Come to the Sabbath

Yeah, yeah it's been a month. My bad.

If you've never heard Mercyful Fate, it's high time we remedied that. It's like Judas Priest doing a horror soundtrack, only a lot more badass than how lame that kinda sounds. The Denner/Shermann guitar duo is among the best in metal, the rhythm section is highly underrated, and King Diamond stands on his own in a vocal capacity. These are fluid, haunting tales of the dark, full of wailing vocal histrionics and distinctive, menacing melody.

I found this awesome bootleg live LP rip from their mid-90s reunion (circa the In The Shadows, I think record) somewhere in my internet wanderings. Enjoy.

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I'll Be Down, I'll Be Around

When I started listening to Dinosaur Jr a few years nacl, I felt like they were the band I'd needed in high school. Nerdy and reclusive, but also distorted and huge. Their first few records are like the best parts of Neil Young dipped in large vats of guitar effects. This bootleg from 1989, Blue Note, captures the now-reunited classic lineup in solid form not long before frontman J Masicis first gave bass player Lou Barlow the boot. I can only assume it's a soundboard rip because the band is fucking loud live unto today, yet everything's pretty clear here, even J and Lou's vocals.

Download here.

Slowdive- Live in Oslo 1992

If posting a crapton of their demos my first ICDT post is of any indication, Slowdive has been on the listening docket quite a bit lately. A truly sublime band.

When they released their second best album Souvlaki in 1993, their label not only delayed its release but also withdrew financial support mid-tour. The band then toured twice more on their own dime. It would be around this time, I'm guessing, that they released this Live in Oslo tape from their 1992 show at the Centrum in order to help with the money end of things. The setlist is solid-- three cuts from Souvlaki, supplemented by older EP and Just for a Day tunes. The song quality is in the B/B+ range-- the only real downsides are the occasional but incredibly brief tech difficulty (maybe once or twice) and the likely drunk guy yelling "I LOVE YOU!" at singer/guitarist Rachel Goswell between songs...and then Rachel eventually calls him out, which is pretty golden.

If you like My Bloody Valentine or any of their followers or just want spacey, relaxing music, check this tape out. And the aforementioned ICDT post, because most of those demos are as fantastic as anything the band released on an album.

Download HERE

Black Meddling

I gotta say it straight: I wasn't as impressed by Nachmystium's Assassins: Black Meddle, Pt 1 as most everyone else was. There are some cool moments, to be sure, but a bunch of the gang vocal choruses annoyingly remind me why I so quickly tired of Children of Bodom years ago. Also, the three-part "Seasick" dealy was an interesting concept, but a saxophone? That instrument can either make (see King Crimson's catalogue) or break (see Thin Lizzy's "Dancing in the Moonlight") a song, and while not as drastic as the latter example I think the instrument's inclusion was a lil' much.

But I digress. I'm especially picky about the black metal-influenced stuff I listen to; the "purer" bands of the genre aren't so much my thing because I can't get down with unprovoked hatred. But Nachtmystium's breakthrough 2006 record Instinct: Decay was totally awesome. Just raw enough in the production department, but not without charred melody, memorable riffing and totally trippy guitar sounds. I went right out and bought it as well as the Eulogy IV EP, which if I recall correctly is where the psychedelic sounds first began to seep in. I unfortunately never got to see them live on that tour, but through some searching I acquired a soundboard rip of their Seattle set while touring with Daughters and Pelican in 2006. FLAC converted to WAV converted to MP3. It was unlabeled so I did what I could-- only a few song remain that way. Enjoy, unless you're some kvlt dude who can't get past the fact that they're not bedroom BM anymore.

DOWNLOAD HERE

WHO ARE YOU AND WHY AM I HERE?

Void, easily my favorite 80s DC (well, okay, they were from Columbia, MD) hardcore band, were an absolute clusterfuck of sound. John Weiffenbach's screechy delivery flies over a total racket created by the rhythm section of Sean Finnegan and Chris Stover and especially Bubba Dupree's guitar style. Dupree took the noisy tonal standard Greg Ginn established on Damaged and added more angst, heavy metal, and outright sloppiness. Dudes sound like they never played tight even on their best day, and that's the fun of it all.



Highly recommended is their split with the Faith, recently reissued on LP by the one and only Dischord Records. Faith's side can't touch Void's, but is solid nonetheless and features Ian MacKaye's younger brother on bass. The band also had a track featured on Dischord's Flex Your Head comp and released the Condensed Flesh 7"; the latter featured Holocaust content years before Slayer did "Angel of Death."

Bubba Dupree supposedly resides in Seattle, while Sean Finnegan worked on the set of The Wire until his unfortunate death of a heart attack last year.

I've acquired two boots of Void's violent live sets. The first is a bootleg 7" rip of a set from the 9:30 Club in DC in February 1983, and the second is titled "Live?" and has no other information. Both are of solid quality and worth the time of anyone into hardcore punk and/or crossover.

Download HERE

Tales of Scorched Ears

As I've previously stated many a time, the Smashing Pumpkins are a big-time favorite here at the Squidlair. I was substantially disenchanted with the Zeitgeist record and felt no need to see them live; it wouldn't be the same, after all, and most of my favorite non-single tunes would be ignored.

For the most part, this was true...but then Billy announced the 20th Anniversary Tour and the inclusion of older songs and I was fucking pumped. So much so that I paid around seventy bucks to see them play DAR Constitution Hall in DC for the first of their two nights there. I'd heard rumors of a sketchy setlist, but crossed my fingers anyways...to no end. Read on.

DAR was a beautfiul venue. Nice and rustic on the outside, elegant and technologically up-to-date on the inside.

The Pumpkins took the stage with Billy coming on last, wearing a lengthy skirt (not so odd) and a shiny gold sungoddess headpiece and chestplate. They sang some bullshit song, then went into "Tarantula," which actually came off okay live. Up next was "G.L.O.W.," a ditty penned for Guitar Hero III. It was so unremarkable I don't even remember it.

But then-- then they broke out "Siva" and I was momentarily appeased. One of my favorite guitar solos ever. Ripped. Back to crapsville from there with "Eye" from the Lost Highway OST.

And then, everything changed. I heard the live keyboardist playing a familiar melody and realized that Billy, Jimmy and the expendables they roll with were busting out "Mayonaise" and I couldn't believe it. Blew me away. I almost teared up.

The highlights end there, readers. Let's fasttrack this bullshit: an acoustic set in which the band convened on the front of the stage with a small piano, acoustic guitars and a streamlined drum kit for a mere three songs; obscure covers; a rushed-to-hell "Today" and "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" puncuated by the "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning, " which I hate so much I mixed up the "beginning"s and "end"s in the title while typing; an initial closing jam of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" which, while a good tune, is not what you want to hear on an anniversary tour (especially when it spans 15 minutes); and finally, an encore of "We Only Come Out at Night"...on kazoos. The final final song was Jimmy and Billy mugging to the audience and mocking anyone's sellout suppositions by mentioning their practicing 48 different songs for two nights worth of music, instead of all "hits."

Oh, hey guys? 48 songs doesn't mean shit if most of it is rushed "greatest hits," anything from Adore or the aforementioned soundtracks, or just general subpar songs. Whether you sold out or not is irrelevant when you're fucking stuck up. Thanks for "Mayonaise," though.