Showing posts with label Brooklyn Vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brooklyn Vegan. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

New Music From Bettye Lavette

 
From the forthcoming album Lavette!, out June 16th via Jay Vee Records. Read more about the announcement HERE on Brooklyn Vegan.

Back in 2012, I really did not know who Betty Lavette was. My x and I were in San Francisco for about a week, and caught Ms. Lavette at the old Yoshi's location; she was on tour for her Thankful and Thoughtful record. Amazing show, but it's been quite some time since she has been on my radar. Gotta change that! 




News:

It's been a while, but a new edition of the Every Day (Is Halloween) Newsletter goes out this morning at 8:30 AM. Included therein is a pretty fantastic playlist, if I do say so myself. I recently bowed out of a friend's Spotify Premium Family account, so I totally understand if you're not hip to the format - I prefer Apple Music for almost everything, however, if there's one thing Spotify does better it's playlists.


If you're interested in signing up, I don't share your info, I don't send often enough to be a nuisance, and I try to add value to my readers' lives by turning them onto as much awesome stuff as possible!



Read:

Here's another thing I don't think I'd ever heard of before: Alan Moore and Alan Davis's Captain Britain comic from 1983? 


Leave it to the Cartoonist Kayfabe guys - that's Ed "Red Room" Piskor and Jim "Street Angel" Rugg, two of the most talented artists working in comics today. I subscribed to their channel (HERE) a while back and have really been getting an education from it; HIGHLY recommend you check Cartoonist Kayfabe out if you're into the art and history of comics!




Watch:

Not watching this new Dead Ringers trailer, but I'll post it here for posterity's sake.


 

All episodes drop on April 21st, and I'm curious as hell, especially after reading on Bloody Disgusting that Sean Durkin directed the first two episodes. I'm a big fan of his film Martha Marcy May Marlene, so I'm excited to see how his particular aesthetic might meld with Cronenbergian themes/images.
 


Playlist:

Damone - From the Attic
Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer (pre-release singles)
Clouds Taste Satanic - Tales of Demonic Possession
Deadguy - Fixation On A Coworker
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Brainiac - The Predator Nominate
Ghost - Prequelle
The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That
High On Fire - Surrounded By Thieves
Massive Attack - 100th Window
Bettye Lavette - The Scene of the Crime
    


Card:

Back to Missi's Raven Deck for today's Pull:


Change: Just accept it. "Words of wisdom Lloyd. Words. Of. Wisdom."




Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Isolation: Day 129



Kind of a slow news day, so to speak, so I landed on this via Brooklyn Vegan. Apparently, Metallica has been doing "Metallica Mondays" which sounds like some weird food theme at a Chili's restaurant, but is actually a kind of cool quarantine coping mechanism the band has been doing for their fans. As my interest in this band stops after about 1988, this video is of particular interest to me. 1983 at Chicago's Metro? As a young metalhead in the 90s who would go on to frequent shows at the Metro, this is the kind of show I often dreamed of having been able to go back in time and see. Now, thanks to Metallica, I can. You have to get through a rather annoying minute or so of Lars talking about... not really sure, but I have to admit it. As hard as I am on these guys, they often come off pretty cool to their fans.

**

NCBD tomorrow is another short lister this week. Action Lab's Sweet Heart #2 finally hits the stand - this was another one I'd mentioned a few weeks ago, only to realize I had my dates completely out of order.


Other than that, the first issue of a new Image book called Bliss caught my eye recently:


The cover art is obviously gorgeous, but what really has me curious is this book's solicitation description from Image that ends with, "Breaking Bad meets Neil Gaiman's Sandman."

Huh?

The first issue of a two-arc maxi-series, I might just pick this one up. (Yes, I'm still attempting to limit taking on new books. No, it's not always easy.)


**

Playlist:

Cypress Hill - III: Temples of Boom
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Sleep - The Sciences

**

Card:


The urge to do bad is often extremely strong. It's part of the flow of life to balance that out with positive stuff.

Monday, June 29, 2020

Isolation: Day 109 The Beach House Trailer



You had me at "Cosmic Body Horror." The Beach House one drops on Shudder July 9th. That means I'll have two days of anticipated premieres, as on the 10th, Relic hits VOD. These last few years have been such an amazing time to be a Horror fan, and despite a segue into real-life Horror, 2020 appears to continue the trend.


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Via Brooklyn Vegan (article HERE), the Sacramento Music Archive has made a Slayer concert from 1986 available on youtube. This is HUGE in my opinion; I saw Slayer a handful of time, but not before 1994's Divine Intervention, an album I pretty much despise based on what I feel are some pretty lackluster vocals. That said, my love of Slayer is primarily based on their two live albums - Live Undead and Decade of Aggression - both of which I consider among the finest live albums ever released. It's nice to hear something that kind of splits the span of those two records in half, as Live Undead was released in 1984 and DoA 1991. Admittedly not a huge temporal stretch, but in the evolution of arguably the greatest Thrash band of all time, an entire epoch of change spans the divide.



Thank you to the Sacramento Music Archive, whose website you can visit HERE.


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Playlist:

Andy Fosberry - Death Ship 2047
Van Halen - Eponymous
Phil Collins - Hello, I Must Be Going
Soundgarden - Down on the Upside
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Cocksure - Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E.


**

Card:


A solid foundation is what I'm working with on this current short story. That's not the issue. Pulling all the elements together into a cohesive whole is.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Isolation: Day 7 - Type O Negative - Open Air Festival 1995



As usual, Brooklyn Vegan has been killing it on curation and content during these trying times. THIS article, posted Wednesday, 3/18, runs down a list of several fantastic live shows currently available in-full on youtube. Of course, I went directly to the Type O one. I saw them twice on the October Rust tour - the shows are among my fondest concert memories - and this footage takes me back in a way I did not quite expect. With the tenth anniversary of Peter Steele's death on the horizon (April 14th), and with rain falling intermittently more than usual in LaLa Land, this landed at the perfect moment for me. Thanks Brooklyn Vegan, for all that you do!

**

Two nights ago, K and I finished the second season of Netflix's Castlevania, which means we finally get to move on to Season Three, which I keep seeing referred to as "Psychedelic Horror." Can't wait for that, especially considering the way events played out at the end of Season Two. Written by legendary comics scribe Warren Ellis, Castlevania is pure joy for Horror/Comics/Video Game fans alike. Ellis' writing is top notch; think of when the mostly creator-owned writer steps into high level IP's like X-Books, Batman, or, if you're like me and fondly remember Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., and you'll get a ballpark sense of what a joy it is seeing this man play with super well-known toys. For a peak inside his process, go to Orbital Operations and sign up for his weekly newsletter. It is seriously one of the things in life I most look forward to reading every week, both for the process insights, and his unmatched aptitude as a curator of all things awesome! In the meantime, for only those who have finished Season Two, here's a clip of the penultimate battle that just blows my f*&king mind!



**

Playlist:

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Antemasque - Eponymous
The Black Angels - Eponymous EP
SOD - Speak Spanish or Die
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

**

Card:


I'm not sure how to read the common interpretation of "Seed to a Tree." In light of world events, I'm not sure if that's positive for us now, on this side of what this thing will eventually become, or if it's referring to the growth of COVID-19, or if we're talking about the mass culling of our population and eventual rebuilding phase. Another common interpretation here is that something will begin, but that's pretty much as eerily ambiguous as the other.

Let's hope future generations aren't as irresponsible as we (collectively) have been.

As more and more cities go into Shelter-in-Place, I'm having moments throughout my day where Science Fiction interlopes my daily routines and shows me where we very well may be going. Remember, the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is Science Fiction is - in its purest form - fiction based on the extrapolation of current Scientific Knowledge/Method. In other words, the Orwells, RAW's, and Huxley's of the world - not to mention the Gilliams -  have been warning us for decades. My company announced today they are drafting official documents for us in the event of checkpoints being erected to control non-quarantine compliance. I heard this and couldn't help envision a scene cobbled together from various fictional sources I've consumed in my life: I pull up to a police or military checkpoint, lower my window, and hand a gas-mask wearing official my papers, which they check over and hand back.

Wow. Yeah, that is most likely where we are going.

**

Mindful Habitation:

It has never been my intention to make this blog political, primarily because there is no answer when it comes to politics. I detest both sides and long for the day when I can remove my support from either tired old institution we continue to placate. I thought that would be this year. Now - assuming we still have an election in November - I not only want Captain Hairdo out of office, I want to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity. Because all the other shit was bad, but not that different from what the other side does. Now though, we have a 'leader' who is very much responsible for not only the loss of human life on a grand scale, but what is looking like it will be the end of 'this great nation.' No, I'm blaming him for the existence of COVID-19. But when you follow his words and sentiment, you see where the irresponsibility sets in, and why I make such strong accusations.

Some things to think about are HERE and HERE. Don't dwell in there too long, and don't fall down the Twitter-hole, but these are the things to remember when/if we have an election in November. I would like to see these people Tried in a Court of Law for Crimes Against Humanity. The difference here is, if you compare to, for instance, when Nixon fell from grace, his supporters believed he wasn't guilty until his crimes were proven. In this day and age, people can see proven facts and simply refuse they are facts. This goes back to what I have been saying since the "Alternative Facts" bullshit that began post inauguration. There is no such thing as Alternative Facts. THIS is Orwell's 1984, where the state decides reality, and it's fucking terrifying.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Cynic - Textures: RIP Sean Reinert



Man, this was a blow. I don't know Sean Reinert's catalogue like some of my friends do, but from the moment I first heard this track on Cynic's 1993's debut Focus, I was floored. This was one of the first 'death metal' bands whose vocals didn't put me off, and also, whereas I normally didn't 'listen' to the drums on records like this, with Reinhert, at times that was all I could listen to.

**

Holy smokes! Over at Brooklyn Vegan, Andrew Sacher made my day by posting the news that 90s MetalCore group Deadguy appear to be reuniting. This is one show I will not miss live if they come through LaLa Land! Waaaay back in 1995, when Deadguy's first and only album Fixation On a Coworker came out on Victory Records, I happened to be a writer for southside Chicago music mag Subculture, and this album was sent to me for review. I loved it, and have loved it ever since, and now can't wait to see what more Deadly might have in store for us.

Read Sacher's full article HERE, and below is my favorite song off the album:




**

Playlist:

M83 - Knight + Heart OST
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
Me and That Man - Songs of
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

**

Card:


Motion, movement. Flow. Getting back into a stable, regular writing routine has worked wonders. Sometimes things stop your momentum cold, that's life. You just have to start back up again. It's all a Wheel.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

2019: August 27th - Pigface Reunion Tour!



Martin Atkins is taking Pigface out on the road! According to what I've been reading surrounding the announcement of this tour, it's been 15 years since the rotating line-up insanity that is Pigface toured; that both surprises me and does not. Surprises me, as when I trace fifteen years into the past it's not quite as far back as it feels like it should be (when did the tide line from subtracting 15 from the current date push up to almost the mid-00s?). Fails to surprise me when you consider Atkins - who I'm a fan of - stop beating the dead horse for all it's worth? Well, in the case of this recent tour, which you can read more about on Brooklyn Vegan HERE, the line-up is fantastic, and I'm definitely considering attending an eventual LA stop. That said, if there's one thing we all of us in this generation of music fans know, you can't go home again, so maybe I might just let this one slide by without thinking twice. We'll see how I feel when a venue is announced and tickets go on sale.

I saw Pigface in 1994 for Notes From the Underground, and it's hard to imagine placing another show atop that one in my memory. Three drummers - Danny Carey (yes, that Danny Carey), Atkins, and the Sugar Cubes Sigtryggur Balduron, plus Genesis P-Orridge, Charles Levi, Dirk Flanigan, En Esch, Lesley Rankine, Mary Byker, Chris Connelly, and who knows how many others. It's really hard to imagine even coming close to the magic that night. But maybe it's not about competing with that. I'd be more concerned that after all this time and the probable malaise that has set in, a subpar experience. I don't know, we'll see. I'm always overly skeptical about reunions; there have been fantastic ones, to be sure. But there have also been shite ones.

**

NCBD:

And another book I read comes to and end. Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science has been one hell of a ride. My recent initiative to re-read this one from the beginning stalled, but I'm hoping to get back on that this weekend. Don't want to read the finale until I've dug back through the entire series. There's sure to be many points of confluence/closure with what has come before.


And if City at War isn't hot enough already, issue 97 will most likely up the stakes exponentially as we near the conclusion of the first one hundred issues of the best reboot I've ever seen.


**

Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week continues with another more recent track, Big Words Make the Baby Jesus Cry, from the 2012 EP with the same name. As usual, fantastic social mockery from the Milkmen.



**

Playlist from 8/26:


Jeffrey Alan Jones - Most Beautiful Island
Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous
Moderat - II
The Ocean - Rhyacian: Untimely Meditations (2017 Version EP)
The Ocean - Precambrian
Sunn 0))) - Flight of the Behemoth

**

No card or spread today.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Drab Majesty Dot in the Sky


From the bad news of Miguel Ferrer's passing to good news: The Demonstration, the new album by Drab Majesty, drops tomorrow. You can still pre-order the vinyl (or CD) on Dais Records's website HERE. The full album is streaming on Brooklyn Vegan now and I recommend it very much. "Dot in the Sky" is the second track on the album and an immediate indication that The Demonstration - the follow-up to 2015's BRILLIANT album Careless  - will get just as much play from me in 2017 as Careless did last year.

I can't wait!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

How I Fell in Love w/ Screaming Females



I am not a fan of the original artist who does this song, however I have a feeling with Screaming Females performing it, they could make me like just about anything.

I always forget about AV undercover until something like this pops back onto my radar, this time via Brooklyn Vegan.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Full Live Set: Thee Oh Sees



Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for posting this. Thee Oh Sees live at LA's wonderful Echoplex last week. Within the first minute and a half of this video you can see just how much fun this show would have been to be at.

Friday, April 25, 2014

New Young Widows Track Streams

Via the mighty Brooklyn Vegan's Heavy Low Down - a very special Heavy Lowdown, as this is Metal editor/contributor Doug Moore's final dispatch as he moves on to focus his energies on other creative endeavors (read all about it and see their great Doug w/ Cats tribute here). I've enjoyed these Heavy Lowdowns - as I do most everything on the site - so though I hadn't really put a name to them until now I wish Doug the best and will miss his writings on one of my favorite music sites.

Young Widows really mine some interestingly original territory with their sound. This reminds me a bit of Brand New, but not overtly. There's often a sick kind of stilted, foggy slink to their sound, and I dig it.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Forêt's Amazing La cage video

Forêt - La cage [vidéoclip] from Simone Records on Vimeo.

Wow. Found this on Brooklyn Vegan earlier. First - there's a part of Pennsylvania where a 50 year old fire still burns under a labyrinth of mines? WHAT? Awesome! And finding out about via this great band from Montreal named Forêt who use this amazing imagery in simply stunning music video (and who sonically really itch the old school Stereolab fan scratch I've serendipitously been feeling of late - I broke out Transient Random Noise Bursts w/ Announcements for the first time in quite a while yesterday).

Read more about this on Brooklyn Vegan. And you can buy Forêt's music on their bandcamp, linked below.



Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Factory Floor - Turn it Up



I've flirted Factory Floor since I first heard their remix of Grinderman's "Evil" a few years ago. I dig most of what I hear them do, and they're one of the few groups that do remixes that always seem to offer something new. Well, I shouldn't say one of the few - one of the few I know of, that's better said. Anywho, I came across this new video on Brooklyn Vegan earlier and dug it - the tone and style of the visuals fits the music quite well.

Oh, and that Grinderman remix:

Monday, October 28, 2013

Hell Yeah New Mogwai!!!



No, not from Hoyt Axton for an early Christmas present, but from the awesome Scottish band! Via Brooklyn Vegan who has the new album's full track list and other essentials right HERE!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sandrider - Godhead



Last week Invisible Oranges debuted "Gorgon", a new song by Seattle band Sandrider. I missed this, caught it with the Brooklyn Vegan re-post this morning when I woke up hung over and needing something get the sludgified blood of three days of Chicago food - beef sandwiches and pizza and hot dogs and Goose Island beer - moving first thing on a Tuesday. Not only did Gorgon do the trick before I'd even had any coffee, I moved around and found some other tracks that tell me A) this is an album that needs to be purchased IMMEDIATELY for my constant listening pleasure and B) this is going to be big.

Above is Sandrider playing a full set compliments of Seattle's KEXP - a fantastic radio station that has some great streaming available. However, I strongly recommend hitting either that IO or BV link above and hearing the studio version of Gorgon, along with all other pertinent information about Godhead, due 11/19 on Good to Die Records. Kinda feeling about Sandrider the way I felt about High on Fire and Trailer Hitch the first time I heard them back in the day...



Monday, August 26, 2013

Rituals - Our Blood



I like this quite a bit. Brooklyn Vegan has the whole record by Rituals streaming if you go here. Or just go to the band's label One Big Silence's soundcloud.

Some of the colors and editing techniques used here, juxtaposed with very simple imagery create a nice antithesis to all the overblown hype that I unfortunately haven't been able to avoid swimming around the more mainstream aspects of the music industry. Rituals seems to exist deliciously on the fringe of that industry - the fringe of even the underground of that industry. That's the thing - by now even the underground has been assimilated and is a copy of a copy of a copy. That's why it takes sites like Heavenisanincubator and Brooklyn Vegan to help see what else is out there. I'm not saying all major industry stuff is bad - I did just post a doc about Passion Pit before this - but a lot of it is and sometimes even the good stuff therein surrender to spectacle making just for the sake of spectacle making.

image via the band's soundcloud

Friday, August 9, 2013

Midlake - Antiphon



Midlake's singer left last year and now we get this - great job carrying on gentlemen! More info here on the mighty Brooklyn Vegan!

Thursday, August 8, 2013

New Nothing Track Dig



Via Brooklyn Vegan. Nothing came on my radar a couple months back with the Downward Years to Come EP which you can download for a paltry $5 on their bandcamp (do so - it's an amazing EP with shades of both The Raveonettes and M83. Plus you'll be supporting a great band). Really looking forward to their forthcoming full length, on Relapse no less. More info on BRVGN here.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Windhand - Woodbine



I've never heard Windhand before, but I saw the album cover on Brooklyn Vegan here and had to know if it sounded like it looks. It does. What's more, from the opening note of this track I knew I loved it. Then the vocals kicked in and I REALLY LOVED it. Spectral, thick and heavy but melodic. Reminds me a little of The Work Which Transforms God-era Blut Aus Nord (the vocals more than anything else) meets Electric Wizard. Really cool. Here's the trailer for the album out soon on Relapse, and if you hit that BV link up top there's some more information on that always awesome site!

Monday, July 22, 2013

New Jesu in September, New Pale Sketcher NOW!!!



Well, I received some bad news today in the form of an old friend passing away. Not someone I knew terribly well - he was an older guy who was a regular at the bar I tended in Chicago from 2001 to 2006. Every year when I go home to Chicago he's one of the few that I see. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but I loved the guy. A lot.

Well, I walked in the house dreary from the news and when I fired up the old Com-pu-ter Brooklyn Vegan helped take the edge off by posting some fucking awesome news:

New Jesu record out on September 24th. And the title hit home: Every Day I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came. Leave it to Mr. Justin K. Broadrick - the guy's a legend for all the right reasons. Along with this BV dropped news of a new Pale Sketcher over on that particular Broadrick project's bandcamp. Here's one of them, go to the Vegan page for more of the particulars and hit the bandcamp full throttle for more Broadrick tunes.

Monday, July 15, 2013

New Jucifer via Brooklyn Vegan



Ahhh Jucifer... I discovered them when I heard the track Amplifier on Chicago's St Xavier University radio station (that's 88.3 if you're licking) back in the early oughts. Amplifier is irresistible 90's pop rock that kinda plays like the girls from Veruca Salt* singing for Nirvana. (though it came out in 2002). Here, in case you haven't heard it, take a moment to indulge:



Anyway, I picked up that record, I Name You Destroyer and the entire thing is just great. Very eclectic approach for a two-piece. Next came a copy of their first record, Calling All cars on the Vegas Strip.
image courtesy of spirit-of-metal.com
 I talked them up to a bunch of friends and took them to see the band at Chicago's Bottom Lounge (in its old location as since I've lived there I believe they've moved). What we saw was totally different then the record. It was... metal. I mean, three-fingers-up-and-two-down rock lock metal. This was totally different then the recorded material I'd heard thus far.

Then I bought the E.P. Lambs and I began to understand.

Since then Jucifer's sound has congealed into a more coherent whole that synthesizes their 'live' sound and the benefits of multi-tracking in the studio. And because of this it's gotten better. Then a brief departure in 2010 with Throned in Blood which, from my few listens to it, stands as an amazing testament to old school, nineties metal. It's good, and once again it's hard to imagine that much sound comes from just two people. Then again, when you see their stage set-up, it begins to make sense.

image courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan
Anyway, Brooklyn Vegan ran an article about the forthcoming next album by the band, released next week and entitled за волгой для нас земли нет and I'm excited. Go to the Vegan here to read the full article and see the bizarre album trailer as well.

..........
*Not totally into what the 'Salt did, however their voices combined in a way that was very, very hot.