Tag Archives: Mr. Roboto Project

The Huge List of 2012 Year-End Lists!

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Well, friends, here we find ourselves in the waning moments of 2012. It’s been an interesting, eventful year that’s had lots of high and low points — a ton of excellent new music has been released and quite a few brand-new bands have emerged that I’d fully expect to be making some serious waves in the near future.

One of the best things about 2012, for me personally, was that I found myself (and my wife) going to lots more shows than in recent years, and as a result I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of new people — as well as starting to take a way more active role in the local music scene.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I had a suggestion from one of those people I’ve gotten to know in the past year (I won’t say who — he said he preferred not to be given credit for the idea, although I will say that it’s somebody who contributed to this). The idea was to collect top-ten lists from various folks in the Pittsburgh metal community.

So I put out an open invitation for any musicians or other people who are involved in the scene in some way — I was looking for anything, whether it was the traditional “Top Ten Albums” or something totally off-the-wall like someone’s ten favorite sandwiches they ate during the year. Really, the only rules were that it had to be a list, and involve something from 2012.

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (14 November 2012)

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image

Artwork by Kellan Andersen

 

Profound Lore recording artist Atriarch

with Pray for Teeth, Wrought Iron, and Slaves BC

 

at the Mr. Roboto Project

5106 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh (Bloomfield)

 

Wednesday 14 November 2012 | 7:00pm | $6 | ALL AGES

 
Decending upon Bloomfield this evening: Portlandian blackened/ambient/doom/death-rock band Atriarch, whose Profound Lore album Ritual of Passing was named “album of the week” by MSN Entertainment when it came out at the end of October.

For more info about the band and what they do, you can also check out this interview with Cvlt Nation, from just prior to the album’s release.

Joining them at Mr. Roboto will be an assortment of local hardcore/black/grind/death, including Pray for Teeth, Wrought Iron, and (as a last-minute replacement for Resin, who had to drop out of the line-up) Slaves BC (who just played there on Monday, so it seems like they’re getting plenty of mileage out of their new material!).

More details and RSVP here.

What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (12 November 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Hey, party people of Pittsburgh! Remember last weekend when there was a football game that started out so terrible and the officials had some kind of conspiracy and they just completely made up rules and penalties that had nothing at all to do with the game we were watching? And then we all got so disgusted with the whole thing we just quit watching it? And then later that night or the next day we heard that somehow, miraculously, the Steelers had managed to overcome all of that and ended up winning the game anyhow? Remember how cool that was and how surprised we all were?

Well, for those out there who are superstitious, maybe you’d rather not watch tonight’s game either — and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised with a similar outcome. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I’m just saying, it could happen.

If that sounds plausible to you — or if you’re one of the three or four people living in this area who doesn’t care about football in the first place — I’ve a suggestion to keep you otherwise occupied this evening:

 

Apologies for shitty image quality — will be replaced if I manage to find a better one somewhere!

 

Lost Empires, Slaves BC, Seas We Fear to Sail

 

at the Mr. Roboto Project

5106 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh (Bloomfield)

 

Monday 12 November 2012 | 7:00pm | $5

 
Oklahoma’s Lost Empires, described as “punked-up melodeath” in this Decibel Magazine interview from last Friday, are hitting Pittsburgh’s Mr. Roboto Project tonight, along with locals Slaves BC (for those with super-short attention spans, I just told you about their new EP last week) and Seas We Fear to Sail. (If you see any information floating around the internets about Save Us from the Archon, they were originally scheduled for tonight as well, but due to circumstances which I have no knowledge about, they will not be performing at this show.)

RSVP to this event here.

What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (08-09-10 November 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Hello, friends. I hope you’re having a good week, and I hope you have a great weekend. If you don’t already have plans, there are all kinds of HUGE events going on over the next few days (including Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) and I bet you’d be really sad if you were to miss out on any of these things!

Say, hypothetically, if your sister-in-law was getting married this weekend, and even though your wife isn’t in the wedding itself, she’s still in charge of handling all the decorating and stuff — and so that means you got yourself volunteered to help with stuff too, which is going to basically occupy every waking moment of the next three days. Even though nobody really is excited about any of it because, hypothetically, everyone thinks that your sister-in-law is marrying the most worthless piece of shit who ever lived. If you found yourself stuck in a situation like that, I’d feel really bad for you because you’d be missing out on some serious awesomeness. Hypothetically.

 
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Slaves BC – we mean nothing. EP

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Slaves BC – we mean nothing. EP (self-released, 26 October 2012)

 
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PREFACE/DISCLAIMER:

Somehow this article turned out way longer than I originally intended, and the majority of it is way off-topic.

If you’re a big fan of my rambly writing style, feel free to keep reading.

But if you’re just interested in reading about some quality crust/hardcore/metal with a sprinkling of death/stoner/doom elements… you won’t hurt my feelings if you skip ahead to the next line of asterisks (where it says “Moving right along…”).

And if you really hate reading and just want to get to the music, you can skip all the way to the last set of asterisks, just above the Bandcamp player at the bottom.

 
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So I don’t know if you heard about this, because it didn’t get that much attention in the news or social media recently, but the other day there was an election held here in America.

In case you weren’t paying attention, the president was running for re-election, and quite a few seats in both houses of congress were up for grabs. And as it turned out, whichever political party was already in charge of those governmental positions basically stayed in charge of them. There may have been a few swaps here and there, but overall not a whole lot changed.

Naturally, the folks who wanted the party with more control to retain that power were delighted, and the others were disappointed, and there was a widespread reaction of surprise at just how evenly divided the votes were in some cases.

However, one thing that was made clear by the final results: America was not interested in electing the candidates who kept insisting that raping women is “God’s Will” — as that entire contingency ended up losing their respective contests.

Personally, I applaud this outcome, as (in my opinion) it seems to represent a triumph — for a majority of the voters living in each of those states or congressional districts, anyhow — of morality, human decency, and modern scientifically-based medical knowledge over ignorance.

Nevertheless, this is America, and of course we are all granted equal freedoms under our constitutional amendments — and many people are now worried that there is no outlet for the ultra-religious nut-jobs to voice their opinion publicly. (Okay, to the best of my knowledge no one is actually worried about that, just bear with me here…)

So that brings us to today’s discussion of the Pittsburgh-based hardcore band Slaves BC.

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (03 November 2012)

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Hey there. It’s Saturday afternoon. There’s some music-related stuff happening in Pittsburgh tonight. Read about it below, then go check it out. Pretend like I’m not lazy today and imagine some more clever words here.

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh Today (13 October 2012)

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Okay folks, tons to talk about and not a whole lot of time.

There is so much happening today, I’ve got to get moving very soon if I want to even hit half of these events. And I do, at least.

You will too, so you won’t want to sit here all day and read a bunch of crap. Let’s get straight to the good stuff, shall we…

 
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What To Do In Pittsburgh This Weekend (29-30 September 2012)

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the Steel City metropolitan region, I am pleased to once again present you with your list of weekendly happenings in the area!  Read on, become informed, and then go support your local music scene!

 
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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP

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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP (Handshake Inc., 27 February 2012)

 
Man, what a horrendously ugly day this has been. As I begin writing this review, I’ve been at work for over seven hours already, and my feet are STILL cold and damp from traipsing through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh during a deluge of Noachian proportions, after getting off the bus this morning.

If they ever published a list of ways to make being at work less miserable, I can guarantee “walk around with wet socks all day” will not be anywhere on that list.

Nevertheless, regular readers of this blog have probably figured out by now — an ugly day calls for some ugly music! (Very observant regular readers may also have noticed that ANY day can benefit from some ugliness, regardless of the weather!)

So to help me along today, I’ve turned to some new friends, whom I discovered two weeks ago when they came to play a show here from their native Ontario. The band is called Biipiigwan (don’t worry, it’s easier to pronounce than it is to spell — and in fact it isn’t really that hard to spell either — drummer Steve Vargas informed me that the double “i” sounds like an “e”, so just say “BEE PEEG wahn“), and their newest release is an EP called Nibaak (again, the “i” sounds like an “e”, so that’s “NEE bawk“).

Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the actual music. I’ve already mentioned that it’s ugly, but that isn’t nearly descriptive enough — this is grimy, sludgey, filthy, and soul-wrenchingly painful stuff. Plus, you can listen to it for free or download it for any price you choose. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

 

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What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (17 September 2012)

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Pile, Old Accusers, Low Man

 

at the Mr. Roboto Project

5106 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh (Bloomfield)

 

Monday 17 September 2012 | 7:00 pm | $5 | All ages

 
The following description was lifted directly from Low Man‘s official Facebook event page:

Oh shit yes. Pile, our favorite proggy hardcore sons of the revolution are trekking out on tour from their beautiful city of Boston and stopping here in Pittsburgh just to have a good time with you.

How could that possibly get better? How about the fact that we invited local crushers Old Accusers to play as well? They’ve got a brand new album out, just like we do, and they’re going to rip your face off and use it as a frisbee.

As for your friendly neighborhood stoner punks, we’ll hopefully have a wonderful surprise in store, along with some new and old jams for your most devious pleasures. We’ll keep you in the loop on that shit, don’t you worry.

This is an all ages joint, right across from Spak Bros, so get a killer slice and a cream soda, and then cross the street to get your earholes blown out with your best friends in the world.

 
You can check out more information about all three bands (and hear previews of what you might expect at tonight’s show) at the following links: Pile, Low Man, Old Accusers

 
In addition, regarding that “wonderful surprise” that the band hinted at above, well the cat’s been let out of the bag now:

This is now the Official Low Man CD Release Party Thing, so if you want our new EP in a tangible form, bring your five dollar bills and you can have one!

 
Yeah, the band’s brand new self-titled EP is now available on CD as well — read my review of the album here, then head to Roboto tonight to grab your very own copy!

RSVP here.