Trackside Productions

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Trackside Zachary, LA

It’s amazing how when I was in high school in the 80′s, it was virtually impossible to do a decent home demo tape unless you had the bucks to buy a TASCAM or other 4-track tape recorder.  Even then, unless you mastered the art of bouncing tracks and mixing properly, you wound up with usually a muddy mess of sound that didn’t properly represent the song you were hearing in your head.

My how times have changed.   My son has been promoting young artists in his school and community, from acoustic to hip-hop, under the name Trackside Productions and it’s amazing what people as young as high school age can do in home studios these days.  Check out the Trackside Productions website and sample music from their artists including Aaron Day, Crisis, Tweezy, Pluto and more.

Visit Trackside Productions website.

Electric Love Hogs – Electric Love Hogs

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Electric Love Hogs   1992 London Records

One of my favorite things about the early-mid 1990′s (when alternative was struggling to find its identity) is albums like this. Albums that exist outside of trends and manage to sound like they were created in a vacuum. Influences are abound and evident, yet the music and album sound fresh and quite original.

Mind Bomb, Nudeswirl and others come to mind. Bands that released one, maybe two albums and kinda disappeared…and the one or two albums they left are timeless and arguably classics. Once you hear how excellent and, in some cases, innovative the music is, it becomes all too evident that the marketing department at said band’s label just had no clue what to do with the finished “product.”

In the case of Electric Love Hogs, in my not-so-humble opinion, they were just too real and just too good to fit in with the then in-vogue hair metal bands.  Problem was that they were also just a tad too accessible to be embraced by the alternative/grunge collective.

Too bad for both, as this debut album (their only output that I’m aware of) is just alive with cool riffs and licks.  Tribal Monkey kicks off the proceedings with a capital PARTAAAY and shows two guitarists juiced and primed to kick some ass.  Lead throat John Feldmann sounds great when using his normal range but can grate at times when he does the fortunately-only-occasional scratchy helium squeal.

Mr. Fun, I Feel Like Steve (great title), Keep Getting Up and the almost-Metallica The Fix are just a few highlights from what is a really fun album.  The twin-guitar solo work on the latter just levels the place.  Just Another Day  closes out the album in fine schizophrenic fashion with both successful and failed experimentation that once again wins with conviction.

Making this even more cool is the “Where Are They Now” with regard to Electric Love Hogs.  Check out their Wikipedia page and read about their close ties to Goldfinger, Orgy, Handsome, Lit, Sugartooth and the Sons of Anarchy show.

There are a few letdowns in terms of hooks on a slight few tunes, Pud in particular cramming in way too many pointless changes and even more intelligence-insulting lyrics.  But there’s never a letdown in energy, and the guitars on the weaker songs still shred.  Totally committed performances, just enough cool fwap bass, and (to quote my fave music journalist of all time, Martin Popoff) absolutely paint stripping axework.

Rating:  4 out of 5
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Which Bands Should Have Been Bigger Than They Were?

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(Note from Moosejuice:  It’s really cool sometimes to find out from other writers who they think are the best unknown or overlooked bands.  Robert here came up with some really good ones.)

The history of the music industry is littered with bands that looked as if they had everything in their proverbial locker, but never really made it big.

How do we define making it big?

For the purposes of this argument, we’ll look at selling out stadiums on world tours, having albums that went multi-platinum, and just the general sound that a band produced.

Which bands should have been bigger than they were, and what got in their way?

Super Furry Animals

It is perhaps easy to identify where it all went wrong for this Welsh group, as they started out in 1993 just as the likes of Pulp, Suede, Oasis and Blur were riding the crest of the ‘Britpop’ wave that many who were growing up in that era still cling to today.

A lot of their work was critically acclaimed, too, it just happened to be the case that a lot of bands were releasing five-star rock and roll at the time, and someone had to miss out.

Still, the Super Furry Animals maintain something of a cult following around the world to this day, although they tend to make their living from being a ‘recognized name’ support act rather than headliners in their own right.

The Music

The Music’s problems could easily be seen as similar to those of the previous band. Although their brand of alternative rock was fresh, snappy, and great to listen to, they suffered from the likes of Muse and Coldplay emerging in the UK at the turn of the century.

Elsewhere around the world, the emergence of the Foo Fighters as global stars, a reborn Green Day, and a questionable liking of American ‘nu-metal’ meant that there weren’t many places left for them to go.

They still got three great albums into their career and played some great venues as support for top bands, but there’ll always be the feeling they should have been a main headline act themselves.

The Darkness

Don’t get us wrong, The Darkness did well, but after bursting onto the scene with frontman Justin Hawkins’ staggering falsetto voice in late 2002, world domination seemed to beckon.

What followed was a string of controversies and an ill-advised attempt by Hawkins himself to become the UK representative for the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago. The band split, reconciled, and are now touring and recording once again, but there aren’t any grand proclamations over how far they’re going to go this time.

The Hives

The Swedish rockers have had cult success around the world, and have some of the most definitive, instantly recognizable songs of the last fifteen years.

Truth be told, that is probably the way they would have wanted it to be – nothing about the band has ever screamed ‘mainstream’ – but there is no doubt that they could have been a dominant musical force in another time.

Why didn’t it happen for them? It is hard to day, but perhaps the biggest reason has been the number of bands trying new sounds and ideas in recent years.

What do you think? Should these bands have been bigger, or did they find their level where they belong?

Robert is an online content writer with a passion for the music industry, and has been inspired by some of the bands listed to the extent that he started to learn guitar online for himself, although it remains to be seen whether he’ll ever make it big!

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Nocturne

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Nocturne live albums  1983 Geffen Records

I can still remember getting this album as a senior in high school at Paradise Records and Tapes in Baton Rouge, LA just off the LSU campus.  Paradise isn’t there any more, but man do I have a lot of great memories of that place, from going in every Tuesday to check out the new releases (mainly metal) to store owner (and all ’round good dude) Sam Irwin tolerating me playing some metal albums on the store sound system when I worked there.

This album is my very first memory from there and I still laugh when I think about it.  Being a metalhead and rockhead, I was more than unfamiliar with Siouxsie and the Banshees other than their name at that time.  When I walked in the store, I heard a song playing that sounded to me like a live Robert Plant recording and asked the store clerk if that was a new Robert Plant live album.

Yep.

The fact that she didn’t laugh hysterically at the question is a minor miracle, but hey I was a senior in high school and wasn’t well versed in very much music outside of my beloved heavy metal and classic rock.  And she was quite pretty…I believe her name was Eileen Vicknair…and she was very nice when she told me that it wasn’t Robert Plant, but rather a woman named Siouxsie Sioux.  For the life of me, when I listen to the album today I don’t know how the hell I thought it was Robert Plant singing.

The song was Night Shift and the album was Nocturne, their double live album.   It wasn’t until several years later that I could begin to appreciate the album as a whole rather than just a handful of songs.  With each passing year it sounds better and better and I have to rate it as one of my favorite live albums of all time.   Very few live recordings can create a mood the way this one does.  Absolutely engaging and at times spine chilling.

This is Siouxsie and the Banshees at their goth best, all songs sounding better with a totally committed live treatment.  Drummer Budgie steals the show at times (especially on the concert video) with his adroit and ambidextrious creation of rhythm, while Robert Smith of the Cure uses his guitar for color, shade, texture and overall mood.  A bass, drums, guitar trio of sound unlike much of what you’ve ever heard, this is pure classic from opener Israel to Melt!, Painted Bird, Cascade, Sin In My Heart, the aforementioned Night Shift…I could name them all.  Even more cool is the inclusion of Pulled to Bits, a track which is actually debuted here live.  Why don’t bands do that anymore?

If you want a live album that actually takes you somewhere and makes the mood real, you’ll be hard pressed to find one better than this.  Criminally overlooked and vital listening!

Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Download Nocturne here

Buy Nocturne CD here

Congrats Clutch For Breaking Your Own Record

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2013 band pic for Clutch, part of their promotion for the Earth Rocker CD

All I can really say is congratulations to my fave band on Earth, Clutch, for breaking their own record with the release of Earth Rocker last month.

In case you weren’t aware, Clutch set a record back in 2009 with their Strange Cousins From The West CD, which became the first totally independently recorded and released album to chart in the Top 40 of the Billboard 200 Albums chart (chart peak position: 38).  Earth Rocker shattered this record by entering the chart at #15…getting glowing reviews from all over the place certainly hasn’t hurt, either.

Couldn’t happen to a better band, and if you haven’t heard the music, you’re missing out.  Check it out and/or buy it here.

 

Indie Artists Can Release Music On A Very Limited Budget

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(Note from MooseJuice:  This is a guest post with some nice info for any aspiring bands wanting to do it in true DIY style. A lot of the bands here in the Sonic Abyss didn’t have the technical resources back in the day, though many of them are still able to live the dream because of it.  Our guest writer’s info is at the bottom of the article)

When musicians used to dream about being signed to a label, it was partially because it meant that they could record, advertise and sell their albums with a huge budget behind them. For indie artists, getting noticed has always been a challenge. Playing in underground clubs, by definition, doesn’t reach a large audience and having to sell your albums alongside major releases with huge promotional budgets was oftentimes futile.

Things have changed.

Recording Does Not Have to Be Expensive

There are two things about modern music that have made recording professional quality albums possible without a large studio facility. First, many of the instruments used in modern music are electronic and that means that there is no actual recording that needs to be done in the traditional sense. You don’t have to worry about mic placement when you’re using a DAW. Second, many of the tools that musicians need to record are very affordable, leading to them being in the hands of musicians around the world and freeing up the means of production to the masses.

You can record a professional-quality album, but remember that a budget still does count. The advantage that musicians have today is that they can at least record and album that showcases their music in a way that makes it sound great instead of relying on very low-fi recordings to try to get noticed. The tools are out there and many of them are even free.

Distribution Is Easier

If you were an indie musician a decade or more ago, distributing your albums would have been very tough. For those who produced their own music, it sometimes meant going to every record store in town and putting the albums on consignment. While this could move a few discs here and there, it was unlikely to really get anyone noticed unless they were very lucky.

Digital distribution changed all that. Because music can be distributed on many different sites, there is a worldwide audience for just about everything. If you were an indie band in Cincinnati in 1999, the chances of you ever selling an EP in England were directly related to your ability to get CDs in British stores. Today, these boundaries really mean nothing, but make sure you get with a good distribution site. Not all of them are particularly high traffic. You can check out which ones get the most traffic on Alexa to get an idea of what sites are worth working with.

Preorders Minimize Risk

If you’re trying to sell music in CD format, you’re likely wondering how many you should order. There’s actually a better way to go about ordering your CDs: wait until someone commits to buying them.

Before your release, start promoting your album and make it available for preorder. If you want to purchase a small quantity—100, for instance—you can fund some of that purchase with your preorder sales and cut down the amount of risk you’re taking printing up CDs.

Remember the Playing Field

The playing field is much more level today than it was in the past. Indie artists have tools to promote themselves that have changed the musical landscape. If you manage your money intelligently, put the time into making a good product and make sure it’s available in as many places as possible, you’re likely to find out that you can get your music out there and have a real chance at breaking into the big time without signing a record contract with anyone.

Mark of Soundista.com offers tips and information on music production, download loops, download sound and more.

New Amorphis Album “Circle” Next Month

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Our fave Finnish progressive folk metalists Amorphis are back in late April with Circle, the follow-up to 2011′s solid but somewhat anti-climactic The Beginning of Time.

Circle has already been described as a concept(?) album based on an original story, marking the first time in Amorphis’ 20 year career that they have not based an album’s worth of songs on the Finnish national epic poem The Kalevala.

The first track is Hopeless Days, which you can sample for yourself right here.  Initial reviews I’ve read of the album basically describe it as not breaking any new ground and have given it middling-to-upper middle grades.  Amorphis is in possession of a sound and concept that is all their own, and I’m okay with them not breaking new ground since they broke major ground in their early days honing their sound.

Production on the new album from Hyprocrisy’s Petr Tagtgren roughens up some of the polished edges quite nicely here, though.  Enjoy Abysmally…

 

Clutch – Earth Rocker

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clutchearthrockercover

 

 

 

 

2013 Weathermaker Music

I remember that fateful day in late 2002 when I walked into Iko’s Music in York, PA and saw a copy of Clutch’s most recent CD Pure Rock Fury, along with their Impetus EP.  I had lost track of Clutch and many of my favorite bands in the late 1990′s and the turn of the millennium, whatwith being consumed by a depressing and dismal marriage, and was immediately blown away by Pure Rock Fury when I listened to it on headphones in the store.  Neil Fallon’s intelligent and often humorous wordsmithing also brought some much-needed smile action to my face as well.

Needless to say, I bought the disc and have been a Clutch homer ever since.

Pure Rock Fury marked a decided upping of the ante in terms of focus and energy, and it was the beginning of a string of 4 straight studio albums that I would personally put up against any string of 4 albums by any rock band in history:  the aforementioned album, Blast Tyrant’s Atlas of the Invisible World Including Illustrations of Strange Beasts and Phantoms, Robot Hive/Exodus and From Beale Street To Oblivion.  As much as I was anxiously awaiting 2009′s Strange Cousins From The West, it was ultimately a disappointing album missing many of the deep and long-lasting hooks of previous works.  I could only hope that their next album would be a kickin’ return to form.

Needless to say, it is.

Earth Rocker will undoubtedly draw comparisons to 2004′s classic Blast Tyrant’s Atlas of the Invisible World Including Illustrations of Strange Beasts and Phantoms, as producer Machine is back with his latest mix guaranteed to lay waste to your sorry woofers.  I would call this new collection of tunes a melding of the very best elements of Pure Rock Fury and Blast Tyrant as only Gone Cold lightens up on the throttle, creating the same moody vibe as The Regulator.  Hooks and energy come flying at you relentlessly, as the rather silly chorus of the title track wins you over with conviction guitar power.  Speaking of hooks and riffs, everything that was missing on Strange Cousins has been found…and found in spades.

Earth Rocker and Crucial Velocity kick the album off in unrestrained fashion much the way You Can’t Stop Progress and Power Player kicked off the Beale Street album, albeit with more power from Machine’s white-hot mix.  Then we’re on to what is my initial favorite tune, Mr. Freedom, which finds the good Rev. Fallon back in a venomous wordsmithing form that stretches over the remainder of the album.

DC Sound Attack! has a groove that just cannot be stopped while Unto the Breach, Cyborg Bette and Oh, Isabella are other highlights of both groove and hooks.  The guitar sound is sharp, the riffs are quite intoxicating, Neil Fallon is commanding the mic and rock’s greatest rhythm section of Dan Maines and Jean-Paul (The Master) Gaster groove in the deepest of pockets.

Final verdict?  Nary a duff track to be found.  This is Clutch back in classic form and Earth Rocker stands easily next to the very best of Clutch’s incredible catalogue of music.  Blast Tyrant still stands as my fave Clutch album, but after 10 listens already Earth Rocker could be my favorite Clutch album on any given day.

Rock and roll isn’t dead.  Rock and roll is back…and it’s name is Clutch.

Rating:  5 out of 5

Buy Earth Rocker full CD          Download Earth Rocker full disc as MP3

Are You An Earth Rocker? New Clutch Is Coming…

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Ladies and gents, it’s almost time for the greatest rock band of the 21st century to unleash their new CD, “Earth Rocker,” on the world.  From the sounds that Clutch has so kindly allowed to leak via YouTube and the Earth Rocker website, the new disc is going to be a welcome return to form after the somewhat disappointing (but still pretty good) Strange Cousins From The West in 2010.

Check out the lead track “Earth Rocker” and enjoy samples from the entire album in the second video.  2013 (The First Year Of The Rest Of Our Lives) is gonna be a good one for our fave earth rockers!

 

10 Most Truly Abysmal Albums of 2012

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And here we have it, ladies and gents…in what was allegedly the last year of our lives on this earth, these bands came through with new albums recorded as if they would be their last musical statements on this earth.  Lucky us.  While my 10 Most Truly Abysmal Albums lists are always in no particular order, I usually have one favorite that manages to make its way to the top and this year is no exception.

This year’s list is alphabetical, save for the aforementioned personal favorite, and this year my Album of the Year honor goes to…

Toadies – Play.Rock.Music:  With an album title as in-your-face as Play.Rock.Music., the contents had better be stellar.  And boy are they ever.  In a year delightfully littered with some truly Abysmal releases, Play.Rock.Music. is my fave rave of the year as it has received more play time on both my car and home stereos than any other 2012 release and threatens to displace somebody on the list of all-time Truly Abysmal albums.  If the energy and hooks on this disc don’t grab you and have you reaching for your favorite air-guitar, you probably don’t have a pulse.  I offer no apologies for my hysterical praise…this album is truly that great.  Chorus of the Year honors most certainly go to Magic Bullet, a song that would have been a monster hit if all was right with the world.

And now, in alphabetical order, the Most Truly Abysmal Albums of 2012…all of which should find their way into your personal collection.  Enjoy Abysmally…

Akphaezya – Anthology IV:  Well, 2012 started off really well for Abysmal music when I received this absolute gem of an album from French avante-garde rock/prog/metal band Akphaezya.   The song “Nemesis” is truly something you’ve never heard before and the album courts progressive metal and tuneful hard rock with a gift for melody and deftness of hook that marks this band as something special and this album as one you will want to pay repeated visits to.

Anthrax – Worship Music:  Not quite the headstomping return to form I was hoping for, but it’s close.  It still ain’t “Among the Living,” but I’d have to be a real ass to stick to comparisons like that.  It’s so cool to hear the classic lineup back together again and sounding so juiced.  Best disc (by this lineup) since “Among the Living” by FAR!  Thank you, Anthrax:)  And The Devil You Know just flat out kicks.

Creature Creature – Life and Lust:  You might recognize lead throat Morrie from my 10 Most Truly Abysmal Vocalists list.  It really says a lot about a singer when they’re so passionate and emotive that you truly don’t care that you don’t understand a single word sung in native Japanese.  He was awesome with Dead End and this album shows that he’s not just a singer…he’s a powerful influence on his band.  And the band ain’t no slouches, either.

Dead Can Dance – Anastasis:  There’s just something reassuring about the fact that the DCD duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard are still making music after all these years.  While I can’t say Anastasis is necessarily their best work (I’m still partial to Into the Labyrinth and the splendid live recording Toward the Within), it is a more than worthy addition to their mind-expanding catalogue of music and another fine example of the duo proving they can take the concept of world music to other worlds indeed.

The Fixx – Beautiful Friction:  You know, I always had a soft spot in my heart for The Fixx, for while many of their “new wave” contemporaries in the early – mid 1980′s (that they were unjustly lumped in with) offered little beyond the odd one-off hit and the even more odd new wave haircut, The Fixx were way deeper than most people realized.  Cy Curnin’s darkly romantic and soul searching musings were perfectly expressed with his distinct voice and a deceptively talented band.  All these years later, they’re making music that is both true to their original style and a logical modern expansion of it.  Beautiful Friction, Small Thoughts, Shaman, Take a Risk and Girl With No Ceiling (my personal fave) showcase a band that doesn’t give a damn that the masses aren’t listening like they were in 1984.  They damn well should be, as these 5 songs are but a sampling of an album that makes it perfectly clear that The Fixx are no 80′s guilty pleasure.  And did I mention Follow That Cab?  Hell, there’s not a duff track on the whole stinkin’ disc.  Criminally underrated…and thank God they’re still making music.

Georgie LeHoop – Have You Ever Heard A Painting?:  OK…this was released about 3 years ago and you’ve probably not heard of it, but dammit this is one of the coolest concepts I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. I met Georgie at the Mt. Gretna Arts Festival this past summer and saw his amazing paintings, made all the more terminally cool by the fact that he paints by playing drums on stretched canvas with sticks dipped in paint.  Amazing to see and a very meditative and calming listen.  Don’t worry, these paintings-that-would-be-songs don’t overstate their point and Georgie gracefully redefines the term multi-media with this release.  Get the full scoop here.

Lamb of God – Resolution:  First of all, it’s Lamb of God.  They’ve got their “thang,” they’re awesome at it and you either love it or you don’t.  Ain’t no mere “liking” here.  I love it.  Second of all, it’s Lamb of God.

Lacuna Coil – Dark Adrenaline:  A storming return to form for this proud (and rightfully so!) goth metal franchise after 2009′s solid but unspectacular Shallow Life.  Christina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro’s vocal yin-yang chemistry is powerful and moving, and the music sounds hooky, strong, dark and inspired.

Mars Volta – Noctourniquet:  I have to admit that I’m still fairly new to the mesmerizing freakshow that is The Mars Volta.  On first listen to Noctourniquet, I wasn’t sure what to think.  Upon second listen, the schizophrenic hooks began to take hold and I thought I was starting to “get it.”  I love these kinds of albums.  The ones that don’t necessarily grab you with the first listen but rather beckon you for a second listen…where you realize there’s MUCH more going on that what you could ever absorb in one mere listen.  A truly unique, talented and gleefully Abysmal band.

Meshuggah – Koloss:  An album of gargantuan power, intensity and inimitable groove, this has been my music of choice while doing my geekwork by day.  Probably my album of the year if not for Toadies, as it takes everything I love about 1995′s Chaosphere and combines it successfully and profoundly with the vomiting groove of their Catch-Thirty-Three era for the first time.

The Cult – Choice of Weapon:  A nice return to form for one of my fave bands…fave despite their sometimes spotty output.  Every bit as good as Beyond Good And Evil, this one finds Ian Astbury, Billy Duffy and Co. cranking out some excellent tunes with some real fire and passion again.  Really faith-restoring after the embarrassing WTF shamefest that was Born Into Shit Born Into This a few years back.

The Sword – Apocryphon:  Dr. Chadrock introduced me to The Sword just a few months before Warp Riders was released back in 2010.  Apocryphon is just epic from start to finish and offers some surprises like the video game-like keyboard intro to the title track, which might be my fave tune here because of what happens after said intro.  This is the living, breathing classic I so badly wanted Warp Riders to be, and an ethereally gleeful melding of the heavy and the melodic with a curious scent of incense

Testament – Dark Roots of Earth:  I still maintain that while I hated most everything Metallica released during the 15 years of Bob Rock-produced albums (one exception is the Black Album…yes, I know, now leave me alone), Death Magnetic proved they benefited from the tighter songwriting skills they developed in the process.  Similarly, Testament has benefited from their experiences away from the band, allowing them to return more creative and juiced than ever…just enjoying making kickass music together again.  Whereas 2008′s Formation of Damnation was a most welcome return to form, Dark Roots of Earth proves that this most underrated of metal entities is undoubtedly far from finished and more than capable of producing a stone cold metal classic.  And damn if Skolnick and Peterson don’t deserve mention in the same breath as the finest rock guitar duos of all time.

Honorable Mention:

Candlemass – Psalms for the Dead:  You either love ‘em or you don’t.  I do…when I’ve had a bad day and there’s no beer in the fridge.

Holograms – Holograms:  You really have to hear this one.  It’s out there in a cool way.

The Whigs – Enjoy the Company:  Hey, it’s The Whigs…a fine disc, but not quite the standout I was expecting.

Fear Factory – The Industrialist:  As with The Whigs, Fear Factory 2012 doesn’t disappoint in the least…it’s just not quite Abysmal enough.

Feeder – Generation Freakshow:  As with The Whigs and Fear Factory…well, you know.  I’m just glad these guys are still making mighty fine tunes.

Melvins – Freak Puke:  You just gotta love Melvins.  OK…I just gotta love Melvins.  There’s no one else quite like them.  They’re known for being the “Godfathers of Grunge” but they’ve influenced so many genres of heavy rock that it boggles the mind.  This is yet another example of the twisted genius of King Buzzo and crew.  Melvins are a band that can successfully surprise and confound even a longtime fan like me, and I love them for it.

Public Image Ltd. – This Is PIL:  Because John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon would probably hunt me down and kick my ass just for the hell of it if I didn’t include the new PIL disc here.  Fact is, if you like PIL, you’ll dig this one.  I do.

Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror:  I’m not normally a fan of this style, but damn if Sleigh Bells doesn’t bring back the excitement I felt when I first heard Curve.  At-times-abrasive noise with Alexis Krauss’ voice as the perfect foil.

Tiamat – The Scarred People:  Listen, we’ll probably never see another Sisters of Mercy album, so it’s just fine with me that Tiamat continues to release music with the dark waft of Sisters smoke about it.  And they do an excellent job of it…entirely their own band,  yet majorly filling a void mostly due to Johan Edlund’s Eldritchesque vocal leanings.  Their best effort since 1997′s A Deeper Kind of Slumber.