NEW MUSIC FROM THE REDBLOODS

We love to hear bands that rock, and The Redbloods out of Huntington is one of our favorite new(er) bands.

"The Art of Falling Apart" is now up on their MySpace page, so check the Neil Young-sounding rock number, and check out "Ohio" while yer there too...

THE RED VELVET CD RELEASE 5.3

In case you don't hear about it anywhere else, The Red Velvet is releasing their new CD "Lights Won't Go Out" Saturday night at The V Club in Huntington.

We got hooked up with an advance copy of the 15-song effort, and love it. Look for more on the CD and the band, just a quick heads up!

CD REVIEW: Maximum Headlessness "Songs To Sleep To"

CD: Songs To Sleep To
ARTIST: Maximum Headlessness

Who'd have thought that the worst-named CD of 2008 would have "The Last Great Album Cover" on it? If you can sleep to the industrial-tinged and overdriven electropunk stylings of Jett Bailes' guitar and sample-based bursts of rock, you:

A. Have a severe form of Narcolepsy, no big deal...
B. Are in a persistive vegetative state (that's not funny)...
C. Suffer from death...call the Law Offices of Danny Cline...

The cover of the CD pulls you into Bailes' insane motel world; he's taken the available technology and made something by himself that few bands would ever do, winning originality points. Seriously; how to describe the 15-song (listed) effort of some of Bailes' older stuff, plus some of the new?

It's like falling asleep watching TV, and dreaming of starting a band with Trent Reznor, Gibby Haynes, and maybe Beck, all of whom may have been on "Trioxin 245", or at least Marijuana, at the time.

As Bailes comes on on the remedially-named nihilistic thrash 808-blipped number "ABCD" he screams "What do you care what I say anyway?" Is it ironic or rhetorical? Most of the talking on the songs are samples -- it's a veritable cavalcade of celebrity samples on display on the tracks. You have (to name but a few):

Jack Nicholson as the POTUSA in "Mars Attacks"
Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
Don Knotts, and
Biff from "Back To The Future"

Aside from letting the samples do the talking, Bailes' original lyrics seem like broken-hearted back-handed crack speak.

"Lesbian Surf Nazis" along with "Scroobles" and "Grunge Is Dead" seem to have the coolest guitar-driven sound. Compared to the more synth-based material with the more ridiculous sounding vocals, these types of nuggets stand out.

"Ghost Pains/The Sickening" is a slowly-building good example of Bailes' more experimental synth side, maybe. I don't know what he wants to do with his sound -- neither do you, and that's what makes it cool.

Bailes, having left behind his band-related involvement in I Am Ahab, has been pursuing this Maximum Headlessness (now solo) thing, and it rocks. If I'd have bought this CD, I would be satisfied.

For the closer, we get to hear "The Last Great Album Cover" by Billy and the Floating Eyeball of Doom; a mandolin-soaked ode to the LP and their "psychadelic landscapes" and an anti-movie star mp3 ringtone polemic. For me the song sews the CD up quite nicely. And, it shows that regardless of your feelings about the state of rock, Bailes has taken technology and done something way more DIY than most of you will ever do. Listening to him rock the fader on the samples, the vocal layerings, and the miscellaneous synth noise in general gives you a kind of sight -- you should listen to the CD (remastered by Russ Fox) with headphones on.

The only thing that sucks about Maximum Headlessness is that there are no shows. Kudos to Bailes though -- he's done something totally unique, and it rocks.

Check out the WVRockscene Q&A with Jett Bailes here.

A visit with Vincent Renfield

We caught up with Renfields frontman Vincent Renfield (above) over e-mail after their show at Paradox Rift with The Concept, opening for Michale Graves. Below is an excerpt of a brief back-and-forth...

"Just saw an amazing French horror film called Inside!!! You have to check it out man!!!!! The most brutal film! Ha!

Lots of band news -- most importantly we are not breaking up, somehow that is a rumor that has been going around. We are parting ways with a few members; our bassist and organ player played their last show with us on the 18th. It was one of those situations where we had to choose between keeping friends in the band and progressing the way we wanted to. We have a new organ player lined up and are still looking for a bassist who fits our style a little better in terms of picking and vocal style.

We actually have an entire album completed but plan on re-recording the bass and keys when everything is sorted out, so it's on hold for the moment. We are going back into the studio to re-record all of the songs from "The Night They Came Home!" We have already done so with "Prom Night" and "Machete a Go-Go"

I think it's time for the Renfields to bring things up a notch. I think our our first show back will be in July, until then Herbert and I are doing a three man side project called The Jasons with the intent of bringing back that too tough to die Ramones style of punk rock: leather jackets, snotty vocals, stupid lyrics, all with a horror theme of course HA!.

Our first show is at the Concept's CD release party on May 31st. We're going to release a 5-song EP at that show but it will be free as will all of our releases with this band. It's more about fun and so we don't want to turn it into a business.

Anyway, thanks for keeping up with us! I really appreciate everything you've done to get our name out there!"

APOS/Unlikely Japan 4.17 @ the Glass

Cool Thursday show with A Place of Solace and Unlikely Japan, FYI

New music from The Red Velvet!

Hey if you like The Red Velvet as much as us you'll be stoked to hear they've just uploaded some new tunes off their upcoming release "Lights Won't Go Out" onto their MySpace profile.

Yes, it sucks that they're not coming to the Glass this Friday. Whatever.

You can hear "Above The Clouds" and "Chasing The Sun" on their profile. Look for the CD and look for something special on the band soon...

Byzantine's Chris Ojeda interview w/WV Public Radio

West Virginia Public Broadcasting's Anna Sale caught up with OJ of Byzantine on the air Monday. Obviously the band is no more, and you can be sure that comes up...

Listen to the mp3 of the chat here.

Castle Brownskull: They try harder

If this sounds like a commercial for a car rental company, it's only because the guys at Castle Brownskull in Huntington really do try harder.

Not only do they run a studio and make CDs and all that. They'll bring their (brown?) van out to YOU, pick your band up (so you can party on the way, or, be straight edge if that's your thing), and then record your live set and turn it into a CD for you. Pretty cool.

The studio is run by Dig-Its guitarist Paul Weaver; "Before the dawn" Chris will come and pick you up in the Brownskull van (for a fee, of course) and "Black" Josh will record the show for you.

If you're out that way and this sounds good to you, holler at these guys. And look out for a lawsuit from Skeletor's intellectual copyright lawyers.

UPDATE: Castle Brownskull clarification

In our effort to bring you news on cool stuff related to local music, we may have misinterpreted a section of the Castle Brownskull MySpace page. We got a lil nugg dropped off in the ol' inbox by Paul Weaver, who runs Brownskull...

Castle Brownskull is in no way affiliated with any of the people or services listed there. I just started that section of the page just as a way to help bands meet their needs locally.

Castle Brownskull is a one-man operation. I built a recording studio in what was the dining room of my home and record bands for free when I'm not at my real job. The studio was started as a reaction to my discontent with most local music.

Rather than just gripe about it I decided to do something to give the few quality bands and musicians a helping hand.

Marinelli Mux it up

Morgantown's one-man phenomenon J Marinelli is at once the source of all things cool; old and, now, new.

He's put together 12 songs on a mixtape, well the site is called Muxtape.com. When we read his MySpace bulletin about it we thought he had misspelled mixtape.

The "I" is tucked right up there beside the "U" so we thought he was typing fast. Turns out we were wrong and Marinelli was right. Always defer to Marinelli...

WestbyGod needs help, by God...

We keep tabs on several hard rockin' West Virginia bands, and Morgantown's Clutch-esque rockers WestbyGod are in the market for:

(1) a second guitarist, and
(2) a new drummer

Here's an excerpt from a MySpace bulletin of theirs:

Due to some extenuating circumstances with our newly recruited drummer, we are once again in the market for a DEDICATED drummer that wants to be busy immediately and committed to the cause...

If you are interested in auditioning please let us know, and start practicing the songs on the webpage asap. There are big things on the horizon, who among you will step up?

Wanna be in a cool band and (3) maybe run some moonshine down here to us?
Contact the guys and make it happen...

VIDEO: More Pistol Whippers footage!