pic courtesy Seldoom
| SOMA vs PLAY LOUDER | 02 08 2005 | |
| new interview at PLAYLOUDER: top of the page. Shooting my mouth off post-SuperSonic & UK bombing mess.
pic courtesy Seldoom | ||
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| SOMA vs RESONANCE FM | 02 08 2005 | |
| Hello Stephen,
it's Nina from Resonance fm i m writing to inform u that the interview we had 2gether for Resonance is going to be broadcasted tomorrow at 21:30 ( uk time),together with some tracks of u and Merzbow. i was really sad that i didn't have the chance to c u guys performing live aaargh...i hope next time is going to be better..i ll sure look for your next live ones.. Again thanx for all your help! All the BEST, Nina :::::: You can check out the broadcast through this URL: http://www.resonancefm.com/listings/20050803.html Thanks -SOMA | ||
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| AMPS FOR CHRIST | 30 07 2005 | |
| dear friends,
we hope you can join us in brattleboro on august 7th for what will be a great night of tunes. the artists: € Amps For Christ € Gowns € Carla Bozulich € Dredd Foole date: August 7th , 2005 place: The Loft (email...wabana@surefiredistribution.com for directions) time: Doors 7PM cover: $8.00 please pass this info along. hope to see you there. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amps For Christ (AFC) is about the combinations of many styles of music and sound from hardcore and noise to traditional musics (Folkcore and Musnik). The subjects go from war and run-away corporate capitalism to peace and the love and mercy of God. The warp in the harmonic scale, experimentation with waveforms and "beat-tones" are matters of great intrigue. Barnes has been building stringed instruments, pre-amps and amplifiers of an experimental nature for many moons and used them while in the hardcore/noise band Man Is The Bastard (MITB) Barnes and Connell (drums of MITB) started a side band called Two Ambiguous Figures with Barnes playing sitar and Connell on the tablas. It evolved into AFC after Barnes' amicable departure from MITB in 1996. Since '92, Barnes has also been working with Wood --and sometimes Nelson-- on another side band called Bastard Noise. Amps For Christ has strong elements of pure noise and experimental throughout. Back in 1996 Barnes met Enid Snarb who is a recording freak and preparer of Hammonds. They started recording AFC. There have been many collaborators: The beautiful Tara Tavi singing and playing Chinese instruments, Marz of Pyramids On Mars and Barnes' bro, R. , and dad, R.G. Barnes, as well as many others. Claremont, California is home base. Barnes got his first axe at The Folk Music Center in Claremont during the brief period when it was across the street from where it is now. His mom is a folklorist and traditional ballad singer and has been very influential on his traditional side from early childhood on. Barnes' dad was into John Cage and Harry Partch and had an early jazz band for which he was songwriter, washboardist and singer for many decades. Barnes Grandma (Lita) was the organist at a church and taught piano lessons at home in San Bernardino, California. So you see some of the eclectic influences, eclectic desires and reasons for the eclectic sounds of Amps For Christ. | ||
| 28 07 2005 | ||
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| CAPTURE & RELEASE preorders | 26 07 2005 | |
| The new KHANATE mangled epic Capture & Release will undergo a few preorder phases:
The picture 12" version is available for preorder through www.trustnoonerecordings.com now. This is limited to 676 copies! The digipack CD will be available for preorder in a few weeks from www.hydrahead.com in a pair of package deals. One will contain the digipak CD and a preorder only tshirt, the other will contain the digipack CD, the preorder tshirt and a limited edition (of 200) 19x25 2 color on black paper silkscreened poster designed by Seldon Hunt. Poster design is below. The KHANATE dead + Live Aktions DVD will be released through www.hydrahead.com in the next weeks as well, and will likely also have a preorder scheme/package. | ||
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| The anti-Hellman | 26 07 2005 | |
| http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/ | ||
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| 25 07 2005 | ||
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| 25 07 2005 | ||
| By the way, Thekla is a ship. | ||
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| HELLMAN vs BEARD | 25 07 2005 | |
| Amazements of amazements, Hellman lost the beard (well, a majority of it anyhow) and about 425 years. Congratulations. | ||
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| Listen to Harvey Milk | 25 07 2005 | |
| The early 90¹s wasn¹t really the time to strike it big as a band from Athens. The Inside/Out buzz had fizzled, the bands that were significant during the 80¹s had yard sales to get rid of their equipment, and only a handful of artists in town were left to fight the good fight. Those that were left in town stayed due to their own reasons, but if you were in Athens in 1991, you weren¹t going to be getting a feature written about you in Alternative Press, nor would you get a national label to put out your records, nor would you get a semi-decent tour booked. It was all next to impossible.
When I moved to Georgia during the height of the early 90¹s recession, only Laura Carter and Dave Barbe seemed to be the permanent fixtures in town, and their bands (JackONuts and Buzz Hungry, respectively) were considered the lords of the local scene. Townie bands of the era culled the majority of their influences from the SST roster. Roosevelt and Hayride stole liberally from The Meat Puppets and Minutemen, Five Eight cribbed notes from Hüsker Dü, Porn Orchard, Bliss and Magneto were fans of the more Sabbathy sounding Greg Ginn records be they Gone or Who's Got the 10 1/2-era Black Flag. The point could be made that the true epicenter for most of the real burst of creativity can be credited to local barn-burning shows by The Jesus Lizard, considered the Johnny Appleseed of early-90¹s post punk, where seeds were planted and proceeded to blossom in the rehearsal spaces and clubs in town. One such band that seemed to appear virtually over night was Harvey Milk. Named after the homosexual San Franciscan politician, Harvey Milk Version 1.0 (which maintained until 1996, and is the only line up featured on this release) had Creston Speirs on the microphone, sledgehammer and guitar, Steven Tanner < formerly of the Cabbagetown skuzz rawkers Seersucker < on bass and the occasional armpit fart and Paul "Pauly" Trudeau on drums. Without exception, playing drums with Creston was probably the most stressful gig in the Athens music scene. Spires, then a percussion major at UGA, was a great drummer in his own right, so his complex arrangements and massive use of "white space" in his compositions were undoubtedly nerve racking for Trudeau. The first two releases that bore the name Harvey Milk were on Self Rising Records run by Pattiy Torno, Chris Purcell and Ballard Lesemann in Athens. Alongside other Georgia upstarts Slumberjack, The Martians, Bob and Fiddlehead, the Refuel compilation signified the trio¹s debut appearance during 1992. In its immediate wake, the split with Hayride came out the following Spring of 1993 were their first tunes ("Blueberry Dookie" & "Smile") committed to vinyl. As was de rigeur for the time period, the seven inch single lorded over all other mediums of the time as the ultimate in obsessive, quirky, record-collector-y fandom. Labels such as Amphetamine Reptile and Sub/Pop reigned supreme in the medium, and what few bedroom label owners there were in Athens at the time, tried to muster the same sort of excitement with local releases as were given worldwide to, say, Halo of Flies. The next single, in all of its unashamed anti-fidelity, was released by Chief Ruiz on his Reservation Records label in the summer of 1993. During this time, their first full length was recorded with Bob Weston in Chicago for Charlotte, NC's 227 Records. Although it's unclear as of this writing why it was never released, 5th generation copies still float around Athens and Atlanta. The tapes to this-now-infamous session have disappeared and (apparently) rest in the possession of Ted from The Melts. Ted, the unearthing of these sessions would undoubtedly be escorted by the sounds of singing angels and burbling children. Take that as a hint, bubba. The Christmas traditional "Greensleeves" was recorded the fall of 1993 for inclusion on the annual Flagpole Magazine Christmas compilation entitled "Red Headed Stepchild Of The Flagpole Christmas Album." The next Harvey Milk single was, yet again, another split single between them and then-recent-Atlanta-transplants The Martians (whose second drummer would later come to join Harvey Milk). A split release between Self Rising and Reservation, the 200 copies pressed were given out exclusively with $5 admission to a 40 Watt show in early 1994. The show was significant as one of the few times that "All The Live Long Day" was performed complete with Creston¹s sledgehammer solo! During the spring of 1994, the band holed themselves up in Brooks Carter's studio to record what became their first full length "My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be" for the Yesha label out of North Carolina. On April Fool¹s Day of that year, the band made a once-in-a-lifetime performance of lovingly deconstructing REM's "Reckoning" at the Shoebox on Washington Ave. Their renditions of "Harborcoat", "Camera," "Pretty Persuasion" and others were committed to a board tape which regretfully disappeared years ago. A year later at the same venue, a similar event happened when the band performed an entire set of Hank Williams tunes. Most obviously, their choice, and said performance, of cover material was flawless. You couldn¹t say these guys were anything if not consummate music afficionados. 1995 signaled what would be the band¹s most productive year to date. The band recorded what would be known as their finest moment in the studio, namely "Courtesy And Goodwill Towards Men" for Reproductive Records out of Boston. Apart from a tour with Shellac in March, subsequent singles were recorded for Atlanta's Half Baked Records and Florida's Figurehead Records. Whereas the Half Baked single would linger in singles bins for a few years (a rarity amongst other Harvey Milk releases), the Figurehead single was impossible to find even immediately after it hit stores. After a tour with GodheadSilo in early 1996, this incarnation of The Milk would vanish from the radar screen at a house party with fellow Athenians The Martians, Jucifer and Hayride on the bill. As I remember, Harvey Milk didn't even go on stage until 3 in the morning and a bottle of absinthe was casually passed through the cheek-by-jowl crowd. Hayride finished their set as the sun rose that Saturday morning. But Christ, those were the days. As I'm sure you¹ve no doubt noticed, I¹ve not discussed what Harvey Milk actually sounds like. Seeing as how you've opened this CD and are reading these notes, I would hope that it would be intuitive to have already placed the enclosed platter in your hi-fi and listen for yourself. Harvey Milk were a treasure amidst a sea of nothing during their lifespan, and their second incarnation (aka Harvey Milk 2.0) burned out quickly leaving the band¹s legacy in a handful of records scattered among the hands of only a few die-hard fans. Their singles were savage and abbreviated while their full lengths embraced the abstract and constitute musical Chinese water torture to the uninitiated. And true to their personal (read: absent minded) ways, the material on this release was neither culled from their master tapes nor their own copies of these releases (none of it was kept for safe keeping, if you can believe that), but rather taken from my own personal stash at the recommendation of Creston. Kid no one, I consider my Harvey Milk records as rare as hen's teeth. The mere act of finding many of these releases even when they originally came out was next to impossible. Hell, even though I had entree with the band, my copy of the Figurehead single wasn¹t found until about a year ago at the Wuxtry in Atlanta after sifting the singles bins for over five years. As awkward as it sounds, Athens reinvents itself every four years. Once a whole new batch of undergrads comes in, the wheels of change are in motion. That, of course, is the utter charm of the city. However, and this can¹t really be seen as anything other than an inherent fault in such a youth-oriented town, this also allows the giants of Athens bygone days to slip thru the cracks. Ask somebody at WUOG who Harvey Milk is and you might be lucky if you get little more than a grunt of acknowledgement. Even more recent Athens accomplishments could get that sort of treatment, so it can't be seen as anybody's fault. Remember, the early 90's were a barren wasteland in the Classic City. Although the locals genuflected before Harvey Milk like the gods they were, it was hard to get anybody else to care. They had Flagpole writers in their back pocket, the clubs gave them any Friday or Saturday night they requested, but many times, their turnouts were less than stellar. So what happened after Harvey Milk ended, you ask? Following the band, Steven and Kyle went to LA for an attempted career at being a session musicians. Kyle Spence is in the Atlanta band The Tom Collins, and Steven has been sighted in Portland, Oregon and New York City and has performed with Bad Wizard. Paul went on to play brushes for Vic Chestnutt (among others) and is currently finishing up his studies in artifact preservation at the University of Georgia. Creston finished up schooling at the University around the end of the band and moved to the burbs above Atlanta to become a music teacher. His current musical endeavor, Mother, has one full length recorded and soon to be released and also has Pauly on drums if only playing in a more conventional capacity than in Harvey Milk. Looking back on their career, it is somewhat disappointing that the now comparatively 'famous' pop bands of the Athens music scene (who were just cutting their teeth during HM's heyday) don't have more brutal counterparts like Harvey Milk to keep them in check. Not that noise rock isn't still embraced in Athens, but it's a pity that the butcher with the sharpest knives decided to call it quits. What is most endearing about the history of Harvey Milk is to see where their fans are on the globe (I recently met one from Antwerp, Belgium!), and also to see how fervent they are in the love of the band even though much of it wasn't exhibited during their career. If you were lucky enough to see them when they were around, I'm sure you understand when I say they were unquestionably the best band on the planet the night you'd see Harvey Milk. Hopefully, this collection of tracks will shed some light on that fact. Harvey Milk is dead. Long live Harvey Milk. - Henry H. Owings/Chunklet Magazine 10April2003 Apendix: HM just finished recording their new album for TMU here in NYC. Look for that. Having the pleasure to perform with them last weekend (in KHANATE) was a real "treat". A great live band with mega charisma and live power, not to mention humor. Great stuff.—SOMA | ||
| LET THERE BE DOM! | 24 07 2005 | |
| Mega congratulations and blessings to Abbie & Chris "Holy" McGrail for the birth of little Dominic William last night! All the best to the McGrails! | ||
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| 22 07 2005 | ||
| psi / pee-ess-eye
Oscillating Innards Pedestrian Deposit Mudang Rouge Tue 7/26 8pm @ Tonic (http://www.tonic107.com) 107 Norfolk St, NYC $8 psi / pee-ess-eye: Ungodly expressionistic masters of pure and sacrificial brain rot. This is the first psi show in NYC since November 2004 - will include surprises, including music without the aid of electricity. Oscillating Innards: Formed in 2001 in Redwood City CA, Oscillating Innard is a solo endeavor of Gordon Ashworth (Noisecop, ex-Peyote Calamity, Iatrogenesis Records). Live performances typically include powerful, abrasive blasts of acoustic/electric noise, thick droning ambience, and searing analog electronic textures. Pedestrian Deposit: Pedestrian Deposit exists as an 'abrasive electronics' unit in California's Central San Joaquin Valley. Recordings are difficult to classify; one might be a meticulously crafted work, full of rising peaks, heavily layered breakdown sections, and dynamic editing; others might be pure wall-of-noise in the old-school 'industrial-noise' tradition. His performances are vicious, intense, and monolithic electronic compositions that effortlessly combine destruction with beauty. Mudang Rouge: With Chuck Bettis (laptop & vox), Jerry Lim (kayagum, synth, guitar), & Evan Rapport (tambor & clarinet). Shamanic frequencies that swirl ones conciousness into the dream realm; accessing mental soundtracks that take you from this dimension to the next. www.plasticenigma.com/mudang http://www.evolvingear.com | ||
| 22 07 2005 | ||
| Current 93 & special guests live in San Francisco: 4 & 5 November, 2005
The San Francisco shows at the Great American Music Hall (GAMH) will be C93's only dates in the USA this year. David has decided not to play Los Angeles. Nurse With Wound are not playing these shows though Steven Stapleton will be in attendance at all the SF shows wearing various hats. We have also been informed by the GAMH that tickets are selling very quickly for both shows and that people intending to come to either night should obtain tickets sooner rather than later. Tickets are $30. They are available online from www.virtuous.com and www.tickets.com. They are also available from the GAMH box office (+1 415.885.0750) and Slim's box offices (+1 415.255.0333). The line-ups for both nights are as follows; please also notice that MAJA ELLIOTT is also playing on the Saturday--her name was accidentally left off the announcement: Friday 4 November SIMON FINN BABY DEE OM CURRENT 93 Saturday 5 November MAJA ELLIOTT SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE PANTALEIMON OM CURRENT 93 | ||
| 22 07 2005 | ||
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| BIG BROTHER | 21 07 2005 | |
| In New Security Move, New York Police to Search Commuters' Bags
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and SEWELL CHAN Published: July 21, 2005 at www.nytimes.com New York City will begin tomorrow morning randomly checking bags at subway stations, commuter railways and on buses, officials announced today in the wake of a second wave of bombings on the London transit system. The announcement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly represents a significant ratcheting up of antiterrorism security in the city. Previous efforts have been limited in order to avoid causing delays in a city known for its hustle and the impatience of its denizens. Officials said the city has never before attempted to regulate the possessions of passengers in its mammoth and complicated transit system. The city's subway system alone has 468 stations and carries some 4.5 million passengers on an average weekday. Some of the larger stations have at least half a dozen entrances and exits. In New York City, relatively few people own cars, and almost everyone who commutes via subway carries a bag of some sort filled with items needed for the entire day, including computers, business documents, gym clothes and makeup. Many people carry two bags. "We live in a world where sadly these types of security measures are necessary," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Are they intrusive, yes, a little bit. But we're trying to find the right balance." Mr. Kelly said most searches will occur in subway stations, but that the Police Department "will reserve the right" to check the bags of passengers on buses and ferries as well. While the policy is still being worked out, officials said passengers will be checked before they enter a station's turnstiles, though some people inside stations may also be searched. People who do not submit to a search will be allowed to leave, but will not be permitted into the subway station. The police commissioner said officers would take pains to avoid singling people out for searches based on race or ethnicity. "No racial profiling will be allowed," Mr. Kelly said. "It's against our policies. But it will be a systematized approach." He added, "We'll give some very specific and detailed instructions to our officers on how to do it in accordance with our laws and the Constitution." Despite the police commissioner's assurances, the new policy raised concerns about protecting New Yorkers' constitutional right to privacy. "The police can and should be aggressively investigating anyone they suspect is trying to bring explosives into the subway," said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "However, random police searches of people without any suspicion of wrongdoing are contrary to our most basic constitutional values. This is a very troubling announcement." Boston transit authorities conducted random baggage checks at major rail stations during the Democratic National Convention in July 2004, following the terrorist bombings of 10 commuter trains in Madrid in March. The city, which has about one million daily subway riders, was the first in the nation to enact such a policy. Civil liberties groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee challenged the policy in court, asking for a restraining order, but eventually withdrew their case, said John Martino, deputy transit police chief of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Mr. Martino said that subway stations had been selected at random and riders' baggage was checked before they entered trains. Riders, he said, were selected "based solely on random numbers that were assigned," which was part of a range determined by clicker-count of passengers. "It worked out excellently," Mr. Martino said. "When we did it, we actually had people asking to be screened. It makes them more comfortable knowing that it was being done. It only takes 10 seconds per person, it's totally unobtrusive." Boston's policy is permanent, but the practice was stopped after the convention because there was no longer a need for it, said Mr. Martino, although the city is "contemplating doing it right now," because of the London bombings. In New York City, the terrorist threat level has been orange, the second highest., since the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but police officers have not previously searched the bags of mass transit passengers - even after a firebombing on a subway station in Lower Manhattan in 1994, a deadly sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995 and a foiled plot to bomb the subway in Brooklyn in 1997. Bags are occasionally checked during large events, like the annual New Year's Eve celebration at Times Square. Bags have also been regularly checked since the World Trade Center attacks at museums and professional sports events. Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said today that internal discussions about random checks had been going on for several weeks - before the bombings of subway trains and buses in London on July 7 and again today. No one is believed to have been killed in today's attacks in London, but the first series of bombings in that city killed 56 people and wounded 700 others. "It was something that had been discussed for several weeks," an M.T.A. spokesman, Tom Kelly, said in a telephone interview. Police spokesman Paul Browne said that during a meeting at Police Headquarters this morning, police officials decided to start the random checks, which police officials have discussed periodically for the past three years. "In light of what appeared to be the continuing nature of the attacks in London, the decision was made to move to this next step," Mr. Browne said. M.T.A. officers will also carry out checks on the Long Island Railway and Metro North commuter rail lines. A spokesman for New Jersey Transit, Dan Stessel, said in an e-mail message: "We have no plans for random checks. However, N.J. Transit Police continue to operate on high alert, with double the number of officers on patrol and triple the number of K9 units deployed on the system." Since Sept. 11, police have intermittently stopped trucks and vans as vehicles enter the city's bridges and tunnels. Security has also been heightened around power plants and other potential terrorist targets, and National Guard soldiers have been patrolling Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal, which are the city's largest transit hubs. Mr. Kelly, the transit spokesman, acknowledged that the random searches were without precedent, but added that he hoped riders would not consider the actions an inconvenience. "We're going to alert our passengers on the subways as well as the commuter rail lines that their packages are subject to inspection," he said. "It's a safety issue. People don't consider any measures that you take for safety to be an inconvenience. This is New York City." | ||
| new items in the [SHOP] | 21 07 2005 | |
| Just received a handful of really great releases from TJ over at Ajna.
FUNERAL MIST // Devilry CD DEATHSPELL OMEGA // Kénose LP ONDSKAPT // Dödens Evangelium 2LP MORTUUS 7" | ||
| BLACK METAL | 20 07 2005 | |
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Hey! Hope everything is well...were you in england when thwe boming happend? Here are an archiv of old cool BM pix: http://www.blackmetal.nu/~ubc/files/pics.htm Stay well. Best Kalle | ||
| 18 07 2005 | ||
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| Broadrick in full flight. | 18 07 2005 | |
| Pix by SKULLDOOM 666 | ||
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| KHANATE TOUR DATES | 18 07 2005 | |
| KHANATE
Touring in support of CAPTURE AND RELEASE (Hydrahead LP/CD) Fri July 22, Brooklyn, NY - The Hook w/ Harvey Milk, The Villains Sat July 23, New York, NY - Tonic (Late show) w/ Harvey Milk Sun Sept 18, Boston, MA - Great Scott Mon Sept 19, Burlington, VT - Higher Ground w/ Wolf Eyes Tues Sept 20, Montreal, QB - Casa del Popolo Wed Sept 21, Ottawa, ON - TBC Thurs Sept 22, Toronto, ON - Sneaky Dee's Fri Sept 23, Detroit, MI - Magic Stick Sat Sept 24, Madison, WI - Memorial UnionSun Sept 25, Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle WIRE Adventure in Music Festival Tues Sept 27, Columbus, OH - Venue TBA w/ Earth Wed Sept 28, Lexington, KY - Mecca Arts Place w/ Earth Thurs Sept 29, Nashville, TN - The End Fri Sept 30, Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn w/Wolf Eyes Sun Oct 2, Charlotte, NC - Milestone Tues Oct 4, Baltimore, MD - Ottobar Wed Oct 5, New York, NY - Mercury Lounge | ||
| more KHNT material | 16 07 2005 | |
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| 16 07 2005 | ||
| Open Forum / Debate, Roskilde Festival, 01-07-05 20:30. (Transcription: Thomas Grønkjær)
Attending: Attila Csihar (Sunn O)))), Oren Ambarchi (Sunn O)))), Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))), Aaron Turner (Isis), Grutle Kjellson (Enslaved), Ivar Bjørnson (Enslaved). Ivar: We’ll start off really nice and cozy. Aaron, how do you feel about the gig today? Aaron: It’s was our first show on the tour, and one of the first really big festival shows we’ve ever done, so it was a little bit nerve wrecking getting rushed on stage. You know, you need a good vibe to really feel it, and it took us a while to get there, but over all it went pretty well considering we played heavy metal in the daylight. (Audience applauding.) Ivar: I’ve got to ask you the same question, Stephen. How was the show today? Stephen: This is definitely the first time we played in the daylight, and outdoors, which is two very strange things for our music, but considering the environment and the people witnessing what we were doing, I think it was pretty successful, actually. We cleared half the crowd but still had a pretty large crowd for our type of music. Not bad. Ivar: Well done! (Audience applauding.) Stephen: How about you, Ivar? Ivar: We’re happy. We got the 2:30 pm spot. The tent was crowded more or less, so it was good. Of course we would have wished to have a darker spot. We brought along the video thing, and everything, but it was good. What do you say, chief? Grutle: Very good. Excellent. Stephen: Hey Grutle, how do you get the crowd to do this kinda thing all the time? A thousand people doing that. (Stephen is showing the horns and doing gestures.) Grutle: Well, ehh, I’m never satisfied with the audience. I’m always trying to get the audience headbanging, and show the horns, and stuff like that… ehh…. I think they kinda gained my satisfaction tonight, actually. Stephen: Yeah, it was good. Ivar: I don’t know if this is a stupid question but I have to ask about the whole panopticon concept thing. Would you say that this prison invention described in the album, is that aesthetics or would you consider it an actual comment on what is going on today? Aaron: A little bit of both. I mean, it’s a subject that relates to a lot of things I’ve been interested in my entire life but it seems particularly relevant now. I mean, especially living in America post-9/11, there’s a really heightened degree of paranoia, you know, the part of the entire citizenry, the Patriot Act doesn’t make anybody feel any safer it just makes everybody’s lives feel less private and more invaded. One of the things I got really interested in was the comparison, or the idea that the internet in a way has become a modern day panopticon. People are letting their very private information into a very public forum, and they’re not really sure who is compiling it or trying to dissect it. I don’t know. It’s a scary thought. Technology has opened up communication in a lot of ways but it’s also opened up to a whole new, terrifying realm. Ivar: A question for Mr. O’Malley. With Sunn O))) and your extreme levels of sound, do you have any particular goal or aim with this? Is there something more than just the showbiz side of things - using these extreme levels of sound? Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. It’s to create a physical environment and move our music into a more sensory experience than just the ears and the vision. When it comes into the touch realm it causes a physiological effect that your body will remember as well. And that experience can be very different in a performing aspect because… you go to a club, you see someone on the stage – it’s theatre, basically, but you usually limit it to your interpretation intellectually through sight and your ears, but to add the body element I think I can create a more powerful reaction… I’m actually interested in evolving other senses in there but there’s not really practical ways of going into scent, you know. On stage there’s certainly that, but… ehh… evolving other interpreters to the audience creates a more involved experience. That’s primarily why we play loud. It’s not to be the loudest band, or whatever. With volume and energy… especially with low tones, it really takes a lot of energy to create the wave movement in the air and sound pressure and air pressure, too. Curdling vibes, and also in space to create other pockets of sounds that exist in the room as a result of interfering wave forms, which is another aspect of our music that is really valuable. Grutle: Ehh, okay… We are three very different bands but for some reason we are put on the same stage together. Maybe because none of our bands fit into a certain genre… Ehh, I just want to ask both Sunn O))) and Isis if you think we have something in common? Stephen: The one thing I think we have in common, specifically, is not our music but it’s the pushing… It’s almost very cliché and corny but it’s the truth, it’s very simple, but we’re always pushing our sound and trying to incorporate new ideas and trying to move things further on for ourselves, to create new experiences for our own music. Aaron: As you said our music is pretty different in a lot of ways but I think all three bands are really representative of different strains of the evolution of metal in general. I mean, it’s all coming from the same place and origins, but it’s different mutations. Sunn O))) is the most obvious representation of this but I find that the drone is apparent in all three bands, and I find that’s a more primal, almost ritualistic way of playing music, and that can be felt in all three bands as well. Ivar: Another question for Aaron. What are your wishes for the audience to feel during an Isis concert, or album for that sake? Aaron: I don’t think it’s anything specific. Our music is pretty wide open emotionally. A lot of different dynamics occur, and to me, I can’t say that I go thru really specific emotions when I play music, for lack of a better word, I come as close to a spiritual state as anything else I can think of, and it just takes me into a different state. It’s not so much thinking with a conscious mind as it is following the music and being immersed in it… and I kinda hope the same for the audience, that they just allow themselves to drift into that different mind space and experience music in a different way, rather than waiting for the chorus or the mosh part or whatever. Ivar: Maybe we should open for questions from the audience? Audience: This particular music you’re playing, the vocals play a very different part in the music. What does vocals mean to each individual band? (Everybody points to Attila who’s visibly under the influence.) Attila: What’s the question? (Attila speaks in a very, very slow and deep voice.) Audience: What does vocals mean to Sunn O))), because it’s very different. I’ve seen Sunn O))) without the vocals and now I’ve seen it with the vocals… Attila: It’s the… ehh… the concept behind the vocals of Sunn O)))… is just to release some structures… of the moment and get the audience spiritually involved… in the music… and a back and forth flood of spiritual vibrations… (Burbs loudly)… And Sunn O))) is always involved with the audience… (People burst into spontaneous applause while Grutle growls “Aaaattiiiilaaaa!”) Grutle: I want to ask a question to Stephen O’Malley, emerging from the extreme metal scene in America. The extreme metal scene used to be quite big in America, in the beginning of the 90’s with bands like Morbid Angel, Obituary, and so on, but suddenly the whole scene kinda died out, but it’s starting to recover right now. Do you have any thoughts about why it went down? Stephen: Why it went down?... I don’t know about why it went down, but I think I know about why it’s coming up again. I think there’s a much larger acceptance between different types of musicians and fans of different types of music, and I think a lot of the newer extreme bands are incorporating a lot of different ideas that would never have worked in ’94, except if you were a very specific and individual band. I think there’s a more open perspective and acceptance of extreme music. Actually I think extreme music in the US is much bigger than it has ever been before. You know the scene in the early 90’s with Death, Incubus and Master, that was the early death metal scene, and very important, but it actually lead to something that Enslaved in a way is continuing in Norway, which is progressive, extreme music. Grutle: It seems to be the same thing with Europe. I mean there was too many death metal bands doing the same thing in the US as well as it happened with black metal in Europe in the middle of the 90’s. It was too easy to get a record deal, everything just got blown up with too many bands with too much corpse paint. I feel it was the same with death metal in the US, just a couple of years earlier. Do you agree? Stephen: Yeah, definitely. And it’s interesting which bands from that period are still around, both in the US and Europe, and who are still making valid music which keeps progressing in their own style and chemistry. It’s interesting who made music in ’93 and is still making music, and I think that it’s a big influence on people that start making music in 2003 because you realize there’s a much bigger acceptance of extreme sounds and experimental aspects. I think that in the early 90’s, at least with metal, there was a very limited perspective which worked for a while, but it had to go somewhere, and who took it somewhere? Aaron: I think there might be some relation to politics as well. At that time we were still in the midst of the Reagan/Bush era which was pretty fucking bleak, and now we’ve returned to another Bush, and times of extreme duress when the population just feels suppressed more aggressive music has a tendency to arise, which I believe has something to do with it… And also, in the early 90’s Columbia and Sony did the deal with Earache and brought some of that death metal stuff into the mainstream, and as a result it was somewhat of a fad for a while. You know, the mainstream saw this freakish strain of music and latched onto it for that reason, and then after the hype had passed it sort of just dissipated. Ivar: A question for both bands. If you were forced to, how would you categorize your music? Stephen: I don’t like to categorize our mus… Ivar: You’re forced to!! Stephen: I’m forced to? Grutle: WE force you! Stephen: Ehh… psychedelic music. Ivar: Nice one! Aaron: I was gonna say the same thing. Psychedelic metal. Ivar: Shorter answers than I expected, so any questions from the audience? Stephen: What about you? It’s not viking music anymore. Ivar: Psychedelic viking music! (Everybody laughs hard!) Audience: This is a question to Aaron from Isis. Do you have any plans of cooperating with Neurosis or Cult Of Luna? And also when do we get the lyrics for “Panopticon”? Aaron: What was the first part of the question? Audience: Do you have any plans of cooperating with Neurosis or Cult Of Luna? Aaron: No. And the lyrics for “Panopticon” will probably go up in the next 5 or 6 months, or whenever I feel like it. Audience: You were talking about the evolution of metal, and I was thinking if you ever wonder that you might become mainstream at some point, and will be on the radio for the masses. Ivar: We love the masses, man. We love to be in the radio, but it’s not going to happen. Aaron: I think that any band that writes songs that generally are 7-10 minutes long are pretty much shit out of luck these days. Stephen: Not to mention 30 minutes long… Not happening! Grutle: I want to ask a question to Attila. For many years me and you, especially you, have been doing this… ehh… extreme vocal technique and suddenly bands like System Of A Down have been using it lately, and it has become quite normal and accepted. Do you have any thoughts around that? Attila: Ehh… I’m just happy… if I can involve other musicians to this kinda music… it’s fucking news for me that System Of A Down use our style… but music develops itself, and we inspire each other… so actually for me it’s alright… I’m going further out myself, looking for new visions… so if bands like System Of A Down… are involved in our style it’s okay for me, I’m happy with that, but we go further out… Stephen: I recently saw a band called Blood Brothers who are pretty famous but I’ve never heard their music or seen them before, but this band Big Business was opening for them, and I went to see them. So Blood Brothers played. And I was really surprised about the size of the crowd. Because they have two vocalists doing stuff in a Napalm Death/“Scum”-vibe, and there was 700 kids that were 15 years old or so that was totally into it. It really surprised me. At first it was kinda disgusting me because their music was so bad, but I mean, I kinda looked for a positive thing in it, and it’s pretty amazing that such an extreme vocal style can have a bigger audience. Because when Napalm Death was doing that, they didn’t have that kinda crowd, maybe later, but I think it’s more common… It’s actually like extreme vocals are more accepted now, in a weird way. It seems strange to me, but it’s pretty cool. Ivar: Where are the kids when you need them? Stephen: We’re all old men here, c’mon. Audience: I appreciate this effort to bring everybody together and talk about the music we love, but I’ve been reading essays and articles about Isis and Sunn O))) in Wire magazine where people are trying to make heavy metal into some academic stuff, you know, when it’s mainly just rock’n’roll. What do you think about people sitting down trying to talk about heavy metal? Ivar: I just want to say that we are smart too… I think it’s good, because for lot of people extreme music, metal or whatever, it’s a lifestyle, so what else should you talk about? It’s a nice thing to talk about. Audience: What about these articles were they are trying to make the music into something it probably isn’t? Stephen: What’s the problem? That is their interpretation as journalists trying to interpret through their filter as writers, people who may not be correct in what they talk about, as far as what the musicians are concerned, but they’re being affected by the music and they’re reacting to it. I don’t see a problem in that at all. I’m really not for a segregation of… ehh… you know, only these kinda people can listen to our music, or only these kinda people can write about our music, or whatever. I actually think it’s kind of a blessing that it has crossed over and affected more people. The Wire writes about Sunn O))). That’s great. I don’t necessarily agree with what they are saying about our music, but I feel privileged that people are actually being affected by it. Aaron: Music is open to interpretation and it always should be. I think anybody that play music, with the exception of very few people, want as many people as possible to hear what you’re doing. If you’re playing out on a stage and your releasing CD’s you want to share your music with people, and I think ultimately that’s what is the most important, and yes, The Wire can over intellectualize certain aspects of music but at the same time I think a lot of people underrate the intelligence of metal. It’s always been considered this very brutish, knuckle-dragging style of music, but if you really sit down and listen to it, and you dissect what people are doing it’s obvious that that’s not the case. We all put a lot of thought into our music, and beyond that, going back to what Stephen said earlier, we really are trying to push the envelope of what we are doing, whether we succeed or not is another question, but all three bands are adventurous music. The Wire claims to be a magazine that’s about the adventures in music, so there you go. Stephen: Also I think it’s very obvious when a musician or a band is very passionate about what they are doing no matter what they are doing, and it comes across, and people who love true music will relate to that. Whether or not they like the music that’s happening they’ll appreciate the fact that it’s happening with passion and integrity…. Any more questions? Aaron: No questions about colored vinyl! Ivar: Yeah! Any questions about vinyl? Audience: If we look beyond the lyrics do you think music in itself speaks about good or evil, does music in itself have meaning? Maybe it’s a bit hard for me to phrase this question, but I just had this thought that maybe music is not about meaning, or good and evil, or anything else… Aaron: I don’t think you can say what it’s about. You can’t write a riff about something. You just can’t. I think it’s about the individual, even within one band everybody feels differently about the music, and have different reasons for doing it. I know everybody in my band is on the same page to a certain degree but I know we get completely different things out of the music, and we have different interpretations of it…. I don’t know, I think it’s really an individualistic thing. Ivar: I just want to add something. For us music is simply a gateway or a door. All day you go around and live, and music is simply just a doorway to get out of that. If your life is great, or if your life is shit, music is something different, basically. You can go to a concert or you can listen to an album for an hour, and you’re going somewhere else. Audience: If you had the choice, would you want to be more commercial or stay small… Ivar: It’s the eternal question about being underground or not. We want to write the music we want to do… Attila: Ehh… Our music is about… spiritual energies, you know… ehh… sexual intercourse… if you can feel… you will feel… it’s a downtrip to the underworld… ehh… all about fucking perversive… Grutle: Staying underground or not is not a question of attitude. You’re still underground if you’re producing your own albums. If you’re commercial the record companies or the producer are setting the rules. If you’re doing a production yourself and you’re not obeying the audience or the market you’re still underground. From our point of view Iron Maiden is still underground. Stephen: “Forever Underground”. Great album!... Vital Remains. Aaron: I don’t think it’s a matter of being underground or overground, it’s just a matter of what reasons we have for playing music… Attila: Whhhhaaaarrwwrooooaaaaarrrghhhoooooraaaaaaaarrhhhh… (Audience applauding Attila’s deep growl.) Stephen: That’s underground! Aaron: That’s the best answer you can have. (Audience don’t have more questions.) Stephen: Thanks a lot for coming out. Stay grim and don’t cut your hair! (Everything ends with Attila and Grutle growling and screaming into the microphones.) | ||
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| RIP | 16 07 2005 | |
| Our friend Michael Dahlquist was killed in a car accident thursday night in Chicago. The accident is being ruled a triple homicide. It's a horrible and senseless tragedy.
Chicago Tribune story Michael Dahlquist is loved by all who know him as one of the most friendly and outgoing people around. Our hearts are with you and your family. | ||
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