Black Monolith

I see Kingo is posting weird music, so I will post metal. I need to find some more weird stuff though, but for now: BLACK MONOLITH - Passenger. This album is another slab of black metal crust from the bay area, where the weather seems to be nice, but the music is full of doom. See Monuments Collapse for another example. This album is pay what you want (including zero) for the rest of this weekend. get it folks, then sit back with a pudding cup and shoot spitballs at your ceiling.

YAITW

You can get this awesome slab of sludgey blackened metal for 30% using code DWDEAL530. do it.

Take as Needed for Pain

Some southern sludge from your Sunday. RIP Joey LaCaze. Turn it up loud and rock the fuck out.

Every time I post something like this I'm reminded that I need to find more weird stuff to put on here, that's how pile began and that is still part of its focus. I've just been in the mood for heavy aggro stuff this summer. I promise I'll find some stuff with a russian guy playing the ukelele backwards into a reel-to-reel while slot machines ping and plink in the background.

Curse - The Interview

http://cursebaltimore.com/

On a rainy day at the end of June I had the extreme pleasure to take part in, experience, be blown away by San Francisco's Deafheaven as they toured for their brilliant new record Sunbather. This isn't about them though. This isn't about their awesome opening act Marriages either. This is about the band I didn't even know was on the bill. I was only expecting two bands for my $12, but when we got there I saw that a band from Baltimore called Curse would be opening the show. They were an unexpected surprise. The two of them came out , just drums and keyboards, and ripped through a set that was heavier than I thought possible for just drums and keyboards. Metal minus guitars. Logan was kind enough to talk to me for a few minutes later in the evening and even sign their CD for me. Also, they played a show in a cave. That's about as metal as you can get. I asked Logan and Jane a few questions and here's what they had to say:

You can listen to their record while you read!



The Drawer: How did you guys meet and how long have you been playing in bands?
 
Jane: Baltimore is such a close knit scene, we just knew each other from putting on and playing shows. Logan and I started dating in the fall of 2011, and started playing music together soon after. Both of us have been in bands since our early teens, so for me, that’s more than half my life now.

The Drawer: So, how long have you guys been playing together?


Jane: We’ve been playing together since November 2011. We wanted to see how it worked if we played music together, so we rented a lodge in Rhode Island--no running water, tons of animal heads everywhere, the whole bit--brought up all our instruments, and wrote our first song, which was a good thing, because I’d already booked us on a fest in Miami in February. We spent the next few months in high gear-we booked
a tour to Miami and back and had a demo and, you know, songs and a set, by the time we left.


The Drawer: What's the song writing process like for Curse, or maybe the better question would be what instrument do you write most of you stuff on?

J: We usually start with a sequence-both electronic drums and synthesizers. Sometimes I start this and sometimes Logan starts this, but Logan more often than me. Then Logan writes his synth and drum parts, and then we work of the bass line on the Juno, and then we do vocals last. The bones really start on the computer though.



The Drawer: What are some of your favorite local acts?

Jane: There’s a lot of great bands in Baltimore! There’s an awesome atmospheric black metal band called Barbelith that are really heavy but super ethereal. There’s also this bizarre and amazing band called Baklavaa that are sort of an updated emo violence band--sort of like Usurp Synapse or Jerome’s Dream if the songs were long and went a lot of weird places.

The Drawer: How is the heavy music scene in Baltimore, and do you feel like you fit in, do you want to fit in?

J: Baltimore has a very vibrant weird music scene, and I think we benefit from that. Some scenes seem to have a lot of trouble with heavy music that doesn’t follow a specific formula, but Baltimore’s used to seeing people try out new ideas and new configurations. It’s great to be part of a scene like that. Sometimes, a scene means a lot of samey things, or people just imitating one or two bands, and that happens a little here, but mostly Baltimore is full of interesting musicians trying interesting things. It’s a magnet for musicians, because it’s cheap, there’s a lot of places to play and community support, and it’s close to other bigger cities if you want to tour.


The Drawer: What kind of press, if any are you getting down there?

J: We have one major alternative weekly, the Citypaper, and they’ve been really good to us from the start and have been really nice about covering the things we do. One of the writers picked up our demo from the True Vine (one of our favorite Baltimore record stores) when we’d only been a band for about 2 months, and they’ve covered most of what we do ever since.


The Drawer: When I saw you guys opening for Marriages and Deafheaven I was pretty surprised at how heavy just drums and a keyboard could sound. How did you guys decided to perform as a two piece? Have you considered bringing in someone to play guitar for the live shows?
 
Jane: Being a two piece is just an easy way to do a band. Just having 2 people means it's easy to have the same goals, coordinate schedules, etc, but you still have a collaborator to bounce ideas off of and inspire you and do half the work and pay for half the van repairs and so on. 

As far as adding a guitar player live, we like making something really heavy without guitars. We really believe in, you know, making it new, and playing metal with no guitars means you're already different from most bands.


The Drawer: Where did you come up with the idea to screen print your logo on sort of thrift store clothes? That's a pretty cool idea.

Jane: It just seemed like a way to expand the appeal of the things we make. It makes the merch more interactive, because you get to dig through this big suitcase of clothes and you come up with something one of a kind, that no one else has. It also means hopefully there is something for everyone, or at least a chance to include more people than those who like medium through XL black shirts. Or, maybe you don’t like band shirts at all, but you’re cool with band leggings. I screen all our shirts myself in the basement, and making some wacky ones makes it less monotonous. Plus, the shirts are cheap, and they’re fun to shop for!


The Drawer: Do you have a way of describing how Curse sounds? It's certainly heavy, but there are also sort of dancey parts thrown in there on the keyboard.

J: We’ve both been in heavy and weird bands for a long time, but also listen to a lot of pop music, as well as a lot of less poppy electronic music. This band is sort of a combination of those interests. People have called us coldwave doom, which I thought was pretty accurate.


The Drawer: You have a limited CD-R album out now that's also available on digitally on bandcamp. I think the art/packaging and homemade aspect of your CD-R is great. How do you feel about physical media vs digital? Personally I like to have something tangible.

J: I think both are valuable. I love having a beautiful object I can hold in my hands, and I love searching through record stores for something rare or special. However, I think it’s a wonderful thing that we live in a world with this other, easier option, and a format that’s so easy to share. I grew up finding out about music through zines and record stores and shows, and I think that’s a valuable, but I grew up in a big city with lots of opportunities to find out about music. It seems like everything is so much more democratic now. A kid who grows up in a tiny isolated town, or doesn’t have any disposable income for the record store has access to a lot more music than they used to.


The Drawer: What has influenced what you guys are doing, and what stuff are you listening to now?

J: I’ve been in heavy bands since I was 14, and the main thing that’s influenced me has probably been the other people I’ve played with, and other bands those bands have toured with, and things like that.Lately, I’ve been listening to Master, We Perish by the Body, the Portland band Fist Fite, my friend Andy pointed me towards this amazing Norwegian black metal band Kvist, and I’m having sort of a PJ Harvey moment, and lots of pop music from your David Guettas to your Taylor Swifts.



The Drawer: What the best show you've ever played?
 
J: We’ve played a lot of really good shows and really bad shows, but Ithink one of the all time weirdest I’ve ever played was last year in Rapid City. I texted a friend of mine a few days before we were planning on taking a day off there and asked her if she still had her vintage store, and if she wanted to hang out. She wrote me back with, “Yeah, I still have the store, I own a cave now, and we can go in it,and if you wanna get lunch I would totally be free to do that!” When I asked her to back up and explain what the hell she meant by “I own a cave and we can go in it” she simply informed me that she has shows in the cave too, and we should play there. Of course, I said yes, and she sent me the address - on Nameless Cave Road. I still had no idea what she meant when she said she owned a cave. When we got to Nameless Cave Road, there were billboards for a now defunct attraction called Crystal Cave. Turns out she had bought a tourist trap: an 1100 foot long cave covered with quartz crystals, plus a gift shop, petrified garden, and some teepees. She’s in the process of building a house above it. The cave itself is incredible: It has a ton of rooms, and 2little waterfalls, and a human skull in it, which Natasha nonchalantly explained had belonged to an explorer who died in there. We played in the gift shop at the mouth of the cave. It was totally awesome.

The Drawer: What did you think of Deafheaven?

Jane: I loved their set, and they were really nice guys. A lot of times you play with a bigger band like that and they don’t watch your set and they don’t talk to you, which I’m not offended by, it’s just normal. They were really outgoing and introduced themselves right away and watched our set and answered all sorts of dumb questions from us and generally were just shockingly nice.


The Drawer: If you could play with anyone, anyone, in a dream tour, who would it be? 

J: We have tickets to see Ke$ha in August. It’d be ideal if we could finish out the tour with her.


There you have it. Curse are currently putting together a fall tour and hope to have a new record ready to go by then. If you get a chance check these guys out. You can get their record right here.

You can also find their demo on bandcamp as a Name Your Own Price download.

I'd suggest shelling out the cash for a copy of their cd-r if you like what you hear. The art is extremely well done, printed on a heavy silver and black cardstock and there's a lyric sheet/poster included.

People Like Us - The Interview

People Like Us enjoy coffee and living rooms.

So a few weeks ago I had the extreme luck and pleasure to stumble across a nifty little band from Canada called People Like Us. I think I was just searching bandcamp for prog rock or prog metal or maybe just prog, and two album covers, you'll get to learn more about them below, really caught my eye. I decided to click on one of the covers and spend some time listening. Initially I was pretty floored at what I was hearing. People Like Us are a blend of progressive post hardcore and metal, with complex song structures and a surprising amount of melody and harmony. They sound like a mix of Protest The Hero and Coheed and Cambria, which is a good combination if you ask me. In mid-May these guys released two albums, A Nightmare and The Royals for FREE, or pay what you want via Bandcamp. They were kind enough to conduct an email interview with me. I encourage you to go grab those albums immediately, turn them up, and then read my interview with the guys from People Like Us.


The Drawer: How long has people like us been together in it's current form?

PLU: This 5 member lineup has been running strong since about 2010, so 3 years. Two current members, singer Shane and guitarist Bradley branched out from the founding band Cellar Door adding drummer Benjamin around 2006 and later bringing in guitarist Jordan and bassist Mark in 2010.

The Drawer: Where are you guys from/currently located?

PLU: We are all originally from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Bradley and Benjamin are brothers, and they met Shane and Mark way back in elementary school (we’re talking 1995 here). Jordan came into the picture in our high school days and currently members are spread out over Burlington, Toronto, Waterloo, and even sometimes California.

The Drawer: You recently released two sort of longish EPs A Nightmare and The Royals via bandcamp. First off, why two releases at the same time? It seems like there was enough material for just one record, but you guys broke it up, why?

PLU: The reason we have them split up into two EPs is because they are each their own story. Both were recorded and released together, and their respective artworks were designed to match in order to give them the appearance of a double album.

The Drawer: The song titles seem to suggest that there might be a concept behind both records. Can you give me any insight into what A Nightmare, and The Royals are about?

PLU: Yes, the two EPs are each a six-song short story. Here’s a brief overview of the concepts:

A Nightmare is about a man who is unsatisfied with his daily life and finds more enjoyment in his dreams. He approaches a Doctor for help and the Doctor’s interest and curiosity leads him to take his experiments a little too far. This collection of songs includes a peculiar love story that details the patient’s dreams and nightmares from the perspective of both doctor and patient.

The Royals is set in a society that has been plagued with corruption throughout all of history. Finally, one citizen decides to stand up and make a change. He forms The Deathmachine: a collection of fellow citizens whose goal is to start a revolution by kidnapping The King. Little did they know that The King was merely a puppet to The Advisor: a dark, malicious man. As the Deathmachine attempts to change history, things do not go according to plan.

The Drawer: Over what kind of time period were the records written? Was there a process of "hey guys, let's make a record." or did you just sort of come in with a bunch of material already written?

PLU: Unfortunately, making music is not yet our full time job so the exact timeline is a bit fuzzy, but a few songs from A Nightmare date back to 2006. Our new line up in 2010 really kick started the band into writing mode and inspired us to revamp the old songs and gave birth to our second album. The 12 songs we’ve just released were completely written by 2011 when recording began.

The Drawer: Is people like us a collaborative thing or is there sort of one driving force behind the song writing? Walk me through the process for putting together a song.

PLU: Getting into the second half of The Royals EP the writing became very collaborative. This is when the chemistry of the current lineup literally caused an explosion. Prior to this it was mostly Bradley and Benjamin writing the musical arrangements of the songs while vocalist Shane wrote the majority of the lyrics and concepts. But with all the rewriting, revamping, and rearranging of the older songs throughout the demoing process it is hard to look at a song and remember who did what, so we just credit all songs as written by People Like Us.

The Drawer: You made the records available for free/pay what you like. Was that a tough decision and why did you choose to basically give the records away?

PLU: This was not a tough decision at all, we just feel it’s better that we get heard and get our music out there making it as easy as possible for the listeners (and especially our friends and family). We’re proud of what we’ve made and we want people to hear it, if they think it’s worth something then they can pay what they want, but we don’t want to lose any listeners because of a price.

The Drawer: I stumbled across you guys on bandcamp just searching for prog rock or something. How large of a role does your internet presence play in what you're trying to do as a band?

PLU: At the moment the internet is our most important tool, next to our instruments of course. The fact that you were able to find us, hear us, liked us, and are now blogging about us is incredible. Having access to all these free tools like BandCamp for distributing music, and Youtube for presenting our music videos makes it really easy for new independent bands like us to be heard around our country, and apparently outside our country too!

The Drawer: Are there any plans to make physical copies of A Nightmare, The Royals available?

PLU: We have said all along that if enough people want them, then we’ll make them. Be it CDs, or vinyl, we’ll take on the cost to get them made if people are interested. Right now we’re just starting with the free online digital-only distribution to get out there and get the interest we need to be able to make the physical copies.

The Drawer: How do you feel about digital vs. physical media? If it were up to you would you rather someone hear your record on vinyl or cd as opposed to an mp3 file or does it even matter as long as someone is listening?

As we mentioned earlier, to us it is most important that people get to hear these songs we are so proud of, but obviously we’d love for people to get the full physical experience of holding our album art in their hands and placing the needle down on the vinyl. Physical media is really special to us, all of us enjoy all types of art other than just music: Shane being a photographer specializing in film photos, Bradley and Jordan being graphic artists, Mark having a large film and vinyl collection, and Benjamin being on the iPhone/iPod design team at Apple. In fact, both album covers are physical collages made from bits of magazines that are glued together and photographed. It took forever to find that perfect vulture head for the Royals cover, we couldn’t believe it when we finally found that guy! To drive home our love for physical media, as we sit here typing these responses we are drawing a poster for an upcoming show using crayons. We just love making homemade things ourselves.

The Royals Cover, featuring the perfect vulture head.

 

A Nightmare Cover

The Drawer: When I listen to your records I'm reminded of groups like Protest The Hero, Coheed and Cambria and even early Thursday, I guess the whole "progressive post hardcore" melange. So, who has influenced you stylistically and do you mind being compared to bands like the ones listed above?

PLU: We are honoured and amazed that you picked out our two favourite bands from listening to us! Or maybe that’s a bad thing, maybe we just stole their songs entirely... But to add to the list of bands influencing us we would say The Fall of Troy, RX Bandits, Tera Melos, Boys Night Out, The Darkness, and Rush along with the obvious two of Coheed and Protest. We all agree that a song with a typical pop-structure is just not fulfilling enough and does not fuel our musical A.D.D. as we call it. We like to explore time changes, and tempo changes, and genre changes, and instrument changes as much as we can to keep ourselves from being bored.

The Drawer: What are you guys listening to at the moment? Any albums you just can't get away from?

PLU: Ourselves. That’s why we made it! You’ve got to be your own biggest fan, right? But seriously...We’ll break this one down member by member for you.

Bradley: Drugs to the Dear Youth - Tera Melos

Benjamin: Everything Under the Sun - Jukebox the Ghost

Jordan: The Afterman: Descension - Coheed and Cambria

Shane: 20/20 Experience - Justin Timberlake

Mark: Stay What You Are - Saves the Day

The Drawer: Are you associated with a label, looking for one, or content to self release stuff?

PLU: We are not associated with a label at the moment. We’re not actively looking either, but the kid in all of us does want to be a real band, on a real label, and live the dream the proper rockstar way. But for now we are content to self release stuff and continue with our homemade/do-it-yourself mentality towards everything we do.

The Drawer: Are you currently touring or are there any plans to tour behind the records in the works?

PLU: We’ve been playing as many shows as possible in the Greater Toronto Area since the release of our albums. Not really a tour per-say, but we’re just working on gathering local interest. However, an experience like this, with being found online has made us start to think about the possibilities of gaining popularity in other cities. We all are definitely looking forward to one day hitting the road with our music.

The Drawer: If you could tour with anyone currently living who would it be?

PLU: If we could tour with Coheed and Cambria that would be unbelievable! Like, did you see that recent biker crowd surfing video from the Coheed show?! That’d be fantastic. If we’re really dreaming big it’d even be a three way lineup of Coheed, Protest the Hero, and us!

The Drawer's Note -  I would totally go to that tour because there are never enough Coheed shows.

Speed round: Brought to you by Pizza, Coffee, and Tera Melos

Favorite album: Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV Vol. 1: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness - Coheed and Cambria (Another note from Me: This might also be my favorite record, I think these PLU guys are pretty smart.)
favorite food: Pizza - every band practice has pizza.. and coffee..
favorite movie: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
favorite book: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
favorite zoo animal: Elephant
favorite amp: Orange amps are cool
favorite place to play: Any house party / outdoor bonfire

There you have it. Please check these guys out, especially if you're into story driven prog metal, both albums are concepts, or short stories as the band described it. They deserve to be heard by more people.

 Also, if you're going to be in the Toronto area June 21st, go check out their show, they'll be playing

June 21 at 10:00pm Moser's Patio & Grill in Burlington, Ontario.

Here's the aforementioned  hand drawn flyer:

  You can find more info on their facebook page.

Fun with mirrors.

Pandas - Maximum Fucking Tenderness

 

Pandas are from Baltimore, MD. Here's how they describe their sound: "It’s like punk, but with more musicianship. Maybe it’s actually prog, but prog that never went to Berkeley. Then again,maybe it’s metal, but without all the spiky leather. Or perhaps it’s hardcore, but more Greg Ginn and less Jamey Jasta."

'Maximum Fucking Tenderness' is a quick little four track EP that packs in the heaviness. I kind of feel like this might be what Between The Buried and Me would sound like if they were a punk band and had fewer break neck time changes.  Check them out on Bandcamp.



Feels like I've been posting too much mainstream sort of rock stuff lately so I'm going to follow this up with something weird.

Sky Burial

From the label site:
"Featuring members of Dawn, Karoshi, and Sacaea, it was only natural for us to host the first release of Nashville's Sky Burial. Within their 1st year of playing shows Sky Burial has wasted no time making their presence known. Utilizing 2 drummers, they break down the limiting barriers of cliches and explore the possibilities of what having an extra drummer can bring to a band. Incredible melodies are laced throughout 3 compositions, with excellent precision, only to lead into crushing heaviness, sparsely decorated with well thought out lyrics of self betterment and hope."

So far I am really digging this one.  You can donate what you want or download it for free here.

Demovangelis - The Duty of 3 in 1

Picked this up from  the artist himself handing them out from a shoebox on the street. Outsider Prog Metal? Maybe. This guy records all his stuff one instrument at a time on a portastudio in his apartment. I think the guitars are real, but everything else sounds like a keyboard or drum machine. The guy has talent, his arrangements are at times complex and crazy. If you're up for a weird adventure with slight biblical overtones (ok, there's more than a slight amount of Jesus is great here) that sort of sounds like what might happen if the guy that writes all the Iron Maiden songs lived alone in an apartment, did a lot of drugs, and recorded everything with keyboard then this is the adventure for you.

I'll try to get the cover and liner notes posted too.

d/l (vbr zip)

or visit the archive.org page

or stream it:

Kustodian

it's fucking HEAVY and free and a little bit odd. 80 ton riffs mixed with samples and random yelling. Okay.

download it from bandcamp

Dusty Grimm is Sensless

Came across this on archive.org. This guy or group, Dusty Grimm, recorded this thing from something called national solo album writing month and put it out in '09. The second track, Little Forest, is an incredibly weird and well done mix of 60's sounding English Folk, indie music, and blast beating death metal. So this is a pretty cool thing I think. Only has 137 downloads. That should go up a bit.

d/l (vbr mp3 .zip)

or Stream it below


and here's his 2010 submission for the same deal - NightGrooves



d/l (vbr mp3 .zip)


Stream