Hello babies!
It's been a while, no?
Let's catch y'all up.
About two weeks ago myself and members of Giggle The Ozone, Pet Bottle Ningen, Ugh God, and others found ourselves in a warehouse studio in Philly, recording for the third Hybegnu release.
If you haven't checked out our first offering (which doesn't feature me) and our second (which does) you can grab them at our Bandcamp page for free (or money, if you want to donate to the Hybegnu coffers.)
Prior to that, I had been doing some really infrequent shows. Did a c@ show in Salem, MA and played Bubblegum Octopus sets around New Jersey. Last night I played at a fantastic house venue in Sussex, NJ, for the second time. The place is called Cigarette Hill On Anal Mountain. Despite the potentially off-putting name, the place is lovely, friendly, and enthusiastic. I was playing with Spreaders, Valerie Kuehne, and Joey Molinaro (who was doing electric violin and foot percussion renditions of Discordance Axis songs). By good fortune, the former vocalist of Discordance Axis, Jon Chang, a supreme idol of mine in the ways of extreme vocals and approach to album releases, happened to be in the audience. For me, that's quite a big deal. His voice has been the ideal sound of piercing screams, inhuman growling, and general vocal chaos for years >o<
Outside of that, I've been working with Jon of Ultra Death Men on the new Bubblegum Octopus LP, due out Fall/Winter of this year on Placenta Recordings. He will be playing drums (if you didn't already know) on about half of the tracks.
The album has taken a decidedly unusual turn, as far as Bubblegum Octopus material goes. In the process of trying to rework the album for live performance, I began playing more guitar on it. The result is a lot of super shoegazey and skramy parts, with equal parts Mukai Shutoku and Agata Ichirou, that somehow borders on accidental, transcendental psychedelia.
That, mixed with the heavy grooves and d-beats of the real drums, the freaked out, sputtering, glitchy breaks of the electronic tracks, the sometimes VGM, sometimes completely wacky synths, and my vocals has created something particularly unusual and "band"-like for the record.
It was a bit off-putting at first and I thought I was just going to scrap everything, but after rehearsing the songs in full form, I've found renewed confidence in what I'm doing with this. Jon's contributions are extremely valuable and integral.
As for Critters and Milquetoast, I'm leaving them on the back burner. I've foolishly begun writing yet another album in the past few months, but I am going to focus on splits and those two albums before I push that forward at all. I have splits lined up with Kool Skull, Kindergarten Hazing Ritual, Dingle, Watabou, Spreaders, and more and I need to get these things done!!
In future live performance news, I will be playing Ultra Mega Awesome Extreme 6 this Saturday, in Detroit. The line-up is downright sinister. If you're even remotely able to get to this, you really need to. I promise promise promise it will be worth it!
Then in May I'll be doing a really ramshackle tour just to get out of my comfort zone.
May 9th - Winston-Salem, NC - tba
May 10th - help needed for SC or GA
May 11th - Gainesville, FL - The Laboratory
May 12th - Panama City, FL - The A&M Theater
May 13th - I'll play whatever in FL!
May 14th - Orlando, FL - Uncle Lou's
May 15th - help needed for SC or GA
May 16th - Greensboro, NC - tba
May 17th/18th - help needed for SC or GA!!
May 19th - Philadelphia, PA - 8static @ The PhilaMOCA
In August I'll have a longer tour, covering the mid-west and Texas, that may actually feature the debut of a new, two-piece project, but I can't say anymore about that in case I jinx it.
For now, I'm out. I hope there are no obvious errors in this. I don't have the time to proof-read >_<
