FOUR DECADES OF DREAD!!!!

Whoa! Ok, apparently my friends have decided to throw a little party for my birthday (and used a very unflattering photo on the flyer to spread the word). I hear "40 is the new 30", but I still hope you'll join us for this momentous occasion.  I plan to "celebrate" for several months so prepare your liver...  

Saturday June 2, 2012 

9pm 

SLABTOWN

Portland, Oregon

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE INNSMOUTH

Join me this Sunday evening at The Lovecraft for another night of deep vinyl worship. Expect a strange brew of violent punk, twisted death metal, sleazy weirdo rock, horror soundtracks and vintage flicks on the venue's movie theater sized screen. "CRAWL TO THE CAVE!"

THE LOVECRAFT

Sunday May 13, 2012

421 Southeast Grand Avenue

Portland, Oregon

8pm until late

"...stir the dormant sense of strangeness."

BLACK TWILIGHT CIRCLE

KALI YUGA MOONSTOMP!

Issue #3 of Chips & Beer magazine is slated for release late next week.  This is the New York Street Metal Special and I was kindly asked to write a few words about one of my favorite records of all time.  Here's a peek...      

Kali Yuga Moonstomp: 

The Metaphysics of the Cro Mags 

Great records- eternal records, the kind we march boldly to our graves humming like boy scouts- always transcend boundaries and provincial genre limitations to become perfect lightning rods of emotion for the listener. For a brief period during Mayor Ed Koch's administration a few unlikely New York City hooligans came together to create a masterpiece of transcendental violence that continues to defy categorization and refuses to be tamed, sold-out or softened even as the world slouches ever closer to its cold grey conclusion (or maybe that's just me). As a teenager in 1986 Age of Quarrel was sacred scripture. It was the kind of record that improved my posture and emboldened me to see the world a bit more clearly. The doors of perception were permanently booted down by this 28 minute skinhead tirade and to this day I experience a golden rush of adrenalin as soon as the needle hits the wax and Mackie's drum sticks count off the crunching introduction of 'We Gotta Know'. Is it hardcore? The hardest! But keep in mind, this was hardcore before "hardcore" was represented by johnny-come-lately assholes acting like ninja turtles in the pit (I don't remember anyone doing an even remotely athletic martial art move on the dance floor back in the late 80's- not even those weird Hare Krishna skins- but I saw more than a few ice picks, smileys and bleeding faces). Is it metal? The 'Mags literally put the "street" in street metal and were clearly as influenced by Black Sabbath and Motorhead as they were The Damned and Cockney Rejects. So is it crossover? Well, it certainly brought longhairs, skins and punks together...though not necessarily in unity and certainly not peacefully. If your idea of crossover is sharks and toxic waste you're in for a most unpleasant surprise because this is the Kali Yuga and world peace just can't exist... 

AVAILABLE SOON FROM 20 BUCK SPIN!

Positive Mental Attitude

Look, life is hard.  Things don't always go our way.  Today I have two very simple techniques to improve one's P.M.A. that don't involve diving into a downward spiral of religion, booze, pills or questionable powders (all of which, let's face it, ultimately lead to more headaches):

1)  Angel Witch Speak:  Trust me.  Everything sounds better when sung with the catchy vocal pattern and positive inflection of Angel Witch's self-referential chorus.  Just try it.  "The rent was due last week!  The rent was due last week!"  "The car broke down again!  The car broke down again!" "I'm on-call this week!  I'm on-call this week!"  "The border patrol is entering the bus!  The border patrol..."  You get the point.  Everything is suddenly surmountable and a-ok.

2)  Chromium Dioxide In Bed:  Canada's Chromium Dioxide is metal edutainment of the highest order.  Your atrophied stalk-like computer arms will resist the effort of holding the pages of a print magazine at first but with repetition your reading posture will improve.  You will learn new stuff, be reminded of old stuff you forgot and snort out loud in the process.  Can't ask for much more than that.  Apparently most people read this on the can but I prefer a cozy nook and lots of pillows.  Stay in bed until 1pm on a Saturday and read this fucker cover to cover (your Facebook arms will probably need a rest at some point so take a power nap and resume when ready).  Follow with some Morbus Chron and I promise you'll be feeling better in no time.  Now do the dishes.

You're welcome.  

GROSS ANATOMY (part 16)

Y'know, there's a lot of talk these days about hate. Hate is cool. It's big business. So called "extreme metal" fans revel in feelings of self-loathing and impotent rage. They say things like, "This ain't the Summer of Love, bro" or "I hate _____ (insert religion/band/ex-girlfriend/movie/book/vegetable/hygienic accessory/etc.)." Blah, blah, blah.  Not me. I just dimmed the lights and lit my Sexual Inspiration™ candle. The sheets are silky soft. My blog is almost touching you. That's right, lover...it's Gross Anatomy time! But even love is not entirely without its frowns.  Unfortunately, according to the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology, about 50% of all first marriages will end in divorce and most will end in about eight years. The odds get worse for second and third marriages which, according to a casual google search five minutes ago, hover around 67% and 74% respectively. Why am I so concerned about love,  marriage and divorce today?  Because it's May Day- a time to celebrate spring fertility and the promise of new beginnings- so today we take a look at a wedding invitation I designed recently for my old friend Kevin and his lovely fiance Amy. This is a private commission but the happy couple have graciously permitted me to post their invite here for your enjoyment, dear reader.  I'm pretty sure they're in good shape in the face of all these dour marriage statistics because Amy has already put up with Kevin's necro-shenanigans for quite some time and she knows exactly what she's getting herself into by tying the knot with a cursed weredude (note to Amy: even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers at night will stagedive onto his cellphone when the Wolfbane blooms and have new scars by the time the autumn moon is bright).  Anyway, this was a fun drawing so let's take a look...

My only "artistic direction" was this goat adorned incense burner which they loaned me for inspiration.  There are some funny stories about how this poor thing was misplaced several times before finally making it to my home due to celebratory drinking headbanging binges but I'll spare everyone those details.

I started with these god awful scribbles as usual to work out the basic composition for a border that would not grossly offend everyone's grandmother and great aunt on the big day.  I considered the idea of using bind runes to underpin the symmetry but ultimately decided to simply include the phonetic interpretation of their names in runes.

Incidentally, you ever have one of these days?

Ahem. Back to the task at hand.  Pretty soon I had this penciled and ready for ink.

A few more hours and the border was ready!

Amy picked this nice font that accentuates the curly composition without being too overwhelming on the eye.  My daughter immediately suggested that they print the invites on gold paper.  Good call!

They turned out looking really nice and I'm pleased to hear that both families approve.  In fact Amy's dad is rumored to have commented, "Very occult."  That guy might have a future writing press kits for Unseen Forces.  In all seriousness, I wish the soon-to-be-newly weds all the best.  Congratulations, Kevin and Amy!

Until next time...Happy May Day!  
"Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!"

Aquarius Records selects THE LAW as Record of the Week!

Hopefully you know by now that I've launched a record label called UNSEEN FORCES with my close friend and confidant Tyler Davis of The Ajna Offensive.  Just what the world needs, right?  Well, Tyler and I are apparently both gluttons for punishment and we're in this bullshit record business for the long haul. We have an exciting roster of beautiful vinyl-only small pressings in the works for true lovers of the bizarre and arcane that will soon be unveiled.  In the meantime, I'm pleased to announce today that Aquarius Records selected our third release, THE LAW None Escape, as their esteemed Record of the Week! We are down to our final copies of this amazing reissue LP so if you want to grab a copy before they hit "collector" prices (again)...ORDER NOW!  And in case you haven't had the pleasure of me screaming in your ear about how much I love this record, here's a more sober assessment from the Aquarius homepage:

LAW, THE None Escape (Unseen Forces) LP

Uh, wow! And WTF!? That's what we thought as soon as we got a good look at these, the other day when Tyler from Ajna dropped 'em off at the store. Is this for real? This late 2011 release from the Ajna affiliated, vinyl-only cult metal reissue label Unseen Forces seems tailor made to be of immense aQuarius interest. First off, we, and many of you, are pretty into the whole Father Yod / Ya Ho Wa 13 / Source Family communal '70s psych rock thing. Pretty much everybody here at aQ owns one of those Japanese 13cd God & Hair box sets of Ya Ho Wa recordings, and we just this week hosted an instore event promoting the Source Family documentary currently screening in the SF Film Festival. Also, several of us at aQ (and again, many of you) are keen on obscure '80s old school metal, the more outrageous and over the top, the better. And somehow, unbelievably but awesomely, THE LAW brings those two obsessions together!! You see, the guys in The Law were members of Source Family, followers of Father Yod. Bassist Peter Tobin and singer/lead guitarist Troy Duke at least, had played and recorded with Ya Ho Wa 13. But by the early '80s, they were transitioning from being long haired hippies to being long haired heshers! Gotta change with the times, man. Having formed a garage (more like barn, cuz they lived on a cattle ranch) band, The Law (= Love And Wisdom), in 1979, they decided to make the big step of moving from Hawaii (where the Source Family had been based since the late '70s, and Father Yod had sadly perished in his fatal hang gliding accident) back to LA, now a hotbed of heavy metal activity in the year of 1983! But they brought their interest in esoteric, psychedelic spirituality along with them, into the realm of the heavier-than-thou, glammed-up, Decline Of Western Civilization Part II, Sunset Strip scene, where they rubbed shoulders with the likes of Motley Crue. Theirs was sleazy hard rock with a mystic message, though, all right!! Though that unusual backstory (and the picture of the band on the back of the lp, all done up in macho tight leather and studded belts) would probably have been enough to convince us to buy this, it was listening to the songs on this lp that made us decide, heck, all that AND they totally rule, in the hot rockin' department? Ok, Record Of The Week time. These ten songs include hit single in an alternate universe "Chill The Wine", theme song "Here Comes The Law", and several with either "Baby" or "Love" in their titles, like the dirgey (mostly) ballad "Baby I'm A Mystery", the lyrics to which include the advice: "Sweet child of the fire, the only way to go is higher, higher, higher...". These songs feature plodding riffage, wailing psych guitar solos, commanding vox, low budget sound FX, and (we're just guessing here) an exploding drummer a la Spinal Tap. Unseen Forces' ringleader Dennis Dread sez this slab of "vintage volcanic rock" is for fans of "The Rods, Oz, Blue Cheer, and Buffalo"... sure! And we'd say Dwarr, Cirth Ungol, and Iron Butterfly, too! There's paradoxically party-hardy outsidery-ness to this, The Law bringing in '60s influences (they do "Wild Thing"), astral influences, whatever, so that while it's not quite Ya Ho Wa 13 in spandex, it's sure not your usual corporate Sunset Strip LA '80s hair metal. The power trio's sole, independently released, lp came out in 1983, and failed to become a commercial success despite (or because of) its eccentric charms, but it did eventually become a collectable rarity. This reissue probably will too! Remastered and reissued with the cooperation of The Law's original members, also with help from Source Family historian Isis Aquarian. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and lovingly packaged. Includes liner notes and lyrics insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! And the label is almost out of 'em, so these may well be the last copies we'll be able to procure. But we still had to make it Record Of The Week, nonetheless. How could we not? None escape The Law!!

Pig In The Eagle's Shadow

I have no idea how this slipped past my radar until today (except for the fact that I live in total oblivion to almost everything) but back in 2008 Portland Grindhouse founder and unwavering champion of exploitation cinema Dan Halsted was mistaken for a graffiti "tagger" while walking home from a pub and unceremoniously tackled from behind by police on a dark Northeast Portland city street.  The cops failed to introduce themselves or even ID him before throwing him to the ground and tasing him five times (FIVE TIMES!  The generally recommended maximum use of force with a taser is no more than three times).  Naturally, after the beating Dan was arrested for resisting arrest.  Read the story here. Yesterday the City of Portland quietly agreed to pay Dan $250,000 in damages under the condition that Dan not pursue any further action against the city.  In court the City of Portland's attorney attempted to use Dan's love for kung fu films and his Portland Grindhouse events as evidence that he is prone to violence.  If you've ever met Dan you know the only person he's ever threatened are the assholes who heckle the movie screen during Don't Go In The House (1980).  Portland Grindhouse just got about $250,000 richer! By the way, don't miss Squirm (1976) when it returns to the bigscreen on May 29th!    

WALPURGISNACHT ON THE LEFT

Join me this Wednesday at East End for a very special Walpurgisnacht edition of Last Wednesday On The Left! Spectral forces are gathering and will have their way! I've invited the venerable Markus Wolff to conjure the eight hooves of Sleipnir so expect an intimate set of Germanic hymns as only WALDTEUFEL can invoke. Records spin at 9pm, devils dance at midnight. World without end.

APRIL 25, 2012

MYTHOLOGICAL METAL MONSTERS

Mythological Metal Monsters is my latest cassette compilation in the Mississippi Records Tape Series. 60 terrifying minutes of hard rock and heavy metal songs about mythological monsters presented with very questionable sound quality and "informative" liner notes for the uninitiated listener. Gorgons! Ghosts! Unicorns! Hydras! Griffins! Needless to say, the best $3 you'll spend all summer. Available NOW only at Mississippi Records. "Release the Kraken!"

Mississippi Records
5202 N. Albina Ave.
Portland, Oregon
(503) 282.2990

GROSS ANATOMY (part 15)

It's Gross Anatomy time again, brothers and sisters! You already know how excited I get when foreboding numerology collides with the weekend but this Friday the 13th is particularly special because it marks the grand re-opening of Mississippi Records in its new and permanent location. This seems like a fitting day to pull the proverbial curtain back and give you a glimpse at some new drawings I did for DEAD MOON since this official posthumous 7" is also the first release in the newly christened Mississippi/Change records catalog! If you're reading this I assume you already understand that Fred and Toody Cole are TRUE rock 'n' roll royalty. But just in case you recently awoke from a deep coma, allow me to put things in perspective. Fred "Deep Soul" Cole is about three years younger than Lemmy so he too remembers the world before the invention of rock 'n' roll (though he'd probably rather forget that part) and he's been independently recording/performing with complete disregard for fame and fortune since 1964. He's partied with the Hell's Angels, polished off Southern Comfort with Janis Joplin, ate LSD when it was still legal, built his own ghost town and cut his own records with a fucking lathe. He met his wife Toody in 1967 after his car ran out of gas in Portland, Oregon and they've been together longer than many of us have been alive. Their various bands have shared the stage with the Misfits (Danzig era, of course), Black Flag, D.O.A., The Bags, The Wipers and Poison Idea to name merely a few. They're also grandparents and still tour the world with their newest band Pierced Arrows (who, as fate would have it, are performing in Portland TONIGHT). To say I was honored by the request for my humble little scribblings is an understatement. And the process turned out to be a well worthy challenge. Ready for an unknown passage?

First, here's a photo of Fred and Toody we snapped just a few weeks ago when they treated a small local audience to a very intimate acoustic set that covered the spectrum of their entire back catalog. This is how music should grow old. With dignity and a little bit of whiskey.

For this project I was charged with the task of developing a simple border to frame two previously unpublished band photos for the front and back covers. Dead Moon had a very specific aesthetic that didn't deviate much throughout their nearly two decade run. Some call it "punk" or "D.I.Y". My kids call it..."janky". Which is probably why it made sense to get a janky artist who draws with ballpoint pens for the job. The real challenge with this one was keeping it raw and unpolished but still classy enough to hold its own.

Dead Moon lexicon is characterized by superstition and symbolism so there was no shortage of powerful imagery to explore. After listening to the four beautiful songs on this record (two previously unreleased and two rare tracks only released on an obscure European compilation), I immediately knew the direction I wanted to take and banged this out in one long sitting under the watchful eye of the dagger moon.

It had to have the authentic look so I cut the generic lettering from their first single and glued it down right over the original art. Dead Moon never had a definitive band logo, aside from their iconic skull moon symbol (tattooed on Fred's face like a sideburn), so their typography tended to change from release to release.

Next I banged out the word 'MONO' on my daughter's old typewriter and glued it into place. VOILÀ! Border done. Right? Wrong. Turns out Fred and Toody are more superstitious than I imagined and owls ain't their spirit animal. When they stopped by Mississippi Records to view the art they made a request that I change it to a blackbird. Who am I to disagree with rock 'n' roll? Later that night we got a message from Toody who said Fred also had the great idea to have the bird perched on a tombstone with a Dead Moon epitaph. I got busy and cranked out this inky little crow which was then dropped in over the owl with Photoshop (I just wasn't ready to bury the owl in glue). Next came the band photo- nice and janky like- placed with little regard for pleasing composition...

Voilà!

Second verse, same as the first.

The best part is when we get to blast the test pressing and approve the final product, which will be available in May from Mississippi Records. If you live in the Northwest, be sure to visit them at their beautiful new location which opens...TODAY! I'll soon be rolling out another little treat for M.R. so keep your eyes peeled.

MISSISSIPPI RECORDS

MISSISSIPPI RECORDS

5202 NE Albina Street
Portland, Oregon

Until next time...54/40 or FIGHT!

HEMISPHERE OF SHADOWS

DANAVA is heading off to seek shadows on European shores so if you reside on that side of the hemisphere be sure to join them at Roadburn and beyond. You won't be sorry. And if you pitch your tent here in the Northwest you can catch the FREE tour cast off this Saturday April 7th at Someday Lounge. I'll be providing the vinyl cartilage so come down and bang the skull that does not bang (although in all honesty it's pretty tough to bang your head to John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness soundtrack).

LAST WEDNESDAY ON THE LEFT!

LAST WEDNESDAY ON THE LEFT returns to Portland's East End this week and that means I will be dutifully tending to the turntables (i.e. putting on a warped copy of The Best of Metal Blade Volume 1 and sneaking off to slam Hayrides). Are you morbid?

MARCH 28, 2012

GATES OF HELL

"Violence is Italian art."
~Lucio Fulci

This Tuesday Portland's Grindhouse Film Festival returns Italian auteur Lucio Fulci's 1980 occult zombie masterpiece THE GATES OF HELL (aka, City Of The Living Dead) to the big screen on glorious 35mm! You know the fucking drill (no pun intended). Expect disjointed and arrhythmic bursts of highly implausible gore-soaked violence and poorly dubbed dialogue barely strung together by the tenuous sinews of a "plot" that defies even the bizarre narrative style typical of Italian horror cinema. This was a further elaboration in the controversial director's quest to make "an absolute film...a plotless film...a succession of images." And what a succession of images the maestro has conjured! A priest hanging himself in a graveyard is probably never a cheerful omen, but in Fulci's bleak mythos such suicidal Catholic blasphemy causes a cosmic rift that belches the undead from the bowels of earth to wreak havoc on the small cursed town of Dunwich. But not before a storm of death literally covers the cast in maggots, the town weirdo is inexplicably lobotomized and a sweet young thing bleeds from her eyes and vomits her intestines. You'll also see how not to rescue a pretty woman from a premature burial. Yup. It's as awesome as it sounds! This film, the first in a loosely themed trilogy comprised of The Beyond (1981) and The House By The Cemetery (1981) is the mother maggot that spawned countless death metal bands and traumatizing psychotropic experiences since its initial theatrical release and consequent triumph as the VHS tape on the darkest shelf of the video store. The generally brooding atmosphere of metaphysical dread and shaky extreme close-ups courtesy of cinematographer Sergio Salvati are further amplified by Fabio Frizzi's brilliantly plodding soundtrack. Funky bass runs draw inevitable Goblin comparisons while the droning guitar occasionally aspires to noodly Pink Floyd proportions and should sound killer on Hollywood Theater's recently revamped sound system! Keep your eyes peeled for a cameo appearance from a young Michael Soavi, who would go on to direct such genre classics as StageFright, The Church and Cemetery Man. Director Lucio Fulci makes a cameo appearance himself, as he frequently did in his later films, but don't blink or you'll miss him. FULCI LIVES!

GATES OF HELL
March 27, 2012
7:30pm
Hollywood Theater
4122 NE Sandy Blvd.
Portland, Oregon

Now enjoy this great song from one of my favorite UK peace punk bands that has absolutely nothing to do with Fulci's film. Or does it???

Um...spoiler alert...



Evil is as evil does.

Mississippi/Change

Here's one for my "open minded" readers - which is to say, I don't expect most of you knuckle-draggers to give a damn about this particular post. You may recall me mentioning my neighborhood record store in the past because I designed their softball jerseys and contributed the mix tapes Satan Is Real and The Sound of Fear (volumes 1, 2 and 3!) to their carefully curated line of low-fi cassette tapes, designed to expose causal listeners to the deep tracks of a particular genre. Mississippi Records has become an invaluable Northwest vinyl stronghold and an internationally acclaimed micro-label that specializes in the more obscure spectra of Blues, Rock, Gospel, Soul and Ethiopian music (wait...where are you going?). Misfits from all corners of the world pilgrimage to this humble little shop every day seeking relics from their back-catalog and occasionally you'll even find a killer metal gem tucked behind the Joseph Spence and Sun Ra records. The label recently changed its name to (appropriately) Mississippi/Change and I was honored to do some artwork for the inaugural release under the new moniker. The release itself is a very special 7" that I will announce in due time but for now I've provided a glimpse above. Anyway, Mississippi/Change has just launched a membership club called Community Supported Records (CSR). The concept is very simple: you pay what you want between $68-$300 to receive direct mailings of limited releases that generally sell out the same month they're released. The catch is that they're only accepting 300 members and I want my "open minded" readers to have an opportunity to join. Keep in mind, THIS IS NOT A METAL LABEL. Re-read the genres above and go back to the NWN! message board if the idea of listening to folky Americana and International recordings makes you cringe. However, if you're receptive to hearing some unusual sounds this is a great way to get your hands on limited pressings and an interesting experiment to see if vinyl nerds still wish to remain engaged with music in a tactile format that directly supports independent creativity. You can learn more about the CSR program and become a member here. We now return to your regular broadcast.