interview with the red chord’s greg weeks

I’m always nervous before an interview. Afraid I’ll ask a stupid question (I did, and first) or that I won’t be able to find the publicist or artist to actually do the interview. It didn’t help that I’d never been to the Sound Academy, a Toronto venue situated in the ass end of nowhere in an area that’s one rape away from a horror film. But I got there. Problem was, their was nowhere to be found. Frustrated, I decided to sit on the venue’s front steps and see what happened. Then, out of nowhere, I noticed The Red Chord’s bassist Greg Weeks out front, looking perhaps even more lost than I did. He was holding a sheet of paper.

“I’m supposed to interview you later…”, I told him.

Seconds later he was asking if I was Tyler, mentioning that he’d just come out to try and find me. Crisis averted. Sort of. And you’ll only have to get one question into the interview to see how I almost blew it. Let it be a lesson to you: don’t be a comedian if you’re not funny.

Now onto the reason you clicked.

Greg Weeks of the Red Chord does his thing at the Sound Academy, November 2nd 2009. Photo Copyright Keiran Meyn.

SputnikMusic: Alright. I guess I’ll start with something serious…have you see This Is It yet? The, uh, Michael Jackson movie?

Greg Weeks: No, I have not. No.

SM: Okay. I have no idea why I threw that out there. So how’s it feel to be touring with Gwar? Ever thing in your wildest dreams you’d be touring with a band that’s notorious for “pissing” on the crowd and throwing fluid everywhere?

GW: No, I uh, actually we toured with ‘em [on] Sounds of the Underground 2005, I think, and then we did a full US [tour] in 2006. So it’s good to be back with those guys. But yeah, when we first toured with them I never thought I’d be touring with a band that was constantly on talk shows when I was a kid…attempting to explain what they do to an audience that had no idea, haha…

SM: And just feared them. Explicitly.

GW: Yeah. It’s great though. The ultimate punk rock band.

SM: What was it like playing a Halloween show with them? That must have been bizarre.

GW: It was awesome. It was our second Halloween show with them, and I always thought they should get Halloween costumes to put over their costumes, so they could be aliens actually dressing up for Halloween.

SM: As Lil’ Lulu or something?

GW: Exactly. But they don’t…where they’re from, I guess they don’t celebrate Halloween. In outer space.

SM: They should start…

GW: But it is wild. It’s fun. Actually, the first time, in 2006. when we played a Halloween show with them, it was right across the street from the hotel where Jeffrey Dahmer used to bring his victims. So the entire Halloween vibe was scary.

SM: Charming!

GW: It was pretty weird.

SM: Could have gone as Dahmer…I guess that’s not much of a costume, though.

GW: Heh, yeah. That’s true. Kind of just show up eating people, I guess.

SM: You shot a video around [Halloween]…a couple of days ago?

Photo Copyright Keiran Meyn

GW: Yeah. A couple of days ago. We were super late to the show because of it. Guy has…it’s for “Demoralizer”, the first track on the new record, and Guy just recently bought a house in New Hampshire…he’s turning his back on us Massachusetts folks now. But attached to the house is this giant compound. It’s kind of where we got the idea for the last track, “Sleepless Nights in the Compound”. But we shot it there and it’s this old abandoned ceramics factory, so it had nice atmosphere, but you have to watch where you step because you could fall through the floor very easily.

SM: That would make an interesting shot…

GW: It would

SM: Might cripple you, though. So there’s a downside. Is it going to be a ways out?

GW: Eeeeh…Oh yeah. We’re gonna…we’re doing some animation for it, so it’ll be about, maybe…three weeks?

SM: That’s not that bad, actually. On the last album you wrote a song full of “Canadian-isms”, full of Trailer Park Boys references, and on this one you’ve “moved up” to the Discovery Channel.

GW: Ha!

SM: Is it nice to have a reference that people in your country can understand?

GW: This time, yeah. I think it’s sad that on every record we have TV and movie references. It doesn’t really say much for how creative we are…

SM: You made it work.

GW: We were really happy to do the Trailer Park Boys thing because we became utterly obsessed with that show and to have a song with “Ricky-isms” throughout it…

SM: There’s a new movie out.

GW: Yes!

SM: I don’t know if it’s out in the States, yet, but…

GW: It came out here there weeks ago?

SM: A while ago. I, uh…I don’t actually like The Trailer Park Boys. No offence.

GW: Oh, none taken. None taken.

SM: How’s the reception been so far with the album? It seems to be pretty positive. It’s only been out about a week, right? Six days?

GW: Yeah, it came out last Tuesday. It’s been good. It’s always fun to…the label will send us reviews and stuff, and they’ve all been positive. I’m sure they wouldn’t send us negative ones. But either way, we like reading both. I think we all agree though that we’d rather get a good review or an absolutely horrible one…I hate middle ground reviews.

SM: “It’s okay”

GW: I hate it’s okay. I’d rather hear, “I don’t ever want to hear this record again”, or “this is a good record” than “it’s alright”.

SM: Was it hard to right with one less member? Did you have to change anything?

GW: No, it was actually easier because it’s one less person you have to fight with about ideas. It wasn’t…at times it was tough to get all four of us in the same room, but…

SM: Easier than five

GW: That’s true. That’s very true. No, but it was good, this time was a lot of fun. It almost brought us together a little bit, doing this record.

SM: Did you guys go into it writing…trying to streamline it? Your sound is a little more streamlined, and did that just happen as a result of having four members or was that the plan?

GW: I think that just happened because as usual, we just write whatever comes to mind or whatever we’re feeling at the time, and the last couple records, since we did have that extra person, more ideas got thrown into the mix. I think it’s more streamlined this time because we have one less person…And I don’t think the last records…the last records didn’t suffer from it at all…I’m just saying

SM: It’s just a little different.

GW: It’s just a little different this time. Mike wrote most of it, almost all the record he wrote. I only wrote three songs on it, but, it was more direct I think this way than having everyone kind of…

SM: Which three did you write?

GW: What the hell did they call it…”Ingest the Ash”…um. I only know the working titles.

SM: Well, you got one, so…I’m not good with titles anyways, I won’t hold it against you.

GW: Good.

SM: You wrote three. That’s all we need to know.

GW: I wrote three, and one of them is “Ingest the Ash”. Hah….”Ugliest Truth”! I have the other one somewhere, but it’s not going to come out…

SM: Did you feel like you had to…not do more, but I notice the bass is a little bit louder this time around. I might be imagining that, but is that a result of one less instrument in the mix, or…

GW: No, it’s definitely because when we did Clients, and Zeus recorded it and mixed it…you can’t really hear the bass on it. So we mixed with Zeus this time, and going in to it I made sure to let everybody know that we had to hear the bass and…

SM: Yeah, you guys tend to get shafted if anyone does. The low end.

GW: But he made it happen. Johnny Fay recorded the thing and made the tone…it’s able to sit where it sits, and Zeus mixed it perfectly. But I wouldn’t shut up about that.

SM: Is it harder to play…obviously it’s kind of hard for you to answer this, but is it harder to play the songs with one less guitar? The older stuff? I’m assuming he’d have to use…Mike would have to use lots of loops and delays and all that?

Gunface tearing it up. Not pictured: His "disgusting" pedal board. Photo copyright Keiran Meyn

GW: You’ve got to see his pedal board, it’s a joke. It’s so disgusting…

SM: Does it look like he could be in Radiohead or something?

GW: Yeah, seriously, he’s like one step away from having a Kaoss pad. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Gwar calls it the Franken-pedal because it’s so huge and has so many different things in it. But no, it’s…I think we’re a little bit tighter, actually. But yeah, he’s got the loops station and I’ve got overdrive to help when he’s doing solos and stuff.

SM: Just for rhythm?

GW: Yeah, for rhythm. It’s been going fine. I mean, yeah. We like it a lot better. There’s more room on stage.

SM: That’s true. You don’t have to worry about your bass hitting anyone in the face…

GW: There’s no one on my side anymore, which is good.

(At this point, there was about five seconds of awkward silence while I stumbled to remember what else I wanted to ask)

SM: I’ll edit this awkward silence out, don’t worry.

GW: You can keep it in, it makes me feel better.

SM: You guys didn’t have an instrumental song on this album.

GW: That’s true.

SM: It seemed like from Fused to Clients…it seemed like it was becoming more of a focus. And then on this one…Is that [decision] conscious?

GW: No, we talked about it early on, and it was just like the other ones. If something came up that was good, we’d use it. I was really bummed out that we didn’t have one. I think all the guys were, but you don’t want to force anything. You never want to force anything.

SM: Especially with an instrumental song because then it would just be really boring.

GW: So it wasn’t…it didn’t get written so we didn’t want to force it, so we just left it out, which I think is better than having…

SM: A shitty song?

GW: Play two riffs over and over again just to have an instrumental on it.

SM: Well that is the style right now…

SM: I saw a thing where you guys put out a list of side projects…I’m assuming most of those aren’t real, but…

GW: Haha…

SM: Are we going to see Beyond the Sixth Seal come back? Because I know that’s pretty much just a studio band, right?

This album is awesome. Get it.

GW: Yeah, it is. Our drummer, unfortunately…not unfortunately…is married, has a house. Has a real job. He’s an accountant, so he can’t get away from that and I don’t blame him. I’d love to do at least one or two shows, but next year I’m hoping that we…because we have a lot of new material for the new record, which is also all about werewolves like the last one, and so I’m hoping next year that we can go back up to Johnny Fay’s and record it.

SM: It’s weird that you don’t play shows, because especially the last album has a real “bar” kind of sound to it. So hopefully you can get at least one or two…Obviously you don’t want to drag the guy away from his family, but…

GW: We’re trying. He said he’ll do it if we can work with his schedule, because Red Chord is usually on the road and when he’s on summer vacation we’re usually gone. We definitely want to do it, we want to make an event out of it. But yeah, it’s bar rock with someone growling about werewolves…

SM: I like it though. It’s like a disgusting but groovy kind of sound.

SM: So I’ve noticed…the last time I saw you, and there are some videos of you…you’ve had different stages of facial hair. Are you participating in MOvember or No Shave November or anything like that?

GW: No, I’m just usually. I usually…Whenever I’m in Europe, I usually have a moustache….

SM: Naturally

GW: And when I’m back here just a beard usually. Different lengths.

SM: I’m struggling with MOvember…I’m regretting [shaving clean] already.

GW: Hahaha.

SM: But if it’s going to be socially acceptable to have a moustache, I have to.

GW: You have to.

SM: How’s the rap career coming along? Was that just a one time thing?

GW: No, actually…hah..I’m working on…I’ve decided that because I have t-shirts that go along with the song…they’re gone now…

SM: You used to have a beard one, right? Or a moustache one?

GW: A moustache one, yeah. So to go along with that, I’m going to do one for my beard now, and I think for every rap song I put out there will be a t-shirt that goes along with it. We’re working on one right now. I’ve got one in the works, so hopefully…

SM: Another collaboration? Because [“My Moustache”] was with a few other guys from different bands, right?

GW: Yeah, hah. I think this one will probably just be with Gunface, because he and I can’t escape working with each other.

SM: Well, you do tend to be…

GW: Stuck together for hours every day. It’s tough to escape each other.

SM: So how many people do you think have been murdered in this lake? GW: It looks like a lot, but I will say that I think the Canadian people are more polite than the United States people...so the count is up there, definitely, but I think they all went in a polite manner. Like they cracked their skull open, and maybe apologized after taking their wallet and kicking them into the river... SM: Pushed them softlyGW: Yeah. A gentle push. It's a nice view though, I like this. Photo Credit: Lisha Xu on Flickr

SM: Any plans for when you’re done touring? Or are you just going to keep going?

GW: Um, hah, that’s a great question. When I’m done touring for good-good, or just after this one?

SM: Whatever works, whatever you can answer.

GW: I can answer both. I’m not really good at anything, so when I’m done touring I think I’ll just stay at home with my wife and do whatever she tells me to.

SM: Good answer.

GW: After this tour though we have a break…we get home December 14 I think is the last show, in either New York or Philly, so we’ll get home the 14^th and then we’re off until…I think Europe might start January 22^nd. It should be a holiday, fun family stuff.

SM: What’s it like touring Europe? Is the reception good? I’m sure it’s a different crowd.

GW: It’s crazy because when we first went over there, it was really good. And not that it’s bad now, but it’s different, and in certain areas…like in the UK, it’s sort of like the US—whatever’s hot, they love. But in Germany they tend to like bands that have proven themselves over the years.

SM: Do you mean locally?

GW: Both. Even across the pond, if you will. They still respect older bands, like…Propane is still huge over there.

SM: That went right over my head.

GW: They’re older than you are, an old New York Hardcore band. But it’s good, I love going over there because it’s crazy how close together all the countries are. Every other day you’re in a different country, meeting new and exciting people

SM: Who have no idea what you’re talking about?

GW: Yep. And I have no idea what they’re talking about. That’s the magic of music.

SM: I guess just one more thing. Anything you guys are really into right now? October was a busy month. A couple of big albums came out.

GW: Oh man.

SM: It was officially “Rocktober” and you guys kind of capped it off. Is there anything you want to mention?

GW: Yeah. My two favourite records that came out in October are Between the Buried and Me’s new record The Great Misdirect, we shared a release date with them, and the new Converge, record, Axe to Fall.

SM: Your albums came out just a week apart.

GW: Oh my god, yeah. Both of those are great. We just saw Converge just became we came up here. They’re on that Dethklok tour

SM: They were actually here like a week or so ago.

GW: And I’ve got to say, man, that band…We’ve toured with them, they’re great people, they’re from Masachusettes. We love them, but live they just…they just crush.

SM: Literally.

GW: It doesn’t matter what size room they’re in, they’re just one of the best live bands. Ever.

SM: Do you hope you ever get to that point, where you’re throwing amps off of the stage? Or do you want to keep it a little more controlled.

GW: It depends, it depends. Actually I’m in love with all of my gear so, it would break my heart if anything got….

SM: Cool, thanks.

GW: You’ll be at the show tonight?

SM: I will.

Photo copyright Keiran Meyn

And concerning the show…The fact that the Red Chord opened wasn’t so much inconvenient as it was wrong. While Job for a Cowboy may perhaps bring in a more marketable fan-base, that is fifteen year olds who buy lots of shit, still, I can’t help but complain. The Red Chord shouldn’t have opened. Job for a Cowboy, while decent live and in general, have neither the stage presence nor the variety to play a coherent 45 minute set. 20 minutes in I was bored. Gwar…they’re a gimmick I just didn’t have a stomach for. I lasted four songs before I left early. But at least the Red Chord tore it up, playing a set that focused primarily on their last two albums, with a couple of tracks from Clients sneaking their way into their short but effective set.

Nerd Rage: Jar Jar Abrams’ Star Trek: The Phantom Menace

I would never put it beyond JJ Abrams to make an entertaining film. But I’d also never expect the guy to pull off his not-a-reboot-but-obvious-reboot of the Star Trek franchise. See, Star Trek is immense. To some, this might be full fledged nerd rage. And I won’t deny it. But Star Trek is immense, and the fact that I use ‘is’ to describe a franchise that’s been chugging along for over 50 years just exemplifies the fact. So no, I don’t think JJ Abrams will do Star Trek justice, but at the very least I expect to be entertained. I hear that will happen, but at what expense?

Reviews for the forthcoming Star Trek film have started pouring in. They have been, for the most, relatively favourable. Lavish comparisons to the early Star Wars films and unanimous praise for the film’s technical achievements have been common denominators. This fucking frightens me, and if you expected nerd rage, this is where you’ll get it. See, Star Trek was never Star Wars. That was the fucking point. Star Wars survived unique to Star Trek because of it. Star Wars was the Michael Bay to Star Trek’s Stanley Kubrick. It was hammy, overproduced plotless action that survived on adrenaline. Star Trek was typically, at least in it’s television incarnation, a much headier production. Of course I’m not an idiot; I’m fully aware that the Star Trek films were undeniably not of the same philosophical weight of their source material. I realize that Wrath of Khan, for all it’s pseudo-scientific, Bible paraphrased pandering, was in the end just a popcorn flick. But it was still Star Trek. It was the Enterprise crew as I’d come to enjoy them, y’know, just fatter, older and hammier.

What frightens me about the new Star Trek is that it’s being heralded not as a reboot when it so evidently is. But why would anyone reboot arguably one of the most successful franchises ever? If you’ve seen the new Enterprise bridge, you’d probably guess iPods. That might well be the answer: I know I don’t have it. What I do have is a problem with the film’s newly outed plot device: time travel. To avoid specifics and merely touch on what is evidenced in the film’s trailers and through press releases and public knowledge hype, Star Trek is going to jump back before the Original Series and touch on the origins of Kirk, Spock et al. I’d love to see the early stuff explored. But not by JJ fucking Abrams, because as entertaining as Cloverfield was, it was still fucking stupid. Of course, this is what happens when you put a viral marketing mastermind (if I see one fucking Slusho ad in the movie I will (verb)) and a producer from the Transformers movies in charge of a franchise that traditionally touches on matters beyond it’s means.

Ultimately what bothers me is the notion that Star Trek is going to make people “forget what they know about Star Trek”. Isn’t that half of the fun? And you just know that JJ’s going to throw in as many references and little factoids as he can, just to appease aforementioned nerd rage. I’ll love that, I’m sure. But I don’t understand why he had to make it a Star Trek movie. It’s basic exploitation: he’s using the taboo of being a Trekkie to interest outsiders in what is ultimately an esoteric subculture. Of course like I said, I’m sure it won’t be without it’s share of trivia. I just don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t want to see a Star Trek movie full of overblown action. I don’t want to see Shaun of the Dead essentially parody Engineer Scotty. Star Trek has, in spite of it’s hammy origins, aged somewhat gracefully. Sure, it’s fun to laugh at; I say it’s expected. Between McCoy and his bell-bottoms, Spock and his eye-shadow and Kirk and his…everything, Star Trek begs to be ridiculed. But it survives on its characters, its drama and its overall personality. JJ Abrams is stripping that all away. And for what? To reboot a franchise that really doesn’t warrant it?

If there’s one thing we should know, it’s that people don’t often take kindly to prequels. And with that, I revisit a comparison that troubles me: are we in for another Phantom Menace? I hope not. But I do know this: JJ Abrams is one Jar Jar away from nerd rage far heavier (in girth and magnitude) than mine. I will see Star Trek. I might enjoy it. I just can’t expect to respect it. I mean seriously. If I wanted to watch a tongue-in-cheek, time travelling Star Trek film full of bad jokes and awkward action I’d watch The Voyage Home. Y’know, the one with the fucking whales.

Ugh.

Interview with Aaron of Wolves in the Throne Room

Last week I caught up with Aaron Weaver, drummer for Wolves in the Throne Room.

Tyler Munro: Are you at your homestead right now, or are you guys on the road yet?

Aaron Weaver: No, we don’t have a landline at our house so I had to go over to a friend’s place.

TM: You guys try to keep it organic, right? I know there have been lots of ridiculous, overblown rumours about you guys. You live on a farm, right?

AW: Yeah, that’s true. I mean, you know, I have a cell phone but we live too far out for it to work.

TM: That’s kind of a necessary evil to have a cell phone if you’re in a band…

AW: Especially being on the road, it’s pretty crucial.

TM: But you do try to keep it “organic”? I’m sure you don’t live in an isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere, with no touch with the outside world. I’m sure a lot of that’s exaggerated.

AW: Of course, of course.

TM: It draws attention to you, though. Positive or negative, it gets your music out there.

AW: It’s an interesting mythologizing that’s transpired.

TM: Does the lifestyle you lead help with the way the economy is going now? With the economic downfall, is it making you feel secure living in a place where you can grow your own food?

AW: Yeah, for sure. Our whole goal is to withdraw as much as possible from mainstream society. I don’t really care about the ups and downs of business cycles. That’s just kind of a natural part of how capitalistic commerce works. It builds up past it’s capacity into a speculative bubble, it bursts and then people go crazy as if it’s never happened before. We’re just not very connected to that mainstream world, we try as much as possible to set ourselves apart.

TM: You guys just played that huge Scion fest, right? What’s it like playing on such a giant bill?

AW:The festival itself and the band’s that played were all really good. There’s a lot of bands that played that we find personally inspiring, that we’re fans of; Neurosis is one of those bands. But I mean we’re not very interested in playing anymore corporate sponsored concerts.

TM: It was Toyota, right?

AW: Yeah, Scion is a subsidiary of Toyota. And yeah, I’m sure they’ll be trying to convince us again to play some more of their corporate car commercials but I think we decided as a band that enough is enough. I think that there’s a Satanic element involved in that sort of corporate world and you feel a sort of dark energy swirling around it. I’m willing to take their money every now and again if it suits our needs but..

TM: Willing to take the promotion to get yourselves out there but you don’t want to have to buy too much into it.

AW: Well I’m not interested in promotion either.

TM: I just mean getting fans to hear your music, not so much record sales.

AW: Of course it’s nice to be able to play for people have them not have to pay any money for it.

TM: Ideally. Other than Neurosis are their any other bands you took to on that bill?

AW: It was nice to see Krallice, are you familiar with them?

TM: Yeah, they put a good spin on the genre, kind of like you guys. Not necessarily musically but they put a new aesthetic on the genre.

AW: We’re going to be doing a tour with them in the late spring, so it’s nice to see them in person. I’ve met Mick Barr before a couple of times in other bands, but it’s good to see his new project. High on Fire I was really impressed by. They really owned the big stage, the 6000 person outside stage. They were very impressive. It was all around…all the bands that played were very high calibre. It was an impressive thing that the Satanic lizards at Scion managed to pull it off.

TM: It’s weird though, I know there was controversy with one band in particular, Nachtmystium…they got booted right off.

AW: Yeah, for supposedly being neo-Nazi’s…
TM: I’m not really sure about that…

AW: That’s ridiculous. It’s insane. I know those guys really well. The issue is that Blake Judd, who is the mastermind behind Nachtmystium, used to run a record label which put out a lot of really deep, underground black metal music. I guess one of the bands he put out had some sketchy right-wing politics. So I guess it’s guilt by association.

TM: Yeah, I got the e-mail from one of their press guys and I couldn’t believe it. They’re not even remotely…

AW: I think he made statements in the past coming from a Satanic point of view. You know, “do as thou wilt” kind of think, like “I’m not going to pass judgement on anyone’s personal politics”, which makes a lot sense if indeed you’re serious about some sort of Satanic….

TM: It’s just so bizarre, I mean know it’s corporate but they’re trying to hold a metal fest. I mean you’ve got to relax… but it’s over and done with. I was really just wondering what it was like playing on such a huge stage. You guys obviously prefer the smaller, more intimate settings, right?

AW: For sure. That’s where we feel most comfortable. And at the Scion Festival they had a couple stages, we were not on the 6000 person one, it was more of a six, 700 person capacity room. So it was more the size stage we’re comfortable with.

TM: Did you guys get a night slot, or in the day? Because I’m sure it’d be different to hear your music in broad daylight than it would at night.

AW: We’re going to be playing a lot of festivals in Europe in the summer time and were given the choice between the big stage, 50,000 people during the day, or a smaller stage, a 1000 people at night. Of course we’ll take the small stage and the darkness every time.

TM: Your music seems catered to wearing headphones and isolating yourself, so that’s kind of as close as you can get.

AW: That’s very true. The live experience is very much the same, I think people tend to close their eyes and use the music as an opportunity to journey inward rather than lock-out.

TM: How does it work, though? I know the new album is basically the first album you’ve done without any female vocals. I mean the first had Jamie Meyers, the second had…I’m not familiar with her name…

AW: Jessica Kenney

TM: Of Asva, right?

AW: That’s right.

TM: And the EP had Jamie Meyers again. So how do you do it live without them being there?

AW: Well, we don’t, and that’s why we chose to do a record that’s just the three of us playing. We love collaborating with other people, and it’s something we’ll do in the future, but we plan on playing a lot of concerts and doing a lot of touring in the next few months and we wanted the material on the new record to be material that we could perform live without missing any important elements.

TM: Are they friends of yours? You’ve also worked with Dino, of Dystopia. How does stuff like that come about?

AW: We just know them from the underground scene. We’d played with Dino’s band Asunder a bunch of times, and Jamie’s old band, Hammers of Misfortune. Jamie we knew less well, she was a friend of Randall Dunn’s, the producer of Two Hunters and Black Cascade.

TM: You mentioned Asunder, a couple of guys from them were in Weakling. You were compared a lot to Weakling with your first album, do you think that was just by association, because I know they shared a producer with you, or is that a comparison you think is valid?

AW: I think it’s valid in that we were both bands that were clearly inspired by black metal, but were coming from a west coast, underground DIY perspective. And also Weakling was a band that I wasn’t so interested in, but our guitar player at the time was really into Weakling. I think that on our first demo you can definitely hear a Weakling influence, but I think that had more to do with the guitar player that was playing in Wolves in the Throne Room at the time, a certain lack of creativity on his part. At this point I don’t think there’s a whole lot of..I don’t hear any similarities at all.

TM: I think a lot of it was just..I know on your first album, the producer also produced Weakling’s Dead as Dreams..

AW: That’s right, Tim Green.

TM: And I think a lot of it might have been that you’re coming out of the US black metal scene, which isn’t exactly…it hasn’t always been the most highly regarded. I think it might just have been a quality comparison.

AW: Certainly there’s a similarity in sound as well, you know, having really long songs. Really trying to utilize the trance inducing ambiance of black metal. I love that Weakling record, I think it’s a really impressive d0cument, and I love Asunder, too, which is John Gossard from Weakling’s new band.

TM: What do you think of the US black metal scene in general? Is it something you don’t mind being associated with, or are you just ambivalent towards it?

AW: I think ambivalence is the best way to describe it. I mean I don’t feel like we have any connection with a band like Leviathan or Xasthur, these kind of groups..

TM: It’s a real different aesthetic than what you guys put out there

AW: Those bands are, I think, trying to stay true to a certain orthodox view of black metal, so it has a satanic, nihilistic energy to it. And that’s obviously very different from what Wolves in the Throne Room are trying to do.

TM: You guys are a little more naturalistic.

AW: What we’re trying to do with our music is express an ancient, transcendent spirit. It’s based on the notion that as modern people we’ve lost a connection with a deep and transcendent source of wisdom that I think our ancestors had a much easier time coming in contact with. That lack of connection to this ancient transcendent spirit leads to a great deal of alienation, neurosis and sociological dysfunction. So our music is an attempt to re-awaken a connection to those sorts of feelings, those sorts of energies.

TM: You mentioned black metal orthodoxy and I did notice that the new album seems a little more traditional musically. I mean it’s not without its ambient parts, but it does seem a little more traditional, especially compared to the [Malevolent Grain] EP you guys put out earlier this year.

AW: That’s very true. That’s because I think that the heavier, more unrelenting music that you hear on Black Cascade is really what the band sounds like live. The live performance is very loud and very brutal and it’s very physically punishing for us as performers to play those concerts. We wanted Black Cascade to be a more accurate representation of what the band sounds like in the live format.

TM: So you consider yourselves to be a live band through and through?

AW: For sure. The band was conceived of as a live band and that’s our primary focus, because playing live is where we are really able to achieve the cathartic state…

TM: You want to connect too… it’s easier to connect with the audience.

AW: That could be part of it, too. It’s absolutely gratifying to be able to feed off the energy of the audience.

TM: I read somewhere that you guys came out of the punk scene, and I definitely notice that in your drumming…It has that sort of..I don’t have a word for it but I can hear that…

AW: Sloppy?

TM: No, no. Not necessarily sloppy but…I almost want to say primal, but I don’t know if that’s accurate.

AW: What it is that it comes out of years of playing in basements, squats, playing outside with no PA. A lot of metal drummers don’t have those DIY experiences…

TM: They’re playing with massive, $6000 rigs…

AW: They play with expensive drum sets, triggers, and it goes through the PA and that’s just a really different style of playing.

TM: Yeah.

AW: And that’s fine, I appreciate a lot of that really extreme metal drumming but that’s not what we’re trying to do. The style of drumming that I do is a lot, yeah, I think more primal. More based on an emotional release rather than being technical..

TM: Extreme precision. It’s pretty flowing, not really tactical..

AW: Cool, thanks.

TM: Just to go back to the EP, the one song on there that features Jamie Meyers sparked a bit of controversy. People thought you were going in a shoegaze-y direction with Black Cascade and now people have heard it and…

This is where our call dropped.

AW: I lost you there. I heard some sort of strange interference…must be a UFO passing overhead.

TM: So I just wanted to ask: based on the EP…you threw people off a little bit. There was a real shoegaze-y sound there and people thought that’s where you were going to go with Black Cascade, and you really didn’t.

AW: Totally. I think a lot of people assume that when you release an EP before a full length it’s being used as a promotional thing, say there’s two tracks that didn’t make it on the record. That’s usually how EPs are used from a marketing perspective. That’s wasn’t the situation at all with Malevolent Grain, it was conceived of as its own entity.

TM: Just something you wanted to try out?

AW: Yeah, and we wanted to do a collaboration with Jamie because she’s a good friend of ours and we really appreciate her vocals but we didn’t want to have her sing a song on the full length record that we couldn’t play live.

TM: Keep it consistent.

AW: For sure.

TM: Well I really enjoyed it, I thought it was a nice twist. I especially liked how you threw people through the ringer a little bit.

AW: I’d imagine a lot of people…the natural reaction would be, “oh, they’ve sold out, they’ve gone soft” or whatever. But of course, like you’ve noticed, Black Cascade is very much a return to our metal manifestation.

TM: I found it interesting how people were pissing and moaning about the female vocals but that really wasn’t anything new.

AW: No. That’s always been an aspect of the music. We were just expanding on an idea that’s always been there since the beginning. Like you noticed, she sang vocals on the first record. It’s something that’s always been there and it’s something we’ll always be interested in experimenting with.

TM: Are you getting tired of all these interviews? I hadn’t realized that you were in the midst of a huge junket. Is it a necessary evil?

AW: Actually I kind of like it. So many of the interviewers that I talk to really have some interesting ideas of their own and we usually have a really interesting back and fourth and discussion. I appreciate the opportunity to express most of the ideas we have beyond just the music and beyond the aesthetic that we convey with the artwork and the sound from the record. It’s something that I enjoy doing. It is difficult to do so many in a row, you often times forget what you’ve already said and begin to babble incoherently. But I don’t see it as a chore.

TM: Is it hard when you’re on tour to stay true the lifestyle you want to live. Like you said, you live on a farm. Is it hard to stay true to that when you’re essentially living out of a van?

AW: Yes, it’s quite difficult. We do the best we can, we have a daily ritual on the road. Every morning we find a local food co-op or health food store, or whatever’s available and buy our breakfast, then buy our dinner for later in the day so we wont have to eat any sort of sketchy hamburger or whatever they’re going to offer us at the venue. We do our best to get exercise as much as possible and to read books, to try to use tour as an opportunity to better ourselves rather than revel in the rock and roll depravity side of it.

TM: Is there anything you’re really into that you want to get the word out about?

AW: Hm, let’s see…I have some friends of mine who do an absolutely amazing and powerful ritual black metal project, it’s called Fauna and the record was just released on the label out of the UK called Aurora Borealis. They’re really good friends of ours. One of the members of Fauna actually lives at the farm where we all live and we’ve collaborated on a variety of projects. Johnny’s actually the person who takes a lot of the photographs that are featured on our records. So that’s a band that is very much an inspiration to us in our hometown, that I think people should be more aware of.

TM: What are some of your major influences outside of metal?

AW: I’m really interested in all forms of primitive music, folk music of all sorts. I think that black metal is a folk music in a lot of ways, especially the first wave of bands…Burzum, Emperor, groups like this, because it was so unintellectualized, it was so unmediated and pure. It was a really primal sort of expression. I listen to a lot of music that’s on the Sublime Frequencies label. Are you familiar with that label?

TM: I’m not, sorry.

AW: It’s the..one of the fellows that is in the Sun City Girls, the avant-garde group from Seattle, it’s a label that he runs. They put out all sorts of really interesting music from around the world and what the music has in common is a trance element. It’s a spiritual music in one way or the other. That’s something that we draw inspiration from.

TM: So that’s the common thread, it doesn’t matter…not genre per se, you’re interested in the trance-like qualities?

AW: Yeah, because I think that’s a very universal experience that human beings have…to use music and repetition and a certain style of drumming to achieve an altered state of consciousness. I think that’s what the earliest forms of music were that were involved in shamanic ritual, and I think that’s what black metal is and that’s what we’re trying to do with Wolves in the Throne Room.

TM: Can I ask where the name comes from?

AW: I forget if it was me that came up with it or my brother Nathan, but I think that it really sums up what the band is all about. That name, to me, conjures the image of wild and vengeful beasts unleashing destruction and apocalypse upon the world with the intention of creating something new, with the intention of re-awakening something. That’s really what the music’s all about, unleashing something wild inside us that’s hidden from us because we live such controlled and safe lives in the modern world.

TM: Awesome. Thanks a lot.

AW: It was good speaking to you.

TM: Good luck on the tour.

Another Late Night Without Conan O’Brien

I just found out The Roots were the official house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I thought it was a one time thing, turns out I was wrong. So now I have little to no choice but to check the show out whenever possible. Luckily the first episode wasn’t half-bad. It had its awkward moments, but those can all be attributed to Robert DeNiro and opening night jitters. But Tina Fey is not Robert DeNiro. She’s not a character actress and she’s actually interesting. To boot, Fey and Fallon had excellent chemistry in their Weekend Update days, arguably the only reason Fallon got this gig, so tonight is a real test for Fallon. If he fucks this up, his show is probably a bust.

reunited and it feels so good

Read a full recap and review of Fallon’s second show after the jump…

Late Night Without Conan O’Brien

Stay Tuned for Jimmy Fallon said Jay Leno. It didn’t sound natural. Of course if Jay is like any of us, the words “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” are ones that prompt diarrhetic vomiting. I’m going to miss Conan. I know he’ll be back in June, but it won’t be the same. But I’m also willing to give Fallon a chance. I think he’s got potential as a comedian, and on Weekend Update he showed that when he wasn’t giggling under his breath he had a decent sense of timing and delivery. So I was going to give him a chance. In this blog you’ll find a recap of Fallon’s first show written almost entirely on the spot. If you make it ‘till the end of this post, kudos, because it’s ridiculously long.

I expected the worst. And from the start it wasn’t really pretty. There was an expectedly forced, contrived and awkward opening skit that, of course, featured a complacent Conan O’Brien who is probably aware that his legacy is about to be stomped on by an awkward, nervous tool who built a career off of his penchant for laughing at his own jokes. Of course I didn’t know you could build a reputation off of that

From the opening Fallon seemed nervous and uncomfortable. Of course, ten seconds in I realized that’s his shtick. After-all, this is a guy whose entire SNL tenure will be remembered by the fact he consistently laughed at his own jokes. That didn’t change in the opening monologue. But he didn’t totally fuck it up, and that’s a good thing. In fact, Jimmy came out swinging. Sure, he isn’t the most charismatic of hosts, at least not yet, but the jokes were surprisingly funny.

read more after the jump

Taken: A Review

Before I get into it, I’ll say one thing: Taken is not a good movie. It’s mightily entertaining, yes, and its balls are dangerously large and frighteningly hairy. But a good movie Taken is not. The plot is passable if inconsequential: the goal is clearly to show Liam Neeson grumbling around, breaking arms and getting innocent women killed and not to deliver a powerful narrative.

The basic story is a simple one: Neeson is a badass, someone kidnapped his daughter, he’s going to get her back. There’s a bunch of shit that happens surrounding the film that are billed as circumstantial. They don’t matter. Neeson’s some sort of ambiguous spy-divorcee, he wants to be close to his daughter, as soon as he starts to get there she goes on vacation and is promptly kidnapped. But these elements are all horribly implemented and highly irrelevant. As an example, the sole reason for his daughter’s vacation was that she decided to follow U2 on a tour across Europe. This tells us one of two things: the producers are grossly out of touch or, more than likely, the plot was a complete after-thought. A testament to the story’s irrelevance is that I watched the movie without subtitles. Though I understood the French scenes, the Albanian ones went over my head. And it absolutely did not matter. I knew what was going on because it was violently obvious, so obvious the close captioning could have been in caveman speak and it would have held the same bearing on the viewer (Neeson mad. Albanian want to hurt Neeson. Neeson say he would find Albanian and kill. Grumble).

Watching the film makes me want to ask you, the reader (hi mom!) one simple question. What do Dana Carvey, Liam Neeson and Larry Bird have in common. Watch about ten minutes of Taken and you’ll have your answer: they all look like middle aged Lesbians. I don’t know if it was the make-up or just the vigors of life, but Neeson looked rough. Of course it didn’t matter because after the film’s introductory preface (about 25 minutes of mumbling and whining) Neeson’s kid is napped and he gets to work. What ensues is every man’s dream: a film tailor made for Jason Statham starring not-Jason Statham. It’s an adrenaline rush devoid of Statham’s smug, convoluted accent. Unlike Statham, Neeson is both an accomplished actor and a badass, and watching Schindler kill upwards of a hundred Albanian’s takes precedence over Statham’s unintelligible mumbling any day of the week.

Taken isn’t a film that lends itself to in-depth analyses so I’m going to stop it here: Taken is 90 minutes of power. The DVD should come with a beard-comb and moustache wax, because this as manly as Manowar and only half as homo-erotic (there was one blade-wielding villain inexplicably drenched in guy-liner).

The Return.

The blog is going to come back in a few hours. I’ll kick it off with a review of the movie Taken and follow that up with a recap of the first-ever episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It’s going to start off rough, but I’ll get my footing back eventually

Where “Emos” Go When They Die

This Suicide Scapegoat Wears Only the Blackest of Shades

Remedial Band is Mandatory in (at?) the Black Parade

Journalists struggling for a story aren’t first-time visitors in the wacky world of Imaginationland. There is no greater evidence supporting this than that of the suicide-scapegoat. A teenager kills herself, whose to blame? Judas Priest…are they even relevant anymore? Black Sabbath…nah. The Marilyn Manson card has been played to death since Columbine so now it seems a UK “journalist” has decided to make My Chemical Romance the scapegoat.

What I’m referring to is the suicide (by hanging) of a 13 year old English teen. The girl, a reported “emo”, came home one day and told her parents, well…you read it:

The teenager, who left a suicide note and used the nickname “Living Disaster”, committed suicide after flippantly telling her parents, “I want to kill myself”, when she returned late from a friend’s house.

They dismissed the comment and said “don’t be silly” but an hour later found her suspended an inch from the floor.

It gets worse.

She had secretly chatted to “emo” followers online all over the world, talking about death and the glamorisation of hanging and speaking about “the black parade” – a place where “emos” believe they go after they die.

Okay. So journalists being out of touch with popular culture isn’t anything new (but it’s still a little unacceptable). But this is absolutely absurd.

I’m not going to snob out rant about how My Chemical Romance are a pop-punk band and not an emo band, but I will point out that the Black Parade wasn’t about suicide. As far as I know, the album’s concept is based around the life and death of a cancer patient. Beyond that, My Chemical Romance have been outspoken against teenage suicide, so to blame them is an absolute cop-out.

So then why is a half-developed concept album being blamed for the suicide of a misguided young girl who told her parents she wanted to kill herself. I’m not saying they should have believed her, but maybe they should have feigned concern. I guess that’s too much to ask.

Why is this trash being published? The material is offensive to both the family and the daughter and appalling to anyone into music. I myself am a fan of My Chemical Romance. Do I love them? Hardly. But I enjoy their music, to a point, and I’m certainly not of the camp who have an inexplicably passionate hatred for them.

You’d think we were past the days of playing our LPs backwards, searching for hidden messages. I am a student journalist and I am ashamed that the field I am planning to work in is being tainted by such half-hearted, imaginative and flat out pathetic reporting.

In a tribute book dedicated to Hannah at her school, one of her friends wrote, “I hope you enjoy the black parade”, and it emerged another “emo” girl at Hannah’s school, Mascalls Secondary School in Paddock Wood, Kent, had tried to kill herself a year ago.

Take this for example. It’s offensive and unnecessary. I can’t be sure whether or not Hannah or her friends truly believed in “the black parade”, but I find it highly unlikely. Where’s the guidance? I’m rambling because I’m really at a loss for words. This is a tragic situation and one girl’s suicide is being used to vilify a culture that’s mostly harmless.

Dear George A. Romero: Retire. Please.

I will be on my couch, watching 28 Days Later

Diary of the Dead is a painful reminder that George A. Romero is in fact George A. Romero. For those wondering, George A. Romero is a guy who got lucky and never figured out when to quit.

I’m not going to act like I wasn’t an obsessive Romero fan at one point, but I’m not going to lie and say I ever really cared for anything more than Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Sure, Day of the Dead had its make-up going for it, and Land of the Dead was a passable popcorn flick, but the newly released “rugged” and “stripped” Diary of the Dead proves that the only thing less passionate than my fan-ship is Romero’s filmmaking ability.

The flick is set on the premise of a group of film students working on their senior project, a horror film, getting caught up in a real-world crisis, ultimately feeling compelled to document it. A twist this certainly is, but well-executed it most certainly was not. Holding the film back is an unaccomplished cast of actors that makes me question Mr. Romero. While he’s surely overrated, he’s still who he is; the most renowned zombie writer/director of our time. That being said, I can’t help but wonder how Romero, known for his staunch allegories, allowed such writhing irony to ruin his latest picture. See, while the film is paced around a group of film students’ amateur documentary, it’s the actual film’s amateurish execution that holds it back.

Obviously Romero opted to cast unknown actors, which is by all means reasonable and accountable. Still, one has to wonder if these were truly the best options. Whether it be as a result of stale dialogue or passionless archetypes, Diary of the Dead’s cast stumbles and struggles to make sense of the film’s already limited narrative. More troubling is Romero’s blatancy. No longer using zombies as an avenue for socio-political commentary, Diary of the Dead opts instead to have one of its lead actress narrate and verbally communicate the issues. Rather than revive his once-fervent allegory, Romero shoves his ideas on post-modern media right down our throat. Rather than finding a creative way of addressing the age of the blogosphere and information over saturation, Romero instead crafted a grossly underwhelming and poorly executed film and shaped it around the most primitive of ideas; people are fucked up. His elementary opinions on the human condition are only made less noticeable by his juvenile stabs at the news media and his harkening to government censorship conspiracies.

Once again, the irony is palpable. It is only after sitting through nearly 90 minutes of zombie film that I, the viewer, realizes just how brainless I have become –not as a result of my own doing, at least not directly, but rather as a response to this film’s lackadaisical and amateurish approach. There is very little to be happy about with this film. It is, in many ways, a contemporary precursor to the earlier-noted popcorn flick Land of the Dead, only, you know, not entertaining at all. There were no laughs to be had, and it certainly wasn’t scary. The effects were passable if a little overblown, and even the implied HOLY FUCK death scenes (one of an Amish man impaling himself with a scythe to annihilate the zombie behind him comes to mind) are moot within the film’s diegesis because they’re so half-hearted and blasé.

hey george, your career is just as dead as most of your characters.

So who is George A. Romero? He is both a legend and a fraud. Most importantly, he’s a filmmaker who should’ve moved on after he got his break and ventured to expand his legacy rather than to piss all over it. While he pioneered the zombie-flick, undead-by-number movies just can’t get it done anymore.