Posted in Whathaveyou on May 26th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
What does it tell you about an album when five record labels get behind the release? Well, first it tells you that globalization was a farce that requires multiple DIY distributors to cover different territories around the planet because instead of actually helping smooth processes like releasing albums in multiple territories, it made the same five old white men who were already rich that much richer over the course of the last 30 years, but more immediately, it perhaps tells us that it’s time to start thinking of Volume‘s 2002 debut/only-LP Requesting Permission to Land (not the original cover below) as a lost classic, and maybe that it’s time to revisit that pre-social media era of heavy rock and roll in a similar fashion to how about 10 years back it seemed like every other week there was another lost classic from the heavy ’70s coming out on labels like Akarma and Rockadrome. Feels early, but I bet if you were there in the 1970s it felt early a decade ago too.
There are, of course, a near-infinite amount of treasures to be unearthed, because while I’d call the heavy underground well populated today and bolstered by the (semi-)democratization of recording gear/software and streaming, but whatever comes of it in the next few years, Volume‘s Requesting Permission to Land is easily worth the revisit, calling to mind nostalgia for the MySpace era when, say, one might’ve sent Patrick Brink a message requesting a copy of the record to play on one’s college radio stoner rock show. I’d say those were the days, but they weren’t really. I could go on off-topic, but you don’t care. If you want to talk and be friends in real life, hit me up. Also, don’t tell anybody that 2023 is actually the 21st anniversary of the album. Doesn’t matter. Pressing delays, timing, whatever. It exists and it’s coming out. That’s good enough for me.
The relevant info from the PR wire:
VOLUME To Release 20th Anniversary Edition of Requesting Permission To Land
Heavy fuzzed out psychedelic rock from the desert of Twentynine Palms, CA, is the offering from VOLUME. Formed in 1993, VOLUME are back following a hiatus to finish what they started and celebrate a career milestone. The 20th Anniversary edition vinyl pressing of Requesting Permission To Land will be released on October 27th.
“I’m super stoked that ‘Requesting Permission To Land’ will finally be out on vinyl like it was always supposed to be. Get ready to get cosmically freaked out!” – Patrick Brink
From the riff-fueled percussive-frenzy sound of the EP’s opener “Habit” to the rhythmic and progressive conclusion “Headswim”, Requesting Permission To Land is a thrilling collection of heavy acid rock tracks. The EP features a number of talented musicians with drums recorded by Scott Reeder (FU MANCHU), and bass played by James Scoggins (FINAL CONFLICT). If you like straight up fuzzed out psychedelic rock, sit back and let VOLUME spin your head!
About VOLUME:
Patrick Brink began VOLUME back in 1993 with the desire to have a project with which he could take the lead and steer the musical reins down psychedelic rocking routes. Having performed with a number of acts including doing vocals for FU MANCHU in their early days, VOLUME offered Patrick a new creative outlet. Over their career the band has shared stages with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, FU MANCHU, MASTADON and GOATSNAKE, and performed at festivals including Emmisions of the Monolith and Stoner Hands of Doom (SHoD). VOLUME draw musical influences from bands such as THE STOOGES, MC5 and BLACK FLAG to name a few, while also crafting their own distinctive heavy psychedelic identity.
Requesting Permission To Land will be released via Weird Beard (UK) We Here & Now (CA) Echodelick (US) Worst Bassist (EU) Ramble Records (AU)
Tracklisting: 1. Habit 2. Colossalfreak 3. Dont Look Around 4. Make Believe 5. Headswim
Posted in Questionnaire on March 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: Patrick Brink of Volume
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
For the most part it’s in your face psychedelic fuzz rock. We land on the fringes of stoner rock that melds punk’s rawness and edge with the psychedelic fuzz and sounds of late 60’s early 70’s. It’s for fans of the Stooges, Blue Cheer, and early Monster Magnet.
It was a natural progression of growing up on Black Flag, and other SST bands like Vitus & SWA, and loving the ability to be taken away by the sounds of music like Pink Floyd, Loop and Love and Rockets
Describe your first musical memory.
This is absolutely true! Singing “Rubber Duckie” (by Ernie) all the time in the bathtub. I loved singing and just making some noise.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Singing the second verse and nearly whole chorus of “Wild in the Streets” at a Circle Jerks show. It was in 1989 at the Underground in Phoenix, Az. Keith put the mic near my face, and I grabbed it and just started wailing- having a blast. Halfway through the verse Keith was wanting me to give the mic back but I was caught up in the rush, having too much fun and kept singing. I eventually gave it back, but man that was awesome.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I don’t know if there has been a point of crisis in things I believe strongly about. But I’m often evaluating my beliefs. I have had many conversations within my own head and with others who disagree with me. So I’m constantly testing my beliefs to see if they hold up or are things I hold onto for sentimental purposes and no real reason other than not liking change or its easier that way.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Artistic progression leads to an excitement in what you are doing. It’s not always the case -look at the Ramones, they tried very little and seemed to keep the fire burning. But that’s probably the exception. If you are not pushing yourself and exploring new things, even just getting better on your instrument, you are going to find yourself burnt-out, and the next song, album, what have you, is just that, with no real connection to it. Art is about connections, connecting the senses to your heart. It takes work. If it’s not something you’ve worked hard at with all you have got, there is very little reward and feeling of accomplishment to this thing you have created.
How do you define success?
Success for me is being able to do what I love while making sure the family is not neglected. I took a long time off playing in bands because for me I couldn’t maintain both. Now that the kids are older, I have more time to devote to music. Having said that I feel successful each time I’ve written a song, and someone feels a connection to it- that’s what it’s about- It’s about all these connections that we as people make. We need to enjoy them, be thankful for them.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Kid Rock open for Monster Magnet at the Troubadour.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A book. I would like to write a book one day. I read a lot of Ancient Church history and would like to write maybe on that.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To express feelings and emotions and make connections to people through those things.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Getting out of the construction trade. My wife and I have a little business selling used clothes and I’m hoping to make it full-time in the next year, year and a half. It will free us up to travel, tour anytime, and just have more time to do the things we dig doing.
Posted in Reviews on August 23rd, 2019 by JJ Koczan
Zed‘s vision of rock and roll is not polite. It is not about accommodation. It’s the kind of rock and roll that drinks both your beer and its own, is loud, goes late, and damns tomorrow because it had already damned today first. It’s the kind of rock and roll that might put a large black rooster on its album cover and let the dick joke make itself. It is, as they might put it on their latest offering, “The Other Kind.” Volume is the fourth full-length from the San Jose, California, four-piece, and sees their edge undiminished in their decade-plus tenure. As their alliance with Ripple Music enters its third release, with the label having stood behind 2016’s Trouble in Eden (review here) and a reissue earlier this year of 2013’s Desperation Blues (discussed here), it results in a collection running 10 tracks and 48 minutes of aggressively executed straightforward heavy rock with a broad foundation in punk, metal and classic rock; the amalgam well familiar to those who’ve followed Zed over their years.
In that regard, what ultimately distinguishes Volumeis the clarity with which it is delivered. The band’s lineup — guitarist/vocalist Peter Sattari, bassist Mark Aceves, guitarist Greg Lopez and drummer Sean Boyles — has never sounded so firm in their purpose, and while their songwriting acumen has always been central to their style, the material here feels tighter and even more purposeful than that of Trouble in Eden, and the energy in the band’s performance has never been so effectively captured. Credit at least in part for that needs to go to engineer Tim Narducci (also of The Watchers), with whom the band worked on part of the recording last time around as well as on Desperation Blues — their 2010 debut, The Invitation, was self-recorded — and who obviously gets what they’re going for. It’s right there in the name of the album: Volume. Zed are not trying to convey some grand concept in their sound unless that grand concept might be the largesse of their sound itself, and thus Volume becomes its own celebration of that intangible thing that rock and roll has celebrated since its first hijacked blues riff — a vitality that simply can’t be heard at anything less than a shout.
Broken neatly in half with a longer cut closing each side, Volume might also be stating itself as a recommendation to the audience, though I’m not certain that with Zed that really needs to be stated at this point. How else would one take on tracks like “The Other Kind,” “The End” or the shreddy side B highlight “The Great Destroyer” but as loud as possible? The choruses of the slowed-down “Wings of the Angel,” the side B leadoff “Chingus” (video posted here), and “Hollow Men,” on which Boyles seems to give his cymbals an extra-cruel beating, are certainly standouts, and even as “Wings of the Angel” or “Poison Tree” pull back on pace as compared to the thrust of “The Other Kind” or “The Great Destroyer,” there’s no letup in terms of efficiency in their craft.
“Poison Tree” is perhaps the catchiest of the bunch, which is no easy feat considering its surroundings, and as Zed expand the palette with some B3 on the penultimate “Time and Space” courtesy of Brad Barth, their central mission of song-driven, riff-led heavy remains steady through the extra flourish en route to the closer “The Troubadour,” which is the longest inclusion on Volume at 6:31 and finds the band taking more chances in terms of melody, layering vocals for a chorus effect to go with Sattari in a fashion that is every bit worthy of finishing out the record even though it runs counter to the harder-edged approach heard earlier. Airy leads and a legitimately soaring chorus add atmosphere to the finale that one wouldn’t necessarily guess Zed would be interested in harnessing, but is only more welcome for that. Even “The Mountain,” from Trouble in Eden, which tapped into some similar ideas in the guitar, didn’t dare go so far as the vocals, and a greater focus on melody only suits the song itself, which, given how much of Zed‘s approach — again — is about the songs, makes Volume stronger on the whole.
Signal of a new direction for Zed? Probably not, and I say that not because I think Zed are creatively stagnant — far from it, given the efforts they take to refine their songwriting here, though they might bristle at calling anything they do “refined” — but because they don’t sound like a band who are interested in fixing what clearly isn’t broken in their sound. “The End” has a less throaty vocal in its initial verse as well, and it may be that their dynamic is expanding, but if it’s going to happen, Zed seem to be conscious enough to let it happen in an unforced way. Because while their overall affect is loud, clear and full, both recorded and on stage, they don’t do anything that feels unnatural in either side. They’re not going to seek out vintage equipment to record on or spend tens of thousands of dollars on this or that mixing board, and they’re not going to find some overly slick digital cut and paste method for putting riffs together.
They’re a songwriting and performance band, and that’s what you get on Volume. You get songwriting, you get performance. Sure, they’ve grown in the three years since Trouble in Eden — though they’re not so mature as to, say, not make a dick joke on their album cover — but the core of Zed remains unchanged, and it seems more likely than not that that’s how it will be for the duration. Zed were not inexperienced in bands when they formed, and as a group who knew what they wanted going in, they’ve been walking their path steadily ever since. What’s truly impressive about that is not just that they’ve brought this mission to bear in the memorable tracks of Volume, but that there’s that accompanying performance aspect. In payoffs for “Wings of an Angel,” or “Chingus” or “The Great Destroyer” — take your pick, really — they harness not just a live energy, but the energy of a band confident in the righteousness of their voluminous cause. And so they are.
You can’t manufacture charm, but you can do a Lego stop motion video for one of your songs, and that’s pretty much the same thing. Say hello to Zed‘s “Chingus,” the second track to be released from their upcoming long-player, Volume, which is out one month from today, on July 26 through Ripple Music. I had occasion this weekend to see Zed at Maryland Doom Fest and I talked to bassist Mark Acaves about the video. My immediate question was how long it took to put together. The answer? Three months. Three months of work. A quarter of a year. That’s pretty nuts.
When you see the video, though, you’ll hardly be able to say it wasn’t worth the effort. With cameos from KISS — Ace Frehley seems to step in on lead guitar — as well as the Lego ghost of Lego David Bowie, the Predator chasing an Alien, and finally, the Misfits, it’s all a lot to take in. You better watch it twice. I feel like the sheer amount of labor involved — let alone the cost of the sets; as my mother always said, “Legos aren’t cheap” — warrants that at least. Plus the song rocks, so that’s nice too. Call it a win all around.
I said as much in the Maryland Doom Fest review, but these guys absolutely tore it up at the festival, 100 percent rising to the occasion of playing right before Conan on the last night of the thing and giving the crowd one last bit of supercharged rock and roll before everybody got their head smashed in. They were great and as “Chingus” follows “The Other Kind” in terms of audio from the record — let alone the cover art of the thing, which is not subtle almost enough to be subtle, full circle-style — “rising to the occasion” would seem to be the theme all the way around.
Volume is out in a month. Links and more info follow the clip below, courtesy of the PR wire.
Enjoy:
Zed, “Chingus” official video
LEGO Stop Motion Music Video for the song “Chingus” off of the forthcoming album “VOLUME” from Ripple Music. http://www.ripple-music.com
This video was made with a bunch of Lego’s doing stop motion photography on an iPhone 8S using StopMotion Studio.
Zed is: Pete Sattari- Guitar/Vox Sean Boyles – Drums Greg Lopez – Guitar Mark Aceves – Bass
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 27th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
New Zed is a ripper, which definitely makes it kin to old Zed. The album, out in July, is called Volume, and fairly enough so, and the track they’re streaming from it — available for listening at the bottom of this post, among other places — is called “The Other Kind.” If you want to think of it as a kind of check-in to let all interested parties know that Zed haven’t lost the chip on their collective shoulder since 2017’s Trouble in Eden (review here), I think that’s probably reasonable. Dudes know how to both turn and knock heads.
They’re fresh off their first excursion to European soil for a quick run that wrapped at Desertfest London 2019, so it’s hard to imagine the record announcement coming at a better time in terms of momentum. Their second album, Desperation Blues (discussed here), was also reissued by Ripple earlier this year, so you know, full calendar and all that. Busy busy.
Details come via the PR wire:
ZED return with VOLUME on RIPPLE MUSIC | Stream and share new song ‘THE OTHER KIND’
Volume by ZED is officially released on 26th July 2019
Making their roaring presence felt in the Bay Area rock scene since 2007, with heavy footprints and sonically indelible marks are San Jose earth shakers ZED. With a sound based on the core principles of blues, heaviness and groove, this quartet is the genuine article. No bell bottoms, wizard sleeves or hip huggers for this crew. Instead, it’s a barrage of head-bobbing, air-guitaring, hip-shaking, blues-driven riffage as delivered by the true bastards of rock and roll.
From their inception ZED made a name for themselves with their crushing live shows and incessant grooves. Having played together in various projects since 1998, including releasing several albums with the band Stitch for Prosthetic and Metal Blade Records, guitarist/vocalist Peter Sattari and bassist Mark Aceves joined up with guitar wizard Greg Lopez and drummer extraordinaire Sean Boyles to create a sound that was uniquely their own. Drawing from their varied influences, ranging from classic ’70s rock to punk and hardcore, by way of metal and old school funk, ZED write music fuelled by nasty grooves. The band has even been called, “a pissed off Led Zeppelin with Chris Cornell meets Ian Astbury on vocals.”
In recent years the band’s momentum has exploded, signing to Ripple Music and growing into a household name in the stoner rock community. Their hard-grooving live show has seen the band perform as headline support at Maryland Doom Fest and numerous SXSW events. They recently capped off their first European tour with a benchmark performance at Desertfest Lodon, where Kerrang! Magazine caught their set and said, “Their booze-drenched blues’n’roll almost breaks into a riot as both band and audience raise the roof and plenty of Hell in the process, leaving the most triumphant first impression.”
Volume by ZED is officially released on 26th July 2019 on Ripple Music.
TRACK LISTING: 1. The Other Kind 2. The End 3. Wings of The Angel 4. Hollow Men 5. Take Me Home Again 6. Chingus 7. Poison Tree 8. The Great Destroyer 9. Time and Space 10. The Troubador
Zed is: Pete Sattari- Guitar/Vox Sean Boyles – Drums Greg Lopez – Guitar Mark Aceves – Bass
No secret at this point that I enjoy presenting shows in foreign lands. Places I’ve never been and may never be so fortunate as to go — to have The Obelisk reach somewhere I can’t is huge for me. I’ve partnered with Argonauta Fest before, which is of course run by Argonauta Records, and as that festival blueprint expands with the exclamatory four-band evening Volume! in Viareggio, Italy, I’m once again thrilled to be involved in the small logo-on-poster way that I am. These things matter to me and it’s a good show, so what the hell.
Volume! is something of a mini-fest, or at least somewhere between that and a label showcase, but either way it’s held at a venue called GOB (as opposed to a magician with the name) and will feature Varego, Rancho Bizzarro, SuperNaughty and Vesta on a bill that runs between amtmosludge and straight-up heavy rock and roll. It looks like a cool time, and all the bands either have new records or new records in the works — I think Varego were in the studio recently — so all the better they’re getting together for a killer night on the northern Italian coastline.
Here’s the info and links for the fest. If you can make it there, why wouldn’t you?
Volume! Argonauta Fest LIVE at GOB
Saturday, November 17, 2018 at 10 PM
GOB – Ganz of Bicchio – Circolo ARCI Via Fosso Matelli 1 int 26, 55049 Viareggio, Italy
VOLUME! is the new Argonauta Records event in collaboration with GOB!
VOLUME! born as one of the satellite events of Argonauta Fest!
VOLUME! is four bands of Argonauta Records roster!
VOLUME! will be an evening dedicated to the right guitars!
VOLUME! will be an evening with lots of Heavy Rock!
VOLUME! is a new series of events sponsored by Argonauta Fest that was created with the aim of breaking down the barriers between fans, bands and insiders. Thanks to the collaboration with the GOB, we present this first appointment made of four bands of the Argonauta roster: Rancho Bizzarro, SuperNaughty, Vesta, Varego. An evening of Stoner Rock and Post Metal you can’t miss! We are waiting for you!
I’ll admit, it was thinking of the festival itself rather than this compilation in particular that brought Emissions from the Monolith to mind. The festival, which ran annually the last weekend in May in Youngstown, Ohio, between 2000 and 2006 (there was also one in Chicago in 2001) before its final installment in Austin, Texas, in 2007, was a pioneer of heavy festivals in the US. At that point, outside of showcase events like SXSW and the roughly-concurrent Stoner Hands of Doom fest, which started in 1999 and ran until 2013 in various cities, there wasn’t a ton happening in terms of heavy underground gatherings of its level. Run by Greg Barratt, then also of Tone Deaf Touring, it was a celebration of sludge, noise, doom and everything else heavy whose early lineups read like pages out of riffy history. Imagine seeing Penance and Bongzilla and Spirit Caravan in 2000, or Pale Divine, Witch Mountain and Dragon Green in 2001. To-date, the 2006 Emissions fest is the only show Colour Haze have ever played in the US, and while its commitment to the deep underground was unquestionable in supporting bands like Test-Site, Wooly Mammoth and Kung Pao, and its aesthetic would continue to expand, its foundation always seemed to be in raw, visceral and heavy noise rock.
Which brings us to the 11-track compilation at hand. The 2003 lineup for Emissions from the Monolith featured the likes of Acid King, The Hidden Hand, Pelican, Dixie Witch, Halfway to Gone, Erik Larson, Solace, Mastodon, The Atomic Bitchwax and Floor, and yet it’s telling that on the Maduro Records assemblage Emissions from the Monolith, it’s groups like Acid Ape, JJ Paradise Players Club, Meatjack — who featured Brian Daniloski, now of Darsombra, and who once upon a time did the best Melvins cover you’ve ever heard — Volume and Fistula. Some bands featured, like Kung Pao or Rebreather, didn’t actually play that year, but were staples enough that it didn’t really matter. Rebreather in particular, whose primo roller “Earthmover” is included as the second track on the CD, were the quintessential Emissions band, and as regards trivia, they were the first act on the stage at the first edition in 2000. Others, like Pennsylvania’s instrumental heavy jazz experimentalists Stinking Lizaveta were on their own wavelength almost entirely, but still kept that overarching sense of rawness to their approach, while Southern sludge riffers like Burnout and Ohio pill-popper sludge eternals Fistula brought attitude and scathe in kind. Kung Pao‘s “D is for Denim” reads like a mantra and also featured on their 2000 full-length, Bogota (see also: that album’s cover art) — their second record was also a gem — and “The Ballad of Sisyphus MacDuff” by The Rubes began a seven-minute loadout with throat singing before a showing of soulful heavy rock the likes of which still makes me want to break out their 2001 Underdogma Records long-player, Hokum.
Over the last couple years, I’ve talked a lot about pre-social media heavy and many bands lost in that shift from one generation to the next, who maybe had one record out, maybe two, maybe three, and then Facebook happened and they missed the party. Looking at the 2003 Emissions lineup, there are plenty who survived — The Atomic Bitchwax, Weedeater, Mastodon, Acid King, etc. — but others like Dixie Witch, Tummler, All Night, RPG and Abdullah, while they may or may not have stayed active, didn’t quite make the same kind of transition. Though they came back later thanks to the enduring affection for their self-titled, I’d put Floor in that category as well. And listening to the echoing forward drive of Volume‘s “Colossus Freak” on the Emissions from the Monolith comp, it’s not at all like these acts didn’t have anything to offer listeners, or like they still don’t some 15 years later. It really was just a matter of timing. Others, like Sons of Otis, who close the comp with the 10-minute drone-into-riff spectacular “Big Muff,” seem to have an audience just waiting for their next offering to arrive, but some of these bands are gone to parts unknown, and especially considering that, the importance of this collection is unassailable.
Emissions was a special event and The Nyabinghi in Youngstown, where it was held, was a special place. A regular stop on the Tone Deaf circuit in no small part because Barratt owned it, for one weekend every year it became a druggy paradise of barbecue, riffs, booze and volume. You can still see the hotel where everyone stayed from Rt. 80 on your way west, and it’s easy to imagine the scars left behind in that building from the years of stoner abuse it took. I’m sorry to say that there’s much of the 2006 edition I don’t even remember, less for the passage of time than the ridiculous amount of beer consumption the weekend brought. I remember seeing Colour Haze (changed my life; ask me about it sometime), and I remember there was some drama with SunnO))). I remember sheepishly handing Barratt a copy of my band’s demo and being “voted off the island” by a group of friends standing outside in back of the place — I actually had to leave and go back inside — and I remember being poorly hydrated. Thinking back on it now, I kind of wish I’d had my head together more. Story of my life.
But the point is that there was only one Emissions from the Monolith, and though US heavy festival culture is currently undergoing a boom, from Stumpfest and Electric Funeral Fest to Descendants of Crom to Maryland Doom Fest to New England Stoner and Doom Festival, the moment that was Emissions won’t come again. Of course, each of these newer fests is making its own contributions, but thinking back on what Emissions was and listening to this compilation particularly, one can hear the undercurrent of barebones fuckall that typified the time, the place and the room. For those who were there and those who weren’t, it remains a happening worthy of document, and as Emissions from the Monolith works to document even some piece of one year of it, it’s all the more worth preserving.
I sincerely hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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The week started off with punk rock guilt at all the shows I didn’t go to over the last couple weeks that I wanted to see and featured a canceled trip to Portugal for SonicBlast Moledo next weekend — surprise, I was going, now I’m not; that’s a week’s worth of suckage in itself, even with Psycho Las Vegas still to look forward to — so yeah, I kind of rolled with the punches as they came. Was bummed at the lack of response the Sleep live review got — I posted three pics from the show on Thee Facebooks the next day and those got a big reaction, so I guess that’s where it went instead of the actual review. I was really happy with the piece though, so I take comfort in that and if anyone else read it, that’s awesome. Making Clutch’s crab cakes was fun and I was glad I got to post that All Them Witches bio. The week kind of ends on a downer with that Ancestors review — the album is awesome, I’m just sulky because I wasn’t cool enough to premiere a track with it — but it was fun to get on a little nostalgia trip about Emissions from the Monolith above. Ups and downs, I guess.
Also had a lot of time with The Pecan this week, and baby-time is good time. He’s getting closer to walking — we’re thinking first steps in the next couple weeks — and he’s got a couple consonants he breaks out if suitably prompted. “Ba,” “ma,” “da,” “la” and the like. That’s fun. I feel lucky to be able to be home with him, especially seeing other parents I know go to work. Less over the summer — I seem to know a lot of teacher-types — but in general. I don’t know. He’s a pretty great little guy, and we got a baby-gate to keep him away from the Little Dog Dio’s food and water dishes, so all the better.
Other shit persists in follow-the-bouncing-ball fashion. I’ve been trying to be mindful of things like my general state, depression and so on. I was trying to stay off my meds for a couple weeks, working pretty hard to make a go of it, but I just flat-out failed, and yes, I recognize the language puts it on my effort when it’s not necessarily about that. Thank you, inner therapist voice which sounds remarkably like The Patient Mrs. Still, it’s been upwards of eight months now and every time I sit still for more than five minutes I continue to just absolutely fucking disgust myself. Even sitting here at the keyboard, I feel my arms at my sides and want to crawl out of my own skin. Part of that is I didn’t get to shower yesterday — grunge parenting — but I know part of it runs deeper and I still have more work to do. I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those self-actualized I’m-okay-you’re-okay types, but it would be awfully nice to make it through an afternoon without feeling like I’m going to have an aneurysm. Whatever. Who fucking cares. The pills help, I guess?
Ugh.
Ups and downs. Strikes and gutters. Some you win, some you lose.
He’s a good kid.
Let’s do the notes for next week. Subject to change blah blah blah:
Mon.: The Crazy Left Experience review/video premiere; The Skull lyric video.
Tue.: Jody Seabody & The Whirls track premiere.
Wed.: Mr. Plow full album stream.
Thu.: Mountain Tamer track premiere.
Fri.: The Machine review.
There are a bunch of other videos I need to sort through and decide what I’m actually going to put up, so I didn’t list them other than The Skull, but Weed Demon, Ape Vermin, Black Space Riders and Windhand all have new clips out, so there’s plenty to plug into the week in whatever order I wind up feeling like doing so. I’ll sort it out over the weekend. Have another bio to write anyway, so I’ll be on the laptop one way or the other.
It’s almost six-thirty and I hear The Pecan waking up in the next room, so I’d better leave it there. Hope you have a great and safe weekend. Thank you as always for reading and please don’t forget to check out the forum and radio stream.
