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ultraphobic · 5 months

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Hi Lane! 🎅🏻🔮

I hope the family event went well! How did your week start?

AWWW 😍your cat so cutee

This series is called Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS and it has a good rating on IMDb, I think. By the way, what are your favorite INXS songs or albums?

OMG!! Slaughter headliner of the festival how cool! I am very happy for you!

Helix looks very cool! I hope to get a piercing before Christmas or after and a nose piercing is one of the most interesting in my opinion because you can do anything with it like you said!

Thanks for the spotify link! I just hope that one day they will release all the albums on streaming because people don't have the opportunity to get acquainted with Warrant, especially with the Jani era, literally the most popular and famous albums and nothing else lol.

Aww about the drawings sounds very cute and shiny haha. I love this kind of thing! Your story about the T-shirt made my day better, thank you!

I hope your surgery goes well! Wow portrait tattoo?? great! Would you like to be a tattoo artist?

someday I won't make mistakes remembering different time zones and climate differences, but not today lmaoo :(I'm sorry! OMG your summer is really hot, it's terrible. I'm feel sorry for you. I am from Russia and Estonia (it sounds really strange lol, just one part of my family is half from Estonia and half from Russia) and now in some parts of Russia the opposite is -38 lol. In the part where I live, the coldest day was -18

What a cool choice of musicians! I think Jani was very interesting because he's one of the most incredible musicians I know. And Patrick is cool too!

Whoa! You are a real multi-instrumentalist! I play the bass too! (and on some other instruments, but very bad lol) I think that you will definitely be able to sing! It's quite interesting and as my guitar teacher says, it's not that difficult, the main thing is to overcome your fear (if there is one)

Wow! Your Christmas celebration sounds very cozy and homey. this is very nice! About look at lights, this is my favorite part of Christmas! people always make such interesting decorations and it makes it more festive.

🎄 Do you like to give or receive gifts more?

🎄 Which gift was the most memorable for you?

🎄 Do you prefer to make a wish list or are you waiting for any gift?

🎄 Would you like to play in any band? and what style of music would you prefer?

hey santa!!!

my week has started off well! i went into the new location for my store & went to start setting up and today i'm just resting. tomorrow i'm training on last minute sign offs on piercings and then thursday is opening day! we're all booked out for opening day so i have to be ready to be fast and in and out with piercings.

i'll definitely check out the series!!! kick is my favourite inxs album & my fave songs are just keep walking, never tear us apart, don't change (this one is special to me), suicide blonde, dancing on the jetty, disappear, need you tonight & original sin. inxs was one of the bands i grew up listening to along with a bunch of other older bands from aus & aotearoa and i think that influence is still there so whenever i don't feel like listening to glam but i still wanna listen to something older i go back to a childhood playlist (i think on my spotify theres a public playlist called best of australia & aotearoa which showcases some old and new stuff!)

i know im so excited!!! i was nervous when they kept delaying the lineup announcements but it looks killer so i can't wait! tickets go on sale while i'm working all day tho so i hope i can grab one while i'm on break or something. if i miss out on presale vip maybe i can grab one when they go out to the public tho! if i miss out on vip i'll just get a ga ticket.

i am sort of nervous about the venue they chose though as i have been there before, and while they are fine during actual shows the moment a concert is over they do tend to kick everyone out quite rudely (much like last weeks festival!) and tell people they can't even hang around outside because of "trespassing". this would be fine if they were'nt LITERALLY ON A MAIN STREET OF THE CITY IN SYDNEY. like they're literally next door to a mcdonald's. it's quite odd. at least they give out free water after shows.

i hope you can get piercings soon too! i think it's best to get piercings in winter as well because you don't have to worry about the not swimming part of healing.

i do hope they release the other albums on streaming at least soon! it seems that they're only available in the us and possibly canada from what i've gathered from my online friends. i'm missing the live albums, a few compilation albums, and of course belly to belly and ultraphobic. i only bothered getting ultraphobic and belly to belly as local files (and the dog eat dog bonus track) though because spotify has issues with their local files a lot and i didn't want to keep redownloading like 5 albums over and over again.

i'm glad i made your day better haha! i made a bunch of really silly shirts for my family and currently i'm working on a bunch of glam metal related ones for a glam discord server i'm in because i told them if i got the job i did and away from my old job (my old job suuucked they underpaid me and broke a bunch of labour laws and stuff. i'm gonna sort that out soon and get what i'm owed dw) then i'd make a few shirts for them.

i'm hoping i can save up for the surgery within the next year! it's a trans surgery so it's not anything majorly urgent or anything that has to happen or i'll die if i don't get it in the next month or anything but i really would like to get it asap lol. and yea! the portrait tattoo is going to be of jani which SOUNDS like i'm obsessed which i promise i'm not in a weird way it's just that he (and warrant) have become so important to me in just the last 9 months. and usually i would never get someones face tattooed on me because it's so rare for an artist to get it right but i did manage to find an artist that does it really well! (@chloemoontattoo on instagram)

i would love to be a tattoo artist! i haven't really found my art style yet so it's still a distant dream for me but as i'm already in the body modification industry i:

a) already have one of the qualifications (infection control certificate)

b) have something that looks good on a resume!

so it's possible! and i do have a backup plan of photography or continuing piercing (or both!) so i won't be stuck if i can't do it

woah you had -18? the part of aus where i live i don't think it's ever gotten that cold! at least not while i've been alive. i think maybe it's gotten to 4 or 5 but never in the negatives as far as i know

yeah i have an attachment to jani and i know theres probably someone who thinks it's weird but i do genuinely think we'd think similarly and relate on things! i think we'd be able to talk for hours

i have a little fear of singing in front of people but it has gotten better over the years! i used to not be able to get up and do anything in front of people but now since transitioning and also going to therapy for a while i have gotten a bit better! i think i could front a glam band if i stopped caring what people thought while i was onstage and also if i could FIND PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO START A BAND HERE. theres like 3 people my age into glam metal which kinda sucks.

questions!

i like giving and receiving equally i think? i don't like receiving gifts unless i have also given one (unless it's my birthday lol) but i love picking out stuff for people! gift giving is my love language

i got a new bass a few years ago! and a guitar the next year! that makes it sound like my family is rich but we're not those were my only gifts and because my bday is so close to christmas they were combined as bday/xmas gifts! (i also know what i'm getting for my bday next year. cus it;s my 21st i get something big)

i make a wishlist but only because nobody ever knows what i actually want! my mum asks me to make a list otherwise i just get clothes i won't wear and new underwear so this year i put a few bands for cds, a cd player, and a new room fan cus mine doesn't rly work. i think i'm also getting a new cd tower though cus i ran out of room on my little cd shelf i took from my parents when they moved their cds into a cupboard, the shelf only stores 75 and i think i have like 100 cds now (over 8+ years of collecting!) i am about to do a whole room redo so i am trying to ask for stuff that will be helpful to rearrange my room/redecorate, but i know i will have to buy most new furniture myself. the only stuff i'm not replacing is my desk, bed, and wardrobe (which is built into my room), (and my shelf/ stuff already mounted on the wall)

i would LOVE to be in a band, hopefully a glam metal band, but unfortunately like i said before, there's like no one my age into that genre in my area which sucks :(. i'd be happy to play any instrument in that hypothetical band, except drums bc i can only really play a basic 4/4 beat on drums so i wouldn't be very good at that.

thank you for your message santa!!! sorry for rambling so much i got carried away

#secret santa ask

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tisthenightofthewitch · 2 years

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‘Blasphemous’: how metal band Ghost became the acceptable face of Satanism

Fronted by 'anti-Pope' Tobias Forge, Ghost are one of the world's heaviest stadium bands – and it's all thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber

Tobias Forge wants you to know that “Death metal has always been a very humanistic thing. When we’re talking about darkness, death, despair, it’s to express our discontent at the world. It’s our way to explain how s___ things are”. The 41-year-old mastermind behind Ghost has spent the last 12 years taking influences from the murky underground worlds of black metal and mixing it with radio friendly pop. The result is something that’s as much ABBA as it is Cradle Of Filth.

They’ve been touted as future Download Festival headliners, have supported Foo Fighters, Metallica and Iron Maiden in stadiums around the world and they’ll be supporting the release of fifth album Impera with a European arena headline tour of their own. Almost three million people listen to them every month on Spotify, with the band appealing to lifelong punks and metalheads while also acting as a glam introduction to the world of heavy music. In a scene full of legacy acts, Ghost are the sound of the future.

For the first half of their career though, no one even knew who was in Ghost. On stage the band were led by demonic anti-Pope character Papa Emeritus or one of his successors (one for every album) while the band was made up of a gaggle of “nameless ghouls” who also handled interviews. It was even rumoured that Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl was an occasional member of the gang.

Then in 2017 those nameless ghouls filed a lawsuit over unpaid profits, revealing Tobias Forge’s identity as the man in charge. The case was dismissed and fortunately, Forge took his unmasking in his stride. “I’ve read every classic rock biography of every band I’m a fan of [and] the same s___ takes place in every single one,” he said at the time.

Then, as if to prove there was more to the band than mystery, he wrote 2018’s brilliant, synth-driven Prequelle: a record of survival set in the mediaeval plague era. It went on to elevate the band even further and was nominated for the Best Rock Album at the 61st Grammys (their second Grammy award after winning Best Metal Performance in 2016).

“I am as much of an exhibitionist as anyone else who has ever put on a guitar and walked onstage but I like the idea of being able to step in and out of my celebrity,” says Forge, explaining the reason for Papa Emeritus. “If Bono comes to dinner, you’d expect a long spiel about Greenpeace. I don’t have to be that person, but I still get to play a rock star.”

Stadiums, award ceremonies and talk of stardom are a world away from where Forge started his musical career. Aged 15, he joined his first DIY punk band and spent the next few years experimenting with death metal and alternative rock in a variety of underground bands. “There’s a natural limiter on how successful you can become, playing extreme metal,” Forge tells me over Zoom, a day off from a US co-headline tour with Danish rock band Volbeat.

He formed Ghost in 2006 as a way to combine traditional rock (he’d grown up idolising The Doors, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd) his love of theatre (The Phantom Of The Opera and Cats have both been hugely influential, with Forge calling Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals “mind-blowing”) and the horror and darkness of death metal. The result is something flamboyant, dramatic and, he adds, “with a lot more visual elements than your average grunge band.”

“Without the music, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere,” says Forge. “I know a lot of bands that look cool, but suck.” Ghost released spooky debut single Elizabeth in 2010 without any press photos “to let the music do the talking” and signed a deal soon after. Debut album Opus Eponymous followed later that year. While most other occult rock bands were happy to “stay on the carpet, as we say in Sweden” Forge wanted more. “My background might be in underground punk but I never wanted to limit us.”

Blending rock, prog and metal with Eurodisco and 1980s pop, as well as taking influence from the gothic worlds of Tim Burton’s Batman and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, new album Impera is about the self-destruction of society. Played out against the backdrop of Victorian England, it’s another leap forward for Forge – even if society appeared to be crumbling as he created it. “When I was writing Prequelle” says Forge, “the world was in a relatively stable place but I wasn’t in a good place mentally. For Impera, I was in a way better place but the world was in complete disarray.”

The album also sees the band engage with life more directly, a change in direction from Ghost’s early albums dealing in fantasy and escapism. Sure, the stories told on driving metal anthem Twenties (a rebellious call to arms against the disparity between social classes) and the wailing Driftwood (about religious hypocrisy) are set over a hundred years ago but their messages are relevant today.

Epic closing track Respite On The Spitalfields talks about the fear Jack The Ripper stirred in Victorian England, and how the fact he was never caught meant women were afraid to walk the streets of London after dark. Sound familiar? Throughout Impera Forge sings about the abuse of power.

“That abuse of power is the central mechanism that corrodes, but also builds societies,” Forge says. “We like to think we’re so enlightened in this modern world but right now, people believe in taking away other people’s rights, rather than the opposite. It’s all to do with control and money. Politicians are pro-life not because of their religious beliefs, but because if you have a baby, you’re going to stay in one place and buy s___ like a good little capitalist.”

That said, Impera is an optimistic record, all pomp and empowerment. From the wailing guitar riffs of opening track Kaiserion to the thundering reassurance of the anthemic Call Me Little Sunshine, Ghost’s fifth album is a constantly surprising, consistently brilliant listen that’ll appeal to both the mosh pit, and the theatre stalls.

“I believe in karma,” says Forge. “I believe that the bad empires, the ones that are actively trying to destroy the world, will fail. Especially if they’re based on some crazy person who is trying to go against the will of the people,” he adds, weeks before Putin mobilised.

Forge explains that “pop culture has always been a symbol for freedom”. MeToo and the Black Lives Matter movements were driven by protest songs and lyrics were often the source of snappy slogans painted on banners. Even the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion has taken on Twisted Sister’s 1984 hit We're Not Gonna Take It as one of their unofficial anthems.

“The reason we don’t tour certain places of the world is that they would refuse us, because of what we sing about,” says Forge. Ghost has never played a show in China, and has also faced issues in America. Their second album Infestissumam was delayed because four different US manufacturers refused to print its “blasphemous” artwork – a 16th-century depiction of an orgy – while in 2018 a horrified Texan pastor led a protest outside their “devil-worshipping” show.

But Forge does not worship the devil, and has said that his views are more aligned with modern-day Satanism, which is centred around atheism, scientific scepticism and a passion for wildlife and nature. “I believe in pop culture, in freedom and in being kind. I believe in people having fun, and that they have the right to put their genitals into whomever consents. I believe that love is stronger than hate,” he says.

Backed by an eight-piece band, Forge will launch Impera with an arena tour of the UK and Europe. It’s set to be Ghost’s most ambitious run of shows yet – and that’s saying something. “Everything is about the live show. That’s where you’re making memories with people. I compare a lot of what we do, with what I’ve experienced as a fan of other bands. “

However, according to Forge, “everything we ever do is always a lesser version of what I intended it to be.” He’s been sketching out stage shows and plans for world domination since before Ghost had even released a song. “We’re still working off that to-do list.”

“From the outside, it might look like our success has happened overnight but it’s taken us years to get to where we are today,” Forge continues. “Compared to AC/DC though, we still feel like a new band. We’ve got plenty of improvements to make before it’s time to throw in the towel.”

Telegraph

#The Band Ghost #Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #Ghost #Ghost Band

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randomvarious · 3 years

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Today’s compilation:

Cool to the Core: Winter CD Sampler 2000/2001 2001 Nu-Metal / Industrial Rock / Electronic Rock

It’s kind of wild to me how mainstream turn-of-the-millennium rock has been almost completely memory holed. It’s not that we forget that bands like Korn or Limp Bizkit or Disturbed or Sevendust or Godsmack ever existed, it’s just that we tend to forget how immensely popular that these groups really were, and not many people seem to want to cop to the fact that they actually partook in its popularity. But tens of millions of people certainly did partake. Albums went multi-platinum, the bands headlined big festivals, they graced covers of magazines, and they got extensive airplay on MTV and radio. It’s hard to imagine that someone could ever earnestly utter the sentence, “Hoobastank is my favorite band of all time,” but a not insignificant amount of people actually really did feel that way at some point in their lives.

And it’s understandable that people would be hesitant to admit that they liked the nu-metal and butt-rock bands of the late 90s and early 2000s. Looking back, it’s definitely up there as one of the absolute worst mainstream rock eras. But you know what else was an awful rock era? Hair metal. But we didn’t memory hole hair metal. It’s recognized and celebrated as a gigantic part of 80s culture and it’s never been swept under the rug despite how terrible we realized it was some years after its demise. But people still wax nostalgic about how fun and hedonistic and ridiculous it all was. The nu-metal/butt rock era hasn’t fared nearly as well in being acknowledged. It’s something that we try to suppress and no one seems all that willing to admit just how many spins they really gave to Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.

This cultural erasure must end. Your taste in music was cringeworthy at one point in your life and you’re being even cringier now for not admitting that you once had a cringeworthy taste in music. It’s okay. Really. Just let it go. Confront and acknowledge your past. It’s liberating. Trust me. Turn off your Private Session on Spotify and show the world that you’re willing to put “Control” by Puddle of Mudd on repeat. Relish the idea that “I love the way you smack my ass” was a thing that someone once repeatedly sang and that millions of people were more than willing to sing along to it.

This compilation was actually better than I expected. It’s not good, but a lot of the songs are infused with electronics, which makes them far more interesting than I could have ever hoped to imagine. I’ll just never be able to relate to all that loud anger and hostility that seemed to be the grand, unifying theme of this particular era of rock. I was never an angsty teenager myself, so the music ultimately wasn’t my thing, but I did like Linkin Park (who have managed to be an exception to the overall memory holing of nu-metal), and the LP song on this comp is a non-single track off of Hybrid Theory, which is an album I think I’ve listened to, partially, maybe once since, like, 2003, so it was nice to run into that song again.

Highlights:

Linkin Park - “With You”

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secondhandnewsradio · 3 years

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SHN INTERVIEW: Sleep Walking Animals

by Claire Silverman

photo: Ryan Hall

Sleep Walking Animals, the indie-folk alternative rock band from Manchester, England, have just released their self-titled debut EP. Since SHN first interviewed the band at the start of the year, they have released two more singles, started playing live shows again as restrictions opened up, and have announced a co-headlining tour around the UK in October. At their EP launch gig at the Fiddler’s Elbow in Camden on the 20th of September, they performed their new music to a sold out crowd.

CS: Congrats on the EP coming out. When we spoke back in February, you mentioned your plans for the EP, so it’s very exciting that it’s here now. How are you all feeling?

Tom: Like it's about time.

Jack: “Angus’ Fool.” “Wild Folk,” and “Dance Laura Dance” are on the EP, so we started recording this EP in October 2019. So it's been a big process, and the EP is kind of about that process.

Tom: We didn't want to release things until we were happy with everything, because we did record enough songs back in 2019 to go on an EP. But in post [production], we were a little bit concerned that they weren't all up to the standard that we wanted. It was our first time in a studio together as well when we recorded those songs, so we needed to practice, we needed to get together more and get more experienced in the studio. Then we ended up going up to Stockport and using a studio called Green Velvet Studios and we laid down five tracks, three of which are on the EP.

Jack: So, yes, excited.

photo: Ryan Hall

CS: Is there an overarching theme across the EP?

Tom: It feels like it's very much about things that have happened to us in the time it took to put the EP together, and things that have inspired us enough to write about, you know, various introductions to people, to new experiences, illnesses, life events that sparked something within us to try to make a good song out of.

Jack: The whole EP spans across when we started the band in 2018 right up to now, so a lot of the songs are about growth and change. But the songs are about our growth musically as well, which is a nice kind of coincidence.

Tom: “Angus’ Fool” was the first song we ever wrote together, so the EP spans from our first song together to things we were writing in lockdown. So like Jack said it’s a span of two and a half years.

Alex: “Native” was written after we played Farm Fest [this summer].

CS: So now that you have more music out and have started to establish your sound, how did you figure out what genre of music you wanted to make?

Alex: It's funny, you just mentioned “Native” and I think that was the point that pushed us to fatten up the sound a little bit. I mean, the style of the song made us realize that we can push it a little bit more. And we have a few like one recorded songs, which are definitely a lot more rock-y.

Tom: We're inspired by all sorts of different bands as well. And, you hear it said a lot but a lot of great artists steal from other great artists and that's how they become great, so we're taking influences from people that we all listen to. So this is why it's hard whenever anybody asks “so what kind of genre of music do you play?” I can never really answer that because it’s changing all the time.

Jack: But I was saying to Bill the other day, (he's not officially in the band yet but he kind of is. He's the drummer who played with us on Monday) we've never really spoken about what genre we want to write. We didn't speak about influences, particularly.

Tom: We're just going with ideas. We all have our own little pockets of interest that we bring to the table and I think that’s what makes out sound quite unique

Alex: When someone brings something and then all of a sudden there's so many layers on top of it, which are coming from all kinds of different directions. And it's just hard to put your finger on what it actually is. But it's cool and we like it.

photo: Ryan Hall

CS: It seems as though COVID restrictions are kind of mostly lifted here in England. At least, concerts are happening again. What's that been like, through the pandemic till now, and being able to play live shows again?

Tom: It’s been a massive relief, really, it means that we can get out there and get some gigging experience, start playing our stuff live. It's a completely different beast to be in the studio, it’s a completely different skill to have. And the more we do it, the more we’ll improve, and the more people will respond well to our gigs. There is such a massive impact from a live gig that you don't get from sitting down and putting your headphones in and listening to the Spotify track. You get the performance, you get the live engagement with music, and with the people on stage. That's just palpable.

CS: Since you're all performers, you're all actors, how do you think your other stage experience impacts your music?

Jack: That's an interesting one. Because I think the three of us are definitely coming out of acting and want to follow music, solely. Obviously, Tom, you both really well. [Laughter] And Nuwan’s also still following both. It's just something that when we are playing live, and it's going well, and there aren’t any technical issues, that we can just give ourselves completely to that moment. And I think that's easier for someone who has trained to do that, which is kind of what we did at drama school, I guess, to give yourself to the moment,

Tom: Yeah, there are great artists and performers, actors, musicians who haven't haven't gone through a formal training process. I think it's actually more important than training. Personally, I find the two things very different, being onstage as a member of Sleep Walking Animals and being on stage or on screen and being an actor in a role. I think the only similarity for me really, is the fact that when we go on stage as Sleep Walking Animals, I feel myself put on a character. I'm not Tom, I’m whatever else that is.

Jack: John. [Laughter]

Tom: I think we all do that whether we realize it or not. Because we'd be crippled with anxiety and insecurity and all the other horrid things that sort of flood into you when you're onstage performing in any way, you know, those don't happen or they sort of diminish if you put on that guise. So I guess that helps in that sort of transition.

photo: Claire Silverman

CS: You mentioned Farm Fest a bit earlier. What was it and how did it come about? And how was it?

Tom: So Farm Fest is a new, upstart festival that myself and my girlfriend Lottie host and organized. It's on her childhood farm and it's something that Lottie had wanted to do for a long time, to use that land to provide a space for a festival, entertainment, camping. We started it a couple years ago. There was that little bit of time between lockdowns where we got a weird freedom in the summer of 2020 and people felt like it had kind of gone away. Luckily, we all collectively know a bunch of musicians and comedians. It started small and then this year, we did it again. We charged a bit more money for tickets, and we are getting bigger and better. It feels like it's sort of gaining a bit of momentum. And it was the highlight of our year, we got to perform on a mainstage with a great sound set up. For us it was a big crowd to play to who all knew the songs and were singing along. It felt like a real festival, right.

CS: You guys are pretty active on social media, at least on the Sleep Walking Animals account. You guys don't always take things super seriously, which I like. What’s your approach to using social media? What do you think of it?

Jack: I wish we didn't have to. I think we probably all do realize the importance of it because Instagram is pretty much the only way of promoting anything, which is so fucking sad. Yeah. And I thought today, because Joe and I are reading a book about Joy Division and the start of the punk scene stuff, and they didn't even have t-shirts, because they wanted to stick it to the man and that kind of thing. But you just can't do that now. It's just like times have changed and there’s so many bands and so many artists that you have to be on it. Like, it will only be a matter of time before we go on to TikTok.

Tom: As an unsigned band without management or label yet, you know, we're left to do it on our own. Like Jack said, it's our only way of letting people know about our music. We might as well try and enjoy it if we've got to do it.

photo: Ryan Hall

CS: Now that the EP is out, what are your future plans for the band?

Tom: World domination?

Joe: Recording.

Tom: Yeah, more tunes. We've got quite a few unrecorded ones. Keep doing what we're doing, really, following the footsteps of the people and bands and artists who have inspired us. Just keep going with it and see what happens. We're not putting immense amounts of pressure on ourselves. We do it because we love it. We do it because we think our music is worth pursuing. Yeah. Just see where the wind takes us.

CS: And you've got a tour coming up in October.

Jack: Yeah, a UK tour. It’s a co-headlining tour with Polary and My Pet Fauxes. So we're playing in different cities and we're all sharing the headlines slot and supporting each other at the different venues.

Tom: The 17th of October we're playing Leeds at Oporto, then on the 18th at Dublin Castle in London, the 19th we’re in Bristol at Crofters Rights and then the 20th at Night & Day in Manchester.

CS: Good luck for those shows and again, congratulations on releasing your debut EP.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Listen to Sleep Walking Animals’ debut EP here

Follow the band on Instagram Twitter Spotify YouTube

sleepwalkinganimals.com

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 3 years

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Employed To Serve are putting British metal back on top

For the past decade, Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin of Employed To Serve have helped elevate British rock and metal both on and off the stage, from Album Of The Year releases to their championing of new bands. Now, with fourth full-length Conquering on the horizon, the pay-off is being felt across the entire scene…

Some years ago now, at the end of her last job in retail, Justine Jones made a decision. Providing she could eat and had a roof over her head, she wasn’t, she told herself, going to spend her life doing anything that was “un-fun”. Instead, Justine decided, she’d navigate the world by working hard on the things she loved and that she truly believed in.

“I’ve never been content to be a cog,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to be like a very heavily involved person. I like having a say, I guess. I’ve never liked having a manager, in terms of work. I have got that childish, rebellious thing, like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’”

Employed To Serve are not cogs. Nor are Justine and guitarist Sammy Urwin ones to sit around and wait for the lights to go green. With what the singer calls “our Hatebreed, perseverance attitude”, a self-starting, hands-dirty, DIY ethos that’s as much about enthusiasm for music and building a scene as it is firing up pits, they have become one of the most exciting British metal bands of the past decade. When Oli Sykes invited them to join the Bring Me The Horizon-curated All Points East festival two summers ago, he noted that they were “one of the few heavy bands around who I actually like”.

Kerrang! had got there before him, mind. In 2017, we crowned Employed To Serve’s second album, The Warmth Of A Dying Sun, our Album Of The Year. Its follow-up, 2019’s Eternal Forward Motion, was awarded a full 5K rating and a spot on our front cover, their second. When they gave us the nod a while ago that they were about to drop the first single from their brilliant fourth album, Conquering, coming this September, we didn’t even need to think about giving them a third.

Like Oli’s band, there’s an energy to Employed To Serve, an orbit around them that feels like it’s pulling in other bands, linking seemingly unlinked outfits together through sheer enthusiasm. Beyond the band, offstage, Justine and Sammy run Church Road Records from their home in the Surrey commuter town of Woking (a place notably annihilated by Martians in H.G. Wells’ War Of The Worlds). Through this, they can sign and put out music by bands that they like: the only real signing policy amounting to “bands that excite me”, says Justine. There’s as much gratefulness towards the artists they release – Svalbard, Palm Reader, Cruelty, to name but three – for trusting them to look after their records, as there is to anyone who gives their own band the time of day.

“As cheesy as it sounds, we’re lifers,” says Justine. “I love music. I love releasing it. I love that I do it for a full time job. I love playing live. First and foremost, we are music fans. Obviously, we love being in a band and stuff. But we just live and breathe music.”

As with so many things for so many people, the depth of this dedication was thrown into sharp focus as COVID took hold last year. At the end of 2019, Employed To Serve were on a winning streak. Eternal Forward Motion was one of the year’s most acclaimed releases, they band had spent a month on the road with Bury Tomorrow in Europe and the UK, and on New Year’s Eve, Sammy and Justine put a bow on their long-term relationship by tying the knot. In March 2020, just before lockdown ended touring for everyone, the band’s UK headlining run just about snuck in, and saw them sell out London’s Camden Underworld, a show that ended in chaos with the audience onstage triumphantly carrying Sammy on their shoulders.

When things ground to a halt, the gap left was palpable. Once source of reflection came in taking stock in what the band had achieved, while also having to find a replacement for guitarist Richard Jacobs. It’s an exercise the pair are admittedly used to, to the point where Justine says, “We probably look like dictators, like it’s the Sammy and Justine show.”

To wit, keen observers will note that they are the only members of Employed To Serve to be on both this Kerrang! cover and the last one. There’s no bad blood anywhere – Richard left to move to Japan with his wife, drummer Robbie Back has become a dad, bassist Marcus Gooda went on to focus on other things – it was simply the wage of getting older in a band. When life’s forks come up, you have to make a choice. For Sammy and Justine, the choice just happens to be to stay the course. Three new members have been drafted into the band – guitarist David Porter, bassist Nathan Pryor and drummer Casey McHale – but it still provided a moment of reflection for what was actually important.

Another, more serious bit of stock-taking came last September, when Justine resigned from her job as a label manager at Holy Roar records, after serious assault allegations were made against the label’s owner. Soon after, that label folded entirely.

But in both cases, where events could have sown doubt or caused serious damage, things instead bloomed. And so, Sammy and Justine turned Church Road – a small concern of Sammy’s for years already – into a full-time occupation and livelihood, taking on Holy Roar releases already on the slate and pressed, and releasing them herself. In the case of their first release, Svalbard’s When I Die, Will I Get Better?, there was barely a month to move everything over, and yet it still hit the shelves on the day it was always intended to. Because, looking back, it’s almost like there was no other consideration than to carry on.

“When everything happened, I thought, ‘Maybe I could go to a bigger label or something.’ But that’s not where my heart is,” says Justine. “My heart is in finding bands in tiny little venues and then helping them grow into their second hours and stuff. And it’s just more fun. Obviously, it’s very scary [running your own label], and I’ve spent a lot of this past year very stressed. But I don’t have to answer to anyone – I just do the best I can for the bands because I love them. My favourite thing is sitting on Bandcamp with a coffee or a beer, and going through each genre finding the best bands of that day, or going through Apple Music or Spotify and finding new bands. It has been like that since I was a kid. So doing a record label just makes sense.

“Obviously I wish it was under better circumstances, but COVID has been almost like a blessing for this band, because it’s helped us regroup,” she continues. “It made us take stock of all the cool shit we’ve been lucky enough to do. Because sometimes when you get caught in the rat race of everything, you’re never really living in the moment. And then COVID happens, and you think, ‘What do I miss?’ Friends, family, playing shows. And I’m like, ‘Cool, I’m doing the right thing. Let’s get back to it.’”

For Justine, this meant becoming the boss. For Sammy, already a music obsessive with an apparent addiction to both old-school death metal and playing guitar in as many bands as possible as a member of Renounced and Motormouth (as well as playing in Glorious with Justine), it was an opportunity to dedicate his life to his passion even further. A gardener by trade, he’d lately found himself wondering what was beyond it.

“I was doing gardening work on and off for the last 10 or so years. I enjoyed the work, but sometimes I would kind of find myself being a little bit like, ‘What’s the five-year plan?’” he says. “I’ll always do the band. But we got a few members going off and doing other stuff. I knew I had to find something else to do, because I wanted to do something in music that also fit around being in the band. I just knew I wanted to be with like-minded people talking about music all day.”

Sammy and Justine talk about music a lot. Get Sammy started on metal, and his enthusiasm quickly runs away with him. For Justine, their impending gig at Download Pilot a couple of days after our interview is as much about watching everyone else as it is their own show. Though one of the heaviest bands on the line-up, as a showcase of the breadth of rising talent the British rock scene has, appearing on the same ticket as Enter Shikari, Trash Boat, Creeper, Boston Manor, Neck Deep, Loathe and Conjurer is a large-scale version of what they’ve been driving at for years.

“It’s so funny, because it kind of sounds weird, but within the British scene, it makes total sense,” says Justine. “It’s a very rich scene at a minute, and it’s for all spectrums. You have bands like Orchards and Gender Roles on the Big Scary Monsters label, but equally, there’s loads of heavier bands, too. Everyone knows how hard it can be being a British band, because it’s hard to get over to America. And now, unfortunately, it’s gonna be hard to get to Europe [after Brexit]. So everyone’s got this thing like, ‘We’re this little island here and we need to stick together and support each other.’ It’s a nice collective, and a moment in time to be a part of.”

“Even though we’ve written a more metal record [with Conquering] for us, that’s definitely not a statement of us closing the door,” says Sammy. “Obviously we’d love to tour with Gojira or Lamb Of God or something like that. But if Creeper came to us and said, ‘Do you want to tour with us?’ we’d say yes.”

It was on such a line-up that Justine first appeared on the cover of Kerrang!, alongside Becky Blomfield of much-missed alt.punks Milk Teeth, with whom ETS were touring at the time. It not only showed two rising talents in the British scene, but also how well such different ends of it slotted together. Which was kind of the point.

“We were like the little metal sandwich in that tour,” says Justine. “But we worked well, because it was an example of this sort of British scene that’s going on at the moment.”

“People turned up who would be wearing ETS T‑shirts, and then singing along with Milk Teeth and vice versa,” says Sammy. “That’s so cool to see. Obviously there’s still a little bit of gatekeeping going on in the world of metal. But, for me, that was a really good sign of a shift.”

“It makes total sense. I don’t know why it’s not more of a thing, having mixed bills like that,” says Justine. “Everyone in our generation grew up listening to Slipknot and blink-182; two polarising bands, but it makes total sense. I listen to both of them religiously. So that actually kind of makes sense in a bill. It’s literally a music fan’s show. I remember Thursday opening for My Chemical Romance at Wembley on The Black Parade tour when I was 14, and Reuben opening for Billy Talent as well. I literally got to get into heavier stuff from those mixed line-ups.”

Put it to either of them that between their music, DIY attitude and simple lust for wanting to marshall a scene without walls, Employed To Serve could be called leaders, or at least the setters of examples for others to follow, and it’s a compliment they’ll take, but also something that they don’t want to take too much credit for.

“I mean, it’s for others to say, isn’t it?” says Justine. “We just have mental to-do list of stuff we want to achieve. And if that inspires people, that’s sick. It’s never like we try to be the leaders or anything.

“At the end of the day, I love the idea of kids getting into metal because of us and vice versa.”

As such an entry point, Conquering is a very good one. Ultra heavy and explosive, it leans even further into Sammy’s love of death metal OGs like Morbid Angel and Death, plus classic thrash, with shredding solos everywhere, as well as more vocals from the guitarist. And not even changing three-fifths of the band since their last album has had anything other than a sharpening effect. Fundamentally, Conquering is exciting, full of energy, and powered by a deep-set love for simply doing it.

“The floodgates have been opened, I guess, in terms of wearing our influences for this record on our sleeve,” says Sammy. “I like to think we still maintain the ETS that was there before, but it’s obvious that during lockdown and leading up to this record, for me it was about early Machine Head and Testament and Exodus and stuff. I feel like this is our chance to show that side of us a bit more.”

“It’s where I feel at home, as well, because I grew up listening to early Lamb of God and ’90s-era Roadrunner Records bands,” adds Justine. “Straight-up metal, but not straight-up metal in the sense that we’re doing it by numbers. We sound like us, but there are more choruses and solos.”

“Lyrically, it’s similar to Eternal Forward Motion and touching on some pretty bleak stuff, but for the most part we tried to put a positive spin on it,” says Sammy. “I wanted put all of that energy into something positive. I didn’t want to say the same things again, because I didn’t want to make it sound like it’s the same record. I’d say it’s an even more positive record than before.”

The day we meet for this interview, long after the tape recorder goes off, conversation about bands and music continues into the small hours. Three days later, at Download, as Sammy chucks himself into the crowd at the end of the band’s set and Justine alternates between roaring her head off and smiling her face off, the delight in all this is self-evident. Employed To Serve are one of the best metal bands in the country – one of the best bands full stop, in fact – but on a broader scale, they also act as a reflection of an emerging wave of bands for whom being in a band is an act of joy, of doing something with your life, of not settling for things that are, as Justine says, “un-fun”.

“Stuff in the band does get to you sometimes and you do get grouchy or whatever,” admits Sammy. “But we realised that we’re also very fortunate people who have played with people that have become our best friends. It’s about taking stock and being like, ‘This is fun.’ That’s what the album is about. It’s about not letting things in your life get the better of you. Because sometimes they do, and you find yourself getting all aggy, and you’re only doing yourself a disservice at that point, really.”

“I think Henry Rollins said, ‘Tenacity over talent,’” says Justine. “We work hard, but it’s tenacity. You could be the sickest guitar player but just sit in your bedroom and never play a show. No.”

“I mean, I do set myself up for it, where I’m kind of pulling my hair out,” adds Sammy. “I’ve had times where I’ve had three or four band practices a week. And there’s a gig this night, and a gig that night, and I’ve got to do this, that and the other. But you’ve gotta be in it to win it. And when a cool gig comes about, or cool tour comes about, or you’re just really happy with what you recorded, that’s when you know it’s worth it.”

As they say themselves, Justine and Sammy are lifers. As other members leave to start families or move abroad to begin the next chapter of their lives, rather than feeling left behind, it’s almost made them realise even more quite what a special thing they have.

When it brings you as much happiness as doing this clearly does, what else do you need? And anyway, it’s worth it to not simply be a cog.

#Justine Jones #Employed To Serve #2021 interviews

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toogoodmusic · 3 years

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THE TOO GOOD TEN with J.F.O.

Irish Rapper J.F.O. continues his busy 2021 with the release of his third single of the year, “Amnesia.” The emo trap rap song follow’s up “Pure” and “Rockstar” that appear on the 18 year-old’s “moodtape” lovethewayuhurtme.

The young rapper found success with his debut single, “Come Over If You’re Sober” that accumulated over 135,000 streams across platforms and even found its way onto national radio. Now with “Amnesia” he seeks to shine light on the mental health conversation while exploring the topic of death that has become a central topic in hip-hop songs. J.F.O. discusses the new release, why he feels its important to discuss mental health, the dream festival headline and more in the latest Too Good Ten below.

1. You have a pretty cool story of how you got started in music. Could you talk more about that and how serendipitous that meeting up with an old friend in Singapore was? Were you doing music before you met up with Danté?

J.F.O.: I’ve been free-styling my whole life, I can’t even really remember when it started. It’s just always been part of me. I was in the middle of making my first EP, Testing The Water but had only been making and releasing music for like 6 months at that point, right around when I reconnected with Danté. That’s why I think this next mixtape you can hear that I’m discovering more of who I am as I mature as an artist. Danté really helped me fine-tune my craft and take my music to the next level.

2. Congrats on release of the latest single, “Amnesia.” How does this song feel similar or different to previous releases?

J: It’s the most honest and genuine I’ve ever allowed myself to be. I’ve been delving into these deeper emotions that can be hard to explore openly sometimes.

3. Why is it important for you to be open about talking about mental health in your music?

J: Especially over everything that has happened over the past year, it's so important to talk to people and to feel like you have someone to relate to. I also see it as confidence and being happy with who you are; the good and the bad.

4. What’s something the world might not know about being an artist and making music in Ireland? How has growing up in Dublin influenced your music?

J: There’s so much creativity and talent in Ireland, I mean, from the street art to the musicians I think it’s a great place to be creative and rebel against “normal” society.

5. Your sophomore mixtape love the way u hurt me will be the first of a series of ‘moodtapes’ that will be highlighting key moments of your life. The term ‘moodtape’ is so cool – how did you come up with that? As an artist, is it difficult to be so vulnerable in your music?

J: Like the idea of creating a world where people can go to escape to and I think of the moodtapes as a vehicle. They set the vibe and bring you on an experience. I don’t see it as being vulnerable, just honest. And I think you’ll see that’s true in my music.

6. Over the years you’ve had some music play on national radio. What was that feeling like hearing your song play on the radio for the first time?

J: It was pretty surreal but to be honest, it just showed me that I want more and there’s no stopping this train.

7. What’s the one thing you hope people take away from your music when they listen?

J: I hope they take away the fact that you gotta be true to yourself and who you are but to never let someone else define you

8. If you could headline a music festival which one would be a dream to headline? Who else would you imagine would be on the line up?

J: Well, if we are talking dream headline it would be Woodstock 1969 but we are talking realistically IRL I’d love to play Longitude, a festival that happens in Dublin every year. To headline in my home city would be insane. The line up would be Juice WRLD, $uicideboy$, A$AP Rocky, my guy @killmesl0w from back in Singapore and @LOVEMEDANTE, an artist from Ireland I saw briefly at a show we played. They are all equally unreal.

9. If you could only listen to (5) artists for the rest of your life who would they be?

J: Damn this is so hard but I would say Lil Peep, Mac Miller, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and then throw in some Sex Pistols to mix it up

10. What’s the rest of 2021 look like for J.F.O.?

J: I’m just gonna continue to work on my music. Gonna finish up ‘Moodtape’ II and then onto the two after. Hopefully, you’ll get to see my development as I continue to define myself as an artist over these next releases.

We’ll be ready for “Moodtape” and every one beyond that! Huge shout-out to Irish rapper J.F.O. for hanging in the latest Too Good Ten. To keep updated with J.F.O’s upcoming music and that eventual Longitude performance be sure to follow along on the journey below:

MUSIC:

Apple Music

SoundCloud

Spotify

YouTube

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Instagram

TikTok

Twitter

The Too Good Ten interview series is dedicated to giving you a quick glimpse at some of the freshest voices in music. Ten Questions. One Artist. Too Good. Let’s go.

#music #song #rap #rapper #jfo #dublin #ireland #irish #songwriter #interview #interviews #the too good ten #too good ten #moodtape #amnesia #dante #woodstock #juice wrld #mac miller #toogoodten

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boogiewrites · 5 years

Text

A Girl Walks Into A Bar 8

Characters: Declan Harp x Bella Fiore (OFC)

Word Count: 4300+

Summary: Modern Declan harp AU. Declan and Bella's first day and night of the music festival road trip.

Warnings/Tags: Language. Drinking. Fluff. Mutual Pining. Low key flirting.

Click on my screen name then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

Declan has Mike help him carrying his bags and the supplies for the trip to the music festival from the bar. He'd taken the lead to get everything set up beforehand, even charging up the solar panels so you could both just plug in and play once you took the around four-hour road trip to Ohio.

"So ya stoppin' by the store to pick up anythin' else before ya leave big fella?" Mike says with a wink and a knock of his elbow.

"I don't know what kind of snacks she likes so we'll be running in for that, that's why I left the cabinets and that basket empty." He motions to the cabinet in the built-in with a sink on top made into the wall of the cozy, renovated van.

"Not what I meant," Mike mutters. "I figure it was so long ago the last time you brought condoms they'd all be withered and dry by now." he snickers.

Declan turns his head towards him, brow low and a 'huh?' look of confusion on his face. "I wasn't gonna take any?" his voice lilts.

"So you're just gonna knock her up then?" Mike jokes.

"I wasn't planning on having sex with her." he states flatly.

"Really? Ya stuck in this small space for days, sharin' a bed with a girl ya like and ya aren't expectin' to sleep with her?" his face shows he's unconvinced.

"No," he says innocently. "I like her, yeah." he nods. "Which is why I don't plan on sleeping with her. I don't wanna fuck this up by making assumptions." he says defensively.

"What? Ya don't think she wants to?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, which is why I'm not going to. Like I said. You've seen her, does she seem like the kind to jump into bed with someone?" he huffs out a laugh.

"You got a point. A bit cold, that one."

"She's not cold. Just..." he shrugs. "I think she needs a friend right now. Seems kinda lonely, y'know? So that's what this is. I'm gonna treat it like I was going with anyone else." he holds his hands up in surrender. "This trip is going to either make us hate each other or we'll come back a lot closer. I hope it's the latter, cause yeah I DO like her but I want her to like me. She's like a wild animal, dude, you can't be aggressive with her. Gotta earn her trust and then she'll decide what to do from there."

"Your outdoorsman habits are servin' ya well with this one." he grins. ---------------------------- He pulls up to Bella's house and she already has her bags ready by the door, which he truly appreciates. She's relieved to see that the ride is, in fact, a large van, but at least it didn't have a giant airbrushed wizard on the side. Well actually, she wouldn't have minded that so much either. In a sensible navy, beige and tan it looks like it's ripped from a 70's postcard. Declan opens up the side to give her a look as he can see the apprehension in her face to the size of it from the outside. He goes to grab her bags and she leans into the upholstered and homey space. It looked entirely charming and cozy, he certainly hadn't lied about that. The bed took up most of the space, pushed against the back doors on storage risers. A line of LED's across the top would serve as lighting, and she did love some twinkle lights for snug ambiance. She had some in her own bedroom. A sink, cabinet and hot plate are in sight, lots of storage and every bit of space used for something. It went from the very backs of the seats, with thick window covering rolled up over the large front window, to the back doors, a shelf against one wall by the bed, an open space in front of the side door and everything was new and clean lightly stained wood with modern decor. The feminine touches could be seen and were not going unappreciated.

"This is a lot better than I was anticipating." she expresses as she pushes her bags underneath the bed.

"Told you. I wouldn't take you out in some miserable, freezing hippie van. We've got water, power and wifi, what more do you need?" he grins, patting her back before moving back to the house together.

She says goodbye to Robbie, locks up and sets the house alarms, making sure everything is synced to her phone. She had CeeCee set to come to check on Robbie every night, even though there was an automatic feeder and water bowl for him. She'd bought him a new catnip toy to distract him and he was currently just fine with her leaving.

"Here's the cord." he says, handing her the AUX with no apprehension.

"So I do get to be in charge of the most important part of the trip?" she grins.

"You're the music man, unless you want to listen to the same thing over and over or a mixed bag on my Spotify, which is new so it's not like it's customized yet."

"No, no. I made playlists." she nods enthusiastically, sitting her purse down on the soft carpeted floor and pulling her legs into her seat, leaning over on the armrest towards him.

"Gonna stop by the store first, load up on snacks and junk before we hit the road." he says, craning his neck and looking at all the large mirrors on the van.

"Hopefully mostly junk." she mutters as her fingers scrolls through her lists.

"Whatever you want babe. We'll need plenty of calories."

"True. I'm gonna see as much as I can so that means I'm pulling your big ass around with me." she smiles.

"If you think I'd let you go anywhere alone you're wrong." he states obviously, now steady on the road.

She gives him a sideways glance, a more subtle smile on her face before returning her eyes to the screen.

"Don't play the good ones just yet. Wait until we get on the highway." he nods, wagging a finger to the console.

"That a rule captain?" she quirks up an eyebrow.

"Tradition." he nods with a confident, charming smile, hands drumming on the steering wheel. "We're cool, we don't have "rules"." he says with a stuck out tongue and air quotations around the word as she snorts in amusement.

"Don't try so hard, dad." she snickers. "We'll go random until we hit the road. Don't want to upset the road trip gods. We'll be together for far too long to have this be a cursed trip. Don't want people to find us both dead in the van from killing each other."

"Yeah." he laughs with shaking shoulders. "Let's avoid that if at all possible."

They take in a large container and basket, the space for snacks alotted and quickly fill it up. They guess at the space in the mini fridge, keeping the frozen and refrigerated foods to a minimum. To save space he suggests hard liquor, she grabs two bottles of wine and he only gives her a little bit of shit for it.

"Thought you were a whiskey drinkin' woman, Bells."

"Thought you were a bartender who shouldn't make fun of peoples choices." she wiggles her eyebrows at him and grins with closed lips.

"Oh damn, alright. Didn't know you liked wine." he holds his hands up in surrender.

"I usually drink it alone but I'll get dehydrated and feel like hell if I drink hard liquor the whole time."

"Fair point."

"Oh shit we don't have to leave room in this for water do we?" she frowns.

"Nah, nah. I got two cases already in there."

"Good man." she pats his back and he smiles, watching her walk down the snack aisle in her comfy traveling clothes. As always, if he allowed himself her leggings would've been a distraction.

She wears a long, red tank top that covers any bits that would make her uncomfortable. Didn't want to be full camel toe for hours in the van. A long, oversized lightweight cardigan hits her mid-thigh, it's in a dark grey to not clash with the black leggings. It annoyed her to an irrational extent when she wore two shades of black that didn't match exactly. She was trying to keep her cool and enjoy herself, not give away what a basketcase she was.

As she bends over to choose between jarred nuts, he sees a hint of a tattoo between her cleavage. He catches himself with a low brow, concentrating for too long in interest. He wondered with the warmer temperatures expected if he'd get to finally see some of her tattoos. He hadn't wanted to ask, that would be too clumsy of him. As always, he would wait for her to share first then follow her lead.

The drive up is filled with stories and feels easy just like their tipsy conversations did. She shares her knowledge of the headliners, he gets to try to not wreck while she dances in her seat. She raps and sings, feet up on the dash as she hands him snacks and he eats out of her fingers as he keeps his eyes on the road. They were both relaxed, except for the understood stiffness from being stuck in a car for over four hours. Once again he finds himself learning something new every time they were together. There's no talk of work, only music and shows they've been too before, previous festival experiences. She had a few more on him. It was a big part of her life and he saw how important it was to her. He wanted to make this festival one of the best she'd been to. The last thing he wanted ot to achieve with this trip was adding himself to the list of guys that let her down.

The check-in and registry goes easier than it ever had for him, but he'd never had VIP tickets to anything before. They get their stack of wrist bands and find a place to set up the van. It's early in the afternoon, the sun out as advertised with a light breeze. The weather couldn't have been better for it. He's grateful to find she wants to help set up and finds her stronger than she looked. She lifted the awning that rested extended out and rested over the sliding side door, set up the tailgate that came out of the double back doors as he hooked up power and water. Their teamwork was nearly seamless, both sitting and breaking into the case of water as they rested in the shade.

"It's still early," she says, looking through a pamphlet with all the festival information. "But the vendors should be open. Not too many people here yet. Probably won't get busy until tonight."

"Usually how it goes." he nods. "You wanna walk around? Get a feel of the place? It'll be packed the rest of the time."

"Yeah." she nods, putting the paper in her crossbody bag. "Lemme get my boots on and we'll go." she changes out of her flats, he gets to see one of her tattoos up close. A black, green and orange retro style Halloween style cat on top of her foot.

"That's cool." he says with a nod and a point of his finger before she pulls on her socks.

"Thanks." she says with a polite smile. "Hurt like a mother fucker." she chuckles. "I guess you will be getting to see my tattoos this weekend won't you?" she smirks and narrows her eyes at him.

"Am I?" he answers with a huff of a laugh.

"I mean I've got my outfits and stuff so yeah." she nods.

"Outfits huh?"

"Yeah. Festival outfits, ya know?" she says, pulling on her worn combat boots. Wanting support and not caring if they got dirty.

"Not really no." he shakes his head.

"You don't like to get dressed up for these things?" she asks with a tilt of her head.

"I guess I do. But it's kinda how I dress anyway." he laughs at himself.

"True you do have a distinct sort of style."

"Thank you?" he says with a wrinkle of his nose, not sure if it was a compliment or not. Luckily for him, it makes her smile.

"You're welcome. I wasn't being shady," she explains. "I like to dress up. And I don't have an excuse to a lot so I like to do it for festivals." she elaborates.

"You do?" he says with the same unsure look.

"Yeah...why? What's that look for?"

"I've just never seen you in anything but jeans and t-shirts." he offers innocently with a shrug.

"It's been cold." she emphasizes. "Once it's warmer I can get a little crazier," she says standing and stretching. "This is a surprise to you I see." she stands with her hands on her hips.

"Honestly, yeah. Didn't seem like a... high fashion sorta girl."

"Not high fashion. I would agree with that." she wags a finger as she speaks. "But I like dressing like a hooker in the '70s from new york." she laughs. "I'm reading myself, but not too harshly. I like that 70's rockstar vibe ya know?" she nods and sticks out her hip.

"I think I do." he nods.

"Well you'll see some tomorrow won't you." she offers with a smile.

-----------

Now familiar with the layout, and having tried too many of the food booths with their discount they walk back through the steadily growing crowd to the van. They waste time, drinking some sub-par beers they'd bought before heading back, sitting on the bed in the back with the doors open. They sit and go over the bands they'd like to make a point to see, having sampled most, if not all of them on the ride down. He finds himself amused as she makes a list, hunched over with crossed legs with her pen and note pad, writing down who they wanted to see, when they played and where and what they could potentially work out for themselves. He supposes he hadn't expected her to be as carefree as he was, as he was a go with the flow sort of guy. There would be no lists or agenda if it was up to him. He was grateful, however, to get to see how her mind worked. She was detailed oriented and thorough, as he was finding out with her texts and emails about setting up the music venue at the bar. She was almost formal in how she handled plans in her head. In her execution of things that weren't business, she allowed an air of casualness to the actions planned when she was with him. His calm and easy going vibe helped bring hers out. She had missed feeling at ease and with him at an event like this with anonymity, she was feeling him slowly pull the lighter side of her out. The beers were certainly helping this move forward faster.

She's more than relieved when it comes to time to sleep, driving always exhausted her for some reason and being out in the heat setting up the van hadn't helped matter any. With emotions high her body needed to sleep and recover. She kept her usual expression of indifference as it came time to settle in, but he was glad to see her face more relaxed around him, seeing it was clear that when not around anyone else, she seemed to carry herself a lot lighter. The thought had crossed his mind that this could be because he was there with her, but again, he tried not to get his hopes up.

"So," she nods, digging through her bag for her pajamas. "Same bed huh?" she has a playful subtle smile as she pulls pajamas out of her bag.

"Yeah. How ya wanna do this?" he asks, pulling the back doors closed and locking them. "Don't wanna... make you uncomfortable or anything." he offers with a motion of his hand.

She pouts her lips in thought, putting her bag back and sitting on her knees in the floor. "I'll be fine," she says with a wave of her hand. "Let's get changed and then get in and see how it goes. Don't know how we're gonna fit in there. Both our big asses might cause some problems." she laughs as he crawls out of the van to give her some privacy to change.

She gives him the go-ahead, kneeling on the bed facing away from him. His eyes go a bit wide for a moment, getting to see her in a pair of soft linen pajama shorts with little skulls on them, rolled at the waist, her top half covered by a tight tank top that seemed to leave little to the imagination. Or perhaps his imagination was just overactive. He clears his throat, a jolt to get ahold of himself. He was a grown man, not some teenager, he could do this. Just turn it off, he says to himself.

"Your turn." she says with a smile, crawling out and brushing by him, sliding on some rubber bottomed house shoes to wait outside for him.

It only takes him a minute, a quick full strip and pulling on some basketball shorts and a tank top of his own, shoving the clothes he'd had on into a bag designated for laundry before he slides open the door again.

"Damn I wish I could change that fast." she chuckles as she slides the door shut behind her. Just as he had, she finds herself paused for a moment as he fluffs pillows on his knees, moving to unfold blankets.

"I have no secrets to share. Wear less clothes maybe?" he says without thinking and then goes back to concentrating on the task at hand more than is necessary.

"Valid advice." she nods and gives a polite smile, watching his guard go up for a moment, but it gave her time to be entirely thirsty at the sight before her. She'd never seen him in anything but a loose band shirt before and as cliche as it felt to have some slow-mo, hearing Dream Weaver playing in the background moment the first time she saw him exposed, it was happening whether she liked it or not. He looked even bigger somehow without the bulk of clothes. She also hadn't been so aware of how fit he was. He looked big, knew he was strong, seeing him lift things from the trucks at the bar but she didn't expect the visible lean muscle that had been hiding under those shirts. He wasn't ripped, there were no veins or sharp angles to him. Everything looked soft and approachable. With his brown skin looking warm and inviting, she told her heart to slow down in her chest.

For a distraction from the heat she felt in her face, she moves to get her laptop, planning on watching something before falling asleep. She digs out her bag and he's once again faced with her body as he huffs out a burst of air. She looked soft and strong. He could see the results of her weight lifting she'd told him about, but as she'd claimed, her love of food kept her soft. But the way her ass looked in her seemingly innocent shorts was making him feel exactly the opposite. He could see her tattoos, the shapes of them from this distance anyway, the ones on her back obscured by her hair.

"So what do you wanna watch?" she asks, crawling on her knees with the laptop childishly before handing it off to him as he lay back in the bed.

"What do we have to catch up on?"

"I thought maybe we could watch the Woodstock documentary since we're here. I haven't seen the one on Netflix yet." she says, sitting next to him, legs crossed and pulling up her hair, her fingers quick as she braided it back. He got a chance to see her tattoos. A glimpse of what looked like a woman with horns on her back, something peeking out from her shorts, quickly hidden when she yanked her tank top back down. Her arm was the most apparent. A woman's hand with long black nails holding an apple, a snake wrapped around her the wrist and the fruit. It took up the space from her elbow to her shoulder with different flowers surrounding it. even carrying to the underside of her arm. It was clean and colorful and he felt it suited her. It looked sexy and dark and he was starting to hope that was a side of her that he would get a chance to see.

"Sounds good to me." he shrugs, but he would've agreed to anything she said, really.

She leans over as he flicks through her queue, reaching for her bag by the bed. "You aren't sensitive to smells and stuff are you?" she asks. He sees a bottle of what he's assuming is lotion appear as she turns back to him.

"Nah. Go ahead." he says, moving to sit the computer on the shelf opposite them. He settles in under the blankets and smells something amazing come from the bottle. It was deep and sweet, like the ripe berries he looked forward to eating in the summer during his hikes in the woods and a wiff of vanilla. It had a twist, something musky like patchouli. He knew he'd never smelled anything like it before, and watching her rub it over her body was something he wasn't able to watch for very long. "That smells really good." he remarks, giving her a nod.

"I'll be getting a lot of sun so I wanted to moisturize," she explains, holding both her hands out to him. He looks at her with confusions. "You want some?" she asks innocently.

"Uh. Sure." he shrugs, why the hell not. Give her a reason to touch him. She takes his hands and works the excess lotion into them, she was so soft against his calloused hands.

"You definitely did need some." she grins, working it into his palms with her thumbs. "Workin' man hands." she chuckles. "Gotta take care of them or they'll end up looking some old gnarled tree." she gives him a friendly smile. Her two hands wrapped around his one at a time, seeing tiny dots and marks of tattoos on his fingers. With both of her hands on his, one at a time, together they were about the same size. They cracked under the pressure she rubbed into them with but they didn't feel tense as she worked in the lotion to his skin. "There. Now you'll smell better too." she teases, tossing the bottle back into the bag and snuggling under the covers.

"What? Do I stink?" he asks and lifts his arm to smell his armpit and the laugh that comes from her surprises him, she shakes the bed, her chest rumbling and her face not hiding her amusement from him.

"No." she shakes her head. "Just meant I thought it smelled good." she answers, propping the pillow up and continuing to chuckle as he raised up to hit play.

Thankfully the close space between them wasn't uncomfortable. They touched but, it wasn't an awkward sort of interaction. The movie ends, she lets out a yawn and moves to close the laptop and leaves it on the shelf.

"It's a little crowded up top," she says quietly, taking her pillow. "You don't kick in your sleep do you?" she asks with a sleepy mumble, moving to the other end of the mattress.

"Not that I'm aware of." he replies, moving to lay on his side.

"Do I need to get the lights?" she asks, sitting up under the covers, ready to move.

"Nah. Dimmer's right here." he says, reaching up and pushing a button that turned off everything except the single strand of lights around the back end of the van's ceiling.

"Thanks," she mutters, laying on her side facing his feet. "Your feet better not stink." she says with a quiet chuckle.

"I don't know." he snorts, moving them and bonking her forehead with them. "Do they?" he grins to himself.

Luckily for him, she lets out a laugh and he feels her smack away at him. "Oh my God, you're such a child, Declan." she continues laughing, a loud sigh that follows as she pats his calf and returns her hands to herself fills him with a warm feeling as he lets his head settle into the pillow.

"Everything locked and alarms set?" she asks, almost mumbled as she snuggles into her pillow.

"Check and check." he says with a nod, feeling a yawn coming on.

"Good. Night, Declan." she says softly.

"Night Bells." he answers just the same, a smile on his face as he falls asleep.

---

The first knock to the van disrupted what had so far been a good nights sleep. But as the night went on, sleep was harder to come by for both of them.

"What was?" she murmurs, looking around as the van wobbles.

"Just some assholes outside." he grumbles, having been woken up by their loud voices already.

"'Kay." she says, slamming her face back into the pillow.

This happens throughout the night, people screaming around them, knocking into the van and she tries to sleep. But with the sudden threats her mind automatically shoots towards, she's continuously woken out of sleep, keeping her from relaxing and getting any rest. It seemed like she could see light from the sun by the time the commotion outside died down and she finally started to doze off again.

@vale0413 @littledeadgirlwalking @jaegeeeeer

#Frontier #Declan Harp #frontier fanfic #declan harp x reader #declan harp fic #Jason Momoa #frontier au #frontier fic #frontier fandom #declan harp fanfic #declan harp fan fiction #modern declan harp #modern frontier au #declan harp x ofc #declan harp x oc #declan harp fluff

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urvoiceurwork-blog · 5 years

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VICTOR INTERNET

Up & coming artist Victor Internet from Chicago headlined Dallas’ Summer Crush Music Festival at just the age of 18.

I was able to ask him questions about his music, of course, going on tour with Cuco, and advice for those trying to follow in his footsteps.

INTERVIEW

Leslie (Interviewer): Which musical artists have influenced you and your music?

Victor: I think a lot of people can say this but Frank Ocean would be my biggest influence just because he experiments with all kinds of sounds and styles, and that’s what I really want to do.

L: What or who influences your lyrics?

V: Stories that my friends tell me or just little scenerios that I make up in my head. A lot of it isn’t real and then there’s some that is, it’s just stuff that goes through my head and I’m like “this would make a really cool song”. I think that with song writing it’s a lot like story telling.

L: Did you ever think that you would be a big influence to those around your age and those that share a similar ethnic background?

V: No, I never did.The only person I saw doing this at first was Cuco but then Omar (Apollo) started coming up, as well as Jasper (Bones). I was then like “You know what maybe I can be like one of these people and inspire people who come from a shitty background.” I was brought up poor and I wasn’t given many opportunities because I was Mexican. Now that I have a platform and have those same people helping me, I’m hoping to be able to pass that on to kids like me.

L: Speaking about Cuco, how do you feel touring with him and did you ever think you would have a chance like this?

V: Touring with him is crazy because I found out about him when I was 16 and I was listening to him when I had a crush on someone and so Cuco would be on repeat. So, going on tour with him or even meeting him - it was never in my head. I never even thought that would happen, it’s crazy I feel weird about it.

L: How did you find out that you were going on tour with him?

V: I guess my manager/booking agency hooked it up, but Cuco had known about me for a while at least at the time. I think they might have been like “Victor might be a good fit.”

L: What do you think holds you back from getting where you want to get?

V: Sometimes, I feel like I won’t make the impact that I want to, it feels weird because I still have people from my hometown making fun of me still and giving me shit for dropping out. I’m just scared that me dropping out is gonna turn out bad and it’s all gonna go to shit and that maybe I’m not gonna get anywhere but even if it does go down that way I just hope I can make a lasting impact on kids like me and encourage them. I want to see the next Cuco, Victor, Frank Ocean - I just want to inspire others and help them out in anyway I can.

L: Did you think Tinder Song would get the plays it did?

V: Did I ever think it would? No, that song was a joke - it was just a dumb song, I made it in my room because I skipped school that day and I was just in my room writing lyrics. My friend Andrea told me about this tinder account that she had and I just started writing about it and while she was in class I sent it to her and was like “Oh my god I made a song about what you told me.” She thought it was stupid - she laughed at it and I laughed at it too because it was a really silly song. I then put it up and a bunch of YouTube channels were translating it and sharing it. I was like “why is this happening? This isn’t even my best work.” But now that I think about it I’m really grateful because I helped someone relate or connect to a song and when you make a connection to a song it really helps you get through whatever you’re going through. I’m really happy I did that

L: Lastly, what advice do you have for aspiring artists like yourself?

V: I would be a hypocrite if I started spewing out a bunch of advice because I still don’t follow a lot of the advice myself but the biggest thing would be don’t listen to anyone who’s trying to bring you down. At the end of the day, the world is going to end in 10 years, you only have a little bit of time left so do whatever the fuck you want, do it when you want. No one is going to stop you but yourself - just power through it and whatever makes you happy go for it.

Despite the fact that Victor is still a relatively small artist, he’s gaining momentum at a good rate and is due to gain an even bigger audience after he tours with Cuco - numbers can tell you how well he is doing due to the fact he is close to having almost 300k listeners on Spotify and Tinder Song has reached over 5 million listens.

You can catch Victor on tour with Cuco so grab your tickets here: http://www.loverisaday.com/

Follow & Listen to Victor Internet:

https://victorinter.net/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/victorintrnt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorinternet/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Ib0Di9b3kMxw9yD0DAyAC?si=6TWnoC_NRf6aJmT3oxLyYA

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/victorinternet

#victor!#victor internet #indie #interiew #artist

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sometimesalwaysmusic · 5 years

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OBSIDIAN WILL

We caught up with the members of Obsidian Will (OW: Liam, Lloyd, and Justin) to discuss successes, challenges, favourite tracks of their own, and their most influential records. Check them out at one of their upcoming shows and witness their artwork for yourself! (Photo: Natalie Jeffery)

VITALS

Facebook: www.facebook.com/obsidianwill

Web: www.obsidianwill.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/owmelammu

Upcoming shows: May 25 - Drone Day, Ottawa, ON June 20 - L'Ordre de l'Infiniment Nada, Obsidian Will, Transmit vs. Intangerines, Bar Robo, Ottawa, ON.

SA: How did Obsidian Will first start playing music together? OW: OW started in 2013 in the office of the Carleton University archives and rare book room, where Liam used to work and Lloyd still does. We were both in other bands, Liam’s was ending as his band mates moved out of town, and Lloyd’s was still going but winding down. We discovered a mutual appreciation for classic heavy metal and various metal sub-genres: black metal, folk metal, witch house, etc. and both came across funeral doom while poking around bandcamp and itunes. It was also around this time that Lloyd started experimenting with making soundscapes on garageband and integrating lyrics. Liam also went to see Merdaratha, which incorporated pre-recorded ambient loop tracks that could be played over by a live band. Liam thought it would be cool to layer some guitar over the soundscapes Lloyd was making, and Lloyd could provide the rhythm. That’s sort of, but not quite, what we ended up doing.

We decided to jam together and booked some time at the rehearsal space under Irene’s called Noise Annoys. The room was great but the shortest amount of time you could book was four hours. Four. Hours. It ended up being a lot of time but allowed us to work for long periods and figure out what our version of funeral doom would be. Originally, all of our songs were between 12 and 20 minutes long. The tightened-up versions of the songs we wrote at this time - like Ghost Acres and Marked Hands - are still part of our sets and are notably slower tempo and sparse-sounding. Eventually, we would move away from trying to fit into the funeral doom genre.

We got lucky somehow and booked a few gigs as a duo, including opening for Topon Das, Greylights, Black Oak Decline and Empty Vessels. We also did our first out-of-town gig at a nudist colony in Vankleek Hill. After we had played our original set list a few times, we decided our sound was a bit too sparse and thought twice about always having a pre-recorded backing track to break-up the silence. Luckily, Lloyd met Justin in an esoteric/occult reading group he started. Their conversation quickly turned to music and Lloyd invited Justin to join with the band to play violin and be the “live loop track” that would replace the pre-recorded one. A few weeks after Justin came on board, we had our first gig with him. We didn’t really have time to prepare, so we just told him to improvise as we played through our set list. Justin eventually purchased an electric violin and now an electric cello, and is integrated more fully into the songs and overall sound of Obsidian Will.

SA: What bands or musicians would you cite as the biggest influences on your sound? OW: At the beginning it was certainly Doom bands like Skepticism and Nortt, as well as folk metal bands like Wardruna. Merdaratha was a huge initial local influence as well, as was Gates from Toronto. We are individually and collectively influenced by many different bands and styles of music and sound art, and as we have continued to work together more of our influences outside of the metal genre have crept in like The Mars Volta, Laibach, Lustmord, and many of the artists on the Cryo Chamber label.

SA: Thus far in your career, what has been the band’s biggest success? OW: It’s all a success. Every time we get to play a show is an extreme privilege and it’s wild to us that we get to share the stage with some of the most exciting bands we know. It’s still a total novelty that we can contact bands that we like, or, even crazier, get contacted by rad bands out of nowhere, and have them agree to/want to play a show with us.

Picking out a few specific examples though, doing an Ottawa-Montreal show swap with Le Pélican Noir is a definite highlight. We are super glad to have met Sylvain and Maxime and are excited to collaborate with them in the future. Being asked to play the Ottawa Experimental Music 5 year anniversary show is also huge for us, and it’s kind of unbelievable that we got to be on the same bill as amazing local bands we admire like Novusolis, Clavius, Deathsticks, RAAS, and Forgotten in the Woods Again. Also, having an album and EP recorded by Topon Das at Apartment 2 Studios is like a dream come true, and, thanks to his production skills, having them turn out wayyy better than we thought possible was an added bonus.

SA: Conversely, what is the biggest challenge you have faced, and how have you dealt with it? OW: Obsidian Will doesn’t really fit into any one genre, or at least one of the genres you can pick from a scroll-down list on bandcamp/soundcloud/spotify etc. Our sets can range from quiet drone/ambient to a crushing doom-infused wall of noise. A blend of those two extremes isn’t always an easy sell. This might make us a bit more challenging to put on a bill, because we’re not really a fun high-energy band that would get booked for your usual bar or festival gigs - we have a tendency to bring the mood down. That said, we’ve managed to find a core group of local bands and artists we are similar to and that we work well with. We are still working to build our audience and find other artists to collaborate with. Having the ability to disseminate our music online helps when your project is more niche, like ours.

SA: How do you guys approach the song-writing process? OW: We’re still working on figuring this one out. Our older approach, when we were a two-piece of drums and guitar was to kind of work independently and rely on visual cues from on-another, mostly nods and looks. Essentially, it was the law of the jungle, but we made it work.

Once Justin joined the band, and now that Lloyd is incorporating synth, we realized we would need to work on coordinating. Right now, we’re working on a new song that will require a lot more structure and coordination between the three of us. We’re currently building a structure based on a few variations on the central theme.

Usually one of us has a concept or an idea we want to explore with the band. We sit and talk about it and then see if we can translate that narrative into sound. Occasionally we will also bring a riff or soundscape forward and work with that.

Also, we usually write lyrics first and try to build a song structure around them, or, for less structured and more ambient songs, pre-record the lyrics and play them over what we’re playing. For these less-structured songs, we end up doing our own thing to a great extent, recording it off the floor, and listening back to it to make sure everything we’re doing fits together. The tricky part is remembering what you were playing!

SA: What are your thoughts on the Ottawa music scene? OW: There are positives and negatives. We recognize that we are a niche project and our music/performances don’t appeal to everyone; that’s totally fine. As a result of this, though, we had a hard time finding shows at first and are still working on building a local audience. Maybe this is commonplace and not exclusively an Ottawa thing, but it seems like crowds tends to follow specific promoters, and promoters tend to focus on specific genres, which totally makes sense. This can just make it a bit difficult to do something different and still play locally. That’s probably more on us than on “the scene” though.

That said, we’ve been super lucky to get support from other bands and locals. One of our earliest supporters was Topon Das. Not only did he record, mix, and master our self-titled album and the Night Sky EP at Apartment 2 Studios, he headlined our first show and also got us on early bills with bands we were amazed to play with like Black Oak Decline and Empty Vessels. We are super appreciative of all the help he’s given us and feel privileged that he’s been involved in the band’s development.

Another huge help to us is Adriana Ciccone (AKA Baba Ganoush). Finding the Ottawa Experimental Music facebook page was extremely helpful for promotion and finding shows. Adriana has been very supportive of OW, plus she’s a super talented musician herself that is contributing a lot to the Ottawa music scene as a performer, community radio host, writer, organizer, and show promoter. We consider her a very positive force in the Ottawa music scene and are extremely grateful to have met her and to have shared a stage with her. Check out all her stuff if you haven’t already! Forgotten in the Woods Again, Constellation 425, Ottawa Experimental Music, Hexon Bogon on CKCU. She does so much that is no doubt an incomplete list.

Ottawa Drone Day has also been a big help as well (full disclosure: Liam has helped organize Drone Day for the past 3 years). It’s always encouraging to see that there are so many local performers doing very different styles of music than you would normally see at shows, and it is great to be a part of that. Overall, though our niche is specific we are very encouraged that we’ve been able to find local bands to play on the same bill with and that like our music, and likewise, we like theirs.

SA: From Tamtu in November 2016, all the way to Night Sky, in November 2018, what kind of progression has there been in your music? Or, has it rather stayed constant over time, in terms of theme and expression? OW: Over time, we have played with the idea of structuring our shows and recordings as ritual spaces. As the ones creating the experience, we are guides bringing the listener on a sonic journey. We have structured our sets and albums to do this, trying to be conscious of what’s being communicated overall and being sure to open and close the ritual space of the performance before and after. This idea developed early on and has been a through-line throughout our performances and recordings... most of the time.

Similarly, we consider our songs, with and without lyrics, as meditations. We are often trying to explore things that inspire awe through their ineffability or by the contradictions they embody. Sometimes we borrow from classical mythology to do this, like in The Mother of Eleven and Marked Hands, and sometimes we look to the present like in Teratogenesis or Salvage. We are often writing songs about forces beyond our control and the feeling of powerlessness.

As far as recordings go, we’ve alternated between more structured songs and more improvised, noisy, and experimental “songs” (calling them songs would be kind of a stretch). Tamtu, Hollow Witch, and Night Sky are all less structured experimental pieces we recorded for Noisevember. For these, we try to tell a story through sound and sometimes incorporate pre-recorded lyrics. For Hollow Witch, we stayed at a friend’s house deep in Lanark County and recorded the songs in various parts of the house as well as one outside. We ritualized the session overall as well as each recording, and in the end, the album ended up being an ode to the house itself. Our self-titled album and Melammu are recordings of some of our more structured songs and is a bit less consciously organized overall. The elements are still there, but the songs are more able to stand alone.

Also, in the time we’ve been playing together we’ve all grown as musicians. We’ve also grown in terms of gear. We started with drums and electric guitar and now we have drums, baritone guitar, electric violin, electric cello, 3 or 4 synthesizers, and collectively we probably have 20 pedals. This allows each of us to shape our sound to better reflect the stories that we set out to tell with our music. As we grow as musicians our sonic vocabulary grows along with the amount of gear we have to load-in.

SA: Thus far in the band’s repertoire, what is your favourite track, and why? Liam: My favourite tracks are some of our earliest: Marked Hands and The Gestation of Homunculi. They are very simple but I never get sick of playing them when we are going through the set list. They are probably the most emotive songs in our repertoire.

Lloyd: My favorite track to play is Teratogenesis basically because it’s fun to smash through the song. My favorite song to listen to is The Mother of Eleven. For me the song is an invocation of the dark reaches of mystery. Each time we play it I treat it as a personal ritual.

Justin: The Gestation of Homunculi is awesome! This was the first song I wanted to learn and play when I joined and I still love playing it.

SA: If you had to choose, what three records would you cite as most impactful on your sound in this group? Lloyd: Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Liam: Skepticism - Stormcrowfleet

Justin: Type-O-Negative - October Rust

SA: What comes next for you guys in 2019? Good luck this coming year! OW: We are working on a couple new songs and will most likely be playing Drone Day on May 25th. After that, we are playing June 20th with L’Ordre de l’Infiniment NADA and Transmit vs. Intangerines at Bar Robo - this show is so new there isn’t even an event to link to yet! We’ll probably also do another crazy noise recording for Noisevember and other stuff, stay tuned!

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themousai · 5 years

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Q+A: PKEW PKEW PKEW

Your new record 'Optimal Lifestyles' is set to be released on 1st of March which is just a few days away now! You must be feeling eager to get the record out into the world? Yup, it’s been way too long. We will never let it take this along to release new music again. Promise.

What song are you most excited for people to hear, and what is it about the song that makes you want people to hear it so badly? I want people to hear the song “I Wanna See A Wolf” so they can truly understand how boring touring can be.

Can you give us an idea of what we should expect from the record as a whole? Basically just a bunch of stories from the last year or two of my life. Stuff that I hope people can identify with. Hopefully there’s some growth in it. It was a lot of fun to make, so that should come across too.

Were you a part of the local Toronto punk/rock scene as fans growing up? Does it feel surreal to be on the other side of it now? None of us really grew up in Toronto. I visited a little to play the odd show, but never really made friends in the scene. Also, I avoided Facebook until I graduated college, so I was fairly unconnected. It’s great to be part of it now, though.

Speaking of surreal, what's the craziest show you've played to date? We played on a boat in Hamburg for the Booze Cruise festival. I would have guessed the boat held 30 people but I think there was well over 100 on it.

What's your opinion on making music in the streaming/internet generation? Do you think you do anything differently as a direct result of this? Yeah, I think we just put less emphasis on there being any rules. We could put out anything we want now, and I’m sure we will start releasing things more often. Trends change all the time, and anything can work or not work.

You're supporting Spanish Love Songs on their UK tour in May, so what are you most looking forward to about being back in the UK? It’s actually a co-headline, if such a thing exists, but it should be a lot of fun—we’re playing a bunch of cool festivals and some smaller club shows. We’re looking forward to drinking at Wetherspoons, seeing friends from our last trip, the human pyramids in Manchester. And, there’s a rest stop on one of the highways that I got a great pasta salad at, so I’m gonna try to find that again.

Quick Fire

The one song I wish I wrote is… 'Yesterday' by The Beatles.

Three things I can’t live without are… Bread and butter, and coffee.

If I could only play music in one genre for the rest of my life it would be… EDM.

Three adjectives that describe my life are… Dry. Private. Hopeful..

If I held a world record it would be for… Procrastinating.

My first memory of loving music is… The demo settings on my grandpa’s keyboard.

The song of mine that I am the most proud of is… Passed Out.

My favourite venue I've ever played is… Horseshoe Tavern.

The ideal environment for me to create music in is… My apartment, very early in the morning.

If I could have any two bands open for me they would be… Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, and The Late Show Band.

Disclaimer: All answers by Mike Warne

PKEW PKEW PKEW’S new album ‘Optimal Lifestyles’ is out TODAY via Big Scary Monsters (UK) and Dine Alone Records (US/Canada). Stream and buy it here now!

Catch them on their UK tour w/ Spanish Love Songs in May! 07.05.19 - Brighton - The Hope & Ruin 08.05.19 - Manchester - Soup Kitchen 09.05.19 - Birmingham - The Flapper 10.05.19 - Bristol - The Exchange 11.05.19 - London - New Cross Inn

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Interview by Scarlett Dellow

#pkew pkew pkew #punk #indie #emo #toronto punk #diy #spanish love songs #canadian music #canadian punk #interviews #dellow

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ultraphobic · 5 months

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Hi Lane!!

Omg I forgot about the time zones haha. When I wrote that message, I still had December 8th. I understand why you didn’t watch live performances and it's okay! I can't watch some bands perform, especially if they don't exist anymore for some sad reason. INXS is an amazing band! Have you seen the TV series about them?

This glam festival promises to be really memorable! I really hope Michael will be there.

Omg!! The piercing master is great! Do you have any favorite types of piercings?

I hope I can see a picture of the Bandit! 200 playlists in Spotify is great. if you don't mind, I would love to explore your playlists because I feel tired of my music and I need something new. I understand about the Warrant albums! albums with Jani after Dog Eat Dog are not available in my country and now I want to order a CD, but it will have to wait a couple of months.

Wow, that's so cool!! And what do you like to draw? handmade T-shirts, in my opinion, are a very cute and memorable gift.

I hope you will be able to make all your travel plans come true! Do you have any fav sights that you would like to see?

Oh I'm really sorry that you are experiencing a lot of stress at this time :(by the way, when is your birthday? And how is winter going in Australia?

🎄If you could talk to any musician, who would it be?

🎄Do you play any instruments or would you like to learn?

🎄 How do you like to celebrate Christmas?

Your Santa ⛄️🎄

hey santa!!!

sorry for a later response i’ve been at a family christmas event all day 🥲

i didn’t even know there was an inxs tv series? i’ll have to check that one out!

glamfest lineup just came out about an hour ago as i’m writing this and the lineup is killer! slaughter and lynch mob are headlining which is awesome so i think i may just get vip… no michael monroe but thats ok! if he comes to australia separately that’d still be cool but if not it’s fine

i think my favourite type of piercing to do on other people is a helix piercing at this stage, but on myself my fav is just any type of nose piercing, bc i can do anything with them!

i’ll link my spotify HERE so feel free to check that out :3

& yeah it sucks that ultraphobic - under the influence is just so widely unavailable its like they just kinda want people to see their discography go from dog eat dog to born again which sucks because theres so much good stuff on ultraphobic, belly to belly & even the few new songs on greatest and latest (bad tattoo, keeping up with the jones, southern comfort) like… pls warrant i beg of u to let me listen

i had some fun doing drawings of shiny stuff - cutlery specifically i guess??? i think that was fun! & yea the silly shirts were also fun! i made one for my dad that just said “i am bald” which he hates but i think it’s hilarious

for the meantime travel is going to have to wait because i am saving for a surgery but i am hoping to see a tattoo artist in melbourne victoria to do a portrait tattoo eventually! in europe i’d love to see some ancient stuff & i’d also like to see some of italy’s vineyards :)

it’s actually summer right now for australia so aside from the general christmas present buying stress i’m actually not too bad rn it’s june-august where i get more stressy but again time zones and hemispheres are wacky so i understand the mixup - my birthday is feb 11! so a month and a half away!

summer is sooooo hot rn it was 38° yesterday (100° if you’re a fahrenheit user) i was just laying in the aircon sweating my ass off waiting for the heat to take me out but thankfully it wasn’t AS bad today

where are you from btw?

if i could talk to any musician… i’ll give you two answers because you didn’t specify dead or alive

dead: jani lane bc i love him and i think we’d relate on a lot of things

alive: patrick stump from fall out boy because he seems like such a sweet and intelligent guy and fall out boy got me through a lot of my teen years and i also think he’d get me

i do play a few instruments! bass is my main one that i’m best at but i also play guitar (planning on restarting lessons in the new year now that i have a job that pays me better), piano (sometimes), ukulele (again sometimes), and i have background playing small wind instruments (recorder, harmonica). i would love to learn the drums though! i also (try to) sing a bit but only rly in front of ppl when i’ve been drinking a bit and we do karaoke

christmas is the same every year really, we do a couple of extended family events in the lead up & then on christmas eve we each get to open ONE thing from under the tree. on christmas day we have lunch/dinner with my mums side of my family, which switches between three houses (our house, aunts house, mums cousins house). we do a secret santa for gifts at this but if you’re under 18 you get a present from every family. we used to go to church on christmas eve but since my dad’s not religious and me and my sister kinda stopped believing & my mum isn’t rly a fan of the catholic church as an organisation (shes still christian she just doesnt like the church) we dont do that anymore)

sometimes we drive around on christmas eve and look at the lights that people put up on their houses! a lot of people do that in my area btw just in case that sounds creepy

thanks for the message!!!

p.s. cat tax here is a pic of the boy

#secret santa ask

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thechordcoffeeshop-blog · 6 years

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All the reasons you need to get out and see some live local music!

In this age of pop culture which constantly revolves around technology and the streaming of media (specifically music), in many ways it has become a “hipster” practice to avidly support live and local music. Many people enjoy live music on a regular basis, but do not know what is happening in their local music scene, which is their loss. And while it seems that people all commonly agree that supporting local arts and music is a good thing (even if they do not know why they think it’s a good thing), I am here to tell you how it directly can benefit you. So here are 6 reasons why you should support and attend live local music.

1. Find new artists

Radio stations anymore play the same songs every day, and you may find that your peers are all listening to the same generic music too. Local music is great way to discover new artists and therefor music. Local artists have different influences, tastes, and interpretations on music than main stream artists. Because of this the music they produce will often be unlike anything you have ever heard before. These artists also write most if not all their own music, a rare skill and lost art (I implore you to see how many chart-topping artists are writing and arranging their own music!!). Along with original pieces, you may also hear a cover version of a song that is so good you will be wondering why it was not originally performed that way. A personal example of this: I was lucky enough to see a very talented bluegrass band, Green sky Bluegrass, perform a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Time”. Hear it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrUUb6EqfCE

2. The opportunity to follow a musician’s career

Building off reason #1, if you find an artist who you really enjoy, and they are a talented act, you may be in for a real treat. My mom still talks about seeing Stevie Ray Vaughan (if you don’t know who SRV is, educate yo-self) back in 1981. Stevie and his band were on their first small tour (before they had even released a record) and he played at a small venue in Madison, WI. He didn’t even sell out and the show didn’t get much coverage, because of this my mom was lucky enough to stand in the front row. During the show Stevie winked at her and later gave her a guitar pick. SRV and Double Trouble went on to win multiple Grammys and have huge touring success. On August 27th, 1990 they saw his show at Alpine Valley Amphitheatre in East Troy, Wi. The show included guest appearances by Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray and Stevie’s big brother, Jimmie, a truly star-studded show. This show was Stevie’s last as he would die later that night in a plane crash. SRV is regarded as one of the best blues guitarists to ever live, and my mom was lucky enough to have followed his career from beginning to end. While this is a rare example, you never know what could happen to that unknown artist performing on a random Friday or Saturday night, so buy the ticket, see the show! In 1982 he was booked to play on a night that was traditionally reserved for acoustic acts, he was booed almost to the point of leaving the stage. In 1985 he returned as the sold out headlining act, check out part of it out hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp8suBGPHQc

3. Watch someone perform their craft

Along with listening to live original music, watching someone create and perform their music right in front of you is often worth the price of admission. I personally believe to watch someone practice a difficult skill or craft is something of rare beauty. The moment when the bass and drums fall back and the lead guitar player drops into a soul touching solo, or the lead singer hits a song’s defining note, are moments that can literally put you in awe. Their talent can pull your attention so closely that you almost fall into a trance because you are so fixed on what they are doing. This intimacy cannot be found in a sold-out arena show, and is another reason why you should experience your local live music scene.

4. Local live music is a personal experience

As I just pointed in reason #3, local live music can be a very intimate and personal experience between the artist and the audience. The venues are often small, including the stage, which allows you to be right up in front of the band. You get to hear and see them as close to the source as possible, and depending on the band this may allow you to interact with the band. They may ask what song you want them to play, hand you a bottle to pass around the crowd, pull you up to sing and dance with them, who knows what! Either way, the experience of being in the front row of a live show is almost always better when it’s a small act. They’ve been practicing, and dreaming about making it big for years, so when you stand in the front row and cheer like they’re a rock star, they might just act like one, and you don’t want to miss that.

When bands play small venues, they don’t run off the back of the stage to an awaiting limo full of groupies. This is for many reasons. They don’t have a limo (they usually have a crappy old cargo van), they don’t have groupies, and they don’t have road crew so they can’t run off and leave all their gear! Because of lack of a limo and groupies, they usually hang out after their set, have a drink, try to sell some merchandise, and talk to the crowd. Now they may not superstar, but if you loved the show and their music, this is a great time to meet them and tell them. It’s always cool to talk to an artist and hear their story, and they like to know the crowd enjoyed the show.

If you play it cool, and the artist or band enjoyed talking with you after the show, you might just be lucky enough to hang with them for the rest of the night. Working at The Chord has afforded me that chance multiple times, and it’s an awesome experience. To get to know them, hear their story, where they’ve been and where the next stop on their tour, is something you don’t forget. Plus, musicians are usually cool and know how to party, if people see you with them they will think you are cool and know how to party!

5. It’s a cheap social outing

Live music is something that people often forget is a great, and cheap social outing. Instead of just going out drinking for the night, to a movie, or whatever the cool kids are doing, think about going to some live music near you. Many towns and cities have free summer concert series that are open for the public to enjoy. Bars and small music venues regularly book great acts with cover/ ticket prices $5 to 20$, depending on the act. And if you really want to immerse yourself, there are music festivals happening weekly, all you have to do is find them and attend! Live music is a great way to change up your normal going out routine. So get out on the dance floor, play air guitar, and sing with the band like no one is watching!

6. Live music is dying!

Finally, with the increase of music streaming- through Spotify and YouTube, the way in which people are discovered and share their music is rapidly changing. The advent of technology is already hurting the live music scene. My father often recalls the concerts he saw back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, and many others where he paid only a couple dollars for a general admission ticket to a national headlining bands concert. Bands and musicians used to tour to support an album, now they release albums to support tours. Now headlining musicians and local acts alike have a very difficult time making a living touring the country like they used to.

My final words on the subject

I hope these reasons have at least sparked some interest or opened your mind to the idea of going to see live music acts near you. Local live music gives you the opportunity to find new artists and original music, and if you are lucky the artist may just make it big someday. Local music is a personal experience that allows you to watch someone perform their craft, interact and often meet the band, all at a very reasonable, if not free price. Lastly, live music is something that helps to fill our lives with creativity and joy, and is not something that we want to see come to an end, so we need to support it.

#MKT400UWL

#TheChord

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”?

You’ve seen the headlines: “The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts Across the Globe” and “Wine-tasting: it’s junk science.” These articles, and many others, address the notion that experienced wine drinkers, be they sommeliers, winemakers, or other professionals, struggle to produce consistent results when blind tasting — particularly when subjected to certain tricks or confounding factors. However, since it is clearly not the case that all wine is interchangeable, how do we determine what makes wine good or bad?

That’s what Adam Teeter, Erica Duecy, and Zach Geballe dive into in this week’s VinePair Podcast, prompted by a listener question: “Can we objectively determine what makes a wine ‘good?’” If so, are blind tastings and wine competitions the best way to go about determining that? We cover all that and more on this week’s episode.

LISTEN ONLINE

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: from Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on today? How are we doing? Feeling OK?

E: Yeah. Doing alright. It’s getting cold here, but that’s our weather topic that some people complain about.

A: I didn’t even notice. I thought it was warm, but anyways …

Z: Well, when you never leave your house, the temperature doesn’t change a whole lot.

A: No, but I mean, you guys get into anything cool recently? I know we always talk about at the top now what we’re drinking, but before we get into that, is there anything else on your minds, or do we just want to get right into talking about drinks?

E: Man, it’s been work and drinks and moving. So I don’t have much beyond that.

Z: Yeah. I’ve been grappling with, and Erica I’m curious about your thoughts on this, I’ve been grappling with whether to take my son trick or treating this year. He’s just over 2. So he’s not really old enough to anticipate Halloween.

We did it last year, but he didn’t really know what was going on and it’s not like he could eat candy this year. We would maybe give him a tiny little bit, and I’m sure he would enjoy some of it, but it’s a really shitty year to talk about going to other people’s houses and knocking on the door.

A: Are they allowing it?

E: I don’t know if places are able to forbid it, really. But I think that I’ve seen some advertising for festivals and these things are just going to be packed. And so I think we’re going to skip it this year and we may do a little backyard thing with some friends, but I think it’s just going to be very small. And, I think we’re just going to recycle last year’s Halloween costumes for the kids.

Z: Yeah. I mean, again it’s the privilege of having a kid this age, he doesn’t know what he would be missing out on yet. So if there were a year where we weren’t doing anything, I don’t think he would really care. We had a costume picked out, so we’ll dress him up in that. And I don’t know. Maybe we’ll go for a walk. I think there are people talking about ways to do socially distanced trick or treating. And I think if I had a 7-year-old that might be more of a thing that I felt I needed to do for them. ‘Cause they would probably not appreciate missing a Halloween, but with a 2-year-old, we’ll just start at 3, I guess.

E: Yeah.

A: Yeah. And that’s not my problem, but I am wondering if I’m supposed to have candy at my apartment, but I think our building is forbidding it. So I have no idea. Our buildings, they’ve been very careful. So I don’t think I’m going to see much of that this year. And then all the parties are not going to happen. So that’s a bummer. So I’m just gonna watch scary movies and try to freak myself out.

Z: Do you need any help freaking yourself out in 2020, man? Just turn on the fucking news.

A: No, I mean yeah. There’s “freak yourself out” in a way that’s fun to be scared, then there’s “freak yourself out” to be really, truly scared. I’m already really, truly scared. I mean, I don’t even want to think about this fucking election anymore.

I just want it to be over, obviously in a positive way. So yes, I’m freaked out in that way already. But I would rather just watch some scary creepy shit and think about that and go back to a time when that was the thing we were scared about. This idea that zombies could roam the Earth. So instead of the one that’s in the White House As we call them: The good old days, the good old days. Yeah. What are you guys drinking, though?

E: I just this week published a piece on VinePair that was about the Pinot Noir revolution in New Zealand. The central Otago Pinot Noirs that were actually the wines that I mentioned in last week’s podcast, really made me fall in love with wine.

So, I was sipping through some of those, and the top contender for me was Rippon, which is this beautiful winery right in Wanaka and it’s on this incredible lake. It’s one of the most photographed vineyards in the world. And the family there has been making wine for many generations.

It’s the Mills family Nick and Jo Mills are the winemakers and it’s incredible. I think if you saw this place online you would be blown away, but the family has been farming vines there for three generations. And it’s biodynamically farmed, it’s without irrigation on its own rooted vines.

I mean this wine that I’m drinking, which is their mature-vine Pinot Noir, is dense and precise. It’s got these incredible layers of flavors that evolve. It’s just this beautiful, beautiful wine. And it’s an example of one of the wines that I talk about that has really been a benchmark in the revolution of Pinot Noirs in Central Otago.

A: Very cool. Zach?

Z: Well, what have I been drinking? I think the thing that I’ve been drinking the most lately has been a lot of California Zinfandel. For some reason, around this time of year, fall into maybe the beginning of winter, is a time when I really start to transition into these more robust red wines, but Zinfandel to me, good Zinfandel has this characteristic where it’s definitely red wine. It’s pretty powerful. Some of them are pretty high in alcohol, but they have this interesting, fresh quality to them. That feels like a fall afternoon to me. And I dig it. And so, I think probably mostly some combination of Ridge, Turley, and Rafanelli ’cause those are the ones I tend to buy. But there are other great producers out there and when I got into studying wine, it was one of the things that you could get on a blind tasting exam and I was always, “Oh, Zinfandel who cares?” and a lot of other things that I thought, when I was younger and maybe more of an asshole, I’ve come back to and been like, what? I really actually like Zinfandel. It has a place and I enjoy drinking it from time to time.

A: Cool. So in the course of the last week, I on two separate occasions at two different bars, wound up ordering the Jungle Bird. And it’s a delicious cocktail and I’ve rediscovered it. I was like wow, how have I not had this more often? And I think it’s one of those cocktails where if you’re trying to understand tiki, it is just one of the easier ones to make.

It’s five ingredients. So it’s, it’s super simple, right? It’s Campari, rum — I mean, specified Jamaican, but whatever – simple syrup, lime juice, and pineapple juice, and it’s just absolutely delicious. And so, yeah, it’s just so funny that that happened to me twice in one week. And I was like well, why haven’t I been drinking this more? So I would encourage everyone else to drink more Jungle Birds. It also made me feel like I wasn’t stuck in New York, worrying about numbers rising. So that was also nice. That was also really nice.

So as we get into today’s topic, Zach, we had a little listener email recently that piqued our interest and made us talk about what we’re going to talk about today. So you wanna give a little summary?

Z: Absolutely. So thanks to Matt, for listening first of all, and then emailing us, which you all can do [email protected]. and his question was basically he’s seen these various stories — we’ve all seen these stories from time to time — that pop up on, whether it’s, social media, a publication we frequent, whatever, that essentially make some claim about one of two related things.

One is, “Oh, some study shows that wine professionals can’t tell the difference between good or bad wine in a controlled setting.” Or alternatively, “Oh, people who are rating wines for competitions; if you pour them the same wine twice, they’ll give it two different scores.” Or at least there is no strong correlation that if you have them taste the same wine multiple times, that they will give it the same score over and over again.

And, all of these pieces get at a fundamental argument, I suppose, which is that wine professionals are full of shit. And as to the wine professionals, I’ll be honest: For me personally, there’s a natural instinct to be a little defensive in these settings. And people are taking shots at what I do for a living in one form or another.

But, I think that it does raise a very interesting question that I think we’ll probably get to in a minute, which is, well, how do we decide if wine is good or bad? What is it? What is that about? And so I think maybe we can start by talking a little bit about these questions and these examples, and then we can each talk about what makes a wine good or bad to us. ‘Cause I think there’s room for different interpretations.

A: Yeah. I mean, so first of all, I’m not a professional. I’m an enthusiast or someone who’s interested, and loves wine, but I feel like that’s where a lot of this can get tricky. I think there is a lot about most things when it comes to food and drink that are subjective.

Do I think that it’s very easy to be able to tell something that’s mass-produced or just not well made? Yes, I absolutely do. I was just having this conversation earlier today with another writer, I think being able to pick out when something is definitely unbalanced or just bad when you’re judging a food competition, you’d be like you just didn’t follow a recipe.

You “overcooked the beef”-type thing right? That’s easy. And I think there is something to that. I do think, though, I’ve been in situations where I’ve watched wine competitions and things, judges judge things differently two times. And I think that I’ve been involved in conversations where there’ve been massive arguments between those judges in terms of what constitutes something as being good.

And every time the people never agree. There always seems to be a lot of subjectivity, which I don’t think is bad, which is why we’ve always said at VinePair you need to find a wine merchant you trust or another wine professional you trust. If you’re looking for someone to help you with discovery, follow what they like because it may be very different from what someone else likes.

And that’s OK. Unless you’re at a place where the one person at the top’s palate has been decreed to be the palate everyone is supposed to follow, which, we know was true with Robert Parker at Wine Advocate. We know to some extent it’s pretty true at Wine Spectator with Marvin Shanken’s palate.

But for the most part, it’s very subjective. Even among tasting groups in terms of what people’s palates say and what one person likes over another. So I don’t know. That’s why these studies are always really funny to me because of course people are going to have different opinions.

E: Yeah I’d say from my perspective, I think that you could break it down. So there’s the technical side of wine and winemaking, and that would be having high-quality grapes, but that’s some combination of vintage, the terroir where it’s planted, and probably the vintage conditions.

So, I think I’ve seen a quote somewhere from Mondavi, who said you can never make great wine from mediocre grapes, but you can make mediocre wine from great grapes, or something like that. But the point being that you have to have the good material to create a great wine.

You can’t ever start out with bad material, bad grapes, and end up with a fantastic wine. It’s just not possible. So, you’ve got high- quality grapes, that’s a threshold. And then I think there’s great winemaking, so winemaker’s skill. And when winemakers were focused on making a wine that really expresses a sense of place, I think those wines, to me, stand out.

So those are the tangibles. And then I think the intangibles are this style or this X factor of wine, which is very personal. It’s the reason that some people collect first-growth Bordeaux wines, while others are coveting the grand crus of Burgundy. People just like different styles of wine.

Both of them are super-high-quality wines, some of the best wines in the world. but some people look for opulent wine. Some people look for mineral-driven wines. Some people want wines that are precise and detailed. Other people want power. So these are all qualities in wine that some love and others like.

And in a competition setting, you can really see that come through. So in a lot of the competitions that I’ve judged, you may be trying 60 wines in a day. And there’s no question that there’s some palate fatigue and after a while, things are starting to really, taste alike and then you’re looking for the outlying wines but do those outliers denote quality? I don’t know.

So there’s a lot of questions in that. And I think one successful thing I’ve seen competitions do is to have six or eight tasters tasting through the same flights of wine, and the top and bottom scores are thrown out. And then there’s a discussion with all the other judges about the numbers that remain.

So what number can you get to? Let’s say it’s judged, someone gives it a 90 and someone gives it an 84 and the 84 isn’t budging. So, sometimes you’ll go back and forth. You can go back and forth for a while defending the different attributes of that bottle.

And then sometimes it’ll get taken out of the room and they’ll say OK, you guys are done. This room can’t come to an agreement and it will be taken to a different team of tasters. So I think that’s one successful way that I’ve seen of mitigating that bias. But yeah, I mean there’s a huge amount of subjectivity in wine that is the beauty of wine, frankly.

Z: Yeah. Well, I think Erica, your example of competitions, ’cause I’ve judged a number myself, too, is a really good one and an important thing for our listeners, especially those who maybe don’t have as much personal experience with that to take note of, is blind competitions, in my opinion, are pretty much worthless.

A: I agree. I’ve judged plenty.

Z: And the honest truth of it is, Erica has given a very, very, professional, explanation of how these things are handled. But honestly, a lot of the competitions I’ve been a part of, it’s “Here is your day-long slate. Here are hundreds of wines potentially, or at least a hundred wines.”

A: Yeah when you said 60, Erica I was like, “Whoa, that’s a very good number. I’ve judged 300 in one day.”

E: That’s too much.

A: Way too much. But they don’t want to turn anyone away who wants to pay to submit. So anyways, sorry, Zach?

Z: That’s OK. No, no, you’re bringing up good points. One of them is that many of these are pay-to-play competition in the first part.

And the second part is, as Erica said, as we’ve all said in one way or another on this podcast and previous ones, wine, as with all things drinks-related, is inherently, at least largely, subjective. And I do think, and maybe we’ll come to this in a minute, that there are some objective criteria that can to some extent delineate bad wine from good wine.

But frankly, a lot of those things are hard to distinguish. In the context of a wine competition, the things Erica talked about, the provenance of the grapes, whether wines are made in an organic way or made from organic grapes or, what labor practices the winery uses.

I mean, sadly those things don’t often or always translate into the glass, especially blind. And so, I think informed buyers and consumers, and frankly journalists, should be aware of those things in most settings. But the point of wine competitions or wine judging is to strip all that away and just put the wine in the glass and have you rate them.

And again, I don’t really know what the point of it is, right? Because, and this comes back to something that I came to when I was working as a sommelier, and became a very important thing for me when I talked to and trained servers, and talked to guests frankly, which is: Everyone wants to know, Oh, what’s the best wine?

And I mean that whole concept is to me ridiculous. And you think about it and in many of the other aesthetic pursuits that we take on, I mean, who says, what’s the best painting on the planet? You can say well, such-and-such van Gogh sold for the most money at auction, but I don’t think any of us would say, that’s a criteria that we want to stick to.

There are the most expensive wines on the planet. I don’t think those are inherently the best, we could say. There are the rarest wines on the planet. Again, I’m not sure those are the best. There could be a wine that gets the highest score in a review setting or in a judgment setting.

And again, I don’t think those are particularly inherently good because the beautiful thing about wine is we don’t have to pick just one, right? You can drink lots of different wines in a given day, in a given year, in a given lifetime. And when we get too fixated on, well, is this better than that? To me, you lose the point of the whole thing. Again, it’s just if you only could look at one painting for the rest of your life, it would be a really shitty life. Thank God we’re not stuck with that.

A: At least it might be a painting that you like, right? So maybe it’s the wine you like. I think your painting example is a really good one. So I learned something recently about the gallery world and I never knew this, and I think that it’s really applicable to wine because I find people can understand.

I think a lot of us really understand that we don’t understand art. Right? And that there are some people that claim to in certain ways, whatever. And a lot of people feel intimidated by art. I never realized that there are some painters who are at this point on the market selling, let’s say a million dollars apiece, right, that are not considered to be serious enough to ever be shown in a museum. And that sometimes that’s a career choice that an artist has to make. Right. Make art that is serious enough that museum curators take it seriously, but maybe collectors don’t because it’s not pop-y enough or it’s not, in the style of the day right now.

So they don’t make that kind of work. They make work that shows their sense of place, if you will. But they’re not ever going to sell for millions of dollars, or maybe it’s going to take a long time throughout their career until they get there. Whereas there are certain people that immediately come on the scene, and make millions of dollars.

The market throws them up, up, up, up, up. We know lots of wines that that’s happened to, too. But there’s people that just never think that artist is serious and that artists may, or may never have a major show or if they do it may come only because eventually the market’s just so robust.

And the example for me is Murakami. Right? The market’s just so robust that finally the Brooklyn Museum decides to do a show. Because they feel, well, now we’ve got to bring people in because they’ve all heard about this person. So I think that that can happen as well in wine.

Just because a bunch of people are excited about it, doesn’t mean it’s the best wine. It means that there’s a bunch of people that will tell you about it. There could be other people that aren’t excited about that wine. And one of the things — could also be a podcast we title “What’s Wrong with Wine Competitions?” but, I mean it is interesting, first of all, I’ve never been in a wine competition where one personality doesn’t dominate the table. Usually, it’s the person who is either the MS or whatever, that everyone just defers to. And I don’t mean dominate, they can be “bullyish,” just that people start deferring to them because that’s just what happens, and group-think takes over the table usually most of the time.

And also there’s always disagreement about what was a flaw and now may not be a flaw, right? There’s a lot of people that still very strongly believe that brettanomyces are a flaw. And then if that’s on the wine that the wine should get scored poorly. There’s now other people, because of the explosion of natural wine, that think that that is an acceptable characteristic and that it adds to the complexity of the wine.

And I’ve seen fights breakout. Among people who’ve been like, I don’t agree with you. You’re wrong. The winemaker allowed a flaw to come into the wine, the wine is flawed. The wine should be sometimes thrown out. And then the people who say, no, this is adding complexity. This wine to me is a 95. So I think that just illustrates that it’s very hard.

And when we start saying, this group likes when these things happen, and these scores happen, it can be very difficult. Which is why I think the only way that it works is when it’s one individual critic or one individual person and you’ve come to trust them. Right. So you tend to agree with their palate and you bought other things that they’ve recommended.

And then you’re like, OK, cool. So for example, Keith, our tastings director, I like what Keith likes to drink and everything that I’ve ever had that he’s rated well I thought was absolutely delicious. So I’m going to keep trusting the things that he recommends, but you could find someone else that is a polar opposite of Keith and recommends things that Keith never recommends, and follow that person instead. And I think that’s more of what’s true in terms of when you’re looking at wine scores or wine reviews, than just thinking that one person’s — Keith’s 100 must mean that everyone else would agree that the wine’s at 100.

Z: I also think an important point to remember here, and this question I specifically wanted to ask Erica, is setting and context are hugely important for how we enjoy wine and that, to come back to the question that Matt posed at the beginning, some of these studies, not so much judgings, but either actually scientific or quasi-scientific studies are trying to get at, can people actually distinguish between things? From a sensory perspective, wine, in particular, is something that is so sensitive to the context in which you enjoy it. I mean, Adam, you and I did a podcast a while back about, talking about glassware and whether that shit mattered. And I think we mostly said no, but if you get your wine served to you — and I’ve had this experience and Erica I’m wondering if you’ve had it — if you go to one of these sensory labs where people are learning about wine more academically, you can do these things where you get wine poured to you in a black glass. So you can’t tell the color of it at all. Or you can get wine served to you in a room that they’ve completely purged of any smells. So there’s literally nothing in there. There’s nothing else in there that you could get confused by. Or you can get wines with various extracts added to them that affect that smell or taste. Have either of you ever had that experience?

E: I haven’t tried that in a sensory lab, but I have sipped out of black glasses before just to see what it would be like. And from my perspective, I think it is very reliant. Trying two wines, one in a black glass, and one in a glass where you can see through. I think our brains function in a way of — we’re very predictive. So you look at a glass of red wine, for example, and you’re already thinking of red berries, blackberries. You’re thinking through the different flavors that you’re about to encounter.

And when you’re just sipping from a black glass, you can be smelling it, but then you’re questioning what you’re smelling. So you’re wondering if really those things were there. When you see it in the clear glass you’re pretty sure that it’s there. So then you feel much more confident in making that assertion about what’s in the glass. Because no matter what, if you go with whatever the characteristics of red wines are there is no wrong answer. Everyone tastes a little bit of something different. And if you were to say, no, no, no, this is all red fruit. This is raspberry and currant and whatever. And someone else was oh, no, no, I’m getting plums all the way. It’s not like someone would tell you that you’re wrong.

A: Right.

Z: I agree. And I think also, to that point, this comes back to this whole question of these attempts at disproving wine expertise, no one drinks wine out of a black glass in a dark room for pleasure.

So I mean, this comes back a little bit to a gripe that I have in general, which is: There are some objective things that you can say about wine and maybe some things that I think that most people would say are hallmarks of quality, versus maybe not hallmarks of quality, but so much of this is experiential and driven by everything else around us and our enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of a wine is driven, not just by what’s in the glass, but who we’re with what we’re eating. If we are eating, how hungry or how tired we are, are we angry already? All this other stuff is so important to our experience, not just with wine, of course, with almost anything.

But to say that because you can fool people through whether it’s opaque glassware or misleading scenarios or all that stuff like of course, right? None of us are a sensory machine. We are not designed to be able to consistently respond to the same sensory stimulus the same way. Life would be very boring if we did that. So again, I think that there’s an attempt in these things to discredit the idea of expertise and look, a little bit of taking the piss out of wine professionals is fine, we can be a pompous group in general. So I don’t mind that, but I do think that it’s important to still note that that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any difference between wines. Wines are different things and there are different levels of quality. And some of that quality is objective in some sense. Some of it is maybe aesthetic or even political.

You might consider organic wine to be an important thing to champion because of what it means for the future of agriculture on our planet. And you might be willing to say that an organic wine is inherently better, even if taste-wise it’s indistinguishable. I think I would maybe make that argument, frankly, but again, to come to this idea that because you can trick people it means that there is no such thing as expertise is, I think, silly. Even if many of the applications for that expertise are, I think, also silly.

A: So I agree with you, but I think we have to also wonder why is there this obsession amongst other publications – usually not publications that write about spirits, wine, spirits, et cetera, but among the Buzzfeeds of the world, et cetera, to publish these articles about how so-and-so got tricked.

And I think what it comes down to is that there is this lack of — something we can all learn — there’s this lack of willingness amongst professionals in a lot of areas to admit when they are wrong or just aren’t really sure. Or, maybe could see someone else’s preference compared to theirs.

And because that doesn’t happen that often in a lot of industries where someone is paid to be an “expert,” people want to go after them. So that’s why it happens so often. I mean, I think about, I think we’ve talked on the podcast, Zach, about that one sommelier on Instagram a few years ago, who had posted a bottle, a very famous bottle of wine. And someone said they were pretty positive that it was a counterfeit. And the somm responded, “Don’t tell me, I’ve drunk so many of these wines” and it was DRC. You know what I mean? They could have just written back, “Hey, that’s a really interesting point, I’ll have to look into it.” or “Not sure, it definitely tasted like it to me, but you could have a point.” It turns out, actually, that later on someone realized that they saw the markings, and it was one of the counterfeit ones. But it’s just that unwillingness to just say, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong,” or “I totally see what your opinion is,” as opposed to saying, “Oh, I can’t understand why you like that. This is just not good.” I think that that is why other publications and other people want to see some of those personalities taken to task. ‘Cause it’s a fun environment to say so you don’t know everything. So stop making me feel shit about it.

E: Right. And I think the key thing for our listeners to know is that good wine is wine that you like. And as a professional, I find a special joy in finding the best value wines. So when I find Carignan wine from Broc Cellars in Berkeley, Calif., or something made from somewhere on the coast that delivers for under $20, I’m way more excited about sharing that with people and getting people excited about that wine, then I am about a $100 Barolo. It’s just a more exciting find for me to be like, “Here’s an amazing value. I love it. I hope you’ll love it.” And that’s, I think that’s where the joy of wine comes for me that maybe doesn’t come for other people. Because I dunno, I’m just not a trophy-hunter type of wine drinker. I do love to try good wines, but I just don’t think that, as a writer, as an editor, I get as much joy out of recommending expensive bottles. I just don’t.

Z: Yeah, and I think this is actually one last good point to come back to why there’s always such interest in terms of upturning the apple cart in wine. And it’s that we already have done that. The hierarchies that existed in the world of wine 40, 50, 60 years ago have largely been overturned. I mean, not necessarily price-wise because as Erica mentioned earlier, first-growth Bordeaux, grand cru Burgundy, those wines still sell for more money than basically anything else out there, maybe some Napa Cab, et cetera.

But from the consumption side and from where most people are oriented, which is not the collection market, the world of wine is much bigger than it used to be. The established hierarchies are much less meaningful in a lot of ways. And someone like Erica can legitimately reference and recommend a pretty obscure southern French variety — or actually maybe technically Spanish variety, from a place in California that most people have never heard of. And consider it to be on par with or better than a very famous wine region in Italy. And I don’t disagree with Erica at all. I think the point, though, is that when you have this world of, or lack of an established hierarchy, you have a lot of people who want to step in and say, “Ah, allow me to be the expert. Let me be the one who will reimpose hierarchy.” And a lot of people recoil against that. They don’t want to be told by someone who they don’t know and don’t trust that they’re wrong, and they want to continue to enjoy what they enjoy.

And that makes wine professionals, obviously, an area where people are already sensitive to the idea that they don’t know what they’re doing, because that’s something we all hear more than anything else from wine drinkers, it’s that they’re concerned they don’t know what they’re doing. So anything that helps level that playing field for them, I think is going to get clicks. It’s going to get us to talk about it. Does that make sense? And I get it, but I also agree with what Erica said, which is in the end, you as a wine drinker out there need to decide what you’re in this for.

And if you’re in this for enjoyment, then take everyone’s recommendations with a grain of salt. Or like Adam said, find a reviewer or a professional whose palate you seem to align with and try multiple people’s suggestions. Maybe you don’t like Carignan and you don’t like Erica’s recommendations, and maybe you prefer someone else’s. That’s cool, too. But I think what it comes down to is just, there’s so little point in just blindly following someone’s lead without fact-checking. But you can fact-check, or you can address these questions critically without dismissing the whole idea that anyone knows anything.

A: Exactly. It’s OK if you’ve been told that everyone loves Riesling that’s in the wine community and you don’t. That’s OK. And you shouldn’t be made to feel bad if that’s the case. That’s your preference. I feel we should be encouraged to like the things we like and get to explore those things in wine more, because that’s what’s going to make for a better wine community. As opposed to everyone being told that we have to gravitate to these core wineries or these core regions or whatever. And that that’s just the way, because that’s just going to continue to leave people out.

Z: Definitely. Absolutely.

A: All right guys. Well, this has been another very great conversation. I can’t wait to talk again next week. And for everyone out there, like Zach said, we love getting these emails. They’re great conversation starters for us. And oftentimes, they do turn into the topic of focus on a podcast. So please email us at [email protected] and let us know what you want to hear about. And Zach, Erica, I’ll see you here next week.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

A: Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair Podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now, for the credits. VinePair is produced and hosted by Zach Geballe, Erica Duecy, and me, Adam Teeter. Our engineer is Nick Patri and Keith Beavers. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to my co-founder, Josh Malin, and the rest of the VinePair team for their support. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll see you again right here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/what-makes-wine-good/

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delfinamaggiousa · 4 years

Text

VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”?

LISTEN ONLINE

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OR CHECK OUT THE CONVERSATION HERE

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: from Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on today? How are we doing? Feeling OK?

E: Yeah. Doing alright. It’s getting cold here, but that’s our weather topic that some people complain about.

A: I didn’t even notice. I thought it was warm, but anyways …

Z: Well, when you never leave your house, the temperature doesn’t change a whole lot.

E: Man, it’s been work and drinks and moving. So I don’t have much beyond that.

A: Are they allowing it?

E: Yeah.

Z: Do you need any help freaking yourself out in 2020, man? Just turn on the fucking news.

A: Very cool. Zach?

A: I agree. I’ve judged plenty.

A: Yeah when you said 60, Erica I was like, “Whoa, that’s a very good number. I’ve judged 300 in one day.”

E: That’s too much.

A: Way too much. But they don’t want to turn anyone away who wants to pay to submit. So anyways, sorry, Zach?

Z: That’s OK. No, no, you’re bringing up good points. One of them is that many of these are pay-to-play competition in the first part.

A: Right.

Z: Definitely. Absolutely.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: What Makes a Wine “Good”? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/what-makes-wine-good/

source https://vinology1.wordpress.com/2020/10/27/vinepair-podcast-what-makes-a-wine-good/

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