Now here’s a hot topic if ever there was one; ‘Hipster metal’.
This is something that I’ve been giving a fair bit of thought to recently, mainly thanks to the release of The Sword’s new album, Warp Riders. Regular visitors to Thee Big Black’s forum will probably have spotted the thread Ed from Doom Metal Alliance started a couple of weeks ago. If not here’s a quick run down to give you some idea of what I’m talking about.
One of DMA’s contributors recently posted a review of Warp Riders on their website, this seemed to open a flood gate and Ed was left fielding a torrent of comments ranging from moronic to the outright abusive. Apparently the Warp Riders review actually holds the record for the most number of comments ever posted on DMA’s website! Here’s one of the emails sent to Ed in response to the review . . .
“I don’t give a shit about “hipster this” or “hipster that.” This band fucking sucks and so does this album. Derivative wannabes with a shitty vocalist and ridiculous lyrics”
Now, whether you like The Sword or not (personally I do) you have to admit that this level of hatred seems a tad extreme. There’s a few things that generally get brought up whenever The Sword get slated. One is that they didn’t ‘pay their dues’ and appeared fully formed, the other is the rumour that they are a bunch of indie musicians who decided to cash in on the stoner thing (as someone said on the forum ” . . . not exactly the most lucrative genre to go in for is it?”). Well I don’t know about that and, to be honest, don’t really care. However I can see where people might get that sort of idea, there’s a few points that could be raised to defend this point of view. First there is the band’s apparent apperance from nowhere, their debut Age of Winters and the band as a whole seemingly appeared fully formed. No years of begging the metal crowd to take notice, no apparent trawling around the toilet circuit in a battered Transit for this lot. Something that, as we all know, is massively frowned on in alternative circles. Second, and for many this is quite damning, is the fact that Kemado, the bands label, was apparently owned by Disney at the time Age of Winters was released (I think it’s now owned by Sony but don’t quote me on that). There’s some pretty tasty fuel for the ‘haters’ fires right there.
But this whole ‘hipster metal’ thing doesn’t stop there, a lot more bands are being dragged into this one.
Matt Pike: One of the beautiful people, apparently.
First off let’s talk about High on Fire. After The Sword these guys seem to be the other great ‘hipster’ band doing the rounds. Whereas there is possibly some sort of case to be brought against The Sword (if you’re that way inclined) thanks to the Disney connection (although, let’s be honest, they ain’t exactly The Jonas Brothers) I don’t think anyone can accuse Matt Pike and Co. of band wagoning. Anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about should go and look up his credentials.
Then, of course, there’s Baroness. This is a band who released what are, in my opinion, two of the best records of the past ten years with ’07′s Red Album and ’09′s Blue Album. Baroness now seem to be coming in for similar treatment as The Sword and High On Fire, but yet again this is a band who can’t be accused of not ‘paying their dues. Much like High on Fire the cries of “sell outs!” are starting to be heard. I’ll skip past mentioning Torche or Mastodon at any length as I think you’ve got the point. That’s a fair few of my favourite bands of recent years written of as being ‘hipsters’ and ‘sell outs’!
So what’s going on? Maybe to some degree this is simply jealousy. Everyone and their dog is in a band, myself included, and maybe the green eyed beast is starting to raise it’s head. ‘The scene’ has always been quite firmly ‘underground’ until fairly recently and this, to me at least, reeks of the scene police getting a tizz on. “How dare they want to play gigs to more than eight guys in a stinking basement!” I know, the nerve! This is nothing new, the underground is notoriously intolerant of success.
It seems that some of the most vocal critics of ‘hipster metal’ come from the more mainstream parts of the metal scene. This rather depressing thread was posted on another forum a while ago. To give you some idea of the angle this is the opening post . . .
“sludge/stoner is fuckin EVERYWHERE at the minute! the army of em with cheque shirts, american trucker style caps and full on chin wigs… are we gonna be BOMBARDED by stoner clones for the next year or so then?”
That started up a fairly extensive debate on our own forum. You can read it here if you feel inclined. Rather than jealousy this seems to suggest a more stick-in-the-mud dislike of anything different. Again, something the metal world is not unknown for.
So, with Sunn o))) appearing in the NME and The Sword appearing on the front page of Myspace does this mean that doom, stoner, sludge or whatever you want to call it is the in ‘thing’ at the moment? And more importantly, does it matter? If the sound coming out of your speakers is good or the band standing on the stage in front of you is making you move then, surely, that’s all that really matters. In my humble opinion if you’re worrying about a bands credentials when you’re listening to their album you’re probably over thinking things a little.
Anyway, for what it’s worth I think Warp Riders is great and will be reviewing it for the next issue of Thee Big Black. Should I expect the same torrent of shitty posts that Ed and the guys from DMA got? Probably. Do I care? No.
Since the release of Enos’ record, Chapter 1, and issue 1 of our comic book I’ve found myself to be a little busier than usual. So, I’m dragging myself away from the hoard of groupies and my gold plated tyre swing and will be getting back on top of things here at Thee Big Black.
It seems that we’re getting busier with every passing month, that means that we need to whip our gnomes all that much harder. So before we deliver any more articles and downloads we’re doing a bit more housework (it’s never ending). As well as getting more of our past reviews and interviews posted on the site (reviews of Alunah, Widows and Grifter have just gone up) we’ll be putting together our next compilation. Black is Thee New Black: Vol 2 will be with you very soon. There’s some great tunes on Vol 2, I don’t think any of you will be disappointed. If you haven’t got a copy of Black is Thee New Black: Vol 1 yet click this link and get a free copy. On top of that Issue 8 of Thee Big Black is currently being put together at this very moment, yet more exclusive interviews and reviews. We’re also working on some great interviews for future issues, it’s arse clenchingly exciting I can tell ya!
Any of you who frequent our forum will have noticed that we are now hosting a forums for a a few bands and labels. Head over and check out Bastard of The Skies, Crypsis, Doom Metal Alliance, Dopefight, Enos, Funeral Hag and Grifter’s forums. While you’re over there you might want to check out some of these threads . . .
Proto-Doom:Bands that were playing ‘doom’ and ‘stoner’ before the terms existed. Black Sabbath and Sabbathism:So, should they reform with Ozzy? Get a new singer? Call it a day? Let us know what you think. The Sword And The Hipster Label: The Sword and several other bands seem to be getting slated as ‘hipster metal’, head to the forum and tell us what you think. The Riff:We love ‘em and you probably do to. Share your favourite riffs on this thread. Loud Howls II:This year saw the first Loud Howls festival in London. Head to this thread and make suggestions for 2011′s event.
After the success of Black is Thee New Black: Vol 1 we’ve decided that it’s about time we start putting together our second ‘mix tape’.
It’s the same deal as before, send us a track and we’ll put together another free to download compilation.
Anyway, this means we need bands to get in touch and submit a track or two to be included on our ‘mix-tape’. If this sounds like the sort of thing you might be interested in then get in touch via either our Myspace or our forum. But, as always with these things, there are a couple of rules.
1) Make sure that you own the rights to any music you want to submit and that all members of your band are happy for you to submit the tracks.
2) This should be obvious but . . . no cover versions. You might do a blinding version of Sabbath’s Children Of The Grave but unless you’re Tony Iommi don’t send it to us, his lawyers are mighty!
3) Get us the highest quality tracks you can. Tracks that have been run through the Myspace player shitifier will sound proper poo.
4) All submissions for the first compilation should be with us by Sunday August 29th.
This won’t be the last compilation from Thee Big Black so if you submit something and it doesn’t make it on to this one (if, for example, we get sent loads of 15 minute drone epics we’ll have to choose one or two for the comp) there will always be next time. And finally, we do aim to reply to everyone but sometimes it can take a while, we get a lot of mail!!
Well, it seems like forever since the last issue of Thee Big Black, but finally, issue seven has arrived. Don’t think with been dragging our heels since May (!), we’ve been keeping ourselves busy here at Thee Big Black Towers. But more on that later.
Issue seven is the biggest issue of Thee Big Black so far. We have interviews with Swedish doom-mongers Griftegård (regular readers may have noticed that they’re a bit of a favourite around here) and Iceni, the latest UK Black Metal act to start making ripples in the murky waters of the underground. This issue has more reviews than before including Alunah, Widows, Bastard of the Skies, Maudlin of the Well, Earthride, Black Land (thanks to Ed from Doomantia for them) and many more. The Inevitable Nose offers up some more advice to unsigned bands and with have the latest episode of Enos the Chimp. Which leads neatly to . . .
You can now download the full first issue of Enos the Chimp in PDF format (episodes one to four). Just follow this link.
As some of you will already know (if you didn’t know you’ve probably guessed by now) Enos is also a band and now you can download the first release completely free,here. ‘Chapter 1′ is available to download as 320kbps MP3s or you can visit Enos’ Band Camp page and download the tracks as FLAC, WAVs or any other format that takes your fancy.
To keep up to date with everything to do with Enos (band and comic) make sure you check out their Myspace, Facebook and Twitter.
And finally. We’ve no put out our first mix tape, Black is Thee New Black, which features twenty three tracks spread across two ‘sides’. Black is Thee New Black comes as 320kpbs MP3s and, as with everything from Thee Big Black is completely free to download. Just follow this link for more information and to download your free copy.
So, as you can see we’ve been keeping busy. We’re currently working on getting our next compilation put together and will, hopefully, be bringing you a lot more free downloads in the coming months.
As always make sure you head over to our forum and let us know about any projects you may have on the go. And don’t forget that you can now keep up to date with all things Thee Big Black via our Myspace,Facebook and Twitter.
I’ve noticed a bit of a worrying trend of late, there seems to have been a sudden increase in venue closures, or at least there has been down here in ol’ Brighton town. Now I can only speak for Brighton (and I will) but I’m fairly sure that these aren’t isolated incidents. Gig turn out in the UK has been on the decline for a while now, or at least it appears that way to me, and although not all of the venue closures in Brighton have been down to poor turn out alone (shockingly bad management, scene politics and the council have all played their parts in this little drama) it has no doubt got at least something to do with it.
All of this has got my frazzled grey matter creaking and there’s a couple of issues that I think deserve to be brought up. I’m no expert of licensing and health and safety laws (but since when has that stopped anyone from getting their penny’s worth?) but one of the most striking issues seems to be the incredible one-sidedness of the noise abatement laws. The most recent venue to fall by the wayside is the live music institution that is The Freebutt (go on, get it out of your system now) Some of you may have heard of this place, some of you may have even played there; The Freebutt has played host to a lot of bands over the past twenty odd years who have gone on to enjoy a decent amount of fame, the more indie orientated among you might be interested to know The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs played their first UK gig here and Guy McKnight of The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster was a barman there for a number of years. It’s The Freebutt and the venues like it (most of which have now gone) that made Brighton such a vibrant place to be and despite the recent refit leading to many cries of “it aint what it was in my day, Sonny” from the older gig goers the ‘butt was still an important landmark on Brighton’s cultural landscape.
So anyhoo . . . a lovely estate was built around this long standing venue a few years ago and as you would expect the residents started complaining about the noise that they were both shocked and horrified was coming from the venue they had just moved next to, so to be fair this hasn’t exactly come out of the blue. One persistent compliant has led to the place changing hands a couple of times in recent years which has in turn led to the council turning the “well, they knew the venue was there when they moved in” argument on it’s head and using it against the new owners, “well, you knew there was a noise abatement in place when you took the venue on.” What now? Well, The Freebutt have had their limiter (that’s a thing that turns the electrics off once the noise goes over a certain level) reset to 94 decibels. To give you some idea that’s roughly 4 decibels louder than a domestic food blender, I could trip that with a good shout! The venue state that it was previously set to 105 decibels but to be fair I get the distinct impression that it either wasn’t working or it had been bypassed. This means they can’t have anything that involves drum kits or amplified instruments, effectively shutting the venue down without physically shutting it down. Score one to the council.
Nothing particularly new or surprising there, since the 2003 licensing laws came into effect this is a story that folks all across the UK will be familiar with. However, this particular example gets interesting when you scratch the surface and look at the wider picture… The guys at The Freebutt (never gets old does it?) ran an online petition that, to date, has been signed by 4,752 people and as a result of no longer being able to put on live music The Freebutt’s management claim to have been forced to make 14 members of staff redundant, here’s their full press release, it makes for some interesting, if a little biased, reading. Now there’s two sides to every story and as the council have pointed out in their press release a peaceful home is sacrosanct, but it does seem that the wishes of one person have been put before the wishes of nearly 5,000 others and has resulted in 14 people being left unemployed in the middle of one of the worst economic crises to hit the western world ever! It’s interesting to note that The Green Party were voted into parliament in Brighton with 16,238 votes, the amount of names on The Freebutt’s petition is creeping close to a quarter of that. (*edit* I’ve actually just realised that the number of names on the petition is actually way over a quarter of the votes The Greens gained in the general election!)
“So what? I don’t live in Brighton” I hear you say. Well, what this proves is that one persistent and determined complainant can effectively shut down a venue against the wishes of the wider community, and these laws are in effect across the UK. The more sceptical among you might suggest that once a venue closes down the surrounding house prices go up and so as a direct result does the council tax, I wouldn’t know about that, I’m sure that all councils have the best interests of it’s beloved citizens at the fore of all their decisions. The fact is that with falling record sales (yes it’s that old “downloads took our juuuurbs!” spectre again) ever increasing alcohol duty, the proposed increase in PRS fees, higher cost of living, ticket touts and the million other portents of doom that are looming on the horizon music in the UK can ill afford this rather hefty nail in it’s already sturdy coffin. Brighton has started to become the feeding ground of dodgy pay to play (boo!) and battle of the bands type promoters (hiss!). Take that as a warning, as more independent venues close the easier the pickings will become for these musical scavengers.
I don’t have a solution to this, I’m just pointing out a rather glaring issue, all I can suggest is to not sit idly by and watch live music die under a swath of red tape, maybe write to your MP, knock up a witty t-shirt or even better get off your arses, go to the gigs and prove how important live music is. Yeah do that, that might help.
Here it is, the first ever mix tape from Thee Big Black!! We have compiled a selection of some of the best underground artists for you to download completely free of charge, just follow the link. Black is Thee New Black Vol 1 comes in two parts due to the size of the folders (side 1 is 100.65MB and side 2 is 149.63MB) which we have also compressed (the same as the zine issues), the download may take a while but we think that you’ll agree that it is well worth it.
We think that the 23 tracks on the compilation cover a pretty good cross section of what is happening in the underground at the moment, there is everything from 70s inspired fuzz rock, old school doom, black metal, gothic doom, hardcore and more. We had so many submissions that we weren’t able to include on volume 1 that we are already planing volume 2, keep an eye out for that.
As always make sure you keep an eye on our Myspace, Facebook and Twitter pages for regular updates and news. Don’t forget to sign up to our forum where you can let us know about your bands/projects or just join the discussion.
Seeing as how popular our last new releases/free downloads post was we figured that we should make it a regular thing. So here’s our latest post in what should hopefully be a regular thing.
Doomanoid Records are repressing Italian ‘doom ‘n’ rollers’ Misty Morning’s“Martin Pope” due to demand, the first pressing has now sold out, so it would be worth getting hold of a copy from this pressing before that sells out as well. French drone actMHONOS’s debut forty minute EP is getting it’s UK release through Doomanoid, this is being released as a limited run of just one hundred individually numbered CDs. “The Sleeping Wizard” by Groan is a seven track slab of 70s inspired doom-rock and will be seeing the light of day in August. And finally from Doomanoid comes “Planet Doom Vol 2″, the second compilation in what is turning into a series that is well worth keeping an eye on. “Planet Doom Vol 2″ features tracks from Stonehelm, Dirt Communion, General, Grimpen Mire, exclusive tracks from Iron Void and Groan plus more. On top of that the compilation features exclusive artwork from underground UK artist The Perverted old Goatess.
Fuzztown Records are releasing When The Deadbolt Breaks’double CD “The Last Days of Sun”. This is the first release from Fuzztown Records and to celebrate their launch they are offering “The Last Days Of Sun” as a free download from their site.
Total Rust Music are now taking pre-orders for the latest offering from Highgate. “Shrines of the Warhead” promises to offer up almost forty five minutes of dark, heavy and oppressive ‘crusty/black-doom’ and is apparently the heaviest release from the band so far. “Shrines of the Warhead” by Highgate is set for release on July 13th and is priced at $13 including shipping. Total Rust are also releasing Desorden Y Rencor which is the second release from Spanish sludge/doom outfit Lords Of Bukkake. Desorden y Rencor is described by Total Rust as . . .
“40 minutes of sickening slow motion Sludge/DOOM filled with dirty riffs, greasy feedbacks, high-pitched nuts vocals and lots of effects and electronics in the background. Extremely heavy, psychedelic and noisier / weirder than any of their previous material. Think Iron Monkey meets Swans meets Grief meets Godflesh meets Esoteric meetsEyehategodand you are still not even close!”
Sounds good to us!! Desorden y Rencor by Lords Of Bukkake will be released on July 13th priced $14 including shipping and is available for pre-order.
Euphonious Records are re-releasing the first three Saturnus albums, “Paradise Belongs to You”, “For the Loveless Lonely Night” and “Martyre” on July 19th, all three albums are being released as digi-pac CDs. The band’s debut “Paradise Belongs to You” comes with the addition of a bonus CD featuring the band’s set from the Roskilde Festival in 1997, whereas “For the Loveless Lonely Night” and Martyre both feature two bonus tracks each.
Barren Meadows Recordings are currently offering a number of releases from various artists for free download in the ‘media’ section of their site. Currently on offer are . . .
Cephalophore – “Bacteriophage EP” (ambient/noise/industrial) The Mourning Dimension - “Is Opening” and “Shadows Creeping Across The Mind” (horrorscape/ambient/drone) Phelicia’s Entrails – s/t (grind) Hguols – “Reaver of Souls” single (MIDI black metal)
Australian doom metal types Rote Mare are releasing their latest twenty minute EP “Sorrows Path” in early July. The pressing is limited to five hundred records and will be available from the band’s website price $8(Aus) + postage. Check out Rote Mare’s website and Myspace to hear tracks from “Sorrows Path”.
And here’s a few links to some other free downloads that you’ll want to get yer mits on . . .
South coast 70s rockers Grifter have now released their first EP “High Unholy Mighty Rollin’” for free download, just follow this link. ‘Apocalyptic doom’ outfit Rigor Sardonicous now have a live recording from their ’09 show at University Cafe, Stony Brook NY, available for free on their website. Irish trad-doomsters Brigantia are now offering their most recent demo (expect a review in Thee Big Black soon) for free download from Rapidshare. Sludge/doom monsters Mother Susurrus from Finland are offering their self-titled EP for download from their site in a number of formats including MP3, FLAC and M4A. You can now download Russian psychedelic doom sorts The Moon Mistress’ demo here. Hesper Payne latest album will be available for free download from the band’s website as of the July 1st, head over to the their Myspace to check out tracks from the forthcoming album.
As regular visitors to Thee Big Black Towers will know we’re having a bit of a tidy up and a general catch up, that means going one whole month without a copy of Thee Big Black to peruse (check this link for more info) and we figured that we should probably make it up to you somehow.
We’ve been knocking around the idea of doing a ‘mix-tape’, the traditional way of showing affection in music geek circles, for ages. As putting together an actual tape would be a right royal pain in the arse (even though they seem to be making a bit of a comeback in the underground. Can someone explain that please, they were rubbish!) we decided that we would do the next best thing and compile a load of MP3s and put them together in one handy package for you to download free, yes FREE!
Anyway, this means we need bands to get in touch and submit a track or two to be included on our ‘mix-tape’. If this sounds like the sort of thing you might be interested in then get in touch via either our Myspace or our forum. But, as always with these things, there’s a couple of rules.
1) Make sure that you own the rights to any music you want to submit and that all members of your band are happy for you to submit the tracks.
2) This should be obvious but . . . no cover versions. You might do a blinding version of Sabbath’s Children Of The Grave but unless you’re Tony Iommi don’t send it to us, his lawyers are mighty!
3) Get us the highest quality tracks you can. Tracks that have been run through the Myspace player shitifier will sound proper poo.
4) All submissions for the first compilation should be with us by Sunday June 27th
We are planning to make this a regular thing and, fingers crossed, you should be seeing the first Thee Big Black compilation in early July, so if you don’t make it on to the first ‘mix-tape’ there’s always a later one. And finally, we do aim to reply to everyone but sometimes it can take a while, we get a lot of mail!!
Former Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork is set to play a number of shows around the UK next month supporting his latest album Gods & Goddesses. These shows are being promoted by Desertscene.co.uk and feature some of the best UK bands as support. On top of that there is also an after show party and Camden Rock after the London show. Tickets are available now from Ticket Web.
Be the envy of all your friends and grab one of these sexy banners and spread the love . . .
If you have a website and would be interested in a link swap then get in touch, we’re a sociable bunch really. You can contact us via our Myspace or on our forum.
