still listening to
sadat x

black october
album he made

before going to jail
on a gun charge

which will probably cost him
his teaching credential

which is a god damned shame
since I don't doubt

that he was an excellent teacher
you might say

"what was he doing carrying a gun"
to which I would respond

"shut the fuck up"
I mean I'm not into guns either

but walk a mile in a man's shoes you know
anyway

in 2006
knowing he's about to spend the better part of a year

locked up
he goes into the studio and makes this album

on which there is not a single track
that I don't love

most of the beats are loping mellow window-blasters
old school I guess

but brand nubian always had their own thing
texture like fading film

and sadat x has his own thing too
a kind of latin jazz bounce

and a flow that's very tight
without feeling too tight

it is an absolutely beautiful album
which I thought I would mention to you

while waiting at the kitchen table
for my rice to finish cooking

OK, look, it is really not my style to call people out. Especially not on stuff they say in interviews; I've done a lot of interviews: you say whatever comes to mind at the time, maybe you're drunk or high or angry or bored or so depressed you can barely speak. You just talk until you're done; you shouldn't generally be held accountable for what you say when you're doing the press rounds. But in an interview with the outstanding blog Metal Sucks, Blake Judd, the main dude from the pretty excellent band Nachtmystium, responds to a question thus:

Q: Assassins is a pretty big departure from your previous work and I would think will divide your existing fans who claim it isn’t “br00tal” or “tr00” enough. Does this concern you?

A: No. I don’t make music for other people.

To this I feel I must say: oh, really? Nonsense. If you are making music only for yourself, you don't release it. While it's true that an artist does not owe his fans the music they want, he does, in fact, owe them quite a great deal, and he lies if he says he isn't making music for them. Because it's the listeners to whom an artist owes the right to self-identify as an artist. They gave you that job. It is for them that you make music, not yourself; only artists of whom no-one has ever heard have any right to claim that they "don't make music for other people."

The rest of us must always be true to our visions, don't get me wrong. If we waste our inspiration trying to chase down past glories to satisfy people who don't think we should grow or change, we're traitors of the worst kind. But don't kid yourself. You do owe the audience something, and you do make music for them, and if you don't think of it that way, perhaps you should.

I'm giving another reading in southern California, where I may end up reading something new; information here.

Have been listening to the new Wetnurse since Thursday morning. Still picking out which superlatives I want to garland it with, but for now let me just put you on alert: this is the best metal album of the year so far. Period. The other metal albums on my running year-end list, if you're curious, are by Origin, Morbosidad, Prostitute Disfigurement, Septic Flesh, and Jucifer. Wetnurse isn't at all like any of those - their sound has its vocal roots in 'core, but the guitar work, and the percussion, remind me a little of all-time-greats Coroner, if I can say that without being struck by lightning.

In my opinion it has not been a banner year for metal - I've heard a lot of stuff I liked, but very little that inspired me. There's plenty of decent headbanging to be had, but not much that's really made me want to bang my head. The "experimental black metal" stuff making the rounds is pleasant but boring; give me Peste Noire or give me death, please. (I think Ares Kingdom is due to start working on a new record soon, though, so all's not lost.) But Invisible City, now: this is a huge bright flash of inspiration and a huge growth spurt from a band that was once pretty decent and is, as of their new album, great.

Peste Noire is touring in North America. They're not coming to the U.S., which is a pity on the one hand 'cause I'd like to see them - I can't make it up to the Toronto show since I'm playing a solo set at home that night, but I would otherwise go even if it meant I had to eat ramen for a month. Peste Noire are one of the best metal bands around right now.

On the other hand, though, once I put my own personal wants aside, it's kind of not a pity that Peste Noire aren't coming to the U.S. It's more of a triumph. Look at those tour dates: if you're from the U.S., chances are high that you've only ever heard of five of the thirteen cities Peste Noire will be playing. That's kind of awesome. Most bands, for fairly obvious business reasons, run tour routes that are predictable and practical. Nobody who pays rent can fault any working band for doing exactly that. But I assume that most musicians, like myself, dream of a world in which it would be possible to launch ridiculous & memorable tours whose routings would be fanciful and creative but whose ledger sheets at the end wouldn't lead to profuse apologies to one's family or threatening notes from one's creditors. When I lived in Iowa, I used to joke about doing a full tour of the 99 counties; I wish I'd actually done it. Don't get me wrong: I'm certain that about 95 of the shows on such a tour would have turned out to be hard lessons in learning humility. But a tour like that would have been something to marvel at later. (Having no illusions about the cross-pollination between readers of this site & my other concern, let me say here that I have been giving long and hard thought to the question of what makes a show or a tour special ever since Zoop! last year, and that one possible answer to that question will be announced on Tuesday morning.)

I view this Peste Noire tour as something special. You don't have to make your living in the music business to look at those dates, bracketed as they are by a quote from Leviticus and titled as they are with imaginary or posited stages of the plague, and feel like art's been put way the hell ahead of commerce in planning it out. I could be wrong; maybe Chicoutimi is a huge-money gig & I've just never heard about it. But my suspicion is that a black metal band from France has just arranged for an extended holiday in Canada and decided to do something really cool while they were at it. Hails from LPTJ to Peste Noire for setting such a good example, and curses on the heads of any Canadian readers who don't show up in howling, drunken, infernal droves.