The Witzard

"Tweaking, improving, and modifying a machine is what I've been doing with Mechanical Techno since starting the project a few years ago. This process gives the record it's title, the mostly obsolete word, "tentation;" a more colloquial word for the same thing might be fettling. The two tracks that make up this album are each made through a process of fettling a musical machine. I started playing more abstract, Noise-based turntable sets in 2008, usually playing with several turntables, modified hardware and vinyl, guitar effects pedals, cymbals, springs, marbles, rolls of tape, dentistry tools, and anything I could get my hands on. The focus in the early days was texture, drone, controlled feedback, and surface noise, but still with some rhythmical elements that scratched up records naturally provide. I used randomly occurring snippets of sound and samples disconnected from context quite a lot in those early recordings and live sets, too. Sometime later, I b...

"10 years after their first release, Trapped Under Ice brings you Heatwave. This phat LP is short, fast, and Hardcore; the way Straight Ahead intended, but played more like Fury of Five and Breakdown at a backyard party. For Punks who've considered throwing a spin-kick in jean shorts. Rhythmically, Heatwave is like a trailer park Sepultura. Check it out if you f**k with what TUI has been doing for the last decade. The same, but different" is how Baltimore Hardcore Punks Trapped Under Ice describe their latest record, Heatwave within a Pop Wig Records pre-order. Heatwave consists of 11 rapid-fire tracks that collectively clock in at right around 14 minutes-worth of frantic, blistering well-executed Punk. It's been six years since Trapped Under Ice's last album, Big Kiss Goodnight (2011) and since then, its members have splintered off to form like-minded progressive Punk/Hardcore bands Angel Du$t , Turnstile, Diamond Youth, Down to Nothing, WARFARE, and Sai Nam, ...

Discogs simply describes JAY-Z, The Ultimate Warriors ‎– Split 12-inch as: "a JAY-Z 12-inch single glued to The Ultimate Warrior's Our Gimmick Is Wrestling LP. Limited to 30 copies for Record Store Day 2017 at Double Decker Records. Some copies have orange "IMPORT" sticker on the front. Some copies have the the A-side of Our Gimmick Is Wrestling LP playable and some have the B-side." The Ultimate Warriors were a Nazareth-based Wrestling-themed Hardcore/Powerviolence band active from about 1998-2003, which notoriously heralded as a pre-Pissed Jeans incarnation of Pissed Jeans; featuring Matt "Rageez" Kosloff (Korvette,) Brad "The Mothaf**ka" Real (Fry,) and Little Randy Youth (Huth,) as well as additional members who went on to form Pearls & Brass, The Gate Crashers, and Torchbearer. Throughout their short, yet sweet tenure, The Ultimate Warriors unleashed seven singles and split EP's with the likes of Abathakothie, Warrior Noise, Da...

"Joe Stakun is in-demand; the 21-year-old film student’s resume includes interning for Ridley Scott, interviewing BMX superstar Mat Hoffman and working as a production assistant for Maroon 5. Now he can add directing a Modest Mouse video to his lengthy credentials. Stakun won the opportunity for a taste of mainstream recognition in April 2007 when Modest Mouse invited fans to submit videos for their single "We've Got Everything" as part of a contest; the winner would have his or her video played on mtvU," Temple News/Lifestyle scribe Jimmy Viola wrote within a 2007-published piece. Joe Stakun has since edited TV shows like Dream Corp. LLC, Check It Out! with Steve Brule, The Birthday Boys, Comedy Central's Another Period, and Hot Package, as well as directing duties on MUTHA and I Love My Bicycle: The Story of FBM Bikes. Stakun has additionally directed various Butterfinger, Wendy's Dairy Queen, Little Caesars, and Harold & Kumar commercials broadc...

"'The Bar Is Low," which, according to [Matt] Korvette , is "about how every guy seems to be revealing themselves as a sh*thead. It seems like every guy is getting outed, across every board of entertainment and politics and music. There’s no guy that isn’t a total creep,'" reads a fragmented chunk of Sub Pop 's latest WHY LOVE NOW-announcing Pissed Jeans press release; " WHY LOVE NOW picks at the bursting seams that are barely holding 21st-century life together," describes Sub Pop 's press release, which additionally refers to "The Bar Is Low" as a "grinding rave-up." It can only be assumed that Korvette is likely referring to one-time men of power and current American disgrace stories like Bill Cosby , Swans frontman Michael Gira , fallen Indie Rock PR heavyweight Heathcliff Berru , and our newly-elected President Trump . Pissed Jeans recruited New York No Wave pioneer Lydia Lunch , who's worked with eve...

I recently had the opportunity to reach out to Philly-area punk rocker and frantic Pissed Jeans frontman, Matt Korvette ; following their brief West Coast tour, Korvette and I were able to catch up and conduct an all-inclusive 11-question interview — outlining his home-grown vinyl record label, White Denim , his "passion for fashion," new-found affinity for the self-proclaimed "Neon Icon," RiFF RAFF, monthly-updated record review site, Yellow Green Red , and everything else in-between. Indulge yourself below, if you're interested in finding out just "how sexy, crazy, and dangerous" Matt Korvette 's daily life is; Pissed Jeans' long out-of-print 2005 Parts Unknown debut full-length, Shallow has very recently been re-issued and re-mastered on CD and vinyl, via their current label, Sub Pop. (1) I know that you guys just recently re-issued your first album, Shallow... but do Pissed Jeans have any immediate plans to start recording the follow-up...

"Power-dirge from Pennsylvania ; Pissed Jeans are noisy as a motherf*cker and proud of it on this, their debut full-length, which sounds like a big pile of mud and broken glass ripping through your stereo speaker in the most killer way imaginable," reads a juicy chunk of Sub Pop's overtly descriptive Shallow re-issue mini-press release. Frontman and part-time music critic Matt Korvette along with his fellow Pissed Jean-ers enlisted frequent collaborator Joe Stakun , who previously directed Honeys stand-outs "Bathroom Laughter" and "Romanticize Me," to shoot a clip for "Boring Girls" from their newly-remastered nine-year-old Shallow album (2005). Not entirely unlike Stakun's former creations, "Boring Girls" is an oddly disjointed visual presentation, which perfect matches Pissed Jeans' whole self-imploding Noise-Rock aesthetic; it starts out resembling your run-of-the-mill clip, with our long john-outfitted prot...

Let's be honest here, it'd be almost impossible for a part-time writer/web-master like myself with a regular 9-5, too to even attempt to assemble a 50-album year-end list in an effort to "compete" with the Big Dogs like Pitchfork , Stereogum, etc; I think it'd be far more feasible to do a list of my Top 5 Favorite Albums of 2013, not even your typical run-the-mill best of list. So, with that said, here's a collective run-down of the most played artists and companion albums on The Serpent (my 160GB iPod), my car stereo, and personal iTunes library. I tried to compile a pretty diverse broad-spanning list, which ranges from Industrial Aggro-Hip-Hop to Philly-bred "Pig-Fuck." Enjoy the list and Happy New Year! While The Wizard's #5-ranking album is seemingly an unwarranted 16-track leaked bootleg; the scattered fragments of Jai Paul 's long-rumored XL Recordings album. Included within were 16 rough tracks, 3 of which had been previously releas...

Daughn Gibson and director Jeremiah Rouse have essentially managed to flip the whole concept of the flashy modern-day "music video" on it's head, stripping it back down to it's primal elements: grandiose sound and tasteful film flourishes. A former Hardcore Punk drummer (Pearls & Brass) who notoriously moonlighted as a truck driver, Gibson's latest single, "Kissin' On The Blacktop" also seemingly duals as his first ever music video release. It's a gritty brew-N-smoke-soaked scene that works quite well with Daughn Gibson 's Alt. Country/Americana hybrid sound. Surrounded by a cast of shady-looking, yet deeply interesting characters, Gibson successfully weaves a Bluesy tale about a booze-fueled romance with "Kissin' On The Blacktop" while at the fictitious "Twin Willows" watering hole; We're talkin' about toothless pool sharks, whiskey-drinking cowboys, a leopard-skinned gold digger, smokin' h...

Although he largely retired from competitive figure skating around 2009-10, Braden Overett has decided to make a comeback, of sorts... call it a "blaze of glory" by way of Pissed Jeans new Joe Stakun -directed music video, "Romanticize Me." While the phrases Hardcore Punk and figure skating don't exactly line up, Stanuk makes it work much better than I could've (n)ever imagined; Upon announcing his retirement nearly 4 years ago, Overett penned an insightful article for USFS SKATING magazine, which blatantly laments, "In my mind, I was different... When I was done, it would either be because I had won the Olympics 19 times and broken all possible world records. I would have reached the pinnacle of sports fame, driving a different exotic car every day of the week and buying small countries with my 900 bazillion dollars. Or, I'd walk into the rink one day and there would be a giant neon sign reading: "Braden Overett's Retiring Today!...

Daughn Gibson is a former truck driver who looks like he could be a flannel/chainsaw model and sings kinda like a disjointed mix between Joy Division , Crash Test Dummies , and Johnny Cash . Gibson's new label, Sub Pop is gearing up to release his second album, Me Mean , this upcoming July 8-9th; It was recorded with producer, Benjamin Balcom and features guitar work from John Baizley (Baroness) and Jim Elkington (Brokeback). I really don't think that calling Daughn Gibson 's unique style of music Americana would be totally inappropriate or wrong... Sub Pop laments that "if All Hell was a gritty black-and-white movie, Me Moan is a widescreen IMAX 3-D extravaganza." Just unleashed late Thursday afternoon, "The Sound of Law" is a deep, gravely-voiced progressively dark track that makes use of a wide array of live instrumentation including drums, pedal steel, horns, house strings, bagpipes, and organs. Daughn Gibson was born and raised in Naz...

Roughly 10 years and 4 albums deep into their career now, "Bathroom Laughter" is only Pissed Jeans' third music video!; Not too far behind behind Thrash Jams like "False Jesii, Part 2" and "I've Still Got You (Ice Cream)" (2007-09). Matt Korvette, Brad Fry, Randy Huth , and Sean McGuiness unleashed Honeys , which was recorded @ Milkboy Studios (Philly) with producer Alex Newport , on Sub Pop this past Tuesday, Feb. 12th. For you un-familiar slackers, Pissed Jeans kinda sounds like late 80's experimental Black Flag , complete with fuzzed out guitar licks and 1/2 sung-shouted vocal fragments. It's director Joe Stakun 's demented riff a late night knife set-selling info-mercial gone terribly wrong, which somehow morphs into a bloody rotten mess! We're talkin' about VMA -worthy performances from Mark Proksch (The Office), nerdy My Life As Liz [Lee] dame, up-and-coming actress Leigh Myles , and Philly wrestler Dragon...

Pissed Jeans are probably the most sobering, un- Rock "N" Roll Hardcore [Noise-Rock] band since like... Straight Edge pioneers, Minor Threat/Fugazi . Weasel-voiced frontman Matt Korvette is an insurance claims adjuster by day, for Christ's sake! "Bathroom Laughter" and "Cathouse" (released Monday) chronicle relate-able, everyday mis-doings that the average Middle American can easily relate to; I mean, we're talking about "crippling pert allergies," hallway screaming/kitchen crying, a "blistering fear of going to the doctor," and unrequited rhapsody with saucy women. "Cathouse" is most likely gonna be our last FREEBIE 'til Sub Pop drops the band's fourth studio album, Honeys , this upcoming Feb. 12th. Former Japanther director/graphic artist, Joe Stakun supposedly made [filmed] a music video for the band, which @PissedJeans' Twitter feed says should be unleashed to The Inter-web sometime dur...

One of the great things about Punk Rock is that it hasn't really progressed/digressed much sound-wise since it's late 1970-80's inception. I mean, most 21st Century Punks honestly don't sound all THAT different than pioneers like Iggy & The Stooges or Black Flag . So, I think it's all about sprinkling in personality and a dash of slight progress [style]. Allentown -based Pissed Jeans are kinda a hard band to label... Like is it Hard Rock ? Hardcore? Sludge Metal ? Indie Rock? Pigfuck? My insanely knowledgeable buddy, Jason Morroni basically coined the term "Power Thrash" through text earlier tonight and I'm just gonna go a head and run with that ha. The Jeans took about a 5-year break to "live life" a little bit and then re-formed over the summer to record Honeys with Alex Newport , which'll be out Feb. 12th on Sub Pop . "Bathroom Laughter" is out first LEGIT taste of the album, a collection that Sub Pop fitti...

For starters, Daughn Gibson 's voice kinda sounds like an oddly appropriate mix between Johnny Cash , Barry White , and a bowl-full of coarse gravel; a style which is more than likely a direct result of teenage years spent drumming with assorted Philly and New York -area Hardcore Punk/Metal bands and the 10 years' time traveling cross-country in a BIG empty mac truck, blasting radio-transmitted Country music. When Daughn Gibson moved from his childhood town of Narazeth, PA to Carlisle in late 2010-11, he recorded what eventually ended up being All Hell ... simply created because "there weren't as many like-minded musicians to start a band with." Gibson's close friend Matt Korvette from Pissed Jeans pressed up a limited LP release of All Hell on his home-grown Indie label imprint, White Denim . Daughn Gibson then decided to follow that up with a 2-track 45 and Bandcamp digi-single simply titled, "Lite Me Up" in conjunction with Dull Kni...