(In this interview conducted late last year, NCS writer BadWolf caught up with James May of Savannah, Georgia’s Black Tusk, whose 2011 album Set the Dial is a hell of a thing. In addition to a full touring schedule, the band also played the inaugural Metal Suckfest in New York City last November (reviewed by BadWolf here), and the live photos accompanying this interview except for the one abovewere taken at that show for NCS by Nicholas Vechery.)
BW: How are you feeling about the set you played at Suckfest?
BT: It was good. You could tell it was the first fest. It was a little chaotic getting stuff where it needed to be on time, but the overall turnout was good. We played the first night of the festival, so I’m sure they worked out the kinks on the second night.
BW: Have you played any other first fests?
BT: Maybe the Devilmech fest in Atlanta [Athens]. That might have been the first year.
BW: So how do the festivals compare to one another?
BT: Festivals are usually pretty uniform, that’s just the nature of the beast. There’s a lot of bands in a bunch of chaos. Everybody getting stuff to where they want it. From my perspective, they’re really fun to play, but as a touring band when you see a bunch of bands play every night, festivals just aren’t very much fun.
My girlfriend goes to music festivals all the time, and when I’m home she tries to bring me and I’m like “Dude, that’s what I do. The last thing I want to do is watch a bunch of bands all day.” I’m pretty sure everyone in a touring band feels the same way.
But I do like them—it’s a way for a lot of different people to see your band.
(The METAL SUCKFEST that took place in NYC on Nov 4 and 5 was a milestone event — the first U.S. metal festival organized and co-sponsored by a metal blog, and Metal Sucks pulled together a fucktastic line-up to boot. So, NCS decided to document the event up-close and personal by sending two emissaries — NCS writer BadWolf and photographer Nicholas Vechery. They returned intact, and this is BadWolf’s report of the festival’s first day, along with Nick’s photos. BadWolf’s Day Two report will be tomorrow, and we’ll have interviews to come after that.)
Blogs will control the entertainment industry within our lifetimes (if the industry lasts our lifetimes). TMZ will overtake Entertainment Tonight. In some ways, Pitchfork has already taken Rolling Stone’s place. Case in point: MetalSucks just threw the first (to my knowledge) blog-driven extreme music festival on US soil, Suckfest, and NCS was there to cover it.
On November 4, 2011, suckalos—yours truly included—flocked to the Grammercy Theater in Manhattan for seven hours of thrash. NCS photographer Nicholas Vechery and I rolled in sleep-deprived and sore after a 20+ hour bus trip from Ohio. The venue –the Grammercy Theater—was indeed a theater once and remains dark and sparse.
Initially, I thought the Grammercy would be too small to fit a decent crowd, but the first day was poorly attended. Attendees shouted “Occupy Grammercy!” between songs, but otherwise behaved themselves too well by my standards. New York headbangers seem more reluctant to mosh than when I lived in the Big Apple. I smelled a division between lineup and audience—the first day’s bands all shared a background in hardcore punk, but in general MetalSucks caters to a more technical/progressive metal loving audience. The lineup was strong, but perhaps suited for a more intimate venue. After all, who wants to see Magrudergrind behind a security barrier?
Audience aside, the first day’s bands exploded over the lower-east side with white-knuckle intensity.
Yesterday my fucking day job actually demanded that I work instead of blog. Amazingly harsh that they actually expected me to do something I’m being paid to do. How fucking medieval! The result is that this round-up of news and new music is appearing a day later than it should have. Like hemorroids and lung cancer, these things happen.
Despite a waning of some of the excitement that comes with being first and fast out of the shute, and instead being late and resigning yourself to watching the buttholes of all the other horses that got the jump on you, I’m forging ahead anyway, waiting for that massive kick around the last turn that will leave the buttholes in the dust.
BLACK TUSK
Yeah, the black fucking tusk, with the John Dyer Baizley cover (above) for their new album, Set the Dial. This Savannah band’s 2010 album, Taste the Sin, was one we liked and wrote about last year (here), so we’ve been waiting for a taste of the newness, which we got yesterday. It’s a new song called “Bring Me Darkness”, which coincidentally is my order of choice at the bars I frequent. (more after the jump . . .)
We’re now a full four months into 2010, and it’s time for our fourth update to the list of forthcoming new albums we posted on January 1. (See the original list here, the first update here, the second update here, and the third update here.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases that we didn’t know about on January 1 or at the time of our last three updates (or that we’ve found updated information about) — and the new sickness is still spreading in epidemic proportions.
Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.
So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).
ABIGAIL WILLIAMS: “Abigail Williams have completed recording of individual performances for their still untitled second full-length. Captured at Conquistador Studios in Cleveland, Ohio, eight new songs were laid down with vocalist/guitarist Ken Sorceron and engineer Cole Martinez controlling the audio takes. The songs are currently being mixed by Peter Tagtgren (Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Celtic Frost) and are expected to be completed later this month.”
ABYSMAL DAWN: “Los Angeles-based metallers ABYSMAL DAWN will enter Trench Studio in Corona, California in May with producer John Haddad (PHOBIA, INTRONAUT, HIRAX) to begin recording their new album for a tentative fall release via Relapse Records. The follow-up to Programmed To Consume will be mixed by Erik Rutan (HATE ETERNAL, VITAL REMAINS, CANNIBAL CORPSE) at his Mana Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida.” (the list continues after the jump . .)
Just so you don’t think we only care about ridiculous album covers, here are two we came across this morning that are cool. And even better, so’s the music.
The one at the top is a glimpse of the cover for Black Tusk‘s new album, Taste the Sin, which is scheduled for a May 25 release on Relapse Records. You’ll probably recognize the art of John Dyer Baizley, the singer and guitarist for Baroness, whose amazing art has graced the album covers not only for his own band but also for the likes of Skeletonwitch, Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, and Darkest Hour.
A song from the new Black Tusk album called “Embrace the Madness” is now streaming on the band’s MySpace page. Go check it out, because it’s a killer — overpoweringly heavy but also overpoweringly infectious. We’re really looking forward to hearing the whole album.
The second cover is from a just-released new album called Outrageous Reverie Above The Erosion Of Barren Earth by a German black metal band named Odem Arcarum. The artwork is by a Bulgarian artist named Haate Kaate (pictured to the right — MySpace page here). To see more of the artwork she created for a 12-page booklet that accompanies the CD, click past the jump. We think it’s really awesome stuff. (You can see the whole booklet here.)
The band has songs from the new album streaming on their MySpace page, and we really like what we’re hearing. Another album we’re anxiously waiting for the mail to bring us!
(View more Odem Arcarum album art by Haate Kaate after the jump . . .)