Unite for human rights in Iran on February 11th

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February 11th is Victory of the Revolution Day in Iran.  Equivalent to the Fourth of July in the United States, it is a day commemorating liberty, independence and freedom.  But the Iranian government has long violated these rights and is responsible for numerous abuses including torture, arbitrary arrests, censorship and the most recent execution of two activists accused of inciting the post-election protests on June 12th – even though these men had been held in detention long before the violence erupted.

Since blogs and websites like Twitter and YouTube were virtually the only way the Iranian people could expose the horrific treatment being inflicted on them in the days following the contested Presidential election, we expect that Iranians will turn to the Internet once again to carry their messages. That is why we are asking everyone to show their solidarity online on February 11th – whether it’s on your blog, website, or social networking profile.

MORE HERE: Stand with us to ensure that Victory of the Revolution Day signifies an end to these abuses!

heirs to thievery – the last days

1 AM Feb 1, 2010. Spark, Mark, Seth and Blake

(From Hardtimes.ca) The last week of recording was a mixture of odds, ends, patch ups and add-ons. It is in the final week, always, when no matter how much time you think you have during the sessions to complete the album you want, the deadline crunch approaches and you always, always, always need more time. This turn around was no different. We redid vocals, we added vocals, had a few more guest vocals (Erik Rutan’s amazing lines on “The Illuminaught” arrived on the last day), Sparky added a solo to the title track “Heirs to Thievery,” and we contemplated various mix incarnations into the wee hours of each morning.

Mixes were more or less completed at 6 AM on Monday morning February 1st. We had a wild night that included a bunch of friends coming over to hear the mixes, and our buddy Seth doing vocals on the Japanese-only bonus track known as the “Devil’s Onion Ring.” That one will turn some heads for sure, but since its a Japanese-only bonus track, I am guessing it will be a download sensation shortly after its release(!) Additionally, Blake from Pig Destroyer stopped by to lend a roast-worthy monologue of insults which will also most likely appear on the Japanese release, but we shall see.

Now that it is all done, and I am safely far from the studio’s pristine aural perception, I hear the record and find it difficult to objectively assess the creation. I know it sounds far better and more dynamic than anything we have heretofore performed, yet it is still sinking in. Hearing the same songs over and over for weeks in different mix incarnations can seriously mess with your head. I do however think we have something that we have not yet created -a very ripping, sonically clear and crushing recording that balances our myriad influences in death metal, grind and punk with a punishing efficiency.

In the end, all we can hope to do is please ourselves, and that is what any musician should desire first and foremost -and I can rest assured quite comfortably on this one. Now, come May, this album will be unleashed for the rest of the metal-feasting masses, who will ultimately decide if this is a meal worth devouring- bon appetite!

3 days in Mont Mégantic National Park

Atop Mont Notre-Dame

Post recording/pre-tour decompression almost complete thanks to a three-day excursion through the wilds of Eastern Quebec, specifically around the Mont Mégantic National Park. The region around Lake Megantic (including the Mont Notre Dame, and Mont Gosford parks), is just over the Maine border, and presents an isolated, pristine frozen wilderness perfect for winter hiking. I donned a pair of snowshoes (for the first time in my life – and damn they work!) and trekked over roughly 12 miles of silent forest, noting new birds species for the list (the locally found Gray Jay, and (finally!) a red breasted Nuthatch), and spending the evenings fireside as temperatures hovered just above zero fahrenheit. Only slightly looking forward now to getting home (to more snow) in DC, and digging in with the new tunes at rehearsals next week, until then a few more days in Montreal.

Now playing: Agalloch – The White Ep, Faith No More – Album of the Year, Dimmu Borgir – Enthroned Darkness Triumphant, Pink Floyd – Animals, and (yes!) Misery Index – Heirs to Thievery

album in the can, off to Montreal (with a brief stop in purgatory)

Last night studio mixing party

“So,” I thought…4 weeks of being walled up in Wrightway studios (Baltimore, MD), album done, and grinning ear to ear, why not get away for a bit until the action heats up?”

After an all day and night session, at 6AM early Monday morning we declared the new album a wrap after making a few final edits. An hour and a half later I hitched a ride to BWI (that’s Baltimore-Washington International airport kids) shooting for a connecting flight at Newark NJ, to take me from there to my final destination of Montreal, Quebec. With visions of fine Quebec ale, hockey and poutine clouding my already sleep deprived eyes, I sat in the terminal pondering the awesomeness of the Suffocation show that I also was planning on attending that evening.

However, upon my arrival at Trudeau airport outside Montreal, after waiting 1 hour in the primary immigration line,   I found myself directed to the ‘extensive interrogation room’ by Canadian immigration officials. There, I stood in line for 2 hours, moving a total of 30 feet, as they processed roughly 12 people before me, only to have a quick 2 minutes interview, and be sent on my way. I felt like I was trapped in a Soviet bread line. The immigration guards were standing around drinking coffee and laughing, only periodically asking us to come forward, watching us toil in our misery. Additionally, after that mess, 3 and half hours after I landed, I had to search for my bag…

THEN, bag in hand, and racing for the exit, Canadian customs pulls me aside for another line, and another interrogation/search of my bag. It makes me wonder, exactly what about my profile makes me such a target?  The sheer inefficiency was astounding, and the way I was treated led me to believe they knew I was either A) A Washington Capitals fan, or B) They do not like critically minded American metalheads entering their borders to pillage and drink their fine ales whilst cavorting with their women and speaking English openly on the streets! Either way, I finally exited purgatory about 7:30 PM and made my way downtown to enjoy the show, whereupon 36 hours of no sleep later, I finally tasted my first Quebec ale.

Ultimately, I am happy to be here, and know the record is done. 2010, here we come.

Howard zinn: 1922-2010

Zinn

Zinn was an icon of humanistic, critical thinking, and he changed my perceptions forever in 1999 when I first read “A People’s History of the United States.” This book alone is an essential first step towards realizing a clear, restructured understanding of what actually happened in American history. Sweep aside those diluted textbooks and manufactured visions of a noble and pure history that serve as pillars of the prevailing order, for there was a plethora of untold history that simply did not make the cut, and Zinn was the mind leading the charge to understand and learn from our past in a much more critical way.

As I recently stated elsewhere, its these ‘themes of US history that tend to be ignored or swept under the rug of social consciousness. In turn, other interpretations replace those ideas of “what happened,” and are mythologized in our present perception of who we are as a people and nation. In short, we tend to glorify and justify a very ugly and contentious past, simply because it makes us feel better about ourselves. In this process, the truth gets a backseat.’

Check out HowardZinn.org here for all relevant obituaries and links to further understanding.

Studio week 3, almost done

Adam Jarvis and Rich "Grindfather" Johnson add some vox

(via Hardtimes.ca) Week three in the studio went smooth, yet mildly stressful. Mark recorded most all rhythm tracks since Monday, and now he is wrapping up the last track “Sleeping Giants” fueled through a hazy mix of caffeine and garlic salsa. We rolled along with vocals as well, assisted by equal parts Jim Beam and agua, we had fun singing the same lines over and over again dozens of times searching for the perfect take (translation = tedious hours of torment).

Our Engineer extraordinaire Steve Wright is more demanding than a soviet drill sergeant, punishing us with repeated demands “timing!” and “more brutal!” – but its all for the better outcome of the album correct? This is also the time we welcome our guest vocalists, and we have lined up a nasty procession of vicious contributions from various friends and regional associates! We have Mough from A Warm Gun, Rich from Drugs of Faith/Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Eric from Hate Eternal, John from Dying Fetus, Vince from Criminal Element and maybe more, its getting crowded in here(!).

Next week is mixing and that’s were the purported magic really comes together, when we all huddle in the studio and torture ourselves with repeated listens to the same songs, pondering if we got it right, or if we are creating a suck bomb! (Which will not happen of course, we are professionals…well, at least we pretend to be) If Mark finishes up tracking tonight we will begin with lead tones and guitar overlays tomorrow, and then we are in the home stretch, set to hand this carnal creation over to Relapse next week.

Right now we are simply looking forward to just sitting back and hearing all the work, having a La Fin Du Monde, and getting ready to tour the hell out of this bastard later this year…more next week, the final installment …mixing! (arrgggh!).

Cruise ships still docking in Haiti, 60 miles from disaster

Disaster? What Disaster?

I suppose tens of thousands of dead and a humanitarian nightmare will not get in the way of a good old bacchanalian beach party, eh? (Well, at least it seems half of the passengers were “sickened” and stayed aboard, while the ship docked at a private beach). Although, perhaps they should keep on stopping by, as it purportedly “helps the local economy”? But that is, as they say, another debate….although this quote from <— that 2007 article says it all: ““I don’t want to see poverty,” acknowledged Helen Murphy, 66, of St. Paul, who was shopping in the tourist market one morning. “I’m on vacation. I don’t want to think that these people don’t have enough to eat.”

From the Guardian:

More: Cruise ships still find a Haitian berth

“Luxury liners are still docking at private beaches near Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone for holidaymakers to enjoy the water…Sixty miles from Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.”

Number 59? Cool, I’ll take it

Ghost From the Past

Last December, whilst shuffling through my most recent issue of Decibel Magazine (the American published heavy music ‘magazine of record’) I noticed something that was not available to subscribers – a “Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of The Decade” special issue. Like any other fan of metal machinations, I love lists and my curiosity was sparked, so I bought it. It arrived shortly thereafter, and there it went, right to my favorite reading room, where it found a new home on that stack of great literature next to my toilet.

That’s when (and where) I noticed, at number 59,  Dying Fetus‘ “Destroy the Opposition“  in the right hand margin of page 19. To which I pondered aloud “damn pappy, how did that happen?” We were all very happy with the album, but I was always under the impression that the legions of writers and opinion makers uttered a collective ‘ho-hum’ on us during those days. I suppose it has ripened with age, and I am stoked to be on a record that made the cut. That said, for a top “metal” list, there are a few questionable inclusions: Tragedy, Fugazi, At the Drive In, Jesu etc…definitely all great albums especially Tragedy who changed my musical perceptions forever in 2001,  but um, Andrew WK?

Above all, its a great read. However I think the perception in recent years that Dying Fetus somehow ’spawned’ deathcore might be a stretch…I can see where some riffs were adapted and regurgitated from Gallagher and the gang, perhaps, but with the rise of metal-core and the ‘obligatory breakdown’ in other areas of metal, I am sure it would have happened anyway….perhaps DF just accelerated it on the long-haired death metal side of the pit? We were, in Dying Fetus (and they still are), firmly entrenched on the ‘death metal’ frontline. That said, those breakdowns and janitor broom-sized sweeps were a take on the bands we loved,  as well as the ones we grew up listening to: The breakdowns a staple of our beloved New York /Long Island death metal from the likes of Suffocation, Internal Bleeding, Baphomet, and Pyrexia, all circa 1991. The sweeps and riffing acrobatics a direct result of our beloved 80s metal from the high school days, the Loudness‘, the Dokken’s, the King Diamond’s, Coroner’s  and the Sacrifice’s.

If anything, I am hoping people took note then (and now) because we were playing the kind of music we honestly and sincerely loved (which, after all, is the only reason to make music). Furthermore, it was played throughout the death metal-dark ages of the early mid to late 90s, when the death metal underground was very, very much UNDERGROUND.

Ahh the good ole’ days…

Studio reportage…midway through

Ahh...the studio

From the hardtimes.ca blog:

With drums completed in a stellar 5 day session by the Jarv, we were happy to settle in with tracking guitars, bass and vocals concurrently. The album also got an 11th track in the meantime, as Mark finalized this ripping thrasher called “Day of the Dead” just in time to get it to Adam on his last day of hammer drilling.

It is almost surreal how smooth and clockwork this session is proceeding, the professionalism of Wrightway and Mr. Steve Wright has a calming influence, and the 3 months of pre-production has paid off in the sense that we are really just re-recording the demo versions we slaved away on over the dog days of last autumn. No stress yet, but I will refrain from giving this session a grand-slam rating until the mixing is done, that is when the uncertainty arrives in full force (as mentioned in the last blog).

So, at this moment (Jan 15th) guitar, bass, vocals and drums are done for 3 songs. Today I will be driving up to Baltimore (after the Capitals vs Flyers game at 3pm, naturally) to track the vocals to “The Spectator,” a song I know will turn some heads due to its departure from our previous musical spectrum- its very much a Chaos AD era Sepultura influence, and somehow it fits in on the record quite well, adding to the diversity of the other tracks which already span numerous styles and influences, similar to “Traitors” -but even more expansive.

With just under 2 weeks left until we drop the final mixed and mastered album on the steps of Relapse Records corporate headquarters in beautiful downtown Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, all is well here on the Eastern front. The album “Heirs to Thievery” will drop in May, til, then another update next week.

Thank Odin All Christians aren’t like you Pat

Blame the French and Voodoo!

Pat Robertson, the esteemed Baptist preacher who has often had the ear of presidents, has an opinion about the root causes of the Haitian earthquake…

from the Post:

“Pat Robertson is at it again. The purported Christian minister who suggested assassinating Venezuela leader Hugo Chavez and nuking the U.S. State Department, the reputed follower of Jesus who blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, is now attributing the Haitian earthquake to Haiti’s “pact to the devil.”

and some video…

“Pat Robertson calls quake possible ‘blessing in disguise’“

Please Pat, go back to your cave, and never come back.

If you have the means and desire to support the relief efforts in Haiti, please go to Oxfam’s website, an established and effective agency that performs great work internationally, and in this situation as well.

For additional insight, the inimitable Christopher Hitchens has a great piece on the insinuation of “God vs. Haiti, with plenty of juicy historical substance… see:

A Fault Is Not a Sin: It’s idiotic to blame anything other than geology for the Haitian earthquake.

Burn Berlin Burn

Ve vant ze money, Lebowski!

Next time you are in Berlin, beware of leaving your Range Rover on the streets overnight.

It seems the inspired upstarts in the gentrified neighborhoods of Berlin are fighting back against bourgeois infiltration, one car at a time. Luxury cars are being torched by the dozen across the city, as “militant” protesters, under cover of night, light slow burning fires under BMWs, Mercedes, and other iconic transports of the rich.

from the Guardian UK:

“In Berlin, a growing band of leftwing car arsonists have become the face of an increasingly vociferous campaign against the gentrification of the German capital. In 2009, 216 mostly luxury cars were torched on the streets of the city, compared with 135 the previous year.”

“No single group is believed to be behind the attacks, although last year one calling itself Bewegung für Militanten Widerstand (Movement for Militant Resistance) – with the provocative acronym BMW – admitted responsibility for torching eight cars.”

Other methods of resistance, such as those offered on the website “esregnetkaviar.de” (Its raining caviar), offer clever advice on making your neighborhood unattractive to prospective bourgeois buyers (break your apartment windows!), while another website offers an interactive map of burned-out auto locations .

Its Klassenkrieg fun for the whole family!

Dubai’s duality of the modern and the Medieval

A towering inconsistency

Dubai, most famous recently for opening the world’s tallest building, the “Burj Dubai,” is also notable this week for it’s police having charged a UK woman with “illegal sex” with her fiance -after she initially complained of being raped by a member of the hotel staff (!) If anything highlights Dubai’s  gulf between wanting to be a modern, forward thinking nation, and the ancient, cultural baggage that they still construct their laws around, it is these two stories. I applaud Dubai’s desire to join the ranks of other so-called “modern nations” (who are not without their own specific problems), but before building grandiose monoliths to modernity, how about addressing those burning gender equality issues that seem to continually fester around the region?

Burn hollywood burn

L. Salander

Well, not all the time…but sometimes. Well…most of the time. In this case, I am in dread.

I enjoy tremendously Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, a Swedish mystery writer whose primary characters Lisbeth Salander (the hacker punk) and Mikael Blomqvist (the writer) tackle the elites of economy and evil from Stockholm’s snowy streets in the books” The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.” (Most have different titles in different languages) Unfortunately the author (Herr Larsson) died in 2004, so these three novels are all we are going to get from him (although he was still the second best selling author in the world in 2008)

I also realize the Swedes made a film out of this series, but I have yet to see it. (Photo from the film).

Now, I was recently made aware, that Hollywood (Sony) is negotiating to pick up the rights to the books, and will be shooting for Kristen Stewart and George Clooney to play the aforementioned titled characters. I dread this because, they will undoubtedly Americanize the entire setting, switching Stockholm for Seattle or something…much like the horrible remake of another old favorite of mine from Scotland called “The Wicker Man,” which was bastardized by Nick Cage, and moved to Maine for mainstream consumption.

This is all following the news that the Swedish horror film “Låt den rätte komma in“ (Let the Right One In) will be remade and Hollywood-ized…thus diluting and polluting the best vampire film in ages for the petty palates of the “Twilight” devouring masses…

If anything good can come out of it, it’s that more people might read Herr Larsson’s books, as those are the real gems here. Check em out.

The Butt Bomb: Al Qaeda’s hidden weapon

Beware the butt bomb

This story from the New Republic reaffirms the futility of airport security effectiveness. Since explosive technology is available to smuggle onto planes without detection, what is the point even of the full-body scanners that have privacy advocates up in arms? Sure you can scan the body, but until you can scan um… “internally” for plastics and other combustive ’smuggables,’ I suppose we will be relying on those questionnaires, among other things.

Or, we can take at look at what all the fuss is about in the first place: why such organized hatred for the US? Does the average American know and understand the history of American meddling in Middle Eastern affairs? This focus on stamping out security fires as they pop up, whether from underwear bombers, or in the so-called “next front” in Yemen, is an unending parade of sensationalized media moments that do nothing to enlighten or educate on the how and why of Middle East mayhem (just the way the “powers that be” want it).

Fighting evil with evil negates the humanity of all.

UPDATE JAN 9th !!!!!! (from WIRED Magazine) :

Crack New Scanner Looks for Bombs Inside Body Cavities

‘heirs to thievery’ recordings begin…

Adam behind the kit

Wrightway Studios, Baltimore, Maryland: I always dread the studio. It is an agonizing interplay of creativity and uncertainty. You hear what you think sounds good, and it feels right, but the second guessing and “are we sure?” reverberations wash out all objectivity, until you just sort of hope what you are doing makes sense. Not that the engineer (in this case Steve Wright) does not have his chops down, but are we as the songwriters creating a monster of a record, or a monster of a mess? We have done both (in our opinions only of course) in recent years, as we feel “Traitors” was mostly correct, and “Discordia” was a rushed headache. So, with dread, we began recording last Saturday, and Adam “MVP” Jarvis is now completing all the drums today after 4 days of tracking (for a total of 11 tracks) we now move on to guitar sounds and rhythm  tracks….where as John Zazula once claimed “Its all about the CRUNCH!”

I Will try to update as much as possible during this very hectic month of January, followed by a personal trip to Montreal in February, and an East coast tour with Magrudergrind to be announced shortly over late Feb and Mar. More soon….!