Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires Are Pure Rock N' Roll

Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires at Slim's in Raleigh on January 24, 2014

Pure Rock N Roll never sounded so good as to what Alabama's finest, in Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires showcased in downtown Raleigh tonite! Congrats fellas on signing with Subpop!!!

Lee Bains III and The Glory Fires sign with Sub Pop music

Sturgill Simpson Tours The UK And Gives A Dose Of Real Country Music

Country legend in the making, Sturgill Simpson

Link to The Upcoming UK

"Country music is not for everyone. As a European, usually, you love or you hate it. Unless you’re into the history of the south of the United States, or unless you’re into the genre tout court, you won’t find hipsters listening to it. It may be the last genre that is still pure and not contaminated by modes and cheap fashion trends. Many don’t know how important and influential country music has been for folk and rock music. That’s why, yesterday in Portobello at Rough Trade West, the average age of the audience attending the show was more then 45, but the quality of the gig was ageless.

Sturgill Simpson is from Kentucky and has spent his last week in the UK, traveling to present his new record High Top Mountain, a compendium of how country music should sound and should be written. Classic references, classic instrumentation (mostly a steel guitar) and a classic topoi in the lyrics of the songs (love, hate, betrayal and that leitmotif of a man belonging to a territory, typical of country music). “My Great Grandfather spent his days in a coal mine and his nights on the porch in a chair. Now he’s in heaven and down here in hell the rivers run muddy and the mountains are bare”, he sang in the superb Old King Coal. With a guitar and with a powerful, deep voice, Simpson played just six songs from his last record, but the intensity of the execution and the undeniable talent of this man made the experience very touching indeed.

“I’m trying to pay homage to my family and where I’m from”, said Simpson in a recent interview, and considering the remarkable songs played at the venue, we trust him. Songs full of stories and traditions – both in the ballads (Water In a Well, Hero) and in the richer songs (Railway of Sin, Poor Rambler) – engaged the audience in a religious-like and respectful silence. High Top Mountain is a record about defeated people and injustice (“Born on a summer day in some dark holler, way back in the hills of Perry County. Well he grew up poor and he never saw a dollar, but a dollar ain’t no good in a coal camp anyway”) but thank goodness, as he very well proved, Simpson is not defeated."

Sturgill Simpson live review from the United Kingdom

Nine Inch Nails Brings The Stage To Life In A New Way

Trent Reznor embraces technology to keep his sound and visual in harmony and aiming for the future

Trent Reznor is an individual that understands one of the only truths in all of life. Change is the only constant. Looking into the past is great for a moment of reflection, but it doesn't challenge what is possible to create with a fresh perspective. 

Stage shows are meant to be a spectacle of performance. The ambient noise of feedback from a Marshall stack is just as important as to how a lead singer can make every single audience member feel spoken to individually. A banner backdrop with a logo is great for your local dive, but the bigger and or better venues have a lighting director and enough gels to fill a stage with plenty of color wash furthering the spectrum of a live show. 

Having seen plenty of stage sets that can be done on a DIY budget with good ideas, there are a plethora of options. One of most punk and DIY operations I ever saw was when Botch used two power strips to create a visual rhythm to match their sonic intensity. Two on and off switches created an instant strobe light set to their pounding rhythms. Pure and simple genius setup and all accomplished for under thirty bucks and the addition of an extra band member focused on the visual cues.

Hopefully as time moves forward more bands outside of Electronic Dance Music will also start to focus on lighting and set design to help further their live show into an actual experience. Sorry folks, but the music isn't just enough anymore. We are all ADD riddled media junkies and we crave more if you want our hard earned bucks to see ya perform live.

Check out the post on Buzzfeed

Gif animation of Nine Inch Nails live show

"Why Nine Inch Nails' Tension Tour Is At Least A Decade Ahead Of Its Time Nine Inch Nails’ Tension tour isn’t a typical arena rock show. Whereas most artists with a similar level of success and resources aim for spectacle, the execution tends to be very predictable – a few signature set pieces offset by a lot of basic lighting effects, half-hearted video elements on big screens, and maybe some pyrotechnics. In most cases, it’s all purely functional, and simply places an emphasis on musical moments in the show. Nine Inch Nails’ show, however, takes a more holistic approach, with the visual presentation constantly shifting to imply distinct environments for each song in the set while advancing an overall structure that’s more like a film than a concert. Though other recent tours by Kanye West and Lady Gaga may have a bigger, bolder set design, the NIN show is far more visually versatile and more complete in its design, with all the dimensions of the stage serving as a canvas for digital art that would seem more at home at, say, MoMA or The New Museum, than a rock concert. 

Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor told BuzzFeed he’s motivated to put on this sort of elaborate show as a matter of artistic expression, but also out of a sense of responsibility to his audience. “My goal is that — I can usually see the audience because I’m lit from behind a lot — is that I want to keep you from looking at your phone,” Reznor said. “I want to make you hold your pee because you don’t want to miss something. We’ve thought about all this stuff, and want to make this experience something that was worth your time.” 

Tension is the result of a long term collaboration between Reznor and the band’s art director, Rob Sheridan. The production follows the basic template of Lights in the Sky, a 2008 tour that Reznor and Sheridan agree was the pinnacle of the band’s live presentation, and the culmination of nearly a decade of experimentation. “We accidentally came up with physical light structures and a template where we could milk a lot out of it, and by the end of it, we’d run out of time and resources to keep going and it never felt like we finished it,” Reznor said of the Lights in the Sky tour. “We had these transparent screens that gave us a strange sense of depth and immersiveness, depending on what we put on it. We could turn the stage into something that felt more alive.” “

It was really impressive, but it was also on the tail end of a long, long time of touring around North America, so it didn’t have the hype and the impact we wished it would have when we got it out there,” said Sheridan, who oversees the overall design for the Tension tour and has been working closely with Reznor since he was hired to design the band’s official website when he was a teenager in the late ’90s, having never picked up a camera or edited video in his life. “It was kinda only seen by really hardcore fans, so that became part of the impetus for going back to it, because we just want lots of people to see what we can do. You don’t want to go out on tour with a production that’s new for the sake of being new.” 

It’s been a busy year for Reznor and Sheridan. In addition to creating the elaborate Tension tour, they also designed a striking minimalist presentation for Nine Inch Nails’ spate of summer festival appearances. “As I finished this record, we had a few festival appearances booked before, and that went from it being a couple fields in Germany to some pretty high-profile worldwide broadcasts, and it would be the real reintroduction of the band into the public psyche,” Reznor explained. “The challenges when you’re in a festival situation, to present a band live, if you’re not just walking out on stage and calling out songs, there’s different production restrictions and a bunch of boring shit. We decided build a little mini-show that’s made for festivals, that becomes governed by what you can and can’t efficiently bring into a festival. So everything was on the floor. I was obsessed with [Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert movie] Stop Making Sense. I think it went well. It was an interesting way to present the band, but not what we were planning for the Tension tour.” 

Reznor’s biggest challenge to his collaborators came when he decided just before production rehearsals to completely overhaul the show to focus heavily on the well-received new album Hesitation Marks and a newly expanded live band, featuring bass legend Pino Palladino and two backup singers. “He turned everything upside-down,” Sheridan said. “Totally new setlist, totally new band, totally new structure. It was a really turbulent process.” 

Sheridan designed the Tension tour, which is built around a set of three custom-built screens – two of which are transparent – and a complex lighting rig, with the assistance of the band’s longtime lighting designer Roy Bennett and the Montreal-based interactive design studio Moment Factory, based on direction by Reznor. Though the tour has been in the works for well over a year, Sheridan’s team had to rework large portions of the show on the fly, and are constantly tweaking and creating visual elements to suit Reznor’s ever-mutating setlist and musical direction. “I work on the visual elements on days off or when I’m on a bus, I edit and tweak it,” Sheridan explained. “If you look at YouTube clips from night to night, you’ll see that the production can change pretty radically because every day, I show up at soundcheck with a hard drive and say, ‘Hey, load up the new files.’” 

Sheridan keeps an eye on social media to get a sense of what aspects of the show are connecting with the audience. “I start to pay attention to, What are the things everyone Instagrams?” he said. “Why did everyone take a picture of this one thing? I’ve noticed there are different types of triggers that do it. It’s either something that’s really mind-blowing, and they try to capture something, like the ‘Disappointed’ thing with the spinning cube, or it’s something where the set has become something that’s just staying put that looks cool and they feel like they can capture that, to take the phone out and tap the focus button and get it.” 

Animated GIF from Nine Inch Nails live show

A production on the scale of Lights in the Sky or Tension requires a huge investment, and Reznor pays for much of it out of his own pocket. “Economically, it’s pretty stupid, and I’m being reminded of that right now,” he said. “The bills are showing up while I’m trying to pull this shit off.” As a result, the band is planning on a completely different and more streamlined production on upcoming legs around the world. “I can lose money, but I can’t lose that much money. The other side of it — and I think this is something I think is pretty valid — is that if you make a presentation where, by its nature, it becomes very rigid, it’s easy for it to become a bit tedious as a performer. Something that’s keeping us all feel sane, though it ends up being more work, is to look at each leg of the tour as its own mini-tour. The festival tour was focused on aggression; this tour the focus, I would say, is the new album, deep-groove stuff. I think the next one is going to lean a bit more into electronics, and experiment with that a bit.” 

Reznor is willing to sacrifice some profit to make sure his show goes beyond typical expectations for an arena gig. “Today, if you’re being troubled to come out and experience a show, I want that to be the best it can be,” he said. “I want the experience to be the best, I want to challenge conventions. Who wants to see a show in an arena? Not me, usually. But fate has put me there, and there’s no better option that I can come up with, given the size and the economics and every other thing. So if that’s the place where you’re going to go experience a rock show, what can I do to make it something that becomes as immersive and interesting for that space? The buildings are made for sporting events, generally. How can I make it sound better? How can I make it immersive and interesting, like an art project instead of just another band rolling through town? If I can figure that out, either by thinking harder or spending more time, then I’ll do that.”

Tesco Vee Of The Meatmen Announcing Antiseen Show

ANTiSEEN 30 YEAR ANTiVERSARY SHOW!

Tremont Music Hall - Charlotte, NC

ANTiSEEN, THE MEATMEN, THE HOOKERS Sat, October 5, 2013 Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm

The Five Most Insane Bands To See Live Right Now

Wild stage shows are a defining point for some bands. Their antics on the stage could help to build their audience, while also becoming part of their musical output. There are quite a few bands that I don't particularly listen to all too often, but when they are set to play live, I will be there without fail. Punk and Hardcore bring the energy to the masses but quite a few of these acts also up the ante and make others pale in comparison.

Below is a great article we read, written for the Houston Press. Let's add to their listing of insane live bands with a few noted below in video.

Converge, photo by Nathan Smith

"I don't know about most people, but my favorite thing about seeing a band live is the energy. I just can't get enough of the frenetic intensity that pervades shows and runs back and forth between the manic audience and the performer, even if the actual playing is off because of it.

When a performer is bored or listless, even if they get all the notes right, it kills me. I guess that's why I like seeing punk rock bands more than folk artists.

Sometimes it can be hard to find that ultimate bit of pure magic, though. There's plenty of bands that bring the right vibe to the table, but it's a lot harder to find the kind of band I like the most: a group that are like cracked out acrobats playing heavy, fast music. I have, fortunately, found a few that I follow devotedly every time they play in Texas, and here are five who do that best.




5. Touche Amore
 
One of the best post-hardcore bands to come out in years, and one of the most energetic bands out there today, Touche Amore perfectly employs the classic sounds of "emo" (before it turned into pop-punk) and hardcore to make incredible two-minute bursts of lightning in musical form.

Their live shows are absolutely awesome and feature groups of hundreds of kids chanting every single word, the band going nuts, and lots of crowd surfing and stage diving. In other words, Touche Amore in 2013 is everything that was great about live punk shows in the '80s. They were one of the best bands at last year's Free Press Summer Fest, and hopefully they'll be back in Houston soon enough.



4. Trash Talk
 
When it comes to Trash Talk, the band loses it, the audience loses it, everyone loses it. No one is left standing still and those that are often get knocked out. Literally. I've seen it happen.

If you can handle the inherent danger in being in the audience for a Trash Talk show though, it's one of the most fun live experiences out there. And much credit to front man Lee Spielman, who gives every single show his all, even when he has a broken leg like at their highlight of SXSW show this year.



3. Converge

Converge aren't quite the acrobats onstage, but their intensity and passion is almost unrivaled. Front man Jacob Bannon's connection with fans is unparalleled, and the emotion that pours through in each and every performance he gives is overwhelming. Take this performance in Paris, for instance where Bannon can hardly keep himself together during "Jane Doe.

With music as crushing and affecting as Converge's, it would seem hard to sustain such unbridled enthusiasm. One would think the misery would eventually give way to boredom, but as outlined in my review of Converge's Houston show in 2012, they have not lost a step over the years.

2. B L A C K I E (All Caps With Spaces)
 
B L A C K I E's shows will be the kind parents will tell their kids about in twenty years. They're the kind of thing that might not last forever, but will live in infamy long after he decides to stop doing all this crazy shit. And luckily for us, we don't have to go far or wait very long to see them since B L A C K I E is Houston born and bred.

The intensity he brings defies naming, genre, or explanation. Most bands are lucky to have one show on a tour that matches this kind of insanity, but B L A C K I E brings it every single time he performs. Of course, in Houston it's a lot more fun because we get it.

The show in France seen above looks awesome, but the crowd clearly has never seen B L A C K I E before and has no idea how to react. Par for the course with something this bizarre and yet altogether amazing.


 
1. The Dillinger Escape Plan
 
The scene: Revolver Golden God Awards 2013. The band: The Dillinger Escape Plan. Just as they launched into "When I Lost My Bet," their latest single from their new album One of Us is the Killer, front man Greg Puciato, bloody-faced and stalking the stage, shouted at the audience, "this is real shit, motherfuckers!"

For an award show, it's a profound statement, and one exemplified in their music. Where Revolver has essentially taken an underground form of music built around brutality and built a cheesy award show around it, Dillinger showed up to completely tear the house down with "real shit."

This band is made up of some of the most talented, accomplished instrumentalists in rock music today, but what makes their live shows so insane is that they mix their particular form of already intense music with some of the craziest, most intense showmanship in the business today. On top of it all, they never miss a beat despite the intricate complexities of their music.

By the end of the show, Dillinger finished their "statement" by breathing fire and destroying every single thing in sight, all the while still playing a ridiculously heavy breakdown. All this after finishing a cover of Depeche Mode's ""Behind the Wheel." This is just one shining example of the band's style onstage, and is the latest proof that they are not to be missed when they hit Houston July 27 on the Summer Slaughter tour."

Reno Divorce Invaded Atlanta Looking For A Dice Game

Reno Divorce layed it down in Atlanta at the Highlander, damn good show

Brent and Johnny settling into a solid groove

No Loitering' No Gamblin', No Drankin' and No Drugs, whats the deal?

Hang out time waiting for the show

Kevin from 6 Pack was outside busking and is a righteous dude

The rolling Reno Divorce merch mall at the ready

Ruben is always looking for new fit models to try out clothing

Reno Divorce and the fellas from DDC of Atlanta. Damn fun show

Flat Tires Tour The Deep South With The Queers and The Dwarves

Clint of the Flat Tires hanging with Joe Queer and Blag from the Dwarves

Haven't seen the Flat Tires yet? Git yer asses to their next show, especially the one in Fayetteville NC on May 11th with Reno Divorce and Southbound Turnaround.

Sold out shows almost every night of the tour

The Dwarves were killing it every night

Clint of the Flat Tires and Marc Diamond of the Dwarves

Rancid, The Transplants and Corwn Of Thornz Hit The Road

Damn stoked on all the summer tours coming up and one in particular has us beyond ecstatic. Haven't seen Rancid in a few years and more than a decade for Crown of Thornz. Two thumbs up on this lineup, see ya at the Norva

Rancid, The Transplants and Crown Of Thornz at the NorVa on June 23rd

Wrench N' Roll - March 1st 2013, Fayetteville, NC

This year we have all sorts of new plans cookin' and we will be unleashing a barrage of events that we are going to be a part of. Our first event of the year will take place on March 1st in Fayetteville, NC at the killer brand new music venue, the Drunk Horse Pub. We are teaming up with the Veterans Motorcycle Club, Friction Magazine and Shooting Star Tattoo for a ride bike and car night along with some of the top talent in the south east. More details will be flowing in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Rusty Knuckles and the Veterans MC present - Wrench N' Roll on March 1st 2013

Reno Divorce Album Release Party 12.31.12

New years is fast approaching and we know the plans need to be made asap. If ya need a road trip, plane flight or greyhound ticket, get on it now. This show is a guaranteed packed house and one great night coming up. Huge things are coming up for Reno Divorce and it's all we can do, to keep a lid on it. Stay tuned.

Get your tickets from the Marquis Theater

Buy your copy of Lover's Leap right here

Reno Divorce album release party on 12.31.12

Carolina Still Plays Raleigh Friday November 9th

Carolina Still headlines the Harvest Hoedown in Raleigh, NC on Nov. 9th

Need another reason to get out and get loose on a Friday night? Well here ya go. Carolina Still will roll into town in a few days to work on some new video footage and also for a killer show down at Tir Na Nog, roll up!

Keep up with Carolina Still on Facebook

Antiseen Featured On Much Music As A Truly Frightening Band

To truly establish yourself and create a name that will live on, requires more of a commitment and adherence to what you believe in and live for. The other aspect of this equation is to do something that is truly exceptional.

Jeff Clayton and Joe Young have invested three decades in their punk rock credentials with their almighty band aptly named Antiseen. Known for the destructive live show, fuzzed out guitar riffage and one hell of a visual assault that is self inflicted, these fellas know how to stir up a frenzy. Seeing their names get a solid shout out across the northern border of Canada and on MuchMusic.com is a welcome sight.

If you really want to feel the full weight of their scary influence, just check out the newest release from them which is all about wrestling. Falls Count Anywhere is a testament to any fan of the squared circle. Get your copy now!


Check out MuchMusic.com



"Halloween is a scary time of year… for children. My son is freaked out by all that Halloween stuff but he is three. Most of us adults see this stuff for what it is: a seasonal cash grab. But if you are like me you realize that what is truly scary is not a celeb wearing vampire teeth or zombie make-up, it’s something different. What is really scary to me is someone truly unhinged from the reality. I love scary bands!

Bands that lose themselves in the performance so much that you don’t know if you will get out alive! Here are my top five scary bands:

GISM is/was not so much of a band has a musical cult. To this day people in Japan fear talking too much about this band out of fear that lead singer Sakevi might appear… now that is scary. And yes that is a legit flame thrower he is firing into the crowd.



The h100s made a 7″ in the mid ’90s called Dismantle and in my opinion it is one of the best American punk records of all time. Live the h100s were reputed as one of the most dangerous American bands of all time. This video doesn’t really reflect it but the stories of hammers hurled from stages, church alters smashed with bats, Nazis stabbed are stilled passed around from one kid to another like the stories around a campfire.



Antiseen are a band heavily influenced by wrestling and thus they know that somebody has to play the bad guy, which in wrestling parlance is called a “heel.” And like all good heels, it is hard to tell where the reality stops and the character begins. Antiseen have been the heel villains of underground music for going over 30 years. Check the blood! I stole the gimmick from these dudes but don’t tell them…

they scare me.



Haymaker is the one band on this list that I got to witness first hand… I would even go so far as to say I was friends with them, but don’t for a second think that I was no scared the whole time. I watched them destroy club all over Southern Ontario. Fire, glass, chairs, light-bulb tubes, all of it would fly through the air… I may have even gotten swept up once or twice in the excitement. I was even present for the show in the clip below… but it fails to convey how truly close to the edge the 10 minute show felt.



The Stooges are a band that kids should be taught in school. They are that important to music, they saved rock and roll. The Stooges were so unlike, just about all of their contemporaries that shine like a beacon in the era. Much of the live power lay in the Manson-like charisma of the nihilistic singer Iggy Pop. This is not a rock star like Mick Jagger. Iggy was a rock star from desperation and rage. This video, while not violent, still shows how scarily awesome this band was."

Antiseen featured on MuchMusic.com as being one of the truly scary bands in punk rock

Rory Kelly Tearing Up Another Stage, This Time In Cangas, Spain

Just the other week, Rory Kelly was tearing up stages all over Spain. More of the photos from the tour are starting to trickle in, so check out a few taken by Nova at the SalaSon in Cangas, Spain.

Connect with Rory Kelly on Facebook

Rough translation below from the write up on the show

"Guitarist Rory Kelly, accompanied by his father on drums, and a 'peculiar' bassist named Billy, rocked like no one had done the 'famous' morracense room (ask in USA for liquor-coffee).

We often see pictures of those punk shows of the 70 London concerts with more energy than any heavy festival today. We find that no longer exist those concerts, but I assure you that what these rockers showed Morrazo Cangas do not have anything to envy to that (I guess). Details like making slide with the bottle of the Star, or play bass crawling on the floor (by blood, with glasses), or some detail related to a passport and a key that will anecdotally between band and photographer.

I feel that the photos do not reflect the anger, but so you stay with the desire to have come. Do not expect more, a few more to come SalaSón (consult our agenda)."

Rory Kelly rockin' the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Billy Miller in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Rory Kelly rockin' the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Billy Miller and Rory Kelly rockin' the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Rory Kelly rockin' the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Rory Kelly and Pops Kelly drinking some Tennessee Whiskey at the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Billy Miller at the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Rory Kelly rockin' the Salason in Cangas, Spain. Photos © Nova 2012

Langhorne Slim Was Custom Made For The Stage

Before last night's show at the Cat's Cradle over in Chapel Hill, I didn't really know too much about Langhorne Slim. Went to the show to enjoy a night out with my lady and was stoked to get out to see a band and have a beer. Little did I know just how great of a live act ol' Langhorne Slim would turn out to be. The club was only half full, but you would have never known, by the amount of energy coming from the stage and in front of it. As I stared around, checking out fan reaction, I knew that I was the recent convert to this social club. Almost every word, to each song was sung in chorus by everyone in the room. Many an act could learn a thing or two from these fellas. From their high energy, positive rapport with the crowd and weaving each song into a crescendo that left us wanting more, Langhorne Slim is a band to check out live.

Jay Berndt & The Orphans Rockin' Out In Providence

One day, we will be able to envision the notion of Jay Berndt getting onto stages far and wide. As of now, he is content to play on home turf and has left touring for other pursuits. Knowing that he has a whole new project cookin' over top of a good flame, good things are about to erupt in the north east. 

Need more info on Jay Berndt?

Jay Berndt & The Orphans - photo © Kate Kelley 2012

Jay Berndt & The Orphans - photo © Kate Kelley 2012, rockin' at Neighbor Days in Providence, RI

Jay Berndt & The Orphans - photo © Kate Kelley 2012

The Green Lady Killers Invade the York Bar June 14

The Green lady Killers will be invading The York in Los Angeles on June 14th. Becherovka will be hosting the show so I believe that its free, but might want to double check for sure. Just go to the club website for more details.


Link to The York


Check out Becherovka Liquer, a drink from the Czech Republic

The Green Lady Killers at the York in Los Angeles

Becherovka Liquer, original drink from Czech Republic