Category Archives: Shows

Innervenus Music: Two New CDs Coming Next Month!

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Hello, friends. Regular visitors to this website have surely noticed that recently the volume of writing I am putting out there has significantly decreased. I apologize for that. But it hasn’t been the result of laziness, I assure you. I’ve been getting myself involved with a few other things — as I keep alluding to in several new posts over the past few weeks — and finally I want to let you know about one of those.

So, I have been asked to join the Pittsburgh-based record label The Innervenus Music Collective to help out with their PR and publicity. It’s a pretty exciting opportunty for me — first of all, as a writer I’ve been working with a variety of PR people and representatives from other labels, so I understand what’s involved, and it’s cool to be getting some experience from the other direction now. But even more than that, now I get to work directly with a group of people who do so much to support our local music scene — between planning shows and giving away the Iron Atrocity compilations, not to mention releasing albums from some really talented bands (Vulture, Invader, Fist Fight in the Parking Lot — just to name a few examples that I had written about last year)!

And so this new position has been using up a lot of my free time recently, mostly because we’re gearing up to put out two CDs in February: the debut full-length by grindcore/death dealers Grisly Amputation, and a self-titled EP by death-thrash-groove-sludge-core band Lycosa. I’ve been sending out promo materials to a whole slew of websites and magazines, so we should start seeing some reviews trickle in shortly, but I figure I wouldn’t really be doing my job (EITHER job – as a writer OR a publicist!) if I didn’t also inform you about the releases here on Valley of Steel!

 
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Winter’s Wake Thursday Pre-Fest Show

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AOTE

*** NOTE: ALL THE FINAL DETAILS FOR THE WINTER’S WAKE FESTIVAL HAVE BEEN COLLECTED AT THIS LOCATION: https://valleyofsteel.net/2013/01/28/winters-wake-2013-presented-by-allure-of-the-earth/ ***

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So are you excited yet!?? The Winter’s Wake festival will be taking place in exactly ONE MONTH, right here in Pittsburgh!

Venue and ticket information will be released for the two-day show later this week. (I know, it seems like we’ve been waiting a long time for these details, but I’ve learned that the folks who run the production company sponsoring the event, Allure of the Earth, have been dealing with a sudden tragedy in their family — so I think we can certainly forgive a bit of a delay…)

Anyway, the full list of bands playing on Friday and Saturday (the 22nd-23rd of February) were announced last month, so really all we’re still waiting for is the exact schedule order for each day, as well as where and when we can get tickets…

…plus the details for the Thursday night show!
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Gay Kiss – Fault (Free Download / In Pittsburgh Tonight!)

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Gay Kiss – Fault (Anxiety Machine Records, 21 December 2012)

 
HELLO OUT THERE! HAPPY 2013!! How’s life been treating you, dear readers?

I wish I could say that flipping the calendar over to a new year has also turned the page on all the problems and stresses and worries and other crap that infringes on my time I’d rather be spending with fun stuff like listening to music and writing about music and all that.

So far, that has not been the case. And at this moment I almost literally feel like I am bursting at the seams with stuff I want to share with you, because you’ve all been such wonderful, loyal readers for so long, I feel like you really deserve to be rewarded with some good music you can listen to.

For my first post as we enter into the thirteenth year of this millennium, I want to tell you about an up-and-coming group of young men who come from the city of Tempe, which is just outside Phoenix and is also the home of the ASU Sun Devils.

That band is called Gay Kiss.

 
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The Top Ten Shows I’ve Seen This Year: A Supplemental Video Guide

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This was me on Christmas Eve. In a couple hours, this'll most likely be me again.

This was me on Christmas Eve. In a couple hours, this’ll most likely be me again.

 
Good afternoon, Dear Readers, and a Happy Fucking New Year to you all! I hope you enjoyed the collection of top-ten lists I published yesterday!

Before we finally put 2012 to bed, though, here’s a quick supplemental post to go along with my personal contribution to that conglomerate of lists. I’m calling it…

 

The Top Ten Shows I’ve Seen This Year:

A Supplemental Video Guide

 
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Meth Quarry Interview: Pittsburgh’s Grim Hardcore Assault!

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Folks, if you’ve had your ear to the ground over the past few months you might have noticed that there has been some rumbling coming out of the dark underworld of hardcore. There has been so much hype swirling around the crusty, grimy beast known as Meth Quarry lately, that the band has reached a nearly mythical status — without having played a single show yet!

But all of that is about to change, because these guys are finally ready to come crawling out of the dank cellar of Pittsburgh’s underground and expose the good people of the Steel City to their grim “dirge” hardcore style. Last weekend I met up with the quintet (guitarists Chris Smith and Kevin Hogue, bassist Aaron Kaczynski, vocalist Adam Joseph Bailey, and drummer Brandon “Fluffy” Baker) to talk about the story of the band’s formation and what sort of things they’ve got on the horizon — I joined them at one of their rehearsals, which took place in the basement of Kevin’s house, so when I say “crawling out of the cellar” I actually mean it literally…

 
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Allure of the Earth: Winter’s Wake Line-Up **ALMOST** Complete!

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*** NOTE: ALL THE FINAL DETAILS FOR THE WINTER’S WAKE FESTIVAL HAVE BEEN COLLECTED AT THIS LOCATION: https://valleyofsteel.net/2013/01/28/winters-wake-2013-presented-by-allure-of-the-earth/ ***

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Ladies and Gentlemen, three more bands (***) were just officially announced for the upcoming Winter’s Wake festival!

At this moment the nearly-complete line-up is scheduled to run as follows:

 

FRIDAY, 22 February 2013:

*** Vektor (sci-fi thrash from Philly)
Black Anvil (black metal from NYC)
GNAW (experimental industrial/drone/noise, from NYC)
Vit (experimental black/doom/folk from Ohio)
Liquified Guts (brutalgoredeathgrind from Pittsburgh)
*** Meth Quarry (Grim “Dirge” Hardcore from Pittsburgh)

 

SATURDAY 23 February 2013:

Dream Death (doom metal from Pittsburgh / exclusive area appearance for 2013!)
Blood Ceremony (occult doom rock from Toronto)
Evoken (death-doom from NJ)
Occultation (traditional metal from NYC)
Vattnet Viskar (black metal from New Hampshire)
*** Derketa (doomy death metal from Pittsburgh)
Molasses Barge (doomy traditional metal from Pittsburgh)
Vulture (doomy sludge metal from Pittsburgh)

 

So that’s where things stand as of right now.

LAST UPDATED 10 January 2013: There will be a pre-show (no details available yet) on Thursday the 21st! More information about that, plus the full details (including venue and ticket information) for the festival will be announced on Wednesday, the 2nd of January, 2013. very, very soon. We hope. Any further information will be shared with you here at Valley of Steel, as soon as we learn anything ourselves! Stay tuned!

Facebook event page for Winter’s Wake: http://www.facebook.com/events/147586328726944/

http://allureoftheearth.com/

Supervoid – Endless Planets EP

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Supervoid – Endless Planets EP (self-released, 11 November 2012)

Good afternoon, all you fine people! How are things where you are? Here it’s been rainy and nasty, and of course it’s Monday which is never good, but I’m actually feeling pretty good. For one thing, the day’s over, which means I get to go home. But mostly, I’m starting to feel healthy again!

You may have noticed things have been quiet around here for a while. Part of the reason is all the normal crap that keeps me busy and unable to write as often as I’d like to. But a bigger part — at least for the past two weeks or so — is the fact that I have felt like absolute garbage. My normal yearly sinus infection, which tends to completely drain my energy and make my whole body tired and sore for a few weeks (plus my chest, throat, nose and sinuses feeling congested and clogged — which is miserable enough as it is, but also makes it tough for me to listen to music because my ears don’t work right and my head hurts from feeling stuffed up and in general I’m in a very foggy and cloudy state). But I’ve been to the doctor and got some antibiotics, and they’ve finally started taking effect over the past day or two, so I definitely feel like I’m on the road to recovery.

I’m still pretty exhausted and blah, but no more than on any other workday. So, hooray for just feeling marginally lousy, rather than completely and utterly terrible! BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME.

With a few exceptions, I’ve really been slacking as far as writing anything here, and I’ve been especially remiss in my duties to share new music with you readers. Here it is, nearly the end of the year, and I’ve got a virtual stack of music I’ve yet to write about, which figuratively is towering over me as I sit here. I’d better get moving!

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Here, for example, is something that I’ve been hanging onto for the past few weeks, and kept meaning to write about and share with you — because it’s a really incredible discovery, and I sure hope you all aren’t upset that I didn’t tell you about it sooner!

Endless Planets is the debut release from a relatively new band from the Pittsburgh area called Supervoid. Formed in 2011 by a couple Dethlehem ex-pats, and current and/or former members of several other bands across the region, the band decided to take time to perfect their style of space-rock/stoner/psychedelic/prog-metal before revealing themselves to the public. (By the way, check out this interview with The Sludgelord for more information about the band’s formation and their journey up to this point in their career.)

They had their debut performance at the end of August, and a few more shows since then, attracting a good bit of attention in the local music scene along the way. During that time, the band got together at Pittsburgh’s Treelady Studios to lay down some demo tracks — which they then decided to release in the form of this two-song EP.

Clocking in at around sixteen minutes, Endless Planets serves as a great introduction to Supervoid, as it showcases the band’s talent and is representative of the range they span as performers and songwriters. Plus, it’s available to download for free, so you have no reason not to grab yourself a copy — and once you do, you’ll understand why everyone who has seen this band has been so impressed, and you’ll find yourself anxiously watching to see where this quintet is heading next…

 
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Allure of the Earth: More Bands Announced for Winter’s Wake!

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*** NOTE: ALL THE FINAL DETAILS FOR THE WINTER’S WAKE FESTIVAL HAVE BEEN COLLECTED AT THIS LOCATION: https://valleyofsteel.net/2013/01/28/winters-wake-2013-presented-by-allure-of-the-earth/ ***

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Good afternoon, folks! We are getting closer to knowing the full line-up for next February’s two-day Winter’s Wake festival!

As revealed last week, this Allure of the Earth Productions event is taking place between Friday and Saturday, 22-23 February 2013, in Pittsburgh.

Dream Death, Blood Ceremony, Occultation, GNAW, Vattnet Viskar, Vit, and Vulture were all included in that initial announcement, but today there are four more bands confirmed:

 

 
Once again, there’s a lot to be excited about here… and I’ll be sure to update you readers with plenty of information about all of these bands sometime before the show happens, so keep watching this spot!

Also, over the next several days AOTE is expected to finally reveal the remaining bands (which includes one more headliner), in addition to ticket information and everything. So stay tuned for that, too!

UPDATE 19 December: three more bands have been announced…

http://allureoftheearth.com/

Allure of the Earth Announces First Wave of Bands for Winter’s Wake Festival!

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*** NOTE: ALL THE FINAL DETAILS FOR THE WINTER’S WAKE FESTIVAL HAVE BEEN COLLECTED AT THIS LOCATION: https://valleyofsteel.net/2013/01/28/winters-wake-2013-presented-by-allure-of-the-earth/ ***

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Ladies and gentlemen, it’s here: half of the line-up for the two-day Winter’s Wake festival has been confirmed!

Brought to you by Allure of the Earth Productions, this event will be held on Friday and Saturday, 22-23 February 2013, in Pittsburgh.

There will be fourteen bands altogether between those two days, and seven of them were announced today:

 

 
Lots more details will be emerging soon (possibly as soon as next week) — such as the exact location, ticket information, the remainder of the bands, and scheduled times — and I will be sure to share all of that with you as soon as I hear anything! So stay tuned!

UPDATE 05 December: four more bands have been announced!

UPDATE 19 December: three more bands have been announced, leaving just one more to be confirmed…

http://allureoftheearth.com/

What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (29 November 2012)

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Drusky Entertainment Presents:

Texan Psychobillies Reverend Horton Heat

with The Cheats, Ben Dumm and the Deviants, The Turbosonics

 

at the Altar Bar

1620 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh (Strip District)

 

Thursday 29 November 2012 | 7:30PM (6:30 Doors) | $17 ADV / $20 at Door | 21+ only

 
With a history dating back nearly three decades now, the legendary country/punk/rock trio Reverend Horton Heat nevertheless seem to have no intention of slowing down their nearly nonstop touring schedule.

In fact, the band (who just recently signed with Victory Records) have tourdates scheduled all over the country, nearly every night for at least the next three-and-a-half months (see the full list here).

 

 
Appearing along with a handful of highly-respected local opening acts that range from punk rock to surf music, this is pretty much guaranteed to be a memorable night. Get more info on the show here, buy your tickets here, and don’t forget to RSVP here!