Ghoultown: Death ain't nothin' but a thing

Tidings that recently emanated from BadlandsBeyond revealed Ghoultown -- a Texas Count Lyle production that last perpetrated wax some six years ago -- is again stalking studio passageways.

"We are in the process of recording our new album titled TOO BAD TO DIE," read a June 2 Facebook message. "This will be our 6th full-length studio release and 13th overall release.

"We are working hard to bring you the best collection of Ghoultown songs yet, offering a familiar yet amped-up group of songs that take you on a dusty and dangerous journey into our strange landscape of gunslinging Rock'n'Roll. No release date has been set, but rest assured it will be worth the wait!"

The group features on Facebook numerous behind-curtain photos of their studio activities, disclosing to all how sausage is made in spurred-monster kitchen.

During such time as will transpire until new grooves-of-the-macabre materialize, consideration is appropriate.

Few bands have accomplished that which distinguishes Ghoultown: the formulation of a truly singular persona. In the group's slap-leather milieu populated by shambling and hollow-eyed hombres from below, no string goes un-thrashed, and all poundings are doomsday ones.

Ghoultown's thunderous Tales of the Crypt transmogrification of Zane Grey's dusty-stampede world has never assumed deserved position in chart highlands. But that only illustrates Legs McNeil's dictum that cool music seldom enjoys mass popularity. 

In the group's darkside rowdiness, guitars gallop like wild stallions with tone settings. Poundings-times-ten collude, lending animation against which spectral host Count Lyle's dead-man's drawl scrawls jaggedly.

Eyes wide and ears a-ring, slack-jawed townsfolk marvel at the spectacle: Sinister invocations so resolute as to force all bearing stunned witness into tonic-clonic floorshows. 

Even Wyatt and Doc fall to their knees in sybaritic paroxysms. 

It's been years since I stopped puzzling how the men who comprise Ghoultown developed staggering musical proficiency, when all around stank of human decay and lead-slingers from the netherworld sprang like wicked phantasms in midnight moments.

Wiser, I concluded, to unquestioningly dig the merging of remorseless metal and zombie-caballero airs that alternately hyper-pulse and unfurl in teasing ominousness, as ghastly swinging-saloon-doors-in-Twilight-Zone sagas bore into cerebra, never to be erased.

Mesa-looming wraiths etch Ghoultown's hard-lashed menace, Bone-cold determination is a core surrounded by echo-clad desolateness.

"We have 11 new tunes polished up and ready to record," reveals a Facebook Ghoultown message. "We can say the recording is coming along very well!"

Whispered words telling of Ghoultown's impending disc are no doubt passed down the bar from gunhand to apparition to saddle tramp to bloodsucker. 

The barkeep polishes a glass, hoping to see sunrise.

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Bandcamp (All Ghoultown discs available here.)

Videos: "Bullets Don't Argue"   "I Am the Night"   "Drink With the Living Dead" (live)   

Vampire Bats  

Vampire's Delight

(Gollipop Records)

The swerving Rock'n'Roll someway etched into discs rarely stomps its brakes, preferring instead to smash clean through impediments and rocket to destinations uncharted. Merged warning/relish is here intended. Only the trash-faithful could cobble Punk/Metal/Surf/ Zombie Go-Go so fetchingly, and none but the happily heedless would rev it into loud abandon.

Recommended: "Witch Stomp," "Dr. Mad Daddy," "Full Moonlight," "Zombie in Love," "Batman Theme," "Red Apple Pie," "Please Give Me Something"

Videos: "Witch Stomp" (Official video)   "Zombie in Love"   "Red Apple Pie"   "Please Give Me Something" (live)

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Yee Loi

Amidst eight raging fire-piles, the truculent sisters and brother stoke much fiercer flames, as embodied in Rock'n'Roll that's gonna blaze millions bye bye.

Video: "Why Ask Why"

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The Gasölines

Though hurtling and bash-fisted, these severe minutes are also possessed of appeal familiar to brave ravers who dimly recall club episodes, midsommer midnight, or arena frenzies. People were killed by Morten Nilsen's guitar solo - and they're still grinning.

Video: "(I'm Not) Your Mirror"

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Big Cartel

Forsaken Profits

Road Rash

(Anything But Radio Records)

Traffic poles look like a picket fence -- red/yellow/green being of no consequence -- as thrashing demons fly toward destinations unmolested. Some 14 years since they first materialized as a "drinking band with a Punk problem," and their collective fury remains as vigorous as when germination sprouted. This, then, is violent rapidity very much of our fraught moment.

Recommended: "DTE," "Chemical Burn," "Decayed," "Absolute Zero," "Avalanche"

Videos: "DTE"   "Chemical Burn" (live at Skatetopia)   "Decayed"   

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Ghoultown

Double set: Life After Sundown and Ghost of the Southern Son

(Zoviet / Angry Planet Enterprises)

It's been long years since I stopped puzzling how these men developed staggering musical proficiency, when all around stank of human decay and gun-hands from the netherworld sprang like wicked phantasms in midnight moments. Wiser, I concluded, to unquestioningly dig the merging of remorselessly lashed metal and arched Morricone airs that alternately hyper-pulse and unfurl in teasing ominousness, as ghastly Old-West-in-twilight-zones sagas bore into cerebra, never to be erased.

(This double-disc set is available directly from Blackburn's Monstro Merch, which is linked below.)

Recommended from Life: "Dead Outlaw," "Against a Crooked Sky," "Werewolves on Wheels," "I Spit on Your Grave," "Thunder over El Paso," "Find a Good Horse," "Drink With the Living Dead," "Under the Phantom Moon"

Videos: "Dead Outlaw"   "Against a Crooked Sky"   "Find a Good Horse"   "Drink With the Living Dead" (visualizer)   "Under the Phantom Moon"

Recommended from Ghost: "Southern Son," "Ghost of the Past," "I Am the Night," "Black on Black," "Blood, Bullets, and Whiskey," "Stick to Your Guns," "Tombstone," "Vanishing Riders"

Videos: "Southern Son"   "Ghost of the Past" (lyric video)   "I Am the Night"   "Stick to Your Guns"   "Vanishing Riders" (animated video)

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Blackburn's Monstro Merch

Pontus J Back

Gospel Express

(Talking Music)

"I had such great fun recording that album!" Pontus recently messaged me. The Rockpastor's name does adorn the cover, but the Supreme Creator is the true star. (Pontus would surely voice agreement.) "God Loves Rock'n'Roll" encapsulates the good Mr. Back's dual merits: an internationally roving spreader of The Word all must hear, and a seriously gifted throat/gittar artisan whose road to present devotion was paved with Metallic road-doggery and wild-side excess. "I'm still here," he testifies. 

Recommended: "Gospel Express," "All of God," "I Want to Be a Better Son," "My Godly Woman," "I'm Still Here," "Justified by Grace," "Talk is Cheap," "The Flame that Burns Forever," "Many Will See," "It's OK to Have a Bad Day," "Renew My Mind," "Ordinary Man," "Alcohol is Dangerous"

Videos: "Gospel Express"   "All of God"   "It's OK to Have a Bad Day"   

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Back in the Day, 1974

Blue Öyster Cult

Secret Treaties

(Columbia / CBS))

Secret Treaties thrived on '74 U.S. charts for some 14 weeks, long before Eric Bloom and fellow metal-stringed cultists crooned of love's permanence despite the Reaper's inevitability. BOC commanded complex, cascading sheets of adamantium chordslides, killer riff-blitzes, and light-speed convolutions that surely were vital instructions for novice fret-neck throttlers the world over. All that and the staggering brainpower behind the Cult's fantastic lyrical spectacles (various pennings are by producer Sandy Pearlman, critic Richard Melzer, and singer/poet Patti Smith) meant such peers as were on the 1970s arena scene could only ponder their own stacked heels.

(In 1992, Treaties was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The LP was reissued, including by Sony and CD Media Records. A 2001, remastered CD contained five additional selections.)

Recommended: "Career of Evil," "Subhuman," "Dominance and Submission," "ME 262," "Cagey Cretins," "Harvester of Eyes," "Flaming Telepaths," "Astronomy"

Video: "Career of Evil"   "Dominance and Submission"   "Harvester of Eyes"   "Astronomy"

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Record Town

ImportCDs

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Long Lasting Train

Death Proof   four-track EP

(Fucking North Pole Records)

Stop signs are mowed into 2D by Norwegian apostles of graffitied wrath. Songs hurtle like missiles, their shrapnel bursts hacking at normies too dumb to turn tail when these sorts stalk across stages. Metal-boned mayhem at speeds beyond measure.

Months ahead may usher surprises...

Recommended: "Death Proof," "Out of Jail," "Vaporized Brain," "Echoes of Death"

Videos: "Death Proof"   "Echoes of Death"

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Eddie and the Afterburners

Cellar of Your Soul

(MechTocracy Records)

It's in eerie mid-range, that three malefactors ply their chord-fisted ominousness. Class this as clawed opera for evildoers. Punk and Psycho escapees from padded-wall snakepits creep amidst decaying foliage, a blood moon o'er head, as unsuspecting passersby whistle past the graveyard. Suddenly, hands seize from behind.

Recommended: "Cellar of Your Soul," "Familiar Phenomenon," "The Mausoleum." "Room 13," "Liminal Business Trip," "Demonic Invasion"

Videos: "Cellar of Your Soul" / "Familiar Phenomenon" (live   "The Mausoleum" (live)   

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The Gasölines

Helldorado

(Speed Club Records)

A reviewer at Germany's Zepher's Odem wrote: "As the band themselves announced, they hadn't intended to create anything innovative. They simply plugged in, cranked up the amps, and played Rock'n'Roll. Loud, dirty, and exhilarating." Nowhere is it scrawled that music must turn virgin sod in order to merit moon-bathed bacchanalia. New wrinkles can certainly be intriguing. But much can be said for knowing what lies ahead. Health care personnel do not recommend this Norwegian Punk-packed Metal for the timid - one reason is that it may well blow innocent ears to shrapnel. Were the PMRC yet in operation, they'd have contrived a warning label by now. Comes in digital, CD, and variously-hued vinyl formats. 

Recommended: "Riding Shotgun," "Dead Man's Hand," "Bucking the Tiger," "Ace in the Hole," "Death Rider," "A-Bomb Pinup," "Speed Trap"

Videos: "Riding Shotgun"   "Ace in the Hole"   "A-Bomb Pinup"   "Speed Trap"

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Sidebürns

Lifestyle   3-track single

(Self-issued)

So tuneful is the titular, Metal-jacketed Punk juggernaut, and its impact so jolting in the coolest of manners, that blood kinship with previously marketed cuts pretty much kicks you in the head. Ralf and Katja's vocals scorch the collision-chorded coup de main like branding irons from some uber-lit pit. (And only lackwits would even consider messing with bullet beats slung by Ronny G.) I sincerely expect to pick up tomorrow's paper and read that Sidebürns' leathery insurgents have blasted their home burg of Weimar clean off the map.

Recommended: "Lifestyle," "Not What Used to Be," "All In"

Videos: "Lifestyle"   "Not What Used to Be"   "All In"

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Dr. Void & the Death Machines

The Swingin' Psycho Sounds of the Death Machines

(Self-issued)

Upon entering the joint, the kids were blown the fuck away. The three men stomping stage boards were aflame. The Rock'n'Roll furor that obviously hyper-pumped through their capillaries was being poured onto the skulls of twisting revelers, spattered against graffitied walls, and shoved rudely into every ear on every razored head visible in the smoky dimness. Here and there raged shards of Burnettes, metallic piledriving, and Punk dropout venomousness that had sentenced many lucky youths to lives of outsider exhilaration.

 The newcomers vanished into the swarm.

Recommended: "My Savoy," "Armed to the Teeth," "Gone Gone Gone," "Necrobitch," "I Heard You Were Psycho," "Return of the Brainsucker," "Motorheads and Greaser Punks," "She's a Cyclone," "For the World is Hollow and I've Touched the Sky," "Murder By Death"

Videos: "My Savoy"   "I Heard You Were Psycho"   "She's a Cyclone"

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Radiocrimen

"Dimelo a la Cara"   digital single

(Beatclap)

Great sheets of angry chording cascade. Tempos alternate, instruments advance and recede, the main voice hectors, and gang shouts bust aside any dumb barriers. Riffing can shatter kneecaps. Spain's in flames.

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Art Gallery

The Opportunist (demo)

(Self-issued)

Fine ambition, these Lancaster fantasts have cross-haired: "To give Goth rock a good kick up the arse.” Toward that end, the three merge that eldritch subgenre with stern dollops of Punk, Metallism, and foot-plantings onto experimental acreage. The imperious, booming pronouncments recall every megalomaniac mad-doctor in every moldering castle in every drive-in scare celluloid grappling teens never saw. (On Bandcamp, Art Gallery claim ignorance as to backing cut "Filth 1's" backstory and even sireship.) Atop all that sits proof Snidely's still afoot. 

Video: "The Opportunist" (live audio)   

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Ten Pin Rattlers

Beggars and Thieves

(Screaming Hyena Records)

Substantially weightier than spartan combos (whose starkness is its own merit), Ten Pin Rattlers don't only come to the table, but knock its legs flat away. Traditional Rockabilly and Rock'n'Roll aspects are amped up to perilous extremes. (Rarely do guitars leap with such sweet savagery.) Take your mug to a good time that guarantees innocence will be jettisoned, and don't be surprised if neighbors pound on your walls. Like we'd care.

Recommended: "Freeborn Man" (feat. Justin Pacy and Buddy Sullivan), "Pray" (feat. Billy Ferraro and Buddy Sullivan), "Caroline" (feat. Tommy Gaudette and Matt St. Jean), "Radio:The Tommy Song" (feat. Tommy Gaudette), "Rockshow" (feat. Chris CC Newell), "Write This Down" (feat. Justin Pacy and Buddy Sullivan), "Human Theatre" (feat. Tommy Gaudette and Matt St. Jean), "Rise" (feat. Dan Nutton)

Videos: "Caroline"   "Rockshow"   "Human Theatre"   "Rise"

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Alestorm

Voyage of the Dead Marauder   EP

(Napalm Records)

Riffing in the rigging. Scottish Alestorm's marriage of city-leveling metallic explosiveness and olde seafarers' sprightly airs is colorfully idiosyncratic to an epic degree. Through seven previous albums and before international arenas full of fist-thrusting devotees, the adventurous chord-slammers raised up towering adamantium slabs supplemented by swashbuckling gusto. In frontman/keyboardist Chris Bowes' full-lunged growling seethe the wraiths of a thousand rapacious buccaneers. 

Recommended: "Voyage of the Dead Marauder" (feat. Patty Gurdy), "Uzbekistan," "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate," "Sea Shanty 2," "Cock"

Videos: "Voyage of the Dead Marauder"    "The Last Sakatchewan Pirate"   "Cock"

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Ritchy Nails

Hard-Luck Life   3-track 7" vinyl

(Thumper Punk Records)

Were it not for simplicity -- just earnest testimonies and acoustic affirmations -- Ritchy's verity might be obscured. As it appropriately is, the unplugged Punkmetal footsoldier pours forth heartfelt introspections nearly brutal in their frankness. He is defiantly spiritual ("Listened to the preacher when the punks told me not to"), sending implorations Heavenward.

Guest Matt Gilbert adds uninvolved electric stingings to cut #3, embellishing quietly.

Recommended: "Hard Luck Life," "That's Okay With Me," "Roadblocks and Dead Ends"

Video: "Hard Luck Life"

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Boomplay

FOR THE RECORD

THE KNOBS

Derek Billick, vocals, guitar
Nathaniel Byerly, guitar
Justin Richardson, bass, vocals
Nathan Moody, drums


Latest Release "Rough Cuts," from upcoming album "Everyone Gets a Turn"



tracks: "Zero To Ten"
           "Evicted"
           "Everyone Gets A Turn"

True heartland high-energy heroes. Last May, Oskaloosa's The Knobs opened for Ratt at 7 Flags, and later found themselves on the Summer Jam stage.They rocked out in hectic, sweaty form between Warrant and LA Guns. I caught them at Waterloo's 13th Step a few weeks ago, and was knocked out by their boundless exuberance and the jagged, flashy rock'roll excitement they chainsawed and splayed into every corner of the packed club.

No one in the crowd even cared about the downpour outside!

In just 3 tracks, "Rough Cuts" presents them as a loose-jointed and bombastic outfit well worth rank with the genre luminaries beside whom they rock audiences into delirium. Drawing on 70s and 80s metal influences, they craft an at once distinct and dynamic sound that all but blasts from speakers. Equally adept at high-speed and more measured and sinister tempos, the group already has one boot on the next plateau.


Band http://www.theknobsrock.com

http://www.myspace.com/theknobsofiowa

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Knobs/212714431009

Management/booking http://www.sandsentertainmentonline.com, bsites@hotmail.com
                                        (mgr Brett Sites)

(Thanks to Brett for assisting with this interview. Answers by Justin.)

1) What's the coolest place(s) to hang out in Iowa?

The coolest place to hang out in Iowa is in front of a stage in some bar somewhere where a great band is playing tunes you love!

2) Where's your favorite place to play? (Is it the answer to Q1?) Favorite recording studio?

My favorite place to play is (at this point) 7 Flags Event Center. Whenever we play there we always have a great time and the crowd is always outgoing and receptive.

3) Favorite fast food? Favorite beer/drink?

As far as fast food goes, I must admit I am an Arby's fan. I'm too young for alcohol, so my favorite drink has got to be good old Dr. Pepper.

4) Law you'd most like to see overturned? New law you'd like to see enacted?

I would love to see same-sex marriage laws enacted throughout the United States. The tyranny has gone on far too long!

5) Other IA bands you'd recommend?

I would definitely recommend Dark Mirror, Steve Robinson & the Foundation, and the Brothers Green. They all rock, in their own, unique way.

6) Philosophy of life (in 10 words or less)?

Live free, have fun, and don't hurt anybody. :)

7) QUOTE (on any topic):


"The hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is." - Eddie Van Halen


video: "Zero To Ten" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG_2GD6CjFE




end