WVRockscene will be hosting ticket sales and promoting Henry Rollins’ 10.23 “Capitalism” show in Charleston. Rollins is traveling the U.S., hitting all 50 state capitals for spoken word shows in advance of the November presidential election.
Check out the PRESS RELEASE below for details...
Henry Rollins hits the campaign trail this fall for a two-month tour hitting all 50 state capitals -- starting September 6 at Hawaiian Brian’s in Honolulu, HI -- and wrapping up on the eve of the Presidential election at the 9:30 Club in the nation’s capital.
Titled “Capitalism,” Henry’s latest talking tour offers not so much a voting guide as an outside viewpoint -- and an unflinching quest for truth that’s sadly lacking in the profit-driven American mass media.
“I will be performing across our fine nation, doing shows in the capital city of each state. We will be going all the way up to election eve,” says Henry. “It’s always a great time to be in America, but this will be the highpoint of this year’s tour. Shepard Fairey did a great poster for the tour to make it extra noteworthy. I can’t wait to start this one.”
On “Capitalism,” Henry will continue to dish anecdotes gleaned and perspective gained from the road less traveled -- sharing experiences that include recent visits to North Korea, Mongolia, Bhutan, Vietnam, India, Tibet, Sudan, Uganda, Haiti and Cuba. And in the spirit of the season, of course, expect both pointed commentary and wry observations about the American democratic process as it unfolds.
Tickets for “Capitalism” go on sale Friday, June 29. Check with local venues for full ticket information.
Parkersburg-based John Radcliff (above) has opened his doors for his 816 Quincy Street Concert Series.
We think house shows are cool, lotta people do. It’s not everyone, though, who will let strangers walk into their house for a few hours. Who can't envision some totally awesome scenario where everyone just goes nuts and trashes the place?
Parkersburg-based musician John Radcliff doesn't care. Well, we're sure he cares, he just trusts people and wants to put on cool shows by any means. He's been hosting some neat looking house shows at his 816 Quincy Street Concert Series.
And he’s got one lined up tonite, as he welcomes The Kernal, Mechanical River (Joel T. Hamilton) and Andrew Combs (and you, if yer up there) into his residence.
We caught up with Radcliff to see what possessed him to host house shows…
WVRockscene: House shows seem to have been a weird mix of popular yet underutilized. You see some around here but you might think there'd be more. When did you decide to welcome musicians and strangers off the street into your home for this Quincy Hill House Concert Series?
John Radcliff: I started hosting shows in 2007. I came across Kevin Montgomery on Myspace and really enjoyed his music. I got to reading about him and this thing he does called, the 50 States in 50 Days tour. I had been hosting songwriter parties for a couple years and thought I could host a musician for a concert just as easily. I wasn't really planning on making it a continuing thing until I started getting emails from other artist wanting to know if they could play at my house. Pretty soon, I found myself looking at touring schedules for acts I really liked and trying to fit house concerts in the holes in their touring schedule.
Success with the first few shows made me want to keep on doing it.
I find that the strangers that show up are usually some of the most interesting people I meet. There is a certain amount of apprehension about letting people into my house. But your realize pretty quickly that those are the people that really love music. Since Parkersburg isn't a really big town, I think guests really appreciate the quality of the artists that play at my house. Because otherwise, we don't attract that level of performer to the area. Since I started, there have been a couple bars that have started going after these kind of acts. And that is really refreshing, because the whole Mid-Ohio Valley wins, and I like to think it has made the music scene around Parkersburg that much better.
----- rockscene: Obviously for the most part bands play bars. While playing out like that is still cool, what are some of the pros of house shows versus playing at a bar (time/cost/atmosphere) and some of the cons as it relates to hosting something like these?
Radcliff: The best part is that seeing an act at a house concert really is the best way to see them. Most of the crowd are there to hear the music, and you don't get the noise and distractions you would at a bar or a large venue. It's intimate and you can actually sit down and talk with the performers in a casual setting after the show. I'm lucky that I have really cool neighbors that don't mind the extra noise or traffic. My reward is the two hours of incredible music and the looks on people's faces when they understand how right I was about the uniqueness and fun of house concerts. The con is cleaning up the next day.
----- rockscene: As it relates to the pros, what's the response been from the musicians and even attendees who've come to 816 Quincy Street for a show?
Radcliff: While I haven't toured extensively myself, I've slept on enough floors and back seats of cars to know how great it is to have a comfortable place to sleep and a warm meal. Besides hosting the shows, I have the room to let the acts stay the night. I try to make them as comfortable as possible before they head back out on the road. I think that goes a long way. First time house concert goers are the best. I know it was an eye opener for me at my first show I hosted. Most shows are $10 a head and I think people are apprehensive about laying down that kind of cash. But once they step through the door and commit to it, I think they feel the same way I do.
----- rockscene: You live in Parkersburg, right? I've heard of one or two places to play up there but do you see what you're doing here as something as an asset to the town?
Radcliff: Absolutely. The Adelphia Music Hall and Marietta Brewing Company have been great about bringing music to the area. But when I started hosting shows, there wasn't hardly anywhere to go see good music. I've lived here since 2003, so I'm probably not the best resource. But for what I wanted to listen to, there wasn't anything. I knew there were people in the area that would enjoy these types of shows. A lot of them came to my songwriter parties. But you know there have to be more people that are interested. It really works for both the artist and the area. It leads to bigger things, as well.
There is another house concert host in Parkersburg, Steve Tuck, that put together a really nice festival to raise money for The Children's Home Society. Steve is an absolute saint, and we're joining up to bring Kevin Montgomery back September 24th. It's really neat, because Kevin's 50 State in 50 Days tour is about raising awareness about foster children that age out of care. It's so closely related to what Steve does, it's like the perfect storm. But in a really good way.
----- rockscene: You've signed up for this "Concert in Your House" thing, how much is that going to help with promotions etc.?
Radcliff: I literally just signed up last week. I've received two emails from artist wanting to play here in the fall. So I would expect the more I work with acts through CIYH, the better it will work for me. Probably a lot more exposure. I think they'll enjoy Parkersburg too!
----- rockscene: Does being a musician (again, the pros and cons) give you an insight others might not have when it comes to booking these shows and convincing these musicians to come to your house and play?
Radcliff: I'm sure they like that I have a PA set up and ready to go when they arrive. I try to be reasonable and work with them any way I can. I think that comes from being a musician and knowing how much easier it is to put on a good show when your mind isn't clouded with other things. As far as booking, I have pulled from that network a few times to get acts here. I'm sure there's a certain amount of trust in knowing you're working with someone who really cares about music.
----- rockscene: You most recently released "Naked Souls" -- what's up with any recording or other highlights you're looking forward to the rest of 2012?
Radcliff: I have Haggard Wulf from Morgantown coming July 21st and Chris Bathgate August 27th. As far as my music, I'm doing a project called Demolicious. It's the songs I've written recently that I maybe want to record. So I've made demos of six of them so far. When I get to a point where I'm ready to choose and do make the next CD, it'll be fun to look back on them. I've also tried to video tape myself the day or the next after I write the song. So I'll have three layers to all the ones that make the final cut. It'll be fun to have that all out there to see the evolution of the songs. They are all on my Youtube site. There's also a few videos of the house concerts I've had. But I'm in the middle of editing a lot of them out and posting. So it's kind of thin right now.
----- rockscene: You've got Shovels and Rope booked for September? Radcliff: Yes!!!!!! The day after Labor Day, September 4th. It's funny because I landed the three acts that will be here Wednesday night through the booking agent for Shovels and Rope. It was a last minute thing, but when I listened to them I was just like, "Hell Yeah!" I saw Shovels and Rope at the Nelsonville Music Festival and really thought it would be a long shot at best. But I ended up getting two incredible shows out of it. I'm really thankful you're taking the time to ask me about it and pass it on. It's just too good to keep a secret. Thank you!
John Radcliff 816 Quincy Street Concert Series
WED 6.27
The Kernal, Mechanical River (Joel T. Hamilton) and Andrew Combs
816 Quincy St., Parkersburg
8 p.m.
$10 suggested donation
Facebook event page? Here.
Lucero (L-R: Rick Steff, Brian Venable, Ben Nichols, Todd Beene, Roy Berry, John C. Stubblefield) performs at The V Club Tuesday night as part of its Summer “Women & Work” tour.
Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Given the very rich rock and roll history Memphis, Tennessee has, it wouldn’t surprise anyone that the critically acclaimed alt-country band Lucero was influenced by it, in ways both subtle, and overt.
What may surprise some is the music they bonded over before forming 14 years ago.
“For us as a band, we all grew up punks, and we all met at punk rock shows,” guitarist Brian Venable said over the phone from Carrboro, North Carolina, where Lucero kicked off its Summer “Women & Work” tour.
“When you’re young, you might not realize where you’re from,” he added. “Everyone wants to go somewhere else, to get out. We were trying to do something different.”
Lucero performs at The V Club Tuesday night with Houston-based country rocker Robert Ellis, who was just nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year by the Americana Music Association.
“Women & Work,” Lucero’s eighth studio release, finds the band embracing its Memphis roots; a bigger, more soulful sound, with horns, steel guitar, and piano/organ. Lucero also recently played with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra’s Opus One musician series, and in May, recorded some songs for the PBS-syndicated Sun Studio Sessions.
“Just being from Memphis, playing with the musicians and knowing the people and the history and recordings, you realize you’re a Memphis musician, and there’s a lot to be said about that,” Venable said.
Released on ATO Records, (home to Drive-By Truckers and My Morning Jacket) a lot of positive things have been said about “Women & Work” since its March release. The record, a raucous soundtrack to a bar-based weekend, with some gospel nods (hear the female chorus on “Go Easy”) thrown in, has received praise from Rolling Stone and The New York Times (among others) and that’s cool, Venable said, if a little unreal.
“It’s one of those things where it kind of doesn’t seem real. But it doesn’t affect our day-to-day touring. It’s also something that your grandparents and people like that, you can go, ‘Look, the New York Times likes us.’ They all know what The New York Times is. It’s like getting your records into a Best Buy or a Wal-Mart. Your relatives are like ‘Oh, you’re a big deal,’” Venable said with a laugh. “Sure.”
But Lucero is a big deal to their fans. That the hard livin’, hard lovin’ songs singer-guitarist Ben Nichols and crew come up with means so much to the fans, means that much more to the band.
“That’s the awesome thing,” Venable said of the love Lucero is constantly shown by its fans. “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. We’re so busy making music and living day to day, and you get people who come up and are like ‘Your music got me through a divorce,’ or ‘We’re getting married to your music.’
“Music means a lot to a lot of people, but sometimes as a musician you miss out on the importance of it to people. I mean, I have favorite bands, but it never occurred to me that my band would be someone’s favorite band until they came up and told me.”
The long, winding musical path Lucero finds itself on? Venable said the journey is the destination.
“We’ve been really lucky being a band for 14 years, to be able to stretch our legs, so to speak, creatively, where a lot of bands if they break up after six or eight years, they might not get to try it like we have.
“It’s just one of those things,” he added. “None of us have real job-qualified educations. The joke is we’re too dumb and too uneducated to do anything else. We’re lucky enough to play music for a living, so we’re going to run with it as long as we can.”
IF YOU GO
Lucero w/Robert Ellis WHERE: The V Club, 741 6th Ave. WHEN: 9:30 p.m. Tuesday COST: $18 INFO:www.vclublive.com or (304) 781-0680 ONLINE:www.luceromusic.com/
It’s always cool to see new bands form, ‘specially when they’re made up of cool dudes we’ve talked to in the past. Such is the case with Bishops, which grew out of Tucker Riggleman (The Demon Beat/Prison Book Club) recording some solo stuff with Paul Cogle (Nagato/Vox Populi).
Fast forward a few months, and after adding drummer Andrew Ford and pulling guitarist Adam Meisterhans (The Demon Beat/PBC/Rozwell Kid) in, Bishops is releasing a full-length in July and heading out on tour.
We caught up with Riggleman and Cogle to learn more and talk about some rock songs…
WVRockscene: The first Bishops full band show was June 10? How did that go?
Paul Cogle: The first band show went great! Loved playing the “Ice Breaker” in front of all our friends.
Tucker Riggleman: It was definitely a lot of fun. Everyone was real attentive and had nice things to say. It’s only gonna get better from here.
----- rockscene: You’re set to release the full-length real soon right?
Cogle: Yes, it’s recorded and we are in the mixing stage. It’s got a sound all it’s own – Trashy Garage Rock, Dream POP/Shoe Gaze and just down right Rock at times.
Riggleman: Yup, and it’s sounding way bigger than I ever expected. Everyone really brought their best. It definitely doesn’t really sound like anything else I’ve ever done. People keep asking me ‘What kind of band is Bishops?’ and I never have an answer. We have some songs that are pulled back and soaked in reverb, and that might be followed by a raved up, almost punk sounding song. It covers a lot of ground, but somehow still makes sense that it’s coming from the same band.
----- rockscene: Tucker you’d previously done solo stuff, still write in PBC, but played the MACRoCk solo Bishops set, how & when did this collaboration with Paul come about out of your own writing? Did you two say ‘Let’s start a band!’ at any point?
Cogle: I’ve been bugging Tucker for a few years about doing some recordings for either PBC or the Demon Beat and schedules had never worked, out but last fall we talked (about a side project) he’d like to record and wanted to know if I’d be involved. I jumped at the chance. It’s been a really good time!
Riggleman: I’ve been writing songs pretty frequently since I was about 16 years old. Once I got to college I had the opportunity to do some solo shows and travel around a bit with that, but I was never really satisfied with the representation of the songs. Everything I write has more of a “full-band” feel to it in my head.
Paul is a great guy and is very active in the West Virginia music scene.
I was finally able to find the time to go check out his studio in Falling Waters in early 2012 and cut some acoustic demos of a bunch of songs I had recently written. Once we got Andrew in there and plugged in the amps it all just felt pretty perfect. I was finally hearing the songs the way I had heard them in my head all of those years.
----- rockscene: Paul I thought I’d seen a Nagato show mentioned online not too long ago, what’s it like being in a band like Bishops with Tucker, something so different than Nagato?
Cogle: I’m a real music junky and love playing as many styles and with as many different people as possible (this is how I grow). Bishops and Nagato are so far apart but still, all a part of me.
----- rockscene: Paul, what’s up with Nagato, you gonna do another EP or anything? Still playing shows obviously right?
Cogle: Yep, still playing shows and getting ready to record a full length. Been a lot of challenges in “Nagatoland” but all is well. Greg Ball (also in Hovel) now lives back in Morgantown so there are a few schedule challenges but we do get together every few months.
----- rockscene: Tucker not to get too personal or specific but just looking at stuff you’d said on Facebook about life sucking in general, and then you have the lyrics on “I Wanna Marry Rock and Roll,” -- “Everything sucks don't you think I know/Tomorrow's gonna suck, just let it go.” But now the obvious question how cathartic is it now to have this band for you?
Riggleman: It is very cathartic. I think everyone needs that outlet. The Demon Beat’s songs are written by Adam, and PBC’s almost entirely by John, so it’s definitely nice to be able to cut loose and get some shit off of my chest. I think the entire act of writing, recording, and performing music is insanely therapeutic, and it always seems to help me out when I’m down.
I think as I get older I just realize that a lot of the negative or shitty things that happen around me are out of my control, so if I can try to remember to just sit back, let it go, and play some music with my friends it will make this whole “growing up” thing at least a bit easier.
----- rockscene: Is Meisterhans supposed to be in the band now?
Cogle: He started out as a fan, then a utility player but I think he needed to be in the band after what he brought to the recordings. Adam is great! Like cream, he rises to the top. Can’t wait for you all to hear the songs!
Riggleman: Yeah, we recorded one of the early practices we had with just a room mic and let Adam check it out so he could add some parts to the recording, but the parts ended up being so good and his enthusiasm about playing was awesome, so he’s going to start playing live with us as well.
----- rockscene: Where did you guys record at? And given each of your own respective amounts of recording how did it go for Bishops?
Cogle: We recorded at my house. Tucker, Andrew Ford (PBC) and myself. The energy was really good and we knocked-out the main tracks in an afternoon. All first takes! Was a pure joy to record. Adam came in a few days later and did his cuts. It’s all been really good. Lots of good performances captured to tape.
Riggleman: Paul has a great studio with amazing gear that he built from the ground up. That’s where we practice too, so it was a very comfortable environment to track in. I’ll admit, it being a brand new band I was a bit nervous about how the tracking would go, but I’ll be damned if we didn’t do 10 songs in one take each for the basic live tracking. Andrew and Paul are such professionals, and I’m really lucky that they let me add my sloppy playing style overtop of their locked in rhythms.
----- rockscene: You’re going out on tour with New God in July, how much are you looking forward to that?
Cogle: It’s gonna be a great time – totally looking forward to it!
Riggleman: I’m very excited about this, especially because Kenny (from New God/The Christmas Lights) and I grew up playing shows together in our very first bands, so it’s really come full circle for us. He’s an amazing musician, and New God is going to turn some heads. Check out their record “Motorcar” if you haven't already.
----- rockscene: Tucker maybe a side issue but you started Big Bullet Booking recently, what made you wanna do that and how’s it gone so far?
Riggleman: That is really just an attempt for me to take my years of booking experience to the next level. To kind of get my foot in the door. It’s been going pretty well. This tour actually started as Kenny from New God approaching me about booking a tour for them, and then I was like, ‘Well I’ve got this new band and we’d love to play some of the shows with you,” and he was all about it. I also have recently helped booked some stuff for my friend JKutchma from Durham, North Carolina.
----- rockscene: You’ve each been in and still are in multiple bands. How exciting is it to be in this band right now?
Cogle: The hardest part is scheduling. All the bands (we are in) are with our friends and time has to be shared with all our music endeavors but that said, I’m totally excited about Bishops and the future!
Riggleman: It’s very exciting. Like I said, it’s been years in the making for me to finally have an outlet for my songs the way I’ve always wanted them to be heard. That being said, it’s still just as important to me to go out and be super loud with The Demon Beat, or rock out with PBC. Each has its place in my life and are equally cathartic in different ways for me. I think we’re all pretty lucky to be involved in so many different projects. It’s hard for some people to find one band that they like to play in.
Bishops art: Jordan Hudkins
Sample mix of “Get Down” from Bishops soon-to-be-released debut record
Fans of The Renfields have for years had the same problem: where to go to hear all their records. If these fans are at all like us, they may have been trolling the internet, looking first at MySpace, now at Facebook Renfields pages, wanting to hear more, screaming:
“There’s got to be a better way!”
Yes, dear friends, Team Transylvania has released its two-disc box set All the Stuff and Gore just for you!
Only a few people really know our own “fiendish,” bloodthirsty affection for The Renfields. Since first hearing “Prom Night” what, around 2006 or 2007 (?) there hasn’t been any other band we’ve loved hearing more than the Transylvania pogo-punk stylings of these undead horror movie lovers, re-animated with the parts of dead Ramones.
Not only will Renfields fans finally get their favorite records, The Night THEY Came Home and Bastard Sons of Ed Wood, there are like a dozen or so unreleased songs, some old, some new, so even the most diehard Renfields fans will have new songs to fall in love with and sing along to.
“War of the Robots,” “Transylvania Fight Song,” and “Renfields Go!” are included on disc one, and disc two (Stalk and Slash Splatterama I and II) has the most awesome “Ramones Zombie Massacre” (just included on a Ramones tribute comp) and the very much still unreleased “Porkchopp3D”, dedicated to Eamon Hardiman’s murderous pig-headed backwoods killer, is actually one of the most badass Renfields songs ever. Cool to see Hardiman team up with The Renfields.
The one thing that longtime fans of The Renfields will be able to agree on is the very clear progression the band has shown since those older records were released.
It seems like for so long, Vincent had a hard time putting, much less keeping a live Renfields act together. Now, with the current Fiend and Dick Ramses having been in the band a couple of years, Vincent and Team Transylvania have displayed not only with their very raucous energy and chemistry a step forward but also capture a bigger sound with better production. They just sound like a better band, not surprisingly.
But one thing that must be addressed in the live act: the samples. Having the movies that are so important to The Renfields (what the songs are about, duhhh) be a part of these songs pulls everything together. Hate to not see that live.
One last thing: the Ramones nods displayed so prominently in parts by The Renfields. Some readers will maybe get that the title of their own box set is a lift off the Ramones’ vault-like two-cassette greatest hits comp.
While some things have changed (for the better) for The Renfields, some things haven’t changed: the fun. Listening to The Renfields horror-themed version of plug-in-and-go punk rock, this reviewer really is reminded of those days of old, discovering those Ramones tapes, a wholly innocent punk rock love blooming.
Except where the Ramones may have been more prone to sing about babysitting and locket love and needles and pins, The Renfields sing about slumber party massacres, but it is just as fun, and just as catchy.
But yeah, there’s stuff for Renfields fans old and new on All the Stuff and Gore. As much as we’d been anxiously waiting to hear this very much treasured box set, it’s even more awesome than anticipated, this coming from someone who considers himself a Renfields afficianado/expert.
All the Stuff and Gore is the perfect Christmas-in-June gift for that hard to buy for Renfields fan, and a great way for new Renfields fans to love the band as much as we do.
Renfields GO!
All the Stuff and Gore box set includes:
*every Renfields song ever recorded
*acoustic demos and rare tracks
*stickers
*first ever Renfields show flyer
*Transylvania Devil Bats team poster
*Textured CD cover art via Jason Kisner @ Killer Design
Atlanta-based Relapse Records artists Royal Thunder (L-R: Josh Coleman, Josh Weaver, Mlny Parsonz, Lee Smith) brings its debut record CVI to the V Club Tuesday night with Valient Thorr, Holy Grail and The Kickass
Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch
Numerology is of course a very real thing. Whether or not the number 23 is actually appearing everywhere in some sort of cosmic conspiracy, it’s a neat thing to think about.
It can also make you insane, apparently.
For the Atlanta-based rock band Royal Thunder, 106, or, as they’ve titled their new, critically acclaimed Relapse Records debut, “CVI,” is that number.
“The 106?” singer and bassist Mlny Parsonz (that’s how she spells it for the band) asks back over the phone, almost like you don’t know about a horror story she doesn’t want to talk about.
“No, it’s actually a pretty significant story,” she continued. “Originally Royal Thunder was an instrumental band, and the drummer was born on January sixth, 106. They found $106 in the street one day, and it led to some woman crying, and it turns out it was her money, and they got into a lot of trouble with the cops thinking they stole the money.
“And the original drummer went to stay at a friend’s house, and when they woke up in the morning, the drummer was talking to the guy’s grandmother and apparently she was dead, and he didn’t realize it, but she was 106 years old.
“So whatever it means, this number has followed us on a daily basis.”
Royal Thunder, with “CVI,” released May 22, following the band quite literally around the country, comes to Huntington tonight for a show at the V Club with Valient Thorr, Holy Grail, and The Kickass.
Parsonz said praise from outlets like NPR and Revolver Magazine for Royal Thunder’s version of Southern-infused hard rock and metal in general, and for her vocal range and power in particular, is always cool, given the band’s modest aspirations getting started.
“Our hopes and dreams for this band were to just be a successful Atlanta band,” Parsonz said just a few days removed from Royal Thunder’s CD release show and a three-day jaunt of shows with Baroness. “Of course, everybody wants something more than that, a lot of musicians do. You just hope you can pay your bills with it one day.”
But fielding questions about songs like “Parsonz Curse,” spelling out some sort of generational affliction on her dad’s side of the family for strangers in the press? That’s taking some getting used to.
“It was a little uncomfortable for me to even be as personal as I was,” Parsonz said of her lyrics. “We were just another band, I thought we could be off-the-grid, and people wouldn’t focus on it. But all of this is happening, and people are focusing on it, and I want to be open but still keep my boundaries and not just give all the details all of this personal stuff.”
Parsonz, on the subject of personal stuff, said that, yeah, being married to founding member and lead guitarist Josh Weaver makes for smoother chemistry in Royal Thunder.
“I, um,” Parsonz said, pausing to calculate the time they’ve been together. “I’ve been with Josh for almost half my life, and we’ve been married for eleven years and just always have had such a connection with music. You would never know we’re married; we’re like best friends. We don’t really bring our marriage into the music, but inevitably when you’re playing music with your partner it’s going to translate in some way whether it’s energy or subconscious chemistry.
“I do think it makes for a chemistry and energy you can’t really explain.”
And all that flattering praise for the new record? There may be one person not following it too closely.
“To be honest, I don’t read a lot of the press because it can make me feel too much pressure, and it makes me feel bad,” Parsonz said with an almost apologetic laugh. “But I hear a lot of good things, and I’m grateful for that.”
Parsonz said that as much as the number 106 has followed Royal Thunder, the band doesn’t believe they’re cursed, or, alternately, given their rapid ascendance in popularity, blessed.
“No, we definitely worked our asses off,” Parsonz said about any cosmic benevolence the number may carry for the band. “I think it’s just interesting. It was like, 106 was such a huge part of our lives, and now it’s being sent out even further into the universe. It’s really cool.”
IF YOU GO
Valient Thorr, Royal Thunder, The Kickass, Holy Grail WHERE: The V Club, 741 Sixth Ave. WHEN: Tuesday, June 12, 9 p.m. COST: Advance $10, at door $12 INFO:www.vclublive.com or (304) 781-0680
On the song “Bluejays,” on their recently released full-length debut Animal Tracks, Sly Roosevelt singer-guitarist Sean McDaniel sings “We’ve got something special here.”
If he’s referring to the record, he’s right.
You have to imagine that Sly Roosevelt knew what it was doing all along to pull together what even at first glance appears to be a surrealist petting zoo-themed concept record.
On Animal Tracks, though, this Huntington-based indie rock band not only ties together the album art (ably done by Jarrod Schneider) with songs like “Bluejays,” “Lion,” “Minks” and “Wolf,” but a populist, anti-Wall Street manifesto theme seems to have buried itself in some of the lyrics of these songs.
Heck, the band samples 90 seconds worth of Teddy Roosevelt’s August 6 1912, “Confession of Faith” to open the record.
Over twelve songs worth of richly arranged songs that ebb and flow between laid-back almost jazzy intros building into rocked out choruses, jammed out bridges and soaring solos by lead guitarist Jyosh Sanders, it’s McDaniel’s stunning vocal range, from delicate whisper-to-shrieking-howl, that really help make Animal Tracks such a wild ride.
Alexander Durand (bass) and Matt Marshall (drums) have steered the band DIY-style through their own studio in addition to their rhythm section role. Megan Durand adds so much to the songs with synth and piano part.
Standout tracks for us are “Lion,” (which you may have already seen the YouTube “Meet the King” series and video the band did for the song) “Opportune Moment,”“Atoms,” and what makes this CD something more than just animal crackers, “Elijah,” which finds McDaniel ending up on the no-fly list with his conspiracy theory lyrics:
“Gimme the vaccine for Wall Street…
Gimme the vaccine for this mock democracy…
Gimme the vaccine for this vaccine/I haven’t had the flu in years…
I guess I’m gearing up for the plague…”
Not only is the CD something you should buy just to see how the art flushes out the very rich, animal-infested landscape Sly Roosevelt has created here, but this seems like a band that would have an energy live that may be hard to capture on a record. Jon Parsons (mixing) and Russ Fox (mastering) deserve kudos have done that here, we think it would just be cool to see them rock these songs out live.
But yeah, Sly Roosevelt has something special here. Animal Tracks is a great record and a great full-length debut for these cats.
One step at a time, Sly Roosevelt (L-R: Matthew Marshall, Megan and Alexander Durand, Sean McDaniel, Jyoshua Sanders) have built their own studio, recorded their own record, and put it out themselves. The Huntington-based indie band releases their debut full-length "Animal Tracks" at the V Club Friday night.
Reposted from The Huntington Herald-Dispatch
It’s an exciting time to be in Sly Roosevelt. The Huntington-based indie band has spent eight months working like dogs, putting time and money into their studio and publishing outfit.
Friday night, the band will release their debut full-length, “Animal Tracks,” at the V Club.
Since forming in 2008 with the nucleus of singer-guitarist Sean McDaniel, bassist Alexander Durand and drummer Matthew Marshall, and after welcoming lead guitarist Jyoshua Sanders and Megan Durand on keyboards a year or so later, Sly Roosevelt has been making a name for themselves with their highly charged version of indie rock.
Speaking over the phone from their studio in the Prichard Building on Sixth Avenue, McDaniel said that Sly Roosevelt is ready to get “Animal Tracks” out.
“I’m relieved to have it done, it seems like it’s been years in the making,” the 28-year old Proctorville, Ohio native said. “I’m extremely proud of how it went down and the decisions we made to do it ourselves.”
That do-it-yourself ethos pervaded every step in the process. With Alexander Durand and Marshall handling production, and Durand’s Bully Good Publishing handling duplication and packaging, Sly Roosevelt literally controls the method of production, no small luxury for a band.
“Matthew and I were interested in creating a studio environment, and fantasized about all this great equipment,” Alexander Durand said. “That went on the backburner for a few years. Then, when we had the opportunity to get the gear, it was just thrilling to have our own studio.”
McDaniel said everyone going in on the studio has paid off.
“About a year ago we made a decision, every band has to make the decision, whether they want to go into a studio or build their own. We took a couple of thousand dollars, everyone pitched in money, and we started to accumulate gear.
“It gave us the freedom to comb through, to have control that we wouldn’t have had if we had to spend two months hovering over an engineer’s shoulder. That would’ve never happened and we would have never got the results we have if we didn’t put in the time and effort to build this thing.”
“We’re able to do it now the way we want to do it,” Megan Durand added.
“The wait has been totally worth it,” Sanders said of the new record, which was mixed by Jon Parsons and mastered by Russ Fox.
“The EP, “Old ‘P’” it does vary drastically from the album because it’s a totally different recording, and we got to see it with new eyes,” Sanders added. “It helped us realize that this is important, we need to be serious about it and it does takes precedence in our lives.”
While not necessarily a concept record, “Animal Tracks” is tied together lyrically and visually, with CD art provided by local artist Jarrod Schneider.
“There’s all these references to animals in the lyrics,” McDaniel said. “And the animal metaphor is crucial to the whole album, how it plays off different symbols, how we’re all animals, and these are our tracks,” he said with a laugh.
To help promote the album, Sly Roosevelt has been putting out a series of “Meet the King” episodes on YouTube, with a drinking, cursing Michael Bradbury dressed as a lion, and recently debuted the official video for “Lion,” off the new record.
Everyone in Sly Roosevelt is looking forward to an out-of-state string of shows in June, taking their music (evoking bands like Modest Mouse and At the Drive-In) to an unfamiliar audience spanning nine states.
“People have to want to listen to our music,” Marshall said. “They have to want to break away from the monotony of normal, popular music. If they have that mindset, I think they’ll love our band.”
“This is a pretty monumental time for us,” McDaniel added. “Getting the album done, establishing Bully Good, having all these things come to a head is a huge milestone. The tour is too, we’ve all been so excited, and terrified at the same time.”
IF YOU GO:
Sly Roosevelt CD Release w/Love Culture and AC30 WHERE: The V Club, 741 6th Ave. (304) 781-0680 WHEN: Friday, June 1, 10 p.m. COST: $5 INFO:www.vclublive.com ONLINE:www.slyroosevelt.com
Well it’s been out and available, up and online for like a month or something, and not only is Uncle Bengine and the Restraining Orders one of the best band names ever maybe, but the Harrisonburg, Va.-based trio’s 13-song split with Prison Book Club, released on Funny/Not Funny Records, is one of the best pairings of bands on a split release we’ve heard together in recent memory.
Maybe, as with so many times in the past, anytime we’ll mention PBC we mention The Demon Beat. Their recent pairing with Elephant Child was solid; the bands fit well together as far as badass, jammed out garage rock.
But it’s been neat to see (hear, really) how PBC has progressed with their own mix of country and rock since releasing Required Reading in 2009. This split effort has five previously unreleased PBC songs with their take on Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” thrown in, and has PBC maybe employing more slide guitar sounds via Adam Meisterhans.
So, if nothing else, there’s enough songs here for PBC fans to almost make an EP out of it in their own head.
John Miller, with his country-tough voice, continues to share singing and songwriting duties (and life on the road) with longtime friend Tucker Riggleman in PBC. A perfect voice for this band. “Lights of the City” and “Drinkin’ by the River” are almost perfect anthems for life in not-much-to-do, not-much-money West Virginia, Western Maryland, or wherever you are. Riggleman’s stripped down, ethereal and simultaneously haunting sounding “Darker Side of Town” is another example of this. Riggleman sings as much as pines:
“When you take the poison long enough
One of these days it won’t let you back up
There’s a darker side of town
That’s where all my friends are bound”
Miller’s somber and (maybe) sober “Wouldn’t We” rounds out PBC’s contributions in jammed out badassery, with clangy guitar tones giving way to soaring solos. Something of a theme song for the band maybe, Miller sings: “We are the wayfarers/We are the light bearers. We are what we are.”
Both PBC and The Demon Beat deserve kudos for getting so much music out on splits and EPs and whatever, in between their full-length releases. Ever since you heard about PBC forming, who was in it, you knew they’d be awesome. No surprises here. Will look forward to hearing more new stuff from ‘em. And thumbs up to whoever arranged the songs on the split. Great job.
There’s something to be said about our own excitement about hearing J Marinelli slightly revamp and re-rock songs he’s already released. Heck, some of our favorite records from the past four or five years are his Stone Age Kicks cover series.
But for fans of the Morgantown native/icon and now Lexington resident’s angry one-man band, even 2010’s Pre-Emptive Skankery Sessions, Marinelli’s most recent 14-song full-length, with some previously released songs remade in salty, surly, or even somber fashion, maybe it’s not so much bittersweet, as it is just not surprising, and just not long enough!
We still love each and every song Marinelli, a veteran of Morgantown bands like The D’arbys, Braille Drivers and Swiss Army Tractor, now playing in Lexington’s Arcane Rifles, has ever released, though.
Marinelli returns in 2012 with his limited (now sold out) three-song, vinyl Young Spillers EP, (Stencil Trash) a release that, at barely five minutes worth of maximum-stomp-and-swing running time, with songs that Marinelli fans young and old will recognize, half serves as a tease, but just as much, reminds you why you love this distinctly Appalachian folk/punk rock rebel.
“Doves and Vultures” and “You Are Dismissed,” both off what we consider to be the definitive and most awesome Marinelli release, 2007’s Keep It Fake, revisit and remind listeners of Marinelli’s righteous indignation at two-faced scenesters and his own determination to “keep Morgantown weird,” even now in his absence, serving as the punk rock consciousness of a scene that he isn’t a part of anymore, one that he embodies with his own DIY ethos and by example.
One of the neat things about following Marinelli since his 2006 debut EP Pity The Party is, not only his own affections for re-recording his songs, but it’s noticing an increasing (?) trend for Marinelli stripping down his own angry one-man band persona and sound. Maybe this was first heard on Stone Age Kicks 2, as Marinelli picked up a banjo and delivered soft, touching renditions of “Head On” and “Wave of Mutilation.” The standout acoustic/harmonica version of “Pomade Years” on PSS is maybe another example of this.
We say all this because when you hear “20 Class A Cigarette Burns,” on the Young Spillers EP, if it sounds exactly like some old acoustic demo might, it’s because this just might be an original demo for the Braille Drivers’ 2001 release White Dwarfs and Red Giants. Great to see Marinelli pulling from that catalog.
Not surprising: that we’d go on for so long about a three-song release.
Also no surprise: we get so much from a dude sitting behind a very minimalist drum kit (kick/snare/hi-hat) with his caveman guitar, banjo, kazoo or harmonica, takin’ it to the shit talkers and solo schlock rockers, keeping his own distinct version of Appalachian folk and punk rock very much dangerous, and anything but fake.
Arms and Sleepers (above) have made friends and fans all over the world (even Charleston, W.Va.) with their music. The duo announced an indefinite hiatus last month.
Got some bummer news recently. As of April 2012, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based ambient/down-tempo duo Arms and Sleepers, are on an “indefinite hiatus.” The first news of this seemed to indicate something more permanent, like a break-up, but still, indefinite hiatuses are never good when it comes to bands and expecting new music from them anytime soon.
It’s crazy but we’ve been following and covering Max Lewis and Mirza Ramic pretty much since around the time that they formed back in 2006.
It was around this time that they visited The Empty Glass in Charleston to play a show with The Concept. It was at this show that my wife and I met the A&S dudes, who were sharing the bill with The Concept.
Getting to see their music combined with tour footage and miscellaneous footage projected on a screen behind two dudes messing with synths and computers was as engrossing visually as it is sonically.
One of the things that was great over the years was to follow the group as it released new music, and see how they progressed since releasing “Bliss Was It In That Dawn To Be Alive” so many years ago.
I got to cover A&S around this time in Graffiti, and I know that Bill Lynch covered the group in the Gazette on one of their return trips to the Glass. WVRockscene even caught up with A&S here for a Q&A and a few reviews.
It just sucks enormously. Arms and Sleepers was one of the only groups that my wife and I could agree that we both liked. Nothing goes on forever, but Arms and Sleepers, since 2006, have released a lot of great music. Judging how much time I’ve spent on their bandcamp page, even if they’re no longer a functioning unit, I’ll no doubt remain a fan of their music.
I have collected enough of their CDs over the years that I am assured of this fact.
Check out some youtube clips and visit their bandcamp page to hear all Arms and Sleepers releases.
Seems like a year has gone by since we were introduced to Sundown. Turns out it’s only been like eight months or so since Kanawha Valley native and Sundown guitarist Dustin Travis White reached out to us from their home in Columbus, and turned us onto their debut EP “Mansion Burning,” and ever since, we’ve become huge fans of what TK Webb and crew are doing. Even snagged a Sundown flyer from Budget Tapes to hang here in the WVRockscene home office.
So it was with much excitement we noticed that Sundown recently debuted their video for “Sleepy Song,” off “Mansion Burning.” Done in complete VHS fashion and edited by White, we thought it would be cool to catch up with White (again, we talked for the Gazette late last year) to get more on the making of the video…
WVRockscene: Where/when was the footage for “Sleepy Song” taken? Dustin White: In the middle of last November we went to Shepherdstown, Philly, and then two shows in Brooklyn with The Demon Beat. We collected it mostly in Brooklyn at Public Assembly and some at Union pool and obviously the road to and from.
----- rockscene: Was that you filming the TV? that was a neat look...
White: I shot the footage on this JVC video camera from 1982 (image here). It’s a separate camera and VCR unit. Then I played it back on my trusty 1980 JC Penny’s TV and shot that with a digital camera. I originally bought the camera to document two months on the road in Europe with Times New Viking, BUT the battery that came with it wouldn’t hold a charge and I couldn’t track down a battery before we left. I found the camera and VCR on Craigslist and had to drive into the middle of nowhere Ohio to purchase it. I finally found a replacement battery and got it shipped to The Demon Beat guys’ place. I now have a second camera I picked up at a thrift store.
----- rockscene: What kind of camera were you using? how did you get that VHS look? White: I got that VHS look by using trust old VHS-C. I’m not a fan of faking things or emulating things if i don't have to. I’m sure there are ways to make it look that in post-production, etc., but that makes no sense to me when the real way exists and is cheap and fun. The camera traces light in really weird ways that make it really fun to experiment with. if you Google ‘Saticon’ or look up videos made with a ‘Saticon’ camera on YouTube you will see all the weird imperfections the camera causes. I just thought this visual aesthetic would work very well with what we are doing musically -- especially for that song in specific, the slow moving and hazy nature of the song.
----- rockscene: It’s definitely a tough lifestyle going out on tour for extended periods, does putting this video together feed back into the dedication and energy you guys have for the band? regardless this does document you guys being out on the road... White: My point was more to show how simultaneously romantic and completely un-romantic being on tour is. The open road is beautiful, but you don’t get to enjoy it. It just passes by your window. Then your moving a bunch of half working antiquated electronic devices out of your van and into an empty dark room and praying people show up. I love being on tour. It’s why I have done this fairly constantly since I was about 18, but there is so much down time. So much waiting. So much just sitting. That’s the part people forget about. I kind of wanted to show that and thought that was the perfect song to do it with.
----- rockscene: What is it about tour videos that have forever seemed to be so cool? Maybe the thought that you get to be on the road with your favorite band... White: I’m presently living in VHS only 2012 and have been picking up a lot of older tour/concert VHS tapes but there is some weird mystique to them. If you have never seen it there is this Pantera video -- i think from the Vulgar Display of Power tour -- that is maybe the most amazing video like that ever. It’s basically Pantera doing “Jackass” before there was Jackass. Betting their friends to do stupid shit and just generally fucking around. It’s mind blowing. We used to watch it all the time. Seriously this video should be given the criterion treatment. The Cure ‘In Orange’ is one we have been watching lately a lot, but that’s just a concert film and no real road footage. There just is this mystique in popular culture of ‘the road’ as this intangible object. This concept, people latch onto it. It’s very much part of America. So when you combine that with the tradition of the troubadour it takes on even more mystique. It’s this never ending snowball of cultural currency.
-----
rockscene: anything big or something you guys might be looking forward to in 2012? shows, fests, recording?
White: Recording. We are about to start recording our first proper full-length at the end of next month. We have most of the songs for it already but are spending this month writing and working on getting everything together so that we can make this record. I think it’s a major step forward to us. I mean ‘Mansion Burning’ was just intended to be a demo, but obviously it took off in a way we didn’t expect at all. Lyrically the record has this Afghan Whigs by way of Rumours vibe and then musically we are really trying some different things. There are some songs that are more direct and some that are even more gazey and covered in syrup. No idea who is going to put out the record yet, but we are going to record it with Adam at CDR here in Columbus just like we did the last one.
--- Sundown is tentatively scheduled to return to West Virginia May 16 for a show at the Glass, and in June for a show in Huntington at the V Club
The picture says it all: Ryan Postlethwait (above) combines his love of Nintendo games and metal as Mega Beardo.
Everybody knows that WVRockscene covers the most killer bands and acts in West Virginia. How well they cover bands is another thing, but we pride ourselves here on covering stuff that rocks, better late than never.
Such is the case with Mega Beardo. To our everlasting shame, for one reason or another, we are only recently finding out about how amazing singer-guitarist Ryan Postlethwait's solo project is, and has been since at least 2010.
Postlethwait, who also plays guitar in the Morgantown-area metal band Descension Rate, has taken the music from old Nintendo games Mega Man 2 and Castlevania, covered the scores in their entirety in brutal metal fashion as Mega Beardo. And this fall, Postlethwait will release his take on The Legend of Zelda, “The Ledjent of Zelda.”
This excites us greatly. To learn more on our part, and to help raise awareness about how awesome Postlethwait's combination of video games and metal is, we decided to get off our ass here and cover one of the most exciting musicians in the state. 'Bout time.
WVRockscene: You just released the video tease for your upcoming Zelda-themed Mega Beardo album. What is “djent” and how special is The Legend of Zelda to you, like Castlevania and Mega Man, as a game, to want to basically rock out the score of the game?
Ryan Postlethwait: “Djent” is a bit hard to explain, but it’s essentially just a new breed of progressive metal that has been emerging in the past couple of years with bands like Periphery, Animals as Leaders, and Tesseract. With “djent,” you can typically expect weird time signatures, a lot of tight palm-muted 7-or 8-string guitars over polyrhythm drums, crazy lead guitar stuff, and some melodic clean sections. But the term “djent” gets traced back to Meshuggah and is just a silly way to describe how their guitars sounded back in the 90s, more specifically their extremely tight palm-muting technique. It’s an onomatopoeia, if you will. Listen to Meshuggah’s song “Soul Burn” and you’ll see what I mean. Think back to when Beavis and Butthead would sing the “Iron Man” riff like: “duhhh duhhh duh duh duh....nananananana duh duh duh duh.” If you asked them to sing Meshuggah’s “Soul Burn,” they would sing “djent djent......djent djent......djent djent.....djent djent djent djent djent djent.”
Both Castlevania and Mega Man are quite special to me. They bring back a lot of great childhood memories, I still nerd out about them with my friends, and they completely hold up today. Legend of Zelda fits in that realm. I remember getting my Nintendo back in 1988 and talking about it with a new friend I made at school. All I could talk about was Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track Meet because that was all I had starting out. Then my friend said, “You’ve never played Zelda?!” He came over to my house not too long after that and brought a copy of Zelda. Seeing that gold cartridge for the first time blew my mind, and the gameplay was very addictive. We played for hours, just roaming the overworld. At the time, I had played a ton of Atari, and I remember thinking “This is like Swordquest or Raiders of the Lost Ark...but waaay better.” haha. A couple months later, I got myself a copy of Zelda II, along with the first issue of Nintendo Power magazine. My obsession with Nintendo pretty much blossomed from that point.
Zelda’s music is simply epic. The title theme has that top-notch John Williams quality to it. I didn’t really learn to appreciate how great it was until I got older. The idea to do this album came to me while I was driving on I-79 from Pittsburgh. I was literally going through the Nintendo soundtracks I have on my iPod trying to think of the next Mega Beardo album. I got to the original Zelda soundtrack and hit play. Once the dungeon theme came on, I thought to myself “Man, you could really djent this up if you wanted to....wait...djent...Legend of Ze....LEDJENT OF ZELDA.”
Once that title came out, I knew I had to start working on it. The soundtrack is really short. After spending so many months putting together Belmont, which is 70 minutes long, I felt like doing a short 20-25 minute EP. I’m just interested to see how a complex and aggressive style like djent can be used in the world of Zelda, and I knew I had to do it pretty quick. Ask any “djent” band, and more often than not, they’d probably say they didn’t like the term. Most metal bands hate being labeled anyway, but “djent” is mainly a fad in internet forums and such, so it will most likely fade in a couple of years. I’m fully aware of that.
----- rockscene: How old were you when you were first exposed to the 8-bit NES? What were -- aside from the ones you’ve covered as Mega Beardo -- some of your favorite games early on?
Postlethwait: I grew up on the Atari 2600. Some of my very early memories are of playing Q*Bert with my dad, along with Berzerk, Kaboom!, River Raid, and Crystal Castles. My sister and I would have Pitfall competitions to see who could get the most loot. I was also the master at Jr. Pac-Man, a game I play now and think “How the hell was I so good at this game before I was even old enough to go to school?”
Then, when I was six years old, I got the NES for Christmas. It was the Power Set bundle with the power pad and the zapper. So the very first exposure I got to my Nintendo after hooking it up was with Duck Hunt. My dad and I would play that game and laugh ourselves silly about that dog.
Aside from Mega Man 2 and Castlevania, which are all-time favorites of mine, I poured a ton of time into Double Dragon, Duck Tales, Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3, Excitebike, Contra, Dragon Warrior, Guerilla War, Marble Madness.....even crappy games like Friday the 13th and Skate or Die. Super Mario Bros 3 may be the game that I first became obsessed over. I’m sure that had something to do with the major hype surrounding it during the release of “The Wizard,” but my friends and I talked about that game endlessly at school.
Another game we nerded out about at school was Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. The codes, the patterns, how to dodge Super Macho Man...everything about that game was fun to talk about. That game was extremely popular and very hard to find back then. People probably don’t realize this now, but Mike Tyson was a huge deal back then. I watched all of his fights at a very young age and was just in awe at what he could do. He was unstoppable, until Buster Douglas happened, of course. In that context, defeating Mike Tyson in that game was such a major accomplishment. I got more satisfaction from that than almost any other game growing up.
----- rockscene: You played out as Mega Beardo about a month ago, at an all-ages show at 123 Pleasant Street, how did that go?
Postlethwait: Very well! It was part of the Rainbowdragoneyes/Ronnit tour that came through town. We were hoping for a better turn out, but the people that were there were really into it. Of course, I got a lot of questions about my Nintendo guitar. Even when I was warming up before the show, people would come up and say, “Does that actually work?!”
I think the biggest reaction was from my Mega Man 2 tracks. A lot of old school gamers consider that to be the greatest video soundtrack of all time, so they love it when that title track hits with that Iron Maiden gallop.
----- rockscene: When you’ve played Mega Beardo out live, what’s been the general response been like?
Postlethwait: So far, so good. The first time I played as Mega Beardo was back in October of 2010. I was asked last minute to play a little bit and, at that time, not many people knew what it was. The Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute had only been out a few months. So I decided to play the “Dr. Wily” portion of that album, which is pretty much one 13-minute long track.
And I’ll say this: playing on stage by yourself, especially technical music like this, is way more nerve-racking than playing in a band. When I hit the stage with Descension Rate or any other band I’ve been in, I always have those pre-show jitters, but it’s all just anxious energy. If I make a mistake, there are other guys on stage there to cover it up and divert the attention. When I’m up there by myself, I get a bit nervous because I know a mistake will stick out that much more. I also phase out because I concentrate so hard on playing everything perfectly. I remember at my last show, I had completely phased out by the time I started playing “Flash Man” from Mega Man 2. By the time I was at the end of that track, I had no recollection of playing it haha. I made myself snap out of it at that point.
----- rockscene: A Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute was released seemingly way back in 2010, Belmont just came out last November, when did you first set out to do Mega Beardo, and was Mega Man your first attempt at covering a video game’s soundtrack?
Postlethwait: Oddly enough, I never meant to call myself Mega Beardo. Just about everyone I know in Morgantown has been calling me Beardo for 10 years. When I released the Mega Man 2 album, the full title was “Mega Beardo: A Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute.” I was still going by my real name. After I released that album, everyone kept asking, “So when’s the next Mega Beardo album coming out?” I had given myself a new name without even realizing it. So it stuck at that point.
The very first video game cover I ever did was back in 2002. Just to get the hang of recording with Sony Acid Pro, which I knew nothing about at the time, I decided to record a straight cover of the Level 1-3 theme for Super Mario Land for Gameboy. I still have that somewhere, but I’m sure it sounds like crap haha.
I had the idea for the Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute back in early 2008. I had even recorded a demo of the “Crash Man” theme and put it up on Myspace, back when that was still a thing. I didn’t get rolling with the idea until the summer of 2009 when I had enough money to put towards new and better equipment. I also had a broken finger that needed to heal. I spent from July 2009 to February of 2010 recording everything in sequential order. My main reason for doing it was to pay tribute to one of my favorite things of the last 20 years. I have a lot of awesome memories of that game, and the music has stuck with me for so long. Dissecting it like that made me appreciate the music even more, and it made me a better player at the same time.
The idea for Belmont had been around since 2008 as well. I’m a huge horror film nerd, and I especially loved the Universal monsters growing up. That made Castlevania even more awesome to me as a kid. I even have a tape of a song I recorded with an old air organ called “The Search at Castlevania” when I was 8 years old; I included that as a secret track on Belmont. So I’ve been obsessed with the first Castlevania game for a long time. It’s one of those games that I still nerd out about with my friends. I wrote the opening track “Simon” back in 2008 on a lap dulcimer. A couple of riffs were even from 2006 or so. But I started writing a bulk of Belmont before working on Mega Man 2, even with a broken finger. The opening riff to “Medusa’s Scream” on Belmont is so simple because I could only play with my index and middle finger at the time. So when I was doodling around on guitar one day, that riff came out, and I based the first half of that song on it. To bring it full circle, I broke another finger at the end of the Belmont recording sessions, luckily after I had recorded all the guitar tracks. Actually in the video I did for “The Mysterious Works of Dr. Frankenstein,” my left pinky finger is still broken. I just kept the splint off because it would’ve been distracting otherwise.
----- rockscene: We’ve talked about the games you may have liked growing up, what about metal influences or just what bands made you wanna pick up a guitar?
Postlethwait: The first band I obsessed over was Soundgarden. I still hear their influence in my writing today, and I can’t say that about any other band. I was pretty much a Seattle grunge kid stuck in Jane Lew, West Virginia, so I listened to a lot of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. I can tell you the exact moment I told myself I wanted to play guitar: when I watched Metallica playing “The Thing That Should Not Be” from their Live Shit box set. I saw that at the age of 14 and thought playing guitar just looked like so much fun. At that point, I was a metal kid.
Things kind of changed when I saw Buckethead live back in 1999. Primus was playing at the Metropol in Pittsburgh with Incubus of all bands, and Buckethead was scheduled to open up. This is back when nobody, including myself, knew who the hell he was. My friends and I got there real early, so we were standing front and center when this ominous music starts playing and the place fills with smoke. Then a 6-foot-6 dude with wearing a chicken bucket and a mask walks up on stage, puts on a guitar, hits play on a drum machine and absolutely destroys the place single-handedly. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like it. I still consider it to be the most influential show that I have ever seen. He would take interludes and hand out random crap he bought from Rite-Aid. I still have some dollhouse furniture and a weird severed hand that grows in water that he gave me at that show.
I’d say the artist that I’m most inspired by today is Devin Townsend. I could talk endlessly about how much of a genius that guy is, so I’ll need to cut myself short. He is a guitar virtuoso that practices restraint more than any other. He keeps the wankery to a minimum, something a lot of guitar players need to learn. His solos are always tasteful and perfectly placed. And not only is he the greatest vocalist in metal today, he is also probably the most entertaining performer. Plus, he writes and produces everything in his own home studio and has full control over every aspect of his creation. His production abilities are mind-boggling. Listening to his album “Deconstruction” is a great example of that. So there’s just too much genius in that guy to not be inspired by him in some way.
----- rockscene: The guitar you made out of an NES, what possessed you to do that?
Postlethwait: I didn’t actually make it. It was custom-made from a site called getlofi.com, but they did a fantastic job! I basically just told them what type of neck and pick-ups I wanted. It ended up having this unique sound and tone that makes it perfect for playing leads. In fact, most of the leads on “Belmont” were played on the NES guitar. But there was something about taking a broken console that gave someone hundreds of hours of entertainment and giving it a new purpose that really appealed to me.
I have an extra Atari 2600 console laying around that doesn’t seem to want to work anymore. One of these days, I think I may try to make a custom Atari 2600 guitar myself and just start a little collection of console guitars.
----- rockscene: There was a recent piece in Game Informer magazine about all the old, (by the writer considered) great, 8-bit music in a few old video games, I think one of them may have been Zelda. Considering your own involvement in bands like Descension Rate, what makes covering your favorite NES games so fun, and special? If nothing else aside from it rocking it’s got to be a small niche, do you know a lot of musicians doing what you do?
Postlethwait: There are tons of people doing what I do, but just to different extents and within different genres. There is even a site called Overclocked Remix (ocremix.org) that is a dedicated video game remixing community. But bands like The Minibosses and The Advantage have been known for quite a while now.
It’s more rare to find artists who release full concept albums based around video games. You have Metroid Metal that does metal versions of Metroid themes from all consoles. There are tons of bands around like that, and that is closer to what I did with A Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute. It’s even more rare for an artist or band to write a concept album based on a game but with totally original compositions, which is what I did with Belmont. The only band like that I can think of off the top of my head is The Protomen, who have released two fantastic concept albums based on Mega Man.
To me, covering a video game theme song from a game I love gives me a deeper connection to that game and a better understanding of its composition in general. When I do my remixes, most times I take bits and pieces of certain melodies and try to expand on them more. Like “Skull Castle” from Mega Man 2. I took that 8 or 9 second song and stretched it out to a couple minutes by expanding on the bass line. With the “Boss Select” theme, I took a song that loops after 8 seconds or so and expanded it to over 3 minutes. So I like picking apart a melody or a bass line, putting my own spin on it, and seeing where it goes. Dissecting it like that helps me appreciate it that much more. “Crash Man” might be my favorite overall theme from Mega Man 2. It’s just so damn catchy! When I started learning all of the lead melodies to that song, I couldn’t believe just how well that melody was constructed.
----- rockscene: Not only do you go by Mega Beardo, you write about movie beards. How important or not are beards in movies? Are you one of those people who obsess over their beard?
Postlethwait: I actually started MovieBeards.com as sort of a joke to myself. I was googling stuff about John Carpenter’s “The Thing” because it’s something that one of my good friends and I obsess about endlessly over a couple of beers on a regular basis. I stumbled upon some “Top 20 Beards in Movies” list on some random site, and Kurt Russell appeared as R.J. MacReady somewhere on that list. I thought to myself, “Awesome. I wonder if there is a website out there dedicated to celebrating awesome beards in film.” To my surprise, there wasn’t. There are a bunch of “Top Beards in Movies” lists, but they all have a lot of the same entries (George Clooney from “Syriana,” Zach Galifianakis in everything) and boring write-ups. So I told myself, “Well if nobody will make a website dedicated to movie beards, then I will.” A couple of weeks later, I got bored and started MovieBeards.com.
The write-ups for Movie Beards are more comical than anything. I also try to find ways in which a specific beard serves a purpose for the character or drives the story in some way. Like Rocky’s Montage Beard indirectly represents the duration of time in “Rocky IV,” or the growth and subsequent shaving of Ron Burgundy’s Depression Beard is an important physical characteristic throughout his arc. Other times, I just make up other “powers of the beard.” It’s interesting to break all these beards down into subcategories, like the Villain Beard, Business Beard, Scientist Beard, etc. Not all beards are important, though. Fisher Stevens has a beard in “Short Circuit,” but I can’t think of a single interesting thing to say about it. But I try to mix it up between famous beards, like Gandalf, and obscure beards, like the gravedigger from “Friday the 13th: Part VI.”
As far as my own beard goes, I obsess over its symmetry more than anything, but I try to maintain symmetry in all aspects of my life. A symmetrical, trimmed, and conditioned beard is a happy beard.
----- rockscene: You’re releasing some acoustic stuff, when’s that gonna be on the Mega Beardo bandcamp page, and how different is it for you to be doing acoustic songs versus MB and Descension Rate? Will you do acoustic shows?
Postlethwait: I actually just finished recording the final tracks for the acoustic album, so it will be up on bandcamp sometime in the first half of May. Doing acoustic stuff is way different than what I do with Mega Beardo or anything else. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna call the album “Unmega.” There will be 7 tracks at about 30 minutes. I guess it’s more of the singer/song-writer type, but the songs are quite melancholy and haunting in a way.
I’ve been telling people, if you like the tracks “Simon” and “Such is the Curse” from Belmont, then you’ll dig this stuff. I drew inspiration from a lot of places: childhood memories, horror movies...there’s even a song I wrote based on the famous West Virginia story “The Telltale Lilac Bush.” The production isn’t stellar, nor is it meant to be. Usually, I’d just grab my guitar and hit record without any time-consuming pre-production microphone placement stuff. These are just songs I’d write when the inspiration hit, and I couldn’t find any place for them. I’ve been recording it off and on for two years now. I figured I’d just write and record until I felt like I had enough for a short album.
No plans for acoustic shows yet, but it has definitely been on my mind. If I do, I’ll probably work my way through some open mic nights just to get the hang of playing the stuff live.
----- rockscene: When you play as Mega Beardo, especially for people who played these games for hours, there really does seem to be something nostalgic, even having mostly forgot the music that was on those games. Obviously you are very proficient on guitar and it really is a fun yet punishing version of metal you have, but do you think that there’s that subconscious appeal and pull for those gamers who listen to Mega Beardo records? Does that make sense? It’s almost like a two-for-one deal, you may have never played the games but like the music. But for those who have it’s more…?
Postlethwait: I see what you’re saying. Obviously, when gamers see I’ve recorded a Mega Man 2 album, they are naturally drawn to it if they have established a prior connection to that game and music. Then once they listen to it, I hope that my own rearrangements and additional original compositions bring it to a different level. Because there are hundreds of people that have covered “Dr. Wily’s Castle” on YouTube. But to make it something different, something a little more special is a bit more difficult. I had hoped that the way that I had rearranged the music helped it stick out from the pile a bit. I’ve even had fans tell me they have taken the Mega Man 2 iOS game on their phone and replaced the original music with my music. That’s pretty cool in my book.
And as far as people not being familiar with the music, my own mom said she couldn’t stop listening to my Mega Man 2 Guitar Tribute for weeks! haha. So I guess it has a broader appeal than I thought.
----- rockscene: Do you see yourself ever doing something outside of Mega Beardo and Descension Rate and acoustic stuff, like a solo metal/electronic act not based on video games?
Postlethwait: I definitely do. I’ve been recording stuff on my own since I got an old Fostex 4-track recorder back in 1998. And I have recorded a whole bunch of albums with bands and other projects over the years. I just never took the “solo artist” thing seriously until Mega Beardo. But I’ve been putting together some original compositions that are in no way related to video games. I have two or three pretty strong foundations of songs ready to go. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them yet, but I’ll just keep adding to the pile until I have enough to record a full album.
----- rockscene: Speaking of video games, this should have been asked earlier, but we should obviously assume you to be something of a gamer, what are your favorite games to play now on any system, and are there any other games that you’d like to cover as Mega Beardo?
Postlethwait: I own a PS3 and a Wii from the newest generation of consoles. I don’t play newer games much because they are just way too time-consuming. Like, I’ve been playing the new Zelda game “Skyward Sword” off and on for three weeks, and I’m probably not even halfway through it yet. So I do get a little behind on modern gaming, and I’m not much of a first-person shooter guy, either. I’m a sucker for a good platformer, like Little Big Planet. But I also really, really loved Fallout 3, Bioshock, and Arkham Asylum. I even thought the new Castlevania game “Lords of Shadow” was awesome. Of course, the Super Mario Galaxy games on the Wii are highly addictive and super fun. Those games have tons of replay value, while I feel the games that take 75 hours to beat really don’t have that unless you want to spend 200 hours just walking around and doing side missions. Why do that when I can blast through Contra from beginning to end in a half an hour? haha
I have a couple of ideas for new Mega Beardo stuff. The next game I plan to tackle is a little-known gem called “Journey to Silius.” The music is stellar, and it lends itself to my style pretty well. I figure it is time to give some attention to a game that hasn’t been covered to death. I rarely see anyone mention it, actually. It’s an interesting game in that it was originally developed as a “Terminator” game, but the publisher lost the rights to the franchise. So they had to tweak a few things before they could release it under a different title. There are still some “Terminator” remnants, though. One of the bosses resembles a T-800 endoskeleton, for instance.
I’m also toying with the idea of recording a medley of the first Ninja Gaiden. I always wanted to do a full album of that entire soundtrack, but there is just so much damn music on that game. So I’ll just take three or four of my favorite tracks and mash them up a bit.
----- rockscene: Remembering having the NES growing up, there are so many memories of smashed controllers, stuff being thrown and epic freak outs when me playing the game didn’t turn out like I wanted it to. Have you ever lost your mind in anger and gone totally crazy over a video game? Or are you more calm?
Postlethwait: I’m much more calm now, but I definitely threw my NES controller a lot as a kid. Those things were sturdy and will most likely work fine after the apocalypse. It wasn’t until the SNES days that I finally demolished a controller. I had some birthday money, so I spent it on this brand new turbo controller for the SNES. Every button had a turbo setting. It was awesome. So I’m using it to play Super Mario World, a game I had beaten time and time again at that point. But for some reason, I could not get passed the Valley of Bowser 3 Level right before Bowser’s Castle. It’s the one that has all of the floating platforms that fall when their individual timer runs out. I was just having one hell of a time. Death after death after death, and I finally grabbed my brand new turbo controller and chucked it at the wall. The thing exploded into shrapnel. I was picking up pieces from every corner of my room. Not too long after, my sister and I were playing Super Mario World. She wasn’t very good at it, but I was just flying through it. She kept dying during a Special World level, and I made the mistake of laughing at her. She punched me in the face with the controller. It still has a crack in it from that incident.
In high school, my friend and I played tons of Mario Kart 64. So our skill levels were identical. Then one day, he was just beating me in every single race. I got absolutely furious, because I naturally hate to lose, and I just went to town on my N64 controller until it broke in half. After that, my friend and I duct taped it back together, and if we ever felt the need to take our gaming aggression out, we would drop our good controllers and start beating the shit out of the duct taped one.
I can gladly say I haven’t broken a controller in this century!
----- rockscene: Are you going to be playing any MB shows anytime soon?
Postlethwait: Nothing is lined up at the moment, as I’ve been too busy with other non-music related stuff. But once that dies down, I’m hoping to do some more shows in the future! Also, I think my main goal is to play a release show for “Ledjent of Zelda” and play the whole EP in its entirety, along with some of my other tracks. I think that would be a great way to celebrate. Maybe have a NES console and a TV set up at the show so people can stop by, hang out, and play some games. We’ll see!
----- rockscene: Brian Pickens (who kindly did the header art for us here) did the art for the Mega Man Tribute and Belmont, you think you may reach out to him for the Zelda cover?
Postlethwait: Of course! To me, a Mega Beardo album cannot be complete without Brian’s epic artwork. He really outdid himself on “Belmont.” He always gives me an idea of what he is going for before he starts working on it. So I have a pre-determined idea of what I think he’s going to do. Then when he sends me the finished product, I’m blown away every time. He does incredible work.
----- rockscene: Do you expect or plan on having guest appearances/musicians on the record, or do anything different?
Postlethwait: It depends on what the song calls for. I had a couple of my friends do guest vocals as Medusa and Dracula on “Belmont” simply because I heard their voices when I wrote those parts. I felt like it added an extra depth to the songs and gave it a bit more character. I have a couple of friends who are into djent more than me, so I may need to have them come on board for a bit and add some flavor.
----- rockscene: When do you expect Ledjent of Zelda to be done and out?
Postlethwait: The plan is to get everything written and recorded by the end of summer, so it will definitely be out by the end of 2012.
----- rockscene: Do you plan on not shaving your beard until it’s out, something cool like that? Talk about a mega beard…
Postlethwait: Haha. Probably nothing beard-related. The one cool thing I did while recording “Belmont” was make a progress chart, on which I would mark off each track of each song with a cut-out sprite to represent that track. I can see me doing something like that for “Ledjent of Zelda.”
Or maybe I’ll just shave the Triforce into my beard?
