The drummer Roger Taylor, sipping champagne on a leather sofa in his penthouse duplex overlooking Battersea Park, finds the whole situation hilarious. “Oh God, we’ve always got stick for everything,” he grins. “People say, ‘You’re mistreating the legacy’, and I think, well, thanks for your concern, but it’s my f***ing legacy.”

A random article from 2011 (in anticipation of Stormtroopers in Stilettos exhibition) I'm unpaywalling simply because of Roger's epic quote above. "It's my f***ing legacy" damn right! Full article below.

Revisiting history

Queen are 40 this year — and, to celebrate, they’re reissuing their first five albums. Brian May and Roger Taylor talk to us about Bowie and Freddie

Freddie Mercury once described his band’s songs as being like “disposable razors — use them, darling, then throw them away”. Yet, almost 40 years after Queen’s first LP, that seems an ever more unlikely scenario. Every possible attempt has been made by critics and the self-appointed guardians of musical good taste to ridicule, belittle and bedraggle their arch, explosive, overwrought, emotive, theatrical, propulsive, gargantuan records (bet­ween March 1974 and December 1992, they had 40 UK chart hits — even their successful streaks were wildly over the top), but the public voted time and time again, and the public voted, more often than not, for even more Queen, even more of the time.

Nine years ago, the band spent a reported £7.5m of their own money on a musical, part-written by Ben Elton — then, as now, easily as unfashionable as Queen — featuring their songs. It was savaged by the press (one reviewer from the American magazine The Advocate flew across the Atlantic just so they could call it “complete bollocks”), yet, nearly a decade later, the towering, if rather unflattering, statue of Mercury triumphant still towers above the entrance to London’s Dominion Theatre — and, every night, every seat in the house is full.

“Respect is a funny thing,” says the guitarist Brian May, enjoying the aubergine special at a smart Italian restaurant in Holland Park. “If you look for it, you’ll forever be disappointed.” Queen have had very little, I suggest. Does that seem fair? “It’s true,” he laughs. “But we get everything, from complete, overwhelming love to total, outright derision. I don’t take any of it on board, really. It would ruin you if you believed it. You’d go nuts. I care what people say, but both extremes are dangerous.”

The drummer Roger Taylor, sipping champagne on a leather sofa in his penthouse duplex overlooking Battersea Park, finds the whole situation hilarious. “Oh God, we’ve always got stick for everything,” he grins. “People say, ‘You’re mistreating the legacy’, and I think, well, thanks for your concern, but it’s my f***ing legacy.”

Five years ago, it was announced that the band’s Greatest Hits LP was the UK’s biggest-selling album of all time, and now Queen have signed a new record deal with Island/Universal, after almost 40 years with EMI. The band —effectively May and Taylor (Mercury died in 1991, while the bass player, John Deacon, keeps his old colleagues “at arm’s length”, according to the guitarist) — will be spending the next 12 months revisiting their history.

The anniversary celebrations begin with a photography exhibition — Stormtroopers in Stilettos — that opens this week and focuses on the band’s nascent, ultra-pouty, satin-blouse-and-nail-polish years, most of the images coming from May’s own “air-conditioned and bomb-proof” archive. “I do look at those pictures in wonderment,” he says. “I’m so strange and angular and awkward and uncomfortable-looking. I used to be embarrassed by it, but now I feel really forgiving. It’s like looking at my own children.”

There's a basic truth there - you shouldn't be ashamed to reach a lot of people. What could be better than reaching a lot of people while retaining some intelligence?

Following that will be the re­release of their first five albums, from the ultra-glam, heavy-rock debut up to the panoramically ambitious A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, which marked the end of Queen part one. All will arrive as deluxe sets, with a wealth of extras, and all have been remastered by May and Taylor. The pair have been closer to their early material than they have been for years, and seem genuinely amazed by what they found. “You can hear how we wanted to be intense and passionate and heavy, but still very melodic,” May says. “We were always trying to find ways to fulfil what we heard in our heads.”

“What was always thrilling to me was when people really loved the records,” Taylor smiles. “There’s a basic truth there — you shouldn’t be ashamed to reach a lot of people. What could be better than reaching a lot of people while retaining some intelligence?”

Few groups can claim members born in King’s Lynn and Zanzibar, but then few groups are quite like Queen — “the most preposterous band that ever lived”, according to Mercury. May and Taylor met at Imperial College London in 1968 and formed a band called Smile. In early 1969, their own bass player introduced them to a friend of his called Farrokh (Freddie) Bulsara (later Mercury), who was studying art in Ealing. May and he had lived less than a mile from each other in Feltham, southwest London, but had never met.

“I remember the first time I went round to his house,” May says. “He wanted to play me Jimi Hendrix on his Dansette record player — he was totally obsessed with him. Even then, Freddie was a star — very shy, but he’d com­pensate by being grand and flamboyant. He was a serious dandy.”

“We got on immediately,” laughs Taylor, who teamed up with his new friend to set up a vintage clothes and art stall in Kensington Market. “We had a dream of being in a working band, but the only way to live was to sell the sort of outlandish clothes we loved. So we ponced around in velvet capes and tight trousers, and sold the look to other people.”

Freddie had his own bands, Ibex and Wreckage — the latter even supported the psychedelic journeymen Iron Butterfly — but both came to nothing. By late 1970, after he had tried out various day jobs, including working for a bootmaker, the friends came together as Queen. Taylor remembers their first gig being arranged by his mother: they secured £50 to play for the Red Cross in Truro. Soon after, they were doing regular gigs, and rehearsing, at Imperial College. The band signed to EMI in late 1972 and were introduced to the world with a showcase gig at the Marquee. Their first single, May’s Keep Yourself Alive, flopped on release, while their ambitious debut album also failed to make an impact. Meanwhile, David Bowie, for one, was developing into a huge success with a similar mix of high camp and hard rock. “It was a traumatic time,” Taylor says. “We always feared we’d been left behind. It took us such a long time to get any success.”

“Me and Freddie would travel up and down to our management on a No 9 bus, asking why nothing was happening or why we couldn’t get back in the studio,” May says. The band used downtime at a place Bowie had hired to record. The call might not come until 3am, but when it did, they would race in and work until the sun came up. “It was a shambles,” May laughs.

Queen embarked on a bout of prolonged, intensive touring, including an infamous US trip with Mott the Hoople. A Billboard review from 1974 admonished Mercury for “leaning a little too heavily on stage dramatics”, but that never bothered the increasingly devoted crowds too much. “Mott were perfect for us,” Taylor says. “They had an open-minded, very rock’n’roll, insane audience. They were liberated, colourful — not the normal rock crowd.”

“That was when we learnt how to be rock stars,” May smiles. “Just as you thought the day was over, one of Mott would burst into your room, loaded with bottles and whatever else, and off you’d go again. It was very, very full-on and very, very exciting.”

Fred wouldn’t get out of the van some nights. He and Brian had black-and-white fingernails, and literally wore dresses

All the touring made Queen II a proper hit; then Bowie helped out again by pulling out of Top of the Pops at the last moment. Queen filled in, and Seven Seas of Rhye became their first chart smash.

“We got our hook into the mainstream,” Taylor says. “The shows got bigger, but it was rough. Fred wouldn’t get out of the van some nights. He and Brian had black-and-white fingernails, and literally wore dresses, but the tough audiences in Liverpool and Glasgow and Newcastle loved us.”

The band’s third album, Sheer Heart Attack, pushed them over the top. The most heinous excesses were reined in, in favour of a streamlined, hit-delivering monster. Taylor describes it as “grand, but not preposterously so”. The single Killer Queen became their biggest hit yet.

Queen had other problems, however. Playing two shows a night on early tours left Mercury with nodes in his throat, and the band were in a “stifling” relationship with their management. “We were penniless,” May says. “They kept all the money and spent it on swimming pools.”

A new deal with Elton John’s manager, John Reid, promised to wipe out these worries, and the band soon delivered their next single, Bo­hemian Rhapsody. EMI turned it down flat, demanding a radio edit. No such cut was made, and the six-minute song stayed at No 1 for two months. The album that followed, A Night at the Opera, went Top 10 all over the world. Taylor laughs, recalling how, when Queen came to record A Day at the Races, they realised that Opera was “bloody impossible to follow up”.

All the looking back has made May and Taylor consider the 20 years that have passed since Mercury’s death. “These days, our creative fire is more like an ember that flickers occasionally,” Taylor says. May stirs his espresso and smiles. “I just wish he was here to enjoy this with us. He would love this. It was Roger and me in the beginning, and it’s Roger and me again, but Freddie’s always with us. He’s eternal, part of the fabric of every day of our lives.”

-Flood me like Atlantic-

Chapter 7

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: Strong allusions to/descriptions of to Self h@rm. bl00d, swearing, general 18+ content but nothing way too explicit this chapter. Some slightly fluffy vibes as a break from all the shit because my boy has been through it.

“Have you forgotten, my Vessel?”

“No.”

“Does it tempt you? The light?”

“Not as such. The light hurts my eyes, and there is no music in it. I cannot be somewhere where music is not.”

“You do well. Stay in the dark, my pretty voice. And wait for my words.”

“Yes…”

It’s not a dream. But at the same time, he’s not awake. He’s locked in the space between his mind and his eyelids; a dark place where he can’t move or think beyond the words coming out of his mouth, words that don’t even feel like his own. And yet here there’s a strange sort of peace here; a foreign, fearless, silence of his thoughts. He knows his purpose when he’s here.

“Yes…” his lips form the word over and over. He’s glad he’s finally found the point of having his mouth; to create the word and know that in this void, he is approved of because of it.

Suddenly there’s eyes in the dark. They’re blue as glaciers and round as planets and for a second he feels his Eden being invaded. Then the vision suddenly vanishes, and in its place is sunlight.

And a headache.

A splitting, horrible headache.

He blinks a few times to get the world into focus, and suddenly realizes that someone is standing directly over him. He barely has a second to process the enormous blue eyes blinking down at him before the person turns their head and yells out of the room, “guys! He’s wakin’ up, guys!”

It’s the drunk drummer he met at the bar.

Vessel tenses, fingers clawing the blanket now half on the floor and pulling it up over his bandaged chest. He’s still blinking, trying to figure out if last night's events were real and, if so, where the hell he is, when a second person comes into the room. He looks more put together than anyone he’s seen so far, leaning against the doorframe with a calmly curious look on his face. He eyes Vessel slowly, smiling politely when their eyes meet.

“Goodmorning.” He says.

Vessel is starting to feel enormous sympathy for every bug he’s ever uncovered and examined when flipping over garden stones.

There’s dusty sunlight pouring in through the window frames, bathing both him and the tiny living room/music room/three men live here and it shows room. And the big blue eyes of the drummer are still on him, hovering about two feet away and waiting patiently for him to do something.

“Hello.” Is what he manages.

“Damn, you’re a bit busted huh mate?” The drummer says, eyes sympathetic now as he swipes his unruly hair. “Not great.”

“No, not great.” Vessel has to agree. He still hasn’t moved. “Um, II, right?”

The drummer smiles. “Nice memory! Good on you, man. IV, come introduce yourself.”

the guitarist shrugs off of the doorframe, wandering over casually and nodding down at the man on the couch.

“IV.” He says.

Vessel nods awkwardly, trying not to stare at the very noticeable sling around his shoulder. But the guitarist obviously notices his inner turmoil, because he instantly waves him off. “aye, I’ve got a break from practice for a few weeks, I’m grateful. If III tries to blame you though tell him he’s crazy, it was my clumsy ass.”

Before Vessel can reply, another voice fills the room.

“Don’t try and make him feel better.”

All eyes suddenly turn to the doorway, where a now familiar figure is standing, messy hair pulled back in a knot and an enormous steaming mug in his hand. His robe hangs loose off his angular frame.

He just hovers there, eyeing the space between II and Vessel like at any moment the caffeine might kick in and he’ll jump for it; ready to tear the half-living singer a new one if given any reason. Vessel takes the warning and doesn’t so much as breathe too deeply.

Meanwhile, II sits down beside him without a fear in the world.

“Sorry you had to put up with III as a nurse.” He laughs, folding his hands in his lap. “One time I tripped on the step and sprained my damn ankle, and he had to carry me bridal-style back inside. Grumbled the whole way, then just fucking dumped me here too.” He gestures at the sofa and the man currently trying to shrink himself on it, a laugh still on his lips. He glanced back at III. “didn’t even make me soup.”

“I can’t fucking make soup.” The bassist says, gripping his mug with ring-decorated fingers- a few of the stones Vessel recognizes, some of the fatter rocks and symbols he doesn’t- and taking a long swig. “And if you didn’t get soup, there’s no way he is. We’ll probably have the cops beating down the door any fucking second looking for his busted ass.” He glares at Vessel, making eye contact sharp enough to cut new stripes into his skin. “Time to head out, bruv.”

A sudden flush of embarrassment climbs up Vessel’s chest, turning his bloodless cheeks pink as he blinks back. He feels practically naked right now; wearing his emotions on his face and a pair of baggy black sweatpants low on his hips. And the increasing certainly that he’s incapable of walking doesn’t exactly make him feel safe right now, either. Who are these people? Why are they held up in a cabin in the woods, and how much goddam witchcraft have they been doing up here? For all he knows, they could be in league with Venus. Is the voice in his head something they conjured up?

Silence!

The command rips through his brains like a bullet. He winces, scrunching his eyes as a gasp leaves his mouth. A gentle hand grabs his shoulder.

“Hey, you alright mate?” II asks, eyes searching his miserable face.

“He’s not going anywhere.” IV says, blinking down at the sight. He turns back to III, who himself even looks a little concerned at the way Vessel is shaking.

“He’s got no strength in him, man. I’m gonna make some fuckin breakfast, then we can talk.”

The guitarist walks past his friend in the doorway, sliding into what must be the kitchen.

“Fine.” III says, passing his mug between his two hands and tapping painted nails on the porcelain. “But if the cops show, one of you two is answering the fuckin door.”

And just like that he leaves, turning back down the hallway and closing himself up in the same bedroom he’d got the sweatpants from.

“Don’t worry about it, man.” II says, trying to look understanding as the trembles in Vessel’s shoulders settle and he gathers his breath, blinking his eyes back open to the world. “Whatever happened to you, you can tell us or not. ‘Matters is, you’re fine now, eh? IVy’s gonna cook something up, then you can just hang around long as you need. Make some music.”

The idea of singing feels like it hasn’t crossed his mind in millennia, much less doing it for them. But there’s a strange comfort in the way the drummer looks at him with those big, soft blue eyes.

He manages a grin, and nods.

Meanwhile pots are starting to clang in the next room, the smell of eggs wafting into the dusty parlor like a sign from god.

• • •

He remembers the feel of the carpet beneath his feet. The way his shoulder collapsed against the wall, rattling the picture frames smiling down at him.

“…m,mom?”

He remembers clutching his wrist, seeing double as something seeped dark and thick from between his fingers. He didn’t mean for there to be that much.

“M…mom!”

Her silhouette filled the end of the hallway, casting a shadow down to him. Her face went white as a ghost.

“What’s wrong?” She demanded, hurrying to him. She wrenched his arm off of his chest, a horrified gasp leaving her lips.

“Jesus Christ, how did that happen? Did you do this on purpose?!”

“It was an accident.”

“You’re fucking thirteen. You know not to play with knives, fucking hell…”

“I’m sorry.” He sobbed. His heart was gonna beat out of his chest. He was dying.

Her hands felt cold on him, prying at his fingers around the warm blood to get a better look.

“Get into the bathroom right now.” She ordered. She sounded like she might cry too, but not now- she always did her crying later.

“And stop crying.” She said, ushering him down the hallway. “You’re gonna wake up your sister.”

“I’ll do it.” II says, reaching an arm across Vessel. IV takes the salt shaker from his friend's hand and nods his thanks.

Vessel shakes from the daydream, shoving his arms underneath the table. The sleeves of II’s hoodie barely go past his wrists.

“Huh?”

“That bandage coming loose on your head?” III asks, picking at his steaming pile of eggs and toast. “IV was talking to ya.”

“Sorry.” He says, reaching for his own fork. The sleeve slides up his arm again and he tugs it back down with an age-old instinct, trying to politely search for a bite.

“What was that?”

“Just asking for the salt.” IV says, trying to smile at him. Though the thing comes out looking pretty full of pity. “Hey, how’re you feeling now, mate?”

Truthfully, he feels like he might throw up any minute. But at least the imminent threat of passing out seems gone.

“I could use a cup of tea.”

III’s face seems fixed in a permanent look of distaste, but he doesn’t say anything as II jumps up from the little round table and heads to the counter, filling the kettle from the tap. “Oh, fucking me too!” he says, bringing that same endearing enthusiasm into every word he says. Vessel’s heart flutters a bit at the man’s eagerness; when was the last time someone made him tea?

“Pick your poison, Vess.” He says, turning on the stove and reaching for a little decorated box beside the sink. “We’ve got Earl Grey, English Breakfast… and this funky Jasmine Rose one III got. Tastes a bit ass, honestly. Not good with milk and sugar.”

III shoves a forkful of eggs into his face and rolls his eyes. “Anyone who needs milk and sugar to enjoy tea doesn’t get a damn opinion.” He’s very blatantly avoiding Vessel’s face now, just glances at IV as II chuckles and pulls out two bags of English breakfast. “IV, you like it don’t you?”

The guitarist just smirks, taking a slow sip of his creamy coffee. His eyelashes flick down to Vessel, who’s currently fumbling with only his third bite of food. “No comment.”

“What?! I thought you liked it, I fully got another fucking box in my bag, man! You were slurping it down the other morning during practice.”

IV shrugs, seemingly content when a fourth bite passes Vessel’s lips. “Felt good on my throat… Still tastes shit.”

“You sing?” Vessel suddenly asks, surprised to hear his own voice. He sits up straighter, casting his eyes to the man beside him.

Suddenly II starts laughing behind III, clinking a lid down on a pretty brown teapot. “not like you, he doesn’t.” He says, eyes twinkling in the steam. “He screams. I swear to god, if we had neighbors they’d be scared shitless. At least the squirrels don’t seem to mind.” He pulls two mugs from the cupboard and sets them down. “I think they’ve made him their banshee leader.”

IV’s laugh is deep and soft, filling the little kitchen with even more warmth than the sunlight streaming in. “I can sing normal, too.” He swipes his hair out of his eyes, taking another sip of his drink. “ jus’ not as fun.”

“Aye, not so loud.” III says. And now his eyes dart to Vessel’s, gluing him down. “We’ve got a soft tenor in the room.”

Vessel’s eyes go a shade darker. He doesn’t peel them off of the bassist across from him.

“I can scream.” He says.

IV seems intrigued, though both he and II seemed fixed on the tension between the singer and bassist. “Oh? You like to fry?”

Vessel swallows. “Sometimes.” He says, breaking eye contact only long enough to take the mug II offers him. He mumbles a thank you.

“But I like it deeper, goes better with my songs.”

“You’ve gotta sing for us at some point, mate.” IV says. “That performance you gave at the bar was something else, but if you’re serious about it, you can’t hold out on us. We could harmonize.”

“Maybe.” Vessel’s eyes go a little wide as II tips a jug of milk into his tea, stirring a mound of white sugar into the mix like a true Englishman.

“Maybe later.” The tea scalds down his throat, but the taste is a comfort all the same. His tongue darts out across his lips and he rolls them awkwardly, uncertain how much longer he can take the eyes of the bassist on him. He forces a chuckle. “Not sure if III would uh, like that.”

“You kidding?” II says, smiling contentedly after a long sip of his nearly completely white tea. “III loved your singing, said it was the best voice he’d ever heard! Your pitch could go so well in a heavier mix, and he was about ready to play a riff for you right then and there when I found him before our show.” He doesn’t seem to notice how red III’s face is turning, instead smiling over at IV, who seems more than amused. “If shit hadn’t gone down on our set, I think III woulda hauled you up on the stage with him in a heartbeat.”

Vessel is speechless. There’s no way III actually liked his voice. Although, there was the healthy gap between his performance and the black eye he received for the man to have had second thoughts on the scrawny kid and his fucked up keyboard. Vessel’s wide eyes go straight to his lap, any and all words escaping him as III turns progressively redder across from him.

“Isn’t that right, III?” The drummer asks, now potentially aware of the effect his words have. He’s grinning too big. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hear him sing with some bass?”

“Bass can level up any performance.” III says, planting his elbows on the table. His hair falls into his face as he looks down to pick at his chipped nail polish. “But it’d be better with an actually good scream.”

“Don’t worry.” Vessel says, something brave stirring in his chest now that he’s got a sudden vantage on the man who’s been pushing him around like a trolly ever since they’ve met.

“I can scream loud enough, for you.”

The imminent silence is interrupted as II chokes violently on his tea.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da: The Beatles x Reader

Chapter 2

What happened? Everything felt hazy and fractured. She was laying on something soft, a bed perhaps. Sitting up, she looked around. Everything looked odd. It reminded her of what her grandparents had described their houses looked like. Colorful wallpaper, strange furniture, and odd clothing that was hanging in the open closet. She got up to look through the selection. Dresses of all different colors plagued the interior room. Red with white polka-dots, the palest pink, and a housewife's aprons littered the closet. It made her heart skip a beat. Where was she? Where was Paul? She remembered him saying that she could save the Beatles, but what did he mean? Looking down she noticed her outfit had changed to a light blue dress. How did that happen? Suddenly a knock came from downstairs. She rushed downstairs to answer it. Opening the door revealed a skinny, handsome man. His eyes were brown and he had a very particular angular face. His dark brown hair glistened in the light. She suddenly realized she was in an apartment of some sort.

"Hiya there I'm George!" He smiled, handing her a flyer. "My band and I are playing this weekend and we're trying to build some awareness." It was strange seeing George so young and alive. He had passed before she was even born.

"You're George Harrison, right?" She asked, reading the flyer. He nodded.

"In the flesh!" He remarked, in a jittery way. "You remembered my name from the last few gigs?" He looked at the ground shyly.

"Of course! You're the lead guitarist! You know, in the Beatles--" wait what year was it? Were they still the Quarrymen? Honestly, she didn't know a lot about the Beatles. Obviously, this was during a time when they weren't crazy famous.

"You seem like a true fan!" He laughed with a slight blush. "What's your name?"

"I'm Y/N." She twisted her hair shyly.

"That's a beautiful name." He remarked with a slight smile. Looking into his eyes, her heart fluttered.

"Will I see you later?" She asked, smiling at him.

"I have a feeling we will. I hope maybe the boys will like you..." He said, turning to leave.

"The boys?" She muttered, closing the door. Was she going to meet the Beatles? Is this what Paul wanted? He barely knew her and now she was back in the 1960s! Deciding to go to their show, she checked the time. The band started at 7 pm and it was currently 4 pm. She had some time and quickly got to work on her appearance. Anything she could find she applied. Makeup, hair products, and so on. She checked the time again. 6 pm time to go. Scavenging for a key, she locked her apartment door. Heading out, she checked the flyer for directions. She had no idea where anything was, so she asked around the best she could. Finally, she arrived at the restaurant they would be playing in. George was standing with three other men looking around. He quickly noticed her. He waved childishly. The others got on and waved at her.

"Hiya, Y/N!" George yelled over the crowd. Smiling, she walked over.

"Hey, George." She softly said. The other boys were staring at her wide-eyed.

"Did you score a girlfriend, George?" The round-faced one laughed. He had dark eyes and hair. His eyes were the shape of almonds.

"Shut up, John!" George crossed his arms blushing. The others snickered. John smiled at Y/N as he looked her up and down.

"Haven't seen you around before," John smirked. She rolled her eyes.

"Guess I only caught your eye now." She joked, with a small laugh. John's face became stern before he burst out laughing.

"You got a good one, George!" He bellowed. George blushed harder.

"She's not my bird!" He chirped. The others laughed harder. Taking a glance at the other two boys, she saw a familiar face. A young Paul McCartney was smiling and laughing along with who she assumed was Ringo Starr. Ringo had the bluest eyes and rings on his fingers. Paul was bright and cheery with a certain glow to him.

"You must be John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr." She smirked, looking at the other three. Their faces had a look of shock.

"She's a true fan!" Ringo cried. He jumped up with glee. Of course, she was a true fan...at least for knowing their names. Paul looked at Y/N suspiciously, though he hid it through a warm smile.

"We got to start soon." He said, turning to leave. The others nodded.

"See you after the show?" George asked, with a cute smile.

"Of course!" She said, going over to an open table. Paul waited for George to catch up to them. He glanced at her with curiosity. Did he somehow recognize her? Were the rules of time travel, young Paul and old Paul shared memories? It was confusing. Putting it off her mind, she waited for the band to begin playing. Girls lined up around the stage excitedly. A young woman around Y/N's age sat at her table.

"You a fan?" She asked, taking a sip of her drink. Y/N shrugged wondering what to say.

"I would like to believe so." She responded as the girls began to scream. Oh, no here they come. Ringo twirled his drumsticks in his hand, Paul warmed up his left-handed bass, John adjusted the microphone, and George played a quick rift on the guitar. John announced the song before he started singing.

"Oh darling, please believe me I'll never do you no harm Believe me when I tell you I'll never do you no harm..."

The girls kept screaming.

"Which one do you like the best?" The woman asked, placing her head in her hand. Thinking for a moment, Y/N realized she couldn't make a good judgment yet.

"I'm not sure..." She trailed off. The woman laughed.

"Oh, come on! Which one is your favorite?" The woman pestered her. Pressing her lips together, she said the first name that came to mind.

"Paul." She said, plainly. The woman smiled.

"He is cute." The woman looked at Paul with dreamy eyes. Y/N looked at the band. Paul got her eye. He looked at her, still suspicious. Seeing the other girls screaming at him, he laughed a little to himself. He looked back at her and winked. The girls immediately turned to look at her. They all screamed with jealousy making Y/N jump back.

"He winked at you!" One of them screamed.

"How could he wink at her!? I'm far prettier!" Another said.

"Ladies please, I just wanted to wink at my lovely gal." He sneered. What was his deal? The girls stormed around her. They were yelling questions and the woman next to her stared shocked at her. George noticed the commotion and after their song, he got down to pull the ladies away from her. John and Ringo helped as well. George glared at Paul.

"What were you thinking!?" George spat at Paul. Flicking the saliva off his face, Paul crossed his arms in defense.

"You're broad was distracting me," Paul said his face tightening. John's fist clenched.

"You could have asked her to leave after we finished the song, or ignored her! If you want to be in this business you can't just make a fuss because one girl is distracting you!" John snapped at Paul. Ringo rolled his eyes, trying his best to stay out of it. The other three continued to yell at each other. Y/n stood there, waiting for a chance to speak.

"Alright," Ringo finally said. The others kept yelling. "I said, 'Alright!'" He pushed the group apart. They stopped to look at him. "We're not breaking up the band over one small fluke!"

"S-sorry." George hunched below the others.

"Sorry, Ringo," John said, looking toward his friend.

"Don't apologize to me," Ringo said, looking at Y/N.

"Yeah, sorry..." Paul muttered. They turned towards Y/N.

"We're kind of crazy, aren't we?" John laughed looking at his friends. George giggled his heart out while Ringo slapped him on the back. Paul stood distant from the group.

"I guess you are." Y/N laughed. The girls were still around them, staring.

"That's it for tonight everyone!" John yelled for all to hear. People started shuffling out of the room. The guys went to put their instruments away, except for Paul.

"I'm sorry if I distracted you," Y/N said, walking up to him. He glared but cooled down after a moment.

"It's not your fault, Luv. I just needed to blow off some steam I guess." He mumbled. She looked at him worried. Was she causing the Beatles to break up even sooner?

"Do you want to talk about it over dinner or something?" She asked. Oh, no why did she ask that? It sounded like a-

"Are you asking me on a date?" Paul asked, with a slight smile. They both blushed as red as roses.

"If that's what you want it to be." She smirked, winking at him. He paused with a smile.

"See you on Saturday at 1?" He asked, heading towards the band.

"It's a date." She laughed.

"A date." He smiled.

DISASTROID Reveal Striking 4th Full-Length, ‘Garden Creatures’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Get ready for full-on galactic riffing, energetic rhythms, with moments of interstellar insanity. This is DISASTROID and their latest record, 'Garden Creatures' (2024) -- a swirling blend of colors drawn from a dynamic palette of psychedelic, grunge, desert, noise, and math rock influences.

This fourth full-length outing from the SFO band begins with the title track and is presented with rumbling force and jagged rhythms juxtaposed with clean, earnest singing and smooth melodic lines from frontman/guitarist Enver Koneya. At times the vocals soar like the pleas of some jerky cosmonaut thrust into the unknown vastness of outer space. Braden McGraw's drums thunder and churn like the roaring ocean. Travis Williams' bass is warm and pulsating.

Enver's guitar and Travis' bass trade barbs on "Stucco Nowhere," an ode to being stuck in a life of sameness and misery ("burning out within your head"). The singing builds to a crescendo, perhaps summoning sheer force of will to shake off the spell of mediocrity. There are some dreamy vocal harmonies that haunt overslept dreams, and finally a cry of frustration and despair to be set free from the shackles of it all.

"Mama says I need some help," laments Enver in "Figurative Object." The guitars chug with rocketing force, but often enter the realm of disorienting dissonance. This tendency towards the strange and uncanny continues in "Backwards Sleeping" and feels like a night of tossing and turning ("losing sleep for all that we have done"), complete with trippy guitar effects, rhythmic jolts, and ghostly droning.

"24" is fuzzy as all get-out, with screeching guitar hooks, unconventional rhythmic structure, and a misty hue of sadness in the vocals. Then "Hold Me Wrong" is like a fever dream, with a persistent bass groove, strumming and picking on the guitar, and exhausted pleas to "hold me tight, hold me right."

The penultimate song, "Light 'Em Up" is like a hallucination straight out of Blade Runner, with sounds and samples flying about us like fugitive visions. This is another where the bass is so integral to giving us a feeling of movement and cohesiveness in this shapeshifting world. The drumming here, as throughout the record, is stalwart and determined, whilst the riffmaking ranges from raucous to delirious. The record ends on a short banger, a riotous number "Jack Londonin'" with punk, noise, and math overtones.

Disastroid's Garden Creatures was recorded and produced by Billy Anderson and is releasing on Heavy Psych Sounds this weekend, February 23rd, on a spectacular variety of vinyl variants (get it here). Stick it on a playlist with The Melvins, Red Fang, Fatso Jetson, Kook, and Soundgarden.

Give ear...

SOME BUZZ

San Francisco veterans Disastroid have been serving up sludgy, grunge-infused stoner rock for the better part of a decade now, refining a sound that weaves heavy riffs together with angular guitar lines, odd time signatures, and hazy walls of fuzz. As influenced by 90's noise rock as they are by modern psych, doom, and post-metal, Disastroid delivers thick, satisfying stoner rock stomp while also embracing layers of noise, tripped-out feedback, and unpredictable song structures.

The current lineup of singer/guitarist Enver Koneya, bassist Travis Williams, and drummer Braden McGraw coalesced in 2011. They’re united by a desire to make heavy music that's loose instead of mechanical, a motivation to explore methods that make them sound bigger and more varied than a traditional rock trio, and a shared affection for the Amphetamine Reptile back-catalog. Thematically, their songs steer clear of genre cliches, touching instead on scattered aspects of modern life: technology fatigue, immigration, nuclear deterrence, the monotony of work, the existential dread of aging. Despite the subject matter, Disastroid never take themselves too seriously, injecting their live shows with an infectious sense of humor and their songwriting with math-rock quirks.

Disastroid’s latest outing, Garden Creatures, is a record about the darkness in the hidden corners of suburban landscapes — sinister overgrown gardens, secret collections kept in basements, the crime just beneath the surface, the pervasive loneliness under a veneer of normalcy. Accordingly, it’s a dark and atmospheric record, trading the stripped-down approach of 2020’s Mortal Fools for a thicker, heavier, and more layered sound. Legendary producer Billy Anderson (Sleep, Melvins, Neurosis) builds mixes that range from dark and dreamy to a thick, sludgy crunch, slowly pulling the listener through a range of sounds and textures, making sure things stay interesting. Singer/guitarist Enver Koneya's vocals are soulful and sometimes haunting, drifting above Disastroid’s characteristically off-kilter, grunge-influenced riffs.

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Every Record I Own - Day 815: Nomeansno Sex Mad

My first introduction to Nomeansno was hearing Sex Mad's "Dad" on a punk rock radio show on Oahu's Radio Free Hawaii station sometime around 1991 or 1992. The song's straightforward fury and harrowing depiction of domestic abuse carried the musical power and lyrical urgency that was like a drug to my young teenage mind. But I wouldn't actually hear the rest of Sex Mad until my college buddy dropped this LP on my doorstep a decade later.

The first two tracks off Sex Mad---the title track and the aforementioned "Dad"---sound like classic early North American hardcore. But that one-two-punch opening sequence was a Trojan Horse. By track three we have "Obsessed," a twisted and puzzling instrumental song that's like a punk version of Rush's "YYZ" (side note: I wouldn't actually hear Rush until sometime around 1997, and I distinctly remember thinking "this sounds like an arena rock version of Nomeansno"). Then there's the a cappella shout-fest "No Fgcnuik." These aren't exactly the kinds of departures that your average liberty-spiked punk wants to hear. Side one wraps up with "Love Thang" and "Dead Bob," both of which deconstruct hardcore's rage with syncopated rhythms, jarring shifts in song structures, and a general musical aptitude that one could only imagine both intrigued and puzzled the punks back in 1986.

Things get even weirder (and WAY cooler) on Side 2. "Self Pity" is the kind of protracted, exploratory, slow-build jam that completely avoids the three-chord, top-speed formula of hardcore. Instead, a low, menacing bass riff and nimble drum pattern drive the song, with brief explosions of guitar hinting at some inevitable climax. We keep getting teased with a big pay-off, and there are a few moments of thrashy release, but you get the overall sense that the ultimate moment is just on the horizon. And then it arrives, and it's not some big mosh part or circle pit anthem. It's guitarist Andy Kerr sending a signal through some sort of delay effect and tweaking the knobs into a swirling storm of chaos. Thirteen years later, Botch would do something similar on "Transitions From Persona To Object" without ever having heard "Self Pity."

Side 2 continues on in its strange journey with "Long Days." This is another track that almost owes more to prog rock than punk. Rob Wright plays a dexterous bass line on an infinite loop while John Wright keeps teasing us with various fragmented drum patterns. Rob sings a mournful melody on top of all of it. Andy appears to have not shown up to the studio that day. There are a few moments where John finally locks into a four-on-the-floor drumbeat and it's completely gratifying, but the overall intention of the song seems to be all about depriving the audience of what they want.

That vibe continues on "Metronome." Another looping bass line. Another song where John spends more time hinting at a beat rather than playing the full kit. Andy is back from his coffee break to provide vocals, but when the song actually lays into the bass riff it's so satisfying that the band apparently decided to leave guitar out of the mix entirely. There's hardly any guitar on Side 2 until the closer "Revenge," where Rob ditches the bass. We get angular guitar riffs for the verses and triumphant chords for the chorus. It's big and epic, but hardly the kind of straightforward blitzkrieg that kicked off the album.

The punks must have been completely perplexed, but maybe the punks were actually bored by the old formulas at that point. After all, Sex Mad gave Nomeansno their first hint of success. The band got signed to Alternative Tentacles, providing massive exposure across North America, and the band was invited on their first tour of Europe, where they would close out the decade as one of the top drawing punk acts on the continent---just behind Fugazi and Bad Religion. By 1986, the first batch of North American hardcore bands were dying out or crossing over into metal territories. Up in British Columbia, Nomeansno were charting a path that would now qualify as "post-hardcore," taking the urgency and DIY spirit of hardcore but expanding its parameters with a broader emotional spectrum and a larger arsenal of musical influences under their belt.

11 (you got me listening to some silver mt. zion the last time you posted music lol) and 21? :)

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what -

I tend toward instrumental or subdued stuff for focus reasons so here's a sample platter - Low has never made a bad album and all their music has this subdued sexiness to it. Mary Lattimore's music is so dreamy and strange and I liked her collab with the guitarist from Slowdive. And Holy Fawn is gorgeously loud but fuck if I can name a single lyric, so it's not too distracting.

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways - YOURS i'm so in love with your clean lines.

I'm drawn toward angular cartoony styles with exaggerated shapes... i think if I hadn't fallen off years ago my art style would have evolved toward something like this rather than where it is now

and i'm obsessed with eye-searing 60s/70s graphic design

Zigzag, October 1984

Monster Mash

Hotdamn! These chickens can PLAY!

Faceworkers in the great opencast mine of modern pop, Pulp find themselves in a lonely venue, one where there is a little too much space between members of the audience. Cats should be swung and they sure enough will be.

What matter if only a few witness the swinging? Those who do are spellbound. Jarivs Cocker, the undoubted lynchpin of the operation, is a commanding presence — the nervous dementia of a stand-up comic, bespectacled and angular, truly inspired. From time to time he steps back and the other members of the band set the pace. It's a ragged and strictly p[?]-professional performance — a strange set of people with a strange set of instruments and each song an emotional marvel.

Russell Senior, guitarist, singer, and acting correspondent on Pulp's behalf, says that the group was formed four years ago by gawky schoolchildren. 1984 and schoolchildren no more, but still gawky. Ungainly and brilliant.

In 1983 Pulp released an LP called 'It'. It's a topic they don't seem fond of, not wanting to be judged on their past — but their past seems to stand up in spite of them. Johnny Waller warmly recommends the album. Dave MacCulloch said at the time that if it had had 10% less mistakes it would have been a flawed masterpiece. Mick Mercer wants a copy.

But Russell quietly denigrates their past: "It had innocence, naievety, romanticism, good tunes, and it was a fair document of puberty, but it doesn't compare to what we do now."

What do Pulp do now?

Russell offers four pointers to what they don't do.

ONE: "We'd all liked punk but it had disappeared up its own arse. Jaded cynics peddling pessimism — violent hardcore, pretentious spikey Batcave, new age hippie punk. It was a multicoloured refraction of the white light."

TWO: "Outside the new wave all was happy happy bubblegum. Thrusting crotches in the race to become the Mike Yarwood of pop. New technocrats selling sex to teenagers, fiddling around with knobs and rooting around the past as if it were a jumble sale."

THREE: "Social conscience music had a nauseating effect. Nena makes a million out of nuclear war fears and takes the edge off people's anger, diffusing any pressure for change."

FOUR: "We turned to hit the metal objects around us, but I feel an idiot when my dad's going deaf because of working in a factory, and we pass drop-forges on the way to the practice room that do it a damn sight better than us."

In a nutshell: "Our chosen means of expression was populated by diluters and devaluers of music that once meant something," Jarvis announces, "We wanted truth and beauty."

Before you raise your arms in anguish and cry, 'God! Not  more  convicts of conviction! Not more youths spouting grandiose piffle fresh from the grammar school', bear this in mind. Pulp are the real McCoy, not just going through the motions. They are chancing their gangly arms.

"Some songs," says Russell, "are more 'fragile' than the rest — we can easily look stupid doing them. But they're usually the most rewarding when they go right. We'd rather fail miserably than do all right."

Sticking your scrawny necks out doesn't always make you popular. Russell tells the tale of one night when the audience of oafish louts decided to lower their trousers to register their disapproval. Finding himself facing a bare backside, Jarvis did the natural thing. He kicked it. But, after molesting the obnoxious stag comic announcer, things got the better of him. Pulp made a hasty exit.

"Truth and beauty stayed in that night," comments Russell wryly. But truth will out. Like Russell says, "Things have been dead too long, but spring is in the air."

It may only be October, and we're only just planting our daffs, but this man is not wrong.

William Shaw

Source & transcription: PulpWiki

drunken skunk

Characters: Toki Wartooth x Reader

Words: 2500+ holy FUCK 

A/N: hey i written in uhh 1000 years and i just binged metalocolypse on hbomax which apparently unlocked something in me. this fic takes place immediately following fertilityklok because I’ve had a weird amount of experience talking to men who want but for some reason can’t/don’t have children and watching Toki worry about it gave me feelings i just wanted someone to kiss him and tell him he was okay:( so he turned down the woman in the ep, went home and fucked, wakes up and doesn’t actually feel that much better so drinking, smoking, not being understood by his bandmates, leads to going somewhere else to drink, and that’s where we are. i also like the idea that the band members have slutted around so often that even blitz drunk, they’d still be quick and nimble in the sack 

“Y/N, can you come to my office, please?” Charles’s voice came through your cell phone.

You had the phone pressed to your cheek, despite the spikes digging into your shoulder, as you pulled on a pair of socks. When you saw Charles calling you, it was almost always to request you come to his office for a task so it was second nature to get dressed when his name popped up. “Of course, sir.” His thanks were short before the line clicked off and you were left alone to finish getting ready.

_________

Scooting past a masked employees leaving Charles’s office, you stood in front of your boss and nodded when he met your eye over the documents on his desk. “Y/N, thank you for coming. We’ve got a small situation I’m hoping we can keep small.” Your brow furrowed as he picked up his phone and start swiping through it.

“What’s the matter, sir?” you asked.

Charles held up a finger, continuing to swipe until he finally clicked a button and a whaling voice suddenly filled the room.

“Whys is this happening to mes, iS AMS I UGLIES?! Ams I- Ma’am, MA’AMS, AMS I UGLI-“

The silence that followed Charles pausing the recording was deafening. “Um, was that-“

“Toki, yes,” Charles cut you off. “He’s currently at the Drunken Skunk and is living up to the name. I need you to go collect him as discreetly as possible.” As though that was all the information you needed, Charles began looking over the paperwork in front of him again.

You sighed quietly, you hated how little you got told about your tasks since they always spiraled into some kind of crazy mess when the members of Dethklok were involved, but Charles wasn’t one to question. “Yes, sir. Consider it done.”

You turned on your heel and began to head out but when your hand touched the doorknob, Charles spoke again. “Oh, and Y/N? Be careful. Toki has been sensitive since his birthday. Tread carefully.”

Brow furrowed again, you glanced back but Charles was already looking away, eyes on his documents. You wondered what he meant but as always, better not to question him. Stepping into the hallway, you let his office door swing shut behind you as you headed into the night.

___________

The Drunken Skunk was a dingy little bar on the edge of downtown whose usual crowd were streetwalkers and weary men, so it wasn’t crazy that Toki had decided to come here but as you drove closer and closer, you were surprised how dingy it in fact was. It was cheek to cheek with the industrial district, had an empty printing shop on one side, and a storefront covered in plywood on the other. You parked in front of the boarded-up shop and did a quick check on all sides for sketchy characters before you stepped out of the car.

The bar was choked with cigarette smoke, and the stench of stale alcohol and vomit. You frowned, standing in the door while you scanned the dirty room until your eyes fell on a heaving form slumped across the bar. Toki.

His long hair was draped over his shoulders and hung down his back, quivering slightly with each heave. It seemed like he was crying, his head buried in his arms. “AMS I UGLIES?” rang in your ears again and your frown softened. You weren’t sure what had happened, but you had noticed he’d been… off since his birthday.

You had thought it was related to the fake kidnapping that kicked off the party- a horrific and idiotic idea you had spoken out against and were immediately told by Nathan not to be a bitch about- but even that wouldn’t lead to the question of if he was ugly. Would it? The Dethklok members were strange. Five lives full of tragedy and unprocessed trauma all packed into the most popular band in the world made for an uneasy balance in the workplace and living quarters. You were skilled at navigating it when you had to clear up the messes, but you were hardly ever around for the inciting event so it was always tricky to understand how it all connected. 

You approached cautiously and made sure to make a little noise so you wouldn’t spook him. If he heard you, he showed no reaction, so you perched on the bar stool beside him. “Hey, Toki?”

The guitarist lifted his head finally and his red rimmed eyes were bleary when they met yours. “Y/N? Whats is *hic* you doings heres?” His voice was hoarse and thick with tears, a few of which were clinging to his eyelashes and glittered in the dim light. It made his grey-blue eyes shine and your breath caught in your throat. You had to admit, Toki was your favorite member of the band and it had little to do with his musical talent. You weren’t one for metal much anyway.

What drew you to Toki was first his appearance. Back when you were just applying for a position at the record company behind Dethklok, he’d caught your eye on the poster in the lobby. Long hair on men was something of a turn-on and his piercing gaze struck a chord inside you. His angular face and extremely fit build made him one of the hottest members in your opinion but on top of all of that, he was a sweetheart. That wasn’t written on the poster, of course, it was something you’d discovered about a week after you started when he was the only person besides Charles to take the time to learn your name and point your in the right direction. You wouldn’t say you were close but you had a causal friendship, just right for making light conversation during elevator rides and not much else.

“I’m here for you, Toki,” you replied, trying to master a tone that was both soft and cheery. “I came to take you home.”

“Takes me… No! I wants to stay heres. I-I-” His bottom lip started to quiver as he spoke but you put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, hey, relax, Toki. It’s just late and I think it’d be good for us to get you into bed,” you gave him a small smile, trying to coax his drunken mind into listening to you. He might be slim but if he tried to fight you on leaving, you’d have your hands full. Maybe you should’ve asked for an escort…

Toki slumped on the bar again with a huff before sliding off his stool towards you, prompting you to hop up quickly to catch him as he stumbled to his feet. He was heavy with alcohol and leaning on you to keep steady, so trudging to the door became a task. Despite having at least half a foot on you, his face was nestling further and further in your hair until you could feel his breath on the back of your neck.

You could feel your cheeks warming but it wasn’t until you got out the door, opened the back of the car, and loaded Toki halfway in that you really had a reason to blush.

“Y/N, ams I uglies?” Toki asked suddenly, looking up at you from under his lashes. He only had his butt on the edge of the car’s bench seat, looking at you with his face inches from yours, and fresh tears welling in his eyes.

Your eyes widened and your blush raged in full. Working around the object of your affection, even when that work was dragging him out of a shitty bar, was easy enough. Being asked directly about it by him was a whole other thing. Swallowing against the sudden knot in your throat, you decided to be honest and lightly shook your head. “No, Toki, not at-“

Anything and everything else you might be about to say was thrown out the window because the moment you said no, Toki launched forward. One hand on your hip, he lifted the other to your shoulder and pulled you to him lightening fast, his mouth finding yours with a squish. In his drunken state, he was a little sloppy at first but his skill began to show itself. His tongue traced the dip between your lips as he pulled you against his chest, your head fogging when he nipped your bottom lip. It was finally enough to coax your mouth open and Toki took full advantage of that fact, squeezing your hip as his other hand, warm and calloused, slipped around your neck and held you to him. Electricity jumped through you when his tongue met yours, twirling together for a moment before he moved on to exploring your mouth with a greedy moan.

“Wa-wait,” you mumbled around his lips. This was moving too fast, or maybe the fact it was happening at all was what was making you feel overwhelmed in the moment. It took everything in you to pull away, a solid percentage of your mind screaming at you to continue, to let Toki think he had control of the situation and see how far you could get with him. But you couldn’t. He was drunk and clearly something was bothering him enough to drink in the first place. You needed to just get him home. Plus if you did anything with Toki, you’d like for him to remember it, too. “Toki, wait.”

Your eyes met his just in time to watch his face crumple. The only way to describe his expression was pure heartbreak. The disappearance of his hands on your body made you miss the weight of them instantly but you hardly noticed, watching him melt right in front of you.

“I ams uglies, I knews it! I knews it!” Desperate and broken, his voice turned your stomach. His shaky hands found his hair and he began tugging on the ends, seemingly unaware of the motion. “No ones will loves me, I’ms hideous, I wills never find love! I wills never finds the mother ofs my childrens!”

While you had been paralyzed with bewilderment, his last sentence only compounded your confusion but brought you back into the moment enough to move again. Toki had cringed away from you, burying his face in the back of the passenger seat while still tugging on his hair, and you hurriedly heaved his long legs into the footwell before shutting the door and jogging around to the other side.

Even sealed in the car, you could hear his drunken crying. It twisted your heart but still, the mother of his children? Is that what he thought of you? Your blush burned your cheeks once more but you shook the thought off. He must’ve been crying about this when he left that voicemail for Charles. But what had happened?

Opening the back door on the other side, you slipped inside and snapped the door closed behind you. Toki seemed worse than before, now holding his face in his hands and heaving with small sobs. “Whats is it, Y/N? Whats makes me so uglies? I can change! I has monies, I can change!”

You furrowed your brows and put a hand on his arm, scooting closer to him. “Toki, you’re not ugly.” Quicker than you expected, his head snapped towards you.

“Then whys do you not likes to kiss me?” His lip started to quiver and you expected another outburst but his eyes stayed locked on you, expecting an answer.

Your mouth was dry and you scrambled for an answer that would keep him from crying again. How had you ended up here? Eyes darting around the car, you quickly mumbled, “I do, I liked the kiss! I jus-“

Once again, the Dethklok guitarist moved faster than you thought in his state. His hands found your face and pulled you up to him, putting you nose to nose with the lanky musician. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed red from tears but it only exacerbated how bright his stormy irises were. You felt nervous and excited and tingly all over from being held so close and you hardly dared to breathe. Hypnotized by his gaze, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away. “Thens kiss me,” he murmured in a throaty voice. It made you shiver and lust began to haze your thoughts, the previous kiss still so fresh in your mind when his lips found yours again.

Slowly this time- painfully, delightfully slowly- Toki kissed you. His hands nearly covered the sides of your head as he held you in place, his lips closed while he kissed you once, twice, three times before deepening it. You let him without hesitation, heat coiling in your stomach. Of course, the thought of breaking the kiss occurred to you but with every motion of his, that thought got further and further away. Toki’s tongue slipped past your lips again and he gently stroked over yours as he made his way around your mouth. You returned the kiss with fervor, trying to match his speed to keep him close as long as possible.

One hand on top of his over your cheek, you let your other wander. His knee pressing into your thigh, then up the outside of his leg to rest on his hip and give it a squeeze. He moaned in your mouth and your body responded in kind, your own moan escaping as the heat in your belly moved south. When his free hand fisted in your hair and tugged, you wondered if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Toki didn’t remember your hookup. Hell, maybe it would keep things from getting awkward at work?

Skwisgaar’s best guitar solo blared through the vehicle, interrupting your mental plan to get the man in front of you undressed. It was your phone, ringing out from your back pocket, and you knew without looking that it was Charles. He tended to check status on the jobs he gave people, especially when they went alone, as the Dethklok members seemed to have a way of making mountains out of molehills and then exploding the mountain into a bunch of fiery chunks raining from the sky.

Toki hadn’t stopped kissing you. If anything, he seemed more desperate, his hands falling to your shoulders and tugging at your shirt. But you straightened up and caught his large wrists to still him. Pulling away, your lips tingled and you had to blink a few times to gather yourself. “I have to get that, hang on.” Your voice was hoarse and you cleared it twice as you pulled the phone from your pocket and selected ‘Answer’. Toki huffed but he seemed much more relaxed compared to the last interruption, leaning back against the seat and putting his large hand on your thigh with his eyes closed.

“Hello?” you asked, still trying to steady your voice.

“Y/N, any updates?” Charles bluntly asked back.

You cleared your throat again and replied, “Everything’s going well, I just got Toki in the car,” the guitarist squeezed your leg at the sound of his name, “and we’re about to head back home.” The thought of leaving the back seat, of having to drive with the fruity taste of whatever he’d been drinking still on your tongue and the memory of his hands on you front and center in your mind, nearly made you groan aloud but you held yourself back.

“Good, good. Knew you could handle it.” *click*

Just like that, Charles had broken the heady mood and hung up in under a minute. You sighed, knowing what the right thing to do was and knowing exactly what you wanted to do instead. As if reading your thoughts, Toki spoke, “Wes don’t has to leaves yet, does we?”

“We does,” you replied playfully, trying to convince yourself of that fact. It wasn’t often that you wished for another job, one where you could be a groupie, act a little slutty, and turn one of your daydreams into a reality. But this was one of those times. However, people got fired- or killed- at work for less and you wouldn’t have even gotten into Dethklok if it weren’t for your job.

Toki sighed, squeezing your thigh again and holding it for a moment. Glancing at him, you’re eyes scanned his face thoroughly. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted back on the headrest, giving you an eyeful of his neck and throat. He had the slightest stubble growing and as you watched, he gulped, making his Adam’s apple bounce. You wanted to remember this moment, every detail, as though that would make it last longer. While you were looking, he opened his eyes and caught yours.

“But you liked to kissing mes?” he asked, his voice more nervous than you’d heard all night. “You thinks I’ms is handsome?”

You hesitated before concluding the cat was fully out of the bag on this one and nodded. “I liked kissing you and I think you’re handsome, Toki. If you asked, I might even say you’re hot as fuck.”

Toki beamed at you, nudging you with his knee. He seemed too tired to move as fast as he was in the heat of the moment but he reached to put his hand on your hip and squeezed. “Okies, you cans drives us home. We is goings to my room,” you blushed but he continued without notice, “we cans talk, I ams asking you questions, it is ams dates.”

Talking Heads: Are These Guys Trying To Give Rock A Bad Name?

Having fun trawling the internet for more old interviews and things with different bands & musicians. Here’s a Talking Heads one from 1977.

Talking Heads: Are These Guys Trying To Give Rock A Bad Name?

Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 25 June 1977

TALKING HEADS: it's a term they use up in the high-rise skyscrapers that house all the cogs in the corporate machinery cranking out network television for the American people.

The big-wigs in the boardroom – the William Holdens and Robert Duvalls of Network land – have a name for the lowest common-denominator programme non-personalities – the newscaster, weather-reporters, and other old warhorses who sit head and shoulders directly on camera mouthing out their obligatory tasks. These are the "talking heads" of American TV land; utterly boring, but necessary.

Talking heads with greying hair, dabs of make-up and dandruff removed from the shoulders of their suit-jackets, they sit austerely informing the public of the nation's daily occurences – the rapes and murders, the military campaigns abroad, the latest government manouevres. No opinions, no subjective slant to their reports – they simply precis it down, feed it out to those millions of tubes and when it's over they go away, back to the bar or to the suburban home, wife and kids.

David Byrne, guitarist and singer for the Talking Heads, an American rock group, has a song that he wrote and performs entitled 'Don't Worry About The Government'. It usually gets played early on in the set, with no prefacing explanation – just Byrne's reedy high-pitched voice almost stammering "This next song is called..."

And every time he introduced it to an audience in England, certain factions would snigger or boo or howl derisively because Talking Heads after all are a NEW WAVE group and if you are a New Wave group you must write direct anti-status quo, sloganeering songs of dissent. Just like The Clash or Chelsea or...

But Byrne's song isn't like that at all.

It's about an ordinary man who owns an apartment in some American suburb and who lives a quiet, fairly inconsequential existence, going to work in the morning and returning in the evening, who gains pleasure from life simply through drinking wine with friends or reading a book. There is no hint of moral castigation, no hint of cynicism, Byrne just places himself in his character's psyche and explains himself through his song.

It's a rare talent this, something much closer to the art of the very best short-story writers, a talent that only Ray Davies and Randy Newman before him, out of all the thousands of post-war song-writers, have bothered to identify with and explore perceptively.

"I just thought," said Byrne, "that lyrics could be used to strip down conversations, just normal day-to-day converstions and dialogues, and strip away all the phoney embellishments and posturing right down to essentials so that they would actually say something directly, without having to throw in all the 'Oh yeah, baby' or 'Hey, bitch I'm coming to get ya right now' or...

"Pa-a-arty," chips in Jerry Harrison, the Talking Heads' keyboard player.

Everybody laughs.

NOT AN easy band to write about, these Talking Heads. They mystify arid confuse simply because they so patently lack any dint of the arch brand of mystique that forms a patented cloak for the rock star enigma. Four intelligent, straightforward individuals, the very straightforward nature of their music and their image is somehow unique to the genre they have chosen to work within.

Not that the press haven't attempted time and time again to write about them, almost always in flattering terms.

They emerged as a live attraction in the hot summer of 1975 when Manhattan's CBGB's had suddenly been designated the centre-point of all new-wave rock activity, and were immediately slotted in with the likes of Television, Patti Smith, The Ramones, and Heartbreakers as the pace-setters right there at the vanguard of this brave new scene. Convenient tags like 'punk' and 'art-rock' found themselves strange bed-fellows in numerous articles consummated by the inevitable bandying of the term 'minimalism'.

New York rock critics, having witnessed the ugly death of the New York Dolls brand of gashed-up rock, latched on fast to this new austerely dressed-down form of the music, and the Talking Heads, suddenly caught in the swell, found themselves holding down the cover of the prestigious Village Voice with a photograph taken at only their third gig. Inside was a rave-review of said show with an extensive article.

Since then, coverage has been as extensive as it has been perplexingly unforthcoming in regard to mere bottom line info on what the band were actually all about.

What was disclosed was that the band was a trio then, led by the angular, neurotic-looking Byrne who carried all guitar, vocal and composing chores, while the bass-player was a slight blonde-haired girl called Tina Weymouth whose basic feminist features were undermined by a slightly asexual manner. Drummer Chris Frantz was baby-faced and pleasantly effeminate.

Their music, though, seemed incapable of being pigeon-holed and continually presented reviewers with a daunting problem.

Having witnessed the band on four separate occasions over this last highly successful European tour, it became at once apparent that the care of Talking Heads' repertoire – principally Byrne's songs – is not something that casual acquaintance can unveil. At first, they intrigue as much as they bemuse, but the deeper you dig the more you uncover. Like Television, Talking Heads must be divorced from pigeon-holed surroundings because there is nothing currently existing in the rock context that they can be favourably compared to.

Byrne's melodies are so insidious that they often totally by-pass the conventional quarters that rock music usually attempts to stimulate, instead going deeper, often lodging themselves in your subconscious. One song, after I'd witnessed the band only once at the Rock Garden, somehow kept manifesting itself in my dreams – this strange, utterly disarming descending chord motif would haunt me until I'd wake up desperately trying to recall it. It was only later that I even got to learn the song's title, 'The Book I Read'.

THIS IS how the band's music works – in a way that transcends conventional avenues of 'rock criticism' where parallels to established musical forms become redundant and trite. When one has finally achieved some intimacy and contact with the repertoire, the music alone is overwhelming at times. One song – Byrne's 'I'm Not In Love' – twists and turns, its twined guitar rhythms chattering and spitting like snap-dragons with sudden unsettling changes, its chorus brash and pointedly announced – before it charges off, climaxing in a devastating one chord richochet of sound. Each song takes on a personality of its own as one becomes more and more acquainted – the jagged paranoid thrashings of 'What Is It?' full of technical malevolence, the richly textured abrasive changes of 'No Compassion', that utterly disarming motif to 'The Book I Read'.

Similarly the lyrics make themselves apparent in this same insidious fashion, via sudden dazzling couplets or single lines that grab you as Byrne's introvert-gone-psychotic delivery tortuously builds up and up, eyes reeling like wild horses in a flood, his pitching often totally awry but his sheer intensity galvanising because this man is truly grabbing hold of his songs, each and every utterance, like a drowning man grabbing straws.

Byrne's performance is, in fact, full of the tortured passion and gut-commitment that many of us were hoping for and found so disappointingly lacking in Tom Verlaine's recent shows in Britain. Like Verlaine, Byrne is totally the master of his chosen medium, yet there is an edge to Byrne that is so much more human.

Where Verlaine is oh-so calculatingly distant, Byrne's thrashing desperate need to communicate his songs grants his music a whole other dimension of sheer humanity and warmth a million light years removed from the cold arch-romanticism of Television's guiding light.

OFF-STAGE, sitting with his cohorts in Talking Heads, Byrne exudes all the cooped-up mannerisms of a caged bird. He seems to be suffering from some arch nervous defect that would need a constant ingestion of valium to assuage. Twitching almost, he sits hunched up in a chair, ungainly like a parody of look-alike Tony Perkins. When he talks, his voice is weak and reedy and often his attempts to explain certain facets of his songs – particularly his lyrics – lead him into weird tangential awkward ramblings that cause other members of the band, Tina Weymouth in particular, to open displays of ridicule which make him even more edgy. He looks embarrassed and bows his head slightly.

Observing him, I can't help feeling concerned for his obvious discomfort, as if any form of socializing causes the man to undergo real psychic pain. He later admits to the gross discomfort of what is really just a fairly casual conversation, and claims that performing affords him infinite more relaxation.

"I can express parts of my personality on stage that I would never dare do in any other context."

Byrne's past remains obscured by the haziness of his own recollections. He talks about working in art galleries in the past, though he didn't in fact paint, while he claims his previous vocation while in college was to write up detailed questionnaires, until song-writing became an infinitely more agreeable pastime.

In contrast, the other three members of Talking Heads carry themselves in this social set-up with an ease and general open-ness.

Tina Weymouth appears fairly disinterested at first, more concerned with scanning the pages of the latest Oui, but is suddenly forthcoming when a question is either directed her way or else grabs her attention. Chris Frantz seems perfectly in sync with the whole interview routine, lavishing over most of his answers with great and entertainingly 'camp' detail.

And then there is Jerry Harrison, the newest member in the group, a veteran of only six months or less, but who has already obviously orientated himself into the consortium with great alacrity. Harrison is the most locquacious of the band and, with Frantz, the most forthcoming. His history as a musician is already full of worthy fodder for discourse, since he started his career as an integral founding force with Jonathon Richman in the Modern Lovers, about whom his reminiscences are nothing if not extremely witty.

"Well, you probably know that we started the Modern Lovers as a real cause – y'know, we were anti-drugs for a start, due to the fact that at that time in the States all the kids were just oohing themselves on quaaludes. So we'd go onstage and start our sets with this number called 'I'm Straight' which would immediately cause all the audience to start throwing things – oh, rotten fruit, bottles, cans, anything – at us."

The Lovers' history was short due firstly to their corporate snooty attitude to playing clubs of the ilk of Max's Kansas City – "We didn't want to be associated with the N.Y. Dolls or this or that...so we never played anywhere" – plus the traumas that followed the band being signed by John Cale to Warner Bros, who after financing an album (produced by Cale – it was finally released last year by Beserkley) decided to drop the band, leaving them penniless in Los Angeles.

Even when the album was being made, Harrison claims there were problems.

"Well this was around the time when Jonathan was starting to want to write and sing only happy songs (laughs). So there'd be continual arguments between Cale and him over how we should sing certain numbers. Cale would be saying 'Now, Jonathon, I want you to sing this in a mean way. And Jonathon would just look at him, y'know – 'Mean? I won't sing mean! I don't feel mean!"

"And he (Richman) kept going through changes of direction. Like one time he'd be totally into the Velvet Underground and early Stooges, and then he was suddenly enamoured with Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and he'd want to alter his whole style. Also he's a total astrology freak. You know that song, 'Astral Plane'? Well he was always having these visions – or so he said – and writing songs about them. Things like....oh God (he starts laughing again) 'I saw you by, the waterway, the waterway, the waterway' – just on and on. We'd have to tell him to forget it."

After the Modern Lovers broke up, Richman briefly went onstage backed only by a bunch of kids beating rolled-up newspapers in time to his songs, before disappearing altogether for a long spell to (according to John Cale) lock himself in his bedroom.

When Harrison is asked whether he feels more comfortable being in Talking Heads than Richman's motley crew he simply sighs, "Infinitely."

MUCH OF the conversation is taken up with the subject of the British New Wave and how the remarkably civilised T. Heads have found themselves having to cope with the more agressive elements at their concerts, particularly as they've been supporting the head-banger's friend, The Ramones.

Seems the atmosphere has never actually soured and that circumstances have been pretty agreeable all the way along.

From the other new wave bands of this country, T. Heads claim not to have incurred any particular animosity.

"Only Rat Scabies has caused a scene," claims Weymouth. "He appeared backstage at the Greyhound in Croydon and tried to get one of us to fight him. When we showed ourselves to be totally disinterested in that course of action, he contented himself with spitting on the floor and walking out. I felt rather sorry for him."

Meanwhile back in New York, the band have yet to break out of the New York club circuit set-up they've been working in for at least the last two years.

A record deal with Sire (whose head, Seymour Stein, is the only executive to have fully committed himself to the New Wave, having also inked The Ramones, Richard Hell, and now, apparently, The Dead Boys, – a Cleveland pastiche of England's punk excesses) has produced the single 'Love Goes To Building On Fire', an addictive though comparatively slight song from the band's repertoire.

A Talking Heads album however is scheduled for September release produced by Tony Bongiovi and with five backing tracks already in the can. Ten tracks are scheduled – all Byrne originals including 'Pyschokiller', 'The Book I Read', 'No Compassion', 'Happy Day', and 'I'm Not In Love', the only unfortunate matter being the probable exclusion of the band's brilliantly terse rendering of Al Green's 'Take Me To The River'.

The band are still a guaranteed sell-out at C.B.G.B.'s on any given night, a not inconsiderable feat as many other similarly prestigious local bands are unable apparently to do the same – and on their own minor league waterfront they've gauged a strong cult audience.

But then there is something extremely addictive about this band's music – potent enough to make Byrne an object of paranoid fear in the eyes of Tom Verlaine (who according to Weymouth is very nervous of Byrne's status on the New York scene – as perverted a compliment as anything that can be divined from Verlaine's psyche one supposes). Meanwhile Byrne is also considered the most singularly brilliant new songwriter currently in the States by John Cale, and even Lou Reed has lent a sizeable quota of suspiciously paternal advice.

Weymouth: "Yeah, I'd say he was actually genuinely trying to help us. I wouldn't say he was trying to rip us off, for example."

Byrne: "That's not true."

Weymouth: "How can you say that, David? I mean..."

Byrne: "Because he told me he ripped some of my ideas off. Not that I'm angry or anything."

How did the...uh gentleman go about this paternal business then?

"God...he'd invite us round to his apartment and insult us for a solid hour, particularly me. He'd always insult the clothes I was wearing, or my shoes. Then after that, he'd start to be more reasonable and actually have an agreeable conversation with us."

Byrne goes silent for a minute and then, for the first time, he seems calm and relaxed.

"Do you want to know...I'll tell you how much we've come on in the last two years, the real symbol of progress in Talking Heads, Now I can go round to Lou Reed's apartment and I can be rude to him!"

so tell me (why my gods look like you)

Poly!King Day 1: Maybe God is a Woman

This goes to the lovely @stayinqpower! I hope you like it love! 

☾☀︎

In hindsight, they should have realised the Brianna was different.

Back when they were kids, and they still called her by her birth name, every single quirk and oddity should have tipped them off. But instead, they just passed it off as Brianna being her odd self. The way that her hair would get caught in the light giving her a bizarre halo, or how animals tended to crowd around her like moths to the light. They should have noticed when Brianna seemed to know things that no five-year-old should or seemed to have answers to questions that not even their parents had.

But little Brian, as they had called her back then, was nothing but their strange friend. An intelligent and cheery kid who would always walk around with a smile adorning his face and leaves sticking out of his hair. It should have been easy to fall in love with him back then, but Regina later realises that maybe she hadn't wanted them to fall in love until she managed to get to her pure form.

Other lesser beings would have had trouble with the transition. But Brianna, their beautiful girlfriend with endless wisdom and power just willed it so once she realised that the form of a boy, of a male, didn't quite fit her. She didn't like that form, didn't like the fact that she had to keep her hair short, and that she would never be able to bear a child if she wanted to do so. So one day she was a boy named Brian, with angular features and form-fitting pants, and the next she was Brianna, their Brianna.

That should have been the first clue that she was not quite human. But at the time it just seemed so simple to Johanna. She had been seven, and the world is so much simpler when you are seven, and according to Brianna she just realised that she didn't want to be a boy anymore, not even if that's how her Mum had sent her to earth. Back then they had all agreed that boys were yucky and that was that.

Nobody dared to question that even if it was possible to change herself like that on earth, it shouldn't have been that simple. It wasn't like she could have been able to do it overnight, not in the sixties, not as a child. But nobody else seemed to find that weird, in fact, they seemed to be the only ones who remembered that Brianna had looked like a boy. To everyone else, it was just as if she had always been Brianna Hope May, not Brian Harold May.

Through the years, and as the four of them fell in love with each other, Brianna just grew weirder. She refused to let them meet her parents or let them go to her house. She would refer to God as her or as them, much to Regina and Johanna's parents' annoyance, and would often talk about things she shouldn't talk about as if they were unconsequential. Hence why, as soon as Freddie came out as a dyke to her parents, they prohibited ever talking to Brianna again, at least until she came to her senses.

Regardless, the younger woman always seemed to find a way to speak to Freddie, even if it meant sneaking into her dreams. Dreams in which the singer kicked, screamed and made havoc of whatever she could find and Brianna would just sit there in complete calm. "You told me God wouldn't hate me!"

Brianna tilted her head to the side, "They won't. Why would They hate you for loving someone?"

"Because I love girls, not boys. I don't understand why you can't see the problem, Bri! I'm in love with three girls, and that's not what God wants!"

At that Brianna scowls, and she has never seen her friend look as mad as she looks in that moment, "Oh please, girls are made to be loved, or else They wouldn't have created them."

And that is that. She never speaks about that again, not even when Freddie's parents let her out of the house, with no qualms about letting her see Brianna again.

In the same peculiar manner as everything with Brianna happens, they only meet her dad the day he dies. Brianna looks— well, her face is devoid of any emotion, and while all the people around her cry and mourn, she just sits on the chair, hands folded neatly into her lap and eyes staring ahead. After the ceremony ends, their guitarist is still left to sit staring forward, and nobody dares to move her, nobody has the heart.

Regina kneeled in front of her, lacing their fingers together and pressing a kiss to her head, "We'll be there for you."

"I know that," Brianna licks her lips, "Just as I know he is with my mother now. I just wish he would have held on for a little bit longer. I didn't want him to leave me alone just yet."

Her three lover's hearts had broken then; their guitarist sounded so small, so lost. They wanted to tell her that everything was going to be alright, that she wouldn't have to worry about being alone because she had them; but none of them even knew how to say this without hurting her more than she already was. So they simply held her to their chests as she stared at the casket almost as if she were lifeless.

What none of them notice, and none of them ever would, was Brianna's mother. In all her glory, with her silk robes, unruly hair, kind eyes, and the warmest smile possible. She grabbed her lover's hand and helped him stand up, then took him to Heaven with her. Brianna watched, eyes meeting with her mother for a fleeting second, before the woman smiled, "This is your Heaven now, I'll make sure of that."

Brianna bounces back from her grief after a few weeks, melancholy still follows her around, but she doesn't seem like a living dead any longer. However, she does pray more often now, mainly because when she does, she gets to hear her parents. She had always loved them fervently, in every single reincarnation and through the aeons. Being left alone on earth at nineteen doesn't change that.

What does change is the fact that for the first time in the thousands of years she has been alive, Brianna falls in love. It's slow but steady, and after three years of being alone on earth, she is madly in love with the three other women. Sure, she had liked people before, she had fancied Kings and been the mistress of many Queens and had slept around enough to ensure that there was enough lineage from the gods to last a forever. But she had never fallen in love.

Not like she loved the way that Freddie would wake her up peppering her face with kisses. Or how Johanna would kiss her nose and scold her for walking around the flat in skimpy pyjamas. Or how Regina would snuggle up to her side and ask for stories of the old gods, listening intently and then falling asleep on her chest. She had never fallen in love like this, and she was scared.

Her mother only snorted when she confessed her deepest fears. The dread that came with thinking that after this life she would never see her loves again. The anxiety-inducing thought that she might have to live without their kisses, without their laughs, the hugs, the jokes, the sex, the— everything.

"Sometimes you are ridiculous," her mother scolds her, "It makes me remember why I haven't given you the keys to Heaven yet. You won't lose them, child. After all, Gods can only fall in love once."

That night when she gets in bed, all of her lovers curl around her, claiming that Brianna works as a personal heater in times of great cold. The older girl just smiles, and nuzzles into Johanna's hair, taking in her sweet apple and cinnamon smell, "I just talked to my mother."

It had taken a long time for them to understand and come to terms with Brianna's parentage. They had had to meet God herself to fully believe their lover, and even sometimes they forgot that when they prayed, she was always there to answer. Only to them, of course, she was after all a capricious woman.

Freddie pressed her lips to Brianna's neck, "Yeah, what'd she say?"

"Gods only fall in love once, which means that you will have my heart forever, and I'll be able to have yours if we wish to stay together until the ends of time." She whispers it into the silence of the bedroom like she might be scared that they will not accept her offer if she says it any louder.

"And after that?" Freddie runs a finger down Brianna's cheek, "What happens after the end of time?"

Brianna smiles, "We restart, just that you'll be mine from the beginning."

Regina, from where she is laying on top of Brianna's chest, nuzzles into her collarbone, "I can do that. I can be with the three of you until the ends of time."

Brianna releases a breath she didn't know she was holding and that night makes sure that they are snuggled together as tightly as she can manage.

Until the end of time doesn't seem enough.

source: Loudersound May 31, 2016

How Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas changed metal

By Dayal Patterson (Metal Hammer) May 31, 2016

Mayhem are one of the most influential black metal bands on the planet, and their album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas remains a timeless classic

  It is an album whose significance, both inside and outside of black metal, has been acknowledged by a wealth of leading contemporary metal acts, from Watain to Enslaved to Inquisition, and one that led Nergal of Behemoth to proclaim it “the opus magnum of extreme metal”. Two decades after it was recorded, it continues to top ‘best album’ lists by longtime fans of the genre, while at the same time providing primary inspiration for new bands whose members were not even born when it was recorded. There are many who would say it is the single most important album in black metal’s broad and ever-growing catalogue, and very few who would argue that it is not, at the very least, a strong contender for that accolade.

The record in question is none other than Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, a milestone work that the long-serving Norwegians are set to perform in full around Europe this year, including Finland, Norway and France. And well they might, for this is an album that has lost neither its devoted following, nor any of its potency, in the years that have passed.

There are plenty of even more hyperbolic (yet equally true) statements that could be made in support of this unique collection of songs. Yet the biggest testament to its artistic value is perhaps the fact that discussion of its recording, songwriting and performance qualities continues to outweigh the highly notable circumstances of its creation. Indeed, it is testament to Mayhem’s significance as a musical force that any music was able to overcome all the drama involved with the band during the period in question. For – as most reading this will probably know – this is also a record that captures the vision of a musician who was not only cut down in his prime, but cut down by a bandmate appearing alongside him on this very recording.

The former party is of course Mayhem guitarist and co-founder Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth, who was stabbed to death in his apartment in August 1993 by the latter, Varg Vikernes, best known for his similarly-influential project Burzum but also the bassist for Mayhem during the era of De Mysteriis’ creation. The ultimately fatal conflict between the two men is a long and complicated episode in black metal’s grim history that has been discussed at length by fans and media alike for two decades.

What is still worth noting today though, is that the album’s roots are intrinsically linked to two now-departed members of the band. The second is the Swedish-born vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin – otherwise known as ‘Dead’ – and in fact it was he who actually came up with the title; Latin for ‘Of Lord Satan’s Mysteries / Secret Rites’, and a title taken, he explained, from an occult book he had discovered. The fact that Dead took his own life in 1991, while the album was released in 1994, gives some idea of how long the band’s debut studio album was in gestation.

Certainly it was long enough that the band’s first full-length, the legendary live album Live In Leipzig, (recorded in November 1990 but released almost three years later) captured the band (the line-up then comprised of Dead, Euronymous, bassist Necrobutcher and drummer Hellhammer) performing no less than half of its eight numbers. The oppressive, melancholic and suffocating aura found on that recording would thankfully remain in place following the transition of these aforementioned songs to the studio. While the obvious standout track Freezing Moon ia a grim monochromatic epic that remains a fan favourite even today – the unholy and, well, freezing feeling within that song is just as present on Funeral Fog, Pagan Fears, Buried By Time And Dust.

Complementing these older compositions and undoubtedly giving the album a more three-dimensional character was the incorporation of four newer, somewhat more angular and twisting songs, namely the title track, Cursed In Eternity, Buried By Time And Dust and From The Dark Past. Euronymous’ playing had become somewhat more calculated and considered by this point, his writing influenced significantly by the introverted but talented guitarist Snorre Ruch, whose unique approach to riffing within his band Thorns had proven ridiculously influential within the Norwegian scene. In fact, Snorre (now going under the name ‘Blackthorne’) would be inducted into the group as a second guitarist prior to the album’s recording. Despite not appearing on the finished record, he would contribute entire Thorns riffs to several songs, his presence being felt not only during these moments but more generally through his impact on much of Euronymous’ creeping guitar work.

His other role would be to rearrange Dead’s lyrics on several songs in preparation for the deceased vocalist’s replacement, Attila Csihar. A Hungarian musician who was admired in Norway thanks to his short-lived but seminal black metal band Tormentor, his appointment and spirited performance remains a defining factor of the record, and it was one that provoked no small controversy at the time. In contrast to the more typical black metal vocal styles of the time he introduced an eccentric, otherworldly and theatrical approach incorporating a drawling delivery and lurching from screams and rasps to an almost operatic form of singing that makes a feature of his distinctive Hungarian accent.

“The way of singing it, we were talking about how to do it of course,” recalled Attila in an interview conducted back in 2009. “I heard some demo recordings that had been done by Dead and [previous vocalist] Maniac before, but I like individualism… so when I talked to Euronymous in the studio I said, ‘Why don’t we try something else instead of making again the traditional screamed vocals?’ The De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas song, when I looked at the lyrics there was this Latin line so I thought, ‘Let’s do this voice there.’ I came out with the low vocals with more melodies, and he liked it so much we did the whole recording that way.”

Though seemingly a long-running plan on the part of Euronymous, the decision to use Attila for the role proved as much of a surprise for other musicians in the Norwegian scene as it was for the Mayhem fanbase. After all, not only was Euronymous surrounded by an abundance of local talent, but many of the vocalists in the country actually knew the songs on the forthcoming album already, having listened repeatedly to an instrumental tape that had been making the rounds for some time.

“People were a little bit pissed that they didn’t receive the phone call,” recalled Grutle of Enslaved during the same interview, “but they thought, ‘Well that’s going to be interesting’ – and it was! Actually while [Attila was] doing the vocals Øystein went to the callbox and called me and said, ‘He sings like a sick priest, he sings in Latin, with an accent, it’s incredible!’”

Of course, one cannot mention De Mysteriis without mention of the pounding and detailed percussion that underpins it. A fine performance by one of black metal’s best known drummers, Hellhammer (a man who has performed for innumerable bands from Arcturus and Covenant to Dimmu Borgir and Shining), the formidable yet restrained drumwork is complimented by both the spacious, eerie and strangely minimal bass work and a powerful and gloriously unpolished production. The latter is no small factor in the album’s success and was apparently the result of a considerable amount of work on the part of both Euronymous and the infamous Pytten, a producer who spent much of the 1990s capturing iconic works by legends such as Enslaved, Burzum, Hades, Gorgoroth and Immortal.

“Euronymous had specific ideas about each instrument and he had specific ideas about echoes,” recalled Attila. “The drums were recorded in a huge concert hall, solos were recorded in a room and he was moving round all the time and saying, ‘Okay, there we have it.’ If you listen to records from the time and then De Mysteriis you hear the production is far and away better than anything else.”

“The whole album was recorded in very spacious areas,” confirmed producer Pytten. “Øystein, Hellhammer and me were walking about, talking about how to do it and I really wanted to use the stage for the drums. I really like big sounds — especially for the drums — and reverb on the leads. So the drums were done on stage and [in that hall] you have nine stories going up, so we closed the room side, but kept all the height.”

It isn’t only the drums that utilise large numbers of tracks, another defining ingredient in the album is the mass of multi-tracked guitars, which create a huge (yet suitably icy and treble-heavy) wall of sound, a perfect compliment to the similarly sizeable percussive bombardment. Indeed, the combination only accentuates the crushing and malevolent character of the whole record, the overall effect being a dense and impenetrable assault on the senses, one only balanced by the surprising touches of groove throughout the album.

And this is perhaps the last thing to underline, particularly for newcomers to the record. Though undeniably a standout opus, it is not an easily accessible work – even by black metal standards – and is not necessarily a gateway album. Nor is it meant to be. It is a purposely gloomy and aggressive beast, and one that makes no concessions to outsiders, instead following its own wilful and destructive path without any apology. Give it the time it deserves however, and it will be with you forever. We can only hope that its forthcoming live invocations are equally memorable.

The interviews in this piece were originally conducted for the book Black Metal: Evolution Of The Cult and appear in an extended form there. The book and its sequels are available at now.

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How Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Changed Metal source: Loudersound May 31, 2016 How Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas changed metal By Dayal Patterson…

Waking up to a new morning...

The Observer, Sunday 15 September 2002

Written by Amy Raphael

After the booze, coke, crack and smack, Suede's Brett Anderson is back in the land of the living with renewed optimism and a new album 

Brett Anderson grew up hanging around car parks, drinking lukewarm cans of Special Brew and taking acid. Occasionally, he caught the train from Hayward's Heath to Brighton, less than half an hour away, but still a world away. He would buy punk records and, perhaps, a Nagasaki Nightmare patch to sew on to his red ski jacket.

His mother, who died in 1989, was an aspiring artist; his father was mostly unemployed and obsessed with classical music. He wanted his son to be a classical pianist, but Brett had other ideas. Lost in suburban adolescence, he was drawn to the Smiths, to Morrissey's melancholic lyrics, his eccentric persona. He wanted to be a pop star; he would be a pop star. He had no doubt.

Anderson moved to London in the late 1980s, living in a small flat in Notting Hill. He studied architecture at the London School of Economics, but only while he got a band together. Here he met Justine Frischmann and, with old school friend Mat Osman, formed Suede in the early Nineties as an antidote to grunge and anodyne pop.

Anderson borrowed Bowie's Seventies glamour and a little of his Anthony Newley-style vocals. He looked to the Walker Brothers's extravagant, string-laden productions and appropriated Mick Jagger's sexual flamboyance for his stage show. Yet Suede were totally original, unlike anything else at the time. Dressed in secondhand suits and with casually held cigarettes as a prop, Anderson wanted to write pop songs with an edge; sleazy, druggy, urban vignettes which would sit uncomfortably in the saccharine-tinged charts.

Like his lyrics, Anderson was brash, cocky, confident. He talked of being 'a bisexual man who's never had a homosexual experience', realising it was an interesting quote, even if he knew he would probably always lose his heart to the prettiest of girls.

When I first met him, in the spring of 1993, Suede were enjoying their second year of press hysteria, of being endlessly hailed as the best new band in Britain. Fiddling with his Bryan Ferry fringe, Anderson asserted: 'I am a ridiculous fan of Suede. I do sit at home and listen to us. I do enjoy our music.'

He talked about performing 'Metal Mickey', the band's second single, on Top of the Pops. 'When I was growing up, Top of the Pops was the greatest thing, after tea on a Thursday night... brilliant! You get a ridiculous sense of history doing it. It was a milestone in my life; it somehow validated my life, which is pathetic really.'

By rights, Suede should have been not only the best band in Britain but also the biggest. Yet it did not happen that way. During the recording of the second album, the brilliant Dog Man Star, guitarist Bernard Butler walked out. It was as though Johnny Marr had left the Smiths before completing Meat Is Murder. The band could have given up, but they did not; they went on to make Coming Up, which went straight to the top of the album charts. Then, three years ago, disaster struck during the recording of Suede's fourth album, Head Music. Anderson was in trouble: the pale adolescent who had swigged Special Brew in desolate car parks was now a pop star addicted to crack.

Brett Anderson sits in a battered leather Sixties chair in the living-room of his four- storey west London home sipping a mug of black coffee. He has lived here for three or four years, moving into the street just as Peter Mandelson was moving out. The living-room is immaculate: books, CDs and records are neatly stacked on shelves, probably in alphabetical order.

Anderson's 6ft frame is as angular as ever but more toned than before, the detail of his muscles showing through a tight black T-shirt. Gone is the jumble-sale chic of the early Nineties; he now pops into Harvey Nichols.

He appears to have lost none of his self-assurance but, a decade on from his bold entrance into the world of pop, Anderson has mellowed, grown-up. By his own admission, he is still highly strung and admits he is probably as skinny as a 17-year-old at almost 35 because of nervous energy. But he no longer refuses to listen to new bands in case they are better than Suede; he praises the Streets, the Vines and the Flaming Lips.

This healthy, relaxed person who enjoys the odd mug of strong black coffee is a recent incarnation. At some point in the late Nineties, Anderson lost himself. He became part of one his songs and ended up a drug addict.

He talks about his new regime: swimming, eating well, hardly touching alcohol. No drugs. Did he give everything up at once? 'It was kind of gradual... giving up drugs is a strange thing, because you can't just do it straight away. You stop for a bit then it bleeds into your life again. It takes great willpower to stop suddenly.'

He sighs and looks into the distance. 'I got sick of it really. I felt as though I'd outgrown it. It wasn't something I kept wanting to put myself through and I was turning into an absolute tit. Incapable of having a relationship, incapable of going out and behaving like a normal human being. Constantly paranoid...'

The drug odyssey started with cocaine, but soon it was not enough. 'Cocaine is child's play. After a while, it didn't give me enough of a buzz, so I got into crack. I was a crack addict for ages, I was a smack addict for ages...'

Another deep sigh. 'It's part of my past, really. I'm not far enough away to be talking about it. It's only recently I've been able to say the word "crack".'

When Head Music was being recorded, he says he wasn't really there. He would turn up but his mind was not focused. The album went to number one but it was not up to Suede's standards; as Anderson acknowledges, it was 'flashy, bombastic; an extreme version of the band'.

He laughs, happier to talk about the good times. 'Last year, when I decided not to destroy myself any more, I kind of disappeared off to the countryside with a huge amount of books, a guitar and a typewriter... and wondered what the outcome would be.'

He spent six months alone. It was a revelation to discover that he could spend time by himself. 'I think a lot of people are shit scared of being on their own. Me too. From the age of 14 to 30, I jumped from bed to bed in fear of being alone. Being in the cottage in the middle in Surrey, I learned that if one day everything fucks up, I could actually go and live on my own. It's a total option.'

For a long time, Anderson had avoided reading books, worried that his lyric writing would be affected by other people's use of language. Last year, he decided it was time to fill his head with some new information. Although he had been told for years that his imagery was reminiscent of J.G. Ballard, he read the author for the first time in the cottage - and was flattered. He read Ian McEwan's back catalogue and challenging books such as Michel Houellebecq's Atomised.

Despite his self-imposed exile, it still took Anderson a long time to perfect Suede's fifth album, the self-consciously celebratory A New Morning. The band tried to make an 'electronic folk' album by working with producer Tony Hoffer, who had impressed with his work on Beck's Midnight Vultures. However, unable to make an understated album, they eventually called in their old friend Stephen Street, the Smiths producer.

Yet more trouble was ahead. Anderson says Suede have faced many 'big dramas' over the past decade - Frischmann left the band early on to form Elastica and soon after ended her relationship with Anderson, moving in with Britpop's golden boy, Damon Albarn; Bernard Butler walked out with little warning; the drugs took control - but still the band were not prepared for keyboard player Neil Codling's exit. He was forced to leave in the middle of recording A New Morning suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

Anderson says he was furious when Codling left.'He couldn't help it, I know, but I did feel aggrieved. I felt let down. But more at the universe than at Neil. I tend not to show how I feel about these things in public. It's like when Bernard first left, I was devastated. I felt as though that original line-up was really special. And we will never know what might have been.'

At times, Anderson sounds as though he has had an epiphany in the past year. He smiles. 'Well, you only need to listen to A New Morning to realise that. The title is very much a metaphor. It's a very optimistic record; the first single is called "Positivity", for God's sake. It's a talismanic song for the album. It's a good pop single, but we've haven't gone for a Disney kitsch, happy, clappy, neon thing.'

He looks serious for a moment. 'For me, the album is about the sense that you can only experience real happiness if you've experienced real sadness.'

Has he had therapy? His whole body shakes with a strange, high-pitched laughter. 'No! No! But I am happier now. I feel more comfortable with myself. I feel as though I'm due some happiness. I've just started going out with someone I really like. I've made an album which is intimate and warm. I don't any more have the need to be talked about constantly, that adolescent need for constant pampering...'

A swig of the lukewarm coffee and a wry smile. 'And, best of all, I don't feel like a troubled, paranoid tit any more.'

A New Morning is released on 30 September

Every Record I Own - Day 559: Heroin s/t

I just finished reading Mutations: The Many Strange Faces of Hardcore Punk by vocalist / label owner / writer Sam McPheeters. Sam is eight years older than me, and his tenure in his most well-known band, Born Against, ended three months before I’d join my first hardcore band. Sam spends a sizable chunk of Mutations talking about the generation of hardcore that preceded him, how it was more dangerous, more pioneering, and on some level, more vital. This is how hardcore works. Hell, it’s how all art works. Reverence is held for your elders, respect is held for your peers, and either a paternal nurturing or big brother eye-roll is doled out to the next generation. 

Sam talks about Cro-Mags and SSD the way I’d talk about bands like Born Against or Heroin. While the 6-song 15-minute “full-length” from Heroin isn’t quite as crucial as their iconic 7″ that came packaged in a silk-screened paper lunch bag, it’s still a touchstone for what has come to be called “screamo” (barf) and what I usually designate as ‘90s DIY hardcore (as opposed to the more moshy, traditional ‘90s hardcore peddled by labels like Victory, New Age, Revelation, etc.). I listened to Heroin for the first time in at least a decade a few days ago, and while I don’t find it as gripping as some of the later releases on Gravity Records (the label run by Heroin vocalist Matt Anderson), it still conjures the power and mystique it held when I first heard it sometime back in ‘93 or ‘94.

Here’s where I sound like the cynical old guy: by the time this music was branded “screamo,” the descendants of this sound had already sucked all of the marrow out it. Heroin is sloppy---the songs are played a little faster than the band members seem able to navigate. Some of the drum fills don’t quite land right. The guitar playing is abrasive despite the fact that a lot of the actual riffs are fairly tuneful, mostly because every strum sounds like it was executed with the precision of a Pete Townsend-style windmill. The microphone only seems to capture half of the vocals. Apparently there was no compression in the studio to smooth out the singer’s delivery. But all these technical shortcomings make the recording seem alive. It feels like an actual document of a full-band performance instead of a carefully orchestrated and meticulously constructed idealized version of the band’s sound. It may be extremely rough around the edges, but it actually conveys the chaos that so many bands that followed in Heroin’s wake tried and ultimately failed to replicate.

This isn’t to say that there weren’t great chaotic hardcore bands that came later---Blood Brothers were a prime example of a band that built off the Gravity sound, but they managed to evolve and expand into new exciting territories, whereas a lot of self-identifying screamo bands sounded forever conflicted about not playing their instruments with arena-rock accuracy. It usually resulted in music that sounded constrained on the instrumental front while the chaos angle was covered by an unnecessarily petulant and screechy vocalist. Maybe the younger crowd enjoyed this duality, but it never worked for me. Coincidentally, this LP was purchased from the original Blood Brothers’ guitarist Devin Welch at one of his last shows with the band, where he was apparently selling off all of his ‘90s DIY hardcore records before making the jump to the no-wave and post-punk sounds of Soiled Doves/The Vogue and early Chromatics. It was probably around ‘99 and I’d always had a housemate with this LP, and suddenly I was living in a household without a copy, so I had to fill out my library.

If I have a gripe with Sam’s book it’s that he makes it clear early on that he no longer follows hardcore, no longer takes pride in his bands, and no longer listens to any new music of any kind. It seems a little odd to write a whole book about your time participating in a subculture and defending it from opportunists only to condemn it and market your complaints to the people that continue to care about your musical contributions. I don’t expect a fifty year old man to be invested in hardcore, but writing a 260 page book on the subject isn’t an act of apathy. On some level I understand Sam’s predicament here: punk music is introduced to us in our formative years, and its participatory nature often serves as a young adult’s first dive into civic engagement. It’s a powerful thing that forms our identity, but it’s also steeped in a black-and-white view of the world and an admittedly rudimentary approach to art. To continue to champion hardcore into old age comes across a bit like arrested development. 

I never got to see Born Against and my interaction with Sam is limited to one show in Roseburg, OR back in 1998 where Botch, Sam’s band Men’s Recovery Project, Thrones, and Behead the Prophet! No Lord Shall Live shared a bill. Sam was dressed in full colonial garb (including powdered wig) as Patrick Henry. While I’m not sure I actually enjoyed Men’s Recovery Projects’ strange combo of performance art, Throbbing Gristle’s industrial clamor, and Devo-esque angularity, I certainly haven’t forgotten it. And ultimately I wish that artists like Sam and Heroin’s Matt Anderson continued to make new music, to continue being the older brother showing the kids how it’s done. 

Crate Digger’s Corner: 3/6/19 Adrian Belew live at the Fine Line; Minneapolis, MN

Crate Digger’s Corner…by DJ Musically Rich

If you are Frank Zappa, David Byrne, Robert Fripp, David Bowie, Trent Reznor or a host of others and need a guitarist to round out your album and/or touring band there is one name that has shared time with all…Adrian Belew. At the Fine Line Music Café Adrian Belew took the stage as the leader of his own quartet and as the frigid Minnesota temperatures fell outside, he heated up the several hundred in attendance on the early March evening.

I arrived with two friends and we came in on the tail end of the first song, but he quickly shifted into his second song on what would become a (welcome) recurring theme of the night. He played the title track to the 2002 King Crimson EP “Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With”. I don’t own an extensive amount of his solo albums. I am definitely not familiar with his newer material, although, from what I have wandered across today, he headed a power trio (maybe actually named that) for an extended period. I mention this, one, because I cannot give you the titles of a lot of the songs they played. Two, I was definitely unfamiliar with some of the songs as well. One solo song that I knew and knew the name of was ‘Men In Helicopters’. It’s a thoughtful song about the toll that man puts on the earth’s resources.  His band consisted of himself on guitar, a bass player, drummer and a second guitarist/multi-instrumentalist. He did a short set with just the power trio (I’m assuming all of the songs came from that era as well), and that was part of the highlight of the night. When stripped down to a three piece, it was fun to hear them and it felt a little more aggressive (note this was just the 8th show with the multi-instrumentalist, and he mentioned that the other two had been part of the trio, so I think with some more time that will help with the cohesion of the quartet. That being said I had absolutely no issue with the play of the quartet, either). He also played ‘Troubles’ from the album “Side Three”. That was the third of three experimental albums he released featuring him solo on the second album (with a few miscellaneous musicians, and with Les Claypool (Primus, Frog Brigade, Oysterhead) and Danny Carey (Tool) along with the few other musicians on the first and third albums.

Throughout the show, besides revisiting lots of snippets of Crimson licks within solos, he also had that recurring theme, which was playing King Crimson songs that he had been a part of during his time with that group, which spanned over two decades. Along with the one that was already mentioned, he played two in a row, the blistering, angular ‘Frame by Frame’ and ‘Neal And Jack And Me’, which is a bit gentler in sound (both from the early 80′s). He also ripped through a version of ‘Three Of A Perfect Pair’. His final song, which had tons of looping and effects (maybe off of “Twang Bar King”, one of those I know but can’t pinpoint)  was a great workout and afterwards many in attendance left, and admittedly, he made it sound like the last song of the set should be expected as an encore as well (I felt). They also turned up the house lights which is usually a sign of no more music. Then, he came back, and all that were still in the building gathered back into the center of the room as the band came back and played an absolutely wonderful, menacing ‘Thela Hun Ginjeet’ for the final song, also a Crimson tune.

His band was on fire. Adrian was on fire. If you are into guitarists who are complete masters of their craft, Adrian Belew is still at the top of his game. At 69 years of age, his voice isn’t quite what it used to be, but I don’t imagine that there was anyone left disappointed because of that. I would say, as if it wasn’t implied already, is that it feels a little like he’s putting together a band to resemble the ‘80s Crimson band he started with. If that’s the case, and even if it isn’t, what matters is that it is working. You won’t see many more talented. They are obviously enjoying themselves, and most obviously, the crowd had a great time. If Adrian Belew is headed to your town on this tour, and it is still in its beginnings, get out there and catch the show.

Some of the many albums he shows up on (for other artists or as part of a band) [obviously all recommended]:  The Bears- s/t, David Bowie- Stage, David Bowie- Welcome To The Blackout, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones- Outbound, King Crimson- Discipline, Cyndi Lauper- True Colors, Nine Inch Nails- The Downward Spiral, NIN- The Fragile, NIN- Hesitation Marks, Porcupine Tree- Deadwing, Paul Simon- Graceland, Paul Simon- The Rhythm Of The Saints, Talking Heads- Remain In Light, Tori Amos- Strange Little Girls, Frank Zappa- Sheik Yerbouti

A few recommendations from his catalog: “Twang Bar King”, “Young Lions”, “Inner Revolution”, “Side Three”

To see photos of albums in my collection follow me at djmusicallyrich on IG.

Here is a clip from a live show of his from a few years ago...

USA: Wolfgang Muthspiel Trio Feat. Scott Colley, Brian Blade - ECM Release and US Tour Upcoming!

Wolfgang Muthspiel, whom The New Yorker has called "a shining light" among today's jazz guitarists, returns to the trio format with Angular Blues, his fourth ECM album as a leader, following two acclaimed quintet releases and his trio debut. Like Driftwood - the 2014 trio disc that JazzTimes dubbed "cinematic" and "haunting" - Angular Blues finds the Austrian guitarist paired with long-time collaborator Brian Blade on drums; but instead of Larry Grenadier on bass, this time it's Scott Colley, whose especially earthy sound helps imbue this trio with its own dynamic. Muthspiel plays acoustic guitar on three of the album's tracks and electric on six more. Along with his characteristically melodic originals - including such highlights as the bucolic "Hüttengriffe" and pensive "Camino" - he essays the first standards of his ECM tenure ("Everything I Love" and "I'll Remember April"), as well as his first-ever bebop rhythm-changes tune on record ("Ride"). Angular Blues also features a single guitar-only track, "Solo Kanon in 5/4," with Muthspiel's electronic delay imbuing the baroque-like rounds with a hypnotic glow. Muthspiel, Colley and Blade recorded Angular Blues in Tokyo's Studio Dede after a three-night run at the city's Cotton Club. The album was mixed with Manfred Eicher in the South of France at Studios La Buissonne, where Muthspiel had recorded his two previous ECM albums, Rising Grace and Where the River Goes (both of which featured pianist Brad Mehldau and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire). Each of the groups that Muthspiel has put together for his ECM recordings has had a special rapport. About his new trio, the guitarist says: "Scott and Brian share my love of song, while at the same time there is constant musical conversation about these songs." The Louisiana-born Blade has been a member of the Wayne Shorter Quartet since 2000, along with recording with artists from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Daniel Lanois and Norah Jones to Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Joshua Redman. Since the mid-'90s, Blade has also co-led the gospel-infused Fellowship Band. Regarding the subtly virtuoso drummer, Muthspiel says: "Brian is famous for his sound and touch, that floating way of playing, how he creates intensity with relatively low volume. It's also a great pleasure for me to witness how sensitively Brian reacts in his playing to whether I play acoustic or electric guitar. I've done a lot of concerts and productions with him over the years, including in our guitar-drums duo, Friendly Travelers, as well as on Driftwood and Rising Grace. He always offers complete interaction and initiative, as well as his individual sound. To play uptempo swing on something like ‘Ride' with Brian was really luxurious, a gift." After being mentored by Charlie Haden, Colley was the bassist of choice for such jazz legends as Jim Hall, Andrew Hill, Michael Brecker, Carmen McRae and Bobby Hutcherson, along with appearing on albums by Herbie Hancock, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Chris Potter and Julian Lage. Colley, a native of Los Angeles, has released eight albums as a leader. "Scott and Brian have also played a lot together over the past few years, so they know each other well," Muthspiel notes. "I performed with Scott in New York in the '90s, and I've always felt that he was an extremely giving musician, who - with his warm tone and his flexible, dancing rhythm - simultaneously animated and supported the music. I wrote the bass melody of the new album's first tune, ‘Wondering,' especially for him. His sound develops a flow and harmonic movement that is inviting to play on." After "Wondering" - which includes extended soloing by Colley that embroiders on Muthspiel's melody beautifully - comes the album's title song, the highly trio-interactive "Angular Blues," so titled for its "rhythmic modulations and strange breaks," the guitarist explains. "Somehow Chick Corea's album Three Quartets was an association, but so was Thelonious Monk." Those first two tracks, as well as the album's third, "Hüttengriffe," feature Muthspiel on acoustic guitar, his sound on the instrument both warm and extraordinarily fluent. After that - on "Camino," "Ride," "Everything I Love," "Kanon in 6/8," "Solo Kanon in 5/4" and "I'll Remember April" - he plays electric. Muthspiel's ever-liquid electric phrasing buoys both an emotionally rich original such as "Camino" and the two different turns on his kaleidoscopic "Kanon," the trio version in 6/8 and the solo, mostly improvised rendition in 5/4. About his first-time inclusion of jazz standards on one of his ECM albums, Muthspiel says: "I was inspired to record standards with this trio because everything about the way the group plays feels so free, open and far from preconceived ideas, but at the crucial moment a jazz language is spoken, what we do does justice to these tunes. I learned ‘Everything I Love,' the Cole Porter song, from an early Keith Jarrett album, and I first came to know ‘I'll Remember April' from a Frank Sinatra recording. In that latter song, I hardly play solo. It's more about the head and the vamp-like atmosphere that prevails from the start and is savored again in the end. As in many moments with this trio, it's about playing with space: leaving it, creating it, filling it." TRACKS 1. Wondering 7:20 2. Angular Blues 5:55 3. Hüttengriffe 5:15 4. Camino 7:42 5. Ride 3:50 6. Everything I Love 6:52 7. Kanon in 6/8 7:41 8. Solo Kanon in 5/4 3:34 9. I'll Remember April 5:40 PERSONNEL Wolfgang Muthspiel - guitar Scott Colley - double bass Brian Blade - drums Wolfgang Muthspiel, Scott Colley and Brian Blade on tour: April 14-15 New York, NY Jazz Standard April 16 Cambridge, MA Regattabar  April 17-18 Los Angeles, CA Blue Whale April 19 Berkeley, CA Freight and Salvage April 20 Santa Cruz, CA Kuumbwa Jazz RELEASE DATE ANGULAR BLUES: MARCH 20, 2020 via Blogger https://ift.tt/2VwDiUN

Review: St. Vincent @ The Anthem

St. Vincent’s music finds a way to mix playfulness, humor, heartbreak, cultural commentary, and sadness: all of which were on display during her Fear The Future tour at D.C.’s newest venue, The Anthem. 

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, took the stage alone after a screening of her recent short horror film The Birthday Party, and launched into a retrospective of her career, beginning with the satirical ballad “Marry Me,” from her 2008 debut of the same name.  

Playing solo seemed almost a subversive move after her highly choreographed full band tour in 2015. 

This move centered Clark as the master of her own vision, subverting the image of a female singer-songwriter with guitar by blasting pounding, dance oriented backing tracks. Clark could more than carry the songs without a live band, as her voice cut clearly through the Anthem, but the recorded tracks lacked the layers and subtlety which gives songs like “Strange Mercy” and “Cheerleader” a quirky, endearing feel.

Clark is an accomplished guitarist with a distinctive style, and she wielded her selection of custom angular Music Man guitars as extension of her slight frame. Her guitars howled, groaned, and screamed throughout the night, serving to accentuate the vocal lines of single “Cruel,” from her 2011 album Strange Mercy, and ripping through a scorching extended solo on “Rattlesnake,” which left the crowd more confused than energized.

The show hit its stride when Clark returned to the stage after a short break to play her latest album, the pop-influenced Masseduction, in its entirety. The curtains drew back to reveal a massive screen playing arty videos of Clark against garish, neon backgrounds, while Clark ditched her pink thigh high boots and leotard for a silver outfit. 

Throughout the set, Clark’s wide, expressive eyes both pulled the audience in and kept us at arm’s length. It was hard to tell if what we were seeing was quite real, or how much was real to her. The only real break in this production designed artifice occurred during the ballad “New York,” which she dedicated to “Christina.”

Clark’s onstage combination of vulnerability and artifice highlighted how deeply full of despair Masseduction really is: “Pills” and “Los Ageless” are drenched in self-medication and West Coast heartbreak, while the four on the floor pounding of “Young Lover” belies its lyrics beseeching a partner to wake up from an overdose - and also drew the largest cheers of the night when her voice soared to an impossibly high note.

Clark ended the evening with a wink at the end of the closing track “Smoking Section,” and told the audience not to “fear the future.” But overall, Clark left little indication of her vision of the future, unless it’s filled with neon stylized horror and thigh high plastic boots. It's up to us to figure it all out.

Setlist:

Marry Me

Now, Now

The Strangers

Actor Out of Work

Cruel

Cheerleader

Strange Mercy

Digital Witness

Rattlesnake

Birth In Reverse

Hang On Me

Pills

Masseduction

Sugar Boy

Los Ageless

Happy Birthday, Johnny

Savior

New York

Fear The Future

Young Lover

Dancing With a Ghost

Slow Disco

Smoking Section

Written by Delightfully Depressing DJ Leah Bush

Photos by Leah Bush