I was honored to be asked to do some vinyl record reviews for a seller/website www.lprevival.com. This weekend, I made a couple videos and when they’re finished and posted to youtube I’ll link to them here. Meanwhile, check out www.lprevival.com!
A phosphorus inked vinyl record, and the needle replaced by an LED emitter, the record actually displays current news headlines in the ink and it fades away to be written again and again.
Check it out:
I have simultaneous batches of an original recipe of honey mead (recipe consisting of a bunch-load of clover honey from Walmart, some tea, cloves, and water), and a California Cabernet Sauvignon bubbling nicely in their respective fermenters. I made the mead before I left for 6 months, and it didn’t finish fermenting, so after six-months in the keg sitting on gas, I poured it into a primary and added champagne yeast and a bit of yeast nutrient and it’s off, cooking like a beast.
The Cabernet is smelling up that whole corner of the house. Man making wine is super super easy compared to beer and even mead. It’s just sterilize, pour, pitch yeast and cover. And, the best part is that at the end of a month I’ll have wine at 2.00 a bottle that costs 25.00 and up at the store. Yay!
Them Crooked Vultures is a supergroup with Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin). First, anyone must admit that this is the most amazing mash-up ever. We all love it when Dave Grohl and Josh Homme get together, like they did for Songs of the Deaf.
I just love Dave Grohl. He’s got the Midas touch, and a gift for choosing which bands and musicians to work with. The addition of John Paul Jones is such a mind-blast. Jones also appeared on Foo Fighters In Your Honor.
The songs on the album are a slight departure from Homme’s usual Queens style, but remain a bit as if it were a new Queens album. Of course the addition of the other two performers add a different style to the band, and it seems at times that Homme is trying a different style more akin to early Zepplin and even one vocal melody is almost identical to Aerosmith’s Walk This Way, and another song, Scumbag Blues, a melody is just about identical to Strange Brew by Cream.
The only thing that would make this even better? Raise John Bonham from the dead and bring Grohl out from behind the drums and sing with Homme. The album even sounds as if the other two guys joined Homme in the Desert for Desert Sessions Supergroup Vol 1. The songs are a lot like Homme’s side project Desert Sessions, they seem free, creative, and sound as if they were written in one pass.
Elephants, the fifth song on the album sounds as if they fast forward through all the Zepplin albums all at once. What a great album. I mean it’s not fantasticaaahh like early Grohl, early Homme, and early Jones, but these guys have matured in their own ways to bring us this outstanding rock and roll. This may just be a great year for music, first the incredible Shrinebuilder, now this! Come on 2010, BRING IT!
When the Levee Breaks is a book about the making of Led Zepplin IV. That’s an entire book, albeit small, about the making of one album. What sets out to be a great 200 page blog post about the making of Zep IV was found by some critics to be lacking in the fundamentals. One Amazon.com reviewer states:
“Nothing new or the slightest bit insightful can be found within these pages. Anyone who’s read a decent book or two about Led Zeppelin (not counting the terrible Hammer of the Gods or Richard Cole’s travesty) already knows everything supposedly “revealed” here. There’s a lot left out, and Fyfe seems to attribute every good idea the band had to drugs. He keeps calling them “hippies,” and has the nerve to claim that they never went on to release an album on par with the fourth. Excuse me?”
I found the book at a book warehouse for 4.00 and decided to pick it up. It just intrigued me that someone would write a book about a single album. I suppose if everything’s wrong in the book, well, that’s not cool. I’ll still give it a go and read it, it’s fairly short.
The company who published When the Levee Breaks also published books on these albums:
Looking at the reviews of these books on Amazon and other sites, I saw a recurring theme. ” The author didn’t do his research…” “Hire a proofreader…” “What I thought would be an interesting microscopic book about a great album ended up being like a High School Term-paper…” So, it looks as if the publisher, whom I cannot find on the internet, hired some trade writers to write a long article on a single album and call it a book. The articles/books aren’t very well thought out, researched, or written, and sell based on the title and included pictures alone. The bibliography for Levee is only 9 long at least 3 of them are not about Led Zepplin at all. It’s really too bad, because the publisher suckered me into buying the book based solely on, of course, the title and included pictures. It’s really too bad, too, if the publisher would have sought out some really top-notch writers, these could have been really excellent books, they did choose the right albums!
If you love The Black Keys like I do, then this is a great addition to your collection. The picture disc will be released on 19 January 2010. The album’s namesake was a General Tire & Rubber Co. building which has since been torn down. A few sites have the album available for pre-order.
In October 2009 the band issued a picture disc of Thickfreakness as well.
Hot Snakes 2nd album Suicide Invoice, sold out first press, will be repressed and shipped in Jan 2010. These won’t last very long.
Get yours here.
So I heard on the internets. You know how they talk, well they are saying that Shrinebuilder is the crowning achievement of all Stoner Rock. Shrinebuilder is a Stoner Rock supergroup, made up of Wino (Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Hidden Hand, Spirit Caravan), Al Cisneros (Om and Sleep), Dale Crover (Melvins and Altamont), and Scott Kelly (Neurosis).
This album lives up to the hype. I love all the bands each member is/was in, but Shrinebuilder transcends each of the individuals. Dare I say it’s the best Stoner album all year? It tries hard, you can tell it’s trying, but it also achieves much. Scott Kelly’s vocals are the perfect contrast to Wino’s howling and the ear does not tire of either voice.
The opening track, Solar Benediction takes us on a journey through all the Stoner Rock cliche’s, Doom, Psychedelic, Classic riff rock, and brings us to the other side, complete with acoustic guitars, feedback, reminding slightly of Black Sabbath’s best (I must say) album Sabotage. Solar Benediction is an 8:00 lesson in the history of Stoner Rock.
Track 2, Pyramid of the Moon reminds me of Isis, comes on strong and heavy, then lightens up with only mildly distorted guitars, and quickly picks back up with the fuzzy doomy guitars. Shrinebuilder lets the music breathe on this track. The guitars are recorded beautifully and the band focuses on the music without crowding the song with vocals. Part way through the track, among the chorus of guitars, layered on top of each other, a group of voices in harmony enters as if monks of the Stoner cathedral were called in the studio. The song could be a soundtrack to a movie about the crusades, full of hooded Christian monks on the bloody warpath for god.
Track 3, Blind for All to See, starts with drum/bass, and then a guitar sneaks in sounding almost exactly like the Diablo video game guitar. I played that game too many times not to recognize that one. Immediately after, guitars begin laying the groundwork in single note right/left, just slightly different notes times, in a feedback call/response. This song reminds me of The Doors, Riders on the Storm, a grooving bass line with an abstract guitar telling the story riding on top of the song. Don’t misread this, the song is not commercial, most likely would not get airplay, but is amazing, original, and seriously artistic.
Track 4, The Architect, comes out of the gate a bit riffy, not that its a bad thing, and features Wino on vocals. Wino’s voice is so distinctive and unusual, sometimes it takes away from the music underneath. I really like it when the band sings with Wino, to almost dilute his voice in the mix. Great song, but not quite achieving the greatness of the first 3 tracks.
Track 5, Science of Anger, comes on a bit complicated with the winding single note guitars with Wino on verse vocals, and switches to heavy chords and Scott Kelly’s voice for the chorus. The song builds with the guitars building tension while the bass/drums just continues to drive along moving the tension underneath to release in the chorus with a Zepplin-esque explosion. Halfway through the song, they release altogether, with one single guitar ushering in the rest of the band piece by piece for another slow build.
This is the rock I love. I just cant get enough art-rock-stoner-psych-riff, dark, explosive, evil, driving metal. How will anyone top this album? This album is like the first time you watched The Matrix and wondered, well, thats the end of how movies are made. I suppose music will now be known as pre-Shrinebuilder and post-Shrinebuilder.
Stonerrock.com had some color vinyl of this album and has already sold out. Those lucky bastards have a piece of history.
On November 3rd, Sub Pop released an anniversary edition of Nirvana’s first album Bleach. As a bonus they’ve included “an unreleased live recording of a complete February 9th, 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon”, according to Sub Pop’s website. The website goes on to say that the vinyl is a “weighty collection of records and images and nice packaging”.
I love it when labels go out of their way to make a nice reissue, and this is sure to be a good one.
Slayer World Painted Blood on 180g Vinyl LP
Not really my favorite album. Ok I suppose I’m a fly-by-night Slayer fan. I really only like South of Heaven and Reign in Blood. All the other albums after South of Heaven sound annoying to me. I saw a clip video of World Painted Blood a few days ago on XBox Live and thought, wow that sounds cool. Maybe Slayer found a new sound, more like the old sound! Unfortunately after a few listens I found it to be annoying and just bad.
I wish I could post a good review of this album, but I only got two songs into it before I turned it off in disgust. I’d still love to see Slayer live, and there’s nothing more brutal than South of Heaven and Reign in Blood. Just not digging the new Blood album at all.
