Zebras - The City of Sun LP

Stand by to be absolutely and irrevocably blown the frick away by Zebras latest forthcoming album. If you want to know where the center of the musical universe can currently be found, it's in Madison, Wisconsin...sick, sick, fucking SICK!!! Everything about this record is picture perfect (just got mine in the mail today), the stunning graphix, the clear black swirl vinyl, mind melting lyrics and of course music that will music that will crack your head open like an egg. Perfect, just perfect! http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1347242214/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/ AND...as if that wasn't enough, as an extra special MR treat, because these guys are true Mustard Relics, and I want everyone to buy the hell out of the above album...how about some live-ness? Back on 01/23/15, Zebras played on WORT radio. Well, Mustard was about as pumped as a methed out mechanic, so I eager listened in and recorded what turned out to be an truly epic session. Vincent kindly provided the track titles... Baalbek Hollow Earth Filled With Fire / Turning Of The Bones Vitrified My Apocalypse The Garden INTERVIEW

Bog Oak - A Treatise On Resurrection And The Afterlife

My old and dear Humboldt friend Karin turned me onto this band recently, her old man sings/guitars/basses and whatnot. Fit very well into my present musical identity as I'm kind of going through this Doom Metal phase at the moment. These guys are pretty tough to nail down as far as a sub-genre of the very varied Post-Metal scene and I'm no expert and really does it matter? I do like the black metal vibe that's somewhere in the mix, the vocals and guitar tone lend themselves toward that. Lyrically, I can't make out most of it but I feel like I'm listening to some shaman in a Celtic tribe recounting tales that have been told for a thousand generations. Something that makes the band stand out is this mix of a dark growled male vocal mixed with otherworldly siren singing, as if Hades and Aphrodite were singing a song together. This thing is just about sold the fuck out if you want a hard copy, I got one of the last green vinyl editions, all the vinyl is gone actually, and as of today there were 7 copies of the CD left, go check their Bandcamp... https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=880459924/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/transparent=true/

Om - Live @ Amoeba

Only just discovered the almighty Om via the enlightening Gorish blog (a strange place with a fixation on Alestair Crowley and right wing politics, but a treasure trove of killer, mostly electronic music). Om was originally the two guys forming the bottom end of Sleep, a sometimes overrated but never-the-less legendary stoner, doom, sludge band. Om is more of an ambient drone type of thing, with super heavy, sometimes distortioned out bass and this drumming that would make Bill Ward proud.  The vocals are a monotoned dreamy trip unto themselves.  The original drummer, who I somewhat favor, is gone, the new one is not quite so laid back and they have added a third guy who is sort of a jack of all trades.  The highlight of the band is their first LP, 2005's Variations on a Theme, the one Gorish provided.  I have been listening to it non-stop since it fell into my lap and have since purchased my own vinyl repress. When I was searching for the link on Youtube to turn a buddy of mine onto, I stumbled across this short live set (which led me to 4 hours of searching out more live sessions, ripping and editing them into mp3s and beefing 'em up with Audacity...typical music obsession-ist that I am). Anyway trip out on that (with the original drummer) but do yourself a favor and play through a stereo or headphones to get the full effect... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2HBFh3JlTs] ...just in case that vid gets deleted as they often do, here's the .flv file... Om Live At Amoeba ...and because I highly recommend listening to this on something decent, an excellent live recording, here's the mp3s separated and boosted a bit... Rays Of The Sun/To The Shrinebuilder At Giza ...and because, as I said I am a music obsesssion-ist, just for the hell of it, from another set with Chris Hakius on drums... Om - Flight of the Eagle I (live @ Neumos, Seattle 02-03-07)

Pathological Compilation

Well I tried something on the last post, attempting to keep my babbling to a minimum.  What I found out though is that it really doesn't matter how much I have to say, the activity that goes on here is completely random.  The reality is, that I am like your favorite homeless guy with the endless schitzophrenic ramblings that you may or may not find interesting at whatever given moment.  I guess in a way I'm talking to myself or even thinking aloud.  I like it that way. Always hid behind dope and the bottle, keeping my weaknesses and insecurities to myself.  Got some good advice from Mike at the ever awesome Strange Reaction and my buddy Jay.  Sometimes it takes someone else to remind you why you're doing this thing in the first place.  In light of that I've got several things worth noting.  First off, got what is now my favorite spam comment.  It was in the form of a link to "voyeur enemas".  I know some of you guys are into that kind of thing but I didn't go check it out, I figured that my imagination would suffice.  Speaking of spam comments, I am now up to almost 10,000 total comments, but of course almost 8,000 of those are spam.  Do they pay people to do that shit?

I heard the word "bitchen" on TV the other day and had to smile, used to be a very important part of my vocabulary. In case you missed those days, "bitchen" was just another way of saying really cool, kind of an 80's thing. I think I'm going to add that to my vocabulary again, might really blow the minds of the rural folks that surround me. Just letting you know now, so that when the word is popular again in your neck of the woods you'll know it was me who started that ball rolling. There is a slightly more obscure phrase, does anyone remember it, "harsh my mellow"?

If you like asking yourself WTF, need a laugh or just a chuckle today, (fucking ugly world sometimes but it doesn't mean you haven't earned a smile, every once in a while) go check out Explain This Image. Not too long ago, discovered another music blog, yeah I know they (we?) are a dime a dozen but this one stood out for me.  I like how he groups things together and posts several bands at once.  A good read too. Anyway if you get a chance, check out Scream From the Gutter and be sure and check out some stuff that is right up my alley these days like... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfJUqkpXN0] I posed a question a couple of posts ago as to if anyone knew of any industrial type bands other than SPK.  What I got was Nine Inch Nails and my bro Brian mentioned a band called Pigface.  You can find several Pigface posts over at Shiny Grey Monotone, a very interesting site that up till now has flown under my radar.  Pigface is a collaboration of a shit load of artists, one of which is David "Jesus Lizard" Yow, so they may be worthwhile for some of you to check out.  A shit load of drums and mostly live music, but with an industrial edge... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RHaauWxKCk&w=790&h=593] I don't know if it was a coincidence or not but Erich just posted something along those industrial lines in the form of a band called Bloodstar.  I didn't like the first tune very much but the second one caught my eye (or ear, I guess) and left me wanting more.  Keep in mind I'm in unchartered territory here, but I think they are more on the techno edge of industrial.  In the comments of that post, Sean of the ever absorbing Damaging Noise blog mentioned that a good place to start as far as industrial was with the label Bloody Fist Records.  Not too hard to find posts with stuff from that label worth exploring (although the stuff  must be somewhat rare as Ebay had practically nothing).  Found a shitload of stuff over at the (unimaginative, but aptly named) Mediafire Sharing blog.  Now this stuff is definitely techno, which is a really loaded term and puts most people off, but I found it interesting and actually kind of "groovy man".  When I think of techno, I think of exstacy, which I tried once, but I was more of an acid/mushrooms kind of guy.  Do you need to be doing exstacy to get techno? I guess that could be a rather lengthy topic, "drugs and how they affect the appreciation of music".  We'll leave that for another time and instead I'll give you some selections from the first release on Bloody Fist Records called "Straight Outta Newcastle", which I stole from the above blog.  At least check out Nasenbluten, some bad ass shit. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtoIrbZ95ME&w=790&h=593]

If you knew my brain (maybe I'm giving hints, I don't know), you'd know that sometimes I get obsessed and don't know when to stop.  So when another guy made a comment about some other shit that may be worth checking out, I went with it.   Now Skin Chamber and Fetish 69 you get more of a Ministry type of feel which was okay but the wind went out of my sails and I didn't feel like exploring anymore. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPewbtAHjKQ&w=790&h=593] [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew-uw-63XnM]

Now the closest thing I physically have to anything like that is this comp.  Got it when it first came out in 1989 and I must admit I was a little disappointed.  Simple man that I was (and am, yeah right), I saw Napalm Death as being one of the bands on it and thought damn I gotta get this.  Although the tunes are very varied there really isn't anything that I would describe as being early straight forward early grindcore.  This stuff is much more experimental and you might say sometimes industrial.  My first introduction to a lot of these bands that I would get to know better in the future.  The stand out for me is the very un-industrial Silverfish.  This has been psosted everywhere and I guess I could have just linked up to someone else's thing.  The guy over at http://devotionalhooligan.blogspot.com/2009/01/va-pathological-compilation-1989.html did a pretty cool write up, which is where I stole the images from (I still have no working scanner).  My copy is a CD, but apparently they came out with a vinyl version that came with a Silverfish 7", which I wouldn't mind hearing/having.  I don't know what else to say (can you believe it) so let's get to the meat of this post. EDIT: I killed the links during the copyright wars and now all I can find on fucking youtube is the Napalm Death tune... [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc6TJn6E0v8&w=790&h=593]