We all thought that dinosaur's were wiped from this Earth for good. That there was no way we would see them co-exist with modern day music. Today marks the day where we may see them both in the same place. DJ Jeff "EXCISION" Abel has just recently announced the full line-up for the Lost Lands Festival. After weeks of teasing the line-up through numerous ambiguous cave drawings we are greeted with an official date as well as a full line-up. Music featuring Excision's infamous PARADOX STAGE topped off by 500,000 watts of pure bass. Dinosaur's roaming the festival grounds. Food galore with even a few options for the herbivores. Surprisingly even a music production class in the mix. Those are just a few examples of what is to come from the inaugural Lost Lands Festival. Lost Lands is set to vibrate on September 29th - October 1st at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio. Boasting headlining sets from Excision himself and the Canadian EDM duo Zeds Dead. 12th Planet, Cookie Monsta, Ephwurd, REZZ, Slander, Snails, Space Jesus, and Virtual Riot are among some of the DJ's that will be performing sets throughout the weekend. Catching everyone's eye is a DESTROID pseudo-reunion featuring Excision, DOWNLINK, and the drummer of PENDULUM [KJ Sawka]. They're one of those rare super groups to see and will be slotted for one day of the festival. It is still unsure which day the triple threat will be annihilating. Destroid was also the key teasing point for the fore-mentioned cave drawings creating quite a stir from Abel's fans also known as "Excision's HEADBANGERS." Also on the line-up for Lost Lands is a very special performance. Excision will be performing back-to-back with Datsik. Back-to-back usually refers to two or more DJs performing their best songs together. Both Datsik and Excision alone are completely capable of vibrating the entire festival grounds. Together they just might vibrate the whole state of Ohio. There will be camping available thanks to Legend Valley. General admission and R.V. camping sites will be set up across the way making it a short trip to the festival grounds. Car camping is $49USD and R.V. passes are available starting at $79USD. There will also be "The Dino Den" which is enhanced camping much closer to the stage. Passes for Dino Den camping vary in price ranging from $249-649USD. Tickets are on sale now starting at $139USD ($249 VIP) and can be purchased at: http://www.lostlandsfestival.com/tickets/
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A mix-tape of ferociously comprised lyrics divided among three emcees: Everlast, Sick Jacken, and Divine Styler. It seems as though after a few years of being back with House of Pain that Everlast has put away his guitar in exchange for raw and modernized lyrics. War Porn was produced by Divine Styler and adamantly displays the success of his multi-tasking. Between production and his contributions in the booth, Styler made this record sound utterly unique. Sick Jacken (known mainly for his work with The Psycho Realm) did not stray from bringing the heat to the tracks. Bars on bars carry each song flawlessly and with Jacken's tone and lyrics they add to the vibe of this album.
Basically anything produced with this quality could easily carry itself with no features. Yet we see a few features from big names such as Big Daddy Kane, Vinny Paz, B-Real, Gravity Christ, and Rakaa. The tracks fit each one of their flows as though they were stray puzzle pieces and landed right in the perfect place. "Keep Your Distance" contains Big Daddy Kane and is accompanied by a bouncy guitar riff for both him and the trio to obliterate lyrically. "Warporn Industry" includes B-Real of Cypress Hill fame re-uniting with his SOUL ASSASSIN family for an amazing track. Each track features a smooth instrumental that the trifecta of rappers endlessly slaughter. "Dazed and Confused" samples the Led Zeppelin song that shares the same title and contains lyrical themes depicting drug use...hence the dazed and confused aspect. It's hands down one of my favorite cuts that made the mix-tape. "Laviathon" combines lyrics with a bluesy riff complete with horns and organ chords. Strangely the perfect instrumental to associate Everlast with. War Porn reminds one of Everlast while he was alongside La Coka Nostra. The same level of intensity gets put on display yet the themes are essentially different. War Porn features more realistic and down to earth content and are not all relative to cocaine. It would have been mind-blowing to see a feature from one of the members of LCN like Slaine or Ill Bill. It seems as though Everlast is looking to branch out from working with who he had previously collaborated with in an attempt to switch things up and it seems to be working perfectly. Fresh off the release of his latest LP The Casket Factory, Blaze Ya Dead Homie is set to embark on a tour of the North Side. But before he departed I was approached with the opportunity of speaking with my favorite UN-dead rapper. Hey man is this Blaze? Yessir Well to start this off it's a new year, you've got a new album, you're working on a new label. What do you have in store for the fans of Blaze ya dead homie? Oh man we've got a bunch of stuff! I even have some new music I've been working on too. Another video set to drop soon as well. Hittin' the road for the Casket Factory tour. Going up to Canada for a couple weeks with my homies in Twiztid. A lot planned. Let us talk about The Casket Factory. Just dropped on the 15th [of January] so far I have heard nothing but praise. I've got a few favorites off of it. Immediately hooking me there is "Ghost" ft. Kung Fu Vampire and "Who You Lookin' For" with Boondox. Even ABK is on a track. Of course The r.o.c. I mean... it seems to be pretty stacked. That's whats up you know. I'm just trying to run with family and a lot of friends. Everyone who did something on this album definitely brought their own something to it. It rocked. I enjoyed working with everyone on it. Did it bring back any nostalgia working with your Psychopathic family? Oh for sure! We never had problems really. Me and Killa always been working and passing tracks. Since 'Dox first record with Psychopathic I've been doin' stuff with him. Never been beefin'. This time we did something new. Last album I did it with just a few people. kept it really short and simple. this time i tried to branch out and bring back some people. I noticed that you feature this new cat Lex the Hex Master on a song. Both of you share the same label as well. What did you think of bringing him onto the album? Oh man it was cool. He's a good dude. Cool ass ninja. He brings his own style, an East coast style. It was pretty fun. Do you have any personal favorite tracks on casket factory? Wow it's tough.. this is like probably the album I've listened to the most. I like a lot of music I've done. But this is the first copy of my CD that I bought! I really like "The Way U Look B4 U Die" and "ETERNAL " is the shit. A lot of cool tracks on there it makes it a tough choice. "2 Middle Fingers," a lot of cool shit "Ratchet," "Ghost." It was tough to give out these tracks too [as singles] because they kind of determine how the actual album will sound like. I really enjoy the song "Who U Lookin 4" with Boondox. That hook just gets my head bobbin every time man I really love it. then taking that into "UNBREAKBLE" keeps the CD running. I believe it was mixed properly. I'd love to compliment you on that flow. Hell yeah man, that's what's up . We had a lot of fun putting it together. We took it back. Had fun in the studio. Back to the days before psychopathic to the days during psychopathic. When we started making this record we just kind of went back to them times. We were cracking our heads together, bouncing ideas off each other, getting some beats on, started writing and that's what it was. We had a lot of fun gettin' high and makin' tracks. Is there a concept on this album? I mean... the clear concept here is: This is the casket factory... Come on in. Everybody's gonna be somewhere but there not at the end of the life. Whether you're gonna be visiting a spot where you're going to be burnt up or not. Or if you're going to be resting somewhere forever. There's always a final resting place... and this was mine. This is it... the casket factory. Where everybody's coming to rest. I remember you used to host The Coffin back on WFukoff. Yessir With the recent relaunch of Psychopathic Radio and Twiztid coming back to do Ashtrays and Action Figures as well as Wolfpac doing Variety Hour will there ever be a revival of the coffin ? Well I kind of moved it to Youtube. I started doing coffin updates and coffin breaks just there. It was kind of a place where I would take to rants. When I started doing the radio show and Twiztid started doing there radio show we kind of talked about it. We were kind of gonna do Ashtrays and Action Figures like how we used to do it where I'd come in there and kind of just roll with them. I haven't really talked about doing my own radio show yet. I've moved my show so far over though that if it comes back it will be a whole different show. I don't see it being The Coffin again but it will definitely be something else. "Who ready to ride or die for me? Time to welcome home the dead homie... dead homie." That is right! Blaze Ya Dead Homie has returned with his latest release The Casket Factory. The twelve track album was released January 15th and I haven't been able to stop listening to it. Each song brings it's own unique vibe to your speakers. Be it "Ghost" or even several tracks after with "Worm Food" you can definitely sense the individualism in each track. This album marks Blaze Ya Dead Homie's second release on Majik Ninja Entertainment. The label might not be Psychopathic Records but The Casket Factory features a lot more Psychopathic artists on this album compared to Blaze's last one. One appearance was from ABK on the song "Ratchet." Any Body Killer came into the track on point talking about the ratchets from the hood. It was a comedy driven track that was given just the right amount of lyrics to become a hit. It wasn't quite Drive-By but I'll still take it. Boondox also returned and was put onto a track called "Who U Lookin' 4." This had to be my personal favorite tune off the album. That hook alone gives me chills "Pull the trigger and turn you into a ghost!" Blaze and Boondox have been a phenomenal team since they worked on "Dead Neck" off Clockwork Grey. There are also some new names to collaborate with Blaze. Three tracks in on the track "Ghost" you'll hear Kung Fu Vampire. But then there's also Lex the Hex Master who is featured on the track "They Call That Gangsta." According to Blaze, "Lex brings his own East coast style to the tracks." Alongside Blaze's hype-man The R.O.C. everyone on the track literally murders it. The ending of the trip to The Casket Factory is a song entitled "I Will Bury U." It was the best way to end this album. Blaze Ya Mortician err... Ya Dead Homie closes the album on a song where he describes how he's going to bury you after finding the perfect casket. "This shovel, the earth, this casket it works, it fits, it's right, I'LL BURY YOU TONIGHT." The haunting chant echos as the song goes on until you are greeted by a deep voice. The voice tells you that you have reached the end of the album and that there is a casket made for you. It's like a eulogy that later transforms into a message saying "I'm the dead man and I'm coming for you ALL!" I loved every minute of this album. It's what we expected to hear from Blaze, it's what we wanted to hear from Blaze, and it's what we heard from Blaze. Tour dates and link to listen to the album on Spotify below the break. Sophistafunk jammed out for approximately an hour. The band never really seemed to stop, flowing from song to song with flawless transition. Vocalist Jack Brown seemed to be feeding off the energy of the audience. Especially when he extended his microphone towards the bobbing sea of die-hard Sophistafunk fans behind the barrier. I was amazed to see the trio performing with no guitarist or bassist. A simple statement made: you don't always need a guitar to be funky. Notably with the playing from Adam Gold on the Nord Electro 3 keyboard. Throughout their set he would carry the bass melody similar to what Ray Manzarek of The Doors did. Gold also managed to emulate funky guitar solos which was something quite interesting to see. The highlight of their set was when they broke out into the tune "Tell My Baby." Drummer Emmanuel Washington carried on with the simplistic beat while Gold crooned "That's what I tell my baby." Even at one point repeating the phrase keeping it hanging whilst grooving over it with his smooth keyboard playing. Sitting in with Sophistafunk tonight on sax was Tommy Weeks from Funky Dawgs. He really brought the mood to the venue with him especially during his saxophone solos. I thought of him as a warm-up to what we were all going to be hearing in moments; the funky saxophone styling of Karl Denson. As Sophistafunk's set closed they got a huge pop from the crowd. Many concert-goers were just left Sophistifunkified.
Greetings to all. First and foremost I would like to say happy holidays to all of the fine readers. Second of all I would like to introduce my latest idea and blog series. Starting December 29th I will be listening to one specific Phish show each day up until the first. Why the first? Well that will be the night where I'll be going over to New York City to see the first Phish show of the year. 7:30 PM at Madison Square Garden I will be at jam central.
A few things to look forward to for this blog run: This is going to be my very first Phish show. One of these posts' will contain my dream Phish set lists'. Open poll for show suggestions. Photos from the show. I will post sets from the 12/30, 12/31, and 1/01 sets. Hopefully if all goes well I'll make it to the after party with Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. But I'm really excited to blog about the shows that I'll be listening to. Not to mention that I am also super stoked to be able to share the shows with you through SPOTIFY. So yeah! Just stay locked in virtually and I'll see you on the 29th! What would you get if you crossed over the electronic vibe from Nine Inch Nails, poured in the melodic instrumentals of In Flames, and topped it off with the clean vocals of Lajon Witherspoon (of Sevendust)? You'd get Every Hour Kills. The four member group is comprised of all musicians who have previous experience on the music scene. There's guitarist and the brains behind the programming Sacha Laskow (formerly of Divinity). On bass is Brent Stutsky (formerly of Breach of Trust as well as Death Valley Dolls). The drummer Rob Shawcross (formerly of Out Of Your Mouth, Autobody, and Kobra and The Lotus). Then there is the band's newest vocalist Jerrod Maxwell-Lyster (currently of Walk As Chaos and formerly of Out of Your Mouth, Autobody, and the R.A.C.E.) Together they become Every Hour Kills. An extremely unique name inspired from the anonymous literary quote "Every hour wounds, but the last one kills." Modern day music seems to have the same sound to it. But I'm glad to actually be shown a band that takes modern day electronic influences and incorporate them into their album. The band's first single off the EP entitled "Almost Human" takes that into consideration. With strong glitch like riffs put into the background of djent breakdowns... it's just fantastic. Not every band can execute that as perfectly as Every Hour Kills has done. Another stand out track was "Chosen". It kicks off with a beastly riff from their synth and goes into an heavy riff. Talk about build-up! It actually has some screams which surprised me because a lot of the EP has a more mellow vibe. The breakdown leads into a soothing melodic guitar solo from Sacha which sort of tops off the song. Each song on the EP has it's own unique electronic backing track which I found to be pretty awesome. The downside though is that at times the vocals were a tad bit too melodic. It's as though each verse sounded similar despite having different lyrics. Don't get me wrong, I love the harmony but it kind of gets repetitive. There were also some instrumentals on the EP which gave you just the melodic side. I haven't heard of many bands doing that but I enjoyed them. It was as though the band wanted you to hear what their new vocalist brought to the table when they added him. A before and after if you will. Very intriguing. One EP down and the band has high hopes to tour throughout the rest of the year (hopefully coming around Connecticut). I've got high expectations for a full length LP in the future and would LOVE to see these guys opening for more national acts further along down the line.
The loudest band in the world is back with their follow up to 2012's Aftershock. The band's whopping 22nd studio album Bad Magic was released August 28th of this year and features twelve hard hitting original tracks and a cover of The Rolling Stone's classic "Sympathy For The Devil."
Bad Magic kicks off with front man Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister stating "Victory or DIE!" before pumping in the ass kicking riffs that the old school fans are used to. It was kind of a relief to hear his voice after all these recent health concerns. Yet after diving into the album and sitting through numerous tracks I have yet to hear any struggles vocally or instrument wise. It's as though they picked up right where they had left off. When you think about Motörhead you think of three things: crazy guitar solos from Phil Campbell, rough vocals from Lemmy, and driving beats from drummer Mikkey Dee. All three elements are present on Bad Magic which makes it a definite must have for all Motörhead fans. The album art for Bad Magic seems pretty awesome. I mean it's got swords, stars, Snaggletooth (the band's notorious mascot,) and four x's above the album title. If you aren't aware... the four x's stand for forty in Roman numerals representing Motörhead's fortieth anniversary. It honestly looks like it could be a rank in the latest Call of Duty video game. Multiple tracks stood out on the album. You've got the helluva opener "Victory or Die." There's the ballad like tune "Till The End," which had to be one of the slowest Motörhead tunes I've ever come into contact with. It caught me off guard. With all these ass kicking riffs and then the tempo just shift out of nowhere. Extremely interesting to say the least. The rough playing on "Choking On Your Screams" seemed to pick the album back up for the last few songs. But then you've got the crown jewel. Last but not least, the closer, Sympathy For The Devil. Motörhead covering The Stones is something you don't see too often. But the way that the band pulled it off was so precise. Every note was hit to the tee and it sounded so original as though it could be their own song. Apparently it was requested by Triple H the COO of the WWE (Motorhead performs his entrance music.) However, just hearing this cover had me interested in Motörhead covers. So if HHH can request something then maybe I can too. I propose that they do a cover EP like Anthrax did a few years back. It would be amazing to hear some of their flair on other tunes in addition to The Rolling Stones. Maybe a Ramones cover or a Thin Lizzy cover shoved in there. Check out the album for yourself and see if it's worth buying. Also don't forget that you can catch Motörhead alongside Anthrax and Crobot this fall! The day us metal heads all wait for... what bands are going to be playing this year's Mayhem Festival.
On the main stage: SLAYER, KING DIAMOND, HELLYEAH, and THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. The Victory Records stage: WHITECHAPEL, THY ART IS MURDER, JUNGLE ROT, SISTER SIN, SWORN IN Also appearing: Shattered Sun, Feed Her to the Sharks, Code Orange, Kissing Candice This year in comparison to last year's seems to have a lot of variety shifts. Going from having Avenged Sevenfold headlining to having Slayer playing is a major difference. Two different bands that appeal to two different crowds, generations even. Then you've got King Diamond billed below Slayer, some will debate it and I'll leave that open to interpretation. Second stages this year seem to lack in comparison to last years as well. Body Count, Cannibal Corpse, and Suicide Silence were just three bands playing on the smaller stages. This year you have White Chapel, Thy Art Is Murder, and Jungle Rot. Great bands but smaller names in comparison. Regardless it's still going to be a great festival as it always is, full of experiences and fun times. July 19th the festival lands in Hartford, CT and July 25th they will be in Boston, Mass.Until then I leave you with George Fisher meme.
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J.simpsonLead photographer over at Hardcore Shots Archives
June 2017
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