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Dunno how we missed this one but our favorite prog metal band from the city of lost angles has had a previously unreleased in ‘merica song up online for maaaany months now.
We suck.
But the Song, “Vernon”, which was included on the European release of Valley of Smoke, is pretty awesome and you should check it out over at the blogronaut…
-KW
I’ve left this blog alone for a while because I feel like artistry and punditry shouldn’t come from the same place, but I’d like to chime in here as someone who is actually affected by this whole Spotify issue.
First off, I am a paid premium subscriber to their service and absolutely love it. This is definitely the beginning of the end for tangible musical product. Once they have literally everything ever legally recorded on there, what use will your iTunes library, CDs, etc have? I think it’s the next logical step to find middle ground between the consumers who want everything to be immediate and for little or no money, and for the people who provide the product (music), who need consumer support in order to be sustainable. Of course, there is still some evolving and adapting to do. I’m sure that as this method of consumption grows in popularity, there will be more services like Spotify who make it even more simple to use, add more features and integrate more social networking, and as that grows, I’m sure there will be more money to split up to the people who actually provide the content (a single stream currently earns you something like three thousandths of a cent).
Having said that, I’m going to stand up for Century Media in this case.
It’s interesting how small the world becomes after you’ve been around it a few times. This is becoming the case for me in North America. Intronaut just finished what might be our seventh or eighth go ‘round of the US and Canada, and I’m really noticing a change in my perspective in the traveling aspect of touring. 3,000 miles away from home doesn’t feel as far as it used to. The roads, clubs, and people are all so familiar at this point that I might as well be at home in Los Angeles.
On the last tour I thought it would be interesting to write a little something about each of my favorite and least favorite drives that we have made over and over again. I do a lot of driving on tour, mostly because I get car sick if I don’t, but also because I enjoy taking in the scenery. That being said, I also have to take in plenty of dull scenery with the good. And before I come off as too much of a hater, I should say that there is beauty to be found in just about every part of our country, but sometimes we’re a little too tired and cranky to let ourselves see it. Enjoy….
Sometimes, I am utterly amazed that the human race has survived this long. Like, how is it that everyone is able to remember to turn their stoves off? Or not walk into sharp pointy objects on the street? Sure, there are some smart people out there, but I think that by and large we’ve been very successful at creating a society that protects us all from dying of flat out stupidity.
Proposition 19 was voted down here in California last week. Something like 56% of voters decided against the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, for the purpose of taxing and regulating it.
Do you ever think about how much you might misunderstand about some of the music you listen to? Specifically in the lyric department. Like, once you realize what a band is all about, it completely changes your perception of them? What if you stumbled upon some information revealing that AC/DC’s drink/fight/fuck lyrics were actually just metaphors for some deep theological debate?
I wouldn’t normally use this blog to throw out some unsolicited information on my band, but I feel like by not correcting some things I’ve seen, we’d be misrepresenting ourselves. I’ve read a couple reviews that are basically praising Intronaut for being total stoners, and applauding the title of our new record, Valley of Smoke, as some kind of monument for stoners everywhere. It’s true that some of us smoke pot, but I’d just like to set everyone straight and let you know that the title has absolutely nothing to do with weed or smoking anything at all.
Now, here’s a candid look into the decadent and debaucherous life of a working musician: it’s 10pm on Friday night and I’m sitting in my stepdad’s home office, getting all the business-y crap out of the way for our tour that starts in six days. I always come here to print out everything we’ll need for the trip (hey, free paper and toner) like itineraries, immigration stuff, and the bane of my entire fucking existence, roadscans. For all you normal people out there who are lucky enough to never have to deal with these things, they are these sheets you have to fill out at each show on tour to track how many CD’s and LP’s you’re selling so they can count toward Soundscan, which dictates how big and bad you are in the eyes of people who care how many records you sell. Anyway, you have to fill out all this crap and have a venue representative sign it, and then fax them all in by 9am each Thursday morning or else you get guilt tripped by the label (fuck you, Jon Hughes!!!!). I know it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of work, but getting someone to sign something and looking for a fax machine totally sucks when it’s 1 a.m. and you’d rather just be hanging out or whatever.
Anyway, I just discovered and downloaded this app for my phone that takes a photo of a document, turns it into a PDF, and either emails or faxes it to wherever you want it to go. This will put an end to so much of my stress on tour. I haven’t felt affected by any technological breakthroughs this greatly since Intronaut started touring in 2006. At this point, touring in the pre-cell phone and email age seems so impossible to me even though I did live through some of that.
Being someone who is kind of stuck in their own little bubble most of the time, I tend to forget how ridiculous the outside world can be. Since my teen years, I’ve been disgusted, yet morbidly fascinated with mainstream culture. It’s like a flaming car wreck, for lack of a better analogy. I can’t watch any kind of television without feeling like I can see right through it, and being offended that so many people’s lives in one way or another revolve around corporate-funded programming, whether it’s for entertainment or information. I lost interest in owning a television years ago.
Anyway, the most recent offender is a show called “America’s Got Talent.” Have you SEEN this shit? It should be called “America Gets Told What To Think.” Never before have I been so compelled to stick needles into my eyeballs, take a shit on a studio audience’s collective head, and leap face first off a bridge all at once. This is the very epitome of mainstream media programming minds to reject anything outside their comfort zone. Here I am trying to get a little innocent bro time with my stepdad over the weekend (this actually happened a couple months ago), getting riled up enough to, uh, write a blog entry on Metalsucks.net.
For real: Intronaut’s forthcoming album Valley of Smoke is going to absolutely smoke your valley. It’s a crushingly heavy and doomy/stoney but adventurously progressive journey. It’s that rare album that can excite both the hardcore/mosh-types of metalheads and the musical-ability-first, progressive nerd-types of metalheads (other bands that do this: Mastodon, East of the Wall). Intronaut are that rare band that readers of both Pitchfork and Shredders R’ Us Magazine can get giant boners over, and they’re a band that will blow your mind whether you’re stoned to the point of decapacitation or you’re perfectly sober. Valley of Smoke is fucking awesome no matter how you cut it up, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite albums of 2010.
We’re working on convincing guitarist Sacha Dunable to rejuvenate his Blogronaut column on MetalSucks, but in the meantime the band is offering these “making of” studio webisodes that provide a nice little glimpse into the making of Valley of Dongs Smoke. Just listen to the first riff in the video below and tell me you aren’t instantly sold.
Valley of Smoke drops October 12th via Century Media, and it’s available for pre-order in a variety of package deal configurations here.
-VN
Have you guys heard about this sweet ass fest happening in LA next month? Goatsnake, Animosity-lineup Corrosion Of Conformity, From Ashes Rise, Repulsion, Trap Them, Coliseum, and like 20 more rad bands for FREE, thanks to corporate sponsor Converse. Unfortunately, I will be on tour at the time, but if I was around I’d totally be at this. Goatsnake are the creators of at least six or seven of my favorite heavy riffs ever, Repulsion are like the AC/DC of grind, and even I would most likely be on board with pretending to care about the COC/Animosity thing (Eye For An Eye was way better, in my opinion). I’d probably even get drunk enough to blindly accept that a band like From Ashes Rise are playing a corporate-sponsored “event” like this. If something like this went down in their heyday, I can’t even imagine what the repercussions would be from their ultra-punk fans. I mean sure, I guess Converse All Stars are part of the punk rock non-conformity uniform, but it’s still (unless there’s something I don’t know) a corporation taking advantage of overseas cheap labor so they can make a larger profit off of “subcultures” they’re marketing to (see: this fest’s attendees).
Times must be tough for aging punk bands, where they can only make real money when sponsored by shoe or car companies. Sarcasm aside, I know that times are tough for all bands, and that is why these free, corporate-sponsored shows are starting to pop up more and more. At first, it was cute that Scion would fly bands out to LA every couple months and pay them a few grand to play a show. Lots of us are unemployed, so it’s nice to get a show for free once in a while. Now, the Scion Fest is an annual thing, their shows in L.A. happen every other month, and I’d be willing to bet that this won’t be the last we hear of Converse sponsoring “A free event that honors fans and musicians of ‘heavy music’ of all ages.”
A few weeks ago I asked you guys for help with naming a new band I started with my good pals in National Sunday Law, and the response was literally overwhelming. Thanks so much to everyone who replied! Some were good, some were hilariously bad, and some were just hilarious. We ended up debating for another month, and decided on the name Graviton (not Gravitron, as I just discovered MS had reported (smoke weed)) [We've since fixed it! Sorry. -Ed.], which was inspired by MS reader Nate’s suggestion of Hadron. Thanks for turning us onto string theory as a band theme, Nate! Email me at sachadunable [at] gmail [dot] com with your address and I’ll be sure to send you all kinds of crap.
Honorable mention should definitely go to reader Dave B, who provided such gems as Hella Smelly Belly, GuhGuhGuts, Sweatpants Surprise, and Don’t Injure Car Keys (D.I.C.K.). I don’t know you Dave, but I know we’d get along. Send me your address for some crap as well.
Anyhow, we’ve posted two full Graviton songs for you to check out on our Myspace, Bandcamp, Twitter, and if you’re too lazy to open a new window and require colorful moving pictures along with your music, Youtube:
A long, long while ago, “Blogronaut” Sacha Dunable shared his favorite unsigned bands with us and mentioned a Los Angeles band called National Sunday Law. Sacha, being the aspiring Metallica ghost-writer that he is, wouldn’t lead us astray — National Sunday Law are a fierce sludgy, doomy, proggy duo who make noise like there are twice the amount of dudes in the band than there actually are. Their mix of technicality and sludge/doom reminds me of Intronaut in certain ways — I see why Sacha took a liking to them — but by no means are they aping Sacha’s style.
National Sunday Law are giving away their 4-track EP for free on their Bandcamp page — no reason you shouldn’t at least give it a shot. Intronaut bass wizard Joe Lester lent his skilled hand to the bass tracks on the EP. If you like what you hear but have a jones for that physical disc, hard copies will soon be available here. You can also buy their full length CD and T-shirts.
If you’re digging National Sunday Law you might also dig Knut, a Switzerland-based doomy post-hardcore band cut from the same cloth.
-VN
I greet you Metalsucks readers this week with a somewhat melancholy blog entry, as I am here to announce the sale of one of my favorite guitars ever. I bought this Gibson L6-S a little more than a year ago and pretty much fell in love with it. It has an all maple body and neck, which means a brighter attack than the usual mahogany that most Gibsons have. This is also one of the most comfortable guitars I’ve ever played. This thing has been my main guitar since I bought it, meaning it’s been played at probably a hundred Intronaut shows, and was the guitar used on our last record.
Click to read more…
Having an outlet through a prominent web media site like metalsucks.net is a blessing in so many ways. It took a while for me to realize, but honestly having my shitty ideas read by thousands of shitty people is a power that I should harness and use to project something positive onto the metal scene. Since Metallica haven’t called me about ghost writing their next album yet, I figure I should still try to do some good for the heavy music community and turn you people on to some bands who don’t have a label buying ad space on Metalsucks. Here is a list of bands I am angry at the public for not liking:
In the past while on tour, I’ve encountered many special things that I regret not having a video camera around to document. Last summer, we did have the foresight to bring one along, and it was totally worth it. We ended up whittling down close to six hours of footage into a ten minute “rockumentary” of that particular tour. However, some of the people we filmed along the way deserved to be seen in their fully candid, unedited glory, and here’s a particular character I’d like to share with you all.
We arrived to the show in Orlando, FL early enough to hang with the daytime locals at the bar we were playing. Not long after we sat down, this dude comes in announcing that he only has one dollar, but needs a beer. He got it, and proceeded to infiltrate our little clique, dazzling us with his sloppy redneck wit. I grabbed the video camera and let it roll.
Recently, Metalsucks’ Vince wrote a very informative blog for young musicians aspiring to “make it” as a band. Well, I’m sure it was informative, I didn’t actually read the whole thing because, hey, I mean, come on…. right guys? Yeah! High five! It did however make me think of some other groups of people I deal with regularly who could use a written set of guidelines, like sound guys, or my roommates in regards to the kitchen sink. However, I think the group of people most due for a friendly verbal check are typically the lowest scum of the earth – promoters.
Being in a band who has toured quite often for the better part of two years with very minimal label support, I’ve felt the effects of dealing with shit promoters. As a touring band, there is no greater slap in the face than a promoter who stiffs you on money, a little simple hospitality, and, oh yeah, that word that’s actually in the job description, “promoting.” I’ve decided to break this down into an easy read for both veteran and aspiring underground show promoters.
Click to read more…
I’m going to talk about Metallica and their new record. Now, I’m sure this topic has been beaten to death in metal social circles by now, judging from all the opinions on this site alone, but I am going to offer something that no one has so far – a solution.
I read Dallas Coyle’s recent blog on this very subject, and while I share his level of adoration for this band, I’m going to have to refute one main point he made; arguing that Death Magnetic is a good album. It really isn’t, in my eyes. It wasn’t in the eyes of many others either, based on a quick skim of MetalSucks. But let me ask, did you really expect it to be? The last time everyone liked the latest Metallica record, the first Bush was in office. I haven’t expected anything resembling greatness out of this band in a long time, because I know that they’ve lost their edge. That’s not an insult, its an ironic occurance in life, not unlike waiting twelve years to grow hair on your balls, only to lose it on your head fifteen years later. Just like pretty much every once-great rock musician ever, that flame of inspiration has been blown out by age, money, Bob Rock, or whatever else that will make you a different person than you were when you wrote the good shit.
