The Witzard

[adult swim] Festival 2020 held virtually this past weekend, Novemeber 13-14th, was billed as "MUSIC, COMEDY, AND MAYHEM FROM YOUR COUCH!" and was streamed exclusively on YouTube in real-time. Broken down into separate categories such as Music, Watch Party, Live, and Giveaway, [as] Fest's performers included D∆WN, J.I.D. KAYTRANADA, Mastodon, Open Mike Eagle, Robyn, Run The Jewels, Colin Stetson (Bon Iver,) Thundercat & Ariana Grande , Tycho, and Kamasi Washington. With said performances, appearances, DJ sets, premieres, and specials being streaming online from about 2:00pm-12:20am Friday and 10:00am-11:50 Saturday, we decided to set some Reminders for specific performances that interested us most. Although, now, both full-day live sets are streaming on YouTube in their entirety, as well as separate segments for each respective artist, performer, or special. So, for purposes of this specific feature, we decided to focus on a number of particular performances tha...

Bloodnut are a self-proclaimed "Stoner-Sludge band of gingers" hailing from Auckland, New Zealand. I can vaguely recall, just a few short months ago, @BloodnutBand Tweeting a proposition for the senior vice president and creative director of a major music-minded network (which I wont name) to hear their then-forthcoming second album, St. Ranga; I believe said network SVP Replied something to the effect of he didn't listen to pre-release album advances. Needless to say, I saw all of this going down in real time and quickly jumped on the opportunity to score an advanced copy of Bloodnut's St. Ranga. I've been corresponding with Bloodnut founder, bassist, and frontman Doug McFarlane, via email for roughly two weeks now and on the heels of their recent Doomed & Stoned-premiered "The Space Orangutan," agreed we would do a short and sweet, yet informative 5-question mini-interview for publication here at The Witzard. Please feel free to headbang and rage...

"Somewhere in America, Miley Cyrus is still TWERKIN,'" that now-infamous Jay Z line single-handedly sums up the cultural assimilation of yet another once "cool" African-American trend, TWERKING. It's just something that "white bread" middle American women, not entirely unlike Taylor Swift , really shouldn't even be attempting to do in the first place. Atlanta -based Prog-Metal behemoths, Mastodon 's latest video treatment, "The Motherload" could likely coexist somewhere in the unlikely cross-hairs nestled in-between Sir-Mix-a-Lot and Danzig . "We weren't trying to make fun of Hip-Hop videos. It was a fine line, because I didn't want to come off as being sexist, so I thought that maybe the females took center stage and looked powerful and had this dance battle," Mastodon drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor recently explained to Pitchfork . Dailor additionally notes that he and his Mastodon bandmates along ...