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.™

BOOBS to Sandy! Special My Castle of Quiet broadcast this week ... from The Castle!

Boobs to that shitty hurricane that decimated much of WFMU's home state. This week, MCoQ will be broadcasting live from Castle HQ, in the seedy bowels of NJ. Tune in for the usual antics—goofy mic breaks, and a shit-ton of black metal and noise. Accuplaylist will be live.

The Castle takes a break next week, with Bill Zebub's Vortex of Chaos filling in. I'm headed West. Regular Castle broadcasting resumes 11/15-16.

Thank you to everyone who pledged to the show during this past month, bringing us 31% towards our perhaps through-the-ceiling goal, hehe. You people rule! Hail, Castleheads!

Please note: Due to hurricane outages of our signal, and the cancelation of our record fair, WFMU is extending our silent fundraiser to November 17, so please keep those pledges coming, thanks!!

The brimstone heats up, promptly at midnight Thu./Fri.

WFMU 91.1 FM (currently off the air)
WMFU 90.1 FM (Hudson Valley)
wfmu.org live on the Web, with real-time accu-playlist and message board.

See you in two weeks!

Who's paying who here?

The Athens Delight, from Stella's Pizzeria in Jersey City, has become the "Castle staple" foodstuff, for bands, DJ and engineer alike. A hearty vegetarian pie, the food of the Olympian Gods, as it were, though the home-cooking of Magda and Dave is vastly preferred when available.

I think two nights, two bands, and two ADs in a row was asking a bit too much of my, er, tract, and I was up most of the night, with one of my son's freezable teething rings on my lower back, in the kidney area; holy Hell, it almost felt like another stone—"The Feta'll Get Ya"—a new saying I'm working on. The Feta'll get you, kind of like the "Rhythm," but without a newly spined Gloria Estefan signing and dancing for your pleasure.

It's a little early for year-end reflection, but I can't help feeling like a lucky duck every week, as with WFMU's help, I've crafted a forum (see continued Greek references) wherein great bands like the ones we heard this week just volunteer to show up and play. A hearty dose of blackened love, then, from those who just want to sit at home or at work or on the train and listen; love from the typical black metaler or noisehead is not love given lightly then, not like that from a pop fan, who might "love" nearly everything. Black metal started out as an "elite" thing, and by and large it remains so, though any righteous individual is welcome to apply.

The grand tetons of last night's Castle show were unquestionably our live performers, Yellow Eyes, a highly accomplished and committed black metal band (with whom I was instantly simpatico, btw) who don't need to be in your face every five minutes, or even every five days, and have worked hard to to polish their craft, and that's it, and that's art; listen if you will, listen if you dare. ...and Sun Splitter, whose III LP has been mystifying and and entrancing me for months, some of Chicago's finest; hearty blokes who carry with them the most gear I have ever seen for a single Castle session, and whose music is a deep-dish (forgive me, pizza on the brain) of dark enchantment and most definitely solid-bodied, Gibson-guitar rock (emphasized somehow by guitarist Frank's back-length hair and three-piece suit.)

It simply doesn't get much better for me than presenting powerful live music, from artists that create passionately on the very fringes of what's even considered "music." Both sessions will appear in downloadable mp3 format on WFMU's Free Music Archive, via my curator portal there, in my usual "due course" of one month+. In the meantime, there's WFMU's streaming archives (benign-but-ominous "Satanized" voices chant "all hail the archives!")

Also making a strong impression last night were NRIII, with the introductory track from their latest EP, Spat Upon., the third in a trilogy, and a meal that really needs to be taken whole, from these now-long-time Castle favorites. Available on Neon Doom Records.

And yes, dw, The Gate! I don't revisit their Destruction of Darkness CD nearly often enough, and their live Castle set was one of the highlights of an already great year in live music.

Click on the crazed, cannibalistic killer (have we had enough of those yet?), from the otherwise resoundingly mediocre Dark Ride (yes, we believe Meadow Soprano, at 31, is a college student) to reach the playlist and audio archives for last night's horrocast™. ...And please remember that you can still pledge to MCoQ and WFMU through the end of the month and the Hallowe'en holiday; your donations are much-needed and deeply appreciated. ... It's all done very easily by clicking on "PLEDGE" within the white, rectangular widget above this post.

Next week, back to business, sort of ... no back announcing; simply too much great music busting the dam and not enough time to play it, and the online accu-playlist does the annotation work anyway (for the truly curious.) I'll be jumping in with legal IDs and "witticisms," but otherwise a broad field of sound awaits thee....

MIGHTY, MIGHTY. SUN SPLITTER AND YELLOW EYES, LIVE, TONIGHT.

Getting the "ugly" out of the way first, I've come to realize that there is a "critical mass" as far as financial support for public radio programs goes, and in that, dollar numbers don't necessarily reflect listener-appreciator numbers, not at all in fact. These days, there is a bottom to people's pockets, perhaps especially those that like what we do at My Castle of Quiet, and believe me, I understand.

Fact remains, I'm still here, and I'm still asking, and WFMU as a whole is still seeking your donations, as October draws to its close. This is the last MCoQ show of this month of semi-silent fundraising, and with all that in mind, I've reset the perhaps-overtly-ambitious goal of $2,000 for the month, to $1,500, and we're just going to see where it lays once it's played.

To finish out October, MCoQ presents perhaps one of its most ballsy shows ever, with two, great underground metal bands in live performance. Last night, Sun Splitter recorded their set, and I have to say these guys sound HUGE; for three men, especially, there was so much going on that was arcane and mysterious, while packing a tremendous wallop—Big Black are on a plane, Steve's revisiting Physical Graffiti on his mp3 player, and well, the plane suddenly explodes, scattering debris all over a Mayan ruins site. That's what Sun Splitter bring to mind for me—individual results/dream imagery may differ. SS are a mighty, intense, metal/doom/rock combo, driven by pummeling drum-machine beats, roaring vocals, and intricate, dense guitar riffage. Their songs veer off into primordial, horror-ambient, dungeon codas, and it's these gloomy forays that especially set Sun Splitter apart from the metal pack, and demonstrate the range and emotional capabilities of this extraordinary band. Catch Sun Splitter at The Acheron tonight, and then go home and turn on your radio.

With two bands for the price of tuning in, MCoQ is also very proud and excited to present Yellow Eyes. Real, live, underground black metal from a band whose debut full-length tape Silence Threads The Evening's Cloth made a huge impression on extreme metalers worldwide, released in 2011. Their new split with Monument is of equal presence and dark power (both releases on Sol y Nieve.) Yellow Eyes are both dirty and artful, an opaque and complex black metal band, the revelry of their melodic and cunningly arranged songs wrapped in melancholic atmosphere, like a killer peeking out from behind a swatch of black lace; representative of where the black metal genre is and should be going. Of all the black metal we've presented on the show, Yellow Eyes represent yet another foreboding alley, a damned tributary, where journey by sea may lead to crushing despair and increasingly bizarre journal entries.

I drag my broken frame to edges of the city, where hopefully sanctuary awaits, at midnight.
YE @ 12:30 a.m. approx.
SS @ 1:20 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.

Wm. Berger, where will you be all my life? This is deeply satisfying!

Hey, many thx listener Adam! I always appreciate feedback, and always endeavor to "deeply satisfy." Every My Castle of Quiet show should ideally be an "Elton John 1972 US tour" of horror-radio.

If anything, The Sonics of Terror special made me realize that a program of this nature is an ongoing archival process, and assuming The Castle continues, "Sonics" will be a regular part of it. Attempting to annotate my favorite horror- and thriller-film soundtrack music was a more-daunting task than I expected, as there's so much "good"; and with that I'm incorporating contemporary artists who play in the style, so by the 1:30 a.m. halfway point, it had already become of a matter of regrettably setting aside what I was not going to get the minutes to play....

So, ideas are already swimming in my brain for Sonics of Terror v.2, starting with Zombi's "Spirit Animal," which I so regretted not having the time to play that I considered offering Stan eight dollars for the minutes needed to close with the track (assuming a $1-a-minute rate, haha.) But alas, it doesn't work that way, and the onus of having to pack every week's horrorcast™ into three hours is a welcome challenge.

Enough regret, heehee, as there was much enjoyment. Things like the recurring melodic theme from the original Omen, Komeda's "Rosemary's Baby," and Bruno Nicolai's All The Colors of The Dark really get my blood pumping, so we rolled those dice first.

Playlist shouts went to our steadfast Zombie theme by Fabio Frizzi, Takemitsu's The Face of Another (full film at that link!), music from Castlevania, John Carpenter, Nekromantik, and Goblin's flawless, bewitching score for Suspiria.

Click on young Damien Thorne's timeless parting gaze from The Omen, to reach the playlist, comments board, and audio-archive options for last's night's special broadcast, and thanks for listening.

TONIGHT ... THE SONICS OF TERROR!

Most of us get to feeling a bit "spooky" as October rolls around; we let our darker, mischievous side rise to the surface and play for a bit as the Halloween holiday approaches. At My Castle of Quiet, it's pretty much "Halloween all year 'round"—that's the program's stock in trade—but we thought it was high time that the horror- and thriller-film soundtracks, so often peppered into the show, were paid homage to and given special attention, with a full, three-hour program.

Cinelogues ripped straight from VHS and DVD, soundtrack excerpts, themes, and dialogue; original film content, as well as that culled and modified by various contempo sound artists, plus the familiar themes we all love (Carpenter, Morricone, Goblin, Fabio Frizzi et al.) will all be represented, in addition to artists whose music is well-steeped in and heavily influenced by the genre, like Umberto, Zombi, Enslaved By Owls and Spettro Family.

Tune in for three hours of creepy envelopment.

As to our ongoing "silent" fundraiser, pledgers that have donated in the interim since last week will be thanked on air, and here's hoping many new pledges roll in as tonight's show is in progress. MCoQ is 7% towards our goal, with two shows still to come this month! Thanks all for your support thus far! (See the white, rectangular widget above to donate, whatever you can—it's that easy!)

Ritual beaheading beings promptly @ the witching hour.
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.