Crepuscular. ... The mortar of sadness and hate.

Okay, so I have a healthy hatred for the holidays, Halloween aside (and Purim is kind of fun!), but also feel the need to craft that "have a good, happy time, NOW!" into something of my own. It feels shitty to be alone on Thanksgiving, or New Years, no doubt about it. I'm fully aware that I nonetheless have a great deal to be thankful/grateful for, and this radio show falls high on the list.

No matter how sick, tired or unmotivated I may feel on any given Thursday night, I always get a great charge/restart from every Castle broadcast; it's soul food. Chicken Soup for My Blackened Soul. I spared you all from any great wealth of my illness-damaged voice, and spun the black....

Playlist favorites included-

Bad News (neo-retro-fuzzy-beats-fuck-it's-just-good!, on Chondritic) | Wretched Worst (GREAT new 7" EP on Husk! ...and let me seize this opportunity to turn your attention again to their madness-inducing MCoQ live set from April) | Sixx (Von members in deathrock attire; glamorous, must-have reissue on Nuclear War Now!) | Iowa City maniacs Solid Attitude (outstanding new LP on Rotted Tooth!) | Ides (the pride of NJ's current hardcore universe!)

You've all been very generous, both with pledges and praise. And for those of you who haven't yet donated to WFMU in this time of post-storm crises, please consider clicking on the white pledge widget above this post (or on any page at wfmu.org) and giving what you can afford, just to push us up and over that last 14% towards our recovery goal.

So much good music that will have to hold until next week, most notably the new CD by Altar of Flies, which has been providing me with much joyful immersion at home. It's shaping up to be a great winter.... As Witchdoctor put it, "every day is a holiday, anutha muthafuckin' dollar day."

Thanks for listening; tap you next week.

...like wet tires spinning against wet pavement ... like H. R. back flipping just ahead of a tornado of nails. ... subtle new sonic palettes, wrapped in a launched fury.

Pointed shards of cold black rained down for nearly 2.5 hours, penetrating our bodies and minds, like little psyche-needles; that is, before Attila and co. swung us into deep, contemplative territory. That said, there are a great many shades of "black," and it feels good to know that so many of you see that reality as I do. Black metal has, to me, been the most consistently fertile musical genre of the last 20 years, constantly reinventing itself and opening new doors of exhaustingly varied creative expression.

How gratifying to have reached this plateau with the My Castle of Quiet show, where listeners shower the program with positive commentary, and appreciate the assemblage of my selections. You have made the program what I always hoped it would become—a place where music that's often challenging, and still remains immediately repellent to a great many, can be thoroughly appreciated in the context of a thoughtfully crafted mélange. Thanks and thanks again, Castleheads!

Thanks also for your many generous pledges, at a time when WFMU is in dire need of financial relief and support. I'm proud and honored to do what I can to keep the great mothership of unique creativity that is WFMU afloat, while returning every week to a listenership that's beyond supportive, and always looking forward to more! I always knew that black metal, noise, and the darker side of human expression in general needed a voice on terrestrial radio, and with your help that vision has been made manifest.

Playlist favorites included "Achilles Last Stand" (great live clip here, Knebworth 1979); Altars; the excellent, new tape by Montréal's Verglas; our great backlog of live performances, most notably (this time) Occultation, The Gate, and Shaved Women; Cold Empty Universe (who this week, were not even aired!); Orcrist; White Medal (split CD w/ Caina on Legion Blotan); Marblebog; and Swansea's Ghast.

Thanks as always for listening, and for your incredible support! I'll be back next week, an anti-holiday celebration.

Click on our flexible and quite resourceful (!) playlist hottie, from Gerald Kargl and Zbigniew Rybczynski's Angst (1983) (thanks to SARZAN for the avi rip!), to reach the playlist, audio archives and comments board for last night's horrorcast™.

Prison Tatt's CDr subsidiary, PASSION AND TORMENT SERIES, is launched!

Designed to deliver great music to the public, in a more-timely and cost-effective manner than the vinyl format demands, Prison Tatt Records is proud to present the Passion and Torment Series.

No skimping on content or quality here, the label was designed quite simply to manage the great influx of excellent music that comes across our desktop at Prison Tatt. These are pro-press CDrs with d.i.y. packaging, in hand-numbered, limited editions of 50.

We begin with four CDrs, kindred in style to the releases on the mother label, but our stain is spreading, and these releases represent a more eclectic view in genres represented. 

Releases by >>>

Dreadlords (BZ of T.O.M.B. and Panther Modern; a dark, aggressive and intimate excursion)

Dope (long-form, drugged-out, psychedelic black metal art from Russia)

Goblin War Trio (free-jazz krautnoise; supergroup improv trio from Brooklyn)

Bondage (hard-driving, gloomy, neo-garage post-punk from Peru)

Music samples, full descriptions, and links to buy at the Passion and Torment site.

E N J O Y !

Gen Ken Montgomery's LIVE CON Mix from July, up @ Free Music Archive!

In honor of the NYC-wide event, CON-MYTHOLOGY, a multi-venue celebration of the music and films of late composer Conrad Schnitzler, Gen Ken created this live, real-time collage of Schnitzler's music on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet on 7.20.2012. 

All source material © Conrad Schnitzler. Click on the CON photo, to listen and download via my curator portal at the Free Music Archive.


Very grateful to wake up to $173.83 in NEW pledges, on a week when I wasn't even one the air! Mucho thanks for the support, friends, and keep it coming; ...WFMU is a pillar of need right now, quite seriously. I'll be back spinning rare metal and noise this Thursday night, and pitching with a vengeance!


Please see the white, rectangular pledge widget above to donate to MCoQ and WFMU.

pidge and wm.......dreamteam ...Listening live as society collapses.

Impressions on last night, #1. Clay Pigeon is a top guy. Stimulating company and conversation, a true good soul, born to be on WFMU. #2. Pre-recording The Castle from home may lack the spontaneity of a live broadcast, but it sure makes for a well-thought-out, tight and entertaining show, and you all seemed to agree on that point.

Like so many individuals and businesses in New Jersey, WFMU has been thrown into pretty instant fiscal chaos by hurricane Sandy. The unfortunate, but necessary cancellation of our record fair this weekend was a huge, immediate blow to the station coffers, and being off the air put a hurting on our now-extended silent fundraiser (please see white rectangular widget above.) And YES, I have resulted to puffy areolas, boobs and sex chat in general on our playlist, in the hopes of raising the most pledges possible. That's not to say that I don't love last night's capture from Behind Convent Walls, I do, but at some point during the show it occurred to me that "sex sells," and that maybe my subconscious was motivating me to feel extra-sexy.

I am glad that I made the moderately perilous trek from my home to the station and back last night; it was a very enjoyable broadcast for me personally, and the playlist was lively, with all manner of relevant and irreverent chatter, both on my part and that of our beloved listeners—who after all ultimately make us what we are (both in terms of My Castle of Quiet in the specific, and WFMU overall.) Thanks not only for your pledges—your generosity knows no bounds, at a time when a great many are truly strapped for cash—and also for your wealth of positive feedback. I'm not so hardened by life that a simple "I love this show!" doesn't make me chuff up with both pride and gratitude. I have worked hard over the last three-plus years, to make My Castle of Quiet the most relevant and entertaining show that's comprised of some pretty "challenging" and fatally outside-the-mainstream content. Long live black metal, doom, noise, horror and beyond!

I have labored to find my tribe, to make this so-called-difficult music, which by and large expresses the darker, hidden, but no less passionate side of human expression, continually bridge outward and find an even larger audience. We're here, we're wound a bit tight, not in the greatest mood, and have some things to say you might not like—deal with it. Maybe even come to like it.

Playlist favorites last night were Bestial Summoning, Smoke, the great new NRIII CD (some nice, descriptive words and a link to purchase here), and Castle mainstay Lussuria.

Thanks again to Bill Zebub for filling in next week. I'll be back on 11/15-16. In the meantime, click on our beautiful Sister of Chirst above, crafting herself a wooden lover, to reach the playlist, archives and comments board for last night's horrorcast.™