The Jab and then the Hook.....

In Viridis Mons Montis Abyssus has been around for around 2 months now, which isn't really too noteworthy when you line it up with some of the others out there. The reason I mention this is that despite my sparse posts the last week, I am starting to actually get the interaction I was hoping for. Unintentionally, the Noothgrush and Ahisma posts actually put me in touch with some folks I hadn't heard from in years, not to mention a ton of other new allies. It hasn't had quite the local bend I had envisioned but I do know of a good amount of VT readers,the bands will make it up eventually. So this is a thank you to everyone that linked me up and to those who have sent me music or have just given me the go ahead to share their stuff. Tino, Steve, Will, Aesop, Chiyo, Shelley, Tony, Zeb, and anyone else that is slipping my mind......Thank you!!!!

Speaking of Tony, he is one of two bassists in Pennsylvania's Mancruel. They are a three piece and they play fuzzed out lo-fi groove filled shit. They obviously love Man is the Bastard, Neanderthal, and Black Sabbath. They kind of remind me of some of Siege's slower parts too. The recording sounds like it was made on a 4 track and that is perfect for these songs. These songs are form a split tape with Malaysia's SMG.
So please give them a bit of your time,the songs will only run you about 11 minutes, and then send Tony a message through the link above and tell him if you love it or hate or if you just didn't give a fuck. Feedback is the name of the game................

Split tape with SMG

Thanks to all you guys who leave comments......Stay tuned for some more Oakland Crust tomorrow.............Troy

We are not Progress

The scene was Oakland,mid nineties, an era I admittedly knew absolutely nothing about. I was just a 15 year old twerp in good old isolated Vermont and the closest thing to Crust I had heard were the first couple of Sepultura albums. Back then I would of thought Amebix was something I ignored in Biology class. I had no idea that on the other side of the country, Skaven was alive. It wasn't until I was at a show at the Lafayette Center in L.A. and I bought their 7inch from Reggie Rosales that I discovered them. I brought the record home, put it on, and immediately stopped. The sample seemed a bit out of place but the instrumental at the beginning was one of the most epic passages I've ever heard. The term "Stenchcore" gets used as a lot these days and there are a slew of great bands that have really carried the tradition spawned in the early eighties, some memorable, other's not so much. Skaven just stands out more than the rest to me. Zeb's lyrics are more Nietzsche than "Cal" Morris, they reek of Lovecraft or Camus rather than Penny Rimbaud. For all the bands who get dubbed with the honor of being called "Apocalyptic", Skaven is one of the few that really feels that way. There are no forced, cliche-sounding growls here. Zeb comes across on these songs sounding like the fucking Omega man, telling his stories to the ground. The dual bassists, Shane and Mick work perfectly serving their own function and Geoff Evans, well he's just Geoff Evans(Asunder, his current band, will make an appearance here soon.) Some would call this blasphemy,and believe me I do love these bands, I would choose Skaven over Axegrinder or Hellbastard any day. My only reservation saying this is the relatively small discography Skaven treats us to. Beyond the 7inch I mentioned earlier, there is the split LP with Dystopia and the split with Stormcrow. I contacted Zeb and asked for his blessing and he said it would be alright to put a few things up. So I'll put the EP's up because they are my favorite. There should be a discography CD out in the future and I hear they recorded a demo but I'm not sure about either. You can a read a review of their split with Stormcrow here.

Severed/Flowers of Flesh and Blood

split with Stormcrow

Zeb lives in Montana and plays in a great new band called Demonsteed. They have an album out called Nitro Ground Shaker which I 'll post once I get a copy. They kind of remind me of Tony Iommi obsessively reading a Cormac McCarthy book??? Sounds about right!! Geoff Evans plays in Asunder and the rest of the guys, I have no idea where they are or what they are doing? I 'll let Skaven lie now with this alternate version of the song "The Swarm" .
Contact Zeb through the Demonsteed link about that discography CD.

........and with that tribute paid, it's now time for a fun little lesson in Existentialism.
Charles Manson's 1987 interview with the one and only Geraldo Rivera. I'll be damned if I just didn't make some sense out of this diatribe. I realize this was the guy's chance to paint himself in a certain life, but while he was digging himself a hole he would never be free of, I soaked up a bit of wisdom out of this when I first saw it as a teenager.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7


Charles Manson: LIE-Love and the Terror Cult

an interesting listen and I'll leave it at that.....Troy

Memento Mori

Here is a new link to the Memento Mori album. Unfortunately, I couldn't convert them to Mp3's so they are in AIFF files. I apologize to anyone that can't use these. If anyone could point me in the direction of a good converter,I'll upload it one last time. It's just that right now, I can only convert WAV's,M4A's and WMA,s to Mp3.

Stay Tuned...........

Memento Mori

Behold.....The "Hellion"

Big Problem Does Not Equal The Solution. The Solution=Let It Be

Now there is an ambiguous name for an album if ever there was one.I bet most of you didn't realize Crispin"Hellion"Glover ever put out a record. I sure as hell didn't until I noticed on my friend Matt's shelf last Friday night. Say what you want about the mans acting skills, but River's Edge is a classic and that movie probably sucks with anybody else filling that role.
Big Problem Does Not Equal The Solution.The Solution=Let It Be is a mish mash of readings from a few of Crispin's many books, a Charles Manson cover, a Lee Hazelwood cover, and a couple other surprises. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the whole package lies in the interactive attempt that's made with the back cover art. an excerpt from Crispin's Wikipedia page explains:
"The back cover of the album is a collage of figures relating to each track on the album, with a puzzle: "All words and lyrics point to THE BIG PROBLEM. The solution lay within the title; LET IT BE. Crispin Hellion Glover wants to know what you think these nine things all have in common." He included his home phone number with copies of the album, encouraging listeners to phone when they had "solved" his puzzle. Glover later commented that he was surprised how many people figured it out."
And almost as weird for the solitary fact that Slayer and the Wipers share the same stage for the soundtrack, I thought it would be a wonderful idea to include the music from River's Edge.

The movie, although ultimately fictitious,is loosely based on the murder of 14 year old girl Marcy Conrad. Marcy was strangled by Anthony Jacques Broussard in Milpitas, California on November 13th, 1981. It seems the 16 year old kid was a bit twisted and had made several attempts at his mother's life prior. The parallel lies in the fact that in both the movie and actuality, the killer shows the body to his friends who respond with callousness. In both cases, while killer's close friends help conceal the body and show genuine interest in their friends' deteriorating innocence, they at the same time went and boasted to others and treated the corpse like a museum. I don't really know why I went so far into this, so while I'm drawing a blank, just go ahead and check out the soundtrack:

River's Edge Soundtrack

For those of you that might be interested in pretty decent synopsis of the Crispin Glover album, here is a page I found that gives a little history on it's creation as well as a couple of his music videos....... here .................................Troy