VAST was a pretty big deal for a minute in the late ’90s in the wake of the heavy industrial rock boom. Nine Inch Nails’ bursting popularity in the middle of the decade ushered in a record label feasting-fest on a hundred Sister Machine Guns, Gravity Killses, and Filters. VAST, aka 13-year old Jon Crosby, was the beneficiary of a nice-little major label bidding war after building a name for himself with his guitar chops and home-recorded demos which received some local radio airplay. A band was hastily assembled around Crosby after he decided to sign with Elektra, and his debut album Visual Audio Sensory Theater came out in 1998.

Vast – “Here”
Vast – “I’m Dying”
Vast – “The Nile’s Edge”

Though the ranks of VAST members have rotated quite a bit, Crosby has always found ways to innovate and keep his brand fresh. In 2006 he released the band’s newest album April recorded all in one take; he then spent two months mixing the proper version himself and released that in May of 2007.

VAST may never have reached the label’s expectations and was dropped in 2000 after their second album Music For People, but Crosby carved out a nice little niche for himself (several VAST videos on YouTube are over or approach 100,000 plays) and he continues to consistently record new music and tour.

-VN

Music video for “Free”
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Take yerself a toke….and check this shiat out.

Daaammmnn’ son! We all be in this together….chill the fuck out, aight?!?

And remember, when the palm muted nylon string guitar solo goes down, you still gots half a this muthafucka ta go! Shit…

MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA – “Miles Beyond”, off of Birds of Fire (1972)

Take two (once) fringe underground “cool” bands, mix em up in a bowl with a few guest artists for good measure, add a whole lotta spaced-out arena-rock guitar-synth metallic retro-rockin-ness, and goddammit, you’ve got The Fucking Am.

This is a merging of two of old indie’s greats: dance-punk electro-rock originators (at least in its second coming) Trans Am, and defiantly bass-player-less twin lead mega-metal guitar heroes Fucking Champs. Taken as a supremely rocking experimental mixture of rock/metal subgenres in a rather classically rocked-out manner, the record is a pure success.

***mp3s (one featuring a Mars Volta member) after le jump***

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Like most guys, I will never forget the girl who popped my cherry. Her name was Georgia, and she was a couple of years older than me. One day she approached me and my friend Jonathan in the school gym.

“Wanna hear something cool?” she asked it. The answer, of course, was “yes,” and so she quickly led us to a dark corner of the gym, away from teachers’ prying eyes. She popped a cassette into a small tape recorder, and while she cued it up, I picked up the cover, examining the art in awe: it was a cross. With skulls, dude. It’s dangerous, potentially lethal but almost certainly toxic. I probably shouldn’t even be touching it.

Then the music started. It definitely wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before, but the part that really got me, right from the get go, was when Axl screamed “FUCK!” I was still pretty young, and idiotic as it sounds now, I had no fucking idea that anyone ever cursed in music. Gordon Lightfoot, this was not. This was very possibly the most important album of my life.

This was Appetite for fucking Destruction.

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