Ipecac

Melvins

Guest Spots: The Melvins relive the highlights of the Endless Residency Tour

Melvins: The Bride Screamed MurderMelvins: The Bride Screamed Murder (Ipecac, 6/1/10)

Melvins: “The Water Glass”

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Last year, sludge-rock band the Melvins released its 20th album (and third since linking up with Big Business members Jared Warren and Coady Willis). That album, entitled The Bride Screamed Murder, is emblematic of what the band has done its whole career: tweak its signature sound — part anthemic classic rock, part avant-garde heaviness — to present something entirely new yet quintessentially Melvins. That willingness to shake things up has been a major factor in the band’s longevity.

After last year’s release, the band undertook a tour in early 2011, playing a different album from its back catalog each night. As the saying goes, you get what you give, and in this case, the Melvins’ 30-year history of experimentation has continually rewarded the band with new experiences. Dale Crover, drummer and founding member, recounts the band’s some of the most memorable recent experiences below.

Endless Residency Tour
by Dale Crover

The Melvins did a residency every Friday night last January in Los Angeles. To make each show unique, we decided to play a different record from our ever-growing catalog of releases. It seemed to go over really well, and since we took the time to learn all these records, we decided to take it on the road. Here are some highlights from the “Endless Residency” tour.

Austin Texas: Austin shows are always great, except for the heat. It’s 100 degrees out, and of course we’re playing outside! The show goes well, but by the end, the “costume” that I’m  wearing feels like a soaking-wet sleeping bag. The next day we meet up with our friends from the band Honky to get lunch. Everyone I know that lives in Austin says that the BBQ downtown is average, and they know where the best is. We drive miles out of town to a place in Spicewood, Texas, called Opie’s BBQ. We’re greeted by a guy who opens a large trough with 10 different kinds of smoked meat. We let the Honky boys order for us, then sit down to stuff our faces. It was certainly worth the trip, and I highly recommend the spicy corn! After the feast, we stop by Willie Nelson‘s recording studio. Honky just recorded there. No Willie, but we  got the full tour, including seeing the tape vault with Red Headed Stranger master tapes! I was also highly impressed by the nine-hole golf course next door. Maybe we’ll do our next record there!

Isis

Q&A: Isis

Isis: “Grinning Mouths” from Clearing the Eye live DVD (Ipecac, 9/26/06)

In June of 2010, post-metal quintet Isis called it quits following a farewell tour. The LA band was one year removed from its final studio release, Wavering Radiant, and feeling that it didn’t want to “push past the point of a dignified death,” its members parted ways right before the release of a split EP with Melvins.

Now the band is giving wistful fans another taste of its melodic sludge rock. On May 31, Isis posthumously and digitally reissued the first of its five live album, which originally were released over the span of 2004 to 2009.  The rest are being rolled out in two-week intervals, with the third becoming available this Tuesday, June 28.  ALARM recently spoke to drummer Aaron Harris about the reissues, the band’s personal significance, and what the members have been doing since the breakup.

What was the catalyst in putting together the live album series?

We wanted to have something we could offer to the fans. We were getting a lot of live recordings coming in from fans that had been to our live shows, and it was just starting to pile up, and we figured we should do something with all these live recordings. So we started sifting through them and figured that we would do a little live series, release it ourselves, sell it at our shows, and make it a limited, special thing.

We did small runs of them, and once they were gone, they were gone. Recently, we decided that we would make them available digitally and reissue them. So that’s what we’re doing now. They’re digital reissues for people that weren’t able to get copies the first time. It’s just kind of a cool idea to strengthen the fan/band bond, something between us and the fans.

What do you miss about touring and playing with Isis?

The thrill and the energy of playing live. I don’t know if it can be replaced by anything else. There’s something special about touring and visiting your favorite cities and playing shows in some of your favorite spots and getting to see old friends. It’s something I’ve done since I was a teenager, so it was part of my life, and I guess, in a sense, it’s part of me, and it’s not there anymore. So I definitely miss it.

100 Unheralded Albums from 2010

Among the thousands of under-appreciated or under-publicized albums that were released in 2010, hundreds became our favorites and were presented in ALARM and on AlarmPress.com. Of those, we pared down to 100 outstanding releases, leaving no genre unexplored in our list of this year’s overlooked gems.

Rob Swift

Guest Spots: DJ Rob Swift on his foray into classical music

Rob Swift: “Rabia – 2nd Movement” (The Architect, Ipecac, 2/23/10)

Rob Swift: “Rabia – 2nd Movement”

Rob Swift’s online radio show: Dope on Plastic

Rob Swift: The Architect
Rob Swift: The Architect

DJ Rob Swift is one of the premier turntablists scratching and mixing today. His most recent album, The Architect, explores a distinctly classical sound — a genre totally foreign to Swift until recently. After his girlfriend turned him onto Frédéric Chopin, Swift immersed himself in the culture of classical music, and he soon found himself bridging the gap between the centuries-old compositions and his modern-day craft. Swift penned this piece for ALARM explaining the intersections of classical and hip hop in his own music.

My Introduction to Classical Music
by Rob Swift

The genre of classical music has helped me reinvent my approach to making turntable music! I know it sounds sort of odd coming from a hip-hop DJ, but it’s true. When you think about it, we all have some sort of connection to classical music, whether it was learning about it in music class as a child or listening to it in movies and commercials. At one point or another, you’ve been touched by classical compositions from the likes of Frédéic Chopin, Ludwig Van Beethoven, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, my personal favorite composers!

Mike Patton

Mike Patton: Anomalous Vocalist Tackles Italian Orch-Pop

Given identifiable credits such as Faith No More, Tomahawk, and Mr. Bungle, the words “Patton” and “incognito” don’t seem to follow each other. But Mike Patton‘s newest project, Mondo Cane, stems from just such a union — with Patton disguising his American accent and assimilating to a new culture.