Vindication!

Christmas came early for me this year. About 3 weeks ago I happen across this: What your seeing here is my local little post office hub. And why am I glad this is happening? Well, I'll tell you why.

In May, I put out a split LP release between the mighty SNAKES ALIVE and my band WIRE WEREWOLVES on my Sentient Recordings label. So, deciding to do the "support your local business" thing as opposed to going to the main post office down all the way on the other end of town, which is always crowded and the employees that are less than hospitable, I used this small one within walking distance of my house, whose employees are quite friendly.

Everything seemed on the up and up, as I mailed out the first round of orders, the artist copies to Evan, Mr. Greh Hive Mind (who guested on our side), Ryan, drummer of Snakes, who lives up in Eugene, OR. now, and a couple large boxes to some choice distros (Kreation Records and Crucial Blast if you are still looking for this LP). Well, 2 weeks go by and still no one has gotten their orders, even locals who live so close I could have walked them to their house quicker. So naturally I go in there and ask what is going on, and the lady explains to me that because I used Media Mail it is the slowest method and it takes longer. I say ok, and look it up and its true it is the slowest, but still thought it was odd it was taking so long.

OK, so another week goes by and still nothing, no one got a single package. So, I go in again and ask what is going on, she gives me the same shpeel about media mail blah blah blah and this time says she can look it up and takes my name and number and would call me within the next day or so and let me know whats going on.

I wait.

Nothing (surprise).

By this time I've started informing the customers on whats going on, fortunately everyone is fine with it (thanks again, if you happen to be one of those people). So another week goes by and I go in to start talking some shit, she informs me she will do her best to track these and let me know what is going on again blah blah bullshit blah, and as I am walking out I notice two boxes behind the counter that look somewhat familiar. I ask to see what they are, so she hands them to me and sure as shit, they are the two big boxes that were sent out to the distros, unmailed, unsent.

She immediately begins some horrible excuse that goes like "oh, these? these were sent back to us because no one was there to pick them up" oh really? Is that how the mail works? Everyone has to be there when the mailman arrives to be handed their mail? I didn't ask for a signature confirmation you fucktard. And if they were actually sent back, why would they go to the post office instead of me, my name is the return address remember? Not the post office I mailed them out at.

Meanwhile, the boxes are completely blank of any sort of markings. Anyone who has mailed or received anything as small as a letter know that when you mail something they stamp the shit out of it and it comes to you looking kind of "worn" if you know what I mean. But nope, none of it.

So being insanely pissed off, I drive to the actual post office and re-mail them out there. Shockingly enough, the distros get their respective packages within the week, and upon my arrival back home I get online and file a report with the Better Business Bureau. But man, I am so glad those were the packages I rescued, for they each had around 10 copies in them, and I sold them for $15 a pop. Do the math.

All right, by this time I decide I am going to take the hit and remail out new copies to everyone who ordered them including the multiple artist copies as well. I'd rather lose the money than have a bunch of pissed off customers who think they got ripped off by some new unknown label.

But first, I wait another week or so, just to make sure. I go to the terrible post office again and let her know that I remailed out those boxes through the real post office and they already got there and that I'm pretty much on to her bullshit and where the fuck are the rest of the packages?!?! She still doesn't give up her lie and gives me the same bullshit excuses.

So I head over to the real post office and mail out the make up orders.

And to my surprise, less than a week after people started receiving their make up orders the original ones finally show up! Thanks assholes.

Fortunately, some of the rad customers who received the extra ones sent em back. So thank you guys for that if you happen to read this. And thanks everyone who placed the first batch of orders for your support through this nonsense, its very much appreciated.

Man, they must've fucked over quite a few people for this to happen, but we'll see how these new people do when they take over. But you better be sure that I am going mail out a "test" package to myself and see how long it takes before I send out any of my mail order through them again.

Happy Garbage Day!

'tis the Reason for the Season

Skinny Puppy - Last Rights

FINALLY, Skinny Puppy's Last Rights album, which in my opinion, ranks as one of the best pieces of Electronic Music ever recorded, is getting a vinyl reissue!!! I could listen to this album on a loop the rest of my life and probably won't get sick of it. And now this can help to fill in the small gaps of my near complete Puppy vinyl collection! Anyways, read on.

"As of this month, fans of Industrial Godfathers Skinny Puppy (without whom there would be no Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Nails), will no longer have to shell out $200+ for the incredibly scarce vinyl edition of the band’s last (and arguably best) “classic-era” LP, Last Rights. This past August, the band polled their most rabid fans on Litany.net, asking which Puppy LP they’d most like to see reissued on vinyl. Last Rights won out as the fan favorite with nearly half of the vote, leading the band to strike a deal with their former label Nettwerk to reissue the album. The resultant release (out now) is lovingly repackaged with I, Braineater’s (AKA Jim Cummins) original artwork on a gatefold sleeve, while the audio itself has been mastered specifically for vinyl and spread across two LPs cut at 45rpm for maximum mental deranging. The package also includes a bonus CD of the entire album.

Last Rights still darkly stands out in the band's discography. It is both the band's most inaccessible and experimental album yet also its most devastingly beautiful. The band’s personal lives and health were in particularly bad states at the time of recording, with the members battling various drug problems. Puppy Vocalist Ogre, legendarily, was very much in the half-light of existence during the album’s recording. Held by the grip of a severe heroin addition, Ogre mostly forgoes his usual political lyrical bent and indeed sounds the part of a man exorcising a great many personal demons.

“pain that never dies / crawls up the back / and waits /
...crawls wicked wire / cut throat explodes /
singing of the vein / no desire / great fate…” - Ogre’s lyrics from “Love In Vein”

Last Rights also marked a Puppy first, with an attempt at a ballad; “Killing Game” with a mostly untreated vocal from Ogre, remains the most accessible and haunting track on the album amongst cEvin Key and Dwayne Goettel’s monstrous and dense instrumental tracks like “Riverz End” and “Download.” “Knowhere?” is a dance floor track for cement shoes with chugga-chugga riffs and an unrelenting slide into a cacophonous hell. On “Scrapyard,” a brief hope pierces through the depressive atmosphere via stuttering acoustic guitar strums and a one-off soaring chorus before being pulverized by the heavy crush of Puppy-dementia once again. The album has many “sliver of hope” moments like this with colorful recurring split-second strings on “Lust Chance” and the acoustic breaks and infectious synth-hooks on the album’s club-hit “Inquisition.” Last Rights also achieves a feat in that unlike its latter-day successors, it never sounds contrived. Ultimately, this record is a masterfully drawn map of personal purgatory with tightrope dances between life and death and the beautiful and the horrific.

Uber-fans of Puppy will notice an unfortunate drawback to an otherwise flawless reissue: still no inclusion of the mythical and ‘missing’ tenth track, “Left Handshake.” The song was omitted from the album’s original January 1992 release at the last minute due to the band’s inability to obtain clearance for several Dr. Timothy Leary samples taken from Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, the Doctor’s infamous LP of Trip–enhancing audio. The band simply commented on the matter by not allocating a track 10 on the LP and the liner notation “Song 10 Is Missing?.” The track has since been released on European pressings of the band’s Brap compilation and as a limited edition single at the 2000 Dresden Skinny Puppy reunion show. It’s likely Nettwerk (as well as the band) was not willing to cough up the extra dough necessary to clear the samples for the reissue.

No word yet on further reissues, but one can hope for, at the very least, a similar issue of Rights' predecessor Too Dark Park, which has also become increasingly rare on vinyl. Hint, Hint, Nettwerk.

The Last Rights deluxe vinyl reissue is available at Amoeba Hollywood now!"

All info was taken from here

The Noise Guitar

yeah yeah, I'll come up with a better name for this thing later. I'm open to suggestions by the way.

Anyways, for those familiar with my noise project Circuit Wound, know that my main sound source device was a reverb tank that I strapped on like a guitar. That thing was perfect for many years, but I wanted to expand my sonic palate, especially in live performances. I wanted something to diversify my sound enough so that CW performances can last longer that 5-10 minutes and still be interesting (to me at least, heh). I've always had an admiration for artists like Solmania who made these monstrosity noise guitars, but I still wanted to keep the reverb tank sound as well.

Sooooo.... Take one piece of shit Epiphone SG that I no longer use.



I then removed the neck pickup, and painted out a line on the back of the body to where I am going mount an extra reverb tank I had lying around (as the main one I used in CW was much too long).



So using a Router tool (thanks Dad!), I carved out that rectangle about half an inch deep and a few inches long. Then drilling 2 small holes in the reverb tank I screwed it into the body of the guitar. Then drilled a small hole near the output jack of the guitar, I wired up the reverb tank to the toggle switch of where the neck pickup used to go. So with the toggle switch I can select to use the reverb tank or the guitar separately, or when in the middle, both.



The metal plate here (came from one of the little Radio Shack project boxes), I had originally planned on screwing into the fretboard, but It didn't really change the sound much. So now instead I keep it in between strings to slide up and down the fretboard. Sounds great smashing up against the pickups!



I did an hour long jam with it last night after I got it up and running and sounded fantastic! Wish I recorded it. ooops! next time.

Upcoming Shows

Snakes Alive website
Bacteria Cult website

Dear mysterious trailer dweller, please be my friend.

Almost everyday I pass by this. Some big old Airstream trailer, locked behind a fence rimmed with barb-wire, tucked in the very back of some vacant lot.

When I go by I always have to stop and have a look. Wondering to myself, does anyone live in there? and if so, who are they and what are they like? I imagine this person to be some sort of paranoid reclusive type, with the inside of the trailer littered with strange newspaper clippings crudely taped over every square inch of the walls that "mean something" and who's existence revolves around hiding from secret government plots to control his mind.

Maybe I'm just fascinated because that sort of life sounds kind of appealing to me on some subconscious level.

OR maybe this is going on, did you ever see that episode of X-Files (written by Science Fiction writer William Gibson!) where this hot cyber-punk girl with kind of corpse paint on is on the run from some haywire computer who shoots missiles (or was it lasers?) at them from orbiting satellites? They then track it down to some trailer out in the middle of nowhere that is completely filled with computers and electronics that seem to have become sentient?

Yeah, that's probably whats going on here.