Mastodon Now Makes Beer In Addition To Melting Faces

I'm posting this only because I'm hungover and lazy at the moment, a rare night of too much high alcohol stouts and a nightcap of a shot of Crown Royal.

It's cold here in Iowa already. I needed a hearty stout with an bit of an alcohol burn at the end to warm my aging bones in an attempt to keep up with a few younger ones, some of which I'm sure are now two decades younger than me.

Thankfully, my son didn't bust my chops on the fact that we were late to his basketball practice because his Dad needed coffee to become mobile just as my wife didn't bust my chops that the saw job that I did on the cabinets to make our new refrigerator fit in the kitchen was so far from fucking straight that it's embarrassing.

Damn you Founders' Breakfast Stout!

So here's a quick and easy post telling you about Mastodon's new beer, Black Tongue!

I have no idea of their involvement, and the video below doesn't really explain too much, other than the brewers made the drummer from Mastodon sit down and tell them what kind of beer they wanted him to make.

After suggesting to the professionals that they "Bring back the essence of Blatz with the urine soaked finish of a stale can of Hamms" the group decide on a black IPA, which probably means that I won't like it.

But hey, I like beer and I like Mastodon, so I won't bust your chops if you order a few bottles of Black Tongue and crank up Crack The Skye.

Just mind the hangover before you do.



Update: Like Elton John, It's made in England, so with the shipping costs to the U.S., I seriously doubt many North American readers will ever get a chance to sip the band's new brew.

Mastodon's Brent Hinds Checks In To West End Motel

Pretty fucking clever title, eh?

$10 bucks says some other blogger's already used it.

So I tuned past VH1 Classic the other day...and who wouldn't? It's not like the have time to run anything music related other than Tom Petty appearing on The Larry Sanders Show and reruns of Married...With Children.

But on this occasion, they had some metal concert footage-Sonisphinter, I think it was-and there's all sorts of yummy clips. Megadeath seemed to rule. Sepultura had a crazy set. And Motorhead made some eardrums bleed.

Seriously though, Lemmy doesn't wear hearing protection. And if you've ever heard Motorhead live, you'll understand just how INSANE that fact is.

Then there was Mastodon, performing "Crack The Skye" which made me a bit whimsical.

It looks like Mastodon's Brent Hinds is focusing some attention on another project outside of the band. This is fine by me, as so far-and I'm thinking about the soundtrack to Jonah Hex here-Hinds seems to have a good, heavily tattooed head upon his shoulders.

The press release says:


WEST END MOTEL HITS ROAD IN SUPPORT OF NEW ALBUM
SOPHOMORE RELEASE FROM MASTODON'S BRENT HINDS
 ONLY TIME CAN TELL OUT OCTOBER 30 VIA WARNER BROS

Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds has just announced a 3-week tour with his side project West End Motel in support of their sophomore release Only Time Can Tell (out October 30 on Warner Bros). Kicking off November 28 in Washington, D.C., the tour will make stops in New York, Boston, Chicago, and more, wrapping up December 15 in Hinds' hometown of Atlanta.

 Only Time Can Tell is the highly-anticipated follow-up to Hinds' acclaimed 2011 debut Don't Shiver, You're A Winner which SPIN proclaimed "I can't believe how much of my arm I can stuff up my rectum" and Pitchfork praised for its "Sunday-go-to-meetin'-clothing choices."

The 8-song set is now available to preoder on iTunes. Rolling Stone is streaming and bunch of diarehea and the album's first single "Burn It Down," praising its "brightly shout-out-loud vocals, warm and soulful textures, swooning funk melodies and a breezy beat that's downright feel-good music."

West End Motel began in 1993 under a bridge in Atlanta, where Hinds first met longtime friend Tom Cheshire. Describing themselves as a "conglomerate of losers, poets and hobo-sexuals," the pair write acoustic-guitar driven songs enriched with horns and keys, with the end result sounding like Nick Cave fronting Gogol Bordello.

The project pre-dates Mastodon and offers an important glimpse into Hinds' musical influences. "I grew up listening to Chet Atkins play guitar, and I grew up listening to Brian Setzer play guitar," explains Hinds. "Jimmy Bryant, Speedy West, all these country-chicken-pickin'-flying-'round-the-guitar-neck guitar players. I got really inspired by it. I'm from way down in the country. It was pretty common to have the interests I had when I was that age. MTV had some hair metal on there, but I was more interested in this rockabilly vibe. Stray Cats were really big at the time, in the '80s. It was epic."

Only Time Can Tell Track Listing:

1. Burn It Down
2. El Myr
3. Witch Is Dead
4. If I Only Had Tomorrow (Second Chances)
5. Forgiveness 6. Only Time Can Tell
7. Valentine
8. Bite

WEST END MOTEL TOUR DATES
Nov 28 - Vienna, VA @ Jammin' Java
Nov 29 - New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
Nov 30 - West Chester, PA @ The Note
Dec 01 - Winooski, VT @ The Monkey House
Dec 02 - Allston, MA @ Great Scott
Dec 04 - Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
Dec 05 - Cleveland, OH @ The Grog Shop
Dec 06 - Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop
Dec 07 - Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
Dec 08 - Chicago, IL @ Double Door
Dec 09 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
Dec 11 - Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room
Dec 13 - Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light
Dec 14 - Birmingham, AL @ The Nick
Dec 15 - Atlanta, GA @ 529

Countdown To The New Mastodon Album

I don't know how long the "audio visualization" of the new Mastodon album, The Hunter, will stay on-but I suggest that you play it immediately.

It's the entire album.

The visuals get tired after a while-it's more of the same backdrop they use during their live sets-but like every Mastodon album, the music gets better over time.



A review is in the works, but initial signs point to another friggin' winner to these road dogs.

September 20, 2011
MEDIA ALERT!


The Hunter by the mighty MASTODON will be released September 27th.


With that in mind, the band would like to share their full album online premiere with THE HUNTER VISUALIZER, which will go LIVE today September 20th. Click here now to get a sensual whiff of what's in store for you before street date.

Also, Pitchfork.com will premiere the official "Curl Of The Burl" video this Thursday, September 22nd. Brace yourself.


More to be revealed shortly. Stay close to www.mastodonrocks.com for details.

Mastodon - Live At The Aragon

If Mastodon isn’t the best live American band in existence today, they are certainly within the top five. All of that praise is based on the stunning command they display in a live setting. Their exact precision is a sight to behold, with the key word being “sight” as the band has not released a live record until now.

Live At The Aragon is the band’s first official release, recorded in the same city that I saw them in (different time and venue, though) after they kicked off the tour supporting Crack The Skye by playing the record in its entirety.

The performance I witnessed was in the smaller Metro venue from the first trek of the tour. By the time they returned to Chicago, the band was well worn from the rigors of the road, while still dizzyingly tight and stoically professional.

To document this, the band set up shop in the Aragon ballroom, a rustic room with a penchant for a few shoves and maybe a fist or two-but the band is too quick and well-winded to let any mouthbreather suck the air out of their nitrogen-rich environment.

I have no idea what that even means, but I can tell you that Mastodon has the ability in a live setting to wear a man down, particularly if they don’t pace themselves early on to take advantage of the bands two-hour long set of full-throttle heavy metal.

Because Live At The Aragon documents the Crack The Skye tour, you get another performance of the album and a handful of other tracks at the end of the performance. This date includes a wonderful version of The Melvins’ “The Bit,” while being woefully short on other favorites, some of which prevent the album from being both a “must have” and “vital document.”

It is a good one, nonetheless, with added points for the dvd of the performance. This is really where you should start with as it provides visual proof of how these guys not only created the sonic wonderment that is Crack The Skye, but they were able to recreate it without tricks or slight of hand.

The dvd also contains the visuals that played behind the band during the Crack The Skye set which, as those who attended the shows, is really not much of a draw here.

With that being said, the dvd is the draw here, for without it, Live At The Aragon’s mirrors the original studio release so much that it would be irrelevant.

Still, if anyone needed evidence of the band’s live prowess or would like an audio witness to how good this band is at this moment, Live At The Aragon is a nice bit of recorded evidence.

Record Store Day 2011: Survivor's Guilt and Colored Vinyl

It was snowing on Record Store Day this year, the annual event that was created to celebrate what is now a dying breed, but what once was an establishment in nearly every town with a population of any decent size.

My town of Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in the state of Iowa, and with a population of over 125,000 people, it’s not enough to support one record store. The last one closed a few years ago, if I recall, and I remember making a special trip to city for one of the first record store closing of any significance-Rock ‘N Bach Records-when it shuttered, more than a decade ago. I drove up for the store-closing sale, snagging a rare Julian Cope picture disc for a song, and thinking, “I wish I’d known about this place sooner.”

It felt like a morgue in there. The store seemed depressingly dark, with windows blocked by faded promotional posters. We were late to the pickings-bins were missing entire sections from previous shoppers who’d gotten the more popular stuff. What remained were the obscure and undesirable. For ever oddball Julian Cope 12”, there were six copies of some EMF record.

There were more stores that closed before I moved up here, and several others that ended while I was here. So for Record Store Day 2011, the closest place I could solicit my support was to drive the forty-five minute commute to Iowa City, the same collegiate town where my love of independent record stores grew exponentially.

I’ve spoken before of this town and their selections, but like every other town that’s had a retailer devoted to the purchase of recorded music; Iowa City has seen a quiet dismantling of record stores. When I began coming to that town in search for eclectic selections and knowledgeable clerks, you could easily find a store on nearly every corner of its downtown district.

The Record Collector-which ended up becoming my favorite store out of the bunch-is the last one standing. I made the declaration that we would be traveling down to Iowa City to “celebrate” record store day, which is code for “If you let me putz around the record store for 15 minutes, I’ll take you kids to the shitty children’s museum, which is right across from the ice-rink inside the massive shopping mall next to I-80.

Immediately, I noticed the familiar face of the owner of the Record Collector-Kirk Walther-hurriedly assisting customers around the smaller square-footage of his latest location. By my count, this location at 116 South Linn Street is his third, and by my guess, the square footage is in between his original location and the one he eventually moved into when his business expanded.

It’d been years since I’d seen him, so a reintroduction was in order. At one point in time, I’d make the trip to his store about once a month-and that was when I lived over an hour away. Now that I’m closer, the drive was nothing like it was, but like everybody else, my purchasing habits have changed, as has the preferred format.

The drive down to Iowa City is indicative of this, where I loaded Prince’s “Sometimes It Snows In April” onto my IPod before loading the kids in the van, a song that fit the abrupt climate change that found my lawn covered in snow before we ventured out.

I could have easily just brought Parade with us and started the journey, but as it is with the convenience that the mp3 format brings us, why not just add one more file to the larger catalog that comes with me for any journey that will be longer than 10 minutes in length.

Like most Big Ten college towns, parking is a valuable commodity. They’ve planted strategic parking buildings around the downtown area, of course, and if we were planning a lengthy stay in the district, this may have been the ideal spot. But we were entertaining my whim, and I needed a spot close to the Record Collector in order to make a quick exit. I knew the event would be lost on the children, and the appreciation of traveling back in time to when visits to the record store were part of the routine.

I asked Kirk how things were going with the store and then immediately regretted it. I’m sure he gets asks this question, and probably even more direct ones like “Are you guys going out of business soon?”

“Yeah, I get sick of it…but I understand why it gets asked” he acknowledged, right before he asked me directly “Are you still buyin’?”

It’s a tough question to answer, because on every account it suggests that I’m not doing much to support an industry that has provided me so much. And by “industry,” I’m speaking directly to the independent record stores and not to the labels that directly contributed to the downfall of brick and mortar stores that now view Record Store Day as their version of Black Friday.

There I was, admitting to the convenience of ITunes for those late night impulse purchases, the bargain pricing of Amazon on the rare occasion that I actually order physical copy, and vaguely referencing the promotional downloads that I’ll get for free for review consideration.

He seemed to notice how uncomfortable my answers were, and he quickly tried to display an understanding as to why I wasn’t a guest of his store as much as I used to be. And his responses were right on: with not living in Iowa City and with wife and kids into the mix, I’m not the single guy in his late-twenties/early thirties that can find the time to invest money into a passion that no longer has the drive to make me choose sides over my personal life. My personal life has become my family life, and music has become the mistress that I visit when the kids are in bed and the wife preoccupied.

It still provides the soundtrack to my life and its there to document changes in my world, but the keys to obtaining the score have changed a lot since I use to walk into Kirk’s store with one purchase in mind and leave with several titles in hand.

He smiled at this fact, because it was those kinds of encounters with others and myself that enabled him to grow and prosper before realizing that the livelihood he had chosen was based on an unsteady foundation, one where Kirk would have to work twice as hard just to get to half of the intended results.

I’m sorry for this, but it’s ultimately beyond my control. Sure, I could travel down and spend twenty minutes circling the block looking for parking, to which all of this would ultimately accomplish a reality where I’m spending less on a passion that requires me to dig deeper. Instead of four albums, I would only be able to afford one. So when opportunities allow me to obtain those four at a lower cost, I’m taking the cheaper route.

Kirk tells me that the most lucrative time was in 1991-when “college rock” suddenly became “mainstream rock.” When people would sell their cds just to get other cds, which provide stores like the Record Collector with the enviable position that they could obtain a nice catalog of titles just by buying direct instead of through rigid distributors.

I was one of those people, and Kirk was there to encourage my quest for knowledge. You’d give him a band that you were playing a lot, and he’d bring out a half-dozen titles of similar artists knowing that one would surely stick.

Surprisingly, he sounded upbeat and positive, despite my initial questions to him, which were anything but. It’s the vinyl that’s been helping his rebound, which seemed to be the format that Record Store Day focuses on.

Regardless of my embarrassment, it wasn’t guilt that drew me to Kirk store on this blustery Saturday-it was the rare shit. The day had been good to him: most of the limited edition stuff he received for the festivities were gone. I began to rattle off my own list of items that I’d circled and Kirk took me to the area that housed the Record Store Day new releases.

The Beach Boys 10” sold out early, but my other two hopefuls-a Deerhunter single and the vinyl version of Mastodon’s new live album-were still in stock. As Meatloaf said, two out of three ain’t bad.

The kids were thoroughly unimpressed with the record store and they spent most of their time scarfing down the chips and pretzels that the store had laid out to ensure a long visit. Ironically, the kids were the reason why the trip was cut short as the snacks led way to “I’m Hungry!” which meant that their whining would ultimately become a business liability for Kirk if I didn’t get them some grub.

But not before snagging an original, mint copy of Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs and a dirt-cheap copy of Phish’s Hampton Comes Alive.

“Mastodon and Phish in the same purchase! I love it!” exclaimed Kirk as his collegiate co-worker rang me out.

“There’s a Marty Robbins record in there too,” I added proudly, “There’s nothin’ wrong with tryin’ different things!”

And part of that diversity is because of the world that people like Kirk opened for me.

For that, I should be able to find at least one day a year to say “Thank you.”

Preparing To Be Face Fisted

The waiver has been signed, so this may be my last post ever.
With any luck, I will die from scalding hit Duncan Hills coffee being poured over my body at tonight's Converge/High On Fire/Mastodon/Dethklok show in Des Moines.

Is it just me, or does the middle age dude playing guitar with Brendon Small serve as an image killer? I mean, I understand that I won't actually be seeing Murderface, Pickles, and the rest of the cast, but I didn't know that they would reanimate the corpse of Jerry Garcia for rhythm guitar duties either.
But seriously, a quick search of the net finds the old fart to be Mike Keneally, a Zappa protege who has traded licks with the best of them while still managing to look strangely out of place while shredding with a fake melodic death metal band.
I have high hopes that this will be as brutal as the line-up suggests it will be, regardless of how anyone looks.
It better be: I'm using one of my floating holidays to recuperate.

Mastodon - Crack The Skye

On the band’s fourth full-length (fifth if you count Call Of The Mastodon) Atlanta’s Mastodon make an album that will finally test the patience of the alternative elite that have traditionally supported them. I tend to view these music-types with more of a suspicious eye then an indie rocker who will verbally announce disdain for anything metal because at least the metal hater is being honest about it.
Yes, I’m one of those who believe there’s a large contingency of hipsters that have stood by Mastodon on the sole reason that they needed to find a relatively underground metal band to align with just to prove that they’re open to all kinds of music.
Their affection towards Mastodon should end with Crack The Skye, an album that puts the notion of “concept album” to a point of ridiculousness while utilizing a famous producer (Brendan O’Brien) to help capture the mayhem and, quite possibly, tidy up the results to get it ready for mass consumption.
While Crack The Skye isn’t quite The Black Album, it does share that album’s spirit and intention: to make the most technically precise album of their career and to make it the most accessible too.
Here’s where the bands took different roads: Metallica started to compose songs that were completely different from their catalog arsenal. Mastodon is taking songs that are in their catalog titles into entirely new dimensions. They’re now toying with progressive elements. They’re singing. They’re creating songs that you may actually hear on the radio, not just the stations on the non-commercial bandwidth.
It is these elements that will most certainly take a negative view to anyone that isn’t a real metalhead underneath all that pretention.
While Bob Rock taught Metallica that recording is the process of capturing the perfect take of each song, Brendan O’Brien is teaching Mastodon that recording is the process of capturing the perfect sounds of each song. He’s introduced the band to an impossible amount of vintage gear-amplifiers and guitars-and these brushes are used extensively. In every song. In every manner.
The amount of soloing will make your head spin, but it’s the tone and texture of these sounds that will make you understand what a great producer O’Brien is. There’s a great risk that any band would faced when dealing with this amount of interplay. O’Brien’s gig was to introduce new tones for these indulgences, but it fell upon the band themselves to make sure the execution worked.
They do, particularly Brent Hinds who treats every solo like it’s his last. Perhaps it’s the result of one scary and stupid altercation with the bassist of System of a Down that left Hinds with a brain injury, severe enough to the point where he was at risk of losing his craft. His soloing gets more intense as the album progresses, until it gets to the last song on the album, A thirteen-minute-long epic called “The Last Baron.” Halfway through it, Hinds unleashes a solo is so sick that you have no idea how they’ll come out of it let alone how they got there. The answer is clear: the band has decimated nearly every aspect of metal in the course of the album that by the time they reach the final track, they have no choice but to start lifting techniques from the Zappa camp.
Crack The Skye clocks in at a wonderful fifty-minutes in length. As a result, it doesn’t wear thin while it gives you plenty of extra sonic gravy to savor with repeated listens. It’s the kind of album that your older brother, if he really loved you, would bequeath to you when he left the house for good.
The only downfall of the album is the concept-something about a kid hiding Rasputin’s spirit and using it to travel through the astral plane in order to get back to Earth-is impossible to take seriously.
Not only does the concept itself take on too much and serve as a point of contention among non-metal critics, it’s a distraction from what the real concept of Crack The Skye is. The album’s namesake is drummer Brann Dailor’s sister, Skye, who passed at the age of 14. Dailor, one of the album’s chief composers, has spent a long time dealing with that pain, and this album seems like one of the first attempts at coming to terms with the tragedy. The fact that he’s hidden the album’s true meaning in a mess of Muscovite Tsardom indicates to me that Dailor’s still not ready to let go of some of his emotional baggage just yet and having to explain such a wordy concept theme is more tolerable then having to recount the details of his own personal tragedy.
What he leaves off the paper, Mastodon executes through sheer musicianship and that is what makes Crack The Skye special. The moment you forget about the “concept” or worry about what it was supposed to be, you can do nothing but admire the performances it contains. There’s no band today that can match what Mastodon is able to do with their instruments.
Is it better than Leviathan or Blood Mountain? It’s probably in the middle. While those aforementioned albums have a bit more muscle to them, Crack The Skye has a bit more passion behind it. Not only with the “real” concept it avoids through ridiculous diversions, but in the manner how the band talks through their shit by playing together. There’s a scene in the deluxe edition DVD where the band discusses the making of the album. Brann begins talking about the inspiration his sister provided them, while a later interview with Brent Hinds shows his not entirely certain about the details of Dailor’s sister. As the album shows, Crack The Skye is the band’s sonic therapy session and it is even complex and layered than the real world baggage that helped forge it.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.

Mastodon will be appearing with Dethklok and High on Fire October 14 at the Val Air Ballroom. Cook venue. Awesome line up. Don't be stupid. Show up and get floored.

Punch Drunk: More Info On Brent Hinds Head Injury

I only post this because, until Cousin J forwarded me the article, I assumed that Brent Hinds’ head injury was the result of drunken shenanigans and at the hands by the bass player of System of a Down.
It turns out that it was the result of drunken shenanigans at the hands of one of the entourage members of the Wu Tang Clan, Rev.William Burke aka William Hudson aka the dude you never heard of because he’s collaborating with the bass player of System of a Down.
As badass as that getting the shit kick out of you by a member of the Wu Tang Clan may sound-I mean, if you’re going to have your ass handed to you, why not have it done by a dude that rolls with the Wu-the reality of the incident is much more uncool. Namely because nobody’s heard of this dude. Translated: a little pussy with lesser talent than Brent Hinds sucker punched the guitarist because he hit him with a fucking shirt. Sure, Hinds is notorious for drinking too much and being a little too quick with the fists, but as far as I know, he’s never nearly destroyed someone else’s livelihood with a sucker punch. For real: what kind of pussy sucker punches a drunken dude just because the shirt they’re spinning around accidently hits them?

“It was a cheap shot and if I would’ve seen it coming, it never would’ve
happened,” says Hinds, pauses lengthening between words. “He’s a coward and
complete asshole. He hides in the shadows and punches people out of nowhere,
which is the most little girl thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s like,
‘Dude, grow some balls and fuckin’ face me, and I guarantee you’ll be going
down, not me.’” Hinds was hospitalized with severe head trauma. At first, his
brain was so swollen that his doctor called his relatives and suggested they fly
to Vegas in case he didn’t wake up from his coma.
-Inked

And where the fuck was this Shavo Odadjian? Why is he hanging with such a pussy? If Hinds was being a douche, why not call it a night, grab your lady Wu puppydog, and retreat for a sober, less threatening environment? Admittedly, I wasn’t there and there’s a bunch on conflicting stories (even Hinds’-who admittedly was near a fucking coma-seems to change the events every time he speaks about it), but I’ll be damned if I know of any thirty year olds that allow themselves to be put into situations in which an felony is in the plans for the evening. Keep in mind, Shavo is a dude that’s directed a Bad Brains video, and if anyone can direct something with HR in it, that person can handle the most unpredictable of personalities.
There’s the risk now that Hinds will seek some kind of retaliation; never mind that if I were ever punched into a coma, I’d be retiring from the fisticuffs entirely.

"He sucker punched me out of nowhere and almost ended my life," Hinds says. "If I ever see that dude, I will have to spend some time in prison."
-Rolling Stone

Which leads me to the question: Did the law ever get involved with this incident? It seems that if someone dropped someone to the point of near-death and the person responsible for it is known and caught on camera, isn’t that person picked up by the black and white and has to make some kind of explanation? I remember moving a bunch of safety cones to block a street in the city park, getting busted for it, and having to go down to the station for at least a twenty minute interrogation. Are we at a day and age where dropping someone to the point where they suffer brain damage is not an investigative issue.
Part of me hopes for a little retaliatory revenge, but a larger part of me hopes the whole thing is dropped while both Shavo and Hudson’s career get their own reminder of how livelihood is a precious thing. Karma, as we all know, usually is the best form of justice around.

Over The Edge

Happy Anniversary baby.
Got you on my….Mind.
Saw Over The Edge this weekend. First time in, like, twenty-eight years. I suppose I should let my wife watch it, but I don’t think she’d appreciate it as she was ONE when it was originally released. They aired it all the time on HBO back then, when meant it was permanently embedded into my brain for all of these years. Watching it alone made me feel like I was alone, age thirteen, watching the movie in my parents’ living room while they slept upstairs. It has a great soundtrack; the scene where they’re all going to this party and “You Really Got Me” is playing in the background as they go down to the basement is the reason why I bought Van Halen’s first record.
Actually, my Grandmother bought it for me at an electronics store in Bedford, Iowa and it was on cassette.

There’s a full accounting of the Mastodon show coming in Glorious Noise, but the overall consensus was that it was epic and completely amazing. The crowd was spotted with music geek types, most of whom stood agape as the band completely worked over a brutal two-hour set of Crack The Skye in its entirety and a transgressing set from the rest of their catalog. The Blood Mountain material was superb. I’m still a little pissed that they didn’t do “Blood & Thunder” but…what can you do.
Parking was a real pain thanks to an evening game between the Cubs and Great White, but we were advised to drive up an alley a few blocks from Wrigley Field and go see a guy named “Ziggy.”
Apparently, Ziggy has some parking space in the area and he plays guitar.
“We’re all doing a shit right when Mastodon goes on.” Advised the inked bartender at the Metro to her other co-workers. It was in preparation to get their head’s blown off from pure metal. Seriously, I stood right in front of the stage-right speakers and had to move after a few songs because it was making me queasy even with adequate ear protection.
There was a sign that advised how all stage diving and mosh pitting would not be allowed because of insurance reasons. Come to think of it, it’s been well over ten years since I’ve witnessed head-trauma inducing stage diving of any source. Thanks Progressive lady!
A dude in a wheelchair was selling bootleg t-shirts after the show for $10. They looked like they were made by a dude in a wheelchair with a red and black Sharpie.
A cute girl and her boyfriend were fighting in front of the Gingerman. He wanted to take her picture, supposedly to “document” her meltdown. She called him an “abuser.” A dude seeing that a weeping girl was somehow code for “Make a pass” asked with halfway concern if she was ok. She ignored him, and Mr. Concerned went home and beat-off.
After a mile jaunt, we found the car and went trippin’ on LSD.

The Power Of The Riff Compels You!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I totally have a boner for the new Mastodon album Crack The Skye. I’ve already pre-ordered it-no, it wasn’t the deluxe limited edition version. I figured that the album was enough (along with the making-of DVD that came with it) and it saved me enough dough that I could get a few more cd’s-making this first cd purchase of 2009.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but cd sales are low, so I think that I’m not alone in my cd buying habits. You want to know something? While browsing around, I noticed that there are bunches of albums that have found their way into “bargain price” categories. For example, you can pretty much get the entire early Ramones catalog for under nine bucks per disc. So guess what else I bought in addition to the new Mastodon album? Why labels don’t figure this out is beyond me. There was a time when it was not uncommon for me to drop close to a $100 every other month for cds. Now, that figure is closer to a couple times a year, mainly on titles that I know I’ll like thanks to downloading them for free first. Most of those titles, by the way, are ones that I just need to fill out my collection; very few new discs make the cut.
The Ramones disc was a no brainer. I would probably pay the same price for an album download, so why not get the real thing along with the artwork and better sound quality? I did put back a bunch of titles, simply because I couldn’t justify the price. Seriously, why are labels so insistent on leaving prices at $15? I don’t care about the bonus material! I don’t care about the packaging! And, newsflash, nobody else does either! I would love for some of these bands to see that I didn’t buy their shit because I didn’t perceive it to be a very good value. But $6.99 for Road To Ruin? Please. I noticed a Peter Tosh album that I’ve wanted for quite some time had also been reduced. Guess what? Picked that one up too.
It’s true, the Mastodon title is new and I’ve only heard one song off it. That song is found on the video below, a video so awesome that I’m confident that the rest of the album-even if it’s only half as good as this song-is worth the purchase price. The purchase price, by the way, contains that aforementioned DVD.
Value!
However, seriously, whenever the video features killer hooks, a homage to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and the fucking abominable Snowman, you know it’s good.

Mastodon - New Music - More Music Videos

Mastodon-Blood Mountain

For some time now, longer than I care to admit, heavy metal has needed an album that shakes the genre to its core. A reminder that, in order for it to remain relevant, it needs a few watershed bands to move things forward. And while there are certainly bands that help fit this description, the reality is that the majority of these releases remain speckled in the underground, avoiding detection by (what I believe to be) a record buying public that may have written off the genre, choosing instead to reminisce about pre-Black album Metallica, old Slayer, and buying Iron Maiden re-issues. I say this, because I’m one of those people.
But I have hope.
It lies, at the moment, in the hands of Mastodon’s major label debut (third overall) Blood Mountain. The hope is that with the resources of a major their impact will be wider. Immediately after impact, the desire is that their influence will take hold so that other bands within the genre can feel the freedom to push their own creative envelope. The Lord, and Satan in this case, knows that metal as we know it today needs more bands like Mastodon who understand more about shredding than they know about Soundscan.
The obvious concern, and it’s one that crosses genres, is that whenever a band moves to a major label they make adjustments to their sound to become more palatable. The reality is that Mastodon has tweaked Blood Mountain to a point, yet I don’t see them sacrificing anything for the sake of building a wider audience. The vocals are more defined, the drums are clearer, and the riffage remains humongous.
Speaking of riffs: They’re here. There’s plenty. Sometimes to the tune of five or six per song. Sometimes impossibly proficient. And with more depth added to the production, you can clearly hear why there’s not another metal band at this moment that can touch ‘em.
True, this is a more progressive-metal Mastodon, and this may alienate some fans of 2004’s “Leviathan,” but by the same token, weren’t true metalheads alienated by how that album was based on fucking “Moby Dick?!” Christ, the only Moby Dick a real metalhead knows is the one that swam out of John Bonham’s drum kit. My point is, only a real snob is going to comment about how Mastodon has gotten more “progressive” with Blood Mountain. A real metalhead only knows that the performances on Blood Mountain rock the piss out of nearly every living mammal on Earth.
Speaking of drummers, Mastodon skinner Brann Dailor is just as amazing as the band makes frequent use of time signature changes. And with each tempo change comes a new sub-genre; progressive metal morphs into psychedelia before switching to thrash metal while visiting the familiar epics of old British new wave heavy metal. It’s all touched upon while being completely refreshing and utterly believable. Blood Mountain is an album that not only respects its elders, but also attempts to outdo them.
Will it sell enough to keep the band on the Reprise payroll? If Mastodon’s audience doesn’t move beyond the hipsters and underground metal supporters that they’re accustomed to, then probably not for long. So here’s a plea to anyone (and there’s lot of you) who have Powerslave, Master Of Puppets or South Of Heaven in their collection: you will love this album. If it isn’t one of the best metal albums you’ve heard in the past decade, it is at the very least, one of the best albums, irregardless of genre, that you’ll hear this year.

This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.