#i dig 2017 noel so much

[lonely-soul-02]

I found it weird how obsessed Sara and Noel were with lieam from 2017 onwards like they would watch him on TV and listen to his music just to slate it, maybe the only thing they had in common in the end was Liam

There might be some truth to that. Noel has always been obsessed with his brother and vice versa so that's not new. Sara became obsessed because, I'm guessing, Liam was obsessed with letting her and everyone else know how much he disapproved of her. Even last year, after the divorce announcement he had to have the final dig, calling her a witch. It was a very strange triangle. I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of that one.

#gallagher ask

[glymphatics]

(insp)

#there is no lie #noel fielding #inspired by a howl pendragon post #bc he is the #animated version of vince noir #teehee #the great british bake off #the great british baking show #gbbo #british comedy #meme #i dig 2017 noel so much #myposts

[dailytomlinson]

“There were times I struggled to find my place in the band,” Louis admits today.

But it’s often the quiet ones you’ve got to look out for.

Behind the scenes he was very much centre stage: Louis was the mouthpiece, constantly fighting the boys’ corner and acting as chief negotiator between band and management.

“Being from Doncaster,” he says, “I’ve never had a problem with telling anyone ‘no’.”

“There was a while when I was worried I was getting left behind – some of the boys are on to their second album now,” he says, taking a draw onthe first of several cigarettes. “At times, I’ve been swimming against the tide, working out who I am. I was trying to find a way back into the industry, thinking of it mathematically rather than going off feeling and emotion.” 

He’s referring to collaborations with Bebe Rexha and Steve Aoki in 2016 and 2017 respectively, which, although successful, weren’t where his heart lay. With Kill My Mind – the exhilarating ’90s-inspired opening track of the album Walls – he sets his stall out with a clear departure from anything he’s done before.

Walls is about regret, reflection and ultimately, hope, and feels like Louis, who sings in his still-broad Doncaster accent, has finally found his voice.

“I’ve always wanted to be autobiographical and honest. And in the last six months the songs I’ve written and recorded are of a better standard because there’s an honesty there,” he says.

Honesty certainly characterises the album, sometimes devastatingly so. There’s no escaping the fact that Louis, 28, has faced unimaginable pain over the last few years.

“It wasn’t until after I’d written it that I realised how much vulnerability I’d put in there,” he says. “When I first performed it… I had fans coming up to me in tears telling me their stories, and that’s not something I’ve ever had before. And to do it on that level about something so delicate… It was really cool to take something so dark and make people feel like that.

“I had to get a song like that off my chest. It was difficult writing about things that felt trivial compared to what was going on in my life. There was, I think, a necessity to write that song before I could move on creatively.”

Understandably, Louis won’t talk specifically about Félicité. But when asked about how grief has shaped him both as a man and an artist, he pays tribute to Jay.

“I think it’s a credit to how my mum brought me up that I have a resilience,” he says. “There’s nothing I want less than to have people feel sorry for me, so having that mentality has helped me through the hardest of times.

"I’ve also felt a real support system through my fans. I’d always felt it on a lower level, but when it’s something so impactful and life-defining, I really did feel it from them.”

Days after Jay’s death, Louis appeared live on The X Factor to perform Just Hold On with Aoki.

He was clearly in pieces and it was hard enough just watching, but somehow he held it together, presumably thanks again to that resilience.

“Sometimes it’s fight or flight,” Louis explains. “And the way I was brought up and because of where I’m from, I only see one option in that situation. I also wanted to put myself second and do it for my mum.

"That moment was bigger than me and it was actually incredibly liberating. It used every bit of strength and power and I look back on that performance as one of the proudest moments of my career.”

He says he tends not to suppress emotion and is able to share his darkest points with those he’s closest to.

But as the eldest of Jay’s seven children (five girls and two boys), he also feels a huge weight of responsibility towards his younger siblings and hasn’t had any professional therapy himself.

“No, no, nothing like that. That might be down to a bit of Northern pride, but I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and that drives me. I’ve got siblings who look up to me and I’ve got my grandparents as well. So all those things keep my head screwed on.

“My mum had a massive influence on me and I lived with a lot of sisters in the house, so I do find it easier to speak about my emotions. But I’m also from Doncaster, where to be a guy is to be tough and traditional and I feel like [there are] times where pride kicks in and I just say I’m all right.

"I’m lucky that I’ve got good people around me who I can trust and who I can be completely vulnerable with and say how I feel. Nine times out of 10, I don’t bottle things up. I wear my heart on my sleeve.”

They sold 20 million albums worldwide, earning over £40million each, but the pressures of fame were, at times, intolerable. Louis says they were only able to keep their heads screwed on because they had each other.

“You can never be prepared for that. It was such a head f**k. But we grounded each other so the minute one of us acted like a d**khead one of the others would say: ‘Stop being a d**khead’. I see people in this job surrounding themselves with superiority and they lose the concept of the real world.”

He remembers doing a shoot with the band for Pepsi over in the States with American footballer Drew Brees.

“This guy was like a god and we were insignificant when he was around, which we understood. But I’ve never seen anything like it. Every sentence that came out of his mouth he’d have an audience of hangers-on in hysterics.

"These people were so far up his arse and he didn’t have one good joke. He had no banter! I still hang around with my boys from Doncaster and I hear real stories all the time, which helps me understand the world that unfortunately I don’t get to see. Having empathy with people and a connection with the world is imperative for any songwriter.”

Harry Styles recently said that he never touched drugs during his time in the band (although he’s made up for that since), because he didn’t want to “mess it up”. Louis smiles as he confides that he can’t say the same.

“All I’ll say is that I did my fair share and enjoyed my time in the band. It’s right what Harry said and it was smart of him, but I definitely had a lot of fun in the band. I was always aware of how amazing the opportunity was, but also enjoying the moment for what it was. I lived like anyone else my age – the difference was that I was in One Direction.”

He’s in touch with Harry, Niall and Liam “sporadically” (we’ll come to Zayn shortly), but they’re all on very different paths for now.

“If we all went to a pub tomorrow it’d be like we’d never left. The enormity of what happened in One Direction creates a massive bond and we’ll always have that.

"There have been times when we’ve done each other’s heads in. There might be something I say in an interview that bugs Liam or vice versa, but we all know what each other is like and we can call each other up and say sorry for being a d**k. We’re like brothers.”

But that’s not necessarily the case with Zayn, who quit in 2015 and with whom Louis has had a turbulent relationship since. He was hurt when Zayn was the only one not to turn up at the X Factor studio to support him through his performance after Jay’s death, despite promising to be there.

Then there’s Zayn’s apparent repeated digs. In one interview he branded 1D’s music “generic as f**k”. There’s a difference between making a break from the past and dismissing it completely, and it’s a line Zayn perhaps hasn’t always managed to walk.

“Hmm,” agrees Louis, cautiously. “Other than maybe Niall, there is no one who is prouder of the band and the songs we created than me. But while what I did with One Direction is relevant, it doesn’t define who I am and I don’t struggle to make that dissociation.”

Does he think some of what Zayn has said has been disrespectful?

“Yeah, I do. But I can understand it. We have a lot of situations where we’re sat in interviews and if you’re in a certain mood you might run your mouth. The older you get the more you can tell if these things actually carry any malice or if they’re just a prod in the back. That’s life, innit? Sometimes people chat s**t and that’s the reality.”

He’s not ruling out resolving their differences in the future, but there’s no olive branch on the horizon.

“No, but I’ve not actively tried. We’ve all got a lot on our plates and there might be a day where I wake up and think: ‘OK, I want to right that wrong’, but not yet.”

After being in his company for a while, it’s not hard to see why Louis was 1D’s driving force backstage. He’s thoughtful, articulate, open and self-aware, but there’s a steeliness to him and the requisite pop-star swagger, which doesn’t seem to spill over into arrogance.

And that is reflected in his music, which is heavily influenced by the Arctic Monkeys, The Smiths and Oasis. In fact, the title track and latest single Walls sounds so similar to Oasis B-side and fans’ favourite Acquiesce that Louis’ manager flagged it as a potential issue.

“These kinds of things happen. There are only so many melodies you can write and if you listen to a band all the time like I do with Oasis…”

Anyway, says Louis. He had to make a choice.

“I was ready to risk it, but everyone said we should get in touch with Noel [Gallagher] so we did. Often the industry, and especially Noel’s world, can be a bit snobby and say: ‘F**k you you’re not using this song’. But he was really cool about it, signed it off no problem and although I’m sure he’s not happy about this, I f**king am, I’ve got a writing credit from Noel Gallagher on my album. That is some sick s**t so I’m buzzing.”

Is he nervous about going it alone? “I think I’ve got a good record so I’m confident. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t little bit nervous – there’s three and half years work gone into it so there’s a level of anticipation.”

The most overwhelming emotion though, is relief.

“Because it’s taken such a long time. I’m excited to go on to the next phase of my career.”

#louis tomlinson #tw death #020220 #wpress #tw drug #fizzy tomlinson #the sun #fabulous magazine #im tired alrady #stunt mention #i cleared it up

[mysterioustransmissions]

My favorite comics of 2017

Keeping with my new tradition of posting this list super late, here, on the last day of 2018, is my best comics of 2017 list. I can offer excuses -- my wife and I remodeled our house and welcomed our first child into the world this year, and I’m also unfailingly lazy -- but 2017 was also a killer year for comics, making this a bit larger of an undertaking than usual. Both Koyama Press and co-publishers Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics had absolutely stacked lineups. You’ll see them listed as publisher for many entries below.

I always struggle with how to order this list. I got serious about organizing my comics collection in 2018, and am running into the same problem. There, I’m thinking of dividing it into two -- a single-author section organized by author name (which ends up being mostly minicomics and graphic novels), and a multiple-author section organized by title (which ends up being mostly traditional-sized comics). Here, I’m essentially doing that same thing, but mixing them together; some entries are by title, and some author name.

Comics I especially enjoyed are marked with an *.

Allison, Matthew; Cankor: Calamity of Challenge #2 and #3 (self-published).

Berserker 1, edited by edited by Tom Oldham and Jamie Sutcliffe (Breakdown Press). There was a lot of anticipation and very specific expectations placed on this book ahead of its release, but no one seemed to walk away from the finished product satisfied. But it’s got a killer cover, great production design, and strips by some of the best cartoonists going. I hope Breakdown does another one.

* Booth, Tara; How to be Alive (Retrofit Comics & Big Planet Comics). One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Booth’s drawings are a riot to look at, that the gags are also great is pure gravy. About as big as crossover hits get in my house. (I.e., my wife also loved it.)

Cardini, William; Tales From the Hyperverse (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics). Cardini’s sci-fi world is made bigger and more engaging by the rapid-fire pace of this short story collection. His wild experimentation with color is always an inspiration.

Corben, Richard; Shadows on the Grave #1 - #8 (Dark Horse Comics). Not my favorite of Corben’s late-period Dark Horse horror books, but there’s plenty to enjoy. I was stunned by the sheer efficiency of the storytelling -- there are entire stories told with a single image and a few word balloons. A lot of these books sport great covers, issue #1 here, seen at the link for this entry, is one of the best.

Darrow, Geoff; The Shaolin Cowboy: Who’ll Stop the Reign? #1 - #4 with Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics). I was so bowled over by the experience of buying Shemp Buffet monthly that I initially scoffed at Cowboy’s return to more traditional narrative, but it turned out to be no less wild and no loss at all.

Davis, Eleanor; Libby’s Dad (Retrofit Comics & Big Planet Comics) and You & a Bike & a Road (Koyama Press). You & a Bike & a Road does something that’s often attempted and rarely successful -- it beats the audience down so it can then lift them up higher. Its success is due in no small part from its origin as a real-life journal. The visceral and emotional pain Davis feels on her journey is sincerely felt, and the lack of cynicism the storytelling choices are made with allow the reader to feel it whole cloth. And listen; it certainly doesn’t hurt that Davis is an amazing narrative storyteller besides -- Libby’s Dad is no less affecting.

DeForge, Michael; mini kuš! #43 'Meat Locker' (kuš!). I sleep on DeForge. I take him for granted. I feel like I’m not the only one? I see some excitement when his books come out, but no discussion. Blame it on the high volume and opaque nature of his work, the dearth of comics reviewers, and me, obviously. Also obviously, whenever something of his does find its way to my hands, I’m never sorry.

Estrada, Inés; Alienation #3 - #6 (self-published). The bundled version of this series, seen at the link for this entry, has the coolest book packaging I’ve ever seen in my life.

Expansion by Matt Sheean and Malachi Ward (AdHouse Books). I didn’t like this nearly as much as this same team’s previous Ancestor (due no doubt to its earlier and improvised creation), but damn, what a cover.

* Forsman, Chuck; Slasher #1 - #4 (Floating World Comics). I’d say the majority of my interest in Forsman’s work is in seeing how he presents his it and steers his career -- he’s among the best there is at that. Slasher is his first work I strongly connected with. It digs deep and gets wilder and wilder.

Ferrick, Margot; Yours (2dcloud). I’m a simpleton, so I was surprised at how deeply I was able to be moved by something this abstract. As always, grabbing 2dcloud’s whole line on Kickstarter expands my horizons and makes me a better reader.

Foster-Dimino, Sophia; Sex Fantasy (Koyama Press). I’ve actually only read the minis of this. This collection has the one I’m missing, plus some new material, but I love Sex Fantasy. It’s like a perpetual motion machine for thought -- you can just think about it forever.

Fricas, Katie; Art Fan (self-published). One of those things you dream of happening at a show -- picked this up at MICE not knowing anything about it, and was delighted by the artwork and knocked out by the “reviews of trippy art events”; particularly the first, about Duke Riley’s Fly by Night.

* Friebert, Noel; WEIRD6 (self-published), SPINE: I’ll Still Watch (Bred Press), Old Ground (Koyama Press). Sometimes when I have a fever, I can’t break loose of a single, circular thought -- I have the same thought over and over, only to realize once the fever’s broken that it was barely coherent. Friebert’s newer, decompressed work is like that. You turn page after page, and nothing happens. It’s the same characters still doing and saying the same things, again and again. You turn the pages faster and faster, almost in a panic, hoping to break the cycle and resolve the unease before you. But it’s no use.

* gg; I’m Not Here (Koyama Press), Valley (kuš!). I’m Not Here is one of a few books I recommended to people who were enjoying season 3 of Twin Peaks at the time. It doesn’t convey information so much as emotion, and rewards as much thought as you want to put into it.

* Hankiewicz, John; Education (Fantagraphics Books). I loved this so much I only read a few pages a night to make it last. Michael DeForge once called Noel Freibert an “astronaut” -- that applies to Hankiewicz also. No one’s ever done anything like this before, and if we didn’t have Hankiewicz I don’t think anyone ever would. Bringing poetry and modern dance (!!) into the language of comics, this was another book I recommended to watchers of season 3 of Twin Peaks -- you don’t understand the story by connecting facts, you understand it by connecting emotions.

* Hanselmann, Simon; Portrait, XMP-165 (self-published). XMP-165 was the first big payoff of the longform nature of Megg and Mogg, and it destroyed me. Also released this year was Doujinshi, Cold Cube Press’ gorgeous re-release of a Japanese Megg and Mogg fan comic.

Harkam, Sammy; Crickets #6 (The Commonwealth Comics Company). People talk about how good this book is, and I agree, but I’m not sure I could tell you why.

Haven, Eric; Vague Tales (Fantagraphics Books).

Hernandez, Gilbert and Jaime ; Love & Rockets Vol. IV #2, #3 (Fantagraphics). I made the terrible error after Love Bunglers to trade wait Locas, and for whatever reason they haven’t released one since. So I was way behind when this started coming out, but I bought and read it anyway. I initially found the story to be light, but I eventually realized I had a free ComiXology trial and caught up. It’s as great as ever.

Ito, Junji; Dissolving Classroom (Vertical, Inc.), Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories, and Tomie: Complete Deluxe Edition (Viz Media). Tomie may have come out in 2016 actually? I describe it to people as being about a beautiful woman who stands around until some total lech of a man inevitably murders her, then she comes back and annihilates him in the most unpleasant manner possible. Repeat ad infinitum. I don’t think the text 100% supports my reading, but that’s what it means to me.

Landry, Tyler; Shit and Piss (Retrofit Comics). The ephemeral, disjointed nature the single issue format served this story better, but it’s still extremely rad.

Loup, Celine; The Man Who Came Down the Attic Stairs (self-published).

Marcus, Ben; Crisis Zone 3rd Edition (Bred Press).

Mignolaverse and John Arcudi; Dead Inside #3 by Arcudi, Toni Fejzula, and Andre May, Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost #1 - #3 by Arcudi and Tonci Zonjic, Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea by Gary Gianni, Mike Mignola, and Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics). Ignoring a few years in college when I was a lapsed comics reader, I’ve bought every Mignolaverse comic since I was about 13. That loyalty has slowly eroded over the last half decade about. I’m not alone in thinking the Arcudi-Davis run is one of the greatest of all time, and that the books started to go downhill after Guy Davis left. Beyond the departure of Davis, there are a few reasons for that, in my view.

First was the decision soon after to expand the line’s offerings. Doubling the line’s output and bringing in (inevitably) inferior creative teams was a no-win proposition for readers. Who wants more of something not as good?

Second, I think that Arcudi, a great writer, has shifted his focus from tightly-plotted five issue arcs to series-spanning character arcs. While I’m guessing this reads great in big chunks, it doesn’t spread out month to month, some months out of the year. I’m looking forward to a big re-read of everything after B.P.R.D. wraps in a few months, to see if this theory holds. Lobster Johnson: The Pirate’s Ghost came close to standing on its own, but was still rife with moments that I can only assume were big character payoffs because I didn’t remember enough to know. (Especially cool covers by Zonjic on these issues.) However, the non-Mignolaverse title Dead Inside offered the type of visceral, plot-based payoff his B.P.R.D. run with Davis hooked me with. I hadn’t been this thrilled by an Arcudi book since Killing Ground.

But third, and worst of all, has been the addition of writer Chris Roberson, whose books read like updates to the Mignolaverse Wiki. (The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed was okay, but pretty much solely due to Paul Grist’s fun art and layouts.)

I’m staying aboard the main B.P.R.D. book as it races to the finish line, and will continue to buy anything Arcudi writes, which seems to be mostly these Lobster Johnson comics. (Although even that’s looking increasingly, and sadly, unlikely to continue: https://twitter.com/ArcudiJohn/status/1075086925436874753) And I’ll certainly buy any more of these very sporadically-released Hellboy OGNs, like Into the Silent Sea, they decide to release -- the only real non-Mignola drawn Hellboy books anymore.

* Milburn, Lane; CORRIDORS (self-published). Sits comfortably next to Inflated Head Zone by Zach Hazard Vaupen, one of my favorite comics. They both forsake straightforward narrative in favor of theme-driven emotional impressionism, and do it with horror. This is catnip to me, and something I aspire to (although I’m far too boring to achieve it).

* Mirror Mirror II, edited by Sean T. Collins and Julia Gfrörer (2dcloud).

Now: The New Comics Anthology #1, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics Books).

* Providence #12 by Jacen Burrows, Juan Rodriguez, and Alan Moore (Avatar Press). It came out months after, but it’s a safe bet Moore wrote this before Trump got elected, right? A more accurate depiction of the shell-shock of being thrust into a post-facts world I haven’t seen.

Roberts, Keiler; Sunburning (Koyama Press). Another big crossover hit in my house.

* Shiga, Jason; Demon Volumes 2, 3, and 4 (First Second). Demon became a book I wouldn’t stop showing to anyone who would listen. Like Gina Wynbrandt’s Someone Please Have Sex With Me, its hook transcends the normal comics reading audience -- you can show it to anyone and they get it right away. Specifically I would show people this amazing video https://youtu.be/NRxCTeM5pyU, which would clue them into what Shiga does enough to get them to read Demon. Demon has a story, but it’s more about rules -- establishing them and playfully subverting them with a level of inventiveness that regularly leaves you in awe.

* Terrell, Jake; Extended Play (2dcloud). This delightful book took me completely by surprise, an experience made possible by 2dcloud’s subscription model.

Tomasso, Rich; She Wolf: Black Baptism #1 - #4, Spy Seal: The Corten-Steel Phoenix #1 - #4 (Image Comics). The end of this second series of She Wolf approached the same hostile disregard for what came before as the end of Tomasso’s previous series, Dark Corridor. But where Dark Corridor acted on that impulse by simply burning it all down, She Wolf has enough respect at least to replace what came before by pivoting into a completely different comic. The freedom this affords the plot to dart in unpredictable directions is exhilarating. And it’s fun and beautifully laid out and designed, as always with Tomasso.

Tran, Thu; Dust Pam (Peow). Gorgeous!

Vaupen, Zach Hazard; Combed Clap of Thunder (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics).

* Willumsen, Connor; Anti-Gone (Koyama Press). The part where the protagonists drive their boat past a window with a dog in it rewired my comics-making brain forever. This was another comic I only read a few pages of a night to make it last longer, and also recommended to friends of mine who were enjoying season three of Twin Peaks -- the plot is obfuscated in a similar way.

Yanow, Sophie; What is a Glacier? (Retrofit Comics and Big Planet Comics).

Yokoyama, Yuichi; Iceland (Retrofit Comics). Another comic I recommended to Twin Peaks season three fans. Similar to the residents of the Red Room, the characters seem truly of another world, their motivations and actions incomprehensible to us.

#best of the year

[doomedandstoned]

Coffin Torture Bring Hell To Earth In ‘Dismal Planet’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

If it's sludgy doom you're after, have I got a pick for you. No doubt, you've met South Carolina heavyweights COFFIN TORTURE in these pages or on our podcast before. The Westminster duo of Jim McMillan (aka Blind Samson) and Patrick Alex Thorfinn have been gigging for a solid decade now, last summer releasing the proof by way of a monster compilation of their three EPs and singles called, 'Slithering Through Your Dreams' (2017). The big news that brings them back to these pages, however, is their first full-on full-length, ‘Dismal Planet' (2018).

As the name implies, this LP is dank, dirty, and really delivers on the dismal. From the opening moments of "Bull Of Minos" to the closing moments of "Trench Hog," Coffin Torture seize control of your mind and heart, offering up a pulse-pounding beat, harsh vox, and some devilish riff-making. Thorfinn and Blind Sampson know their death-doom, alright, and present us with seven tracks that go straight for the jugular. A fuzzy, toxic sheen accompanies us throughout the record, which amp worshippers will go ape for.

It's worth noting that the colorful album art is the doing Coffin Torture's Thorfinn, who is a talented artist in more than just the real of music. In past years, he has contributed a number of his pieces to accompany the dark poetry of Lara Noel's dark poetry series for Doomed & Stoned.

Look for Dismal Planet to release this Friday, February 16th, via Sludgelord Records. You can pick it up in digital or CD formats here or here. Whenever we can, we try to give you an advance listen, so for the next 36 hours or so, you can get your fill of Coffin Torture right here, right now, on our bitchin' lil blog!

DISMAL PLANET by COFFIN TORTURE

An Interview with Coffin Torture's Blind Sampson

By Shawn Gibson

You have a new record coming out?

Yeah, we recorded 'Dismal Planet' down at the Jam Room with Jay Matheson and Phillip Cope of Kylesa.

Yeah? Wow!

It's awesome man! It was really an experience! The reason we went down there, we were going to be recording with Jay, and Phillip was there. Jay had been working for like a month straight, recording every single day! He said, “You know what guys? I want to get Phillip in here and record the second guitar track and the vocals. Is that cool with you guys?”

Um, yeah.

Absolutely! (laughs) It was surreal, it really was.

I've seen Kylesa in Savannah. My god, they put on a hell of a show! Kylesa, Wet Socks, and Bag Lady at The Wormhole, bad-ass show!

I bet that was awesome! Phillip's got a new band called Oakskin. They have a really cool psychedelic sound like that of Kylesa, mixed in with a bunch of different stuff.

So where are you at, upstate South Carolina?

We're both from Westminster, SC. It's right in the corner, Oconee County. We grew up on the state line in between Georgia and South Carolina. I'm actually from Toccoa, Georgia, right across the state line. We both went to West Oak High School in Westminster, about an hour and thirty minutes from Greenville.

I've got a pretty good idea where that is. Is it snowing there?

No, not right now. There getting snow where you guys are, I think.

Yeah we got three or four inches in Savannah GA! It's crazy! Wow! I got some family in Brunswick.

Yep, further south. You guys never get snow! (laughs)

Parts of northern Florida got snow, man!

That's wild! Yeah!

We are all doomed when it's snowing in Florida! (laughs)

It might be!

Who else is in the band with you and what do they're doing Coffin Torture? You play drums, right?

I do. It's just me and Alex Thorfinn on guitar. It's just guitar and drums. Alex does vocals.

Well, you guys have some heavy ass music.

Thanks, man, thanks! We've had two bass players in the past, our friends Jeremy Bishop and Dustin Holiday played with us. They were really good bass players. When we play live it's kinda a loose feeling. We might do one riff as twice as long, then the next time do it as half as long. Being on drums, it frees you up to do a lot more jamming, you know if you want to extend a part out. We've been playing together since 2005, not as Coffin Torture, but that's when we started playing music together. We've got to where we can jam pretty well together on the fly.

You guys have something there: chemistry. To be able to do that, especially on stage, just riff and go to town and switch it up a bit, keeps it fresh!

Sometimes it's unintentional, sometimes by mistake, but we'll do something different. I might say, “Hey, you, remember what we did last time? Well, let’s do that every time.” Being only two people in the band it’s easy to make changes like that.

That's great that happens spontaneously and takes both of you guys for a ride.

When it happens live, in front of people it adds like an extra level of excitement. You’re already nervous playing in front of people, but when something like that happens, it's cool. It makes it like, almost like a Grateful Dead kinda mind set, you know?

They would jam and riff forever. One song almost turns into 'Dopesmoker.' (laughs)

Yeah, we don't get that extreme with it. Sometimes when we practice, we'll play for three hours just jamming on something seeing what happens ya know.

So what are some influences for both of you guys?

Well, shared influences would definitely be bands like Neurosis, Weedeater, Buzzov-en, Sourvein, obvious sludge influences. A lot of funeral doom, bands like Ahab Tyranny, Catacombs. I lean more towards stuff like Pentagram, Saint Vitus, and older stuff. The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, you know Earthride, all that kind of stuff. Alex, he's more into extreme, like more death metal. He likes Disma and Coffins.

Yeah, I lean that way myself -- really heavy, really hard stuff. I do appreciate bands like Beyond Belief, Trouble, Pentagram, definitely.

Together, we're into stuff like Type O Negative, Queens Of The Stone Age, Butthole Surfers.

I Love Butthole Surfers! “I Saw An X Ray Of A Girl Passing Gas” is one of my favorites. That and 'Kuntz.”

Oh, yeah! (laughs). Off of ' Locust Abortion Technician.'

They re-released it!

I saw that! I got that album when I was thirteen and it warped me forever! I got into more strange stuff, I guess. I'm into Sisters Of Mercy, hardcore punk, some of the less heavy stuff. Alex is more into the straight up heaviest stuff around, that's what he likes.

You guys balance each other. (laughs)

I'll try and put something in that's maybe a little too out there and he'll reign in there, “Let’s keep it heavy!" Sometimes I get ideas and I go off into the stratosphere. We have all these influences, with a shared vision. What we're looking for is something as heavy as we can make it but still mixing it up as well.

That's good having some range and depth to it. Mixing in progression and keeping it fresh for both of you as well as your listeners.

Man, we try our best!

I want to talk about the “Web of Piss” cover of Iron Monkey's song, from your recent compilation, ‘Slithering Through Your Dreams.’ That thing is slow and low, man! Iron Monkey does “Web of Piss” as mid-tempo sludge, but you guys slowed it down and made it damn near death-doom metal and it's heavy as shit.

Thanks man! (laughs) We recorded that, I guess around 2012 when we did that for the 'Cave Dweller' EP. We would play that riff for fun ya know .We recorded that actually in my parent’s basement, the whole EP. We were like, “Let’s just record it!” We did and I think I actually laid down the vocals for that and we did it in one go, pretty much. We listened to the song a hundred times previous to that anyway so we pretty much had it down. We just jammed it out and put the vocals over it. We did a cover of “Tales Of Brave Ulysses” by Cream. We also did a cover of “Bedroom Thang,” stuff to have fun with. Thanks, glad you like it! Iron Monkey rules!

It's amazing, after all these years, they just released '9-13' on Relapse in October. I’d like to ask Billy if he can ask Relapse if we could get an interview with Iron Monkey for Doomed and Stoned.

That would be awesome!

What!? You bet your ass!

It'd be hard to do. I know back in the day they didn't do a bunch of interviews. They might do it now, you never know.

There’re newer bands out I like. Spectral Voice, have you heard of them?

No, I haven't heard of them yet.

They've been around awhile; they had their debut 'Eroded Corridors of Unbeing' out on Dark Descent last year. I think you'll dig em. They're death-doom.

Yeah man, I'll check em out. I love that stuff like Cyanide, Disma, and Coffins.

I love Disma's sound!

You ever listen to any Cyanide?

I’ve read reviews and interviews about them but haven't really listened to the music yet.

Check out an album they did in the late '80s, early ‘90s. It's called, ‘The Dying Truth.’ That album influenced us both a lot -- them and Coffins’ 'Mortuary in Darkness.’ I think that that album shaped how we founded, starting off more than any other.

Have you heard of Father Befouled?

Oh yeah! It's the same guys from Encoffination. They're really, really heavy!

Incantation worship!

Even the logo looks like it a little bit. I don't listen to that stuff as much as I used to. I guess I wouldn't say the lighter side of it, but the groovier side of it.

With that being said, what are some SC/NC doom/sludge bands that you like and or have played with?

Oh man, there's a ton of ‘em! If we start with the upstate, man: Waft, Tar Hag, and friends in Black Hand Thrown, Legba. Legba is on the Doom Charts.

I've sent some questions to Todd from Legba for an interview.

Cool! Todd's a really good guy. I used to play keyboards in Legba on their first self-titled album. They're great and they got a really good sound. Then you've got Fall Of An Empire. They kinda remind me of Sasquatch, that kinda sound; good vocals, really good band. If you go down to Charleston you got Hooded Eagle and Tripping The Mechanism, they're really good sludge band. Hooded Eagle is more a black metal/funeral doom kinda band. Then you got around Florence, you got Heathen Bastard, they're awesome; them and Thieving Coyote. Thieving Coyote kinda remind me of Clutch, but way heavier; they’re a good band. Compel from Florence, two-man band. We were going to play a show with them at Gottrocks in Greenville. It's been a couple years back. I think Joe or Tim got sick and couldn't make it. I hate we missed playing with them, it was a good show. In North Carolina, you got Temptation’s Wings.

I know those guys! I’ve been to their shows in Asheville at The Get Down, now The Odditorium. Hail Cronk! They were on my show at least three times.

Yeah, really nice guys. We played with them actually in Greenville at the Radio Room. It's been awhile back. In Asheville you got Broad River Nightmare.

Bobby Lamar Seay!

He's a nice guy, man!

He really is. It's some crazy music.

I'll see him when we go to the Mothlight, I've seen him at the Orange Peel a few times. The only show we played out of state, we played at The Odditorium.

I love that place.

Yeah, that place is cool. I’ve wanted to play there for a long time, but we never had the chance. Bobby set up that show, it was Pallor. They were really heavy, it was just bass and drums. You got Horseflesh up there, there really good.

Jaime Ward, yeah.

I saw them open up from Weedeater. I saw them at The Mothlight. They opened up another show, I think it was Big Business. It’s all kinda rusty.

I did see Big Business played in Asheville and I missed it! I know one of the local bands opened for them, just can’t remember.

It was Power Takeoff. Man, that was awesome. If you haven't checked them out, Power Takeoff from Concord, NC. I mean loud. We got to play with Jucifer a few times at Ground Zero. We opened for up for ‘em, too. I don't know Power Takeoff might be louder! (laughs) It was crazy loud.

Nice!

There's so many bands man. That's as many as I can think of right now, off hand.

It’s all good.

We've got a lot of good grindcore, power violence, and thrash.

Awesome, well-rounded scene.

Yeah, man. Upstate SC, we've got this band WVRM -- those guys, they are awesome. They just recorded with Kurt from Converge. They did a single or it might have been an EP with him. They toured with The Grind Mother, Funeral Chic, The Drip. You heard of The Drip on Relapse?

I’ve heard of them, but I haven't heard their music yet.

They toured with them and, actually, Waft was on the tour, as well.

Nice lineup.

If something doesn't happen with that band, I'll be surprised. They're really awesome! There's a lot going on right now, a lot of house shows. There's a place in Columbia, SC, called the Sludge Gutter that's really cool, like a house venue. They get a lot of shows.

That's great. I need to get my ass out to a show!

Man, did you catch West End Motel? They played The Jinx, in Savannah.

Oh, man. No.

I thought about driving down for that, when it was their CD release show. I kinda like that. I like Brent Hinds, Fiends Without a Face, West End Motel. Tell you the truth, I like that stuff more than the newer Mastodon stuff, but I still like it, its great music. I'm more into like, 'Remission,' 'Leviathan,' 'Blood Mountain.'

Yes. I got to see Mastodon live at the Orange Peel in Asheville, sold-out show with Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang in 2011. The entire crowd was singing along to every Mastodon song, I'll never forget it. After the show we got on the tour bus with Brent, Trey, his wife, and their son.

Oh, wow, that's cool. I was talking to a friend of mine on Facebook; he was at that show too! I found a Mastodon tour poster and it has that Orange Peel show on it!

Damn!

It’s actually signed by those dudes. I found it in Seneca for like thirty dollars.

What!

A friend of mine, he's got that same poster. I asked him if he was at that Orange Peel show. Mastodon’s awesome, man! You know what I've been trying to track down? I actually have two copies of Troy's old band Knuckle, back before he was in Four Hour Fogger. I've got to copies of 'Sixteen Penny Nails.’ I think it was the only Knuckle album. I've got one Four Hour Fogger seven-inch, the one that's got the cow on the cover. It's got “Road to Tibor” and “Marsha's Birthday” on it.

Holy shit!

I cannot find ‘Dollars for Red Books.’ That's the only full length album Four Hour Fogger did. They might have done another one, but I don't know. I know a lot of people that have it.

Yeah, nobody willing to part with it.

Yeah, man, I'd even settle for a burned copy of it.

At least.

The only place you can listen to that album, on YouTube, a guy named Sir Runt uploaded like six tracks off it and it's got like twelve or thirteen tracks on the album. That's the only place you can listen to that album! You can’t download it anywhere!

Damn, man.

I know man, I actually talked to Gary Lindsey, the singer from Four Hour Fogger. He did vocals for Hank III, Assjack -- you heard of that band?

Oh, yeah.

I actually messaged him on Facebook. I was like, “Man, do you have a copy of that? Is there any way I can get one?” He said, “No, man. They’re out of print. You just got to get lucky and find one!” The search continues! I found two copies of Knuckle and I bought both of ‘em! I've been looking online. There’s no Knuckle on YouTube. You can't hear what it sounds like. I gotta at least like upload a track or something, so if someone wants to hear it. I don't know how that works. I don't want to do it without their permission.

Right.

I just wanted to hear it. It’s really cool, too!

I bet!

It's kinda like Alice In Chains, maybe a little more sludgy.

Cool. What's a damn good book you've read?

I'm reading 'Contract Killer' right now. It's the autobiography of Donald “Tony The Greek” Frankos, a mafia hit man. He was Greek, so he couldn't be “made” into the mafia, you have to be 100 % Italian. He did hits for like almost all the families, the five major families. According to the book, he was in on the Jimmy Hoffa murder.

What!?

Yeah, I just got to that chapter. I'm just reading that now. He said that Tony Cilano “Fat Tony” ordered the hit on Hoffa. You know, Hoffa was big in the Teamsters, so they had all this stuff happen, so they had to get rid of him. They had to make him disappear forever and that's one of the most mysterious mob murders ever. Nobody knows exactly what happened. I've read some stuff online that they say now, “Tony The Greek, that that was bull-crap, what he said. He wasn't there.” Some people say he was there and he was in on the whole thing, you know, it's one of those mysteries. I've been reading The Misfits biography, ‘This Music Leaves Stains.’ It's really good. Also, ‘Let's Go to Hell: Scattered Memories of the Butthole Surfers.’

I definitely need to get that. I wouldn't put it down, ‘till it was done. Gibby Haynes is nuts! You've heard of him, right?

(laughs) Yeah, he and Al Jourgensen stayed actually lived with Timothy Leary. You've heard of Timothy Leary?

Oh, yeah. The acid guru from the '60s.

They lived with him!

Makes sense for a lot of their music!

I can’t remember exactly for sure it’s been awhile since I read, it's not in that book. I saw a documentary about it. That biography is all over the place. It skips around -- now you’re at this point, then it skips ahead, then you're here.You gotta read it from beginning to end, you can’t skip around with it. It's crazy! It talks about when they started out, they would go on never-ending tours. They would just go and ping-pong from coast to coast. They would actually take half hits of acid to stay awake, take like small doses.

They'd stay dosed for months.

It's crazy! Then it talks about the legendary show at Danceteria in New York that people say it was the craziest Butthole Surfers show ever, They say that Gibby and Kathleen had sex on stage -- they say. At the end of the show they found out they were only getting half their money. Paul Leary started destroying speakers with a screwdriver, stabbing holes in the speakers with a screwdriver. They say they were all high on acid, the whole band. They started dosing the crowd! It's one of those shows that like if everybody was there that said they were there, there would be like a thousand people at that show. “Oh, I saw them at Danceteria!” Really, there would be like forty people.

Exactly -- at the most.

The book gets sad towards the end. I never thought about it, you know. The Butthole Surfers broke through with 'Electriclarryland,' become a big band. They were on Lollapalooza. They were scheduled to do a tour with Motley Crue, believe it or not.

That is crazy to think about.

Yeah, it fell through, thankfully. Towards the end, they sued Corey from Touch and Go Records, because the handshake agreement when they first got on Touch and Go was 50/50 agreement. As the years rolled on and became a big band, the sale of their back catalog exploded. Everybody wanted as much as they could get. Corey was getting 50% of all that and he wasn't being forthcoming with the money, so they decided to sue him. What happens when they decide to sue him, the whole underground turned on the Butthole Surfers. Never mind that the Butthole Surfers toured and lived in a van for all these years, just barely surviving. Everybody was like, “Oh they've gone corporate,” even though they didn’t.

I say that's fighting for what’s yours.

Yeah, that's what it was about, but it was like this big band was attacking this small label. I had no idea any of that happened, I just learned about it reading this book. It was nuts! They recorded the album, ‘After The Astronaut.’ Long story short, it got bastardized and turned into their worst album which is 'Weird Revolution.' Have you heard that one?

No, I haven’t.

It's got that song “The Shame of Life,” like their dance song. It was like a club hit. It's got an electric drum beat. ‘After The Astronaut' is supposed to be one of their best albums, but it got remixed and stopped by the label and turned into ‘Weird Revolution.’

Pretty much after 'Independent Worm Saloon’ I got off that ride.

You don't like 'Electriclarryland'?

I do, I had it on CD. I thought it was amazing because I thought, man these guys “made it,” finally. The Butthole Surfers are a big influence on me, the whole psychedelic thing turned me on at the time.

Oh man, the Butthole Surfers and Scratch Acid, a lot of those bands from back then I can get into, the Jesus Lizard.

What's something that makes you laugh uncontrollably?

A lot of stuff! Thinking about one time -- Alex and I fish a lot, there’s a lot of lakes and ponds where we live. I was at this pond and fishing with him and Alex was on the other side and I was over here and all of a sudden, this beautiful girl came down. It was like out of a movie. Of course, her boyfriend walked out of the woods behind her. He was walking to the pond too. We thought it was going to be like one of those, “Dear Penthouse” letters.

They're going to start going at it. What the hell?

In our weird teenage minds, that's what we thought, I guess. Obviously nothing like that would happen in a million years. So anyway, my tackle box was at the top of the bank. I had it up there and I caught on something and I was pulling my line and I snapped my line. It was right then the couple walked out of the woods and we saw em and we were like, “This is the hottest girl that's ever been here!” We freaked out a little bit, then I turned around and I was walking up the hill and I got caught up on an ivy vine and bam! Face-first right into the bank and just rolled back down it.

Damn! (laughs)

I look over, the girl was laughing and Alex was laughing at me. Anytime I need a good laugh, I think of that! (laughs)

I have had several instances like that.

It's always more embarrassing when a girl’s there. Always.

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

#D&S Debuts #D&S Reviews #D&S Interviews #Coffin Torture #Westminster #South Carolina #Doom #Death Doom #Metal #Doom Metal #Sludgelord Records #Patrick Alex Thorfinn #Shawn Gibson #HeavyBest18 #Doomed & Stoned

[willyoushareyoursoulwithme]

i didn’t realize how much better i’ve gotten since may until i scrolled back in my google drive to february and saw a piece i wrote called ‘not selfish enough.’ i want to share it bc i feel like its a pretty important piece showing how much i’ve progressed in just a few months, but please be aware that it has several suicidal themes and images, bc, at the time, i was suicidal.

February/March 2017

She stares ahead, seeing the road but unable to focus on it.  A song plays over the car’s speakers, one that she would usually sing along with.  But today her lips remain still.  The skin is dry and cracking from the harsh, cold air coming from the air conditioning vents pointed at her face.

She can’t even muster up the energy to turn the air down.

When she gets home, she takes the keys out of the ignition and picks up her backpack before walking into the house, mind racing with all the assignments she has to complete by the end of the week and how much she does not want to do them. She really just wants to sleep.

If she lived alone that’s exactly what she would do. Listen to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack as she showers and then collapses on the bed to sleep for thirteen hours.

Is that considered a depression sleep? She doesn’t know.

But instead she has to write a speech for her communications class tomorrow. She needs to get at least a C on this speech to pass the class. A C is what she recieved on her last speech, and with this one she has even less of an idea of where to start. Then there’s English, a ten page paper that needs to be edited extensively, and PE notes to memorize.  It isn’t a lot of schoolwork, but even this small amount is overwhelming to her.

She goes to bathe several hours later, at least half of her work still unfinished. Her father, brother, and sisters lie asleep in their beds as she quietly showers.  She looks at the razor hanging from the rack.

She wonders if she’ll ever use it.

But this time, she turns away and grabs the bottle of shampoo instead.

That night she dreams a horrible dream, and wakes at four am wracked with guilt for an act she did not commit.  

That morning her mind reminds her she isn’t worthy of breakfast. She eats a muffin anyways.

On the drive to school she remembers again how easy it would be to turn the steering wheel and crash. She continues straight ahead.

At lunch she struggles to eat a sandwich.

That afternoon she feels awful for eating a piece of chocolate.

That night she stares at the razor longer than any night before.

She finally falls asleep after three hours of silent crying and reminders that she isn’t good enough. She screwed up. She is a screw up. She isn’t worthy of the title of Christian, she doesn’t even know if she believes in God.

Of course she believes in God.  But even demons believe in God. They believe in God and tremble. She believes in God and doesn’t know what comes after that.

No one would love her if they knew. Nobody should love her, she isn’t worth it.

Each day she falls a little farther. She stares at the razor more often, one time she even picked it up.

She stares at the small portion of food and wonders if she should put it away.

She scratches at her wrist, but that’s as far as it goes.

She draws lines on her thighs with a Sharpie, but nothing more.

Because she knows that if she takes the blade and even just places it against her wrist, it will dig in. And then it won’t leave.

She knows that if she skips even one meal it will become a competition to see how little she can eat and how long she can go between nourishment.

If she takes even one more step towards the hole, she will fall in, and she will never come out.

And she isn’t selfish enough to do that.

And then we move ahead to July. I was better, but still sad. Mostly i just slept a lot.

July 2017

She’s a bit better now. Not as overwhelmed, not as sad. She doesn’t have breakdowns as often, but they loom over the horizon. School starts back in about a month.

Her summer job is unbearable, the girl she keeps every day is exhausting. Adyson manipulates and cries and breaks down every time something doesn’t go the way she wants. She cries because the babysitter wants to teach her how to cook pizza instead of just cooking the pizza herself. She spouts off hateful things, such as how others are better sitters, how this one makes her want to die, how she wishes she could run away, and how she doesn’t have a mother.

She tries to blame the last one on the babysitter somehow.

Every night she comes home exhausted from keeping Ady. She stays for ten hours to watch over someone else’s child and honestly does not get paid enough for this crap.

She wishes she had time to write, to film, edit, draw, create. She wishes there were more hours to the day so that she could sleep long enough to feel rested when she wakes. She wishes that she didn’t feel slighted anytime she went to help at the theatre. She wishes people treated her the same way she treats them.

She thinks about the kids she has to instruct over the course of the next two weeks and how she has to pull aside Callie and Victoria to tell them to include their “friend.” She had to move Noel from a group where she knew no one to a group where people know her, but act like they don’t.

She’s certain one of the Ashworth girls is going to have a breakdown at camp. Maybe two of them. Maybe all three.

She hopes this new medicine she’s supposed to get makes her less tired so she can keep up with the kids. She wishes caffeine worked on her like it did everyone else.

And even though this kid is driving her absolutely insane, she has managed to find a bright spot. She edited a video, and it is going to be shown at church.

And while darkness looms over the horizon, brightness does too.

And relapse snippets:

“I’m proud of you.”

Why?

------

Four hours sleep, one coffee, nearly ten hours of relapses.

--------

Relapse. Relapse. Red skin. Marks.

Nothing physically permanent. Everything mentally permanent.

And then . . . nothing. I started school, and saw a counselor. She suggested that instead of things like this, I list the things i’m thankful for. She says that recovery from depression is hard, because you’re literally training your mind to think differently. You’re creating new nueropathways. But I tried. 

Most of the items on the list are my friends, and different activites that we had planned. But here are the three things that stood out to me the most.

im good enough

The promise of future plans

that God loves me

And I think those sum it up the best.

#depression #my journey #testimony sorta #recovery #journal #suicide #tw suicide #tw #suicide tw #brooklyn rants

[uclaradio]

UCLA Radio’s Best of 2017 - Music and Genre Directors

This year, UCLA Radio’s music director and genre directors compiled a list of their favorite releases this past year. Take a peek and explore some of our favorite albums of this past year. 

Alison Chi - Music Director

1. SZA - Ctrl

I don’t know a single person who doesn’t like SZA’s sophomore album Ctrl. There are so few albums that can capture people’s attention these days - it’s all about the singles and never the album as a whole but something about Ctrl is cohesive from start to finish. The way each song weaves into each other is seamless and you’ll truly be rewarded if you sit down and listen to the album straight through. Is there even a single bad song on this album? 

2. Giraffage - Too Real 3. Slowdive - Slowdive 4. Turnover - Good Nature 5. Land of Talk - Life After Youth 6. Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex 7. Julien Baker - Turn Out the Lights 8. Valerie June - The Order of Time 9. Slow Dancer - In A Mood 10. Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked at Me

Megan Hullander - Rock Genre Director

1. King Gizzard & The Flying Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Flying Microtonal Banana was the first in a series of five albums promised to be released in 2017 (one of which has still yet to come) including a concept album ridden with the drama of human and non-human emotions, a jazzy collaboration with Mild High Club, and an album given as a gift to fans - the rights of which are “owned” by all. Flying Microtonal Banana is unique in that the band customized their instruments in effort to find spaces between existing tones, or “microtones.” The album is named for one of these instruments which does, in fact, look quite similar to a banana. 

2. Thee Oh Sees - Orc 3. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Open Minds Now Close 4. Alex Cameron - Forced Witness 5. Ron Gallo - Temporary Slave 6. Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson 7. Ty Segall - Sentimental Goblin 8. ORB - Naturality 9. Kikagaku Moyo - Stone Garden 10. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice

Gabe Cortina - Rock Genre Director

1. Limp Wrist - Facades

Featuring Martin from Los Crudos on vocals as well as members of Hail Mary, Devoid of Faith, By the Throat, and Kill the Man Who Questions, the versatility of Limp Wrist sound has never been more apparent. Identifying as queercore, the band has a fast hardcore sound and lyrical themes concerning gay identity politics. The mixing of album is something which also stood out to me, it’s able to polished without sounding over produced. Martin’s vocal style perfectly matches the killer riffs and speedy drums in both intensity and aggression. Halfway through this album, the band’s sound switches to a disco-ey almost dark-wave- techno sound which they pull of with perfection. This album is solid and I highly recommend it to both longtime fans of punk and people who are looking for an introduction to punk music alike.

2. Despise You / Coke Bust - Split LP 3. Gay Kiss - Rounded Down 4. Exit Unit - St 2017 5. Glue - S/T MLP 6. Lumpy and the Dumpers - Those Pickled Fuckers 7. Goolagoon / ACxDC - Split 8. Burnout - West Coast Tour 2017 CS 9. Sex Prisoner / Harm Done - Split 10. Meth Leppard - Discography 2015-2017

Gabe Punk Genre Director Top 10 Albums of 2017 from anon-10212970514769336 on 8tracks Radio

Alana Enriquez - Pop Genre Director

1. Beach House - B-Sides and Rarities

This compilation happened to be release on a day where I had only gotten around an hour of sleep the night before, and I cried within one minute of the first track. It’s Beach House at their most dreamy, their most blaring, their most haunting. Old tracks with new renditions and fresh ones meld into something spellbinding that doesn’t require the logistical unity of a formal album. B-Sides and Rarities has been on a weekly rotation for me for the entire second half of 2017, and probably for the entirety of 2018, unless they release something else for me to cry to during my morning routine. 

2. Florist - If Blue Could Be Happiness 3. High Bloom - Implied Sun 4. Alvvays - Antisocialites 5. The Drums - Abysmal Thoughts 6. Slowdive - Slowdive 7. Steve Lacy - Steve Lacy’s Demo 8. You’ll Never Get to Heaven - Images 9. Pedro Infante - Cien años... pensando en ti 10. Big Thief - Capacity

Alana Myers - Pop Genre Director

1. Wolf Alice - Visions Of A Life

Looking back at this past September, I remember sitting in my apartment late at night, counting down until midnight when Wolf Alice’s second record Visions of a Life would be released. I haven’t ever heard anything quite like Visions of a Life before, and I think the reason it resonates so much with me is the way it perfectly encompasses the feelings that come with the uncertainty of young adulthood, and the feelings of life in general - love, anger, sadness, extreme joy, and everything in between. The album digs itself into darkness, but at its core, lies a piece of work that is ambitious, honest, and a solid listen from start to finish.

2. MUNA - About U 3. Tei Shi - Crawl Space 4. Declan McKenna - What Do You Think About the Car? 5. Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer 6. Will Joseph Cook - Sweet Dreamer 7. HAIM - Something to Tell You 8. Lorde - Melodrama 9. Paramore - After Laughter 10. Circa Waves - Different Creatures

Alex Saakyan - Pop Genre Director

1. Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

With an album cover that graces a smile, cheek to cheek of Lana Del Rey, it is no surprise as to why this record has been nicknamed as Del Rey’s first ‘happy album.’ Retiring from the ‘sad girl’ aesthetic of her previous records, Del Rey delivers an optimistic and authentic approach to her music. With tracks like ‘When the World Was at War’ and ‘God Bless America’ we see Del Rey take a more honest approach from her Americana aesthetic as she speaks of the hard times people in this country face. With tracks like ‘Get Free’ she delivers her mission statement: “Finally, I’m crossing the threshold/From the ordinary world/To the reveal of my heart,” She’s honest, she’s free, with a much optimism and a lust for life. 

2. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. 3. Lorde - Melodrama 4. Kelela - Take Me Apart 5. Majid Jordan - The Space Between 6. Harry Styles - Harry Styles 7. Calvin Harris - Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 8. Tyler, the Creator - Flower Boy 9. Dua Lipa - Blow Your Mind 10. Kesha - Rainbow

Christian Wright - World Genre Director

1. Jay Som - Everybody Works

Melina Duterte’s sophomore album is a bedroom production jewel. Every song, incredibly cohesive as a whole, traverses the beautifully lush sonic worlds her mind seemingly conjures up. That’s not to say the ten tracks that span Everybody Works are simple happenstances that fall together nicely; they definitely sound like labors of love. Rather her voice, certain of itself, transmits to the listener so powerfully, making sense out of all the disorder that comes with self-doubt and personal struggle. “Won’t forget to climb,” she sings on E.W’s. final track, “For Light,” beautifully steering the qualms of trying to make it in this world.

2. Nikolas Escudero - Synthesis 3. Haley Heynderickx - Unpeeled (Live) 4. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up 5. Bedouine - Beduoine 6. Japanese Breakfast - Soft Sounds from Another Planet 7. Lomelda - Thx 8. Hand Habits - Wildly Idle (Humble Before the void) 9. Kevin Morby - City Music 10. Wednesday Campanella - Superman

Ethan Lee - Jazz Genre Director

1. Nick Hakim - Green Twins

Nick Hakim blurs the line between psychedelic, soul, funk, rock, and jazz with his debut album, Green Twins. With lush melodies to command his songs and a spacey approach to recording production, Hakim creates his own unique sound and challenges the notions and implications of a music genre.  With a brand of sound that emulates Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Hakim's soundscape fills in colorful textures with his diverse instrumentation on top of steady, pulse-like rhythms.  From spacey, reflective post-R&B rock songs like "Bet She Looks Like You" to jazzy, rhythmic pulses in "Miss Chew" and slow, soulful ballads like "Needy Bees," Green Twins has just about everything you need in a debut album from an artist as complex as Nick Hakim.

2. Tyler the Creator - Flower Boy 3. Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference 4. Rex Orange County - Apricot Princess 5. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - Diaspora 6. Moses Sumney - Aromanticism 7. Steve Lacy - Steve Lacy’s Demo 8. Brockhampton - Saturation II 9. Smino - blkswn 10. Antonio Sanchez - Bad Hombre

Mark Edmonds - Electronic Genre Director

1. Moon Boots - First Landing

First Landing is Moon Boots' debut album. Moon Boots manages a deep overtone with techy-melodies. 'Never Get to You' is a standout track that will light up any dance floor or pool party. 

2. Rezz - Mass Manipulation 3. Oliver - Full Circle 4. Various Artists - Anjunadeep Vol. 9 5. Illenium - Awake 6. Giraffage - Too Real 7. Four Tet - New Energy 8. Odesza - A Moment Apart 9. Cosmic Gate - Materia Chapter.Two 10. Bicep - Bicep

Beliz Urkmez - Electronic Genre Director

1. Lorde - Melodrama

For me, Lorde's music means emotion in its purest, most honest form. Her sophomore album, Melodrama, captures her youth, her growth, her path to becoming a woman of her own and loving herself and all the ephemeral experiences in between. Mastering her craft, Lorde finds a cohesion between her atmospheric synths, harmonies, beats and the bittersweet wisdom in her lyrics. Especially in "Liability," a beautiful piano-ballad where she sings, "I understand, I'm a liability/ Get you wild, make you leave/ I'm a little much for everyone." Lorde is truly one of a kind and Melodrama proves she is one of the best artists today.

2. Gorillaz - Humanz 3. London Grammar - Truth Is a Beautiful Thing 4. HAIM - Something to Tell You 5. Alexandra Savior - Belladonna of Sadness 6. Temples - Volcano 7. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds - Who Built the Moon? 8. Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life 9. Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex 10. Mura Masa - Mura Masa

Alex Ivanova - Folk/Singer-Songwriter Genre Director

1. Kiran Leonard - Derevaun Seraun

This is probably the most sonically beautiful album I’ve listened to in years. 22-year-old Kiran Leonard blends voice, piano, and string trio into an album with each movement representing a different piece of literature, seeing as the album was written to celebrate the re-opening of Manchester’s Central Library. The album is intensely personal, and raw, as Leonard’s voice is in the spotlight, accompanied by mournful accompaniment. I recommend this album endlessly.

2. The Spirit of the Beehive - pleasure suck 3. Jay Som - Everybody Works 4. Joan of Arc - He’s Got the Whole This Land Is Your Land in His Hands 5. Kindling - Hush 6. Синекдоха Монток - MMXVII (Parts 1 & 2) 7. Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the Alps 8. Sidney Gish - Ed Buys Houses 9. Tagubu & Klimperei - I Don't Remember The First Time  10. Nnamdi Ogbonnaya - DROOL

#best of 2017

[madferliam]

People: Liam Gallagher on the Hard Road to His Hard Rocking Comeback: 'Being a Liam Gallagher Fan Must Be F—ing Hard Work'

By Jordan Runtagh Oct 25, 2017

What made you decide it was time to come back in the studio after all this time? I guess after Beady Eye sort of slipped into a coma, I needed time out to address some things in my personal life. Then after all that was sorted it was like, “It’s time to make a record!” I stumbled across a couple of tunes—one called “Bold” and one called “When I’m in Need”—and I thought they were all right. I went to meet [producer] Greg Kurstin and I made some tunes with him and I kinda got back into the cycle of it. There’s no perfect time to make it; it just felt natural.

In many ways, you hadn’t really slowed down since you started with Oasis. Did the time off change your perspective at all? Yeah, it did. Obviously I would have liked Beady Eye to be a success but it wasn’t meant to be. I think the time off has done me a world of good. I’m pretty in-your-face as an artist—or a singer, or a big mouth, or whatever the f— you want to call me. I think people needed a break from me, too, so I think it’s done everyone a world of good. I’m not one of them people that craves fame and that. So we’ll do the record, we’ll do the rounds and then we’ll get out of people’s faces again. Maybe we’ll go again down the line, but I certainly won’t be making another one straight away. Everyone needs a breather, I think. But I’m glad to be back and I’m glad to be up there singing. That’s what I was put here to do, man: sing songs. Hopefully I can keep doing that for the rest of my existence. 

Do you find that songwriting is therapeutic for you? Yeah, I do. I just get my guitar out and have a little play and that and see what happens. I get my Dictaphone out and see where we go. I’m not one of them people walking around my house scratching my head going, “F—ing hell, if I don’t write another song again I’ll have to jump off the nearest bridge.” I take it or leave, you know what I mean? I don’t cast myself as a songwriter, I cast myself as a singer more than anything else. As long as there’s people out there willing to work with me and write me a few tunes, I’m alright. I do enjoy writing songs, but I don’t sit there and have sleepless nights like some songwriters who think, “Oh, what if I never write a song again?” That doesn’t happen to me.

Is it ever a challenge for you to sing songs written by somebody else? Does a song always have to mean something to you, or do the best singers always have a touch of the actor in them? I think that’s true, although I certainly don’t know what half of them mean. “Supersonic”? I don’t know what that means. “Champagne Supernova”? I don’t know what a lot of stuff that means. I don’t even know what “Bold” means! I can sing anything and it’ll mean something because of the way I sing it. I sing it with passion and that means something. When I look at the lyrics I don’t go, “What’s this about?” I didn’t ask Andrew Wyatt or those other guys, “What’s all this about?” I just got on with it and sang it and it kind of means things, you know what I mean? I like things that don’t mean anything. Not everything has to have a meaning behind it. Life: what does that mean? No one knows. It’s just how we interpret it. To be honest for you, every song I’ve ever sang has some sort of meaning. It all means something to me, even if I don’t know what.

How was the process of working as a solo artist different from working as a band? Even in Oasis, Noel would do most of the writing. It wasn’t always about me, so I’m quite easy about handing over the baton to people to help make a record. It was pretty much the same, to be fair. I sort of popped in when I was needed and got off when I wasn’t. I wasn’t one of those people who goes, “I’m a one-man band!” I went over to L.A., I did a bit of writing and a bit of singing, and then I got off and left them to it to tidy it all up. It was mostly the exact same.

I was at your show at Rough Trade in Brooklyn a few weeks back—your new touring band sounds incredible. You’ve got Jay Mehler—who you worked with in Beady Eye—on guitar, Drew McConnell from the Libertines on bass, Mike Moore on guitar, Dan McDougall on drums and Chris Madden on keyboards. What do you look for when you’re putting a band together? I’ve got a top band, man. We put the band together towards the end of the record. They’re good musicians and they’re a good bunch of lads. They just keep their heads down and get on with the job, you know what I mean? I’m really lucky to have them. Obviously you’ve got to have a look—we’ve got to look like we’re all on the same page—but the most important thing is that they’re into it. You don’t have to be the best musicians in the world, even though they are talented, as long as it’s got a spirit.

Oasis weren’t the best musicians. The first round of Oasis—Bonehead [guitarist Paul Arthurs] and Guigsy [bassist Paul McGuigan] and even myself and Noel—none of us were super, super talented as musicians. Noel was a good songwriter and I was a good singer, but even still we weren’t that great. But we had a massive f—ing spirit. It’s more about spirit, really. It’s gotta be raw. There’s a lot of virtuosos out there that can play everything, but nothing really comes of it. I want to keep that rawness.

Aside from your album, there’s not a lot of rock the charts right now. What would you do to fix rock ‘n’ roll? Just stop making dance music. If you’re gonna be rock ‘n’ roll and play rock ‘n’ roll, at least turn your guitars on and use it a bit instead of f—ing worrying about your dance moves. Get your head down and f—ing belt it out like Steve Jones. I don’t care about the business; f— the business. Half of these musicians have taken their eye off the ball and are looking at the stats going, “Oh, how many are streaming? How many are listening?” when they should be in the f—ing studio writing good songs. They’re thinking too much about the business side and that’s not what I’m about.

To me, I don’t think rock itself is in a bad state. It’s always been cool down my way. And to prove it, we’re No. 1 in England. A guitar album has just smashed the whole Top 40 to smithereens. So the proof is in the pudding that guitar music, or rock ‘n’ roll, or whatever you call it, is still healthy. The whole charts might not be full of it, but the Number One record is mine. So there you f—ing go. I can only speak from experience, but I think it’s doing well, so hopefully it’ll kickstart something.

At some of your shows I’ve seen kids who weren’t even born when Oasis had their first few albums. How does it feel to know you’re inspiring a whole new generation? That means a lot to me, man. They’re the second generation of Oasis fans. Like the first, I won’t let them down. Or the third, they won’t get let down either. With the right songs and the right spirit, I’m your man. As long as I can keep my voice going. Every now and then I take couple of breaks and recuperate and then go again, but if I’ve got the right songs no one will f—ing touch me.

If this album had just dripped out there and no one paid much attention to it, I’d have been f—ed. Personally, I would have gone, “I don’t think I’ve got the heart to go make another one.” But everyone seems to want another Liam Gallagher record, so who am I to deny them?

I hope they know I’m a real deal. The way I see it, it’s all about the universe, mate. I’ve been good to rock ‘n’ roll and rock ‘n’ roll has been good to me. Rock ‘n’ roll saved my life—it’s done it on many occasions. People have had it worse but the last four years I’ve sort of lost me way a little bit. Now it’s come around and been good again. Hopefully I’ll be good to it. The fans are cool, man. Being a Liam Gallagher fan must be f—ing hard work. But let me tell you, being Liam Gallagher is even harder because I’ve got to live with me 24/7. [laughs]

A lot of people don’t like fame, but you seem built for it. What is your relationship like with fame? I don’t get involved with it, really. When I first started in the ‘90s, obviously it was great. You’re coming into London and you got all these parties and all that stuff, but I soon grew out of it. I soon thought, “Ehh, this is not for me.” I sort of keep myself to myself these days. I get up in the morning, I go out for my run, I come back and me and the girlfriend just do what we do. We don’t go to places where it’s full of f—ing idiots, you know what I mean? We stay to our own neck of the woods. So we turn down a lot of these celebrity parties because it’s not really real, is it?

As far as fame is concerned, it’s cool but I keep it at arm’s length. If someone comes up to me and goes, “I like your jacket,” or “Where’d you get those shoes?” or “I really like your record,” I’m not one of them people that go, “Ooo, go away!” I’m the first person to go and have a chat with them, because I’d be a liar if I didn’t like being recognized and appreciated—without a doubt. Who doesn’t like to be appreciated? So I do dig that, but I’m never going to be one of those people going on about the struggles of fame. It’s like, “Don’t f—ing moan about it when you’re hanging out at celebrity parties. Go and have a night off.” The only people who moan about fame are the people who are in the bubble. It’s like, “Have a night off, mate. Stay in and put your feet up!”

For someone who’s gone through as much as you have, what’s success to you nowadays? Well there’s life and there’s music. With music, it’s the chance to go out and get in the studio with good writers and learn my trade by being with them and going out and getting some good gigs. Obviously you want a No. 1 record. I just want people to love what I do and actually get it. A lot of people will buy a record just because a lot of people will buy anything anyway. But I love people who actually take it home and in their hearts and souls and listen to the songs and go, “F—ing hell, this song does something to me.” So that’s how I’m judging success. But on the other bit, to be alive and be able to do these things—you’ve got to be in it to win it, haven’t ya?

📝Read the full article here.

#liam gallagher #as you were #interview #people magazine

[vpuype-blog]

How Oasis saved my life.

“Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me”

One of the better known lines in the Oasis hit -Wonderwall-. But here’s the funny thing, they actually saved me, prevented me from killing myself and prevented me from falling into a dark hole where i would have never been able to crawl out of, back into the light.

It was the summer of 2017, known to me as ‘the summer of heartbreak’ or ‘the worst summer of my life’ or ‘the summer of tears’. Or maybe even all of these at once. I was a stupid fool, made some bad decisions and lost the love of my life. My high school sweetheart, my babydoll, my little girl. I lost her, and with her i lost the ability to enjoy the sun on my face, the smell of the evening rain, the stars in the summersky late at night. I lost the ability to enjoy rock ‘n roll and be part of the myth. I lost the ability to write songs, to write lyrics, i lost the ability to play. But the most important thing, i lost happiness. 

“Losing her was like losing the rain”

She broke up with me on the 4th of September. It was the toughest period of time i ever went through. Today, two months have gone by and i can honestly say it was a very rough period, but i learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself and the people around me. In only two months time, i learned to differentiate my real friends from the phonies, i found out what i wanted to do in life and what i had to change about myself. 

A friend of mine left town in September, he went to study abroad in Milan. One night, right before he left, he called me in the middle of the night. He asked me if he could crash at my place cause he had no place to go. I let him in. That was the start of a long chain of conversations with this guy about life and what it all means. He told me i should check out the documentary ‘supersonic’, about a band called ‘Oasis’. So i did. Their attitude towards people, society and life in general shook me. Noel’s amazing songwriting and Liam’s great voice made me dig deeper into their music. Of course there were a few songs i already knew like ‘wonderwall’ or ‘don’t look back in anger’, but there was so much more just waiting to be discovered. So many great lines, big rock ‘n roll riffs and attitude, attitude, attitude, attitude. Liam Gallagher is one piece of arrogance and attitude, but man do i love to see that guy sing. He really doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone thinks about him. Neither does Noel. They’re just two brothers with an incredible talent displayed in all these great albums.

Because of the fact that i still love my girl (well,.. ex-girlfriend), i really didn’t feel the need to go out. Cause i didn’t want to see all these girls begging for attention, or couples eating each other’s faces. I wanted to be on my own. But i happen to have great friends and they wouldn’t let me be on my own. So instead of going out, they came over to my place. Always one friend, or two, maybe three. But no matter the group, i was always in good company. These where the nights where i talked a lot, and by that i mean A LOT. After a few drinks and ‘sandwiches’, these conversations started to get serious. It all came down to one thing, i miss my girl, i think it’s unfair that she was taken from me, and if i could go back and fix what i had damaged, i would. But you can never go back, i had to acquiesce the fact that she’s gone. In the background of our conversations, there was always one band playing ‘oasis’, songs like ‘half the world away’, ‘live forever’, ‘the masterplan’, ‘champagne supernova’.. Always seemed to make me realize that there was more to life than the heartache i was feeling at the time. It made me realize that ‘NOW’ is more important than the past or the future. When we were high we listened to ‘champagne supernova’ and we talked about all the people that were gone. We listened to that song over and over again and silently sang along, ‘How many special people change? How many lives are livin strange? Where were you while we were getting high?’. We sat there, night after night, with our faces in the sky smiling at each other like idiots saying ‘these are the best nights of our lives’. And i do believe they are, i long for these nights cause they make me realize that all that i am, and all that i’ll ever be is because of the people that take care of me when i’m at my lowest. And i’ll never forget these moments of pure happiness. How a good friend can make you forget all the heartache in the world. 

Being alone is hard, it makes me think about all that i’ve done wrong and all that i could’ve done better. This is where Oasis is really important to me. Their music always tells me that i’m great, that i’m perfectly imperfect, that i’m a rock ‘n roll star, i’m supersonic, i’m awesome. It gives me the feeling i can take on the world and i do. I do take on the world, i started playing again, more viciously than ever, i started writing again, i started dreaming again, i started living again… Let them talk, i’m a rock ‘n roll star. 

The first 4 weeks after the break up, i went to bed as early as i could, so i could sleep untill tomorrow and forget about my sorrow (funny thing, it rhymes). It was hard falling asleep tho, because i kept thinking ‘does she have someone else, has she kissed anyone yet? is she thinking about me?’. I used to play the song ‘talk tonight’ and ‘half the world away’ on repeat during lonely nights. They gave me a sense of existence, of self-awareness. ‘Half the world away’ actually gave me the idea that i didn’t need anyone else to be happy, that i could leave this damned city at any given time. It made me feel free. Like Liam sings in ‘whatever’, ‘i’m free to be whatever i, whatever i choose and i’ll sing the blues if i want’. I am free, i am a crooked, weird looking, human being, but i’m free. I play rock ‘n roll and i’m good at it, i can move people and i’m proud of it. I have great friends and i cherish them, i have a wonderful family and i can’t wait to start my own. I’m free, Oasis made me feel free, for the first time in forever, i’m free.

Oasis is freedom, rock ‘n roll, happiness, carelessness, it’s long nights of getting high with friends, it’s great car rides to unknown places, it’s concerts, lights, and smiles. It’s a ‘fuck you all, i know what i’m doing and i do what i do best’ -attitude. It’s arrogance and humility all at once. It’s self-respect and respect for others. Oasis saved my life, brought the sun back into my life, it made me breathe again, smell the night again, it made me enjoy the rain on my skin, it made me enjoy life again. Oasis saved my life, like no other band could’ve done right now. I don’t look back in anger, i’m grateful for the lessons i’ve learned and the people i’ve met along the way.

‘wherever this road may guide me, it will always guide me home’

And to my friends, family and everyone i love

-You and i we’re gonna live forever-

#Oasis #noelgallagher #liamgallagher #liveforever #champagnesupernova #wonderwall #don'tlookbackinanger #halftheworldaway #music #musicsavedme #love #friends #high #whatever #breakup #story #truestory #freedom #acquiesce

[tinymixtapes]

Column: Favorite Rap Mixtapes of March 2017

With a daunting cascade of releases spewing from the likes of DatPiff, LiveMixtapes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, it can be difficult to keep up with the overbearing yet increasingly vital mixtape game. In this column, we aim to immerse ourselves in this hyper-prolific world and share our favorite releases each month. The focus will primarily be on rap mixtapes — loosely defined here as free (or sometimes free-to-stream) digital releases — but we’ll keep things loose enough to branch out if/when we feel it necessary. (Check out last month’s installment here.) --- --- Truman Snow - Kingdom Heartless [stream] It’s the trap on candid camera in a reality TV movie, not Menace II Society or Snow on tha Bluff, but The Truman Show, except the cast of friends, neighbors, and family casually advertise illicit substances instead of cleaning products and lawnmowers, and everybody’s armed to the grill. It’s a winter in the Taiga completely isolated from civilization for the chance to win a stack, but the show gets canceled, the lenses in the trees go dark, and no one bothers to tell the contestants. It’s technicolor carnage visited upon greyscale fantasy, i.e. Connecticut. –Samuel Diamond --- Caleb Giles - Tower [stream] Above all else, Tower harks back to an era when rap was more about focusing on what was in front of you as opposed to what might otherwise be experienced on a virtual platform, and in this case, that’s the Bronx. On his debut mixtape, Caleb Giles ensures a gritty listen, even when punctuated through his smooth, pronounced vocals and snippets of jazz instrumentation. Giles challenges the comforts and securities that are sometimes hinted at when contemplating one’s home city, focusing on the trials and tribulations that impinge on his own aspirations. “I can’t do anything but rhyme,” he spouts on “YBR” amidst pitched-up vocals and carefully spliced beats and clicks, hinting at his own determination while experimenting profoundly with the productions that wrap around his thoughtful flow. The mixtape is a solid listen that remains concise across each track in terms of content and production. “Valley” is a personal favorite, where a public service announcement melds with antagonistic conversation. “I know I’ve been a little dismissive, but I’ve just been searching for a bigger pot to piss in,” Giles snaps before his voice crackles and fades — it’s a fleeting moment, but one that one that stays true to the mixtape’s theme and the direction that this young rapper is headed. –Birkut --- CHXPO - SAUCE FOR SELL [stream/download] “Vitalists have argued for 40 years that postwar art’s ultimate expression will be a kind of enormous psychosocial excrement. The real aesthetic, conscious or otherwise of today’s best serious rap may be nothing but the first wave of this Great Peristalsis.” – David Foster Wallace, Signifying Rappers In a post-Lil B era, prolificacy seems more like a byproduct of exorcism than the exuberant mixtape manna once lavished by The BasedGod upon his loyal followers. There’s only so much information one can process in the digital realm before resorting to desperate measures of discharge. Cleveland-native CHXPO’s a human kidney when it comes to waste filtration, honing in on moments of improvised vitriol and pasting them into cathartic patchworks. Six (entirely-freestyled) mixtapes into 2017, the Black Money Boys Death Row affiliate treads the artistic path of Warhol and the technological vision of Musk: Sauce For Sell is a product of automaton creativity, produced, packaged, and shipped as efficiently as possible. If a recycled verse or two rises to the surface mid-process, so be it. Quantity over quality. Quantity and quality. Invest in Neuralink today. “The angels respect me / The demons protect me.” – CHXPO - “BVNDGXD” –Jude Noel --- The Noise Above - Blossom! [stream/download] Unlike memes, a creed does not degrade upon repetition. Take 1990s jazz-tinged hip-hop as an example; the two decades transpired have turned it as much a tradition as the rare groove tracks it originally sampled. New York-based producer The Noise Above qualifies as a third inheritor in such lineage, his latest mixtape Blossom! boasting the soulful vibe and melodious rhyming of its East Coast forbears. With a richer production and a more seasoned flow than his previous releases, Blossom! highlights the evolution of The Noise Above as an artist who’s maybe two or three mixtapes away from his mainstream breakout. With lots of pop hooks and clever lyrical turns in his tracks, what weighs him down is a compulsion to overdo things production-wise and the restlessness of someone who knows he’s poised for greatness but anxious because the future takes too long to materialize. With killer tracks like “RACE,” “What if?,” or “Lemon king” announcing there’s more fire from whence they came, some patience would no doubt go a long way for the young New Yorker. –jrodriguez6 --- Lil Durk - Love Songs For The Streets [stream/download] After weathering some career-growing pains and serious personal losses within the past few years, Lil Durk found himself on something of a back-to-basics winning streak à la Monster-era Future at the outset of the 2017, building on the slow-burning success of last summer’s refreshingly no-bullshit LilDurk2x album with a scorching, taut return to street rap on November’s They Forgot mixtape. Love Songs For The Streets thankfully continues in this crossovers-be-damned vein, offering up precisely what the title implies in a brief but electrifying set of tracks. Love and respect for the wisdom that can only be gained through loss and struggle is what has always fueled Durk’s best songwriting, and for new listeners and old fans alike, it is strangely affirming to hear the rapper speak humbly and candidly about the disillusionment and loss of intimacy that has come with success. “Better,” the tape’s brittle, cold centerpiece and most potent track, is just one of several odes therein to the bittersweet, lean-clouded freedom experienced on the opposite end of a betrayal: “You were my brudda/ Changed on me for that chedda/ You were my brudda/ We can do better.” –Nick Henderson --- Slug Christ - It’s Colder at the Bottom of the Shower [stream/download] Slug Christ’s return to non-feature work in 2017 is a quick five-track EP dealing directly with his troubles with addiction: emotional and chemical, mostly. The first four tracks have Slugger reflecting on his heroin addiction, which is explicitly noted in nearly every mixtape dating back five years. In the same recovering imagery as It’s Colder at the Bottom of the Shower, “Scraped Me Off The Pavement” and, more directly, “At The Bottom” and “I Been Tryna Get Clean” are devil-off-the-shoulder interpersonal conflicts of love and relapse. The closer “Gamecube” seems like a hang-on, with the only real correlation between it and the rest of ICATBOTS (holy shit that acronym) being L.A. producer Nedarb. It’s another Christ banger. Praise the man. Hopefully, Slug’s still trying. Hopefully he’s still kicking it with the shawty that saved him. And hopefully you’ll go find him on the East Coast tour he’s on right now. –Monet Maker --- ۞ pvps ۞ - 2K17 GLO [stream] 2011. Washed Out’s Within and Without on my iPod Touch against the stitching of my blue Oxford. Breathe in. New car smell. Old Navy warehouse smell. Synths like 2-in-1 Shampoo and Conditioner webbing my fingers. Bass like an oscillating fan on a humid night. Yacht-rock trap jams to wax upper-middle class to. Dig it. –Jude Noel --- Devin the Dude - Acoustic Levitation [stream] Affectionately nicknamed “your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper,” Devin the Dude’s unique delivery and ear for production brought his self-deprecating brand of weed rap a degree of critical respect he probably wouldn’t have anticipated prior to the success of 2002 singles “Lacville ‘79” and “Doobie Ashtray,” respectively about driving a shitty car and people smoking all your weed. Quietly beloved by rappers and fans with a rapper-like interest in his wonky flow, Devin has nonetheless spent his career relegated to a niche. Acoustic Levitation, his first project in four years, is true to his principles in a way that, as before, makes a case for their appeal outside of the narrow window afforded him. Particularly benefiting “Can I” and “Apartment #8216,” its basslines are appropriately sticky, and Devin’s flow hasn’t budged an inch; if you don’t like his mid-2000s output, Acoustic Levitation won’t change your mind about Devin the Dude. “All I need is good weed, and I’m cool man,” etc. For me, though, and because the game hasn’t been fair to him, his consistency is well worth celebrating. –Will Neibergall --- Lil Uzi Vert - Luv Is Rage 1.5 [stream/download] There’s always been a hint of melodrama to Lil Uzi Vert’s sound amidst his array of malleable flows and quick-hit punchlines, but it’s generally carried a cartoonish element to it that’s thwarted any sense of urgency (see: “You Was Right”). And while Uzi’s Luv Is Rage 1.5 delivers three quality head-nodders mixing humor and sentimentality, the project’s breakout single “XO Tour Llife3” steals the show, finding rap’s rising star at his most revealing. Gone is any hint of a tongue placed in cheek, instead replaced by a raw, melodic warble of a performance that lays all out bare; the end of its first verse is outright heart-wrenching as he croons, “She say I’m insane yeah, I might blow my brains out, Xanny help the pain yeah, Please Xanny make it go away,” only to be emotionally bested by the cry of “All my friends are dead” with a cadence more likened to emo than hip-hop. Uzi’s usual brand of pop rap is a consistent, comfortable machine that’s always fun at the very least, but his most thrilling moments from a critical perspective occur when he takes risks like “XO Tour Llife3.” Here’s to hoping they won’t be hidden within SoundCloud mini-mixtapes in the future. –Mike Giegerich http://j.mp/2oH5i46

[as-i-lay-dying-project]

Post #11: Jewel, the Unlikely Mama’s Boy(Part 2)

Pictured Below:Jewel’s most important relationship.

Let’s dig into that more. Jewel has a strange way of showing his love, one that is ill-interpreted by the other characters of the book. Darl thinks Jewel is the undeserving object of his mother’s love, and harbours none of the same love for her. Peabody thinks he treats her as little more than a pack horse. Cora thinks that Jewel’s spent his life “inventing devilment to torture [Addie]”[Faulkner, 21] and thinks that he was all too happy to take a chance to “make that extra three dollars at the price of his mother’s goodbye kiss”[Faulkner, 22]. However, none of them really understand how Jewel feels about her. We see rather transparently how passionately he cares about her in his single section, a 2-page chapter of Jewel agonizing over his mother’s situation, wishing that all the other onlookers were gone, and it were “just me and her together on a high hill,”[Faulkner, 15], fantasizing about “rolling the rocks down the hill at their faces”[15] so he could finally have the peace with his mother he desires. We see the harsh, genuine, and utterly inarticulable love of Jewel later on as he cusses out his horse, supposedly his most prized possession, calling the poor animal a “pussel-gutted bastard”[Faulker, 13] and a “sweet son of a bitch”[Faulkner, 13]. It’s indisputable that Jewel loves this animal with all his heart, and yet he swears at it with such vitriol? Could it be temporary stress? No, it’s just the way Jewel expresses himself. He lacks the diction of Darl and the simple kindness of Cash, but he has them both beat by miles in the department of sheer, undiluted passion. It’s just that, much like the horses he loves to ride, Jewel has a pair of blinders on throughout the book. Just like how he doesn’t see how his nighttime plowing activities are a massive burden on his family, he doesn’t notice how the way he acts around his mother makes him seem spoilt, selfish and cold to onlookers. However, Addie couldn’t care less. Words to Addie are empty air, and the unbridled and inarticulable love that Jewel holds for her are the sort of real feelings that she’s spent her whole life looking for. In fact, Jewel probably holds the most love for Addie out of the entire Bundren family. He unquestioningly fords the river with her corpse, and dives straight into the burning barn to retrieve her coffin once again. Just as Addie had forseen, Jewel was her salvation and “[s]ave[d] her from the water and the fire,”. However, his intrepid rescue is far from the heroic act that Addie’s prophecy foretold. Instead of rescuing his mother, he does nothing more than preserve the integrity of a rotting corpse in a wooden box. He simply prolongs a farcical odyssey that was envisioned not as a pilgrimage to an ancestral burial ground, but as a vindictive punishment for everyone in the family except for him. In fact, had Jewel failed in either of these instances, Cash may still have his leg intact, and Darl may not have been sent off to Jefferson. His family could’ve returned to some semblance of normality instead of venturing hopelessly to a goal they have no reason to strive for. That seems to sum Jewel up rather gracefully. A heart in the right place, and a head in the wrong one.

Bibliography Faulkner, William, and Noel Polk. As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text. New York: Vintage International, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, 2013.

Posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2017

#post

[glymphatics]

thanks for the inspo @llladytron ♡

#dang it has been SO LONG since i've done an edit #just a quick one bc #i dig 2017 noel so much #just in case yall didnt know that #teehee #noel fielding #gbbo #the great british bake off #the great british baking show #myposts

[nashvillesingersblog]

Todd’s chat with legendary vocal arranger Kirby Shaw

Todd Wilson had a chance to interview Kirby Shaw for our email newsletter. Todd is one of our founders and serves the Nashville Singers as Executive Director and Artistic Director.    

You can subscribe to our newsletter by texting the word SINGERS to 42828

Published November 6, 2017

TW: When did complete your first vocal arrangement. Do you remember the name of the song? KS: As crazy as this sounds, my first "arrangement" was a composition 5 Psalms For Unaccompanied Double Chorus for my Masters of Arts degree at San Jose State in the mid 1960's. Growing up playing trumpet in school bands, singing in school/church choirs/jazz combos/bands all through college, as well as spending time being glued to the black radio station in Oakland, California KSAN (the same town that spawned Tower of Power) prepared me to jump into music/writing/arranging in a variety of ways. I didn't fully realize this at the time, but looking back now it makes sense. TW: Can you describe the arranging process or what inspires you along the way? KS: My arranging process for American popular music begins by working to honor the artists(s) whose music I've chosen to arrange. In addition to duplicating the rhythmic groove, harmonies and melody that often don't appear in the published sheet music, I try to capture as many stylistic details as possible. If it's a song that I think could benefit by adding a horn section (usually Trumpet 1 and 2, Tenor Sax and Trombone so as not to drown out the choir) I'll include that as well. 

My inspiration for writing/arranging school music is two-fold: 1) As a choral educator, I'm continually thrilled with what happens when people come together to sing: everything becomes better...troubles are lessened...endorphins are created...feelings are expressed and shared in a special communal way.  I've come to the realization that, as choral educators, we are in the people empowerment business and choral music is the vehicle!...2) The United States is easily the groove capitol of the known universe! Every cultural contribution to music-making can be found here. I feel so lucky to have grown up in a time that spans 30's- 40's style music all the way into this century. Much of this rich elixir of musical styles has come from Black America...freedom of expression derived from messing with melodies, rhythms and harmonies. I work hard to include these in many of my arrangements. In truth, I'd like to be known as the blackest white arranger I know! TW: What percentage of your arrangements are commissioned works, where people/groups come to you vs. songs you just decide to arrange on your own? KS: I do a few commissioned pieces each year, but most of my income comes from writing/arranging for the major music publishers...Hal Leonard/Alfred/Shawnee Press. I was fortunate enough to be at the right place (Reno Jazz Festival) at the right time (1974) with the right choral group (College of the Siskiyous Vocal Jazz Ensemble..one of the first community college jazz/pop choirs in California). A representative from Hal Leonard looking for something different to add to their music education offerings heard our group and asked me if I'd like to do some arranging for their company. That started the arranging ball rolling. Most of my arrangements are tunes that I like and happen to be available for the various publishers. TW: What are some of the groups that have commissioned you to create a custom vocal arrangement? KS: Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Acoustix, numerous high school and college choirs, Barbershop Harmony Society, Cor Vivaldi.

TW: How long does it usually take for you to complete an arrangement from start to finish? KS: Depending upon the length of the piece(s) one day to a week. TW: Do you ever encounter writer's block, times when your creative juices are not flowing adequately enough to get an arrangement started? If yes, how do you usually overcome that situation? KS: Honestly, I hardly experience writers' block. I feel so honored to be a part of what I consider to be the richest popular music treasure storehouse in the history of the world (the USA), I stay stoked! TW: David Lettermen time... What would you say is your top 10 list of Kirby Shaw arrangements you are most proud of? KS: This is hard to nail down, but here goes: Bridge Over Troubled Water, Let There Be Love, When I Fall In Love, Tear Them Down, Star Spangled Banner, Jamaican Noel, Blues Down To My Shoes, Operator, Higher Ground, I've Got The Music In Me, Java Jive (I lied..that's 11) TW: What advice could you give to aspiring arrangers? KS: Jump in...and keep jumping in! Good ears are a big help...some piano chops and keyboard harmony are a good idea, and have a group where you can try your stuff out. Keep learning...keep exploring! TW: Many people only know you as an arranger, but you're a performer too. I was listening to your quartet Just4Kicks this past week. Are you guys still singing together? KS: Singing in Just 4 Kicks has been one of the most enjoyable activities in my life. Clue...our first rehearsal lasted for 10 hours and we laughed for 9! We find it hard to believe that we've been together for 25+ years. With the inevitable changes that occur in long-term relationships, we're hoping to keep this thing going, and we'll always love each other as brothers in song. TW: As a performer, when you're putting together a set list for a gig, do you have a particular process for choosing the songs and the order of those songs? KS: A) It's a song I like...B) Styles/Grooves/Lyric content need to vary from song to song...C) Keys need to vary from song to song D)..most importantly, don't be boring! TW: When we had the grant funding available, you served as a clinician for one of our Acappella Academy sessions. I know the intent is for you to impart your knowledge on others at these kinds of sessions. Can you describe some of the "aha moments" you have encountered along the way, times where you learned something new? KS: Honestly, every time I come in contact with a choir (even a few spontaneous times in airports!) there are a-ha moments. Why?..because of the uniqueness of every individual in that choir. For me, each of us is a unique spiritual being and each of us has interesting things to bring to the music table. It's a wise choral educator that allows these a-ha moments to happen in a rehearsal. Possibly my biggest a-ha moment recently was in Calw, Germany. A female tenor in her mid-20's came up to me after our final performance and said "Thank you, Dr. Shaw, for saving my life. I was in a padded cell at a mental hospital after trying to kill myself, and listening to the practice tracks for our concert inspired me to not give up." It was truly a humbling experience for me to hear that. TW: What are your thoughts on the evolution of songwriting over the course of your lifetime? Are you happy with this evolution? KS: Quality songs will always be written...for me, these will be songs that honor the 5 elements of music...Melody, lyrics, harmony, form, rhythm and tone color (Ok..I added one here too!). However, I agree with Deke Sharon and a large contingent of knowledgeable music writers and arrangers that these are dark times for popular music.  I believe the slow downward spiral started in the 1990's. Part of the problem could be that with technology, (the good news and the bad news) anyone can now write a song. For me and my wife, we try not to roll our eyes when we're in a restaurant and hear a pop melody that's limited to a boring 4-note pentatonic 4-yr. old level melody that repeats...and repeats...let's see, one time we counted 14 repetitions! We find this to be truly beyond belief, and our hope is, as music has moved in the past, that music will swing back to a more interesting place than where it is now. TW: Which musicians/groups do you admire and what about them inspires you? KS: There are too many groups and individuals that have inspired me to cover in this brief interview. To mention even a dozen would do a disservice to the others.  It's a veritable treasure trove of talent, that's for sure! TW: What other vocal arrangers do you admire? KS: This is a tough call as well, but a few of my many faves would include Gene Puerling, Phil Mattson, David Wright and Rosana Eckert. TW: Do you have any non-musical hobbies? KS: I did a lot of surfing (before the Beach Boys..yikes!)..hiking in the Southern Sierras and northern California's Marble mountains and Trinity Alps,..cleaning up the forest on our 24 acres at 5100' above Ashland Oregon's Rogue Valley...landscaping, planting Japanese Maples, Sequoia Giganteas, Douglas Firs and digging the planting holes by hand...getting away from it all with my wife, Markita, and our dog, Tux. TW: What cool stuff do you have coming up in the near future? KS: Besides a bunch of rewarding teaching/concertizing In Australia couple of months ago, I'll be in Los Angeles starting in December to record my new choral arrangements for Hal Leonard. The choir my wife and I direct, The Jefferson State Choral Coalition, is now a non-profit and we'll be doing a Holiday Gospel concert soon with Darlene Reynolds-Cooper, a former student of mine who's one of the most soulful singers I will ever know. I'll judge at the Smoky Mountain Music Festivals next April. In spring of 2018 our choir will do a Blues and Grooves concert in the Medford Oregon Craterian Theatre with the Hank Shreve Blues Band. Hank is a world-class harmonica player, and hey, his dad plays bass in the band!. I'll be in Calw, Germany again next June, along with some mid-west music reading sessions for Show Choir Camps of America. TW: Is there anything I have not asked you about that you would like to share with our 2,000 or so subscribers? KS: Be kind always...this'll be a nice contrast to the current nastiness going on in our country. If you're a singer, you're an actor...get your faces on and make it real. Do not require your audience to figure out what you're  feeling. What we do as singers in choirs is really important. We can truly make the world a little better every time we join in song. Give it everything you've got! Cheers - Kirby

http://www.kirbyshaw.com/

[wopcalmetacritic]

Flicker Review by Rolling Stone

Score: 68

Nothing can stop Niall Horan! This album had a rough life, but it's here and it stands on it's own two feet. What Niall does remarkably well is not let outside influence tackle the work that he does. For better or for worse, this album feels very true to the Irish heartthrob's ambitions. "Flicker" gives a lot and doesn't ask for much in return which makes one of the easier albums to unpack this year.

1. On the Loose 8/10

We start with a song that sounds like a passionate love letter to the dance floor filling 70's disco hits. This is a totally unexpected direction for Niall, but he comes by this style naturally and doesn't break a sweat through it's run time. Niall put himself out there early on in the album but his reach doesn't exceed his grasp. This sets up the album of a very positive note and plays very well to Horan's trademark energy.

2. This Town 9/10

One of the best ballads of the year endears the listener immediately to Niall. He sounds so honest and true in this song. The production isn't at all gaudy and let's Niall's smooth voice carry the song without distraction. What this track does well is that it allows itself to be a sentimental breakup/love song, but it doesn't allow itself to become a cliche. Horan obviously set out to do something simple and enjoyable with this track and he the mark without even trying!

3. Seeing Blind 5/10

2017 seems to be the year of highly unnecessary features and it seems like Niall fell into this trap. Maren Morris has a nice enough voice, but this track really didn't need her. What this track did need was a little lyrical fine tuning. It isn't by any means a bad song, but Niall has proven that he's better than doing basic "I love you" duets. This song is easily one of the biggest disappointments of the album.

4. Slow Hands 7/10

 This song introduced us to Niall, and for that it at least deserves recognition. Musically, this song is pretty good. The distant electric violin is something interesting (when you can you say you've heard a song utilize one as such an integral part of the melody?) and a pretty great idea. However, Niall really didn't do much impressive in the way of lyrics. In fact, the lyrics to this song are rather bland and don't make much sense. It almost feels like it was supposed to be a sexier style, but the lyrics conjure all the wrong images. But the music really saves this one and keeps it from being forgettable.

5. Too Much to Ask 10/10

Far and above the best track on the album, Niall delivers one of the most interesting pieces that we've gotten this year. This song reminds the listener of the sentiment Niall's best friend Shawn Mendes brought with his album and that is high praise. However, Niall does makes this his own. It doesn't feel derivative of anything, in fact it sounds very original and fresh. Niall really digs into his heart on this song and we can hear the melancholy in his voice. This not beeing the first single is a completely missed opportunity.

6. Paper Houses 6/10

Vocal. Delivery. Is. Key. In. Making. A. Song. Was that choppy to read? Well, that is the written equivalent of the verses of this song. The vocal delivery in the verses is all wrong, especially when Niall let's his voice soar over the chorus. This song holds a lot of elements that made previous songs great, but it doesn't really put them to much use. Niall missed an opportunity to make this one of the soaring tracks, but he missed it by a hair.

7. Since We're Alone 8/10

Niall revisits the soaring 70's sound on this song and it's all the better for it. This element doesn't pop up as much in the verses, but we hear it in the very eventful chorus. However, the 70's he's evoking his early 70's rock and not disco and that's a revival many music fans have been waiting on. Niall proves that he knows his way around a guitar and a melody. This song doesn't sound anything like other tracks out there right now and it seems Niall might have discovered and begun paving the new direction for guitar singers moving forward!

8. Flicker 7/10

This song is quite the curious one. It all feels like it's building toward something really big but it never gets there. That's a double edged sword: on the positive side of things, it shows Niall knows how work anticipation into his music, a skill very valuable in music. On the negative side, by the end of the song, we feel a little short changed. But it's not something to be angry about. Niall puts on quite the vocal performance here, reminding the listener of Noel Gallagher's iconic delivery. Had this song had an explosion of sound in the end like it hinted toward, it would easily be in the top tier of the album.

9. Fire Away 5/10

This song isn't offensive. It isn't controversial. It isn't sappy. It isn't...much of anything other than boring. The song goes nowhere and Niall sounds faintly bored with it by the time it's over. Niall is a very, very good musician but even he can't resist filler and that's what this is, but it's thankfully the only filler on the album. This is a song that could have been removed or even just used a little juicing up. Overall, it's not one you're going to remember when it's all said and done. .

10. You And Me 8/10

As if Niall was listening to all of my criticisms while making the album, he implements all of the needed change to end this thing on a high note. It has that anticipation element and it actually builds into something bigger and more bombastic. He keeps it interesting by changing up his vocal style. He avoids simple lyrics and cliches. An album needs a song that's going to stick with the listener at the end and this song rises to the occasion. This song is interesting, dynamic, and a perfect closer.

Expectation is this albums biggest downfall. In truth, it was never going to be what all of the fangirls around the world wanted it to be. But that isn't exactly a bad thing. Niall took expectations and he turned them around. This album is honest and it doesn't try to be anything it isn't. Niall knows what he can do and he did it well here. Niall proved that he's smarter than your average pop boy and he made it clear that he's different. And this is the best kind of different: subverting expectation. For a first album, this is much better than the majority of what his competitors are pushing out. Niall has room to grow, but he's plenty capable of learning. I look forward to N2 because Niall is sure to improve and, the most primary reason, he makes music that makes you feel good. And for that Niall, I think we all owe you one!  

[glymphatics]

and like, third point,

NO!?

#this is one of my favorite moments ever #richard ayoade #jimmy carr #noel fielding #the big fat quiz #bfq #bfqoty #2017 #british comedy #i dig 2017 noel so much #myposts

[glymphatics]

no context.

#big fat quiz #bfq #noel fielding #richard ayoade #jimmy carr #the big fat quiz of everything #2017 #i dig 2017 noel so much #british comedy #myposts