Tag Archives: Meth Quarry

VOS Videography 2013: A Mid-Year Retrospective (Part 1)

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Well folks, here we are on another lovely Monday morning.  Another weekend has come and gone, and consequently, I find myself back at work once more. Even though I keep crossing my fingers and checking the results at lottery.net. I always see them reporting these huge dollar amounts followed by plenty of zeroes (and not just dollar amounts, either — jackpots in pounds and euros and stuff like that, for games all over the world that I’ve never even heard of). However, what I haven’t seen — yet — is any winning numbers that correspond with my numbers. I keep hoping, and thinking about how a few hundred million dollars (or whatever) would be pretty helpful in being able to live a more leisurely lifestyle; one in which my days are spent playing in a band, attending as many shows as I want to, listening to music. I’ll tell you one thing: I’d have a lot more time to get some writing done! And not having a job to go to would definitely mean I’d get the videos from shows edited and uploaded in a much more timely fashion.

But of course, I haven’t won any huge jackpots (yet), so I still do have to be back at work today. But following that incredibly awkward transition, speaking of going to shows and uploading videos to YouTube and stuff… we’re now halfway through this year, meaning I’ve now got six months worth of incredible bands’ performances available for your viewing pleasure!  On reaching this milestone, I’ve decided to invite you to join you in taking a retrospective look at that vast collection.

 
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Deathcrawl – Accelerated Rate of Decay

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Deathcrawl – Accelerated Rate of Decay (self-released, 16 October 2012)

 
Okay, true story: earlier this month, I had a cookout for a handful of friends (mostly musicians or music-related folks, just because that’s how I roll). At some point in the evening, as we were standing around the fire and socializing, I remember talking to someone about a song that was playing (I’d hooked up my MP3 player and set it to shuffle); during that conversation, the song ended and the next one began — and on hearing the grimey riffs that were pouring out of the speakers, I then remarked, “Oh, and this is Deathcrawl.”

Well. Standing nearby just happened to be Josh Thieler, vocalist for Slaves BC. You may recall that his band creates some awesome music, and so it’s no surprise that he’d generally have pretty good taste in stuff to listen to. Anyway, I could see that his eyes were all lit up. “I was just about to ask you what this is,” he told me, “because it’s really good. This is Deathcrawl?” I nodded, and he added (I’m paraphrasing here; this was a couple weeks ago), “So, my band is playing with this band at the end of the month??” I nodded again, and his face lit up even more.

Because yes, I’m pleased to say, the Ohioan sludge factory that is Deathcrawl is finally playing a show in Pittsburgh, and that show is tomorrow night!! In addition to Slaves BC, that line-up will also feature Meth Quarry and (coming back to the city for the first time since last summer) The Osedax from Virginia. More details on that show coming up soon, but first, I’d like to bring you up to speed on a band and an album that you really need to be listening to (if you haven’t already)!

 
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Person or Persons Unknown: Six Questions with Lycosa Guitarist “Tree”

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Six Questions with Lycosa Guitarist “Tree“

by Mrs. Valley of Steel

 

So my next Person or Persons Unknown interview subject is someone I did not know very well before I decided to ask him for an interview, but I suppose that was the point of these: to shed some light on people not very many people knew much about. This one definitely qualifies. I first officially met Tree when his band Lycosa was having their Innervenus dual-release show with Grisly Amputation. Over the course of meeting all these new people, I would say that I am constantly surprised at how warm and friendly they are — which is a vast contrast to the mood and feel of the music that they play. No one surprised me quite as much as Tree — he’s sweet and kind and, just like my husband, you sometimes have a hard time hearing him because he really doesn’t talk all that loud (when he talks at all!). I have since gotten to know him slightly more speaking to him via Facebook messages and seeing him out at shows, and I am happy to now call him a friend. I hope you guys will find him as interesting as I do, and that you’ll check out Lycosa — maybe even venture out to Kent, Ohio, this weekend for a mini road trip to check them out. The band is great on CD, but even better live! Take it from me, it would be worth the drive from Pittsburgh.

 
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Person or Persons Unknown: Six Questions with Steve and Aaron Kaczynski of Jericho Theory

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Person or Persons Unknown

 

Six Questions with Steve Kaczynski (guitar) and Aaron Kaczynski (vocals) of Jericho Theory

by Mrs. Valley of Steel

 

Here I am again, writing another Person or Persons Unknown about another Pittsburgh band member, but this time I decided to change things up a bit. This time I am focusing on two guys actually: Steve Kaczynski and his son Aaron.

While I have never really had too much interaction with Steve in the past, I have seen their joint band Jericho Theory and was impressed with the chemistry and talent they both posses. I must admit, doing this particular article was one of the main reasons for starting these interviews. In truth, I have known Aaron for a while now, and I’ve liked him from the first time I met him. He’s got an infectious enthusiasm that you couldn’t fake if you tried. I have gotten to know him better through this journey of Facebook messages, attending shows together, and also attending shows that his bands have played. I am not sure if I have ever met a more honest and caring person in our music scene. He is that guy that knows all your songs, and knows what shows you’re playing; he’s the kind of fan that makes playing in a band in Pittsburgh worth it. I don’t even think people realize what a positive and caring member of this circle he really is. He has a way of making shows I attend with him more fun — even with my weird habit of buying him a PBR at least once a show — it’s more a level of comfort and happiness when I know he’ll be attending a show. He’s kind of turned into an unofficial little brother for the husband and me, and listening to him tell me at least once during each show that this is his favorite band or his favorite song makes me happier then I could ever state — because his influence has actually made me want to be a better fan.

So with that, I figured that this kid with his infectious nature and love of music had to have an amazing musical role model just like I did. Now that I have the ability to figure that out, I was on a mission to do so — hence the reason for this interview, so I could see if my inkling about him was correct. I am very proud to call Aaron a friend, and I hope after reading this you’ll want to be friends with him and his dad too, and I hope it will make you want to see them in action this Saturday, March 30th, at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern.

 
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Winter’s Wake Winterview: Meth Quarry

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Hello, once more! Time keeps ticking away, it’s almost time to go to Winter’s Wake tonight!

Here’s another band interview! I talked to Adam Joseph Bailey, the vocalist from Meth Quarry, about what’s been happening with that band since I spoke with them back in December.

Admittedly, this interview was even more brief than most of them have been, but I already covered most of the topics — such as how the band formed and their entire history, all of their influences and how they molded their unique “Grim Dirge Hardcore” sound — in the much more in-depth interview from December. To learn everything there is to know about this band, go read it!

Here’s what Adam told me about the band’s latest developments:

 
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Winter’s Wake Winterview: Vulture

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Good morning, folks! Winter’s Wake 2013 officially starts tonight! Words cannot describe how excited I am. I hope you feel the same way. I’ve still got a few more bands to talk about, so I’ll continue posting these throughout the day.

First up this morning is the “Steel City Sludge” band Vulture! You might remember that I had an interview with their drummer Kelly Gabany a few months back (you can read it here), but I checked in with her once more to find out what’s new in Vulture-land, and here’s what I found out:

 
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Winter’s Wake Winterview: Derkéta

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Hello, it’s time for another Winter’s Wake band interview!

I’ll repeat once more: with so many people to talk to, I tried to keep these short and sweet — just enough for you (the reader) to get a sense of each band’s history, to learn a little about where they came from and what they’re doing now, so that you can be as excited about seeing all of them as I am!

This time, I exchanged some words with vocalist/guitarist Sharon Bascovsky from Derkéta…

 
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Winter’s Wake 2013 Presented By Allure of the Earth

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So all the final details for this year’s Winter’s Wake festival are finally here! The venues, scheduled bands, and ticketing information all have been announced, and I’ve collected all of it right here for you!

 

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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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I Can Has Videos?

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So here’s something pretty neat. I was playing with this over the weekend and announced it all over Facebook, but if you aren’t one of the select few that get to see my posts in your news feed — or even worse, if you somehow forgot to “like” my page in the first place! — I figure I ought to say something about it here, too.

So there’s officially a Valley of Steel Youtube channel now.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/user/valleyofsteelDOTnet/videos. There’s just a handful of videos there so far, but feel free to subscribe to it, because my plan is to continue adding performances from all the great bands and shows I’m constantly telling you about.

 
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