Dishlich's demo and both Smuts releases. Just some aggressive rock music. Dislich played their first two shows with Smuts in Moscow and Spokane on Monday and Tuesday. They'll probably end up being Smuts last two shows. It was a fun time of reunions.
I'll let someone in Dislich write about their demo. It's Ryan from most Control Force bands, Sol from Cougar LS, Crue from Swellbows and Joe and Mellisa who have been living at the CTRLFORCE HQ for a couple years now. You probably know all these people if you're reading this. Sick grinding rock.
The Smuts Demo has been on a Smuts Bandcamp since January but I finally put it on the Control Force page. The newest Smuts EP was recorded for our mini tour which ended up only being in Olympia, Moscow and Spokane. It's five new songs that were originally gonna be part of an 18 song full length. I'm glad we decided to record the songs we'd learned as a tour ep cause it'll never happen now. There's one unfinished outtake from recording that's just missing vocals. It might get put up someday. Who knows what will happen to the rest of the songs that were written. Also the best thing about it is the Master of Disguise cover art by Cle.
There might be some old releases put on the Bandcamp page in the next couple days and some new recordings of old songs that never got finished are in the works.
Recently, I was asked by Moscow Skate-Thrash legends Swelbows (you know, like Swollen Elbows that you get when yr thrashin' and you eat shit elbow style) to help them record. They told me that they "just had no idea what they were doing." Usually I think of this as a great advantage, especially in the technical arts, because it forces you to be creative, but I am also of the belief that sometimes you just have to let someone who knows what they're doing help you out. So I agreed--out of my own humble narcissism--to record them. My only requirement was that they had to shred fucked up hard-thrash sick style...and they delivered (on day two, but who's counting).
Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of the dumb-ass process, we'll first introduce this sick ass bands members:
First, we have Ben on Bass Guitar. I chose Ben first because he seems to be the tallest and the band's glue factor. Not that they don't get along, but Ben retains a constant positive attitude that is essential to any successful rock band. (And interestingly enough, I didn't get a very clear picture of him, but I think this is how he'll want to be remembered...)
Next we have Same. Sam is also the glue of the band. He is proficient at guitar, shows up on time, and seems to make things happen. Sam is a man of action.
After Sam in the chronology of this post, but before him in birth, and younger at heart, we the drummer Riley. Riley is the band's thrash robot. He can perform any action with a cool precision that makes you think he's not doing much, but then you hear his chops and you are surprised by the variety of in his beat lexicon. He also plays a sick 18" Paiste crash cymbal like me but cooler, his explicitly reads "RUDE" on it. Riley also does not like to get up early in the morning, but then again I am only able to make this observation based on the sheer fact that there must exist people who get up late in order for the identity of the "early riser" to even exist at all. The 2 identities are locked in a dialectical relationship, but I don't feel like aufhebungin' right now so yr gettin' some lazy Hegel. Riley's chill:
And last, but easily the hardest mother of em all, we have my fellow band mate Crue. Crue is the glue to this band, as is everyone else. But Crue is unique in his love of punk and his generally solid demeanor. Crue is always ready to get shit done and he doesn't bitch unless it gets shit done. I like Crue. Here he is shreddin' or whatever's cool:
Also present was the infamous DJ formerly known as Dreadlock Holmes but now Zoig (aka Mo). Mo was the wildcard, not in the band, but totally necessary. Mo is always necessary. You can't have acid house or dubstep without Mo.
(Don't let his innocent look deceive you, Mo fucks shit up on the turn tables!)
On to RECORDING
The recording process was, like every epic quest, rather arduous. We recorded at Moscow's famous punk house, called The Bayou House. The Bayou House is a pretty mysterious place. It's in between two businesses and next to some RV storage by a quasi-Swampy area (technically a wetland flood plane) hence the name "Bayou" (maybe).
This house had one outlet in the entire place that was grounded. We didn't think grounding would present a problem, but it turns out stable power is necessary to run a stable recording system. So the first day of recording, we had repeated issues with drop-outs and strange computer problems I've never experienced before, like the computer told me that one of my RAID hard drives kept "timing out." Maybe it was being bad, so the main hard drive punished it. Giving physical phenomena funny little stories is what scientists do. So technically I'm a computer scientist. So you should take my professional opinion seriously.
Anyway, to more properly situate the series of events. I'll keep my self-interested digressions to a minimum from here on out.
The first day Crue and I packed up all my shit and hauled it over to the Bayou. No pictures, it was totally boring.
Day two of recording and on to our theoretical methodology. The dudes told me that they "just wanted it to sound good." I interpreted this as follows: we decided to go with a "live" setup, i.e. the whole band plays together while I capture the magic. We, like always, used my Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 firewire audio interface. It can record 8 tracks at once, and we used a resolution of 48 khz. To spice things up a little though, we used DJ Not My iPod Future's sick ass tape recorder his living father gave him:
This thing is weird and cool. It has a condenser mic built in, which is perfect for room sound, and that's exactly what decided to use this thing for--room sound. We (I) wanted a room mic to capture the unity of the whole band at once, but I was out of inputs on my interface. I've also wanted to try mixing tape and digital for awhile, so what better excuse? Except, I decided we should use a better mic than the onboard condenser, so we set up my Audio-Technica AT4050 condenser at about head height and ran it into the tape machine's "line-in." Here's a pic of the mic on its stand:
You can see I tried to set it up in a spot that was a fair distance from everybody so as to capture the "simple oneness of the fourfold" to quote Heidegger. Speaking of Heidegger, that's him on the desktop of my work station (I suppose I wear my influences on my desktop):
That's where I sat getting very cold while maintaining technical order.
Gear
As for the gear, we used a bunch of shit. For guitars, I brought DJ Not My iPod Future's Peavey half stacks, my Mesa-Boogie cab, and some Sunn amps (specifically, FeMel Dolphin's silver-face Sunn Concert Lead, which has a broken reverb and distorion circuit so we just used it for power, and we used my "new" Sunn Coliseum Lead amp for bass guitar). Pics:
^For Crue we used Sam's Line 6 Spider amp into the Sunn Concert Lead then into DJ Not My iPod Future's Butcher Cab. Elaborate but necessary. And Crue shreds on some sick Dean flying V.
Bass is pretty straight forward when you have sick gear. The Sunn's settings were 5's across the board and into the Mesa. New strings on Ben's Ibanez Gio bass made all the difference.
Here is Sam's set up. His amp is some wicked Crate 30W 12" tube pre combo. Unfortunately, it didn't have a speaker out, so we couldn't hook up DJ Not My iPod Future's cab, but we left it there cuz it lifted the amp up making it easier for everyone and the room mic to here. Sam's guitar on the other hand is a real fucking gem, IBANEZ ICEMAN (RIP Pig Champion):
Mics
As for mics and their placement. On Sam's rig we did an SM57 straight up. No frills.
For Crue, we tried to give his odd rig its own character and so we used the weird EV RE50B broadcasting mic, which has about the same frequency range as a 57, but with a shock absorber. I saw President of the United States of America Barack Obama talk into one of these once, they must be good:
And on Ben's (my) bass rig we used an Audix D6 with a special edition aluminum casing:
As for the drums: Riley has some nice Tobacco burst Pearl kit:
Pretty sick kit really.
For the toms we used some really nice Audix ADX-90 condenser tom mics that I borrowed from my FeMel Partner, Cliff Plimpeton's brother Dylan. We also borrowed the aluminum D6 from him. Thanks Dylan!
Here is generally how we tried to place them--wide so we could get as much ambient sound from each cymbal as possible. The idea is that these will double as tom close mics and the cymbals mics. Funny thing though, every time you hit the drum they kind of revert to their natural position over the drum...whatever.
As for the kick, we used another D6 on the reso head, so its not pictured, but I think you can see it in Riley's pic above. Riley has no port hole on his reso head, so the D6 is like a 1/2" from the head. Riley's iron cobra double pedal is sick too.
On the snare we used my Shure Beta 87a. It's a handheld condenser and so it works really well on snare. I pad it up and use my suspension mount just in case it gets smacked.
Conclusion
So, here are some final pics and thoughts:
Here's a good pic of Ben just phattin' out that tone...
A quasi group shot to give you a sense of the space.
And Bass Kitty, which Ben insists is the secret to his tone.
Okay, so recording these guys was wild. The first time we tried recording, the computer fucked everything up. The second time went as smooth as could be hoped though. Everyone showed up and no song took more than 3 tries. They did a really good job.
Also, as a teaser, here is a rough edit of their track "Skate and Destroy". You can really get a sense of their style here, no frills. Except the triggered kick, but these guys wanted it to sound good, so I went with what was easy. And below that is a video glimpse into the studio atmosphere!
Finally got around to putting this thing up. This recording was written at two weird times. Here's an overlong explanation because I'm unemployed and sentimental, if you like that kind of thing:
The music was written on a broken twelve string I found in the trash on a 15 minute break at work using a couple leftover Fox Council riffs to get started. Ryan and I practiced a few hours later and I came up with two lines I repeated for every song. Then we played a show opening for Stable Comings (the first one at One World).
About a week later we recorded them in the garage of the Pink House in Moscow. I dubbed a bass track too but I don't know what happened to it. I hadn't played any music in at least a year besides recording myself breathing into a re-verb pedal or some shit in my room. About a month later we started Tim Blood so it was kind of forgotten.
Eight months later when I got back to Moscow I moved into the garage of the Pink House then slowly leeched my way into the house. I remembered the recording and decided that finishing it was probably the most important thing I could be doing. Let's see I kind of lost my momentum; I wanted to say something about how I was feeling when I wrote the lyrics. I wrote lyrics in this notepad I had written a bunch of shitty lyrics in while traveling. The lyrics that ended up in the songs were the best of the bunch. I finally threw the notebook away a few months ago.
Um, I was feeling weird all the time. Really good and really bad. I would stumble home after hanging out for days and days, walk into Tim and Bethany's room, drop my pants to my ankles and fall asleep. Compared to my whole life that was pretty atypical behavior. When I would wake up in the late afternoon I'd go into the garage and blast music with garage door open. It felt pretty cool. Right outside the garage was a huge hill and then some shitty apartments beyond it that I liked to look out at. I'd sit there and try to write positive lyrics while everyone else was at school.
The first song is about driving back and forth from Seattle to Pullman and then playing some Loose Cannons shows. The title "Angry Suns" was the working name of the band when we first recorded. I think it was a play on the Indian Summer song "Angry Son" which I was listening to everyday, but "Angry Sons" sounded too goofy at the time.
The second one was about not being a wuss all the time or something. Also about realizing I could be equally miserable or happy almost anywhere.
The third one was about sleeping all day I think. I must have enjoyed it cause it's called "Good Day". The long quiet acoustic guitar part at the end was recorded at this time too.
The fourth one was about waking up for a split second and seeing snow out of the huge windows that took up the whole southern wall of the bedroom, then waking up later that day to no snow on the ground. I'm pretty sure the third and fourth song were written as one song initially but maybe not.
I felt like the last song needed more lyrics and syllables than the other four but had run out of anything at all good in my notebook or head. I tried to get Ryan to write some but he was too busy with school so I just left it.
As soon as I finished it I put it on the internet. I felt pretty good about it. I decided to call it Fox Council cause a few of the riffs were written right after we recorded the first Fox Council and I get nostalgic. A little while later we somehow played a show with Microbabies with Ian on bass. We tried to do the end part of the third song but fucked it up. Other than that it went well. I missed Microbabies because I immediately left to go to Seattle with Peter, but that's a whole other story (involving Kurt Cobain!).
I didn't realize how short it was until I listened to it months later. I think initially I'd had some idea about screamo songs with grind mini-song structure or something silly, but I forgot that pretty quick and it just felt right to end a song after ten seconds or whatever.
Here's a picture of our new band from our second show at midnight on New Years and some video from our first show at the Hummingbird of Death Record Release Party!:
We have a 9 song demo tape we'll be selling at our next show in Boise on the 19th. Or you could send an email if you wanna buy one.
There's a couple tracks from it here: smuts.bandcamp.com
Steve Roach - Mostly 'Structures From Silence' and 'The Magnificent Void'. As soon as I got internet at home again I got serious about getting into New Age and Ambient music. Steve Roach is my favorite so far. This is the most recent fave but it's on my mind the most.
Disclose - I've known about them for years but really started listening to them all the time this year. Every release is great but I listened to 'Nightmare or Reality' the most.
Enya - I found some Enya cassettes at a thrift store which reminded me that I liked New Age. When I was an early teen Enya was the only non secular music my dad would play on Sunday.
Darkthrone - I didn't really get Darkthrone till this year. I don't know why I didn't try earlier.
Death Metal - I continued listening to lots of Death Metal as usual. My favorites that I got into this year were Grave, Dismember and Bloodbath.
Billy Bragg - This was my walking around music for the first half of the year. I only listened to 'Back to Basics'.
King Diamond - Also from earlier in the year. I don't think I could have appreciated it any earlier in my life. I listened to 'Conspiracy' the most.
I listened to way less Pop/Rock 'n Roll music than the year before. Also I feel like I didn't spend as much time listening to music as past years but that's probably cause I broke my mp3 player in a car door halfway through.
Since
2007 I have kept track of every book I read.
Here is this year’s list. By far
this is the most I’ve read in a single year.
Not being in school is good for something, I guess. Also, I read really, really good books this
year.
“Middlesex”
– Jeffrey Eugenides
“We
Have Never Been Modern” – Bruno Latour
“Slouching
Towards Bethlehem” – Joan Didion
“The
White Album” – Joan Didion
“Revolutionary
Road” – Richard Yates
“All-American
Poem” – Matthew Dickman
“A
Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat” – Arthur Rimbaud
“The
End of The West” – Michael Dickman
“Eros
And Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud” – Herbert Marcuse
“Wise
Blood” – Flannery O’Connor
“The
Age of Innocence” - Edith Wharton
“The
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge” - Rainer Maria Rilke
“Wuthering
Heights” - Emily Bronte
“Iceland’s
Bell” - Haldor Laxness
“Letters
From People Who Hate Me” - Steve Almond
“Open
City” - Teju Cole
“Field
Work” - Seamus Heaney
“The
Trial” – Franz Kafka
“The
Sorrows of an American” - Siri Hustvedt
“How
Fiction Works” - James Wood
“The
Liberal Imagination” - Lionel Trilling
“The
Morning of the Poem” – James Schuyler
“Self-Portrait
in a Convex Mirror” – John Ashbery
“The
Tennis Court Oath” – John Ashbery
“Selected
Poems” – Frank O’Hara
“Blood
Meridian” – Cormac McCarthy
“The
Sheltering Sky” – Paul Bowles
“2666”
– Roberto Bolano
“A
Man in Full” – Tom Wolfe
“My
Struggle” – Karl Ove Knausgaard
“Ficciones”
– Jorge Luis Borges
“Sincerity
& Authenticity” – Lionel Trilling
“The
Dwarf” – Par Lagerkvist
“Disturbing
The Peace” – Richard Yates
“The
Varieties of Religious Experience” – William James
“For
The Sleepwalkers” – Edward Hirsch
“Aeschylus
II: The Suppliant Maidens, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, and Prometheus
Bound” – Aeschylus
“Birds
of America” – Lorrie Moore
“Mythologies”
– Roland Barthes
“Illuminations”
– Walter Benjamin
“Alfred
and Guinevere” – James Schuyler
“Nine
Stories” – J.D. Salinger
“The
Lacuna” – Barbara Kingsolver
“The
Opposing Self” – Lionel Trilling
“Anna
Karenina” – Leo Tolstoy
“Antwerp”
– Roberto Bolano
“Barabbas”
– Par Lagerkvist
“Play
It As It Lays” – Joan Didion
“Gisli
Sursson’s Saga” – Anonymous
“Full
Tilt: A Memoir” – Paul Santoro
“The
End of The Affair” – Graham Greene
Fiction:
29
Novels: 24
Short Stories: 4
Plays: 1
Poetry:
9
Nonfiction:
13
Essays: 2
Memoirs: 2
Pilosophy/Literary Criticism/Etc: 9
American:
31
Irish:
1
English:
2
Icelandic:
2
Swedish:
2
Norwegian:
1
Russian:
1
Chilean:
2
Argentinean:
1
Greek:
1
French:
3
German:
4 (I included Rilke and Kafka here because they wrote in German even though
they were Austrian and Czech, respectively)
Total:
51
Favorites
in no order: The End of the Affair, 2666, Anna Karenina, My Struggle, Barrabas,
The Liberal Imagination, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The Age of Innocence.
Made in Missoula! Catchy, riffin' punk with a lot heart and great
playing. When music this good is made in
the Inland Northwest, you *flip your wig* every time you listen to it.
2. Black Bananas - Rad Times Xpress IV
http://blackbananasband.bandcamp.com/
A phantasmagoric bricolage of fun
pop music from the 1970's onward.
Majestic, austere, intoxicating West
Coast dream pop.
5. Terry Malts -
Killing Time
Joey Ramone steals the Spits van and
does doughnuts in my front yard. Which
is totally cool, since I live in a rental.
6. Tamaryn - Tender New
Signs 7. Black Breath -
Sentenced to LIfe 8. X-TG - Desertshore/
Final Report 9. Radar Eyes - s/t 10. Hunx - Hairdresser Blues 11. My Bloody Valentine - EPs
-1988-1991 12. Plateaus - s/t 13. KING BROTHERS - Mach Club 14. Art Fad - Banditos 15. Is/Is - III 16. Chrome Cranks - Ain't No
Lies in Blood 17. Crocodiles - Endless
Flowers 18. Fuxa - Electric Sound of
Summer 19. Ty Segall Band -
Slaughterhouse 20. Acid Mothers Temple & the
Melting Paraiso UFO - Son of a Bitches’ Brew
Top Trax
1. 2. Boy Friend – Lazy
Hunter3. Riff Raff – Obtuse Angle
4. Ty Segall Band – Tell Me What’s Inside Your Heart
5. Brian Jonestown Massacre – I Wann To Hold Your Other Hand
6. Shonen Knife – All You Can Eat
7. Bare Mutants – Without You
8. Mind Spiders – Fall In Line
9. Heavy Hawaii – Super Bowl XXVII
10. Gayze – East Coast Dying
Next is Keith...
I hardly listened to anything that
came out this year, but here's my...
TOP 5 RELEASES OF 2012 (free
downloads in parentheses):
I saw them awhile ago and thought
they were pretty good. Ian forwarded me some unmastered songs from some
upcoming release and they're really sick. It's like death metal. I don't know
if this counts for this year but I don't have anything else to put.
3. Naomi Punk -- The Feeling
I've only listened to this all the
way through once but I've listened to a few songs a bunch. Also I saw them play
a lot of these songs live and thought it was great. Really heavy and catchy.
It's way more interesting sounding than the first album but still gets stuck in
my head.
My friends made this. I've listened
to it a lot. The Slave Graves side is up for download if you wanna hear it and
I know there's a few more tapes. Definitely worth it for the Microbabies stuff.
This is my favorite release from
this year, but like I said I didn't listen to that much. Either way it would
still be in my top 5. It's like a good continuation of The Endless Blockade but
the sound of it feels like more of an "experience", or something. I
don't know, it's short, aggressive and very satisfying. I should listen to more
new music.
I heard all these songs on tour so
much so I never put these on. I didn't get sick of hearing them every night
though.
Vaarallinen -- Demo
Ian showed me this. I dug it but
haven't listened to the whole thing yet. I think they put out something else
this year too. I liked everything I heard. Finnish style Hardcore from
Singapore.
Napalm Death --
Utilitarian
If I had heard this
earlier it would be on the list. I like new most Napalm Death almost as much as
old Napalm Death. Smear Campaign was one of the albums that got me into grind. (edit by Keith: I forgot about that Terry Malts album, I heard it a bunch this year and loved it!)
And Tim...
Usually I try to listen to as much new music is possible because if
something rad is going on I don’t want to miss out on it. I don’t know if there wasn’t as much rad
music this year as in years past, or if I just didn’t pay attention, but I feel
like most of the best music I heard this year was from old albums/bands I
hadn’t heard prior. So this year end
list is not a very good representation of what I spent my year listening to,
but nonetheless here are my 10 favorite albums released in 2012 I listened to
this year.
Tim B.’s albums of the year:
1.Mind
Spiders – Meltdown
This was one of my most
anticipated albums of the year and it didn’t disappoint. The first Mind Spiders album was full of good
songs, but did not really work as a cohesive album. It sounded like a dude in his bedroom trying
all kinds of different things. This
sounds like a solid album made by a solid band.
The first half of the album is killer garage rock a la Jay Reatard or
every other Mark Ryan band. The second
half is a little bit weirder, Devo influenced rock and roll.
2.Mean
Jeans – On Mars
This album is slower and
longer than their last, but I think the songs are better. A little bit more 90s power pop and a little
bit less The Ramones. There are a
handful of downer songs on here, but they maintain a childish perspective that
still makes them fun/charming. These guys what everyone to have a good time all
of the time.
3.Scott
Walker – Bish Bosh
Scott Walker is fascinating. This album is much more accessible than
Walker’s 2006 ‘The Drift’. A lot of the
songs seem more straight forward. He
uses more guitar and synth on this album than on any previous. However this is
still weird, hard to take in and unnerving to listen to. Really listen to this one.
4.Audacity – Mellow Cruisers
This band went from
being one of many noisy, reverb drenched, garage rock bands to being one of the
catchiest punk bands around. Party time
fun punk rock for everyone.
5.White
Lung – Sorry
I think this band is
going to be huge. Angry, riot grrrl
inspired punk from Vancouver. Really
listen to this one.
6.Sonic
Avenues – Television Youth
This is another album I
was really looking forward to this year.
Sonic Avenues first full length was one of the best power pop albums to
come out in years. This one is a little
bit more punk and a little less pop, which is a switch I’m not super stoked
on. Some of the songs and structures are
really satisfying, but some fall flat.
7.Ty
Segall – Twins Of the three albums Ty Segall released this year
Twins is by far the most straight forward poppy album and also my
favorite. It’s probably my favorite Ty
Segall album. Sometimes Ty Segall
reminds me of Jay Reatard even though they sound nothing alike. Both way too prolific, both way too
consistent and both long haired and very impressive.
8.Terry
Malts – Killing Time
This is some noisy
pop. The singer sounds like he is trying
to immitate Morrissey and Joey Ramone a lot.
Some songs have a guitar feeding back throughout the whole song. Some of the lyrics are obnoxious, buy mostly
this is catchy pop album well worth your time.
9.The
Babies – Our House On The Hill
I’m a fan of anything
Cassie Ramone does. This album is a bit
less garage and a bit more country than the first The Babies album and it’s a
switch I’m pleased with. Also, Cassie
Ramone sings on “See the Country”, “I wanna see the rolling hills of Idaho.”
Represent.
10.Protomartyr – No Passion All Technique
I was very much looking forward to a new Tyvek album
this year and when it came out I wasn’t too into it, so I was stoked when I
found out about this band that shares a member.
This is a little bit more post punk than Tyvek, but it fucking
rules. At times the sloppy singing style
reminds me of Pissed Jeans. Really
listen to this one.
