High on Fire w/ Goatwhore @ Slim's

Went for another round of metal with my main damie Mike G! This time we went down to Slim's to see High on Fire. And who opened? Goatwhore. GOAT. WHORE. I really just wish I could have been there when they had the band name discussion:

Dude who made up Goatwhore: Yo, dudes. Thanks for all coming down--

Other Bandmember: Dude, you called a band meeting, course we came down.

Dude who made up Goatwhore: Yeah, well, thanks. I just want to go ahead and thank you all again. I know how difficult it can be to juggle jobs, life, kids, and still be totally committed to this righteous project that we have embarked upon, but have yet to name. 

[Nods and affirmations around the room]

Dude who made up Goatwhore: Which brings me to the next point of order. Now, before you all respond, I just want you to take a minute and let this name work its way through your mind. Let it trickle down. Just think about it, is all I'm saying. Goat... whore. Goatwhore. One word.

[Chins are rubbed. Long hair is flicked back over shoulders. Ponderous looks and a few 'hmms' bounce around the room.]

Some other guy (probably the bassist): Well, like, I don't dislike the name or nothing, but I mean, we're probably going to have to drop most of the free jazz improvisational shit we were doing.

Some other, other guy: Yeah, and all that adult contemporary stuff we were working on, that's just out the window.

Dude who made up Goatwhore: Listen, guys, this is an opportunity for us to focus and hone our sound. I mean: Goatwhore. The name says it all. Who seconds the motion?

And well you can see where it went from there, cause right after that meeting the lead singer went out and bought these bad-ass bracers:

Goatwhore: Bracers, bro!

Also, I love how their Wikipedia entry describes them as a "blackened" death-metal band. Like they was just left in the pan longer than normal metal, what with some black-pepper and spices. Which is apt, cause these dudes are spicy!

Dark Goatwhore

They also had an amp that said "God Has Twelve Dicks", which I didn't know was common knowledge until that show:

You heard it right, God has twelve dicks.

After that, High on Fire graced the stage. They rocked, of course, but the greatest lesson I took away from the High on Fire show was that that this guy showed me that no one should ever feel shy about going around shirtless:

Embarrassment is for mortals. I earned this physique! 

High on Fire @ Slim's

High on Fire: Wailin'!

High on Fire bassplayer is PISSED!

...and evil.

And finally, guitarist Matt Pike showed his Shoggoth nature while executing an epic solo:

A Shoggoth, mid-solo.

Sounds: Liars - The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack

Last song/video I post for 2012. And it's a goodie. A slow builder, for sure, but well worth it. Check out Liars' The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack:

Sounds: Twin Shadow - Castles In The Snow

I like this song.


Artist: Twin Shadow.

Sounds: The Horrors - Sea Within a Sea

I like this song. Especially when the synth comes in. Dude's accent sounds local band fake.

I need a stagecoach - Hipster Thanksgiving

This... is hilarious. And I've been to this Hipster Thanksgiving. Spot. On.



And now I'm off to delete my Facebook account.

Zoochosis' New Series

Man, this looks slick. This is the trailer/teaser for Patrick Scott's new Zoochosis series coming out on Machinima Prime. Drool:

Mist Giant, False Rival - The Interview

It's the end of 2012 and the entire world, so we of Mist Giant thought we'd round out the year by releasing our third album, False Rival. It's up and free over at Bandcamp. Well, it's name-your-own-price, so if you just can't bring yourself to take it for free you can alleviate your conscience with PayPal or a major credit card.

To give a little taste of what's in store for listeners I went ahead and did a little interview with the album. Check it:

Mark Pantoja: Tell me a little about yourself.

False Rival: First, thanks for having me. Often people only talk to band members about albums and their music, completely ignoring us, the actual works of art, so, just, yeah, thanks for having me here.

MP: No problem.

FR: And a personal thanks, too, you know, for taking part in my creation.

MP: It was my pleasure.

FR: Right on. Okay, so yeah, I'm a eight track album, more of a EP really, but I think there's plenty of meat in me for people to really get into. I was recorded and mixed of at Studio SQ this summer and mastered by Bruce Leighton at Datastream. (Thanks guys, for helping to make me the album I am today!)

MP: Tell us about the recording process. Did you come into focus before recording, as a concept, or are you more a document of an organic studio process?

FR: Shit man, getting all wordy on me. Hell, I don't know, man, I'm just an album. You tell me. 

MP: Well, most of the material we had written and performed live for the last year, part of a third or fourth wave of live songs we put together. The first lead track, track two, Catch & Release, was written early summer, so it's actually the newest song on the album and kinda represents a new direction of open/organic song writing. That song more or less coalesced during the studio process.

FR: So, didn't have a concept for this album? For me?

MP: No, nothing as formal as that, other than our releases have tended to be the strongest songs we have at the time of recording, so they're, more or less, a snapshot of our musical maturity at that moment. So, what I'm saying is that you are so 2012. 

FR: Cool.

MP: Yeah. Okay, well, thanks for coming down.

FR: Thanks for having me.

Waylines Magazine: Going (Semi-)Pro

Listen, we're all getting pretty saturated with the online tipjar that is Kickstarter. But that doesn't mean that there aren't good projects out there nor does it mean that you shouldn't check out some of the better ones.

One of the things I took away from my Kickstarter campaign was a sense of community. Not only was Kickstarter a project in a global marketplace (I had support from all over the US, Singapore, Canada, and Australia), where family members and random strangers could throw me their support because, but it was also an opportunity for me and project campaigners to give back to our backers and the greater community. I released my project as a copyleft Creative Commons for anyone to download, distribute, and remix/mess-with (as is this entire blog). And so I tend to be drawn to projects that try to instill a sense of community and openess in their final product. Which is why I'm a backer of Waylines Magazine's Kickstarter Campaign.

Waylines Magazine is a new magazine from a good friend of mine and fellow Clarion West 2011 and editor over at Ideomancer David Rees-Thomas and some dude I've never met but seems like a very talented filmmaker and graphic designer (he did the Waylines Layout) Darryl Knickrehm. Besides being an online magazine, they're going to pay to put out videos and short films as well. And the best part of their Kickstarter is that the more they raise the more they give back. Many Kickstarter campaigns just pocket anything extra they make, which is fine if that's how you run your campaign and get people to support. But the great thing about Waylines is that for each tiered goal they make they are going to reward authors, filmmakers, and Waylines contributors. They've already reached the goal of going from token payment to semi-pro and now with 52 hours left at the time of this post, they are trying to raise another $500 to go pro, paying all contributors pro rates! 

Hey, even if you don't want to support at least swing by their campaign or website to check what they're all about. Here's their campaign video: