May 2012
Bandcamp Albums
With the depressing decline of brick and mortar record stores, iffy streaming services and cloud storage and the ridiculously priced iTunes monopoly and lack of available full-bandwidth downloads, Bandcamp has become one of the few good things in the music industry lately. It blows my mind that any band would not choose to sell their album on Bandcamp at this point, but it's still catching on I guess. Some of the releases, especially the European ones, are a bit overpriced, but at least you get the option to download lossless files (FLAC). It beats having to track down import CDs for even more money. And you can stream the whole album before you buy. Here is a rundown of some of the best releases available on Bandcamp so far this year.
Christian Mistress - Possession (Relapse, $9.99)
On its release in late February, Possession was clearly one of the very best albums of the year. I've listened to it dozens of times, more than anything else so far this year, and it holds up as a brilliant achievement, a subtle fusion of NWOBHM and classic rock elements, well written songs and a performance by Christine Davis for the ages. As addressed in Metal Sirens, they lead the list of over two dozen quality metal bands lead by women. Except for the new Ufomammut and upcoming Royal Thunder albums, I still rate Possession above everything else. | Teeth of the Divine | Pop Matters
Continue...
Metal Sirens
In a span of just over a month, nine new releases are going to help evolve the perception that not only are bands lead by women just as good as some of the best metal bands out there . . . they're better. Along with the latest from Christian Mistress and Windhand, many of these albums will likely turn out to be some of the very best metal releases of the year. The first version of this piece featured just a Fester's dozen (that's a lucky 13), but I kept discovering more worthy bands that just couldn't be ignored. Now there are 31 bands, all but one that are actively recording and touring! And there will be more releases to look forward to from Alunah, Purson, Witchburn, Madder Mortem, Jex Thoth and Spiders, who recently blew audiences away at the Roadburn festival in Holland.
So far this year I've seen Blood Ceremony, The Devil's Blood and Witchburn live, and I've noticed a significantly higher percentage of women attending than your average metal show/sausage fest. It's great to see more women finding heavy music they can relate to in a much, much different context than the heyday of 80's hair metal.
- Occultation - Three & Seven (Profound Lore) Apr 16
- Mares Of Thrace - The Pilgrimage (Sonic Unyon) Apr 24
- Castle - Blacklands (Ván) Apr 28
- Black Moth - The Killing Jar (New Heavy Sounds) May 7
- Royal Thunder - CVI (Relapse) May 22
- Jess and the Ancient Ones (Svart) May 23
- Undersmile - Narwhal (Future Noise) May 28
- Ides Of Gemini - Constantinople (Neurot) May 29
- Witch Mountain - Cauldron Of The Wild (Profound Lore) Jun 12
Record Store Day
It's time once again for my favorite fake holiday. Record Stores are gearing up for their special events of in-store performances, which is great, and limited edition vinyls, meh. Like I've said before, taking the word "record" too literally is a mistake.
Yes, there has been a certain percentage increase in people buying records. But it's such a miniscule number that while a few small specialty shops might benefit from it, it makes no difference at all to the music business at large. This includes small, medium and large labels who go through the extra expense of making these records. They're not making any money from it. It's just a gift to the vinyl fetishists and collector scum who somehow think they're doing the world a favor. But looking at the bigger picture, the sad reality is that while there is still plenty of money flowing in the music business, people are buying less and less physical product from brick and mortar stores every year. Stores keep closing, leaving fewer options for music lovers. Except that there are actually plenty of options. You just have to stop looking backwards and pay attention to the present. So rather than recycle the same old nostalgic stories of record stores in my past, this year I'm focusing on what's actually available now and in the future. Continue...
Fester's Thirteen Days Of Xmas
On the first day of Xmas Dr. Fester gave to me... Find out what Dr. Fester has in store for you with the top 13 albums of the year, plus the top 100, year-end summary, genre lists, movies, tv, books and more.
It's hard to pigeonhole a year when it's not quite over. For some it belonged to Lady Gaga, at least until Adele stormed the charts with the biggest selling album (5 million in the U.S.) since Usher's Confessions in 2004. For others it was a banner year for underground rap and hip-hop in the form of self-released "mixtapes." Or for polished, commercial R&B, soul and dance pop, or country, or gauzy, arty indie pop, or a group of folky Americana albums that seem to be our era's version of 70s soft rock. Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to It's Own Past, showed his favorite albums to be obscure experimental electronic music. His choices don't disprove his thesis, that while there are small, incremental innovations in music, there's been nothing big and striking enough to revolutionize the music world in a couple decades. My response was that it isn't necessarily important. When you back up and view the history of music for the past millennium, cultures didn't flame out because their music failed to become unpredictably unrecognizeable every few years. That was a very unique condition spurred by the fast-moving markets of late-20th century capitalism and a flurry of technological innovations. Some people expected that since we went from learning to fly to traveling to the moon in just a few decades, that by now we should be intergalactic space travelers. I know, it's so disappointing that we're not penned up in floating cans of space colonies. Continue...
Top 100 Albums of 2011 | 2011 Breakdown: Top 13 Genre Lists | Shows | Movies, Television, Books, Comics, Music Coverage
Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace by Aaron Cohen (Continuum's 33-1/3 Series, 2011)
When Continuum started their 33-1/3 series in September 2003, I was excited enough to plan to read all of them. As someone who enjoys reading liner notes, what better than the most complete liner notes for some of the greatest albums ever released? However, some liner notes are better than others, and ones that fail to tell a story can even be too dry for geeks like me. After reading about a dozen titles, I started falling behind. The last I had read was John Darnielle's Master Of Reality. It definitely told a story, a harrowing account of mental illness that barely mentioned the Black Sabbath album. That was number 56 in the series. Aaron Cohen's Amazing Grace is number 84, and by far the best I've read so far.
I can't imagine anyone more perfectly suited to write about Aretha Franklin's colossal Amazing Grace (1972). With an academic background in Latin American Studies and Caribbean ethnomusicology, he has a deep knowledge and passion for jazz, blues, r&b, soul and gospel which is reflected in his writing and work as associate editor of Downbeat magazine. Cohen tracked down nearly all the surviving principle people involved with the album that it reads nearly like an oral history. Unfortunately, Aretha Franklin herself remained elusive, remaining consistent with her pattern in her 55 year career. She rarely grants interviews, and when she does, has very little to say. She was quiet even behind the scenes with her band. Bassist Chuck Rainey said, "I was with Aretha for three years and if I were to count the words I heard her say, other than singing, it couldn't have been more than 200 words." Continue...
Stoner Rock Primer
There's often confusion when a musical sub-genre is made up to describe bands that had already been around for several years. The term "stoner rock" started to become widely used in the late 90s, after Roadrunner Records released the compilation, Burn One Up! Music For Stoners in 1997, featuring originators Kyuss and Sleep, along with ex-Kyuss guitarist Josh Homme's new band, Queens Of The Stone Age. The following spring, MeteorCity released 
Welcome To MeteorCity: Desert Rock, Sludge and Cosmic Doom featuring Fatso Jetson, The Atomic Bitchwax, Demon Cleaner, Goatsnake, Lowrider, Sheavy and Dozer.
Typically there was a lot of whiny reactions to the stoner rock label, from literal minded fans who felt it should apply to anything "trippy" like Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead, to bands who insist they simply play rock, or heavy rock. They worry that the label limits their audience. If it does, I can't see it being any more offputting than sludge, doom, grindcore or drone. The segment on stoner rock in the 2009 documentary Such Hawks Such Hounds is titled, "An Unfortunate Moniker." Continue...
Retromania: Can Fetishizing the Past Ruin the Future?
As a fan of Simon Reynolds' writing, I was excited enough for his new book, Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past (2011) to order a fairly expensive copy from Amazon.co.uk a couple months before its U.S. release date. I thought I would get a jump on writing about it, but it turns out I needed several months to process the tome.
His basic thesis is that music is running out of new ideas and increasingly recycling old ones to the point where it's on the verge of creative bankruptcy and cultural irrelevance. The book is written like a 428 page blog freeform think piece. Things get a little confusing when Reynolds discusses some of his favorite artists such as Boards Of Canada, Ariel Pink, Gonjasufi, Panda Bear, Daniel Lopatin, a.k.a Oneohtrix Point Never, Nico Muhly and his beloved hauntology artists while also using them as examples to support his theory. Nevertheless it's an engaging read, as Reynolds' writing is as sharp as ever, if not totally persuasive. The best parts are when he examines in detail subjects like Billy Childish, Crypt Records, The Cramps and the Shibuya-kei scene in Japan. The enthusiasm and passion displayed by the people involved with various retro scenes is infectious, while also undercutting Reynolds' point. His profoundly depressing point. According to Reynolds, great leaps forward in music that occured in the 60s, the 70s and early 80s with post-punk, and to a lesser extent, rave and electronic music in the 90s, are never going to happen again if we continue to cannibalize the ever more increasingly recent past. Continue...
Ditch the Fisher Price Speakers and Do Your Music Some Justice
How to rehabilitate your lossy life by getting better sound from your digital audio files without breaking the bank.
In his piece, "Sailing By Ear," novelist and music fiend Michael Chabon (his Pulitzer Prize winning 2000 book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, is one of the best American novels of the past 20 years) shared a revelation he experienced after eight years of listening to MP3s through "a pair of small, attractive podules that connected to my iMac." One day he thought to himself, "Dude, what’s with the Fisher Price speakers? " and realized that despite music being one of the most important things in his life, his choices of convenience over quality made his music sound like shit. Continue...
Magnet Magazine: Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Magnet, the best music magazine in North America (I'm not just saying that cuz they reviewed me, really. I've been a subscriber since issue 3).
The Wire Magazine: Adventures In Modern Music. Fast 'n' Bulbous was reviewed in the February 2001 issue of The Wire, a British magazine that covers "electronica, avant rock, breakbeat, jazz, modern classical, global and sounds from the outer limits."
