Music Meridian

DownloadPunk.com has a song from the new Psyopus CD available for free download here.

Tech-metal-heads rejoice. The thing is absolutely over-the-top and insane. Super shredding guitar freakouts with hyperspeed complex drumming (are you expecting anything less from Psyopus?!?!) Download it now if you want to be dazzled.

The new album "Our Puzzling Encounters Considered" comes of Feb 27, 2007. It can't come out soon enough for me.

Over at ipecac they have the date/title/album cover for the new hella:
http://ipecac.com/discography.php

(It's called "There's No 666 in Outer Space" and comes out 1/27/2007 for those who don't wanna click!)

Whoo Hoooo!

P.S. Those who haven't bought a copy of the new Zach Hill & Holy Smokes record is seriously missing out. That and the Damsel record. Oh and unrelated, you all need to hear the new Tom Waits and the Negativa (ex-Gorguts/Ion Dissonance) records. Hotcha!

In this week's issue of the Chicago Reader there's an ad announcing the closing of another Chicago music institution.

Hi-Fi Records on Clark in Lincoln Park will be closed for good Sunday Nov. 26. This is very sad and troubling to me.

That area used to be a record-shopping mecca to me. There was Dr. Wax (moved to Edgewater), 2nd Hand Tunes (closed), [something]Video (can't even remember the name anymore!) (Closed), Tower (closing in December) and now Hi Fi. A moment of silence please.

Anyways here's the "good" news:
Every CD, Record, Movie, T-Shirt etc is 1/2 price from Nov. 17-Nov. 25th. On Sunday Nov. 26th, EVERYTHING is $1. Everthing must go.

Looking forward to some final bargins I guess.

Last night, my friend John and I went to see drummer extrordiairre Thomas Lang do a clinic. It was absolutely ridiculous.

You can check out Thomas' homepage here.

He's quite possibly one of the best (if not THE best) drumset players out there right now.

The stage was full, even though it was just him playing solo. Why? He had THREE drumkits on stage. One giant sonor clear drumset, with about 10 different footpedals all controlling different drums, a V-drum Kit that was absolutely massive and a small practice kit (which he didn't really use except to plug it...he endorses it).

So what did he do? Played along to some rock/metal charts as well as some totally over-the-top solos. Basically, he has inhuman-like limb independance. He can play vastly different patterns which each of his arms and legs, resulting in it sounding like there's a group of players on stage when it's only him. While he was on the V-drum kit he had it set up to latin percussion sounds, and if you closed your eyes you swore it was an entire latin-percussion group up there. No loops, all done in the flesh. My mind is still reeling.

Plus he's fast, fast, fast. When he wants to be...not all the time...it was tasteful as well as powerful. No triggers here...he can play blazing blastbeats with force.

I remember being especially blown away at one point when he played 16th notes on the double bass and snare. He would speed up the feet while slowing down the hands at the same rate. And vice-versa. I can't even wrap my head around that.

In fact, much of what he did I think required at least one extra set of eyes and perhaps and extra brain to totally comprehend what was going on. He's like some sort of circus freak/juggler.

If Thomas Lang comes anywhere near your town, I highly suggest you go check it out. Even if you're not a drummer (John isn't). You'll be quite amazed and entertained at what he does.

He ended the night with a little Q&A....he was quick to point out his favorite metal drummer right now is Gene Hoglan (damn straight!). He also broke down some of his concepts and such. Highly entertaining and informative.

Afterwards I bought his brand new 3DVD set, which I guess isn't even in stores yet. It's over 7 hours of material. I can't wait to dig in.

Take this online test (flash required) to see how tone-deaf you are! Pretty fun! You listen to two musical patterns and decide if they're the same or different.


I scored well with 77.8% correct. That classifies me with "Excellent Musical Abilities"

How did you do?

Check out this article which talks about how Robert Fripp, the guitarist of King Crimson and numerous other prog rock groups, recorded the startup sound for Window Vista. Kinda cool! Looking forward to hearing 4 notes of Fripp every time I boot up.

Ok, this isn't music-related, but I'm psyched.

World Premire of The Simpsons Movie will air on Fox this Sunday. Gonna be all over that like flies at a ribroast. Movie comes out in summer 2007.

Hopefully it's different than this one:








Their myspace page has the new album "So Divided" streaming. Presumably until the album comes out next Tuesday.

I'm not hating it. It's not bad actually....





I was playing around with the iTunes Store's iMix system today and made a iMix. It's like 5 hours of music, but you can only hear 30 second samples unless you want to buy all the music.

Check it out here (If you have iTunes installed)

Here's the tracklisting in case you don't have iTunes and are still interested in what I deemed enjoyable:

The Flying Luttenbachers - Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth

Zs - Olympics

An Albatross - Dimmensional Gymnastics

John Zorn - Astronome Act One

Magma - Kohntark (Live)

Sir Millard Mulch - Hemisphere III: Hermes

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - The Barbarian

Origin - The Burner

Mastodon - Bladecatcher

Hella - Hello Great Architect of the Universe

Hella - Cafeteria Bananas

Zach Hill & Mick Barr - Parallel Patchwork Abduction

Octis - Ocrilim

Yes - The Gates of Delirium

Genesis - The Knife

Rush - La Villa Strangiato

Child Abuse & Miracle of Birth - Damn You All I Told You So

Nile - The Howling of the Jim

Genghis Tron - Rock Candy

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Crap Cannon

The Flying Luttenbachers - Regime Part One

Van Halen - Girl Gone Bad

Cryptopsy - Angelskingarden

Last Exit - Line of Fire

Cynic - Uroboric Forms

Billy Cobham - Quadrant 4

Return to Forever - Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant

Herbie Hancock - Hornets

Dysrhythmia - Appeared At First

Behold the Arctopus - Exospacial Psionic Aura

Just got an email from a member of Stay Fucked with more important information about the upcoming Philly Prog Convention:

Gravelspitter Presents:
Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches
An evening-long festival of visceral progressive music.


5pm; Saturday, December 16th
at the Avant Gentlemen's Lodge
4028 Filbert St, Philadelphia PA
(Admission: $10)


Featuring Dysrhythmia, Zs, Ocrilim, Normal Love, Kuru Kuru Pa, Stay Fucked, Child Abuse, Yukon, Knot Feeder, Calabi Yau


Awesome! Can't wait!

Lots of hype was surrounding the release of Frank Zappa's new CD "Trance Fusion" due to the fact would be widely available in a store near you.

Yesterday, it hit shelves after many many delays.

I did a quick search on bestbuy.com for the CD. Out of 10 stores nearest to me (in Chicago) only one store had it in stock (Bucktown). I promptly bought it through the site for store pickup. After they confirmed my order, it was also unavailable at that store.

Later last evening I picked up the CD. It's awesome. Some great guitar playing and band interplay on the CD. Zappa fans and guitar freaks alike will find a lot to enjoy here....

But am I lead to believe I bought the ONLY copy that was sent to Best Buy stores in the Chicago area??? It's still currently unavailable at all 10 nearby stores according to their site.





Recently-divorced Kevin Federline must be having a really bad week.

If you go to House Of Blues page for his show tonight:
http://hob.com/tickets/eventdetail.asp?eventid=41992 and select buy a ticket, it takes you to ticketmaster's page. Select the "paperfast offer" and continue. You'll notice the tickets are absolutely free and they only charge $2.25 for ticketmaster fees.

$2.25 to see quite possibly the biggest musical trainwreck of all time. Who's going???

Please vote on Tuesday.

Your opinion matters, your vote counts, your voice is important.

Get to the polls early.
It's okay to take time off work to vote.
Take your time in the voting booth and vote carefully.

1) Don't let anyone tell you that you cannot vote. Go to your polling place, talk to the pollworkers, call your government, demand your right to vote.

2) Don't believe for one second that your one vote can't make a difference. Obviously, every single vote counts.

3) Don't blow off this opportunity to participate in the Democratic process. Elections work when people vote.








I don't claim to "know" Malachi, but I did meet him on several occassions. Mostly at local jazz shows. I remember having a deep discussion with him a few days after 9/11 at a Sex Mob show at Schubas. He was an amazing man. Outspoken. Music Collector extrordiare. He will be missed.

Here's some pieces to the puzzle I assembled from the chi-improv email list:

Seth Snyder Wrote:
While news of this event is still fresh, and i don't know all the
> details, it seems almost definite that our friend Malachi Ritscher has
> passed, this past Friday morning. Please read this article in Sun
> Times for more information :
> http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/123692,CST-NWS-bodyfire04.article
>
> While dental records have not confirmed his identity, it seems that
> this person is almost definitely Malachi (his car was at the scene,
> his keys and last Will have been received in the mail by a friend,
> Malachi has not been seen since Friday, his website is not up to date).
>
> There is an impromptu memorial being held tonight at 11PM, at the
> scene (Millenium Flame) which is near the Ohio St. exit of southbound
> Kennedy Expressway (see the link for more info). Please come and
> please spread the word. I hope there is another chance for us all to
> come together to remember Malachi in the coming days, but this is
> what's happening tonight, so please try to come out.
>
> For those of you who may not know, Malachi has been a longtime
> supporter and participant of the Chicago experimental music scene for
> many years, and has recorded many live records for many musicians in
> town and throughout the world, and kept up his savagesound.com page,
> which has been a very useful and comprehensive list of creative music
> events in chicago. Also, Malachi was an activist and a very active and
> vocal protester of political and social ills that stem from, but are
> not limited to, the Bush administration.
>
> We will all miss him greatly.


Jason Guthartz wrote
> This is too sad and too hard to process right now.
>
> He may have selected his own exit music:
> http://myspace.com/savagesoundsyndicate
>

Tushar Samant Wrote:
And very probably wrote his obituary.

http://www.savagesound.com/gallery100.htm

Jason Guthartz wrote
and this suicide note:

http://www.savagesound.com/gallery99.htm