My good friend (name-drop) Cremator hosts Ghoul’s Burning Questions show. I feel like you should check out the latest episode. Quite a few of their live antics are included in this one. I think he makes many reasoned and cogent suppositions on the show. Quite a handsome fellow, too.
Tag: ghoul
Falling Down 2014 Tour Log Part 2
Tampa, Florida. What kind of bat-shit insane place protects feral chickens that are a god damned invasive species in the first place? A $5,000 fine awaits any poor fool that fouls with these fowls. This is either a side-effect of the heat or the bath salts.
Nevertheless, we had a great time at the Orpheum. The staff seemed a bit nervous about our antics, but the owner really came through and let us stage all our ridiculous shit in otherwise verboten rooms. I know it’s unexciting, but it was another damn smooth show. What the fuck am I even supposed to write about at this point? Ooh, yay, another smooth day on tour. How fucking exciting. Then we went to Atlanta.
Falling Down 2014 Tour Log Part 1
This has been a busy, busy tour. The kind of stage wrangling and crafting we’re doing is pushing our limits. And driving all the god damned time has really put a crunch in my writing. But here I am, about half way through tour, speeding through the swampy mess of Florida ready to bath salts and leave a baby in a hot car. This is sure to be TLDR.
We started tour prep back in February, writing up a list of new props to build, things to buy, and songs to learn. Half way through tour, we’re still trying to check off some stuff from that list. Props are being modified, shit is being bought, and songs have actually been learned during sound checks. One of the biggest things we bought was Rosie, the 6×12 trailer that bafflingly is still filled to the brim just like our old, smaller trailer. On the plus side, when it’s empty, it’s become a back stage at a couple venues. Why buy? We had the savings in our personal accounts and we can just sell the damn thing when we get home. Having capital is the only way to increase it.
Screening for Vengeance: Ghoul Tour Poster
I think Digestor from the band Ghoul is a fabulous artist. That’s why I decided to print, outside of my time working for Monolith Press, their upcoming tour poster. In no way did Digestor and the crew from Ghoul hold an axe to my throat and threaten to eat my family if I didn’t agree to do it. Nope, it was all because I believe in Digestor’s art. And that’s how they got this:
Digestor supplied me with the drawing and I was violently forced to happily did all the coloring and separations. Now, just because this was a poster for a maniacal lunatic guy whose art I really like didn’t mean I couldn’t make things a little easier on myself for the actual printing. Being a printer by day meant I had a few tricks up my sleeve to ease this poster along with minimal headache.
Continue reading “Screening for Vengeance: Ghoul Tour Poster”
More Maniacal Layouts
While I’m sure some of it had to do with the fervent fan base and maybe even partially the music, it’s nice a record I did the design and layout for was voted Pirate’s Press “Record of the Year” by Facebook voters. Ghoul’s Maniaxe LP won the prize, but let’s be honest…. it was mostly ’cause of the layout, right?
Doing the layouts on a 10 year old record is no joke. A lot of people were waiting for Ghoul’s second full-length to be on vinyl for a long time and expectations were high. I didn’t want the packaging to disappoint. It wasn’t easy because 10 years ago no one bothered to make sure everything was prepped for this big-assed release.
From Creepsylvania to Cascadia
Or, from the Great White North to the Great Black Circle.
I’d been clamoring for some time to take another trip up North. It’d been a good god damned YEAR since we’d been there for the Revelations of Death fest back in 2012. I missed the amazing coffee. I missed the greasy spoons. I missed Fred Meyer. Ah, Fred Meyer… if God opened a Wal-Mart, it would be called Fred Meyer. But I digress. We were headed to play a show in Vancouver, British Columbia on the Friday, August 9th and the Black Circle Fest in Portland the next day.
People had work, so Thursday night we loaded up the van and made a run for the border… for Poutine Bell. I really, really hate making this drive at night. The I-5 through the Oregon mountains is no joke for some sleepy headed band in a big van. I always try my damnedest to avoid night drives, let alone one on a road that has taken actual musicians’ lives.
Ghoulunatics and Bako Bits
When people think of California, they think of something like SNL’s The Californians… a bunch of woven patio furniture lounging, iced-tea-drinking, bottled blonde, surfer types. And of course lots of gay orgies, vegetarians, and PETA protesters forcing tourists to smoke pot and listen to lectures by Noam Chomsky. Then, there’s Bakersfield. This is the real California. It’s a large agricultural town with an infrastructure not updated since the ’60s and maybe a rolling meth lab or three. This is the side of California that passed Proposition 8. This is the bulk of the Golden State. It was about time we played a show outside our Occupy Oakland and Hollyweird bubbles.
We rolled into Bakersfield after a five hour drive at about four o’clock. The temperature outside was above 100° and climbing, well above some Bay Area pussies’ comfort zone. On our way in, what few people were in downtown were evidence of the city’s lack of support for the homeless, drug addicted and schizophrenic. Hey, maybe this place is more like the Bay Area than I thought!
From the Ashes… B.C. Rich Ironbird
Musical instruments, good ones, are often compared to one’s children. Well, how many children are thrown in a case, plucked, hammered on, plugged into, or hanged? Don’t answer that. (Please, really, don’t.) Without these precious musical items, though, it’s hard to call oneself a musician. That is, lest ye fortunate to have the talent of Susan Boyle (hopefully not the face). My favorite, my child, my baby, my fifth limb… my B.C. Rich Ironbird. This thing is a mother fucker.
It’s an American made (or at least assembled, I dunno) classic, with the big “R” inlay on the headstock indicating its origin in the land of the free. Birthed sometime around THIRTY FUCKING YEARS AGO, it’s got neck-through construction, a rosewood fretboard, and a simple one-knob configuration. Because metal don’t need a fucking tone knob. I scored it over a decade ago at a used-music shop in San Jose for a meager $300, during a period where “metal” was a dirty word and Prodigy was the band of the future (where are they know?). It’s been with me on countless tours and tons of recordings.
Imagine my heartbreak when the neck broke.