Hey! Have you seen the new Iron Atrocity Vol.2 compilation? If you live in the Pittsburgh area, or if you live anywhere and just want to discover some amazing music — that’s totally FREE to download — then you need to go check it out right now!
After you’ve read that post and downloaded the compilation… seriously, do it… then come on back here because I’ve got some shows to tell you about for this Friday and Saturday!
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past nine months, or have never ever seen a post on this blog before, chances are you’ve heard me talking about the Iron Atrocity project. This is purely a labor of love by the wonderful folks who run the Innervenus Music Collective, and designed as a showcase for the array of high-quality metal (and other related music) we’ve got here in the Pittsburgh area.
It’s been a long time coming, and there have been many trials and tribulations along the way, but the second edition of this compendium of local talent has been completed! Just like volume 1, this new collection will be handed out for free by Innervenus-related bands at shows and other events (beginning with the Iron Atrocity Vol.2 release show, which is scheduled for Friday 03 August 2012), but also just like its predecessor, the compilation can be downloaded for free — and it’s available right now!
The new CD has assembled tracks — some newly recorded, exclusively for the compilation, some taken from recent releases — from sixteen different local bands, all of whom have been mentioned on this website in some form or fashion, at one time or another. Nevertheless, I’ll give you the full rundown on all the songs, about an hour and a quarter in all, that will be yours FREE when you grab this download. All you need to do in return is listen and enjoy, spread the word, and whenever possible, show your support by heading out to some shows (or buying some merchandise)!
http://www.facebook.com/events/285866544829061/
Atlanta’s Sons of Tonatiuh are making their way up to Pittsburgh tonight, to contaminate the Mr. Roboto Project with their southern sludge metal. This show is part of the band’s “Beckoning the End Tour,” which will continue through the end of the week with stops in Philadelphia, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina (see the image above). See their website for full details, including more upcoming shows in August and September.
Their new album Parade of Sorrow (just released in June) is available to hear or buy through Bandcamp…
…and here’s a video for “Consumed” from their 2010 self-titled LP (also available on Bandcamp).
Joining them will be those titans of Steel City Sludge, Vulture (who can also be heard on Bandcamp), and Cosmic Stoner Punk band Sistered (surprise, Bandcamp again).
Hi. I’m in Delaware.
Good evening. I’d like to take a few moments to talk to you about the state of Delaware. For any foreign readers (or Americans who are just really bad at history and geography), Delaware is one of the fifty states that comprise the United States.
It’s noteworthy for being one of the original thirteen British colonies that declared independance from the UK and went on to form the USA. Furthermore, its biggest claim to fame was being the first out of those thirteen states to adopt the new national constitution.
In the two centuries that have passed since that time, Delaware has done pretty much nothing else to distinguish itself. This is clear if you ever see the license plate on one of the state’s cars: they all have a slogan that says “The First State.”
If you look at a map, Delaware is a skinny little piece of land hanging off the southeast corner of Pennsylvania — as if Philadelphia just came out of the bathroom and failed to notice it had a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of its shoe. In fact, I suppose you could say Delaware is to Philadelphia pretty much what New Jersey is to New York City.
That’s weird, you know so much about Delaware. Who are you, fuckin’ Joe Biden?
Well despite all that, the residents of this state seem to think there is something more to the place where they live. I am basing this observation entirely on the one person I know who lives in Delaware, who happens to be a frequent reader and commenter on some of the same metal blogs that I read and comment on.
Recently he said something about how Philadelphia seems to attract all the good shows, and maybe if that city were destroyed, more bands would come to Delaware instead. I can sort of relate to this; although I live in the same state, I am almost six hours away from Philly, but it seems that many national touring bands feel one stop in Pennsylvania is sufficient. If I’m lucky, they’ll also come to Cleveland (Ohio) but that’s still three hours from here.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I just saw (via the always-helpful folks at Clawhammer PR) not one, but TWO bands who are playing shows in Delaware in the near future! Both are part of mini mid-Atlantic tours, and of course neither of them are coming anywhere near Pittsburgh, but when I heard about this, I felt it was my duty to pass the information along.
If you live in Philadelphia, Virginia, or New Jersey (or on the west coast), there’s some good news for you here as well.
Good afternoon! Since I waited around till the last minute to do this last week, and then I ended up not having it published on time, I wanted to make sure to get a head-start this week!
Pittsburgh-area readers, or those who might be within driving distance of the city during the coming weekend, here’s a collection of a few shows you might want to check out!
Did I miss any? Probably. If you know of anything else happening this week, let me know — or if you have suggestions of events for any future week, let me know about those too! Thanks…
Good morning, readers!
You may have noticed that I don’t normally publish album reviews before the official release dates. Part of the reason might be because I want to share things with you when they’re actually available for you to get your hands on them, because I know how short people’s attention spans can be sometimes — myself included! Sometimes when I read about something several months before it comes out, I might think to myself, “Oh that sounds great, I’ll have to check that out” and then I completely forget about it a few days later.
More than that, though, it’s mostly because I usually just don’t get around to it. I hear about loads of great music and I want to write about all of it, because I want to make sure the bands get the exposure they deserve, and I want to make sure YOU have every opportunity to hear about the new music you want. Besides that, I try to spend as much time as possible with something before I start writing — albums usually get numerous listens on several different days, so that I feel familiar enough with the material to be able to describe it adequately AND so that I can be sure I wasn’t hearing something wrong just because I was grumpy or preoccupied on a particular day.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an unlimited amount of time for writing, which means I’m perpetually running behind. I’ve still got a bunch of albums from 2011 I haven’t even listened to yet, not to mention how much stuff I haven’t had the chance to write about!
When I heard this album full of killer thrash music by Vancouver’s Titans Eve, I knew I would want to write about it and share it with you, but then when I found out that they have pre-order packages (either the digital or CD versions) where they are throwing in a FREE t-shirt, I decided I needed to bring this to your attention sooner rather than later! This Friday (the 13th of July) is the official release date, so hurry up and finish reading, then at the end of this post you’ll get the chance to hear the album for yourself, and I’ll give you all the links you need to take advantage of this special pre-order deal.
For my Canadian friends, I’ve also provided the dates for the band’s July/August tour of western Canada with Anvil, as well as a list of stops when they will be heading east across the rest of the country with Kill Devil Hill.
Hey, what’s up, loyal readers? It’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these “Signmeto Roadrunner Records” Band Profiles. For a few months I was doing them on a weekly basis, but some scheduling issues arose and — as you may have noticed — I ended up missing a few weeks.
So what the hell leads me back to the Signmeto website today — on a Sunday, no less, when I normally don’t even do any writing or post anything at all? Well I just learned that local (Pittsburgh-area) band Wearing the Inside Out, who have a few of their songs on that site, are in the midst of a campaign to raise funds for their upcoming east coast tour. I only just found out about this today, but apparently this is the last day (the deadline is midnight tonight, about SIX HOURS from now!), so I wanted to share it as soon as I could.
As I always do in these Signmeto Band Profiles, I’ll check out the songs you can hear on the website and tell you a bit about them. I’ll also tell you about the great gifts (CDs, t-shirts, etc.) you can get for helping the band out with donations…
Good morning, Readers, and a happy Saturday to you!
I had all sorts of plans for yesterday, including another album review and a post to tell you about all the great shows happening in Pittsburgh last night and tonight… but, well, some things came up and I never did get a chance to get anything published.
It’s not such a big deal about the review, because I’ll get a chance to finish it sometime over the next couple days, but last night’s shows have already happened, and if you depend on this blog for news about local shows, then I’m sorry but you missed some good ones!
For example, The Cheats had their CD release show for their new album Pussyfootin! (read the review here), while also opening for Michale Graves on his War of Information Tour. Also appearing were local acts Children of October and Fist Fight in the Parking Lot. You can read more about the War of Information Tour here, and see if perhaps there’s another date you’re able to check out. The Cheats are also playing on a few other nearby shows — including tonight in Cleveland, tomorrow night in Huntington WV, and again next month in Altoona.
Other cool shows I didn’t get the chance to write about for last night included the Icarus Witch release party for their new album Rise (see the review for that one here), who were playing with Thunderfist, Rat Tits, and Reduce to Ash… and another show with local heavy-rockers Whiskey Rebellion.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for all these bands to be playing again, and will do my best to keep you informed about it if they do! But like I always say, I’m far from perfect, and I do miss stuff from time to time. (Also I’m not so delusional as to think that anybody out there really relies on me as their sole source of news!) I would highly recommend that you check out two other excellent sources of information, in addition to this one, for local events: The Pittsburgh Scene and MoshPittsburgh.
Having said all that, there are two shows I would like to let you know about for tonight (Saturday, 07 July)…
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If you aren’t familiar with the So-Cal metal band Sangre yet, you probably missed my review of their album The Great Tribulation back in February. Even if you did read that before, you should totally check it out again, because the post was recently updated with the band’s second video, for the title track from that album.
Anyway, hot on the heels of their performance at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival in San Bernardino, Sangre are all ready to kick off their Jägermeister-sponsored “Devastation Across the Nation” tour, which begins TONIGHT in Arizona, then runs nonstop all around the USA for the next few weeks!
If you’ve ever studied the family tree of people who’ve either been in the Misfits over the years, or at least played in bands with former Misfits members, then you know there are more characters there than in the cast of most soap operas.
Without going into too much detail (or doing any research, so any factual errors are due to my own faulty memory)…
After the original band dissolved in the 80s, singer Glenn Danzig went on to form Samhain, which evolved into Danzig, with a number of different people. Meanwhile, the Misfits were later reformed by bassist Jerry Only. Here again there was a rotating line-up of members, but one of the best-known was the foursome that put out a few albums in the late 90s, which included Only’s brother Doyle von Frankenstein (who I believe had also participated in the band’s earlier incarnation for a time) on guitar, a drummer named Dr. Chud and vocalist Michale Graves. All of those folks have left the band at various times, leaving the bassist once again as the sole original member (and now, as I understand it, also handling vocal duties himself). Von Frankenstein was last seen as a member of the Danzig Legacy tour, which also featured the titular singer. Graves and Chud had set out on their own prior to this, working together in a band called Graves, if I’m not mistaken. Then the two parted ways, playing in other bands, and eventually the singer embarked on a solo career, which finally brings us to the present day.
Michale Graves has been performing solo acoustic shows for the past few years, in addition to releasing the album Illusions Live/Viretta Park via Screaming Crow Records in 2008. Now he’s back with a full band and kicks off his “War of Information” summer tour TONIGHT in New Jersey…
UPDATE – 18 September 2012 – click here to see the latest additions to the War of Information Tour dates!
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Valley of Steel 