20150725

Hevy Fest preview: Baby Godzilla is now Heck

The first "new" band that I have discovered through my Hevy Fest poll is Baby Godzilla. But at some point in the last month they were forced to change their name, and are now called Heck. This made discovering anything about the band fairly challenging, as less than a week ago the band was still listed as Baby Godzilla on the Hevy Fest website (has now been changed). I don't listen to metal or hardcore that often, but I do like watching bands like this perform live, so in that regard Hevy Fest will be the perfect place to do that.

Here are some comments I have been given so far about the band: "Baby Godzilla are nuts. No other way to describe them and make photographing them ridiculously fun (if not at times dangerous)."

"Make sure to check out Baby Godzilla for sure. You won't regret it."

And from my own reading about the band (once again, now called Heck), they definitely seem to be a band to watch and experience, not just listen to. Here is a great example...



So you can count on me being at the Heck show with camera in hand! Finally, you can get their EP "Knockout Machine" free on their website:

20150721

Hevy Fest survey; need input!

I just learned yesterday my press pass application for Hevy Fest was accepted! I am so excited to be able to go to these festival in the UK in August. As I wrote a couple months ago, I discovered the festival because of Thrice. Here is a photo I took from the last time I saw Thrice, in 2011...

100911 THRICE 052
In addition to Thrice, I plan to cover the Get Up Kids, Coheed & Cambria, The Fall of Troy, and The Dillenger Escape Plan. The rest of the festival bands are unknowns to me. Would you mind helping and let me know who else I should take photos of and write stories about?
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20150717

Medium and "Chrindie '95"

I have mentioned this a few times, but I am writing quite a bit on Medium, primarily as a part of the Chrindie '95 publication. I highly recommend the publication as it now has more than a dozen different stories on albums celebrating 20th anniversaries.
Alan Parish
Chrindie ‘95

20150715

Cush/The Prayer Chain live performance

Cush, June 2015
When the Prayer Chain broke up at the end of 1995, guitarist Andy Prickett, bass player Eric Campuzano, and drummer Wayne Everett eventually formed the collective Cush (as they were joined by a rotating cast of other musicians--most notably original vocalist Mike Knott). The only member of the Prayer Chain that wasn't a full member of Cush at any point was Prayer Chain vocalist Tim Taber. Taber did sing one line on the debut Cush LP in 2000, and also sang on a Cush b-side that was released eventually on a live album.

Cush is primarily a collaboration of Prickett and Campuzano, and is Prickett's primary outlet for songwriting (he has played guitar for dozens of bands over the years and done lots of production and engineering work; but unfortunately rarely writes). Campuzano's primary songwriting outlet for the longest time was the Lassie Foundation, but is now Stranger Kings (with Holly Nelson on lead vocals, debut album released in 2014).

Cush has played with countless line-ups and lead singers over the last 15 years, but for the majority of those shows the backbone of Prickett-Campuzano-Everett was present. I was fortunate enough to attend the primary exception--in the Netherlands at Flevo Festival 2003--when Cush performed with only Prickett, joined by a collective of Dutch musicians (who had never performed with Cush previously, and never did again).

I give all this background because last month Cush performed a show for the first time ever with Tim Taber on lead vocals. Everett was unfortunately not behind the drum-set, but otherwise it was practically a Prayer Chain reunion show, as Cush even performed two Prayer Chain songs. As this show was in California and I am in Germany, I wasn't able to be there, but thankfully the band recorded all seven songs in HD Video and can be watched on YouTube. The performance is outstanding, and the video is also really high quality (the camera is positioned poorly for the first song, but the angle is corrected in the middle of the second).



Cush at the Constellation Room, June 9, 2015
1. The Drug That You Can Never Take (SP3, 2014)
2. Heaven Sent (Cush, 2000)
3. All My Eyes Knew (SP3, 2014)
4. God Help Me (SP2, 2003)
5. Mercury (Humb 1994, Mercury 1995)
6. The Bomb Was Brighter Than the Stars (Cush, 2000)
7. Chalk (Humb 1994, Antarctica 1996)

If you are a Prayer Chain fan unfamiliar with Humb, it was the original 12-track version of Mercury that was rejected by the record label. It was put on Bandcamp a few years ago along with the backstory.  All of Cush's and the Prayer Chain's music is now on Bandcamp and can be streamed for free and purchased at low prices. The most recent Cush EP came out just about a year ago and is outstanding:


Also, 2015 is the 20th Anniversary of Mercury, which resulted in a Kickstarter that funded the upcoming release of the album on vinyl. I am highly anticipating the delivery of my copy:

20150712

Wolf Alice

I have written at length this year about my excitement about women dominating the rock scene. Well, I have been away from the blog for a few weeks but in that time period I discovered a new band that has released my favorite album of the year--Wolf Alice. They are British and one of the most original bands I have heard in some time. I won't even try to describe their sound, instead you can listen for yourself.

From left to right: Joff Oddie, Ellie Rowsell, Theo Ellis, and Joel Amey – Photo by Jordan Curtis Hughes
"My Love is Cool", Wolf Alice's debut album was released on June 22. I heard it a week earlier on NPR's "First Listen" and streamed it non-stop.


I ordered the vinyl and when I got my MP3 download on release day my love for the band continued to rise.
I then bought their first two EP's on Amazon, which are also incredible. Wolf Alice also has a number of otherwise unreleased tracks on Soundcloud that I just discovered this morning. This is the first band I have discovered in awhile that I am putting great effort into finding EVERY song they have ever released (while this is their debut album, they have been playing for almost 5 years). You can preview all of the band's releases on their Soundcloud page, and this is the single song I think that best displays the band's sound:



And then here is my favorite song from the band, "Your Love's Whore", as a part of their Glastonbury Festival appearance last month: