It doesn’t feel like 24 hours have passed since the last “Swimming” post. Time seems to stand still when your brain is floating in a beer marinade that’s constantly being refreshed.

Yesterday, all but one of your dedicated NCS servants spent several hours at Seattle’s Zion’s Gate Records, poring laboriously over a quadrillion metal CDs and LPs, while having our minds pulled apart by pincers in the form of an endless loop of sanity-threatening, void-like electronica playing in the store.

Half a day later, I still have the urge to kill myself or someone else as a result of that music. However, I have not actually killed anyone because the experience was such that, after dropping wads of cash at Zion’s Gate, I and my fellow NCS scribes, along with assorted other friends, self-medicated for the rest of the day and evening with additional oceans of beer, which dulled the homicidal/suicidal impulses.

Undoubtedly, while medicating, we uttered many observations about albums and bands that would have revolutionized music criticism had anyone recorded the conversation for posterity. As I write this, however, my brain is so pickled with Boundary Bay Blonde that the recording apparatus contained therein has irreparably malfunctioned. All I can manage is to put up another NCS staff photo. Continue reading »

I don’t know how many people visit NCS every day versus the number of people who come here once a week or once in a lifetime, at gunpoint. But in case someone has missed the last four days, this will alert you that your intrepid NCS staff is in the midst of a week-long fuck-off.

All five of us are here in the Emerald City, getting to know each other better. Things are going even better than expected, with the announcement last night that two of the staff are marrying each other and have picked me to officiate. However, because this happened after a solid 12 hours of drinking beer, I’m hoping that they sleep on that decision instead of sleeping with each other before the sun comes up today, no matter how much I would enjoy being the officiant.

I’m almost certain we have done other things in Seattle besides drink beer and talk metal and drink more beer, but this is more a matter of faith than memory at this point. One thing I do know is that since this hellish communion began last Thursday we’ve had two days go by with no posts whatsoever, after having previously missed only one day in the nearly four years since NCS began. Continue reading »