better than death by snu snu?

Soundtracks, noise music, and dark-ambient dirges have always been an important part of the My Castle of Quiet tapestry. Too often uncelebrated, perhaps; I get so excited about the constant flood of great new metal and punk that my noise / ambient records end up coming home with me, the brides unkissed.

Not so with last night, we opened with noise-water-cooler favorites Whitehouse (deservedly so) and that set the tone for further explorations with Kakerlak, Sempiternels, Wilt, Mick Travis, Crowhurst et al., and the piece by France's Terrine was also a standout.



RIGHTEOUS UGLINESS LATER...with the great Cadaver Eyes | Moros | Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom | Vlk | Zmora | Bán Sidhe Dogs | Raw Poison | NEW Total Abuse | a great song by Death Index...lots more.



...and no, this program was not a commercial for bandcamp; the cut they take from the seller is outrageous (20%?) and I think $7—$8 is a lot to ask for a digital "album," especially a short one...that said, it just happens to be where a lot of great musicians can easily congregate and easily share their work.

Back next week with outrageously great, live grind from Pink Mass

Click on this week's horrorcast™ still up top, from Blow-Up, to reach the archived audio / playlist / comments from our show. You can also download My Castle of Quiet for a limited time, through WFMU's app for Android & iOS.

My milkshake-uh! Brings-uh! All the boys to the yard-uh!

Last night was the great horror / metal / punk / noise mixtape I'm always trying to make, occasionally stumbling into the light of perfect realization. I'm not modest ok, but nonetheless pretty sure I'm a humble and fair judge of my own performance.

So this ^^^ the crafty and disturbing capture from last night's playlist, pretty much representing the few worthwhile seconds of Hate Crime (notice it's shown in mirror reflection, suggesting that the horribleness is simply too much to view head-on) turned some heads and sparked reaction & discussion. I can't really recommend the movie, unless you like cartoonish, overstated Nazi home invaders pointlessly terrorizing a Jewish family and then leaving. I guess Hate Crime does have a certain dull starkness, a deeply flawed, ham-fisted American Guinea Pig I: Devil's Experiment (and that's a very generous comparison.)

Thanks again to everyone who pledged to WFMU and/or My Castle of Quiet during our two weeks of fundraising, and to the volunteers and hosts and co-hosts. It's the comparatively laborious broadcasts of the marathon that make it continually possible for me to come in and do a program like the one I did last night, a truest-of-the-true black-hearted horrorcast™ in the intended sense of the show. It's that two weeks of intensive contact with my radio colleagues and listener-fan-friends that is heavily factored in inspiring me forward to do the most sanguine programming possible for y'all.

Listener / commenter nods went to:  Moros | Black Cilice | vintage Fall | Sovereign | new! Sentenced For Life ...



Personal highs included all the aforementioned, as well as...well, everything. I can't pick favorites this week, because they're all favorites. You can download the full show as a podcast for a limited time through WFMU's app for Android and iOS, or stream by clicking above on this week's grisly little moment, where you can also view a detailed playlist, listener comments and bits of album cover art.

Back next week, and in two weeks with live music from Pink Mass.

I Tokyo drift to zombie theme

 

I want to thank everyone, the pledgers on the phone and online, the playlist commenters, Castleheads all—and the friends and colleagues who helped out and hung out in the phone room—it was a blast of a night of a time. The WFMU marathon overall should be FUN, and we commiserate over pledges and prizes as a part of that necessary process. Very special thanks to Listener Adam, Pseu, Alex, Sue P. and Ms. Fox.

THANKS FOR YOUR PLEDGES, EVERYONE! You can still pledge to WFMU through Sunday's finale, and I'll be back this Thursday night co-hosting for the great Nick Name program, once again entreating you all to donate via my peculiar charms and frank talk. Nick's music is choice, and I'm looking forward to it. YOU CAN STILL PLEDGE TO MY CASTLE OF QUIET, TOO. Here's how: a) Make sure you've chosen My Castle of Quiet from the drop down menu at the main pledge page, as well as b) CLICKED THE PLUS SIGN to the right of the menu, and BAM! your pledge goes right into The Castle's tin cup. We shake it, thank you on the air (next week), and a plege of $75 dollars or more will still earn you a copy of my premium CDr compilation Anthems, featured prominently in last night's show. PLEDGE GRAPHIC BELOW >>>

Musical highlights included, but were not limited to:  Pink Mass (who will be our live guests on April 6) | Norma Tanega | Obscure Evil (new on Caligari) | Smersh (featuring Pseu!) | Nudity | Moros (awesome Philadelphia band, well worth your time, listen below) ...more form Moros and many others next week; looking very much forward to Castle business-as-usual, with massive muck and a lot less talk. ...and tune in to our closing soirée Sunday night, I'll sing you a song.



Stream this week's fun-raising horrorcast™ by clicking up top, on the game-screen list of dubious options.

WE ARE THE FEW. THE HORROR-OBSESSED.

"No, the cocks are mine. The cocaine isn't." If I had ten dollars for every time I said that, sitting handcuffed in the lightly falling snow, WFMU wouldn't NEED to hold a marathon. But as it stands, yeah, we still do, and tonight is your last chance to donate in real time to support My Castle of Quiet and in all honesty that's the easiest way. Our show starts @ 9 PM PT, 12 AM ET, and across a spectrum of early-morning hours in Europe. If you want to be a part of our prize drawings (which tonight feature treats from Wet Ones, Killing Joke (see YT embed below), a One Master t-shirt & LP set, a Throaat CD, two different Midwich LP releases, a Baked Tapes 3-pk, and the great Nudity LP on Iron Lung), and have a pledge of $75 or more score you a copy of our annual exclusive CDr comp, Anthems (Classic video-game music & Misty Metal), the best way is to just party with us in the moment (even if you can only do so @ 12:05 a.m. and then go to bed) when all pledges made to WFMU at large during those hours will default to our show. No pluses will need be clicked, no new interfaces need be navigated.

NOW THAT SAID, you can donate the station at large any old time between now and our big wrap party Sunday night, by just clicking on Julian above, our featured clean-piss salesman. If you simply can't donate in real time, usually hear the show in archives, gotta get your ass up early to go to work, or are in a bar getting your face off—much respect—you can still show Castlehead love by just doing the little two-step dance pictured below; which is to say a) make sure you've chosen My Castle of Quiet from the drop down menu at the main pledge page, as well as b) CLICKED THE PLUS SIGN to the right of the menu, and BAM! your pledge goes right into The Castle's tin cup. We shake it, thank you on the air, offer you a pencil, and if that happens before or during midnight to 3 a.m. ET tonight, toss you onto the body pile for tonight's prize drawings.

My Castle of Quiet may not be the most cash-register-exploding show on WFMU, but there's a real camaraderie, tribe-thing happening between the show and our listeners, the bands we play and the labels we support; I meet these folks in person, at shows, and online, and your gratitude and dedication to the weekly broadcast is my great humbling. So please, think about tossing us some coin for tonight's festivities, for which I'm grateful to share the mic with fellow WFMU veteran Pseu Braun.

Beneficent splatter is guaranteed for all!

Es escary, like my momma says

Marathon show nummer eins went swell, lots of fun and generous pledgers, many of whom walked away with one of the hi-gloss items from our prize list, which was basically all gloss.

Want to thank listener SiHV, who made a mouse-size pledge which was not credited to My Castle of Quiet, but intended to be so. Within the larger scheme, it all goes to WFMU so it's all good, though of course at MCoQ we're not the hit parade, so every bit of support is something we want to know about and would like to take credit for. Just know, if you're a listener who's frustrated because your pledge was not credited to your favorite WFMU program, that things are not only going much better with this new-software rollout than they could be, but it's being worked on, and in the meantime, the most useful takeaway is PLEASE CLICK ON THE PLUS SIGN, to the right of the drop-down menu at this page (you can also click the "Pledge Now!" in the widget at our current playlist page to get there.) This will assure that you are in next week's first prize drawing, will be thanked on air, and all pledges over $75 will automatically get you a copy of our Anthems premium CDr. [See all 2016 DJ Premiums]

Or, simply call us next Tuesday night / Weds. a.m. @ 1-800-989-9368 and join the fun(d) in real time.

With not the usual amount of time for music, every selection had to be a hit (and/or related to our premium and prizes), so among all the colorful chatter, there's still a music show there. Tracks by Leash | Throaat | Uniform | Haare (Heavy Meditation on SoundCloud) | Magas | Circuit des Yeux were particularly dazzling.



Special thanks to my co-host Jonathan Herweg, who made the 3 hours flow like freestyles around a trash-can fire, and listener/friend Rachel Fox, who brought her contagious positive energy & eye-patched cuteness. I'll be back on WFMU tomorrow, co-hosting for Diane's Kamikaze Fun Machine.

Click on the pic up top, from Cemetery Man, to stream last night's full horrorcast™.

☩☩☩2016 WFMU MARATHON IN FULL SWING! CASTLE FAYRE I, TONIGHT!☩☩☩

It's hard for me to even imagine a radio station where My Castle of Quiet would even have context. Our show dangles on the fringes of WFMU's programming (when viewed as a whole) as it is. That I have a decades-long, life-history with the station is definitely the brush that paints the picture; fill-in DJ 1984; music director 1985; 2x weekly 12-3 a.m. shows for a while, eventually plateauing in a well-liked Free Form show called The Hip Bone, that sat comfortably in Friday-night prime time for some 7 years, ending in 1999 Feb.; writing for Beware of The Blog (yup, that's a link to all my posts) starting in 2005; My Castle of Quiet initiated in 2009 June... a show that not all my old-time listeners were 100% pleased with, though most/many have taken the ride with me and we've picked up a whole new generation of devotees along the way since.

I knew when I started that not everyone, even the generally pretty open minds of WFMU's listenership, would grok a show that combined horror-film themes and discussion with raucous live performance, black metal, ragged punk, and contemporary experimental noise-music. I honed the concept, stayed true to it, and over the years a great crowd has gathered, and I'm grateful both to YOU, for listening and appreciating, and to WFMU for providing me the forum to continually present this not-quite-like-anything-else program.

NOW COMES THE TIME WHEN WFMU ASKS YOU THE LISTENER FOR SOMETHING IN RETURN. The station at large is raising pledges for the next two weeks; you can donate to the station as a whole, or to My Castle of Quiet in the specific by going here and doing what's depicted in the image below; click the "☩" next to the drop-down menu to make sure that My Castle of Quiet is where your pledge is credited. We'll thank you live tonight.

The WFMU Marathon is always like a two-week-long, on-air party, and it feels that way in the physical space of WFMU as well. I'll be on the air at midnight ET tonight, for the first week of two My Castle of Quiet fun-raising shows, with my perfect foil, the slappy Yin to my sloppy Yang, Jonathan Herweg. I'll be on again next week; honored to share the air with co-host Pseu Braun, like myself, a WFMU 80s veteran, and one of the best co-hosts a WFMU DJ could hope for. Also, I'll be co-hosting this Thursday afternoon for Diane Kamikaze's great program, and next Thu./Fri. late night with the maestro Nick Name.

Thanks in advance for being a part of our Free-Form party; we'll have great prize giveaways, as well as a copy of this year's Castle premium, Anthems (more information on that in this post) for every pledge over $75. Even if you can't afford to give right now, we have many plans and options of ways to donate that are guaranteed not to tear out your pocket. JOIN US!

This is some damn good cough medicine.

32 years, doing the freeform shuffle, riding its rails and eatin' beans from a can. My anniversary show was rife with hammering metal and snotty punk rock—and of course, a few engineering flubs, and my usual, "hey, we're just talking" microphone breaks—I gotta be me, and what's old is new again.

Seriously, thanks for all the congratulations, well wishes and kind remarks. I was just putting it out there, as this happened to be the year that I was reminded/remembered. I remember anniversaries like dogs remember why you're scolding them.

It's a black metal hidden ace to break out a song from Walknut's Graveforests and Their Shadows; the few times I've played the album on air, it never fails to get a reaction, and similar to the Weakling album, I've never met a black metal fan that does not revere the Russian band's one, magnificent blast, from 2007.



Also great to revisit the Twist Ending 2014 demo, Musica di Morte, that one being a constant in the pile of tapes next to my bed....

Going to keep this one short. Lots of things to think about, and prep to do, for our next two weeks of fundraising, for WFMU's 2016 Marathon. ...Will have some attractive, Castle-appropriate giveaways, a new premium CDr compilation (see last week's post, below) and two formidable & friendly co-hosts.

I hope that if you enjoy what we do every week on My Castle of Quiet, you're a part of our "dark army," that you'll tune in and donate/pledge what you can. Tune in regardless, because it's always a party; quite seriously the most-listenable, enjoyable, public-broadcasting fundraiser I'm aware of.

Click on the framed spatter above, from Der Todesking, to stream last night's full horrocast™, and view the playlist and comments.