a single bill from something you’ve spent your entire life trying to do, that would be something.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Animal abuse. Human cruelty and stupidity. Family members turning on each other over politics. Mac Sabbath at Psycho Las Vegas.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I would love to paint some giant paintings or make my own line of Tiki mugs.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Expression. Being able to express yourself through music or art is pretty vital and I think everyone should try it. Good or bad, just getting what’s inside and getting it out.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Traveling again. Putting down the phone and reading more. Hoping like a fool that we can move past this age of bullshit soon.

https://www.facebook.com/deviltopay
https://www.instagram.com/deviltopay_band/
https://deviltopay.bandcamp.com/
http://deviltopay.net/
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://www.instagram.com/ripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/

www.facebook.com/apostleofsolitude
https://www.instagram.com/apostleofsolitude/
apostleofsolitude.com
www.cruzdelsurmusic.com
cruzdelsurmusic.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/cruzdelsurmusic

https://www.facebook.com/thegatesofslumber/
https://thegatesofslumber.bandcamp.com/
http://thegatesofslumber.bigcartel.com/
https://twitter.com/TGOSdoom
http://doom-dealer.de/
https://churchwithinrecords.bandcamp.com/

Devil to Pay, Forever, Never or Whenever (2019)

Apostle of Solitude, Until the Darkness Goes (2021)

The Gates of Slumber, “The Jury” live in Berlin, Germany, March 6, 2020

Tags: , , , ,

Friday Full-Length: The Gates of Slumber, Live in Tempe, Arizona

Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

 

I wasn’t at this show, but I was reading guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon‘s Bandcamp info about The Gates of Slumber‘s Live in Tempe, Arizona, and it occurred to me I did see them on this tour. The Indianapolis trio, then Simon, bassist Jason McCash and drummer J. Clyde Paradis, were on the road in Spring 2011 supporting their new-at-the-time album The Wretch (review here), which would turn out to be their final record with just the Scion A/V-sponsored Stormcrow EP (review here) following in 2013 until this Live in Tempe, Arizona, came along in 2020. They’d been to Europe and were back in the States touring with Orange Goblin for the UK outfit’s 15th anniversary. Here’s what Simon remembers about it:

2011 was a very good year for The Gates of Slumber, we had come off a run of great shows with Cathedral and the amazing experience of recording The Wretch in London with Jaime Gomez in December of 2010, and we were fresh off touring with Place of Skulls and our headliner set at Roadburn when we got the call that Orange Goblin was wanting us to support them as they tried to get a full US tour in 13 days… 13 grizzly days where we had no air conditioning in the van as we trekked across the deep south… the realities of touring in the US vs Europe were laid bare on this one, there was the infamous decided lack of everything that we were dealing with as we confronted blown out tires, a lack of sleep, a lack of food and mostly a lack of time.

Make no mistake, I have a few good memories (and a few hazy ones; it was a different, much drunker time) of seeing The Gates of Slumber live, but hot damn, I loved The Wretch. Produced by Jaime Gomez Arellano as noted above, the record used negative space — empty space in the mix — to create a downtrodden, lonely, depressive feel that was as pure and classic American doom as Saint Vitus‘ best work. It was clear in its message and perspective, its songs were intentionally grueling, and in departing from the more epic-minded fare of LP’s like 2008’s Conqueror and 2009’s Hymns of Blood and Thunder (review here), the band took up the mantle of forerunners of a kind of doom that very, very few acts have been able to capture in the decade-plus since. No one I’ve heard has been able to do this thing, this way, so well.

The New York show was Orange GoblinThe Gates of SlumberNaam and Kings Destroy (review here), on May 27, 2011, which according to the original list of dates puts it 10 days beforeTHE GATES OF SLUMBER LIVE IN TEMPE ARIZONA they hit Tempe — after Albuquerque, New Mexico, it should be noted given the album cover for the live record (click the image above to enlarge) — and what a night. Even first night of the tour, they delivered, and listening back to Live in Tempe, Arizona, it brings to mind just how on-fire they were at this point. If you’re wondering just what the hell I’m talking about with “negative space” above, take a listen to “Coven of Cain” on the live record. That (not really) empty pause as Simon drudges through the early verses, the slow march so pointedly undramatic in its execution. The song itself doesn’t need to be massive because the impact comes from the atmosphere and the emotion behind it.

It’s raw in a way that distortion-obsessed riff-doom — and hey, I like plenty of that too — can’t possibly be, and feels braver for that, for being more up front. The Gates of Slumber in this era had plenty of forward push, as “Day of Farewell” here demonstrates, and the dynamic was fluid, which is to say that they were able to shift between the quieter and louder, more weighted stretches with apparent ease owing to the strength of the songwriting and the performances, not just of Simon in fronting the band and embodying the miseries the songs were about, but McCash and Paradis bringing density and a just-about-to-fall-off-the-track rolling nod to the material. Even as they chug through “Ice Worm” from Conqueror here and finish out with “The Jury” from their 2004 debut, …The Awakening (discussed here), the quiet intensity keeps up with the surge of volume. And I know the early days of the band have engendered a loyalism among the band’s fans, but for my money, this was as doomed as The Gates of Slumber got.

Listening to it, there’s no question as to why The Gates of Slumber would want to eventually release Live in Tempe, Arizona. Even 11 years after the fact, the downer aspects of these six songs — the set opener “The Scovrge ov Drvnkeness” wasn’t recorded according to Simon — comes through with marked resonance, and the barebones-but-clean sound with which the songs are captured ties everything together with remarkable effectiveness. That is to say, it’s doom as fuck. The tragedy of McCash‘s death in 2014 ensured that The Wretch — or Stormcrow, for that matter — never got a proper follow-up from The Gates of Slumber, but Simon continued forward in the band Wretch, whose 2016 self-titled debut (review here) answered the call that the album after which they were named seemed to put forth. It wasn’t the same — nothing is — but it was a worthy continuation of Simon‘s former outfit and a beginning of something new.

In 2019, The Gates of Slumber announced a reunion of sorts. With the occasion of the 2020 Hell Over Hammaburg Festival — which actually happened! — as the driving factor, Simon brought on Chuck Brown on drums and Steve Janiak on bass (both also guitarist/vocalists in Apostle of Solitude), the band went to Europe for a few shows and captured some prime live and rehearsal footage in the process. The new incarnation of the band has released some of that stuff through their Patreon, as well as some footage of the group’s first run, studio behind-the-scenes stuff, and so on, but I don’t know if they’re writing or working toward a new The Gates of Slumber album or not. I wouldn’t mind being surprised by one one of these days, in the way of sudden Bandcamp drops, but in the meantime, revisiting what was so clearly a special time for them makes me wonder all the more what the Simon, Janiak and Brown lineup might have to offer.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

So, I guess war, huh? The tribes of Europe, who’ve been fighting and redrawing maps for over a thousand years, are at it again. And young and old, military and civilian, men, women and children will die, land will be scorched. Everybody’s got their WWIII boner up. I’m not trying to be glib about it — it’s a genuine tragedy, most of all for the people of Ukraine, including friends of mine — but if humanity was ever going to learn not to wage war against itself, I think it probably would have by now, and failing that, what’s really left to say about us as a species? We’re awful and someday there won’t be any of us left. Maybe who/whatever comes along next and claims earth as its dominion (which, come to think of it, is part of the problem in the first place, so hopefully who/whatever’s next doesn’t make that claim to start with) will do better.

On more domestic questions of diplomacy and battle, The Pecan — aged four and four months as of today — and The Patient Mrs. worked out some weeks ago that today, Feb. 25, would be the day he peed on the potty. He’s done it once before, after sitting on the toilet for a literal eight hours, and I kind of think that might be where today is headed as well. School was canceled owing to freezing rain and other wintry whathaveyou, and when I woke up, it was his yelling and crying about being on the toilet that did it.

I’m in the bathroom now, having spelled The Patient Mrs. so she can go upstairs and get work done, and I’ve hidden the diapers so he can’t go find one and put it on (I told him diapers would come back after he peed on the potty, so he’s not freaking out that they’re gone forever), and after trying every bribe in the known universe and giving him buy-in by picking the day, I guess it’s just a matter of making it happen. He’s physically uncomfortable from having to pee so badly. He holds in his poop for days on end. This is something that needs to happen. He knows when he has to go. They’ve tried at school and he just refuses all bribes and continues to hold it in until he gets home. It’s a thing. A whole thing. It’s been a thing for over a year and it’s only gotten worse. Do I think there’s a freezing rain’s chance in hell that the issue will be solved today? No, I do not. It’ll happen when it happens. But if we come out of the day celebrating even a drop or a trickle going in the toilet, that will ultimately give us a win from which to move forward. That win will have been worked for.

He’s currently watching Doc McStuffins on my phone. We did Bluey for a bit too and we may or may not get to Muppets as the day plays out. He’ll be hungry in a bit, so I anticipate a lunch break and then, yeah, probably back for more of this. That’s real life. Happening right now.

Thanks if you checked out the YOB review yesterday. That show was incredible.

No Gimme show this week, but next week it’ll happen if you’re looking for it, which I doubt you are. I’m slowly making my way toward 100 episodes of that, which I’ll hit later this year provided they don’t cancel it in the meantime. Fingers crossed. I enjoy that.

Fuck. All Them Witches just posted a new song. Why does this crap have to happen on Fridays?

Alright, gonna go post that, then do lunch for the kid. Have a great and safe weekend. Watch your head, hydrate, don’t forget to use the potty before you leave the house. All that stuff.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

Tags: , , , , ,

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal Playlist: Episode 57

Posted in Radio on April 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

the obelisk show banner

Here’s the deal — last week or somewhere thereabouts, someone on Twitter was bitching about rock music being dead and blah blah the usual good music doesn’t come to me in the ways it did when I was 12 and therefore I think it’s irrelevant. The usual. Gimme Metal was mentioned as an outlet delivering good heavy to those who care enough to invest the minimal effort of clicking ‘listen.’ Dude was all “well if they played Trouble I’d listen” and Gimme rightly responded with a list of DJs who might be on board for such a thing. I was one of them.

Brought into the conversation I said hell yes I’d play Trouble. And as it happens I’ve gone ahead to play them twice, at the start of the show, and then follow it up with a bunch of other killer doom, old, newer and newer still, before circling back on the mother of them all, Black Fucking Sabbath, because when my name is brought into a random Twitter conversation and a challenge is issued, you bet your ass I’m going overboard. So pretty much the first hour of the show is doomed as all get-out. Trouble even through The Quill, who I thought were a good match for Dehumanizer-era Sabbath with that track from their new record.

Sometimes you gotta step up. Or something. I don’t know. I was just happen to have something to talk about in the voice breaks other than my kid or “thanks for listening.”

By the way, thanks for listening and/or reading. As always, I hope you enjoy.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at http://gimmemetal.com

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 04.16.21

Trouble The Tempter Psalm 9
Trouble R.I.P. Trouble
Saint Vitus Burial at Sea Saint Vitus
Place of Skulls Last Hit With Vision
VT
The Gates of Slumber The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead) …The Awakening
Apostle of Solitude Grey Farewell From Gold to Ash
The Obsessed Neatz Brigade The Church Within
Black Sabbath After All (The Dead) Dehumanizer
The Quill Evil Omen Earthrise
VT
Boss Keloid Gentle Clovis Family the Smiling Thrush
Hippie Death Cult Hornet Party Circle of Days
NOÊTA Elm Elm
Kosmodemonic Morai Liminal Light
Hellish Form Shadows with Teeth Remains
VT
Darsombra Call the Doctor (Sun Side) Call the Doctor / Nightgarden

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is April 30 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

The Obelisk on Thee Facebooks

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Days of Rona: Karl Simon of The Gates of Slumber & Wretch

Posted in Features on April 16th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

the gates of slumber karl simon

Days of Rona: Karl Simon of The Gates of Slumber & Wretch (Indianapolis, Indiana)

How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

Well, Gates of Slumber just got back from Europe just ahead of things going to shit here. We were all in quarantine for two weeks at home… and now shelter in place.

Somehow in spite of being in O’Hare the date of that big shitshow we are all healthy. No fevers no symptoms.

Wretch was meant to be recording our second record at the end of April. Those plans are paused now as we are just waiting to see what the future has in store. Sucks… this album has been held up so long… it’s like the way things go for Wretch: everything takes twice as long as it should. Which is fine.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

I don’t know. I am just holed up indoors. So far as I know it’s carry-out only at restaurants and maybe bars. People can still go to stores you just keep your distance.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

I see more people walking in front of my house than normal. Kids riding bikes. People walking their dogs. I think that’s a good thing to come of this: people have been slowed the fuck down. And hopefully we stick with it. But that is just what I see out my window. I don’t really pay attention to the news or anything. Stay away and stay down. If you have to go out: cover up the best you can — wear any kind of glove/mask/hat. Get in get what you need and get out. Wash your hands a fuck ton.

As far as music goes. I think a lot of bands are going to be releasing some very meticulously arranged stuff over the next few years. I expect we might see attention spans lengthen and that’s always good I think. I like the live shows people have been doing on social media. Might be the future…. which sucks for me as I actually like the idea of touring and playing live. But all of this remains to be seen.

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

I think that we will get over this and things will get back to a normal. People need to take it easy. And they need to look out for each other a bit more. This won’t last forever.

https://www.facebook.com/thegatesofslumber/
http://www.slumberingsouls.com/

Tags: , , ,

Friday Full-Length: The Gates of Slumber, …The Awakening

Posted in Bootleg Theater on February 28th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Beginning next week, Indianapolis doomers The Gates of Slumber will embark on a European tour that, centered around and fostered by an appearance at Hell over Hammaburg in Germany, will touch down in six different countries across nine shows. It’s not the hugest tour the band have ever undertaken by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a special moment nonetheless as founding guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon (interview here) — who’s spent the last couple years developing the similarly-minded trio Wretch in part to spread The Gates of Slumber‘s legacy — revitalizes the band after splitting up in 2013. They go abroad with the express purpose of celebrating their 2004 debut, …The Awakening (originally released on Final Chapter Records), and joining Simon in the lineup is drummer Chuck Brown, who played on the album and went on to found Apostle of Solitude as vocalist/guitarist after its release, and bassist Steve Janiak, who’s been in Apostle of Solitude since about 2012 and who also fronts the wildly underrated Devil to Pay, also in vocals and guitar. The latter steps into an especially precarious position in the band, taking on the role once held by Jason McCash prior to his leaving the band in 2013 — causing the breakup — and subsequent death the next year.

The reunion tour and what it might lead to aside, …The Awakening hit 15 years old in 2019 and remains a work out of its own time. Not that there was no doom happening circa 2004 — indeed, The Gates of Slumber‘s “membership” in the ‘Circle of True Doom’ speaks to a community already crossing international borders — but they represented a new generation in direct engagement with some of the style’s most treasured traditions. You want to know how to doom? Cool. Go ahead and put on the opening track of …The Awakening, and once you’re past the howling wind, tolling bell and vague screams that consume the first minute-plus, sit back as SimonMcCash and Brown put together a handy tutorial on doing it right. Seriously. “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” is a nine-minute clinic not only in what the album that in part shares its name has to offer, but really on the appeal of traditionalist doom on the whole. Its Sabbathian lurch is worn on-sleeve, and Simon‘s vocals are immediately downtrodden, the melody following the riff on a depressive spiral punctuated by the bell of Brown‘s ride cymbal evoking the introduction. The song grows slower and more tortured in its second half setting up the guitar solo that consumes both channels in Iommic layering, and then, as it approaches its last minute, the drums kick into a faster progression to thrash out as another, more ripping lead finishes off.

I won’t discount the 9:33 bookending closer “The Burial,”the gates of slumber the awakening or a speedster shuffle like “The Executioner,” the low-end-shoved chug of “Broken on the Wheel” or the plod and swing of “The Judge” and “The Jury,” respectively — this is essential doom and essentialist doom. It is doom the cuts through nuance and bullshit and proceeds to death. That is what it does from front to back. Wakes up on its last day, sees judge and jury, is tortured, executed and buried — done. But it’s in “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” that The Gates of Slumber set the stage on which the drama that follows plays out, and they’re never so much consumed by the narrative as they are bringing to bear the sense of defeat of one who is powerless against their fate. Every dense-toned bassline from McCash and even the most uptempo of parts in “Broken on the Wheel” or “The Executioner” are prefaced by that last stretch in the leadoff cut. Perhaps only the penultimate bass-led interlude “Blessed Pathway to the Celestial Kingdom” stands apart in terms of aesthetic, but definitely not in mood, and …The Awakening remains unified in its purpose even as it transitions from alive to dead in that brief moment.

“The Burial,” then, is a glorious epilogue of a wasted life. You never find out what brings about the execution — “The Awakening (Interpolating the Wrath of the Undead)” references zombies and post-death horrors at the outset, but the nearest clue is in the lyrics to “The Jury,” with the lines, “You were guilty as the oaths were sworn. A felon to die upon the morn.” Whether we’re burying the undead alive or punishing some unknown treason or betrayal, does it really matter? The underlying point of …The Awakening is that existence is the punishment, and whatever situational extrapolation one might want to bring to the narrative across the songs, the same statement applies. There’s no getting away from it. No escape from that executioner’s blade. We’re all fucked. Doom on.

As much as one might look at a lineup of The Gates of Slumber with Karl SimonSteve Janiak and Chuck Brown and daydream of new material topped with morose three-part harmonies to fill the grueling spaces left by the band’s signature riffs, part of the appeal of …The Awakening — a big part of it — is its straightforwardness. It is hiding nothing, either about its origins, its influences, or its intentions. The band at the time were beginning an exploration that would gradually lead them away from doom as a central focus and toward a more epic metal style, as 2006’s Suffer No Guilt begat 2008’s Conqueror and 2009’s Hymns of Blood and Thunder (review here), but doom was always there, and when 2011’s The Wretch (review here) — from whence Simon‘s post-Gates band would later derive their name — surfaced in all its ultra-Saint Vitus-style misery, the feeling was that The Gates of Slumber‘s claim on the forefront of US doom had never been stronger or more resonant. When their 2013 EP, Stormcrow (review here), served as the final installment of their career, even more than a decade on from their start the primary loss seemed to be in their potential going unfulfilled.

The Church Within Records has — today, apparently — issued a live record called Live at Tempe Arizona, and The Gates of Slumber have been steadily posting rehearsal footage from a basement that should be well recognizable to anyone who follows along with similar videos from Apostle of Solitude. Wherever their reunion goes or doesn’t go after this tour, whether there’s another The Gates of Slumber album or tour or not, their legacy is cast in the quality and the sincerity of their doom. There are few bands who have been able to play to style while feeling as genuine and heartfelt as The Gates of Slumber do on …The Awakening, and that only makes the record all the more worthy of the homage they’re paying it.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Don’t even ask what’s on next week. I have a dentist appointment Thursday? I know that. But I don’t even know what I’m writing about for Monday. It’s in the notes, I’ll deal with it over the weekend. Lord Buffalo maybe? I don’t know. Whatever. I’ve been trying to sleep later with mixed results and this week sucked anyway. Kid’s good. Everyone’s healthy. Whatever else.

Fuck email. I just don’t have the energy to deal with that shit. I have 147 messages that I just have no idea what the fuck to do with. I want to put up an out of office and be like, “Sorry I’m dead.” Facebook Messenger. Are you fucking kidding me?

Oh, I’m gonna review Arbouretum next week. Well that’s a break. That’ll be good. No one will give a crap, but whatever. I reviewed My Dying Bride this week, no one gave a crap. Why would they. Band’s been around for 30 years, what the hell am I gonna say about them that hasn’t been said 100 times before? Duh they’re good at what they do. Review over. Took me 1,000 words to say that, pretentious nitwit that I am. Feigning relevance for 11 years and counting! I don’t care. I just keep doing it anyway. I need it.

I’m burnt out, man. Still more than a month to go until Roadburn and I’m feeling like that spiritual rejuvenation is needed. Lot of hills to climb before I get there.

Leap Day tomorrow. I’ll be watching baseball and trying to avoid looking at the computer, counting down the minutes until it’s time to heat up leftovers for dinner. Farmer’s market on Sunday maybe. Fine.

Last night, I got offered $100 to write a review for today. Someone trying to buy coverage. This is a person who, in the past, I’ve considered a friend. Trying to buy coverage from me. Obviously clueless as to how insulting that is. I did not, and now will not, write the review. How could I possibly?

That’s life.

So I’m out $100. Ha.

At least Picard is good.

Anyway. Great and safe weekend. Appreciate you reading. FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Gates of Slumber Announce European Tour Dates Around Hell Over Hammaburg Appearance

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 23rd, 2020 by JJ Koczan

Ever since The Gates of Slumber first announced their reunion last April, the questions over whether they’d tour and, if so, just how much, have loomed. When I asked founding guitarist/vocalist about it a few days later in our interview, his response was a succinct, “if there is a demand we’ll play.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a demand, and accordingly, the reinvigorated three-piece of Simon, bassist Steve Janiak and drummer Chuck Brown (both of whom double as guitarist/vocalists in Apostle of Solitude, while the former now handles triple-duty fronting Devil to Pay) will do a round of EU shows around the slot at Hell Over Hammaburg that was the impetus behind the reunion in the first place. They’ll be in Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. And that’s news in itself, and awesome, but look at the god damn bands they’re playing with.

There are plenty of killer nights here, with Altar of Oblivion, Hazemaze, and other familiar names — let alone the fest itself in Hamburg — but look at that Berlin show. You mean I could see The Gates of Slumber playing a set of early material on a bill with Cardinals Folly, Leaden Fumes and friggin’ Lord Vicar? Someone needs to fly my ass to Berlin. Come on. That’s too good. We should all go.

I’m gonna splash cold water on my broke-ass face. You check out the dates:

the gates of slumber eu tour 2020

The Gates of Slumber 2020 European Dates

Recently-reunited Indianapolis doom metal trio The Gates of Slumber have announced additional tour dates around their upcoming appearance at Hell over Hammaburg 8. Guitarist / vocalist Karl Simon (also of Wretch) is joined by early-era TGOS drummer Chuck Brown (Apostle of Solitude) and Steve Janiak (Apostle of Solitude, Devil to Pay) on bass.

The band’s set will focus on material from the debut album “The Awakening” (2004) and subsequent EP, “Like a Plague Upon the Land” (2005) both of which featured Chuck Brown on drums. The album and EP are also slated to be reissued via Church Within Records in 2020.

The Gates of Slumber will share the stage with Lord Vicar, Altar of Oblivion, Haunt, Bellrope, Visigoth and more.

THE GATES OF SLUMBER “The Re-Awakening” 2020
Presented by Vibra Agency & The Church Within Records
04.03.2020 BEL – Brussels, Magasin 4, w Nornes, Loose License
05.03.2020 GER – Dortmund, Junkyard, w Hexer
06.03.2020 GER – Berlin, Zukunft, Lord Vicar, Cardinals Folly
07.03.2020 GER – Hamburg, Markthalle, Hell Over Hamburg 2020 w Haunt, Bellrope, Visigoth & more
08.03.2020 DNK – Copenhagen, Stengade, w Altar of Oblivion
09.03.2020 SWE – Gothenburg, Musikens Hus
10.03.2020 NOR – Oslo, Roverstaden, w Tempelheks III
11.03.2020 SWE – Stockholm Hus 7 w Black Soil, Hazemaze
13.03.2020 FIN – Helsinki, Rocks

https://www.facebook.com/thegatesofslumber/
http://www.slumberingsouls.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ChurchWithinRecords/
http://www.doom-dealer.de/

The Gates of Slumber, “Iron Hammer” rehearsal footage

Tags: , , ,

The Gates of Slumber: Karl Simon Talks Reuniting the Band, Future Plans and More

Posted in Features on May 3rd, 2019 by JJ Koczan

the gates of slumber

It’s only too fitting that The Gates of Slumber‘s reunion after five years of inactivity should focus on their 2004 debut, …The Awakening. Founded in 1997 in Indianapolis as The Keep by guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon, the band would go on to release five full-lengths between ’04 and 2011, as well as a slew of splits and EPs, thereby spearheading an American traditionalist doom outside the geographic confines of Maryland’s scene. Their sound embraced epic metal on Conqueror (2008) and 2009’s Hymns of Blood and Thunder (review here), but never wavered from its core purpose in doom, and their final LP, 2011’s The Wretch (review here), was a gloriously downtrodden exploration of drunken regret set to riffage that used the open spaces of the recording to create an even more oppressive sphere.

When bassist Jason McCash left the band in Sept. 2013Simon said, “I always said I’d never go on doing TGoS without Jason, I don’t think anyone ever really believed it, but yeah, it’s done.” Soon enough, Simon would go on to found Wretch as a continuation of The Gates of Slumber‘s cathartic outlet, and their self-titled debut LP (review here) showed up in 2016, followed the next year by an EP, Bastards Born (discussed here), as the new unit began to find its own direction within the sphere of doom. The legacy of The Gates of Slumber and McCash, who passed away in 2014, loomed large, but Simon was always upfront about what he wanted the band to be and Wretch went so far as to play select The Gates of Slumber songs live. You don’t name your new band after your old band’s last album if you’re trying to distance yourself from what you’ve done in the past. Wretch worked and continues to work as a project precisely because of its direct engagement and honesty about its origins.

News came down earlier this week that The Gates of Slumber would reunite for Hell Over Hammaburg in Hamburg, Germany, next year, playing alongside NifelheimArgusHauntBellrope and a slew more not yet announced. The new lineup of the band features Steve Janiak of Devil to Pay and Apostle of Solitude on bass and Chuck Brown of Apostle of Solitude on drums. The latter is also a veteran of The Gates of Slumber, having played on …The Awakening before being ousted and starting his own band. Together, the new trio will embark on the trip to Germany in 2020 and then…? It’s up in the air. Simon notes below they’re willing to take it as far as people want without affecting anyone’s work in other bands, including his own, and of course one recalls that at the time of their breakup, The Gates of Slumber were slated to do nearly three weeks on the road supporting Church of Misery the next month. I don’t think they’ll pickup right where they left off, but perhaps there’s some sense of work still to be done on the part of one of this millennium’s most essential US doom purveyors.

So, with Germany ahead and Wretch on tour now (playing New England Stoner & Doom Fest in CT this weekend), behold The Gates of Slumber‘s reawakening. Thanks to Simon for taking the time to talk about it on short notice, and to you for reading.

The Gates of Slumber Interview with Karl Simon

First things first: How did the reunion come about? Did Hell Over Hammaburg bring the idea to you? What made you think this was the time to bring back The Gates of Slumber?

Well, Wolf [Mühlmann] from HOH asked me a while back about TGoS playing, and I was not in a place to really deal with it. My mother had just passed after a long illness and Wretch was on hold due to drama in the band, so I said something non-committal about the whole thing and left it at that. I basically took a chunk of time and quit thinking about bands. I learned a bunch of songs arranged for an acoustic and just kind of played for myself. Last year I asked Dustin Boltjes formerly of Skeletonwitch, The Dream is Dead, Demiricous and all around raging dude to take the throne and we started working on songs for the next Wretch record. In the middle of that, I tore my Achilles and had to take months off. And Oli [Richling] from Church Within contacted me asking about The Awakening, I’d been trying to pitch the live LP from the The Wretch tour forever, and we got a deal worked out for the Live record, The Awakening AND Like a Plague Upon the Land — the last recorded stuff with that lineup. Chuck had come by a bit during my downtime and we’d been talking a lot. We had this deal where our records were going to come back out and the way I saw it it would be a dumb thing to not at least play a few shows to support it. Jason would have done it in a minute…. and it gave me an excuse to play those songs with Chuck again and just hang out with an old friend. And that’s that.

How did the the lineup end up being you, Chuck and Steve? Was the fact that Chuck had been in Gates before a factor? Obviously they’re both in Apostle of Solitude now, but how did that all come together?

We both wanted to take this chance for sure, TGoS had a decent profile and we wanted to ride the goddamn snake, but we did not want any stress. It’s all super laid back for a change. Steve fell right in because he could commit right away and he was into it. His gear was at Chuck‘s where we practice and we just went with it. It’s all been very chill and easy. Which is how we want it.

It’s been nearly six years since the band first broke up. How do you feel about what The Gates of Slumber accomplished during its initial run? I know Wretch has played some Gates songs in the past, but how do you feel looking back on that material now that the band is going again? Has your appreciation for it changed at all?

We’ve been relearning songs from that era that basically stopped when we fired Chuck in ’05… it’s been fun and in a dippy sense healing. We realized how destructive we were to each other back then and how insecure we were as people and players, at least I have been. As far as what Wretch will do, basically the only song from TGoS we do is the namesake, I see that as a rallying point for Wretch… the other songs are going to stay with TGoS… I mean maybe someday we’ll trot out “Scovrge of Drvnkeness” or something, but in Wretch we are focused on writing new songs.

Do you have any idea of what you’ll play live yet?

We’ll be focusing exclusively on songs from The Awakening era. Sorry if you’re a fan of the later stuff. This is going back to the beginning and we plan to play at least an hour and 20 min, focusing mostly on songs that never got played live. You’ll hear “The Leach” for the first time, “The Burial” will be back, along with “Dweller in the Deep” and a bunch of other stuff.

It goes without saying that Jason’s legacy looms large in all things concerning The Gates of Slumber. The band initially quit when he left. How much is he in your mind when you think about what makes The Gates of Slumber what it was and is?

He’s there constantly, you know. His shadow looms over TGoS and Wretch a lot. I’ve had a lot of time with death. And grief never goes away. It’s softens… it’s like, Wretch just played our first show in two years on his birthday. His widow and son were there. It’s a family thing.

How far will this reunion go? Will you play other shows besides Hell Over Hammaburg? How will it affect Wretch, Apostle of Solitude and Devil to Pay? Will there ever be another Gates record?

As far as folks want it to, if there is a demand we’ll play… it’s not going to effect Apostle of Solitude or Wretch or Devil to Pay. For me Wretch is number one. We actually leave for tour tomorrow May 2. So, dear reader, if you’re trying to ask some questions about this you’d best see me at the merch table, get it? Got it? Good.

See you all soon!

Karl

The Gates of Slumber on Thee Facebooks

The Gates of Slumber on Twitter

Tags: , ,

The Gates of Slumber Reunite for Hell over Hammaburg 2020; Post Rehearsal Footage

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 30th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

the gates of slumber

Bands come and go all the time. All the time. They come, then go, then come again, then go again. But if you and I were to sit down and have a chat — doesn’t that sound nice? — about bands who’ve come and gone and were unlikely to return, I’d probably have put The Gates of Slumber on that list. When the Indianapolis three-piece forerunners of doom traditionalism disbanded in 2013, then yeah, okay, maybe they’d have gotten back together, but then a few months later when bassist Jason McCash passed away, and guitarist/vocalist Karl Simon moved on to form Wretch, it just didn’t seem like the kind of thing that was ever going to happen. Then Germany called.

The Gates of Slumber will play a special set for Hell Over Hammaburg 2020. Of course the idea will be to focus on the band’s history and pay homage to McCash and the legacy of what they created in their original run. The new lineup is comprised of Simon, bassist Steve Janiak (also guitarist/vocalist of Devil to Pay and Apostle of Solitude) and drummer Chuck Brown (also guitarist/vocalist in Apostle of Solitude and drummer in an earlier incarnation of The Gates of Slumber as well), and they’ve posted a clip of some rehearsal footage on Thee Facebooks in order to get word out of the revitalization of the band.

There are always people who naysay reunions, and reunions with a new lineup as well. Whatever. The Gates of Slumber went out on the heels of their best work yet in 2011’s The Wretch (review here) — technically they also had the Stormcrow EP (review here) before they were done, but stay with me — and I think the fact that Simon went on to form Wretch is clear indication there was still more to be said there. I don’t know if they’ve even thought of working on new material, but my understanding is this is a special kind of one-off thing, they might do some dates around the festival, but basically it’s something unique for Hell Over Hammaburg next year, and that’s where it stands now. Of course we know plans can change. There wouldn’t be a reunion in the first place if that wasn’t true.

Check out the rehearsal footage below. There may also be some reissues in the works and the long-supposed live album might happen as well. I’ll hope for more to come all around.

Enjoy:

Just Announced: The Gates of Slumber to reunite for Hell Over Hammaburg 2020. More details to follow…

The Gates of Slumber on Thee Facebooks

Hell Over Hammaburg website

Tags: , ,