B-R-A-N-E-S!!!!!!!!!!

"You know that movie, SLC Punk? There were no punks in Salt Lake City and it smelled like farts."

So says Ivy Slime, one half of the Portland based chaosynth outfit B-R-A-N-E-S, of the opening leg of the band's cross country tour. The band is slowly making it's way to Topeka, where they will appear at The Boobie Trap on Friday, July 8 with Primary Colors, an upstart industrial project from Oakland, CA, and locals Stand by for Radio Silence.

"Now we're in Wyoming and there are a lot of hoodoo rocks and that's cool because we love geology."

Yes, B-R-A-N-E-S loves geology. And theoretical physics. In fact, the band is named after a strain of thought which posits that the universe is comprised of 11 different dimensions known as membranes (or something like that, I'm not sure, they offered to Google it for me, but I decided to do it myself, which was a mistake: now I have a headache). But more importantly, at least for our temporal purposes, B-R-A-N-E-S also loves to make the sort of post-provocative, freak out industrial music that's at once hard to listen to and impossible to resist. Comprised of Slime on vocals and Susan Subtract on synths, the band came together in a strange way.

"I was bedridden in-between hospital stays for a mutant kidney condition and heavily medicated when I finally decided to start writing songs for the dark dance anthems that Susan had been writing on his keyboards for years," says Slime.
Equally influenced by the spastic experimemtations of Devo, the deviant derivations of The Birthday Party, and classic hardcore gothic ruminations, the band has developed a unique sound which they describe as "Batcave Wave / Wicked Noodle Music", which, of course, requires further explanation.

"As dark as a batcave," says B-R-A-N-E-S. "And just as upside down. We have entered the era of 'Generation Spaghettification'; BRANES is music for wicked noodles."

As far as what one can expect from their live show B-R-A-N-E-S are a little vague.

"Twitching, lasers, STI's, 'surprises'," says B-R-A-N-E-S.

But I would expect more than that. In fact, I would expect to see one of the most interesting nights of experimental music Topeka has seen in quite some time on Friday. Primary Colors sounds like quite the sonic experience, plus I think they just played with Zorch, who are awesome.And Standby for Radio Silence rarely disappoint.



Listen to their stuff if I haven't convinced you: B-R-A-N-E-S
Primary Colors: Here

The Driftwood Singers

"Pearl Charles and I met two years ago through a mutual friend who knew that we both loved country music and how rare that was in Los Angeles," says Kris Hutson, one half of The Driftwood Singers, a Los Angeles based duo who will bring their unique brand of traditional Americana to The Boobie Trap on Tuesday night.

"The day we met we both went back to my place and tried to sing some songs together and realized that our voices blended together well so we got to work immediately," Hutson continues.
What they got to work on was crafting a sound so traditional that it might sound foreign to modern ears. Made up of nothing more than two voices, a clumsily strummed acoustic guitar and an autoharp, their music has been described as "old timey", reminiscent of the dustbowl era, and, by the band itself as, the "stripped down kind of folk that one might have heard on front porches in the south in the 1930s", all of which work as fine descriptions for their sound. But the funny thing is that though the band is well schooled in the music of the past (they do a stirring version of the classic "Knoxville Girl"), they play original music. And their music is both basic and complicated, ancient and hyper modern. It seems to say "OK, so we've gone this far with rock and roll and everything, but what if we went the wrong way. Let's look back and see if maybe we missed something."

But that's what I say about every band I like, right? My babbling aside, Hutson has a more coherant description:

"Though we might occasionally throw some cover songs in the mix, we primarily play original songs which often comes as a surprise to people because we like to write songs that draw from all genres of American music. You can come to see the Driftwood Singers play and hear songs that might draw from Stax era soul songs and others that might draw from 40's honky tonk music."

Their debut EP "LOOK!" was recorded at home on a hand held cassette recorder. An unconventional choice, of course, but one that seems perfect for the duo. As Hutson explains:

"Most 'legitimate' recording studios are dark rooms with no windows. When we tried to do our EP in one of these studios, it seemed like everything just fell flat. There was no urgency or life in our performances because we were in an enclosed space that seemed so far away from any of the places and circumstances that the songs dealt with. We ultimately ended up simplifying our recording process so much that we started using a handheld cassette recorder with just a built in microphone. The fact that we were in our own living room, where the songs were written, without a bunch of microphones in our faces, freed us up to focus more on the performance of each song."



I wanted to ask Mr Hutson several more questions, but The Driftwood Singers are currently on tour, heading south from the appearance at the North by Northeast Music and Film Festival in Toronto to Topeka on Tuesday, June 29th. Hopefully they're not travelling by horse and buggy because it should be a great show.

Get "LOOK!"
The Driftwood Singers dot com
The Trap

NEW BACKLASH ALBUM

I'm planning on writing a more in depth story about this later, but I wanted to put something out now just to (hopefully) get a few people excited. Despite the fact that Backlash is "officially" broken up, the band is releasing a final album of original material (and by original, I mean manifestly different from anything you've heard from them before - if you're a Backlash fan you will be surprised by this album, to say the least, and if you're not a Backlash fan you probably will be if you buy this album) titled Circling the Drain which will be out in a few weeks. Singer/guitarist Shawn Ames says that the band is done after this and that they almost definitely will not play this album live, which is unfortunate because, well, of every local band I've seen/talked to or whatever in the last year, Backlash seems to be doing the most interesting stuff.

Backlash, of course, has always been known for being a straight ahead rock and roll band. While they have dabbled with piano based balladry in the past, the bread and butter of the band has been balls to the wall rockers like "Bad Monster" - songs about drinking beer and rockin' out - songs that they thought their fan base wanted to hear. But the new album sees the band branching out and finally resorting to exploring their own interests. In my conversations with Ames, both for this story and personally, there was a strange sparkle in his eye as he talked about the album coming together. He continually mentioned The Beatles as a major influence on the album and Ames later said that the vocal harmonies on the new album are "pretty reminiscent" of Abbey Road. Ultimately he likens Circling the Drain to Backlash's version Sgt Peppers. As a result, though Ames says that the band has maintained their standard influences like The Who and Alice Cooper, the band has begun to explore other areas of influence that are not usually associated with your common bar band.

"We've completely gone over the edge with this stuff," says Ames. "The new album starts out as straight up the middle Backlash. Then it gets into stuff that sounds like we went into Pakistan or we went down to New Orleans. It's insane!"

Also, this is the first Backlash album to be created with only current material.

"This is the first record that Brian and I didn't cull from old material," says Ames. "We didn't go to something that I wrote five or six years ago. All of this is from October 2010 to literally this last Saturday (note: this interview was done on March 3, 2011). There's a lot that I did just this last Saturday that creeped the hell out of me. I don't know where it came from but it's creepy."

About the recording of the album, Ames insists "it's just like a regular band". Songs were written and presented to the other band members and no one said "that sucks" so Ames went with them. The songs are a mix of straight ahead Backlash style rockers with titles like "My Old School (Wants to Kick Your New School in the Ass)", to "Shake It" an infectious acoustic rocker done "completely on the fly" with a riff that "came out of nowhere", according to Ames. "Circling the Drain" is a fucked up Willy Wonka boat ride sort of experiment that will make your skin crawl, and the five layers of vocal harmonies that backbone "The Quiet Life" will make you realize why rock and roll was once important.

But it is the twists and turns in this new album that will make it worthwhile listening. "Cheap Thirlls" is an epic song that breaks from a straight ahead rock and roll song into a miasma of psychedelic exploration reminiscent of Pink Floyd. And the masterpiece of the album, "A Deeper Understanding", which Ames describes as "his baby" will blow your mind. It's full of backwards guitars, sitars and shit like that, and the breakdown of the song is like the sun bursting over the trees at dawn.

"It's about as un-Backlash as you can get," says Ames. "There's just too much stuff on here that separates us from every other band in this town."

Check it out, when it comes out, April 29th, 2011. Here is their Myspace.

Rumors, Facts, Opinions, Whatever

Haven't done one of these in a while and instead of talking about why I'll just talk about important stuff. Here are a list of rumors and facts about craft beer in Kansas that I've stumbled across in the last few weeks/months that I thought I might pass on...

1) If you're a fan of Boulder Beer Company, and particularly if you like Hazed and Infused, please check the dates on anything you buy, especially 22oz bombers. The date printed on the bottle is a "pull date" - meaning that the beer should not be sold after that date. That means that the brewery does not want the beer to be on any shelf after that date. I have a personal story related to this but don't feel that I should relate it here. However, if you see some outdated Boulder on the shelf of your favorite store please email the brewery and let them know: webguy@boulderbeer.com

2) In fact, you need to make a habit of checking all dates on all beer that you buy. Of course, you should be doing that anyway, but I know for a fact that there are some shady products lurking on shelves out there and you should remember that if a brewery takes the time to put a "Best Before" date on their beer they do so for a reason. And that reason is that they do not want you to buy it after that date. Distributors and retailers don't always understand (or lets be honest, don't care about that) and most of them think that you are too stupid or ignorant to check. If you find outdated beer tell the store you bought it from. If they don't care email the brewery. If you have any questions, here is a great reference point for figuring out the dates on your bottle.


3) Lagunitas, Green Flash, Magic Hat, and Firestone Walker should start appearing in Kansas coolers soon.

4) That Boulevard Chocolate Ale bank rush was fun, wasn't it? Did any one notice the $75 price on ebay in the aftermath? It's down to $50 now that it has hit other states.

5) Stone Brewing Company will be in Missouri sometime this spring. Minnesota too, from what I've read. This is interesting because a few years ago all the talk from Stone was that they were considering pulling their distributors and focusing more on their base area in California. Regardless, it's great news, though I'm sure a Kansas license isn't in the works. But, hey, Arrogant Bastard is now only a several minute drive away!

6) Regarding Widmer Brothers Brewing Company. The more Drifter Pale Ale you can send this way the better. It's a great beer. One of the best beers available in Kansas in my opinion.

7) Avery in cans. Soon. White Rascal, Ellie's Brown, IPA. By summer, or so I've heard.

8) PBR sucks from a bottle. How's that for the idea that good beer doesn't come from a can?

9) Code: Supposedly witty 19th century writers love light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440-490nm. They also supposedly love Kansas sometime in the coming months or year, as per a fairly unreliable source.

10) Best beer I've had lately: Annie's Amber from High Noon out of Leavenworth. Very tasty amber, robust and a bit hoppy. Nothing like a typical amber, which probably accounts for the negative reviews on Beer Advocate. Also, keep an eye out for the Halcyon Wheat from Tallgrass, an unfiltered wheat in a 12 oz can - their new summer seasonal. Can't find a link for this yet but it is good!

Cheers!

CONJURE ONE

There is a large contingent of people who would count Rhys Fulber as one of the more important figures in electronic music in the last twenty years. He is certainly one of the most prolific. At the age of sixteen he began collaborating with ex-Skinny Puppy contributor Bill Leeb in Front Line Assembly, contributing the song "Black Fluid" to FLA's second demo Total Terror, released in 1986. Here is that track:


Fulber became a full-time member of FLA in 1989 and with his help the band would go on to release some of the most influential industrial music of the early 1990s, with Tactical Neural Implant (1992) becoming a benchmark of the genre. In addition, Fulber collaborated with Leeb on the ambient pop project Delerium, and he has done production work for bands like Fear Factory and Paradise Lost, among others. His resume behind the boards is substantial and includes references from artists as diverse as Yes, Motley Crue, Josh Groban, Megadeth, and Mindless Self Indulgence. He has worked with vocalists like Sarah Mclachlan and Sinead O'Connor. And, interestingly enough, he played keyboards on the live recording of that Nailbomb show, Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide, at the Dynamo Open Air Festival in 1995. Really, it seems like the guy can do almost anything and work with anyone, but he is most remembered for his work with FLA.
Here is a hilarious clip from the Canadian Music Video Awards in which FLA are awarded the "Best Alternative Video" award for 1992. Leeb and Fulber don't appear until the 3:07 mark, but it is still worth watching.


In 1997 Fulber developed Conjure One while on a break from Front Line Assembly and has since released three albums of what Fulber has called classical and eastern influenced atmospheric pop structured music. His latest release is Exilarch. Here's a track from that album:


A friend of mine brought to my attention the fact that Mr Fulber is currently touring with Conjure One and coming to my area so I decided to bother him and see if he would be nice enough to answer a few of my jackass questions, and I thought that a few of you might have some sort of interest in hearing what he's up to nowadays. Of course, he was willing to answer my jackass questions, because he's a very nice guy, but he was very busy, so it's a very abbreviated "interview".

The Point: How is the music of Conjure One different from that of Front Line Assembly?

Rhys Fulber: "I think Front Line dealt more in a science fiction type reality where as I feel Conjure One is based more on earthly emotions and the ancient rather than the future. Also Front Line was much more testosterone based where as Conjure One incorporates the female element and a balance of the two sensibilities."

How influential was Kraftwerk in your, for lack of a better term, musical evolution?

"I assume it was pretty large as it shaped my taste at a very early age - I saw them in concert when i was age 6 as my parents took me with them in lieu of a babysitter. That whole period of electronic music from the 1970s is one of my main influences."

Your bio says that your latest release Exilarch "rediscovers the roots that initially inspired you to create music". Can you elaborate on that statement?

"That is referring to the above statement about 1970s electronic music. I feel I channeled a lot of my original influences into this new record."

Your work in Conjure One seems to be be concerned with synthesizing Eastern music with Western music. Where do you see those two styles of music intersecting?

"Eastern music has always been something I've gravitated towards, maybe because of the emotional and introspective quality a lot of it has, but its also simply sounds and a style I like. Its also a region of mystery and fascination to me outside of just the music, especially central Asia, where you get the added bonus of Soviet Bloc surrealism colliding with ancient silk road tribalism. There's two songs on the new record, "Places That Don't Exist and "Nargis" where you can hear this combination."

What can people expect from a Conjure One show?

"We try to be as live as possible within the parameters of live electronic music and not having a 5 piece band, and what we perform live is not exactly like the recordings. It also evolves from show to show. We try to incorporate some improvisation as well, and we have some imagery projected behind us from the artist who designed the Exilarch cover."

Conjure One will be performing at the Riot Room in Kansas City with The God Project, NZEKT, and The Resistance on March 15th.


Myspace

PACIFIST!!

It's a great irony of modern times that you really have to love a band that constantly tells you not to listen to them. It is, after all, immensely better than a band begging you to listen to them via that Myspace thing or being told by dumbass writers, bullshit radio personalities, or whatever, that "This band is saving rock and roll!".

Pacifist is not going to save rock and roll. They are a grindy sort of chaos band from New Orleans that promises to combine "precise musicianship with chaotic physical feats", which is awesome. And, technically they are amazing, but Pacifist didn't seem too interested in talking to me about Pacifist for this story, which is fine, because I really dislike doing interviews anyway, and, they were to busy corrupting the Southern part of the US on tour so it's probably best that I just offer up some of their music for anyone reading this to judge for him/her self whether the band is all precise with their musicianship or chaotic with their physical feats. This song is called "Happiness" which is from the EP Everybody Loves Fun. I asked the band what the strange, long, pink object the vocalist is seen holding in the video is and they replied thusly:

"A dildo. Lol! We tried to be as silly as possible as opposed to other bands trying to be tough."

I'll admit that I tried a gimmick with this band - I asked if we could do a fake interview with me acting as an ultra-conservative journalist asking them questions, hoping to get some vile responses. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Pacifist didn't share my amusement. Here are their answers to those questions.

The Point: How often do you pray?

Pacifist: We don't.

The Point: What is your favorite passage from The Bible?

Pacifist: Don't have one.

The Point: How does the message of Jesus fit into the message you send in your lyrics and what message are you trying to send the children of the world?

Pacifist: JUST PARTY!!!!

The Point: What do your parents think of your music?

Pacifist: Our parents hate our music. They think we suck!

Personally, I don't think that the music Pacifist has produced sucks, but I will leave it up to you to judge for yourself.

Pacifist is currently touring through the Midwest but they'll surely make their way to your neighborhood sooner or later. If, like me, you're in Kansas, they'll be here on February 18, with a Bad Religion tribute band called No Control that I hear is fucking awesome.Lock up your daughters and your dogs.

Myspacething

MOSE GIGANTICUS

Philadelphia's Mose Giganticus has been getting a lot of publicity lately for a variety of reasons. First, vocalist/keyboardist, Matt Garfield (the only permanent member of the band) plays the keytar, which is awesome. Second, he tours the country in a van fueled by vegetable oil that he and a few friends converted from gasoline, which is really awesome. Also, he's been known to fund his tours by participating in medical research experiments, which is both awesome and creepy, but still pretty awesome. And Gift Horse, the bands' recently released second full length and Relapse Records debut, which explores the correlations between God and Satan and the inherent flaws in Christianity, is quietly being hailed as one of the most impressive releases of the year in metal circles, which is awesome as well. So things are going great for Mose Giganticus, which is, of course, awesome as well. But...

Am I the only one that sees something slightly, I don't know, apocalyptic about the idea of a keytar wielding bearded metal dude driving around the country hopped up on experimental medicine in a van fueled by discarded french fry goo, singing songs about one of the oldest problems in western civilization to a bunch of teenagers and college kids? It's like some strange relative of Hunter Thompson, Charles Manson, and David Foreman escaped from whatever attic he was being held prisoner in and decided to travel the world spreading the strange, sweaty gospel he'd cooked up while living on the scraps of food his CIA captors would allow. This is the guy your parents should have warned you about - the guy that kept them awake late at night worrying that you'd meet him in some slimey bar once they'd sent you off with all of that college money they'd been saving since you popped out of mommy's belly, and then you'd drop out of business school, start studying the history of Inuit art, develop rampant addictions to heroin, meth, and sex, and worst of all start voting democrat, or even worse for Ralph fucking Nadar or socialists like Obama. This is the guy you're supposed to run from when you see him, the guy you're supposed to avoid at all costs, the reasons cans of mace and home intruder alarms exist...

Which is exactly why I expect to see all of you this Sunday when Garfield brings the socially brutal sonic assault that is Mose Giganticus to The Boobie Trap in Topeka. Luckily we were able to distract Garfield from all of his corrupting of the youth for a few moments to answer a few questions...

The Point: You' re on tour down south right now right? How's that going?

Matt Garfield: Things have been going rather well this year. We've been touring since May and, yes, we're making our first pass through the south right now. We're in Texas heading north to Kansas, then we'll be hanging a right and heading east-bound and down on our way to "The Fest 9" in Gainesville, FL, our second pass through the south. We normally tour in "IZ", our tour bus powered on recycled waste vegetable oil, but IZ is getting some repairs done at the moment, so we're touring in a newly acquired "spare" tour van this time around.

Can you give me a short history of Mose Giganticus? How the band came about?

Mose Giganticus is and always has been my personal project. I started this in 1999 as a solo project, but didn't write anything recognizable as the "Mose Giganticus of today" until about 2005- which eventually became my first record, The Invisible Hand. Once that CD was out, I started touring as a solo act across the country. By 2008, I had brought on a backing band to expand the live sound of Mose Giganticus and released my next EP, Commander!. I booked us an 8-month tour to Alaska and back and put together our vegetable oil powered bus to make the trip in. That tour was amazing, but it took a lot out of me physically, mentally, and financially. In 2009 I started writing and recording my next album, Gift Horse, but the year was marred by a series of unfortunate events such as multiple catastrophic vehicle failures, canceled tours, and financial desperation. It almost knocked the wind out of my sails completely. But, by the end of 2009, I was in talks with Relapse Records over the songs I had recorded for Gift Horse and 2010 has been a complete turn around. We released Gift Horse on Relapse in July and we've been on tour since May, so things are back on track.

Regarding the new album "Gift Horse". You've described it as concept album about the Christian notions of God and Satan, but i've also read that you're an Athiest. How does that perspective help to inform an exploration of Christianity?

Yes, both of those statements are true. Gift Horse is a concept album about the ageless struggle between the mythological figures of the Christian old testament God and the fallen angel Lucifer. Its an amalgam of biblical interpretations, mainstream pop-culture beliefs, and a bit of my own interpretation of how the argument between these two deities may transpire. Being an atheist, the story told is not religious in it's approach. I was raised Catholic and spend 12 years in Catholic school, but started questioning and stopped believing as soon as I was old enough to know better. Not being fettered by the beliefs associated with this subject matter left me free to explore the characters and their interactions without bias. I find the story and religious mythology surrounding the Battle of Armageddon to be fascinating. I'm a sucker for an "end-of-the-world" story.

I read or heard an interview with you in which you said something to the effect of "Every album I do is a concept record and probably always will be. It's just how i work." Why is that?

As most artists might say, I work best when I'm inspired. From time to time, I become consumed with fascination over certain topics. I like to approach each album as a complete packaged idea- music, art, lyrics- all contributing to the overall concept. I wouldn't know how to work with a mish-mash of different ideas for each song. It would feel disjointed and unfocused and would make it difficult for me to gain momentum. Maybe it's an obsessive fault of mine that I can't divert my attention to more than one topic per album? Maybe that will change over time? But for now, concept albums seem to work best for me and I don't intend to change that soon. So for now, I'm in search of the next topic of inspiration to explore for the next album.

The sound of Mose Giganticus seems to have grown heavier over time, and especially with 'Gift Horse'. Is that something that you've consciously pursued or is it just an natural evolutionary thing (or am i full of shit altogether?).

Ha ha, no, you're certainly not full of shit! There has definitely been a sonic progression towards the heavy-side. It's come about through the evolution of my personal musical taste and how I've been able to adapt the resources of Mose Giganticus, as in my personal abilities. I've enjoyed the challenge of working keyboard and vocoder into heavy music in a way that I felt contributed to the overall sound rather than distracted from it. On the last EP, Commander!, I wanted to try to write a heavy, doomy song and the track "Days of Yore" came out of that. I really liked the way the setup of Mose Giganticus (keyboard, vocoder, electronics) lent itself to that style, so with Gift Horse I wanted to further explore that writing style expanded into a full album.

What effect has working with relapse had on your songwriting?

Well, so far, working with Relapse has had very little effect on my song writing because I wrote all of "Gift Horse" before I was involved with Relapse at all. However, Relapse has certainly influenced my song writing through it's previous signees. Relapse has maintained an impressive roster of heavy bands over the years and it'd be silly to think that almost anyone writing heavy music today could be completely outside of their influence. When Relapse heard the first version of Gift Horse that I had recorded, we began talks of a partnership and I'm sure the influence of bands such as Mastodon, Baroness, and Neurosis were apparent to them.

What can people expect from a mose giganticus live show?

Mose Giganticus comes from a long history of DIY touring. We bring that ethos to the show every night. I squeeze out everything I have in me at our shows. Each show starts loud and heavy, and ends with me standing in a puddle of sweat and a coarse rasp of a voice left in me. I've been told on more than one occasion that as heavy as we sound on Gift Horse, it does no justice to our live set.

Mose Giganticus will be appearing at The Boobie Trap, 1417 Sw 6th, in Topeka on Sunday, Oct 17, 2010. (Photo credits: Jana Miller, Geoff Hall)

More Info: http://www.myspace.com/mosegiganticus