Category: Genres

LED BY THE BLIND Releases debut music video

Led By The Blind has released their debut music video for “O#2”, a song from their 2011 release “Controversy”. The video is entirely self-produced and directed by Jamie Ervay, the drummer/singer of the band, on the ridiculously small budget of just $500. The video features a creepy storyline in which the main character (also played by Jamie Ervay) wakes up in an unfamiliar environment and can’t find his way out. The video has memorable visuals and a great cinematic style, giving some insight into the minds of the artists and giving the video a feel of it’s own that differs from the traditional style of music videos seen everyday. The video was shot regionally to the band over just 3 days with a Canon 6D camera. The editing and visual effects were all created over just a 30 day period.

Jamie had this to say, “I’m pretty proud of this video. It’s the first I’ve ever made of this magnitude and it’s the first time I’ve combined all of the skills I’ve acquired over the past decade. I give the credit to all the bonus features on ‘The Lord Of The Rings’, and ‘Matrix’ trilogies. I just hope people enjoy it.”

The video can be seen here http://youtu.be/ZNlNyw5YiU8 or at most any of the band’s web presences including www.ledbytheblind.com

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNlNyw5YiU8&w=560&h=315].

November 1, 2012
MAN OVERBOARD Announce Lost Tape Collective Holiday Show 2012

Man Overboard and their label, Lost Tape Collective, have announced their annual holiday show in Philadelphia. This year’s event will take place on December 15th at the Theater of the Living Arts on South Street. Here is a quote from the band about this years show:

“Every year we curate the Lost Tape Collective holiday show. We try to comprise the show of bands that are friends, tour mates and bands we enjoy and support. We spent the summer on Warped Tour with Alan Day and I Am The Avalanche… Seahaven was on our headline tour in February and Daylight + Citizen are old buds so its going to be a great night of friendship and hangouts…. we hope everyone with an interest in these bands can make it out to the show!… we will be announcing a special guest and final act fairly soon”

Tickets for the show go on sale Friday, November 2nd at noon via LiveNation’s website.

Saturday, December 15th @ Theater of the Living Arts
334 South Street – Philadelphia, PA

Lineup:
MAN OVERBOARD
I AM THE AVALANCHE
SEAHAVEN
CITIZEN
DAYLIGHT
ALAN DAY (of Four Year Strong)

www.facebook.com/ManOverboardnj
www.losttapecollective.com
www.defendpoppunk.com
www.riserecords.com

November 1, 2012
Review: Dead Channels – C.R.E.A.M.

Dead Channels – C.R.E.A.M. (Manic Progression/Shattered Ego Records)

This is 2012. Bands often spend more time coordinating outfits than worrying about silly notions such as their own integrity or what their legacy will look like if they manage to kiss enough ass to seperate themselves from the herd. When the quality of your music is dictated by desperate businessmen or the ability to make drunken women with daddy complexes wet, you’ve produced the equivalent of a walmart quality landscape painting in what should be a wall reserved for Picassos. With that said, it makes the occasions when you do find someone worthy of holding a brush that much more special. Dead Channels gets it.

What Dead Channels has released here is a three song 7″ titled Cash Ruined Everything Around Me. Bassist/Vocalist Angelo Mosca told me it’s ‘somewhat of a concept EP’. The trilogy of songs within cover the topics of being in an honest band in a very dishonest, and I’ll just say it, bad time for music. The first song, Substance Abuse, tackles the topic of bad bands in positions of success. “Won’t sing along to your preacher song, like sirens to deaf ears/You work the stage like an usher the plate”. The second song, PMA vs. 401K, is an ode to the frustration of having to work a day job that you hate. The last song in this trilogy to the thankless joy of being in a band, Dirt Poor, deals with the illusiary quality of material things and the inner struggle to search for what truly matters in a world where you need to eat to survive. “Father don’t label me failed yet, I only want good things same as you. My blood, and my friends, this band is my family./ And I’ll keep working on quote “meaningless things”,like love and respect. And when I’m finished you can cash the checks, but the ground hasn’t covered me yet.” I don’t generally like to do reviews song by song like this at all, but I feel the topic and the flow of this ep call for it. As someone who was in an underground band for a good many years, this speaks to me.

Musically, this is no departure from 2011’s Soul Pollution. The music is hectic and conveys a sense of urgency. Much like on Soul Pollution, the vocals are used as a fourth instrument to round out this three piece. This adds to the raw quality and makes the subject matter feel sincere. This ep shows Dead Channels achieving a stride and comfortablity in their music that should make people eagerly await their next album.

http://www.facebook.com/deadchannels
http://deadchannels.bandcamp.com/
http://www.youtube.com/DEADCHANNELSNY

-Brian Lawrence

October 29, 2012
Aggro Or Die! – Summer Dies is angry thrash perfection

Aggro Or Die! – Summer Dies (Overdose on Records)

Detroit is a hellhole. There’s entire streets where they just shut the power grid off because fucking no one lives there. In 2009, when a reporter asked mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas why the murder rate had recently dropped 14%, he answered “There just isn’t anyone left to kill.” This is of course a fertile breeding ground for angry punk rock. Summer Dies, a 13 song offering by Aggro or Die, illustrates this nicely.

AOD describes themselves as ‘Detroit Hardcore Nerd Rage Wood Pushing Concrete Surfing Radd Reggae Thrash Punx’. That’s a lot of words. With songs a bit longer than what I generally expect in thrashier bands, I didn’t find myself losing interest in the middle… the songs seem to ebb and flow effortlessly and maintain dynamic throughout. I hear DRI meets Agent Orange (check guitars in Punch Out!) meets glimpses of The Suicide Machines, with some Citizen Fish thrown in for good measure. That’s a pretty potent combination, and one the world needs more of.

With a majority of songs about skating, video games and of course Detroit living in extremely desperate times, AOD has produced a fine document with Summer Dies, one that’s well worth the money spent to check it out. And who knows, you might just save Detroit’s economy by buying it.

June 13, 2012
Interview with Marc Brownstein of The Disco Biscuits and Conspirator

Amid a circus of DJs, 20-somethings with computers and dubstep bands, the art of live electronica has been lost. The creation of electronic dance music by a band and not solely on a computer, is an art form few have mastered. Kraftwerk, Justice, Simon Posford, The Chemical Brothers, Sound Tribe Sector 9 and the Disco Biscuits are in a class of their own. However, from the decreased touring schedule of the latter has grown a 2004 side project that has taken itself and audiences to new heights in the development of live electronic music. Conspirator, fresh off the release of their live album Unlocked: Live from the Georgia Theater, tour 60 or more shows a year from coast to coast, opening the door for the band to make a case as the best live electronic touring act in America today. Numerous festival appearances this summer will likely cement this journey that founding Biscuits’ Aron Magner and Marc Brownstein (who joins us for an interview) has taken with guitarist Chris Michetti and a rotating cast of drummers.

While the show itself was outstanding and a cadre of intensely dancing fans came to check out Dirty Paris and Blockhead open up, the interview with Marc Brownstein shed light on Conspirator, electronic music, and the current state of The Disco Biscuits. Marc said at one point, ‘It’s great to be inAlbany’, even though we were in Clifton Park. This just goes to show how big the Albany music scene is, stretching to Troy and points north, meeting up with the high peaks sounds of Saratoga.

Conspirator 4/26/12, Northern Lights, Clifton Park,NY

Setlist: So Much More > Step Inside, Hands Up, Countash > Feed the Wolf >Brooklyn Bridge> Hard Acid > Commercial Amen > Caves > Orch Theme > Liquid Sawyer, Gypsy Lane, Neck Romancer E: Fascinate

Interview with Marc Brownstein:

Your new live album, Unlocked: Live from the Georgia Theater was released recently. What is it about the creation of live electronic music that leads to such a kinetic response from the crowd?

Electronic music in general gets a kinetic response from the crowd. Doing it live just brings in that element of surprise, and that’s the thing that we’ve always been used to having in our world, so that’s one thing that I’m not ready to give up and moving into just playing electronic music with an element of surprise in there. You can create it DJing for sure without instruments; really great DJs are great because they construct their sets the way the great bands of all time have constructed their sets and they’ve made the show flow through, they’ll play half of one song then go into another song then maybe they’ll bring in a little piece of one song over another song, and its like they’re doing the same stuff at this point that the great jambands did back in the day, and still do.

What is the origin of the band name Conspirator?

It’s mostly about collaboration. The whole idea was just to collaborate with everyone out there that we know, Joe Russo to the guys from Umphrey’s to the different drummers we’ve used, Lotus, The New Deal, KJ SAWKA and Adam Dietch. It’s about Aron and I having the chance to bring in these different influences and elements over the tracks that we produce and interpret them differently with different musicians.

There are quite a few songs that stretch from Conspirator’s debut album, The Key, have been played by The Disco Biscuits as well. Is there a difference between playing them with two different bands, even though two members are common between them?

It depends on the song. For Portal (to an Empty Head), the difference is that we’re not singing but we’re playing without any tracks, but (Digital) Buddha we’re not singing but we’re playing a whole different version, a computerized version of it and made a track for it. We made a computerized backtrack of Buddha and broke it up, it can be triggered and its totally loose, we’re not stuck on it, we can use it and improvise with it and tweak it, but it makes them completely different from the Buddha that we play in the Biscuits. And then there’s the ones in the Biscuits that we do without any track like Commercial (Amen) or Liquid Handcuffs or Orch Theme but over in Conspirator we play them the way they were written. In the Biscuits we interpret these electronic songs into rock form but in Conspirator we’re playing them as electronic tracks and adding rock instruments to that but staying true to the fact that they’re electronic tracks.

What are the origins of Orch Theme? How did the song develop into such a slow building aria?

The song was named for the sound on the keyboard that it’s based around, so the actual sound of the theme of Orch Theme was called orch theme on the computer so he (Aron Magner) named the song after the sound, which happens sometimes. It’s not the first time its happened where a sound has dictated the name of the track; after all it is music.

So Chris (DJ Omen) and Aron wrote the theme together, then we brought it into the Biscuits, dropped everything except that Orch Theme sound and then we turned it into what we do, which is stretch it the fuck out. Sometimes we even play it without ever playing the theme, we’ve actually put it on the setlist and just played through the whole entire thing and never got to the theme and just left it and went somewhere else. Then at the end of the show we’ll be like ‘we never played that’, and we just got so far out in the jam that we felt like the actual song didn’t even get played.

(After the show, I asked Aron Magner for his take on the origins of Orch Theme and he gave some more details to the creation of the song)

“Orch theme I wrote in 2005 and at that time Lord of the Rings was the best thing ever, as it still is right now. I was working in the studio with DJ Omen and I was wondering if we could make some thematic and cinematic music, I wanted it to sound like electronic, like the orcs are coming in. as I was browsing through patches, I was like ‘oh my god!’, ‘Orch theme’. The motif is trying to say orchestra theme because it has layers and layers, the bottom half of the keyboard has tympanis and the upper half has violas and in between has brass, there are 36 instruments laid out throughout the keyboard that double each other depending on their range so that’s the Orch Theme. So that’s how it came about.”

Recently, electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk performed their albums at MOMA. Did their music hold and influence over your early interest in electronica and if not, who were the first bands that turned you onto electronic music?

Well, Kraftwerk was a thing I found out about later when people used to say that we were the first band to play electronic music, when Kraftwerk was doing this decades before we came along. So they had no influence, it was like a collective unconsciousness of ‘dude, people have been doing this for a long time”, but for us it was mostly for us, Simon Posford, the person who was our earliest influence, via our friends from England who were friends with Posford and were playing us Hallucinogen and Shpongle back in the mid-late 90s. We had heard house music but it didn’t appeal to us as much as psychedelic music. Clearly, that was the bridge, between rock and electronic, that’s why Posford was the bridge, for all of this, for real. A lot of people attribute us as a bridge in America for bringing rock and electronica together, for pushing the styles together at Camp Bisco and by forging a rock and electronica festival, but the bridge came from similarities between the psychedelia of trance and the psychedelia of the jamband world; it sounded very different but the idea was the same, to try to tweak people out.

Your drummers rotate, including Lane Shaw, Mike Greenfield, Darren Shearer, Adam Deitch and KJ SAWKA, currently playing this tour. How hard has it been to interlace through different drummers and keep the music consistent from one night/tour to the next?

It’s been much better since we’ve had KJ for the last six months. Having one drummer is what we want, it’s preferable, and the band is getting better and better. Last night was one of the best shows we’ve ever played, we know each other now, and we can communicate with each other. It’s great.

Is Conspirator, initially conceived as a side project becoming the main touring act? Will we see Disco Biscuit tours again?

Well, when the Biscuits aren’t playing this is certainly going to be the main act. But I’m assuming there’s going to be more Biscuits tours. That’s the assumption I’m running my life on. Of course there’s going to be more Biscuits tours. We wanted 2011 off and we didn’t get it, it just didn’t happen. We wanted to take the whole year off

You mean including Camp Bisco as well?

Yeah we were going to take the whole year off and then we talked Jon into doing Camp and we talked him into doing Inferno and then we talked him into doing Nokia and Identity and before you knew it we played 50 shows and said “Well that wasn’t a year off.” I played another 80 on top of it, I played 130 shows and so at the end of that I think we were just like “OK that didn’t work, the only way to do this is to legitimately try to not to talk anyone into playing any shows. For me, I have to be very disciplined, “OK, I’ll book myself to play with Conspirator and play these shows because I have a lot of energy and I put a lot of effort into trying to get The Disco Biscuits out on tour all the time for years and years and years, I’m always just driving it forward and pushing shows, booking shows, pushing festivals, so for me I just have to be disciplined and say “We’re taking time off, I have to accept that we’re taking time off.” I don’t know if I’ll ever take time off myself, personally. I just don’t see the point in taking time off. I get for other people they have to but for me personally, I just don’t…yeah, there’ll be more Biscuits shows.

Update 4/30, 11pm: This article has been updated to correct the name of a co-writer of Orch Theme. It was Chris Edmonson, AKA DJ Omen. Apologies for the confusion

April 30, 2012
An Interview with Natalie Cressman

Through Phish side projects, we are introduced to new musicians, some whom we may be familiar with, such as Scott Murawski of Max Creek, while others are new to the Phish family of musicians. Natalie Cressman, who sings and plays trombone in Trey Anastasio Band, sat down with NYS Music for an interview on her musical upbringing, her role in TAB and what the future holds with the release of her debut album.

Pete Mason: Your parents, Jeff and Sandy are both musicians. Growing up, what was it like being in a musical household, with music that stretched from Brazilian to Jazz?

Natalie Cressman: It was incredible to be exposed to such a wide array of music on such a subconscious level. I was completely unaware of how unusual my environment was as a kid, but seeing my parents, both American, immersing themselves in these musical cultures (Brazilian and Afro-Cuban) gave me a lot of respect for understanding the music’s roots. Seeing how many different styles of music share similar rhythms and how musical traditions have cross-pollinated over the years helped me think about music on a larger scale. I think being exposed to all of that set me up to be able to play any style of music I set my mind to.

PM: Considering your musical upbringing and coming from a musical family, what made choose the trombone as your instrument? Do you or have you played others as well?

NC: I started out singing and playing Suzuki piano at around 5. I was really into Broadway musicals for awhile, I even sang in Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway version of the Puccini opera La Boheme when I was 10 when it opened first in SF. I started trombone as soon as my arms were long enough to reach (laughs), which was around 9. I think I really liked hearing my dad play it so well and there was an extra trombone in the closet so my parents were stoked about not having to buy me a different instrument. I stopped playing piano or singing as much once I got into the trombone. I still play a bit of piano and bass, but I mostly play just when I’m writing new music.

PM: What was it like when you were asked to join TAB? Was there any hesitancy?

NC: When I was asked to join TAB, I was absolutely thrilled. It was my first tour ever and I thought the music was just so unbelievably great. To be a freshman in college and have a gig like that was just a total shock, in the best possible way. The only hesitancy I might have had at first was trying to figure out how it would all work with my school schedule. It is fortunate in some ways that TAB doesn’t tour that often because it makes it so I always miss just as much school as I possibly can without rubbing the Dean the wrong way. I had a couple really nice teachers who understood the nature of the opportunity and helped me figure it out.

PM: How have you adjusted to life on the road and playing huge rooms?

NC: I have definitely gotten more accustomed to it: I remember the first couple shows physically shaking with stage fright. It’s an intimidating thing to be out in front of a sea of people, but there’s definitely a zone of calm that I’ve figured out how to tap into now that let’s me focus on the music. I’ve always been obsessed with traveling, so being on the road is still pretty exciting. I love wandering around whatever city I’m in. I’m constantly trying to find cute little restaurants and shops that are really unique to the town.

PM: How did you get together with the members of your band Secret Garden?

NC: I met most of my band members through my school (Manhattan School of Music). Most of them are either current students, alums or people I’ve met through friends at school. Some of them I’ve known since before college! There are an astonishing number of talented musicians in New York City, but I think I gravitated towards the guys who now make up my band because we all have eclectic tastes in music that lie outside of the jazz world. I think what is so fun about the project is letting all our other influences seep in through the music to the point where the genre-specific lines are blurred. It gives us a lot of flexibility to make music with a fresh outlook.

PM: You also perform with Peter Apfelbaum and the NY Hieroglyphics as well as Wyllys and the NY Hustler Ensemble. Compared to your other bands, how is that experience different, both in terms of the music and the band dynamic?

NC: Both groups are incredibly creative and inventive. I grew up listening to Peter’s records and I remember hearing the Hieroglyphics as a teenager and feeling so excited about the music that I felt my heart pounding. Peter’s music has such a deep rhythmic groove, yet the music is definitely experimental and forward-thinking. The music is so soulful and yet at the same time so avant-garde. I think of Peter as my musical godfather, and the way he composes music, freely weaving together so many different styles so that the music itself becomes enigmatic, is super inspiring. The band is filled with old friends of my parents, so I definitely feel like I’m among family and it’s really laid back. But make no mistake, they’re super serious about the music. Wyllys’ Nu Disco and Re Edits also are on that line between soulful/groove and the experimental. With Wyllys and the New York Hustler Ensemble, things are definitely a little more unpredictable and spontaneous. But it’s a lot easier to be that unpredictable with only three musicians on stage. It would be miraculous if all 12 of us in Peter’s band could pull off the type of improvised composition that we do in the Hustler’s Ensemble. Jen and Wade are like family to me too, so every gig is always an incredible amount of fun.

PM: Which is more creatively fulfilling for you – writing a song or recording/performing it?

NC: That’s a really hard question. I think they are both fulfilling, but for me the writing process doesn’t feel complete until I hear it fully played, so I’d guess I’d say that performing it is the ultimate fulfillment. However, sometimes a performance doesn’t go as well as I’d like and then it’s hard to be satisfied with an off night. I often lose sleep over it, because you can’t go back and change a live performance. Even once in awhile certain recordings, you have to live with mistakes or things you might have done differently. I really like the relaxed nature of composing, of having the time to go out on a limb and try something different, then being able to erase it if it doesn’t work. It’s easy for me to write freely because there’s no need to be self-conscious or judgmental of your own work when you can tweak and perfect it to your hearts content

PM: In the Stanford Jazz Mentors program you are teaching others. What is your favorite thing about that process?

NC: I really love teaching because I think it is the perfect marriage between my musical skills and my killer babysitting skills (laughs). I started teaching at Stanford when I was barely 19, and a lot of the kids I was instructing weren’t more than a year or two younger than me. But I realized that was pretty insignificant, and I just did my best to get them excited about playing music. So much about teaching is psychological: it’s about giving them that bug that makes them want to know more. I’ve seen so many incredible musicians turn out to be mediocre teachers because they don’t pick up on the vibe of their students and are too caught up in teaching them what they think the kids should learn. It’s a balance for sure, but I think I’m good at figuring out how to get students excited about music, which opens them up for focused, meaningful learning.

PM: You recently had a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund your debut album Unfolding, with fans contributing $7,000 (of a $5,000 goal). As you approached and exceeded the goal and the album’s production became a reality, what was going through your mind at this time?

NC: It was an incredible surprise that the campaign was successful. I was going to fund the entire project on my own, since I’m not on a record label and being a 20 year-old college student it all seemed really overwhelming. A mentor of mine had recommended I work with a publicist and a radio promoter to help build some good press around the release but that was an extra $8,000 on top of paying the musicians, sound engineers, manufacturing, distribution, etc. My mom urged me to check out Kickstarter and so I did it on a whim with a small goal just to get a little help so that I could hire the PR. It did better than I ever could have expected, and the campaign will nearly fund the whole PR campaign! It was also a lot of fun to bring all the pledgers into the project, to share the process with them was really cool.

PM: What are your musical hopes and goals over the next 10 years?

NC: Right now I feel like I’m coming to a cross-road where I can see myself going in several directions. I could get a Master’s Degree, try to establish myself as a jazz musician, start a pop project. But from where I am now, I would love to make a name for my current band in the next 10 years, to be able to play more often, tour with my own group, and reach bigger audiences. I would love to keep writing my own songs and recording albums. With my project, I want to show jazz a relevant art form, I want to motivate other creative musicians to stop playing jazz like its classical repertoire and to tap into all the opportunities found in modern music and technology. I hope to continue playing as a sideman, especially with Trey, as each tour makes me a better musician and a better person too. All I really need to be happy is to have other like-minded musicians to collaborate with and keep me on my toes, and the rest is just the icing on the cake.

April 29, 2012
Brenden Small’s (Metalocalypse) debuts GALAKTIKON!

Dig Metalocalypse? Keep reading. The multi-talented Brendon Small, who acts as primary songwriter, performer, actor and writer for the wildly popular animated series, is back at it with a new project, Galaktikon. If the show is any indication, you’ll probably assume that Galaktikon is going to be somewhat over the top, and it is. But not in a way you may expect.

Brendon describes the album as “…an audio comic book, an over acted chamber drama, a ridiculous premise that takes itself way too seriously all the way to the end.” This statement definitely has its merit, but the album does come across as a completely serious piece of art. Not in a cookie monster, super heavy, grandiose, or obnoxious way… It’s just ambitious in a way Dethklok is not.

The songwriting captures the heaviness and intensity one may expect from Dethklok, but with a more progressive rock feel. The tracks offer lots of tasteful melody, excellent guitar work, and exude a completely different kind of tension than the listen may expect, especially coming from the guy who wrote “Murmaider.” The musicianship is superb.

Oh yea… Gene Hoglan is a hitter, so Galaktikon gets an additional star for that reason alone m/!

The occasional moment of cheese, particularly the “Mr. Roboto” vocal effects during “Arena War of the Immortal Masters,” threw me for a quick loop. But, given the intention and ambition of the project, everything fits very well into the grand scheme of the album.

If you are looking for a new Dethklok album or another batch of Metalocalypse, wait for season 4. The pomposity and lunacy that comes from Dethklok, though occasionally present here, is tucked away backstage, guzzling Jack Daniels and doing lines of cocaine while waiting for Galaktikon to finish their opening set. But if you are looking for an album of space aged travel odyssey, look no further than right here and grab yourself a copy!

April 24, 2012
“Greg’s 10” Interview with… CLUTCH!

Chevy Celebrity. 1983. Not nearly as cool as the vehicle described on “Spacegrass,” my introduction to Clutch back in high school, but it got me around. A staple on the Top 9 at 9 on K-Rock for months, a buddy of mine and I would hop into my ride, pack a bowl, and anxiously await the DJ to drop the tune. A fan is born.

Clutch may not have reached to upper echelon of commercial success as some of their contemporaries, but most of their contemporaries aren’t even around anymore. Riding a wave of success that is, in many ways, unparalleled, Clutch’s fan base is cultish, rabid, and fiercely loyal. My last experience with the group found them selling out 2 consecutive nights at Irving Plaza in NYC… Not an easy feat anywhere, let alone a Mecca of the music world.

I was able to check out the show this evening, and Dan Maines from Clutch was cool enough to answer a few questions about the band, their longevity, tour, and recordings for Upstate Metal.

Interview:

G- What’s going on, man, and thank you for taking the time to speak with Upstate Metal! How’s everything going on your current tour? I see you are playing several headlining dates in addition to sharing a bill with Hell Yeah! How have the shows been?

D- They’ve been good. I’m sorry, but I’ve just noticed that they have Rockin’ Pies down there? This place… Do they make their own pie for sale during shows?

G- You know, I’m not quite sure but if they do, I haven’t had dinner yet so I’m definitely down to grab one.

D- That’s fantastic!

G- I’ve been coming to this club for about 18 years and I’ve never seen that.

D- Never seen anything about pies?

G- No.

D- OK. Moving on, tour’s been going good. We started the tour off with headlining shows. We did a few of those, and then Hell Yeah! Jumped on, or we jumped on with Hell Yeah! For the past 4 shows. Everything is going great.

G- How’s life on the road with Mr. Vinnie Paul and crew… You guys been partying hard or what?

D- Not yet. We’ve know Vinnie for a while. We did a tour back in the day with Pantera and we’ve been on a few tours where he’s come out to see some of the other bands. We’re just looking forward to spending some weeks on the road with them. All those guys are great guys… I’m looking forward to it!

G- Excellent! So, Clutch has been around for more than 2 decades (They formed in 1990) and there is no indication that the group is going anywhere anytime soon… Can you talk a bit about the band’s formation and how everything came about?

D- Yea, well we first started playing together in 1989. That was our senior year of high school. My first show was trying out for the high school talent show. I can’t even remember what we were calling ourselves, but it was me, Neil, John Paul, and this other friend of ours Brian, and Eric. It didn’t make the cut, but luckily there were so many bands that tried out for the talent show that they just decided to have a totally separate school concert, which we ended up playing.

God, what was the name of the band? I can’t remember the name of the band… It was something terrible (laughter). And then we got Tim in the band and it was narrowed down to 4 of us. We put out our first 7” in 1991 with our friend Dave and then put out Transnational Speedway League, our first lp on Atlantic Records, or East West, in 1993. And we’ve been releasing albums ever since.

G- Your recordings run the gamut… You incorporate many different styles into your music, and each album is a bit different, but purely Clutch. Is this intended?

D- Umm, I think you’re gonna run into that phenomenon of a band sounding like the previous album because it’s the same people. It’s difficult to kinda stray away from your core sound in a lot of ways, and we try to do that, and we don’t try to make the same record we made the last time. We may end up making 10 albums that, in our minds, were vastly different from each previous album, but I think, as a whole, it’s pretty easy to identify our music, if you’re listening to it. I’m too close to it… I can’t tell.

G- Can you tell me a bit more about your writing process? Who in the band typically comes up new music? Is there a primary writer, or do you guys just drink a few beers and jam out until something clicks?

D- As far as writing the music, it is definitely a group process. All 4 of us are heavily involved in the writing. Vocally, Neil is the sole lyricist and vocalist. But we just get together at John Paul’s place and start jamming. He pushes record until we start playing something we like playing for more than 2 minutes, and we move on to another idea. Neil will take those instrumental ideas home with him and come back a day or 2 later with some vocal ideas. And usually the vocal ideas will dictate which direction a song goes in. We may drop a part altogether. A part we thought was the chorus of the song may turn out to not be the chorus of the song once you have vocals put on it. You just build it like that. It’s very rare that somebody comes to the table with a completed song.

G- So Clutch now has their own record label, WEATHERMAKER, and you have been reissuing your classics. Are you currently working on any new releases right now? What else is in the works for Weathermaker?

D- Well, we have a lot of things coming out, actually. We just re-released the last 3 albums we put out on DRT Records, which has folded. We acquired ownership of those 3 albums, so we’ve re-released those on cd last year, and this year we are releasing them all on vinyl.

G- Nice!

D- Yup. And we have a 7” inch that we are releasing right now called “Pigtown Blues” and it’s a picture disc 7”. One side is an acoustic song called “Pigtown Blues,” and the other side is an acoustic version of “Motherless Child,” which was the first song on our last full-length album “Strange Cousins.”

And at the end of this Summer, we plan on going into the studio with the songs we are working on right now and record those and put those out on an album that should be out early 2013.

G- Will you be demo-ing or premiering anything during this tour?

D- Yea. We don’t have anything established as far as titles go, but we’re definitely playing new songs on the road right now. It’s Tim’s set list… We change the set list every night… and I think tim was talking about putting 3 new songs on the set tonight, which would be fun.

G- That’d be great!

D- But yea we have about 10 songs right now that we will be playing throughout the tour, and when we get home we are gonna continue writing and then go into the studio with, hopefully, 15 ideas and see what happens.

G- So, after 9 albums, rare compilations, live albums, etc… Where does Clutch see itself in the next decade? Are there any countries or continents you haven’t been to yet that you are working on, or any acts you are looking/hoping to share a bill with in the future?

D- Yea. We’ve been lucky enough to get over to places like Australia and Japan. The European tours are starting to pick up for us. We’re just starting to consider playing European festivals “routine” now, which it never was. But yea we’re still trying to get into places like South America. We’re trying to get over to Japan more often… We haven’t been over there in a while, so we’re working on that. But yea… Global Domination is definitely part of our plan in the next 10 years.

G- On that note, what’s the craziest show Clutch has played to date, and what was it like? Do you have any particular spots that always go off?

D- Yea (laughter)… I don’t know. I can’t remember so many shows. You definitely see some weird things. I remember playing a show in Ohio and, uhh… I spend a lot of my time looking down, and I play with a hat on a lot of times, too, so I don’t really see a lot of what’s going on in the crowd. And one show taught me my lessons in paying more attention to what is actually happening.

(Laughter begins)

G- Oh boy!

D- Uhh, I mean, this was a small stage, too. Maybe 3-feet high. But these people were engaging in coitus directly in front of me! They could have touched my feet!

At this point, I’m cracking up.

D- And it was that close to a threesome.

G- I think we have a winner!

D- But the reason it caught my attention was because you could hear very clearly the guy saying something along the lines of ‘I can’t do it with all these people around.’ That was pretty bad.

G- Upstate Metal… I think we’ve got a winner. Clutch has the gold star so far, so it’s gonna take a while to top that one!

But lastly, so you can go get ready for the show this evening… I just want to ask your professional opinion. You guys have been doing this for a long time, and you’re clearly doing it well. You’ve made lots of waves, and you’re still going strong… What advice can you give for up and coming bands and artists who are looking to record, tour, and make it as professional musicians these days?

D- I think what helps a lot is figuring out what you can do by yourself on your own. It’s that DIY attitude that was in music when I first started listening to bands. I was really into hardcore, and being from DC and having bands like Minor Threat and Fugazi as your local heroes, you kinda get that DIY attitude exposed to you early on And I think that that kind of mentality is what is gonna save a lot of bands in the long run. Not necessarily having to do everything yourself, but at least figuring out what you can do by yourself and not putting your hopes or expectations on other people or other companies.

We’re a band that’s learned you cannot rely on a record label. You thought you could… You thought that that was your ticket… That if you could make it onto a record label, your problems were solved, and that’s the farthest thing from the truth. It took us a long time to figure it out, but what was most gonna benefit this band is forming our own label and just trying to put as many things in our control as possible.

http://www.pro-rock.com/

http://weathermakermusic.com/

April 24, 2012
JONESTOWN discusses influences, religion

Jonestown is a metalcore band out of Syracuse, New York with a strong message and ruthless sound. Their aggressive style is infused with hardcore undertones and edgy vocals. Their message rails against corruption, fear and ignorance in society. The name Jonestown refers to the infamous Jonestown Massacre in Guyana, South America in 1978. I sat down with Tyler Frisbie, Bobby Backes and Ryan Thurston and spoke with them about their music, message, and style. The following is taken from that conversation.
Rob: What bands have influenced you and inspired you to play music?
Bobby: I grew up on metal. When I was a kid my dad was always jamming and there were always guitars and drums in my house. The bands that made me want to get on stage would be the old hardcore bands that would play at The Wescott Theatre and Planet 505. Bands like Norma Jean, Poison The Well, Nora, and Throwdown. When I went to my first Hellfest that really set it off for me too.
Ryan: Well, the first bands that made me want to play music were Guns N Roses and Pantera. I grew up on that stuff. But then as I got older and started to play music it was more of the metalcore and hardcore bands. If it was on Trustkill Records or Ferret Records I probably listened to it.
Rob: Have there been any changes in style or members in the band?
Bobby: If you play our songs from the first to the newest you can hear the progression. At first, we shied away from breakdowns. We would play the slow, stand out breakdowns like most metalcore bands have. We found how to use the breakdowns in our own way without throwing them in every song, which I feel is boring. I still think that we don’t know our sound one-hundred percent yet but we are still young as a band.
Rob: How would you categorize Jonestown Hardcore, Metalcore, or a mixture? I am not a genre expert! I just know what I like!
Ryan: We are the same man. We like everything and draw influences from it all.
Bobby: Genres are so shotty you can say anyone is anything! But if metalcore is a mix of hardcore and metal than we are true metalcore. Metal and hardcore fans love it.
Rob: Can you tell me more about the song Burn The Page? What influenced you to create that song? Does it draw from Turn The Page?
Bobby: Ha ha….no, no influence from Turn The Page even though it is an awesome song, it just happens to rhyme. The song is about the misuse of religion. Not anti-religion if going to church and reading the Bible is your choice and it makes your life better good for you. But when religion is used as a tool of fear to make children obey and follow without letting them make their own mind. I just think its crazy there is nine year old kids that will kill themselves and you because “God” said so…….I just think that is CRAZY!
Rob: I agree! People do crazy things in the name of religion!
Ryan: They really do. I have no problem with what you choose yourself to believe or not believe, but people should make up their own mind.
Bobby: Like drinking Kool-Aid with poison, hence the name Jonestown.
Rob: Jonestown has a message. It’s one that goes against extremists and societies obsession with fear in religion and government. Does this sound right?
Ryan: I would say that is pretty spot on. In my eyes people need to take a hard look at the things they believe and not just take in everything they are told as the absolute truth. If I told you some crazy facts that seemed almost completely unbelievable,
would you choose to take that as fact with no research or thoughts of your own?
Bobby: But then again we aren’t all about that all the time. We have fun and our song 909 is just about going out to a party and getting wasted.
Rob: What upcoming shows will are you playing?
Ryan: We are playing with The Empire Shall Fall on May 24^th and the Exposed Music Fest on February 4^th at the California Brew House in Rochester. If people would like tickets they can contact us on Facebook.
Rob: What bands and groups have you been playing with lately that you would like the readers to know about?
Bobby: We have to let people know about Embrace The Massacre, Suspended In Dusk, Broken Tooth Productions, and of course you can hear our song, Burn The Page, on the new Anarchy Hour Podcast!

http://www.facebook.com/Jonestown909?sk=app_2405167945

http://www.reverbnation.com/jonestownreal

http://www.facebook.com/Anarchy.Hour.Podcast?sk=app_182222305144028

Vocals: BOB BACKES
Guitar: ROB PIERCE
Guitar: TY FRISBIE
Bass: RYAN THURSTON
Drums: ALEX FRISBIE

Rob Born

April 16, 2012
ABORTED discusses “Global Flatline”, influences

Aborted is a death metal band from Belgium. They’re a four-piece band with members from Belgium, France and the UK. Signed by Century Media Records, and recently released their album, Global Flatline, They are a powerful, heavy band with a passion for mosh pits, blood, guts and horror. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with Sven De Caluwe, vocalist for the band, between tours.

Chris: Filming music videos can be a pretty cool experience. What did you think of the experience of filming “The Origin of Disease” music video?
Sven: It was pretty intense, we shot it right in-between playing festivals—meaning we played a festival in Germany the day before, drove out to Holland, took a plane to England, and then shot the video the next day for about 8-9 hours straight, and we had way too many takes which were all more intense than the previous one at a location that smelled worse than any anus known to man haha. The day after that, we flew back to Holland to drive back to Germany and play Summer Breeze at 3AM. Exhausting to say the least, but we are ultimately very satisfied with the results!!
Chris: Does this song have a significant meaning to you?
Sven: It is one of the more instense songs on the record, and it has a good dose of groove at the same time. The theme is “mankind is a disease”, which is exactly what this whole album is about.
Chris: Your new album, Global Flatline, came out January 24^th. Describe the experience of recording it.
Sven: I think this must have been the smoothest recording session we ever had. The whole album was done in under 3 weeks from start to finish, including mix and mastering. Jacob Hansen did a killer job, and it was very relaxing working with him. He got the best out of everyone and the sound we were looking for.
Chris: The cover of Global Flatline appears to be a zombie eating Jesus. What inspired this intense album cover?
Sven: That’s merely the digital single cover. The actual album cover is a completely devastated urban landscape with hordes of zombies eating people and what not. The intense album imagery comes with the intense pile of shit that mankind signifies.
Chris: How does this album differ from your previous ones?
Sven: I would say it’s more extreme, brutal, energetic, varied and mature than the previous efforts.
Chris: Extremefest promises to be a pretty brutal event. What do you hope to get out of playing it?
Sven: A good time, many crushed skulls, and destructive mosh pits!
Chris: What do you enjoy most about being on tour?
Sven: Playing shows in front of responsive audiences, meeting new people, hanging out with the other bands on tour, visiting new places and seeing the differences between cultures.
Chris: Are there any shows on your tour schedule that you’re especially looking forward to playing?
Sven: We are going to Brazil for the first time in a few weeks and also playing Norway for the first time in our career this year, so we are pretty excited to see how people bash their skulls in in those places!
Chris: Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Sven: This would vary from member to member, but in general for this band I would say Suffocation Carcass, Entombed, Dismember, and so on! Old school death metal.
Chris: Personally, I enjoy Cannibal Corpse. What was it like sharing the stage with them?
Sven: They are great guys and a killer band, they are simply a monument for death metal and it’s always a pleasure hanging out with them or performing with them. They are literally a testament of dedication to the extreme.
Chris: Where do you see yourselves in one year?
Sven: Touring, playing more shows and playing more death fuckin metal!

April 4, 2012