Site Update

I added some new links to the blogroll on the right hand side of the page, check em out.

The first is the blog B-Sides ‘R’ Us which contains downloads of a ton of music that you can’t buy.  Live bootlegs, leaked tracks, demos, out of print stuff and a ton of other rarities.  I recommend the sections for Thrice, Thursday, and The Mars Volta.

Then there is Issues Oriented.  A podcast by Ronen Kauffman that features interviews and a little bit of music ranging from punk to hardcore to indie to metal and beyond.  Make sure to give this podcast a listen.  Highlights are episodes 6 and 18 featuring the lovely Joanna Angel, as well as 19 with Efrem from Death By Stereo and 22 with Geoff Rickly from Thursday.

Finally, there is the fairly new blog Robotic Obscurites.  It’s run by the awesome people at Robotic Empire and features demos, b-sides and rarities from the bands they do releases for.  Never heard of Robotic Empire?  Go check them out here.  They sell countless amazing cds and record.  The best vinyl I find online I get from these guys.  Isis box set anyone?

That’s it for now.  I’ve got new songs of the week in progress as well as a very exciting interview.  Keep your eyes peeled.

Oh, and one last thing.  Anyone else get the aTelecine EP aVigillant Carpark?  Thoughts on this strange art piece?

Song of the Week – “(We Are)” by American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost

Welcome to The Testing Ground’s very first Song of the Week review.  Even though it’s the Song of the Week, expect it to be more bi/tri monthly until I really get into the swing of things.  Without further ado, one of my favorites…

“(We Are)” by American Nightmare, later known as Give Up the Ghost, is one of the most amazing pieces of music I have discovered in the last two years. I started listening to American Nightmare in 2008, long after their 2004 breakup, but despite my late arrival, I am certainly glad I eventually made it to their party .

I won’t bore you with the details of my descent into their music, but I will say that the first times I heard Year One and Background Music I could not believe the musical gems I was unearthing. I got that feeling I get every time I discover music that will truly stick with me. My eyes get wide, I turn to whoever is next to me and I ask, “How the hell didn’t we already know about this?” The same thing happened the first time I heard Red Sparowes’s At the Soundless Dawn.

American Nightmare’s singer Wes Eisold sets the tone of this lonesome anthem about having given up and being absolutely set upon that decision with the first line of the song, “This is the soundtrack to saying goodbye.”

I’ve shown the lyrics of (We Are) to a lot of my friends who don’t listen to aggressive music. In general they’ve liked the lyrics, but have almost universally commented that these words are some of the most depressing writing they have ever read. I certainly cannot deny this, because Wes writes using very bleak imagery, but I believe my friends all miss something I feel in these words. What my friends miss, I hear in the delivery of the lyrics juxtaposed with the aggressive tone of the music. While the words alone sound tragic, when I hear this song, I am always filled with hope.

Something I love about American Nightmare is how their music creates this space where, for the moment, it is completely okay to say, “Fuck everything, I give up. The world sucks, life sucks, I’m drowning in emotional torment and everything is going to hell. I am angrier than I’ve ever been and it’s not going to get better.” While this attitude will get you nowhere, many of us have moments where we feel this way, though we know life is really not that bad. Just because we know it won’t get us anywhere does not mean we can simply push those feelings aside. You have to accept these emotions and work through them. and I find American Nightmare’s music to be one of the best places to work through these feelings, one of the best places to purge them.

“we are dropping coins/into dead payphones/to hear the sound of our voice/just to know we’re alone”

Brief News

So exciting news in the Isis world, as well as in the Pelican world

Isis has released the title, artwork and track listing of their new album.  You can read more about that here.  As well, if you head over to Aaron Turner’s blog you can see the artwork split into two different pieces, giving you a better understanding of how he composed it.

Pelican has signed to a new label, are working on a new EP (in my new home of Seattle) and have a string of new tour dates up.  Check that out here.

Eric Victorino (ex-Strata, Limousines) Interview

Recently came across this interview with Eric Victorino, currently of the Limousines and formerly the singer of Strata from Confront Magazine.

Check it out

Guess Who’s Back?

hello…hello?
testing, testing

Hello there ttg fans.  I know, it’s been a long time.  Life has been crazy.  I graduated college, left my life long home of the Bay Area and moved to Seattle.  It’s 2009 and it’s time to reaffirm life.  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this site and about my need to write about music.  It’s time to make it happen more than ever before.  I’m going to start off with a song of the week column and see where it takes me.  I also noticed that the format of my site has for some reason reverted back to some very unappealing color schemes so I’ll have to work that out soon.  Anywho, I just wanted to check in.  Now I’m off to start writing.  Like Zach de la Rocha said

“it has to start somewhere
it has to start sometime
what better place than here
what better time than now
all hell can’t stop us now”

Calling all Isis Fans! – Part Trois

So check this, straight from Isis’s myspace blog

“We’ve been working hard on the new record. All five of us sweating away in a small windowless room in downtown Los Angeles. We’re making good progress and will have more (and more exciting) news about that to report soon!”

Who else is stoked?

And word is the Not in Rivers, But in Drops single will be out September 9th.

CMJ Interview with Scott Lucas from Local H

I came across this recent interview with Scott Lucas from Local H via the band’s myspace.  They discuss recording the new album and concept albums in general.  Good short read, check it out.  And if you haven’t already, go pick up a copy of Local H’s new album “12 Angry Months” because it is amazing.

In other news, I discovered the most astoundingly beautiful music ever thanks to my favorite online vinyl supplier Robotic Empire.  More on that later.

Rockstar Mayhem Tour & Violence at Shows

I sit here trying to type out words to catalog my experiences on Saturday at the Rockstar Mayhem Tour in Mountain View (not San Francisco), CA. I’m thinking about the lines I could use to start it off. I could make a few pointless comments about it being summer, fucking hot, and festival show season. Then I could get into the different bands sets and give you the highlights. There’s a problem though – writing these words is like pulling teeth, and without Cliff Burton around, dental work is just too painful.

In the midst of considering my metaphorical dental surgery, I did come across a thought or two invoked by Saturday’s experiences that I think are worth exploring. Before that though, a few short highlights of the show: Walls of Jericho amassed some huge circle pits, Machine Head played Hallowed be thy Name originally by Iron Maiden, Sid Wilson (#0) from Slipknot broke both his heels at the Seattle show so he’s playing in a wheelchair, and Slipknot played Prosthetics off of their self-titled album (my personal highlight of the show).

Now with the highlights out of the way, let’s move on to some real thinking which means we need to rewind back to the Machine Head set. My friends and I headed over to one of the second stages for their set a few minutes before it started so we could be there for the whole thing. Shortly after, the band came out on stage and things got going. Music was playing, the crowd was moving, and since this happened to be one of my friend’s first metal show ever, I wanted to make sure she got the full experience. I told her to follow me and not to worry; she’d be safe. We wormed our way through the crowd, pushing closer and closer to the center. Our destination was the edge of the circle pit; that way she could get a good view of all the chaos.

Calling all Isis Fans! – Part Deux

So Isis has done some restocking of their webstore.  I’m not sure what this means for their stock of t-shirts and what not, but what I do know is that they now carry some of the honey colored copies of the Live IV vinyl.  They also have copies of the Holy Tears single on vinyl.  It  comes in blue or clear.  It says that it’s an import and whenever I’ve looked in the past months since the single was released, I’ve only seen it available in vinyl format on European websites.

I highly encourage picking up the Holy Tears cd, whether you choose the vinyl format, or the cd.  The Melvins/Lustmord remix of Not in Rivers, But in Drops is the definition of how heavy music like this should be remixed, and the live version of Holy Tears with Justin Chancellor (from Tool) is absolutely beautiful.

So go go go.

Calling all Isis Fans!

So Live IV has been officially released on vinyl in in 12×2 format.  The record is being put out by Robotic Empire records which the same super cool family run record company that put out the Shades of the Swarm 12×12 box set, as well as a ton of other cool music so check ‘em out.

If you don’t know, the track listing goes

“Gentle Time” @ WMBR in Boston, MA
“Glisten” @ The Troubadour in Los Angeles, CA
“CFT” @ CBGB’s in New York, NY
“Celestial” @ CBGB’s in New York, NY
“Improv I (Endless Nameless)” @ The Rotunda in Philadelphia, PA
“False Light” @ The Middle East in Cambridge, MA
“Weight” w/Justin Chancellor (Tool) & Troy Ziegler @ The Troubadour in Los Angeles, CA

This is a limited run of 1030 (103 Black, 403 Chocolate and 524 Honey) so get one while you still can.  As of right now the black copies have already sold out.  There’s 190 of the chocolate and 406 of the honey left so hurry up and head over to the Robotic Empire Store and grab yours.

Also available is the new Isis toy produced by UniPro and UNKL.  It’s available at the Isis webstore so head on over.  I got mine a short while back (speedy shipping).  I like it a lot.  It has the mosquitio logo on each side of the rotating head and the packaging is pretty cool.

(photo courtesy of Aaron Turner’s blog Feral Pig)