“Metal” (Used 26 times)

What is metal, or rock for that matter? While others scramble for last-minute sub-subgenrefication, I am happy just to watch those umbrellas widen, and the envelope swell and burst. Occultation are such a band, one that tastefully mines not-immediately-recognizable influences, and much like that pre-job interview adage, "just be themselves, they'll be fine." Fine they did do, having grown leaps and bounds since the impressive Somber Dawn demo, to a sound that defines itself throughout their debut full-length, Three and Seven, on Profound Lore.

That first demo, and an early, related live video clip, led to their My Castle of Quiet invitation, and it was an easy call for yours truly that the band was indeed a perfect fit to the horror-gloom purveyed weekly on the radio program. These complex, richly haunting songs marry almost to an absurd ideal with the essence of MCoQ, such that it was an easy decision to host a live performance, positioned to promote their groundbreaking first release.

Here's their set, short, sweet and brimming with power >

A heap of cobwebby thanks to Bob Bellerue, creator of the Ende Tymes Festival (this weekend!), who engineered the session with his usual aplomb and almost empathic understanding of the band's sonic goals and emphases. Thanks also to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting for smashing up my gritty iPhone captures into a thing of beauty.

1-666-CALL-SAAD is a 110-track thrash metal and avant brutality compilation presented by Kalashnikov. The spontaneous metal duo of Jamie Saft and Mike Pride contribute eight hours of new Kalashnikov recordings and gather a team of avant all stars like "Mad Skills" Mary Halvorson, Joe Morris, and Weasel Walter for an epic stream of positively brutal thrash interpretations.

By way of introduction to this massive endeavor, we are honored to host a selection here on the Free Music Archive. All twelve thrashing hours can be downloaded for free courtesy of Veal Records.

Ed Saad is the inspiration and backbone of this compilation, with his motto "FREE RULES." The full download includes Ed Saad's "History of Thrash Metal & Avant", plus many improvised spoken interludes recorded while on the go in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Many of the contributors are connected with Ed Saad via Facebook, even if they have not met in person.

WFMU DJ Kurt Gottschalk explains in the liner notes (below).

Liner Notes by Kurt Gottschalk:

Long time no talk, friends.  We've been a bit busy! I just started law school and Tom's band just put out an EP! That doesn't mean we haven't been rockin' you out on the Music Manumit Podcast though! We've been interviewing some of the best Creative Commons bands out there too. Thanks to Craig of the Open Metalcast for filling in a couple shows while I moved!

To show our appreciation for sticking with us during the lean months, we'd like to give you the chance to be a guest DJ! In order to be a guest DJ what you need to do is put together 20-30 minutes worth of music and get us the tracks like this:

"Song" by Artist (genre) - license - Website.

Make sure we have a link to download the song and a link to the bad website. As you can see in the tracks I've selected anything goes as far as length, genre and subject matter (assuming you don't break the 30 min rule).

If you don't want to be a DJ, but want us to hear your music (or just have a suggestion), put some tracks in our SoundCloud dropbox. If you are not the artist and you put something in our Dropbox, make sure we have all the information we need to attribute the artist properly! Also, note that we play only remixable music.  No -ND or All Rights Reserved stuff!

If you're in a band and are interested in being on the show, let us know.  We are always interested in hearing new music and learning about novel ways to distribute, collaborate and create music. The interview invitation is open to curators, netlabels and podcasters as well. Just make sure you are passionate about remixable Creative Commons music!

We look forward to getting back on track and uploading great music from David Rovics, The Freak Fandango Orchestra, Amity in Fame and tons of other artists!

Oh, and since I'm all lawyery* now:

We reserve the right to revoke the offer for an interview at any time. Music on the music only show will be played at the sole discretion of the Music Manumit Podcast. This is not a contract.  The podcast and any posts here are not legal advice.

*term of art, you wouldn't understand

In a creative universe where everything but everything is postmodern, where citation of creative influences is unnecessary and irrelevant, where "might appeal to fans of ____" doesn't go the mile or two that it used to, what impassions me personally about a band? Why this one and not so many others? I'll try and delineate.... It's the casual earnestness, for one, the way Lady Piss just do, simply lay it down, jumping from one well-written, expertly crafted song to another, with notions of "rock" or "punk" or "metal" or "heavy music" casually abandoned in the face and favor of free-flowing creativity. This is what they do, this is who they are, and miles-above-average song composition and arranging is so very key to their presentation, and sets them obviously apart (to my ears) from the mass of bands on myspace, or Facebook, or wherever. Noel's intelligent, gloomily animated, on-key and fully immersed horror-host delivery of the lyrics and vocal element of the band also propel Lady Piss forward, in a way that simply eludes many bands of their ilk. It's just the right alchemical balance of everything—a perfect moment in time in the form of a rock band.

I hear echoes of The Birthday Party, The Jesus Lizard and many of my historical favorites in these seven songs, though none of that would matter a whit if the songs weren't so damn good and rendered with the irrefutable oomph of a mass UFO sighting. Any band that drives from Baltimore to New Jersey to play an unpaid session at 12:30 a.m., on a moderately popular show on a widely beloved radio station (that and one gig in Brooklyn two nights later) has the right stuff in carefree abundance, and the need (because to "want" is childish) to put their stuff forward in a forum like The Castle, where I made it very clear that I believed in them, supported what they were doing, and felt wholeheartedly that they had the ability to reach greater heights in their field. By now, it's my hope that most regular Castle listeners know that the invitation to an artist to perform live on the show is never extended flippantly, or without this core belief. Like many who have come before me, I choose to believe in music, and its performers, rather than God or such other misty intangibles.

So, enough leaden praise—you've got the point; here now are the songs. 

Expert and enthusiastic live engineering by Diane "Kamikaze" Farris. Colorful, high-impact manipulation of my band photo as always by Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting. You can pick up a copy of the Streaming e.p. (all six songs are featured in this set) by writing to Lady Piss on myspace, or through bandcamp, where you may choose to purchase a record with a free download code, or just grab the digital album—such greatness to be had for three measly American dollars. Endless gratitude to the band for making my birthday number 47 something more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.

MetalSucks recently released the fantastic second half to their soopersized variety-bucket sampler of metal in New York. NYC Sucks Vols. 1 & 2 cover quite a bit of ground; across this collection's 27 tracks, the wide breadth of bands and styles are really only unified in their sonic intensity. To their credit, MetalSucks' definition of "Metal" in this compilation is markedly inclusive, even catholic. It's unlikely that you would ever see some of these bands sharing a live bill with each other, and perhaps that's what makes this such an enthralling listen. In Volume 1, you've got the ethereal melodies of Made Out Of Babies' Julie Christmas in one instance doing the cha-cha right up against Tiger Flowers' serrated assault on the following track. On Volume 2, Defeatist rub out a nasty grind in under two minutes with "Dawn of No Light", and then further on down the road, Krallice's majestic, nine-minute "Autochthon" gallops all the way down into the black. Awesome. Other cool and unexpected turns include the Travis Beans and drum machines of The Austerity Program whose textures and clinical prescision evoke Big Black, firing back at the bombastic saga of Brooklyn's Hull. Those clever genre-shifting juxtapositions happen throughout both volumes.  

NYC Sucks' stylistic expanse afforded the editors a luxury of being truly able to cherrypick the healthiest heavies of what's bubbling up around NYC (though a respectful nod is given to Abacinate's Jason Sica and Atakke). That makes it near impossible to single out any one band, but of course that's the idea. If you like to argue apples vs. oranges, Mods vs. Rockers with your friends, this is a pretty solid soundtrack for that kind of pointlessness. I'll start! Here's a few tracks that I enjoyed (come at me, bro):