—Nikki Turner

Brooklyn is experiencing quite the revival when it comes to heavy music. Or maybe it’s just that people outside of NYC are taking notice again. Hardcore and metal have always thrived in The Rotten Apple in the face of trends, with bands like Batillus and So Hideous My Love receiving a lot of attention of late. On all the up and comers, Tombs are definitely one of the biggest Brooklyn success stories. Since their inception in 2007, their EP on singer/guitarist Mike Hill’s Black Box Recording has sold out a couple of pressings and last year’s split 12” with German metal merchants Planks continues to sell briskly, especially on the heels of their tour with Isis and Pelican.

All these factors have heightened the anticipation for a full-length. The new record is called Winter Hours and its aptly named. There is very little that is light here, whether it be tonally or texturally, but what did you really expect? They are a metal band from Brooklyn called Tombs, and on Relapse, no less. Mike Hill and company make a fearsome noise that will take your ears prisoner and do very bad things to them. The trio sounds a lot like Neurosis doing their favorite Black Flag tunes at Swans tempos. While drums (and your ears) are given very little respite over the ten tracks, Tombs remain decidedly monolithic regardless of the tempo, hell-bent on crushing anything in their path. After the almost six-minutes of caustic sound the opening “Gossamer” subjects you to, the opening of “Golden” pummels you from the drop before adding insult to injury and getting even heavier. And you’re not even at track three yet, so strap on in.

Caustic tones are the order of the day on Winter Hours. Tracks like “Filled With Secrets” are brash and excoriating with very little in the way of mercy for your eardrums. “Merrimack” is a departure of sorts, using smoother tones to invoke a Jesu/Isis feel. In fact, a lot of the quieter moments on Winter Hours recall Justin Broderick, especially the end of “Filled With Secrets”. It sets up the epic “Seven Stars The Angel Of Death” like a jab to your chest setting up a right cross to your face, but you’ll like it anyway. While Winter Hours is staunchly abrasive, if you listen closely, there are definite filigrees of melody throughout. Little sonic oases like “The Great Silence” offer small periods of respite with clean guitar and more atmospheric tones, but this is not a record for the faint of heart. Winter Hours is definitely not going to be the soundtrack for your next holiday gathering. Unless you’re perhaps a member of the Manson family.

Ok, this is less of an exclusive (I think we got it up first), and more about me begging to post a track from Nisennenmondai’s upcoming long player (although only 5 songs, it’s 44 minutes) Destination Tokyo. Well, my persistence payed dividends, because today we can share with you the title track. This is the best thing I’ve heard all week.

I’ve been following this three-piece, all-girl Japanese noise-pop group since first witnessing them at CMJ 4 years ago. Yet, due to language barriers and the fact they live half way around the world, communication — let alone getting the chance to see them perform again — has been nearly impossible. So when it was announced that their records would be made available for worldwide consumption by the venerable Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound, I was filled with a pleasant satisfaction. At least I would get easy access to their music.

Legendary tales of them playing shows in Japan with the likes of Hella, Lightning Bolt, Battles and No Age have built their credo to near-legendary status. Prefuse 73 has been talking about them for years as well, quoted in Dazed & Confused as saying, “John Stanier from Battles had told me they were sick. . . They started to play and the drummer was as big as my hand. She started to play 16th notes on her hi-hat for about 15 minutes. Next thing you know, these three tiny diminutive women were making us look like idiots because they were so incredible.”

Consisting of Sayaka Himeno (drums), Yuri Zaikawa (bass) and Masako Takada (guitar), Destination Tokyo will be their second official release outside of Japan — their fist being a combination of their Neji andTori EPs on one disc. And while glimpses of their frenetic, post-punk past can still be heard, Destination Tokyo sounds more clean, and more minimal and repetitive than the EP collection. As the press release would like to boast, it “could be described as a mix of the groovy krautrock of Neu! and New York 1980’s no wave/disco created by bands such as Sonic Youth, DNA, and ESG, infused with elements of the instrumental Black Flag of The Process Of Weeding Out and the avant/post-punk of This Heat.”

Destination Tokyo will be released worldwide on August 11, 2009.

Nisennenmondai – “Destination Tokyo”

There for a blessed moment we had bands that didn’t seem to care about image:  Black Flag, Husker Du, The Descendents, Beat Happening, Nirvana.  Yes, they all had an image but it didn’t seem as contrived as say, Vampire Weekend, The Shins or any number of “indie” bands playing the festival circuit this summer.
 
That is why it was so refreshing when I received a CD from the Wichita, Kansas-based band Black Gasoline.  No, they weren’t extremely original but the influences that ring through on their album, She Gave Us Magic, all mix well to create a 1970s heavy music lover’s equivalent of a giant hash brownie. This is indeed stoner rock. And what is wrong with that?
 
The band’s love of classic rock is entirely in your face.  They create a sound that is as thick as sludge and meddles into a sound that is reminiscent of Van Halen, The Who, and recent champions of the sound, Queens of The Stone Age.  Taking their name from a 1940s barely refined type of homemade fuel, the band (Bryan Seely on vocals, Paul DeCeglie on guitar, Larry Donaldson on keyboards, Kendall Newby on drums and Scott Mackey on bass) seem ready to make their namesake proud; using driving guitars, pounding drums and bowel loosing bass lines as accelerants, they’ll set the Midwest on fire.

I “spoke” with the band via MySpace.
 
When did Black gasoline come together?
 It’s been about four years now.
 
What music has had the biggest impact on you as a group? She Gave Us Magic sounds very rooted in 1970s rock to me…
I think we have stylistically gravitated to the feel of 70s hard rock, but I don’t think you could call that a genre or even say that that would make us any easier to explain if you did. I do think it would be correct in that during the 70s you saw bands like Deep Purple or Black Sabbath make increasingly diverse, ambitious and dynamic albums, so I hope that’s what you mean. But as we’ve continued developing and finding our artistic voice, we’ve moved towards a genre that really didn’t exist, in that most of your 70s era bands only made one or two heavy psych albums, a piece which was usually peppered with a lot of R&B and blues, whereas we’ve been attempting to make a career out of that era’s accidents instead of the easy “heavy metal” outs.

As far as what’s been getting our goat lately, and I hate to answer this for everyone else, but the last few years worth of Swedish hard rock like The Hellacopters, Graveyard, Baby Woodrose, Dungen, and Witchcraft are absolutely awesome. Black Mountain, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, High on Fire, The Flaming Lips, Midlake, and Dead Meadow are some American bands we’ve been into. Not surprisingly, a lot of oldies are in rotation: The Pretty Things, Grand Funk Railroad, Hawkwind, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, E.L.O, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, The Who, Queen, The Byrds, The Beatles. In the Ipod era, it’s almost more difficult to convey the logic of musical influence because after a point, and this is more likely for a musician, it gets almost more scholastic than it should be on the surface, because it is, after all, just pop music.
 
Is She Gave Us Magic your first full-length record?
 Yes it is, but we are more than half-way into a new record that will either make us or break us. I’m always appreciative of any interest in us, but it’s hard not to have more interest in the future than the past. So keep an eye on us; we’re hoping for summer or fall.
 
Is the process of songwriting a group effort or does one member take the reins more often?
I think one of our greatest strengths is our creative process. By the time a riff or a melody is filtered through the band as a whole, the original idea is, in many cases, unrecognizable. Without the collective input of all five of us, it just wouldn’t be the same.
 
Is there much of a rock scene around Wichita?
It ebbs and flows. I don’t want to be unfair to a core group of people that really do work hard to ensure that there’s always some sort of scene, but sometimes it’s music, sometimes it’s more like really loud fashioned. Like most American cities there’s a faction that is birthed from corporate radio and guitar stores which will always be shit, but there’s an underground that has no set sound but has been very interesting, for instance Wichita spawned Manilla Road, Split Lip Rayfield, so wrap your head around that!
 

What do you think of the current trend of bands becoming famous and getting signed to deals strictly from internet buzz?
It’s great if you don’t mind being famous and working a day job.
 
Do you think that it takes away from a band if they don’t have to tour the country and build their own fan base?
They certainly won’t be that cohesive. Making an ambitious record is not that hard in this day and age. Having taste is another matter, but neither will matter if you can’t pull it off live. You might have to play after us, and we won’t make it easy for you.
 
I saw your band play a club in Lawrence, Kansas, a few years ago and your energy was explosive. How do you stoke that fire every night?
Blood, sweat, practice, need for attention, energy drinks… Mostly practice, and all that energy that a good crowd reflects back to you.
 
With “indie rock” being the big thing as of this moment, do you think heavier bands like Black Gasoline suffer?
Do you mean any worse than it already has? Personally I think it’s great for a band like us; it makes us even more different. If we’re back to back with a really trendy indie band, we look like Viking plunderers when the reality is that, compared to modern metal bands, we’re not really that heavy, just louder. With music the way it is now we’re a mystery, and, personally, I think it works in our favor. Styles change, a few years ago it was that rap rock thing. How smart does that Limp Bizkit guy look now?
 
How is the tour in support of Magic going?
We’re still promoting it and selling it, but at this point, we’re really revving up to the next record.
 
What’s been the biggest crowd you’ve play for to date?
Probably The Riverfest in Wichita with fellow local luminaries Split Lip Rayfield. I think that was two or three thousand people.
 
What is your inspiration for songs like say, “Lady Iron Wing” and “The Boy That Destroyed The World”?
 
“Lady Iron Wing” starts off sounding like it’s another “dangerous chick” song, like Motley Crue’s “Looks that Kill or Deep Purple’s “Lady Double Dealer”,etc. but as the song moves along the listener hopefully” discovers that “The Lady” is actually a world war II bomber and as for “boy” your guess is as good as mine.
 
Do you think a band having an “image” is important at all?
That’s an interesting question in that we’re aware that our image is an absolute lack of image, which has its own hipster appeal. It’s interesting in that we are aware BG has this burnout image, but it’s not something that we think about because we would rather shop at thrift stores and have bad ass equipment then waste too much time really dwelling on it. If there’s any method to our image, it’s that so long as nothing dates you, your on the right track.

Mouthbreather is yet another quintet representing for the ever-fertile Richmond, VA punk scene. For a fairly small river city, Richmond shows a diversity in their punk bands that rivals bigger scenes like the East Bay or Austin. Avail, Ann Beretta and Strike Anywhere come to mind, but they are but a few of the bigger names to come out of RVA in recent years. The average outsider would say the aforementioned bands all sound the same, but to split hairs, it’s more accurate that all of the bands sound like Richmond.

Like their neighbors in D.C., Richmond is a capital city with a crime rate as high as its median income is low. It’s a city just Southern enough to rankle politically correct Northerners, but such ‘old world’ sensibilities are juxtaposed against the fact that the fairer-complected old guard is very much a minority. Both groups have embraced the epochal “give me liberty or give me death” proclamation that rang through the city so many years previously, displaying an uneasy tendency towards the latter in recent years. While Richmond is hardly the Gaza Strip, it breeds a tension in the city that you can feel in bands like Mouthbreather.

Excoriating guitars and shouted vocals meet pounding drums and shattered cymbals here to make some pissed-off post-Flag aggro rock that will turn your head and then shred your eardrums. Born from the ashes of Wow! Owls and The SetUp, Mouthbreather released a demo a couple years ago that got a fair amount of attention. The five-piece promptly undertook a healthy touring regiment on the back of that buzz, eventually arranging for one of said tours to end in Louisville so that they could record their debut full-length with Lords drummer Chris Owens. They tracked a dozen songs in a week-long session at his HeadBangingKillYourMama Studios and claimed in Summer 2007 that they would be would be releasing the material imminently. Fast-forward to early 2009, and the Mouthbreather debut finally coming out courtesy of the good folk of Kiss Of Death. Coyly entitled Thank You For Your Patience, the debut Mouthbreather full-length pairs five songs from the demo with an equal number of new ragers, all ten of which peel paint at twenty paces.

“Dropping Cylinders” survives from the demo, appearing in a more polished form, but still taking little to no time to bore its spiky riff into your head and make you like it. Gamma-irradiated versions of other demo standouts like “Best Of Seven” and “The Nazarene” also reappear, but it’s little departures like the almost Menegaur-esque “When A Scientist Dies” and “Barium” that are the real eye-openers, showing glimmers of potential far beyond it’s horrible pun of a title. Thank You For Your Patience offers little relief for your poor beleaguered ears in the thirty-three minutes it takes to come to fruition, but its sonic headbutt is a sweet pain you’ll quickly grow addicted to. Don’t fight it; It’s really for the best. Mouthbreather take Richmond anger and pairs it with Louisville recording sensibilities to spawn a musical miscegenation that is a win-win for all parties.

Metallica, the bay-area giants that legitimized “thrash metal” with albums like Kill ‘Em All, Master of Puppets, …And Justice For All and “The Black Album” were welcomed into the hallowed confines of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 4, 2009.

Their inclusion, though absolutely deserving in every conceivable way, poses a wider question to my ever curious mind: Will the inclusion of now two “metal” acts, (Black Sabbath being the other. Let’s face it, Led Zeppelin and The Who don’t count as metal.) clear the way for other metal and proto-metal acts?

The governing body of “The Hall” is still skittish when inductions are concerned. The Hall has inducted piano music lightweight Floyd Cramer, but has passed up The Stooges. They’ve welcomed jazz “rockers” Steely Dan and the doo-wop group The Moonglows, but took forever to induct The Ramones and The Talking Heads. So, what would make you think The Hall will get heavier anytime soon?

There are several bands that fall into the metal, punk, thrash and hardcore categories that are entirely deserving of the honor of induction. Here is a list of bands that are eligible and in my mind, should be included. Bare with me, it’s a short list.

Motorhead: Without Lemmy Kilmister and the boys, the genre of thrash (and Metallica) probably would never have existed. Their album, Ace of Spades, is a benchmark of lawn killing volume and speed.

Megadeth: Dave Mustaine, former member of Metallica, focused all his aggression and hatred into classic ear splitting albums such as Rust in Peace, Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?, Countdown to Extinction and Killing is My Business and Business is Good. And as an added bonus, the band takes it’s name for the loss of lives from a nuclear detonation. Now that’s Metal.

MC5: The Detroit based house band for the Black panther Party was the first to “Kick Out The Jams”. Their explosive shows, incendiary guitar work of Fred “Sonic” Smith and Wayne Kramer and controversial political stances helped set the stage for both punk and metal.

The Stooges: Again, another band that helped in the invention of metal and punk. For god sake, listen to Raw Power and tell me Iggy Pop and his Ann Arbor, Michigan brethren don’t belong.

Black Flag: No they aren’t metal, but hardcore punk arose from the “forbidden beat” created by metal and more precisely, Motorhead. Black Flag gave birth to thousands of punk and thrash bands either by groups attempting to copy their sound or by guitarist Greg Ginn’s indie record label SST.

The Melvins: Masters of sludge and drone, no Melvins equals no Nirvana. No Nirvana equals none of the good bands and some of the bad (I’m talking to you, Bush and Candlebox) that appeared in the 1990’s wake of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

Judas Priest: Rob Halford is the King of the 1980’s wave of British Metal. British Steel is an album for the ages.

And there is just a taste of the metal, thrash, hardcore and punk bands that have shaped the musical landscape over the past 30+ years that are up for induction. They have all, either directly or indirectly, changed the public’s perception of what is great, what is groundbreaking, what is acceptable and what is not. And in the process have warped my brain for the better.

I must extend my congratulations to Metallica. They truly are one of the greats of this or any other time. Who knows, maybe next year someone from my list will be asked into The Hall, but my bet is that the voters will probably go with The Carpenters instead. Man, could they wail!

If ever there was a reason not to regret getting that impromptu sleeve tattoo dedicated to hardcore punk band Black Flag, now is the time. That tat just might make you famous.

As brought to our attention by The Daily Swarm — four guys from Philadelphia are getting ready to travel the country in search of people with tattoos of the Black Flag logo.

From Philly.com:

Stewart Dean Ebersole, who played in Railhed and now works for the Department of Recreation, is the chief architect and writer of the book. Ebersole, 42, says the idea came about as a joke when he and a few friends realized that most of the Black Flag tattoos they saw, including their own, looked pretty lousy. Matthew Smith, formerly of the band Rain on the Parade, is handling layout and design, Todd Barmann is editor, and Jared Castaldi is taking the photos.

They’re calling the project “Barred for Life,” and they’ve started a MySpace page to organize their fellow inked fans to action. They’ve interviewed at least one member of Black Flag, albeit Dez Cadena, the band’s third singer and second guitarist from 1981-1983, and they’ve contacted others to try to get them to participate.

They are, of course, looking for people with the tat — if that’s you, get in touch. They’ll be shooting in the greater D.C. area next (including Maryland and Virginia) and heading to Canada this summer.

It’s not like he needs the work, but with the news of Henry Rollins losing his radio gig this week, we decided to pay tribute to his former-but-not-as-good-as-Black-Flag-band.

The single “Liar” was the sixth track on Rollins Band’s fourth full-length album Weight, released in 1994. It was the album’s only charting single and marked the high point for Henry’s career with the band.

While the band bears his name, much of the music was attributed to acclaimed guitarist Chris Haskett (a friend from Rollins’ teen years in Washington D.C.). Less than a year after the break up of Black Flag, Rollins formed Rollins Band with Haskett, bassist Andrew Weiss, and drummer Sim Cain (Weiss and Cain had previously played with Gone, an instrumental rock group led by guitarist and Black Flag founder Greg Ginn).

Often mocked (it had an infamous stint on the show “Beavis and Butthead”), the video clip features Henry Rollins speaking about trust in the verses, then in the chorus jumping around painted in red shouting “Cause I’m a liar” and laughing uncontrollably. Which is exactly the response we had when re-watching it.

Rollins Band – “Liar”