Guillermo, eres un vato de carajo! Viva los demonios!!!

 

Dunno what happened, but a few weeks ago, insomnia set in, like a case of psychic buboes. I get 3-5 hours a night, tops. I can't claim work-related stress, as was the case in 2008 the last time this happened. I love what I do now, releasing records and supporting bands mainly, and though I make nowhere near what I used to—cannot even really make my own bills—I'm happy, with work at least. I grind the Prison Tatt label like a "real" job, sitting here everyday, writing emails, corresponding with artists and vendors, making sales and runs to the post office.

Something is wrong. My mind and body are trying desperately to tell me, but the message doesn't get through, and I float through the day with a constant, mild stomachache and a head that feels like styrofoam. My eyes hurt. My fingers ache. My heart beats too fast and I smoke too many cigarettes.

The My Castle of Quiet show is a big part of the "soul food" that keeps me going, though the hours of the live broadcast are most certainly not supportive of sleep-health. Midnight-3 is where this show lives, and I've accepted that this isn't going to change any time soon.

Major vatos on the playlist comments last night, at least two of them, lobbing comments back and forth and at me, and I'm way cool with that, as WFMU has a great International audience now via our Web stream, and so much great black metal and hardcore comes from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. Fuck yeah! Heavy coincidence, too, as the show I had already planned included Glam, Cripta Oculta, Alma Negra, and Somnio.

Noted on our playlist were Salvation (new 7" EP on Youth Attack), the aforementioned Cripta Oculta, Diamatregon (new 7" EP on Drakkar Productions), Husere Grav (new CS on ghettonaturalistseries), and the great Pine Smoke Lodge (from Songs For Sucking Spirit Darts, on House of Alchemy.)

Now, will someone come here and help me sleep? Pat my head and read me a story or something.

These kids just wanna hug me to a radioactive death, but they will take you, dear reader, to the audio-archive options and playlist for last night's horrorcast™. May the mighty powers of fuck-all be with you.

Live from Heaven

Indeed. The MCoQ show is "heavenly" for me, too, despite its often hellish atmospheres. As above, so below.

You only get me good once. That's the thing about pranks. And I have your address, a bat, and almost 48 years of pent-up rage. But the better punishment is most definitely to allow you to live on, as the miserable fuck that you are. Insanity, relative poverty, loneliness, and the ugliness inside you, will kill you more effectively than I ever could. Slow—and very, very painful.

Back on Earth, 'twas a very, very special broadcast last night; planned in a matter of days, but again one for the ages. Gen Ken's CON mix was so exquisite, it kissed the horizon with its twitching tones and surging harmonies. The music of Conrad Schnitzler has always been a source of great mystery and solace for me personally, and Ken Montgomery is CON's surviving prophet on the solid ground, and we're quite fortunate to have him. I can't encourage all NYC residents enough to avail themselves of the many enriching events coming up in a few days for CON-MYTHOLOGY, planned by Ken with the greatest love, honor, respect, and admiration for the late composer.

Gen Ken's live CON-mix was recorded, and will hopefully grace WFMU's Web portals in the near future, on mp3, to have, listen and hold. As listener ROATFREAK noted, "Ken ~ thanks for being a CON artist!"

Once I weeded out the multiple comments from our board, schizophrenically and methodically placed, likely by one, pathetic, sad and heavily inebriated individual, it shaped up to be a quite lively, amusing and appreciative playlist! Much ado was made over new recordings from Sutekh Hexen, and deservedly so! (Thanks to Kenny @ Wohrt for sending along the advance, digital files!) Sutekh's new Behind The Throne is a deep, sonorous, mind-fuck of a journey, and we here at The Castle are looking forward to a possible live visit from the band this Fall.

A track from Loon's self-titled CD (on Beta-lactam Ring Records) was also notable, as one of our few-but-significant metal selections on last night's broadcast. Pulverizing doom, with an outstanding female vocalist.

We also heard great new music from Lea Bertucci, from her masterful cassette release Carillon, on Obsolete Units. Highly recommended by this DJ. Look for a live performance visit from Lea on the show this October.

That's about it. I'm off to a nap, before the Lussuria-Alberich-DeTrop-Medved show, tonight at La Sala. Click on our nude, frantic, patch-bay operator (from Peter Fonda's Idaho Transfer, one his very few directorial works, and quite memorable) to access the audio archives, accuplaylist and comment board for last night's horrorcast™.

Thanks for tuning in last night, and to all the "real," sane, colorful and appreciative individuals for commenting.

CON-MYTHOLOGY, with special guest Gen Ken Montgomery, tonight on My Castle of Quiet!

Ken Montgomery, aka Gen Ken, joins us on-air to promote a week-long, multi-venue series of events to celebrate the life and work of his friend and collaborator Conrad Schnitzler. Schnitzler (who passed away in 2011), was a driving, founding force in electronic and avant-garde music, and instrumental in the christening of the Krautrock movement, performance art, and "industrial" music, now more commonly referred to as "noise" or "sound art."

Events planned include film screenings, cassette CON-certs, and a whole lot more, running from 7/24-7/30 in New York City, and streaming live on the Web. More information to come during the broadcast, as well as a live-mixed cassette CON-cert from Ken! Also see the event page, http://www.CON-MYTHOLOGY.com/.

I fight off Jersey City's man-eating rats with a flamethrower
@ 12 midnight.
CON-MYTHOLOGY @ 12:30 a.m. approx.
WFMU 91.1 FM (NY/NJ)
WMFU 90.1 FM (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web, with real-time accu-playlist and message board.

Lord Time / Forgotten Future; new, limited, one-of-a-kind release on Prison Tatt / UC!

I'm deadly serious when I say that this is one of the milestones in Prison Tatt's catalog, a dynamite package, created and assembled with the utmost care by the artist. In addition to our usual, silkscreened, folded sleeve printed @ Seizure Palace, Lord Time (aka Andorkappen of Harassor), has fully designed this amazing package, and quite literally put his blood into its creation!

Forgotten Future was released originally on cassette in 2010, on the artist's own Universal Consciousness label, and this is Prison Tatt's first co-release, with UC. I wouldn't co-release with just anyone, and several have offered, but I'm typically loathe to partner with anyone, as the potential hassles are just too great. LT was nothing but a pleasure to work with, and in fact did the great bulk of the work himself. All I had to do was throw in my share of production costs, mail the cover art to SP, and sit back and wait for the magic to happen—and it truly has!

For this edition, Forgotten Future was remastered for vinyl, with added punch, and comes in a striking package, featuring a two-sided, hand-numbered (in blood!), letterpress insert (with a real-blood tear, dripping from LT's eye), a bloody thumbprint on the play side of the record, and more blood spattered on the blank side. In addition, the first 20 orders direct from Prison Tatt (let's say 19, as I'll be keeping one of these for myself!) will receive a very-limited "artist's edition," with multiple locked-grooves on the B side, created and lathed by the artist after factory production. We're not charging any more for these; it's first come, first served!

Thanks to our very-talented and hardworking Webmistress, Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting (great Knit-Culture interview with Tracy, featuring an inspirational movie list, here.), my description / "review" of the record, with audio snippet and PayPal button for easy shopping, is up @ http://prisontatt.com/ Prices are postpaid, $16 in the continental U.S., $20 in Canada & Mexico, and $25 worldwide. Forgotten Future is a steal at any price! PayPal orders may also go straight to wmmberger@comcast.net -- please make sure to indicate what you're buying, and include your full shipping address.

Huge thanks to UC and Andorkappen for making this release happen!

Looking briefly to the immediate future of Prison Tatt, our one-sided, s/t release by Demonologists is coming very soon (!), to be followed by our first full LP (think of it as two great one-sided LPs, back-to-back!) from Canada's Tomhet, entitled Caliginous. We never stop, on PT block.

We'll also be holding a six-artist, live showcase, Friday, 9/21 @ The Meatlocker in Montclair, NJ. Watch this space for full info, tc.

THRASH UNREAL!

Summertime in NJ is so miserable; oppressive heat and humidity, a lack of physical energy, while at the same time, the "Summer fever" of raw lust boils my very blood. Gets me thinking about dear Elke, how I would flick the pom-poms on her hat, kiss her gently, and tell her that I'd protect her from Baron Blood. Shit, she's only on the run through old Vienna because her tousled-hair, model-looks boyfriend read an old incantation at the right time and in the right place. Over-curious, weak-willed fuck; I'd be much better for her than him—at least I wouldn't get her stalked, and maybe killed, by a resurrected evil magician. Sweet, tantalizing Elke, with her alluring, Teutonic features! Lisa and the Devil is however a much-more watchable collaboration between the actress and the late Mario Bava. Much more.

And Vienna, will I ever get back there? Much like San Francisco, in that once you've been, you leave a little part of your heart there. The Viennese air smells like a heady mixture of the damp, meat, cigarettes and wood-burning stoves, which I of course loved. I had a day off in Vienna once, while on tour with my old band, and I walked all over the city, hitting literally every record store in the phone book. I was a near-cripple the next day, from all the walking, my left leg and foot being the "bad ones," but it was totally worth it. Picked up several 39 Clocks originals, a Sly & the Family Stone original for 30 schillings, the first Amon Düül LP for a steal, and one of those Visions of the Past comps, plus a lot more...buying records on tour being one of the finest aspects of being in a working band, not to mention the college-age women that hitchhiked across Austria to see every one of our shows!

Traveling to Europe would be so very different now ... I'd take my son, and show him all the wonders. We'd eat wurstl (the kasekreiner, a chesse-filled sausage only available in Germanic countries being one of the most savory carnivorous treats I've ever gorged upon; eating even the most base, street-food meat there is a veritable feast compared to gnawing on the factory-farm-floor scrapings that go into sausage here), and we'd walk the old city looking for Baron Blood exterior locations. As Midge Ure unfortunately sang, "Oh, Vienna!"

On to this week's horrorcast™, 'twas the now-usual 1.5 hours of sludge, black, grind, punk and other hard scree, followed by a second half of massive, mind-melting noise and sound art. (These, and the video-game music that my boy has got me obsessing over.)

Listener comments noted the Unsane track, which came to my attention during the end-credit sequence of an excellent, recent French horror film called The Pack, starring veteran and highly versatile actress Yolande Moreau, as well the equally veteran Philippe Nahon—playing a very different character from his popular "Boucher" mega-misanthrope. WOLD, filthy-noise mongers Shalocins (lots of free downloads at that link), NRIII (two discs into their amazing EP trilogy!), and the always-loved-by Castleheads Moonknight, also provoked excited commentary.

We've got two special events coming up in August -- Brooklyn's great Divorce Money LIVE, and round #2 of the Seed Stock/RB guest-DJ extravaganza of rare black-metal art. For more information on those events, please see the My Castle of Quiet playlist directory page.

Click on Elke Sommer's lovely, sweat-speckled face above, to access the playlist and audio-archive options for last night's show. Thanks for listening; your comments (even the somewhat backhanded ones) are always appreciated!

not something you want to put in your mouth

 

Samo smells something awful. Something really stinks, he just hasn't figured it out yet. A demonic figure is stalking our disproportionately hapless hero, and he'll have to deal with it eventually. We all do! Our demons are nothing if not patient.

Not sure exactly why the My Castle of Quiet radio show has been so chock-full of long-form tracks lately, but who cares!? You all seem to be taking the ride with me. I do tend to favor ideas that have been sat on, laid out flat, and worked on for a while. That said, we all need a quick blast of Sangraal now and again—more often than that, in fact.

Alkerdeel track in our first set laid most listeners prostrate, one whole side from the great new album we've been hearing a lot from, :Morinde: on Consouling Sounds. Not sure about U.S. distro, but it's a pretty fair deal to buy direct from the label in Belgium, as I did. That LP is a co-release with At War With False Noise in the UK, so you can also purchase it there. Always loved the band, and was in email contact with Jeroen Pede for a time, but this record is for sure their meisterwerk! Flooring.

Also noted on the playlist were Hanged Ghost, B.C. (you can buy the recording digitally at that link, which also includes a list of distros for the physical tape, Prison Tatt included), Moonknight, Pregnant Spore and Social Drag (tape info.)

So much great music has been released / made in the last few years (to our particular zeitgeist), that all I really have to do is creatively filter the results. It's actually harder for me to decide what not to play and leave for the coming week's show.

In brief, thanks for all the great music! Thanks to all the metal bands, noise projects, and unclassifiable artists, for all the hard-to-pin-down greatness!

See you next week. Click on Samo (still from Spooky Encounters, 1980) to reach the playlist and audio archives of this week's horrorcast™.