stoked for livers

Last night's horrorcast™ featured heavy doses of perhaps unexpected elements—melody for one, and selections that could be categorized as "punk" or even "rock." I blame the 91°F heat, Christ, and the fact that I've been listening to hardcore almost exclusively for the past two weeks. (Who knew I'd like it so much more now than I did in the 80s—introspection and dark angst being part and parcel of the newer flock of bands, these being infinitely more appealing to me than straight-edge living and/or simpleminded and quickly played-out Reagan-hating.) DON'T WORRY, I won't let it happen again...not until next week!

Onto the phenomenon of G Lucas Crane; I am still digesting his 58-minute opus, though I did experience much of it at close range through headphones. Astonishing! A high-powered location shoot in the subconscious. (Don Simpson, on a break in hell, smiled.) Lucas' set will post to WFMU's Beware of The Blog and Free Music Archive (via my curator portal) next week.

The people at Spencer's parties weren't really her kind of people—they always seemed like they had a secret that they were keeping from her. Still, she was getting the sex she'd wanted—free, easy and wild. Maria knew she didn't feel completely at ease, but had no way of knowing what Bruno and the others had in store for her.

Fetishistic fucks will take you to last night's playlist and streaming audio archives.

Y'all also dug the Hive Mind live tape side, and the Amps for Christ track from L.A. Noisescape. The title of the Total Abuse track caused some discussion (gfr, btw) (and for my own, Caligula contains my favorite FFM blowjob scene ever, very inspired), and Martyrdöd got a "nice," as they should.

Thanks to SARZAN for the phrase, "Velvety Squish."

G Lucas Crane and the Nonhorse - live on the Castle Weds.

The last time I saw G Lucas Crane he said something about filling a room full of Christmas trees. Listening to his music as I type, I wonder if Lucas and his Nonhorse mean for their music to be as truly haunting as it is. One could easily daub the label "psychedelic" as well, though with hard emphasis on the "psyche." (Take mushrooms, put on a Nonhorse tape, and you are on your own, brother.) Listening to Nonhorse is like going somewhere really awesome for the first time, but you get lost, and the locals give you three different sets of directions. You finally make it to the carnival, but it's one of those disturbing ones—a grimy, pitched-tent affair, it's loud, and the carnies are missing more than a few teeth. It's sensory overload, and you're wondering if you should have hit up the 4-H Fair for a more predictable time. Of course not! Fuck it. You're here, so enjoy.

This is lo-tech collage music at its absolute finest. I am stoked for Lucas to battle the Nonhorse, right there before my eyes, and your ears, on the hideous carpet of WFMU's Studio B.

Angry villagers ram the Castle doors wide @ 8.
G Lucas Crane vs. Nonhorse, Round 1, 9 p.m.
WFMU 91.1 FM (NY/NJ)
WMFU 90.1 (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web

Terrier live debut this Thursday, 5/27 @ GBM

I feel like Lovecraft's The Outsider most of the time—a deformity, an error, and one that should be in isolation for the sheer benefit of society. Make no mistake, I know what I bring—my unique filter (by way of the radio show and this blog), a few words of wit and hopefully wisdom, and true passion and support for the music I deem excellent. I'm always deeply honored, then, when artists I admire, like Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer, Jowe Head, Andy Borsz, Andrew Scott, and Bob Bellerue invite me and/or agree to collaborate. Who, me? I'm just the guy who listens, not the guy who does. Plus, I can hardly stand to walk past a mirror anymore, much less be seen.

This time it's Bob Bellerue who's dangled the noise hook, and we're calling it Terrier. Bob played only a few weeks ago on the Castle as Diablo, has released some great recordings under a host of different names, and collabs with everyone from, well, me, to veritable gods like Z'EV.

Terrier. A small dog of a breed originally used for turning out foxes and other burrowing animals from their lairs. • Used in similes to emphasize tenacity or eagerness.

Bob and I will turn out the foxes with tenacity and eagerness, and will hopefully be the sonic equivalent of navigating a narrow, cobwebbed hallway lined with razor blades. Bob may have other plans, though, and such is the beauty of collaborations. We'll be supporting some great talent this Thursday at Goodbye Blue Monday; please attend if so inclined.

9:00 p.m.
1087 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY

Tärr
Cornelius F. Van Stafrin III
Ben Owen
Terrier

Liturgy, NY Transcendental Black Metal

They walk amongst us as mere men, young men at that, but they play their music as though comfortably commiserating with the spirit world—dancing, cascading and confident. Fuckin' Liturgy. If the mass audience could get over its Pavlovian addiction to the most-obvious melody and lyrics, and its aversion to harsh vocals, Liturgy would surely be on Sub Pop or Matador, and playing enormous tours and festivals. They really are just that good.

Here's some video I shot of them last night, at day one of the NY Eye & Ear Fest III. A new song.

Liturgy from My Castle of Quiet on Vimeo.

Owww.

Um. Yeah. And in these hard times—the hardest—we can't let a good, deep bowl like that go to waste. Plus, no one fucks with the guy who eats Apple Jacks out of the skull of his enemy. So run back for it, careful to uh, not become a "bowl" oneself. Then click on the arrow, which points to the way out (maybe), and to the audio archive and playlist of last night's horrorcast.

Captain Rhodes was a shithead, now his head is shit. I feel not a bit sorry for the guy. But maybe as a bowl he can finally be useful. I was thinking earlier this week about someone not at all unlike Rhodes, not a heartless bastard or a complete fool, which only makes it worse, 'cos you can't write them off completely. Still, their arrogance ends up ultimately opening the gate that gets everybody KILLED, so whoever wants to be the boss that bad, well, they've got to have some shit wiring to begin with. Military solution.
Time for marble pound cake.

Most-noted on the Castleheads' comment board were Vice Squad, that mysterious new Malodorous tape in WFMU's new bin (not the US BDM band), Cadaver Eyes, Vicious Beast (yes, the bishop was paid), aaaaaaaaand the deadly Kitchen recording by Diablo, aaaaaaaaaaaaaand Horn of Dagoth.

Next week --- G Lucas Crane vs. Nonhorse!

harmonize most high !

Blood intoxication. Drunk on spirits (the distilled kind, and the kind that fly), and most importantly, the intoxication and envelopment of the pure essence of blackness, i.e., the complete absence of light. LIGHT REMOVAL. Drunk on T.O.M.B., for fuck's sake! There is great power and catharsis in a performance of both high volume and great might, and T.O.M.B. smeared the walls with cemetery slime, and scared EVEN ME. To be so close to something so loud and so unpredictable; I felt like Herbert West, having invited and unleashed forces I now could not control. True potency in the darkness.

Coré is at her most ecstatic. She listens to the young man's bubbly last breaths as though they were hushed confessions, sweet nothings. Perfect adoration, perfect lust. Satiated and sanguine. I wouldn't trust Coré to do a thing, personally. I like a good shag as much -or more- than the next guy, but this one will be your last. YOU may CHOOSE to follow this delicious siren, if you wish, to the playlist and streaming audio archive of last night's horrorcast™.

T.O.M.B.'s set, in all its mastery, will post in mp3 form next week to WFMU's Free Music Archive and Beware of The Blog. Also check out my curator portal at the FMA, if so inclined.

What else got high marks? That new Jon Mueller & Z'ev LP on Important, and the M.B. archive CD on AWWFN. These, and shochu on the rocks.

Are You Ready? Because I Don't Think You Are... T.O.M.B.

Sonically, T.O.M.B. have a world of mystery within their sound that reaches into some exceptionally dark realms, more so than many artists that could be described as "noise" or "black metal," such that neither label really fits. Most often, T.O.M.B. sound like restless, angry spirits, wringing out eternity and screaming and scraping at the walls.

T.O.M.B. have utilized locations like the abandoned Essex County Hospital and The Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry for recording, in an effort to merge with the essence of such places, and achieve spontaneous musical workings charged with their energy. These guys aren't fucking around; they have a plan, and they create their music pretty much outside of any sort of "scene."

The band will be playing their set, something perhaps closer to what you've heard them do on record or live, but still a unique performance geared for this occasion, climaxing in a live improvisation with a full-kit drummer. Moments of the afterlife landscape will be viewed in haunted contemplation. T.O.M.B. are the stuff of waking nightmares, and their Castle visit is much anticipated.

Creaky doors open @ 8.
T.O.M.B. @ 9.
WFMU 91.1 FM (NY/NJ)
WMFU 90.1 (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web

T.O.M.B. from My Castle of Quiet on Vimeo.

Where's the Horror? The Not-Quite Half-Year List.

Listener SiHV said something to me recently like, "you haven't blogged about horror movies in a while." SiHV has this ultimate-barometer quality about him, sort of a male-Castle of Quiet listener archetype, so I feel like I should do what he says. The problem? Not too much has jazzed me in recent months horror-wise; I've been playing catch up with the first five seasons of Trailer Park Boys (thanks, CN!), so that's where my viewing head has been for the most part—Ricky being the Van Gogh of assholes, a divine bastard, and a role model for me personally.

Then there's the case of Tim and Eric. Man do I remember how I poo-poohed their show when it first came on. "Live-action sketch comedy on adult swim, awww c'mon!" But it's the things that I poo-pooh at first that I end up loving the most later. One day I saw the Jim and Derrick episode, and I suddenly just "got it"—these guys hate humanity—in all its ugliness, stupidity, pettiness, herd mentality, and wretched taste in graphic design—and they are going to make us laugh about it. Every shitty late-night infomercial we stayed up and watched because we were bored, depressed, drunk or stoned, Tim and Eric are gonna make us pay for it. Pay and pay and pay.

So my favorite "horror film" of the last five months is Tim and Eric's Father and Son, unquestionably their most brutal indictment yet, in part due to the glorious lack of FCC restrictions on HBO, for which this 17-min. sketch was produced. Thanks to Jason Chrome Peeler for first passing it on.

Other horror-type views that I've enjoyed so far this year are not terribly current, yet you may not have seen them. And you should.

Home Movie (2008) - Everything the over-hyped Paranormal Activity should have been, and then some. Remember your friend's overbearing, dickhead Dad? Well, imagine that guy, obsessively DV-camming every fuckin' holiday, oblivious to the fact that his twin boy and girl are downright sinister, and don't speak anywhere near often enough for kids their age. The tension builds in this one like a patient hangman's noose, steadily winding to the crunch.

Reflections of Evil (Thanks Sarzan!) - From 2002. Underground filmmaker Damon Packard directs himself as a sick, gross, troubled man roaming Los Angeles. Blindingly surreal at times, but there's narrative, and you ride it out and feel pleasantly exhausted afterward. Reflections of Evil is like no film I have ever seen, in a very good way, and reminds me of nothing. If I had to reach I'd say Anthony Wong in Ebola Syndrome, as directed by John Waters when he was still broke.

Demon Lover - Ultra-amateur 70s trash about the power struggle within a suburban coven, run by a wizard who looks like an uglier James Hetfield. Boobs, big knives, black candles and bad acting. Trust me.

Crimson Gold - Also a few years old, and not strictly a horror movie at all in the genre sense, though it's plenty horrific psychologically. For a film made in Iran, the sentiment is daringly anti-state, as a sad-sack pizza delivery guy is followed through the day-to-day motions of his progressively dismal life, until he is driven to a final, brutal act of irrevocable desperation. A crushing tale, and the director got in a fuckload of trouble for it.

That's the short list, framed as it is by the unlikely theme of melancholic pizza home delivery.

My parrots and I whole heartedly agree.

Sometimes it's good to just sit there, behind the console, and know that if I want to hear "Someone's Gonna Die," or a whole album side by Cornucopia, I can play it. Thanks, WFMU, and to all the Castle listeners (especially you regulars), and all the great bands/artists, for getting me through the hardest fuckin' year of my life.

(Sorry, was that too "serious"? Should I keep it light, impersonal? No one else does. People blab all over the Web about their ta da boring everyday shit, so why not me? "Hypocrisy is the key, to self-fulfilling prophecy," yes? So said Ginsberg, and I dig Ginsberg. I'll lacquer the floor with my own mythos, and YOU play it light, OK? "Here's me standing next to a big fucking rock." Think about your career. This shit could come out later.)

Sweet Satan that looks good. Look at Colette; she can taste the sweet rush that's coming. She's been on "Big H" for a few years, and has been working for Olga to feed her habit. Colette will also take you to the playlist and audio archive of last night's horrorcast—if she's not "entertaining"—though you may emerge more than a few dollars light.

Castleheads ate up that Demons track from a few years ago, the Mister Fuckhead tape, and that mighty, mighty Cornucopia LP on Anarchymoon. Go PR! You also loved again all over the new Opponents (and you oughta) and Défaillance turned a few heads with their cries of despair from the heart of Alsace.

NEXT WEEK --- T.O.M.B. LIVE!

Although I'm disappointed about the lack of Dum Dum, More William Berger is great too.

GEE, THANKS! If only, if ONLY, I had been born a baby-Jesus-hating German intellectual!

Did you think I couldn't play three hours of metal? B/c I've done it before.

Opera IX blew a few minds (but who's interested in this band now, w/o Cadaveria on vocals? Not me!), and I got a virtual shoulder rub from someone named Emma. That's about it.

Click on the Knightriders to access the playlist and audio archive of this week's bonus horrorcast.