Tag Archives: USA

What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (22 October 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Click to enlarge image

 

Drusky Entertainment Presents:

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult 25th Anniversary Tour

with Left Spine Down, Venus in Furs, and Una de Luna

 

at the Altar Bar

1620 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh (Strip District)

 

Monday 22 October 2012 | 7:00PM Show, 6:00PM Doors | $18 ADV, $20 DOS | 21+ only

 
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (TKK) began their career twenty-five years ago with Chicago’s Wax Trax! Records, and are now considered highly influential in the hybridization of industrial rock with electronic dance music. To celebrate this quarter-century milestone, the band is currently touring all over the country (see the full list of dates in the image at the top of this page), including a stop at Pittsburgh’s Altar Bar tonight.

Along for the ride is Canadian cyberpunks Left Spine Down (LSD), and starting things off for the evening will be a pair of local electronic artists, Venus in Furs and Una de Luna.

Grab your tickets ahead of time here, then check out more details at the Drusky Concert Calendar here and on the Facebook event page here.

MAKE Announce a New EP, to be Released Soon!

Posted by valleyofsteel on

image

 
So the North Carolinian blackish post-something-or-other band MAKE just saw their album Trephine (read my review here, in which I invent the term “post-atmospheric-blackened-doom-metal”) released on vinyl by Devouter Records not quite three months ago, and the original self-release (online and on CD) was just over four months earlier.

However, they apparently didn’t want to sit around and waste any time before getting back to work, because this morning the band announced that not only had they completed work on a new three-song EP, but that it’s all ready to be released in just thirteen days!

 

On November 1st, 2012 we’ll be releasing our latest EP, Axis, on Black Iron Records (that’s us) as a digital download via Bandcamp. We’ll include a PDF of liner notes then, but for now here’s the cover art [above] and tracklisting:

1. Axis
2. Chimera
3. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

 
You can be sure I’ll be bringing you more information about this as soon as I know anything new, but in the meantime you can keep an eye on the band using the assortment of links below…

 
—————————————————-
MAKE: blog, Facebook, Bandcamp

Git Ahtta Tahn! (Your VOS Travel Guide for 19-20 October 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Sometimes you just feel like you need to get away from it all. If you feel like that either tonight or tomorrow, and you want to catch some great bands in the process, BUT you don’t want to go more than a few hours away, I’ve got just what you need right here.

Or maybe you don’t even live in Pittsburgh. I know there are people who read this blog from all over the place. So maybe you’re already in Ohio, or someplace closer to these shows than to the ones happening in Pittsburgh. In any case, here’s some info about some really cool shit.

 
Continue reading →

What To Do In Pittsburgh Tonight (19 October 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Looking for some live entertainment to entertain yourself with in Pittsburgh on this Friday evening? Here are some great options you might wish to consider…..

 
Continue reading →

VOS Interview: A Drummer Double Feature! Molasses Barge vs. Vulture!

Posted by valleyofsteel on

Hello folks, and a happy Friday to you! Just when it felt like it would never happen, the weekend’s finally here. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be an especially good one, because there’s a ton of amazing shows and events happening! I’ll have more on that later, so stay tuned.

One of them in particular stands out, though — tomorrow night at the 31st Street Pub is the first date on the joint headlining tour between Relapse Records artists 16 and Tombs. That by itself is reason enough to get excited, but opening the show will be two of my absolute favorite local bands, the heavy doom armada that is Molasses Barge and Steel City sludgelords Vulture!

I’ve only seen Molasses Barge once before (and it was over a year ago! — read more about that here), and (believe it or not) although I’ve been listening to Vulture for a long time, I’ve never had the chance to see them play live yet! So needless to say, I’m really looking forward to this show. I’ve already got my tickets (they can be ordered here) but if you don’t, it’s just twelve bucks when you show up at the door. More info on the show itself can be found here.

Anyway, in anticipation of this event, I decided to get a couple of interviews lined up. If you’ve been reading my reviews for a while, you may have picked up on the fact that I often tend to focus on drumming while listening to music. It’s just the way I hear things, I guess — and I don’t know if it’s because I play drums (occasionally) or if I chose to play that instrument because it’s something I pay a lot of attention to.

In either case, the drumming in each of these bands’ genres is one of the main things that attracts me to those particular styles. So, it only seemed natural for me to talk to the two bands’ drummers. Here, then, are the questions and answers from Molasses Barge’s Wayne Massey and Vulture’s Kelly Gabany…

 

 

 
Continue reading →

Wizard Smoke – The Tickler EP (Free Download / On Vinyl Soon)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

image

 

Wizard Smoke – The Tickler (self-released, 28 September 2012)

 
In a world that often feels overrun by generic stoner/psychedelic metal bands, where you can hardly turn around without running into another group of hirsute Big-Muff-pedal-stompers, who use more drug references per song than an entire Cheech and Chong movie that co-stars Bill Hicks, and who often get complimented on the cool fog machine effects during their shows when in fact they don’t even use one…

I think you get the idea. Anyway, in spite of all of that, Atlanta, Georgia’s Wizard Smoke have always stood out among the crowd, to me; their output easily meeting the standards set by some of their more famous fellow southern U.S. contemporaries, as well as that of any of the similarly-named bands you might think of, either across the country or across the pond.

My deep appreciation for this group began the very first time I heard one of their songs — that being the opening track from 2009’s Live Rock in Hell, the confusingly titled “II”. The rest of that album and the 2011 follow-up The Speed of Smoke both maintain a pretty consistently high quality of material, but “II” remains among my absolute favorites across the entire genre.

I guess the point I’m trying to drive home is, if you are a fan of all things fuzzy and sludgy, and you also enjoy harsh vocals that often veer into blackened territory, you really ought to be familiar with the Wizard Smoke catalog. Lucky for you, I’ll have some helpful links later on.

But first, I want to say a few words about The Tickler, the new EP they just made available about a week and a half ago. Like everything else the band has done so far, it’s good stuff — and also like everything else they’ve released, you can download it totally free!

 
Continue reading →

Ion Vein: Another Digital Release is in Progress

Posted by valleyofsteel on

 
Hello again, good people who have subscribed to this blog or like it on Facebook and read my rambly words sometimes! I hope you all are having a pleasant Monday — except for whoever the fucker was that unliked my page today! That person probably won’t ever see this, but still, I hope they have the worst day ever, and then keep re-living it Groundhog Day style!

Haha, but not YOU, dear faithful reader who is currently reading this! In fact, to show my appreciation, I’ll let you in on a secret — for the second time today, I’ve got some information about a band we’ve talked about in the past, who plans on having some new material for us soon!

 
Continue reading →

What To Do In Pittsburgh TONIGHT (7 October, 2012)

Posted by valleyofsteel on

 
Hey sports fans! Here’s a real quick update, while it’s halftime, to let you know what’s going on out there after the football game ends…

Celebrate a Steelers victory by heading out to Garfield Artworks to enjoy an evening of live music — since this weekend has been sort of less eventful in Pittsburgh than most.

 
Continue reading →

The Sword: Details for New Album & Pre-Order Bundles On Sale Now

Posted by valleyofsteel on

image

 
Hey, here’s another bit of good news for you — since you’ve all been good boys and girls (as far as I know!)…

Texan stoner metal ensemble The Sword — who saw their career really take off with the inclusion of one of their early singles as part of the Guitar Hero II video game (at least, that’s when they first popped onto my radar screen) — are now just a few weeks away from releasing their fourth full-length album!

Apocryphon will hit store shelves (as well as the iTunes equivalent of shelves, whatever that may be) on Monday, the 22nd of October. And I’ve got the cover art and tracklisting right here, in addition to a whole plethora of pre-order bundles you can choose from! Also, there will be some tour dates further down, if you keep on reading.
Continue reading →

The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel

Posted by valleyofsteel on

image

 

The Fat Dukes of Fuck – Honey from the Lips of an Angel (self-released, 25 September 2012)

 
Hey there, fellow music afficianados.  I don’t know if you noticed, but it feels like all of a sudden, there have been all kinds of huge releases over the past couple of weeks!  Not in the sense that they’re bands who’ll appear on the cover of major magazines, or will hit the mainstream radio airwaves or anything like that, but significant to me, because I’d been looking forward to them for a long, long time!

Well, in any case, there have been a few that I’ve been excited about, and I’ve been listening to them and I definitely plan on publishing reviews for some of those in the very near future.  Don’t worry, we’ll get there.

Today, though, I feel compelled to share something with you, which was not one of those highly anticipated albums. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, I don’t want to give you that impression — but simply due to the fact that I’d never heard of this band before their new album came out last week, so obviously I wouldn’t have been able to look forward to it!

Yeah, the Las Vegas-based group called The Fat Dukes of Fuck, and their brand-new album Honey from the Lips of an Angel caught me completely by surprise. But I have to be honest, as soon as I heard the band’s name, I felt overcome by curiosity, and immediately knew this was something I needed to check out…

 

Continue reading →