Felicitations on #300 WM

Rolling with the My Castle of Quiet-favored "party continuum" option, which should see us straight through to the WFMU 2016 marathon and beyond, show #300 saw us privileged to host an artist with whom I've shared years of mutual support, Sandor GF aka Andorkappen, the wild creative force also behind such projects as Lord Time, member of KILT and 1/3 of the mighty Harassor.  >>>



So, what just blew my mind in the post-experiential hearing (it was overwhelming enough in person, but it's often that next day where a rager really hits home, fully consumed) was a live-rendered, improvised-around-a-plan Andorkappen piece "Endless Endings", and you can hear / download the the "official" version here.

Stream our entire horrorcast™ (live set, interview, the usual tatty array of black metal, movie trailers, and those clean-pressed dark hxcx lads) by clicking on Chester Turner's Black Devil Doll above (I won't feed your anticipation of this one at all, just to say if you have never seen it, see it...trailer below.)



You can catch Andorkappen LIVE THIS WEEKEND; Friday, at Silent Barn /w Hiroshi Hasegawa, as Dead Wolf Black, collab with our friend Bob Bellerue; Saturday at The Omega Order HQ (94 Bogart St., Brooklyn.)

More top-shelf, live, soul-crushing sound next week from Dessicant (Andy Borsz & Mat Rademan) and Hiroshi Hasegawa (C.C.C.C., Astro, Astromero !!!)



My most sincere thanks all of you for your kind support & hearty hails for our 300th show on last night's playlist; Castleheads unite, always! Kick against those Grand Pricks, and I'll hear from you next week, you'll definitely hear me.

UPON WORD OF YOUR PASSING WE SHALL ERECT A GOLDEN ALTAR IN YOUR HONOR UPON WHICH WE SHALL SLAUGHTER 70 VIRGINS

Good idea to have that shit READY. That said, my "people" tend to live well into their 80s, sometimes 90s, but you never know, there have been exceptions. Still, probably excessive to waste that many perfectly good virgins on my passing...I'll surely get burnt out on the whole thing by 20, maybe 25.

I caught up with the show around the time Cherubs were playing; some old guy was doing the show up until then. Good music always; I just wasn't driving, I was distracted by the cigarette lighter.

Mercyful Fate / King Diamond always prompts a positive reaction; historically, their best work seems to unite metalheads, punks and popsters alike. ... Also new Dark Blue | Mondo Macabro DVD | Black Panties | general accolades for black-metal-saturated set #2 | Solo Organ ...I enjoyed it all as usual, lots of exciting new and recent punk, grind/death, black etc.

Having a blast with WFMU's playlist-db image uploader; always been a lover of great album-cover art, and based on the positive listener response, I'll keep plugging that aesthetic identity into My Castle of Quiet's weekly cavalcade.

Thanks also for all your comments / contributions / participation—a lively comment board always helps to keep me thrusting forward, makes it feel like a party, a group interaction. To view the playlist, stream the archived audio and view comments, you can hear last night's full horrorcast™ by clicking above, on that somewhat disconcerting image from The Poughkeepsie Tapes, a faux crime documentary that was a seat-squirmer, even for myself, seasoned viewer of cinematic torment that I am.

Super-excited about our February at The Castle, with a maddeningly good lineup of live performances—starting next week, with a live, in-studio, in-the-moment set from Andorkappen (Lord Time/Harassor, KILT, Universal Consciousness Records)—it will be A TIME.

I'm chuffed as hell.

I notice more and more the emphasis people place on happiness. Of course, it's the jewel in the forehead of the idol of human existence, the only thing that really matters once all the achievements, successes and failures are washed away. You've made it this far, however far that is—but are you "happy"? But if you have to try to be happy, work on it, embrace certain practices, read certain books, turn your flesh inside out (figuratively) and experience some sort of rebirth—is it really worth it? If happiness doesn't come naturally, if it's not innate to your character, what is its value? And if achieved through great, external effort, is it "real" or "false"? Are you kidding yourself, denying your nature as an unhappy person, a "Negative Nancy"; one of those undesirable "glass half empty" people that at least in theory, no one wants around?

I'm fine in social situations, I know how to laugh and joke, be inclusive, make people feel interesting, appreciated, wanted, loved—and not one ounce of that is put on or affected—insincerity not being my strong suit. Still, at my core, in my mind, in my thoughts, alone, left to my tendencies, I am not a happy person and cannot recall a time when I ever have been. I could easily (and sometimes do) blame this on external factors—widespread anti-intellectualism, a possible Trump presidency, money forever greasing the wheels of progress rather than humanist ideals—but the truth is, I know me, and I spin negative, I wax negative, I ask the world, "give me a reason!" ...and having always been this way, isn't acceptance really the way to go? I don't have the inclination or desire to read all those Eastern philosophical tomes, and/or merge with the "cosmic continuum" (I assume the latter will just happen when I die.) Anyhow, that's my navel-gaze for the day, and fuck you if you think I'm being "too personal" (let's remember there are 1,000s of blogs and vlogs where inarticulates whine on about their shitty day; at least I have a full, shitty life under my belt.) ...and with that, being uniquely who I am fuels this radio program and my ability to do it and do it well, in singular, mold-breaking fashion.

Corker of a show last night, with a blazing live set from Imperial Trumpet, lurching, rough and greasy in all the best ways, or, as drummer Lorde Abravanel (Fizz, to those of us who know & love him) put it, "Hymns to the aristocratic spirit of antiquity in Militant opposition to modernity." I've said it before in other ways, but I feel privileged and uniquely poised to share new and exciting extreme metal, noise and punk in a weekly platform of terrestrial and Internet radio, and I'll always be grateful to WFMU for providing me that opportunity for as long as it lasts. BUT DOES IT MAKE ME HAPPY? Ok yeah, of course it does, and maybe that's what happiness is, for me at least, it's nights like these, "glimpses," the crack in the doorway that lets some light in, rather than to spring out of bed every day with gratitude for the life I was given (I know some people do that, I mean I assume that they do, but I cannot conceive of how that's actually done.)

Many a positive comment aimed at our first set of music (pre-band), with all-new or recent releases from Scumripper | Muerte | Mystic Inane | Bleak | Dr. Shrinker et al., and we blasted through our concluding 90 mins. post-band (by the way, you can buy the limited Imperial Trumpet demo tape @ House of First Light) with more exquisite grime from Salö | Obduktio | Khøleraä | Nazarene Whore | Lluvia | Abysmal Grief | ...and Future Blondes filled out our last 25 mins. with a new tape side.

Hopefully some of you noticed that I pumped up the online playlist with album-cover images, kind of late-breaking—but I remembered, and I find that doing so nicely punctuates our "umbrella aesthetic" at My Castle of Quiet. Once again, our weekly screen capture comes from the Italian ciné-oddity Tragic Ceremony; click on our doom-maven organist to stream last night's full horrorcast™ and Imperial Trumpet's full set.

Lots of amazing live music coming to The Castle in February, with sets from Andorkappen (2/9-10); Desiccant + Hiroshi Hasegawa (2/16-17); and Cape of Bats (2/23-24.) Stay tuned to the MCoQ Facebook group for more information.