Blockade/ Pig Heart Transplant

Blockade/ PHT split 7" out now on SuperFi records. SuperFi released our first piece of vinyl and it's only fitting that he's releasing our last.

I'm told that these are the places you can get it from in North America:

Warm Bath
Rescued From Life
Iron Lung
Malokul
Give Praise
16OH
Feeble Minds
Vinyl Rites
Feral Ward
To Live A Lie
Katorga Works
Anthems Of The Undesirable

google that shit.

Locals can find this at Hits and Misses in about an hour and potentially at Not Dead Yet fest, though they may not last that long.

500 pressed and they look fantastic, Feeding did the artwork and someone i don't know - i'm sure they're lovely and kind to animals - in the UK screened them. Six panels of meat baby action.

These represent the final two Blockade tracks ever written and other than alternate versions of previously recorded material that's coming out on cassette later this month this is the official last rites of that part of my life.

Both songs deal with loss, one being a desire for escape from the cultural noise of the world; an embracement of a deliberate loss of social connection. The other is a scream into the void over the death of my seventeen year old cousin Alasdair. RIP wee man.

Joshua Norton Cabal/ Disgust

After around 18 months of delays the Norton/ Disgust split is out on Small Doses.

Disgust's tracks are predictably great and there's an unexpected xbrainiax cover. I did three tracks (in one), recorded around the same time as Between Two Fires.

You can listen to samples and buy it here

In the layout it looks like i'm crediting myself with the quote that comes from The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. My fault entirely.

Reading:

The Dominion of the Dead - Robert Pogue Harrison
Chips and Beer - issue 1
Culture and Materialism - Raymond Williams
History of Sexuality vol 1 - Michel Foucault
The Immortalization Commision: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death - John Gray

Listening:

Wasteoids - demo
Owl Eyes - demo
Morbosidad/ Pseudogod 12"
Sutekh Hexen - Luciform 12"

Some Random Thoughts of Relatively Little Consequence

Being the old guy at the show sometimes gets a little irritating, mostly it just adds to the distance i already perceive between myself and a lot of the human race.

My tour journals are frequently filled with references to the Peter Pan like nature of some local scenes; in parts of the US you are perpetually playing to a different group of under 20 year olds, no matter how often you go back over a period of years.

The biggest drawback of this level of transience is that discussions are sometimes perpetually stuck at entry level, see for example any internet discussion of power violence, something that everyone over the age of 30 was bored of ten years ago. It's hard to build on ideas and concepts if everything has to cycle back to the beginning.

Sometimes on tour i feel like i'm the man that time forgot, every year i get older than my audience. There's definitely something that reminds you of your own mortality to be found in touring in an underground band when you get over 30.

I've Been Looking at Everything Backwards Until Recently

The success of the international underground is one of a strange consistency and permenance despite the almost ever changing audience.

The audiences change, but the form of DIY shows stays the same; cram as many of your friends as you can into a small room with no adult supervision and go fucking nuts to a band. There's an undeniable beauty to that kind of simplicity.

The core values and approaches remain consistent despite the transient nature of the audience. It's almost like some kind of tenuous proof that the path many of us in the life have followed and are still following is a vital aspect of existence that's embedded into a wider consciousness. It's music and specifically the culture of music as an atavistic urge. I loosely verbalised an aspect of this eternal nature of ideas in the Blockade song Irrationalism Uber Alles.

Fellow old guy in a band, Sean from Suffering Luna,  sees shows in terms of Victor Turner's concept of Liminality. I'm just going to be lazy and pull a quote from Wikipedia here: Liminality refers "to in-between situations and conditions that are characterized by the dislocation of established structures, the reversal of hierarchies, and uncertainty regarding the continuity of tradition and future outcomes".

There isn't much of a conclusion to be had here other than to say that the comfort i find in underground culture is not to be found in the consistency of the audience (because it isn't consistent), but in the consistency of ideas and approaches.

Shank, 2003, a show that happened a life time ago by hardcore standards

a small follow up

Buy tickets for Not Dead Yet here

the shows will sell out

for out of towners who don't know, Poor Alex Theatre and Hard Luck Bar are practically next door to each other, so if you're feeling flush you can catch bands at shows on at both venues, it looks like the line ups are set up so people can go between shows, but you should check first.

this place is cheap if you need somewhere to stay

Chaos in Ontario?

I've finally agreed to Column of Heaven's inaugural Live Ritual Desekration Ov Filth and Impurity, which is Finnish for "we're playing a gig"

This is the night we're playing:

Saturday October 22
Poor Alex Theatre
772 Dundas St. W.
7pm - all ages - $18

DROPDEAD
SCAPEGOAT
VEINS
PICK YOUR SIDE (ex-Haymaker)
HOAX
COLUMN OF HEAVEN
OWL EYES
 
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the entry price gets you into the after show, the Direct Control show that's happening practically next door and the show at the Silver Dollar, but i could be wrong.

(It's true, i'm frequently wrong about stuff)
 
Column of Heaven line up: Bloomer, King, Nolan, Simpson.
 
There will be a Blockade tape available at this show that we recorded in our space a few weeks before our final show, left over copies will go to 20 Buck Spin and Absurd Exposition. It's basically our live set of the time and the only recording that had Bloomer involved.
 
Listening:
 
Bastard Noise/ Actuary split LP
Furze - Reaper Subconscious Guide LP
Unholy Majesty - demo
 
Reading:
 
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Salvation in Southern Appalachia - Dennis Covington
Northlanders - Brian Wood

Locals Only

Sete Star Sept, - Tokyo, ex Blockade
Cages - Buffalo, ex Running for Cover
Death Agonies AKA EBHN - Bloomer/ Carroll/ King/ Kiyasu/ Nolan
Disleksick - runt of the litter noisecore

Parts and Labour, 1566 Queen Street West, Toronto, doors at 8pm, show over before midnight

Listening:

Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio podcast
Hunting Lodge - Nomad Souls LP
Gas Chamber - Corpse With Levity 7"
Lydia Lunch - In Limbo 12"
Ride for Revenge/ Undor LP
Current 93 - Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre LP
Kerasphorus - Necronaut 12"

Reading:

Golly: Catching Hell - Phil Hester
Handling the Undead - Jon Ajvide Lindqvist
Esoterra - Chad Hensley
Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History - Philip Jenkins
Lonliness and Revelation - Brendan Myers

Transcendental Power Violence

Column of Heaven, Altars (Music, 2011) from Justin Oakey on Vimeo.

Haven't had time for posting for a while and that isn't likely to change anytime soon

Things currently being worked on:

Blockade/ PHT split 7" (super fi), records pressed, awaiting the artwork being finished off

Column of Heaven - Mission From God 7" (SPHC), written and ready to be recorded, just figuring out the exact line up beyond me and Eric for this release. Two splits need to have the details finalised then i'll start writing them.

Nameless Dread - Coronation of the Beast CD (Crucial Blast) about to be mastered.

a band with 3/5's of the line up of Slaughter Strike is in extremely embryonic stages; if it continues expect a Survivalist release before the end of the year.

Ears:

Druid Lord - Hymns for the Wicked LP
Nefandus - Death Holy Death LP
Paul Chain - Detaching From Satan 12"
Sick Seed - Great Corrupter LP
Opiate - First Document tape
Youth Korps - 1982 demo
Damnation AD - Kingdom of Lost Souls LP
Inside Out - No Spiritual Surrender 7"
Converge - Jane Doe LP

Eyes:

The Gnostic #4
Metalion: the Slayer Mag Diaries - Jon Kristiansen
GB84 - David Peace
The World of Perception - Merleau-Ponty