Back when I started this weekly blog at the beginning of the year, I wanted to interview Darkthrone's Fenriz. The reasons are pretty obvious, but he declined, stating a rigorous interviewing schedule that had just finished. I was a little bummed out but we kept in contact and he would tip me off on so many bands I would never have heard of without his vast knowledge of music. Anyway, I then tried to get him to DJ to no avail. When I heard the Actual Pain mixtape I was naturally lost for words and asked him if there was any possibility he could do one for Vice. No problem, he said. He would love to. And here it is. Intro from the man himself (including all capitals) below.
Back in March, The Horrors' Tom and Rhys, aka Spider and the Flies, made a pair of mixtapes for us called UpandDown. You all loved Up, but I think you were a little darked-out by Down. Since then, The Horrors brought out their amazing second record, and so they've been on tour in America, scuttling through record shops, buying out the vinyl history of a nation. To go with the story of the tour, Tom's made us a mix spanning the divine discoveries from Chicago to Albuquerque. Click through to read and listen to what travelling around America is like.
If you are looking for something to do tonight besides getting shitty for no reason you might consider something more do-goodlier like attending this benefit for Jon Wiley. He had some scary shit happen to him a couple months back--short version, he went to bed one night and then woke up the next morning partially paralyzed with MS. Since he's a touring musician (aka has no insurance until Obama steps it up already), this is extra special fucked. A bunch of his pals such as Adam Green, Chairlift, Lightspeed Champion, and DJ Johnny Tropical are putting on a benefit for him to help with medical bills tonight at the Shank (more info with a click below). You aren't going to get health benefits staying in tonight but you could at least put on a facade of altruism to help out a neighbor.
Back in March, when we were trying to get some stories together for the Brazil Issue, I thought a feature on Brazil's golden age of metal would make an interesting feature. I contacted every legendary 80s Brazilian black/death/thrash band I could think of, hoping to score some interviews. I got email addresses from the official sites, went through their official MySpaces, and even emailed a university in Belo Horizonte, as Sarcófago'sWagner Lamounier is a professor of economic science there. But it was all for shit. Either they didn't speak English, didn't get the email, thought I was a waste of time, or are just plain Brazilian and don't care about deadlines. One dark hero, Vulcano's Zhema Rodero, did finally respond though, and I got as far as sending him a list of questions (back in April), but he disappeared again and never replied. Until last night.
Todd Pendu has really long, perfectly straight hair that looks really, really soft—like, it would be nice to run your fingers through it, but not even in a sexual way. It just looks nice like that. He also looks like he’s about 20 years old, which is totally unfair because he’s actually 34 years old. Looks aside, Pendu is incredibly nice, undeniably chatty, and obviously has a lot of energy to burn. He’s the human responsible for booking, organizing, scheduling, and overseeing the NY Eye & Ear Festival—a four-day, three-venue, two-borough weirdathon that starts tonight and offers what many view as the only legit glimpse into the bubbling cauldron of NYC’s true underground music scene. The festival also includes a huge record fair and Women of NYCinema film screening. In addition to curating lots of freaky happenings and wonderful music, Pendu also runs the Pendu Organization—an entity that cultivates collaboration in all of the arts as well as “Dynamic Ecstatic Transcendentalism.” Dude is ambitious.
Trash Kit are one of the finest of the current wave of UK DIY bands, an all-girl three-piece who make super catchy, slightly chaotic, no-wave tunes that make you bounce in your seat, and then even stand up and dance.
Just when it’s nearing that time where it would probably be a good idea to stop talking about Michael Jackson, I wanna talk about it. You know how in other countries or cultures that may seem foreign to you, people do different things to mourn or dispose of their dead? Like they put them on wooden planks, set fire to them, and push them off into water. Or they maybe wrap them in grape leaves and bury them under a pot of gold or something. Apparently in the US the thing to do with dead people is first make fun of them nearly their whole lives, and then when they finally do die, throw their haggard bones into a gold casket, roll it onto a stage under bright lights, and sing songs to it. If you were not able to sing songs to Michael Jackson’s corpse in person yesterday, you can do so here. I don't even care about long-distance charges, I’ve done it four times today and now I feel super American. OK, now it's really time to shut up about him.
A week of very Christian sun has forced the troglodyte metallers back into the lairs of misanthropic winter from whence they came. Don't despair just yet, young malefic minds. I have uncovered one of South America's greatest lost treasures, Chile's Pentagram...
Last night Atlanta's good-vibes comptroller BJ Womack died of cancer at the age of 34. He was a member of a bunch of amazing bands like the Lids, the Gaye Blades, and the Carbonas, released a scattered assortment of records under his stage name Bobby Ubangi, and was pretty much the lynchpin/inspiration/impresario for anything fun and exciting that's happened in the city over the past decade. Check out a scant fraction of his work and help his friends pay for his funeral over at VBS.
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