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METAL ZINE<br />

SCIONAV.COM<br />

VOL. 4<br />

ImmolatIon - GrIdlInk - CanCer Bats<br />

the aCCüsed<br />

Flenser reCords - savIours


STAFF<br />

Scion Project Manager: Jeri Yoshizu, Sciontist<br />

Editor: Eric Ducker<br />

Creative Direction: Scion<br />

Art Director: malbon<br />

Contributing Editor: J. Bennett<br />

Graphic Designers: Nicholas Acemoglu, Cameron Charles,<br />

Gabriella Spartos<br />

CONTRIBUTORS<br />

Writers: Maud Deitch, Etan Rosenbloom, Adam Shore<br />

Photographers: Greg Bojorquez, Courtney Frystak, Scott Kinkade, Amelia Prime<br />

CONTACT<br />

For additional information on Scion, email, write or call.<br />

Scion Customer Experience<br />

19001 S. Western Avenue Mail Stop WC12 Torrance, CA 90501<br />

Phone: 866.70.SCION / Fax: 310.381.5932<br />

Email: Email us through the Contact page located on scion.com<br />

Hours: M-F, 6am-5pm PST / Online Chat: M-F, 6am-6pm PST<br />

Scion Metal Zine is published by malbon.<br />

For more information about malbon, contact info@malbonfarms.com<br />

Company references, advertisements and/or websites listed in this publication are<br />

not affiliated with Scion, unless otherwise noted through disclosure. Scion does not<br />

warrant these companies and is not liable for their performances or the content on<br />

their advertisements and/or websites.<br />

© 2011 Scion, a marque of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved.<br />

Scion and the Scion logo are trademarks of Toyota Motor Corporation.<br />

00430-ZIN04-MT<br />

Cover: Image from “Mancoon...Turkey Warlock” video by Weedeater. Directed by David Brodsky.<br />

SCION A/V SCHEDULE<br />

sePtemBer<br />

Scion A/V Presents: Wormrot — Noise (September 4)<br />

Scion Metal Matinee at The Roxy in Los Angeles, CA<br />

Featuring Cerebral Ballzy, Murphy’s Law and Repulsion (September 10)<br />

Scion Presents: A Product of Design curated by Gluekit<br />

at Installation LA (September 17 to October 8)<br />

oCtoBer<br />

Scion A/V Presents: Immolation (October 4)<br />

Scion Metal Matinee at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago, IL (October 8)<br />

Scion Metal Matinee at TBD in Los Angeles, CA (October 9)<br />

Scion A/V Presents: Immolation Tour<br />

Wreck Room in Toronto, ONT (October 5)<br />

The Basement in Kingston, NY (October 7)<br />

Montage Music Hall in Rochester, NY (October 8)<br />

Broadway Joe’s in Buffalo, NY (October 9)<br />

The Gramercy Theatre in New York, NY (October 10)<br />

Bogie’s in Albany, NY (October 11)<br />

Championship Bar and Grill in Trenton, NJ (October 12)<br />

Peabody’s in Cleveland, OH (October 13)<br />

The Alrosa Villa in Columbus, OH (October 14)<br />

Blondie’s 2281 in Detroit, MI (October 15)<br />

Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago, IL (October 16)<br />

Larimer Lounge in Denver, CO (October 19)<br />

The Complex in Salt Lake City, UT (October 20)<br />

Cheyenne Saloon in Las Vegas, NV (October 21)<br />

Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA (October 22)<br />

The Clubhouse in Tempe, AZ (October 23)<br />

Backstage Live in San Antonio, TX (October 25)<br />

Scout Bar in Houston, TX (October 26)<br />

Scion Presents: Use Me curated Yuri Psinakis at Installation LA<br />

(October 15 to November 5)<br />

novemBer<br />

Scion Metal Matinee at TBD in Los Angeles, CA (November 12)<br />

Scion Presents: From Here to Eternity curated by Kenton Parker at Installation LA<br />

(November 19 to December 17)<br />

sCIon a/v Presents<br />

musIC vIdeos<br />

Hate Eternal, “Lake Ablaze”<br />

Immolation, “A Glorious Epoch”<br />

Weedeater, “Mancoon...Turkey Warlock”


ExclusivE intErviEws & pErformancEs from<br />

mIdnIGht<br />

From ashes rIse<br />

savIours<br />

Ceremony<br />

noIsear<br />

plus frEE music downloads, EvEnt info,<br />

scion strEaming radio & much morE<br />

scionav.com<br />

GAZA<br />

Story: J. Bennett / Photography: Amelia Prime & Greg Bojorquez<br />

Even the most cursory of listens to either of Gaza’s two albums, 2006’s I Don’t<br />

Care Where I Go When I Die and 2009’s He Is Never Coming Back, reveal a band<br />

that straddles the increasingly blurry worlds of metal, hardcore, sludge and grind<br />

without lingering very long in any of them. Vocalist Jon Parkin says that’s because<br />

the Salt Lake City-based quartet stresses originality over rigid genre identification.<br />

“A lot of what’s going on in metal right now is<br />

parallel to what happened to punk rock in the<br />

1980s and hardcore in the 1990s,” Parkin says.<br />

“There’s a lot of fronting and posing going on. It<br />

feels like a miniature Hollywood, where a disaster<br />

movie does well and suddenly you’ve got ten in a<br />

year coming out. That comes and goes. Original<br />

bands will last. We work real hard to take what’s<br />

come before us and make our own sound with it<br />

rather than mimic or perpetuate.”<br />

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Gaza can deliver<br />

every last decibel of their dissonant, hyperaggressive<br />

goods live. “Anyone who comes to<br />

see us will get a very loud, gimmick-free punk<br />

rock show,” Parkin promises. “It should be a<br />

place where you can find an outlet and a room<br />

full of people who might see the world similarly<br />

to you. We’ll play as well as we can and as loud as<br />

they’ll let us.”<br />

facebook.com/gazamusic<br />

Watch an interview with Gaza and videos of their live<br />

performance at Scion’s Metal Matinee series at scionav.com/metal


It’s not often that a musician’s side project<br />

ends up becoming his primary band, but that’s<br />

what happened to vocalist Chris Colohan in<br />

2008 when prominent Toronto hardcore outfit<br />

Cursed broke up after they were robbed of their<br />

passports and all their earnings at the end of a<br />

European tour. Colohan had started Burning<br />

Love the previous year with Our Father members<br />

Easton Lannaman, Pat Marshall, Andrus Meret<br />

and Dave O’Connor (who has since been replaced<br />

by Alex “Hawk” Goodall), and suddenly found<br />

himself with more time to devote to his new<br />

project after Cursed’s demise.<br />

“I had to take a few steps back from everything, let<br />

alone music, after what happened,” he explains.<br />

“But within a couple months I wanted to step it<br />

up and get back to it. It’s what I love doing, so I’m<br />

going to be doing it regardless of the liabilities<br />

that come with the territory, or how many times I<br />

have to walk away from something that a bunch of<br />

us have put a lot of years and work into. Burning<br />

Love was already there and ready for it.”<br />

BurninG<br />

LovE<br />

Story: J. Bennett<br />

Photography: Greg Bojorquez<br />

Burning Love’s full-length debut, Songs For<br />

Burning Lovers, fuses propulsive stoner-rock<br />

grooves and turbo-charged punk riffage with<br />

Colohan’s seemingly deep affinity for Henry<br />

Rollins-era Black Flag. Lyrically, Burning Love is<br />

far more positive than Cursed’s venomous tirades.<br />

“There’s definitely a shift in approach, if not<br />

subject matter,” Colohan says. “The content isn’t<br />

really all that different, but it has to fit the context<br />

of the music it’s made for, which is still loud and<br />

chaotic, but with a very different energy—more<br />

fun than bleak. My comfort zone is one particular<br />

side of my mentality—the dark and nasty,<br />

paranoid and apocalyptic point of view. And it’s<br />

genuine, but not a healthy place to live in fulltime,<br />

you know?”<br />

burninglove416.blogspot.com<br />

Watch an interview with Burning Love and videos of<br />

their live performance at Scion’s Metal Matinee series at<br />

scionav.com/metal


ecords<br />

Interview: Etan Rosenbloom<br />

In just under two years of existence, San Franciscobased<br />

label Flenser Records has curated a small but<br />

respected roster of out-of-the-box metal acts. From<br />

its inaugural release by one-man black metal project<br />

Palace of Worms to the epic For Winter Fire by<br />

Louisville doom bringers Seidr, Flenser is going its<br />

own way. We caught up with label owner Jonathan<br />

Tuite for a look inside Flenser’s operations.<br />

Why did you start Flenser?<br />

I had heard this Ghast record, May the Curse Bind. I really wanted<br />

a vinyl version, and there wasn’t one available, so I contacted the<br />

band and asked them about that. It went from there. The purpose<br />

has kind of changed since then. I’m not into doing just the vinyl<br />

editions anymore, but that’s really why it started.<br />

Early on, many of the bands you signed were from the<br />

Bay Area. What’s special about that region’s metal?<br />

There does seem to be a theme of good outsider metal here. You<br />

look at bands like Von or Weakling, which were both early, very<br />

important black metal bands. I don’t know exactly why that is.<br />

San Francisco is a pretty nice place, there’s not a huge amount of<br />

social oppression here, but it does seem to result in outsider black<br />

metal that is unique here. That’s not necessarily the reason that I’ve<br />

signed San Francisco bands, it’s partly just a matter of access. But<br />

it also does seem like there’s a lot going on here.<br />

What do you look for in a band you sign?<br />

I don’t have a specific aesthetic I look for in the bands. In general, I<br />

seem to be into bands that are just a little bit different than what’s<br />

going on in the genre. So with Panopticon, that’s not straight-up<br />

black metal. There are crust influences, he’s an anarchist. I kind of<br />

like that that’s outside of the regular black metal world, although it<br />

has roots there. That’s true for most of the bands on the label.<br />

Are there personal qualities, or a particular work ethic,<br />

that you look for in a band beyond the music they make?<br />

More recently that’s something I look for. If a band wants to tour<br />

and is really excited about that, that’s a plus. But that hasn’t been<br />

the thing that has drawn me to bands. It usually just feels right. It’s<br />

the whole package. I have to like the music and like the people and<br />

like whatever message they have. Or at least not completely hate it!<br />

To what extent is Flenser a DIY label?<br />

I don’t think it really is a DIY label at this point. When it comes to<br />

releasing vinyl, I might press an insert and package it myself, but<br />

I’m not hand-screening anything. I’m not building the packages.<br />

I’m definitely getting things manufactured by people. I have people<br />

helping with artwork, but besides that, pretty much everything’s<br />

me. So I don’t consider it a DIY label, but I definitely appreciate<br />

that aesthetic, and especially the ethics of a DIY label, in terms of<br />

trading and how you treat your artists.<br />

Which is the most important release in Flenser’s history?<br />

And which best embodies what Flenser is about?<br />

The label’s changing. The most recent release, by Seidr, is definitely<br />

the release I’ve pushed the most and felt like I’ve really hit a stride<br />

with. Probably my favorite release was the first Bosse-De-Nage selftitled<br />

record. A lot of people really didn’t like that record very much,<br />

but I thought it was amazing. I used to listen to it all the time. But I<br />

don’t know if there’s one specific release that sums up the label or<br />

is the most important release. It’s all part of a progression for me.<br />

theflenser.com<br />

necrite “sic transit gloria mundi”<br />

skagos/panopticon “split”<br />

pale chalice “afflicting the<br />

dichotomy of trepid creation”<br />

Bosse-de-Nage “II”<br />

Seidr “For WInter Fire”


davId Brodsky<br />

Brooklyn-based director David “My<br />

Good Eye” Brodsky has shot Scion A/V<br />

videos for the likes of Municipal Waste,<br />

Kylesa, Landmine Marathon and Hate<br />

Eternal. His most recent assignment<br />

took him to Wilmington, North<br />

Carolina, to shoot a clip for “Mancoon”<br />

and “Turkey Warlock” by veteran<br />

sludge merchants Weedeater. Brodsky<br />

tells the tale of making the video:<br />

The house we shot in was where Weedeater<br />

started 14 years ago. It’s this old, beat-up house<br />

in the North Carolina swamp. The person who is<br />

currently living there was kind enough to give us<br />

access to it for the day. All the phone numbers the<br />

band had written on the walls were still there, and<br />

there were Weedeater stickers all over the house.<br />

The original idea was to shoot a day-in-the-life<br />

type of thing about Dixie Dave [Collins], the band’s<br />

singer/bass player, but it turned into a video for<br />

two short songs put together. The first song is<br />

called “Mancoon,” which is apparently about a<br />

man who is also a raccoon. The second song is<br />

called “Turkey Warlock,” which is something that<br />

Dave made up. It’s basically a sloppy joe made out<br />

of turkey, but because Manwich is a brand name<br />

of a sloppy joe product and a warlock is a male<br />

witch, he decided to call it a “Turkey Warlock.”<br />

And then he wrote a song about it.<br />

So we combined this bizarre subject matter and<br />

turned it into a bizarre video. It’s styled as a silent<br />

film, and the simplest way to put it is that it’s kinda<br />

like that fairytale about Goldilocks, the girl who<br />

wakes up in the house with the bears. In the video,<br />

Weedeater wakes up in the house of the Mancoon.<br />

For some reason, the Mancoon is living with this<br />

creepy guy who forces Weedeater to eat a huge turkey<br />

sandwich. Then they sneak out and get hunted down<br />

through the swamp, get caught and—not to spoil it for<br />

you—are brought back for yet another delicious meal.<br />

It’s hard to make sense of, but it makes complete<br />

sense to the band. I tend not to ask where these<br />

things come from, because sometimes it’s better to<br />

not know. It kind of takes the romance out of it.<br />

As told to J. Bennett<br />

To see more of David Brodsky’s work, check out mgenyc.com<br />

Watch David Brodsky’s videos for Scion A/V, including<br />

“Mancoon...Turkey Warlock,” at scionav.com/musicvideos


ONLY TwO PEOPLE HaVE bEEN wITH SEaTTLE THRaSHcORE<br />

PIONEERS <strong>THE</strong> accüSEd SINcE <strong>THE</strong> bEGINNING: GUITaRIST TOm NIEmEYER<br />

aNd ZOmbIE maScOT maRTHa SPLaTTERHEad, <strong>THE</strong> STaR Of maNY accüSEd<br />

SONGS, aLbUm cOVERS aNd mERcH ITEmS. wE aSkEd NIEmEYER TO TELL<br />

US EVERYTHING HE kNOwS abOUT maRTHa.<br />

HER PURPOSE<br />

Martha’s main purpose has always been to<br />

rid the world of dirtbags and weasels. She’s<br />

a superhero in a way, and she does suddenly<br />

appear in places you didn’t expect her to, to get<br />

justice done. Pretty quick and brutal justice.<br />

HER ORIGIN<br />

We were all sitting around as a band in 1984,<br />

designing flyers for a couple shows we had<br />

coming up, and we were reading so many<br />

comics that Blaine [Cooke, former vocalist]<br />

had. One of them had this woman with a<br />

knife on the cover of it. Blaine said, “How<br />

about something like this?” So I sketched out<br />

this crazy extreme version of what he was<br />

showing us, added some big long fangs, some<br />

goofy rocker-guy hair, an outrageously large<br />

bosom, and I think she had little tiny tiger skin<br />

underwear on. Blaine said, “We should call it<br />

Martha Splatterhead. We used to have BB gun<br />

wars back in the day, and one of the guy’s name<br />

was ‘Splatterhead.’” And Martha was obviously<br />

a woman’s name. And she was born.<br />

HER SIZE<br />

We knew that people weren’t walking where<br />

they would see our flyers. It’s raining all the<br />

time [in Seattle], so they’re gonna be in a car.<br />

That’s why the knife’s so big, the chest is so<br />

big, and why the logo is hopefully big enough<br />

for them to see while they’re going 45 miles an<br />

hour through a rain-soaked window.<br />

HER LONGEVITY<br />

If we’re ever like, “We gotta have another<br />

song. What’re we gonna write?” there’s always<br />

Martha. You can send Martha to the Harlem<br />

Globetrotters, send her to space, you can do<br />

whatever you want. She’s not only consistent<br />

and cool, she’s also handy.<br />

As told to Etan Rosenbloom<br />

splatterrock.com<br />

Watch an interview with The Accüsed<br />

and videos of their live performance at Scion’s<br />

Metal Matinee series at scionav.com/metal


Story: J. Bennett<br />

Photography: Greg Bojorquez<br />

The music of Cancer Bats, Toronto’s mayors of death & roll, pulls<br />

from a deep resource of influences. Their albums burst with<br />

Entombed-style riff riots, thick New Orleans sludge-stomp and<br />

raucous gang-style backups. They also do a mean cover of Beastie<br />

Boys’ “Sabotage.” We caught up with vocalist Liam Cormier and<br />

guitarist Scott Middleton just prior to the band’s Scion Metal<br />

Matinee performance at the Roxy in Hollywood.<br />

Do you think that there is anything<br />

uniquely Canadian about Cancer Bats?<br />

Liam Cormier: I think that there is something<br />

very Canadian about the type of metal that we<br />

play, in terms of [heavy] Canadian bands being<br />

sludgy. There have always been bands from our<br />

area, or from all over Canada, that have this<br />

heavier sound, like Kittens in Winnipeg and<br />

Thrush Hermit. It’s that way even in the indie<br />

rock scene with bands that we grew up on, like<br />

the Swarm and Cursed.<br />

What do you get out of Cancer Bats that<br />

you didn’t get out of bands you were<br />

previously in?<br />

Scott Middleton: This is the first band where I was<br />

the only guitar player and had the responsibility<br />

of writing all the songs and the riffs. When we<br />

started the band, I never had done anything like<br />

that before, so it was a real challenge. It was cool<br />

because it really pushed my playing and made me<br />

a better musician. When you play in a two-guitar<br />

band, it is really easy to be lazy and sit in the back.<br />

With this, you have to be on it and be the anchor.<br />

Cormier: Obviously, when Scott and I started, it<br />

was fun. We wanted to do something that neither<br />

of us had done in other bands before, like, “Lets<br />

have rock & roll, and let’s have hardcore and<br />

punk.” But then it came to a point were it was like,<br />

“OK, this is going to be serious,” so we needed<br />

to find guys like [drummer] Mike [Peters] and<br />

[bassist] Jaye [Schwarzer], who are really serious.<br />

As much fun as Scott and I were having with it,<br />

we also wanted to be a full-time band and to tour.<br />

We had to get guys that were really cool and fun<br />

to tour with, and were good at headbanging.<br />

How would you describe Cancer Bats’<br />

musical philosophy? Do you have one?<br />

Cormier: Thinking back on when we started the<br />

band, it was just to have fun and to play music<br />

that we liked and to do something that we felt like<br />

other bands weren’t doing. We’re about to write<br />

our fourth record and we’re still thinking of it in<br />

the same way.<br />

I think that some of the appeal of Cancer<br />

Bats is that there is a little something for<br />

everybody. Metal people get into it, punk<br />

kids, hardcore kids, etc. Do you think of<br />

the band as kind of like a melting pot?<br />

Middleton: I think that it’s like a modern-day<br />

crossover, like when people used to talk about<br />

the punk/thrash/metal crossover back in like<br />

the early to mid-1980s. We all listen to so many<br />

different kinds of music that influence us and<br />

we just play those kinds of music in our way, and<br />

it just comes together. No matter what we try,<br />

it always still sounds like us, even if we go on<br />

something that is a bit of a departure.<br />

What would you like the audience to get<br />

out of a Cancer Bats show?<br />

Cormier: Sometimes we’ll have a crazy pit and<br />

it’ll be awesome. Other times it will be adults that<br />

are standing there, just smiling and stoked, and<br />

there’s one kid trying to start a pit and he is so<br />

bummed. But I’m just as stoked. It’s just different vibes.<br />

cancerbats.com<br />

Watch an interview with Cancer Bats and videos of<br />

their live performance for Scion’s Metal Matinee series<br />

at scionav.com/metal


Interview:<br />

J. Bennett


Over the course of nearly a quarter-century and eight full-length albums, Immolation<br />

has created some of the most crushing death metal known to mankind. With a lineup<br />

currently composed of original members Ross Dolan (vocals/bass) and Bob Vigna<br />

(guitar) alongside drummer Steve Shalaty and second guitarist Bill Taylor, the band<br />

released one of its most formidable and memorable albums, 2010’s Majesty and<br />

Decay, 22 years into their career. And yet so much has changed both within the band<br />

and the wider death metal landscape since Immolation got together in Yonkers, New<br />

York, back in 1988. Ross Dolan explains.<br />

For the last several years, you’ve had two<br />

members in Yonkers, one in Ohio, and one<br />

in Florida. How do you make it work?<br />

Yeah, we’re a bit spread out now. Thankfully,<br />

today’s technology allows that. In the past, we<br />

all lived in Yonkers, and we’d get together on<br />

a nightly basis to write and rehearse. But it’s<br />

actually much easier now, believe it or not. We’re<br />

all pretty much in tune with what needs to be<br />

done, nobody needs to babysit anybody. When it<br />

comes to doing shows, we put a set list together<br />

and each rehearse on our own. If it’s a tour or<br />

something, we’ll get together at Steve’s house out<br />

in Ohio, just because his drums are there and he’s<br />

got the space. As far as writing goes, with the new<br />

computer programs Bob can essentially write a<br />

whole song, program some mock drumbeats and<br />

“This music is honest, it’s<br />

primal and it’s edgy, and<br />

that’s what I’ve always liked<br />

about it.”<br />

email it to us. So when we get together, we have<br />

a jump on everything. It’s not like it used to be.<br />

We were very bootleg in the past. I think this way<br />

actually keeps us sharper because we have to<br />

work harder on our own.<br />

Death metal has come a long way since you<br />

started in the late 1980s. What’s your take<br />

on how the genre has developed since then,<br />

and Immolation’s development within that?<br />

When we started back in 1988, if you’d told me<br />

that we’d still be doing this, I would’ve probably<br />

laughed. I mean, honestly. We were all into metal<br />

since our early teens, and like most fans of this<br />

type of music, we gradually got into heavier stuff<br />

because you’re always trying to find something<br />

more extreme. Music was definitely our drug<br />

of choice, and we got hooked early. But we were<br />

realistic from the start—we realized we weren’t<br />

gonna make a living off of death metal. So we<br />

adjusted our lives to work around our passion.<br />

We’ve always had full-time jobs, and always the<br />

kind of jobs, luckily, that allow us to go on tour<br />

and do our recording. But to see the scene grow<br />

and come this far and get this much recognition<br />

is amazing. It’s nice to see it blossom, even<br />

though it’s still underground on a lot of levels. It’s<br />

not mainstream—it’ll never be mainstream—but<br />

that’s kinda what keeps it unique for the fans.<br />

The overall theme of Majesty and Decay<br />

is the abuse of power. Was that influenced<br />

by current events?<br />

Absolutely. If you read a newspaper or go online<br />

and read some of the headlines, it affects you. But<br />

I never wanted to be a political band, so we try<br />

to downplay that side of it. We write our lyrics<br />

in a way that’s not specific, but I think anyone<br />

with common sense can kind of get where we’re<br />

coming from. But that’s the cool thing about<br />

lyrics, I like to write them in such a way that<br />

everyone can get what they want out of them. It<br />

doesn’t have to be exactly what we mean.<br />

Do you think of death metal differently<br />

now, in terms of its limits and possibilities,<br />

than you did when you started the band?<br />

Well, we always believed in what we did. This<br />

music is honest, it’s primal and it’s edgy, and<br />

that’s what I’ve always liked about it. We always<br />

knew the music had potential if it was just given<br />

a chance and people could get past whatever<br />

their hang-ups were. I think most people hear<br />

the vocals and go, “What is that?” So that’s a<br />

hard obstacle to get around. But today, more<br />

popular bands have infused more mainstreamtype<br />

music with that vocal style, so it’s not that<br />

leftfield anymore. And that only helps our cause.<br />

What a lot of people don’t understand is that the<br />

people who play this kind of music are really good<br />

musicians. I can attest to that because I’ve been<br />

on tour with a lot of these guys. It’s just a shame<br />

to see all these great musicians not getting the<br />

recognition they deserve. A lot of them are finally<br />

getting it, though. Today, you can see a guy like<br />

Alex Webster from Cannibal Corpse in Bass Player<br />

magazine. You’d never see that in the old days.<br />

Does the band mean something different<br />

to you today than it did in the ’80s?<br />

Yeah, it means more to me now. It means<br />

everything to me. I couldn’t imagine my world<br />

without it because it consumes so much of my<br />

life. I’m constantly thinking about what we’re<br />

gonna do next. I mean, going out to Steve’s place<br />

to rehearse is like a mini vacation for us. Touring<br />

isn’t work for us, either. It’s our time away from<br />

our jobs to do what we really wanna do. I think<br />

that’s why we’ve always had positive attitudes<br />

about what we do. It’s never been like a business.<br />

It’s fun for us, so we’ve never taken it for granted.<br />

It’s easy to get caught up in the nine to five<br />

routine, time just flies by. With this, you always<br />

have something to look forward to.<br />

myspace.com/immolation<br />

Watch the Scion A/V video for Immolation’s “A Glorious<br />

Epoch” at scionav.com/musicvideos


Photography: Scott Kinkade<br />

GRID<br />

LINK<br />

Grindcore fanatics the world over know Jon<br />

Chang as the former frontman for legendary (and<br />

sadly defunct) cult favorite Discordance Axis,<br />

as well as the current vocalist for both grind<br />

masters GridLink and speed-thrashers Hayaino<br />

Daisuki. What they might not know is that Chang<br />

is also the president of and lead game designer<br />

for Echelon Software, where he is currently<br />

developing the online video game Black Powder,<br />

Red Earth. He told us about the connection<br />

between video games, anime and GridLink’s<br />

dizzying new 13-minute album, Orphan.<br />

Music and video games are both very cathartic,<br />

especially the kind of games that I like to play,<br />

which tend to be shooter games with really<br />

intense action. You get really emotionally involved<br />

in these games because they require deep<br />

concentration. It’s the same thing with music—I<br />

get really involved in it. GridLink is certainly a very<br />

abrupt in-and-out experience, and people have<br />

complained because our new album is only 13<br />

minutes long. To me, that’s exactly how long that<br />

album needed to be. Anything longer would’ve<br />

been filler. Think of it as a short story if you want,<br />

but that’s the whole book, you know?<br />

A lot of old anime and, surprisingly enough, old<br />

video games, have themes about deciding what’s<br />

the best course of action, what’s the right thing<br />

to do, what’s the way forward. Certainly when<br />

I started off writing I didn’t understand that. I<br />

mean, I was 19. As I’ve grown older, more and<br />

more of that kind of message comes out in my<br />

lyrics. When I started in Discordance Axis, we<br />

were not a very popular band. We’d play shows<br />

and three people would come. No one was really<br />

interested in what we were doing because the<br />

music was so extreme and the message was<br />

very intense emotionally, but it wasn’t delivered<br />

with clarity. For the most part, it was about the<br />

fact that life forces you to make hard choices and<br />

there are no easy answers.<br />

I think I got some of that from old arcade games<br />

like Ikaruga or Radiant Silvergun—these are what<br />

are called “bullet hell” games. The concept is that<br />

there’s a ship propelled across the screen and<br />

the background is scrolling by while thousands of<br />

bad guys are charging at you and bullets are filling<br />

the screen. You have to maneuver through these<br />

intense waves of bullets and destroy everything<br />

you come across. I think those games have<br />

strangely deep messages in that the protagonists<br />

in the background narrative are people in turmoil<br />

who are trying to do the right thing even though<br />

they don’t necessarily know how to do it. And it<br />

always ends up somehow going wrong. There’s a<br />

lot of that on Orphan, actually, if you wanna relate<br />

it back in a broad sense to GridLink—certainly the<br />

idea of trying to follow the right course through<br />

life, making decisions, and having them just<br />

backfire on you over and over again.<br />

For me, it’s funny how Orphan and video games<br />

in general coincide. Most of the games and<br />

anime I enjoy are pretty dark and there are rarely<br />

happy endings. They involve young people trying<br />

to become adults, and it’s easy to get destroyed<br />

in that process, especially today. It’s difficult to<br />

“It’s difficult to find<br />

where you can be in<br />

the world. Is there<br />

any responsibility to<br />

do anything beyond<br />

having a happy life<br />

for yourself?”<br />

find where you can be in the world. Is there any<br />

responsibility to do anything beyond having a<br />

happy life for yourself? Can you even do that? It<br />

might sound silly, but that’s the bigger picture of<br />

how these things interact with what I write.<br />

As told to J. Bennett<br />

Watch an interview with GridLink and videos of their<br />

live performances at Scion’s Metal Matinee series at<br />

scionav.com/metal


Story: J. Bennett<br />

Invisible Oranges is an extreme music website owned and operated by Cosmo Lee,<br />

a Los Angeles-based metal journalist who also contributes to Decibel magazine.<br />

The site takes its name from the colloquial term used to describe the exaggerated<br />

clutching gesture that many extreme metal bands make in their promo photos.<br />

Squeezing the imaginary citrus is a sort of street-level Masonic handshake that,<br />

much like the site itself, speaks to obsessive power of heavy metal. On Invisible<br />

Oranges, you can read remarkably thoughtful interviews with musicians, chime in<br />

on salient journalistic queries like “Are Album Reviews Dead?” and peruse Lee’s<br />

ongoing analysis of every song on Metallica’s first four albums.<br />

Sadly, Lee recently announced that he would be leaving the popular communitydriven<br />

site on September 24, 2011. His reason? “I want to make music,” he<br />

explains. “I’ve written about music for a while, but that’s not what I was meant<br />

to do. I don’t have enough hours in the day to make music, though, so something<br />

needs to go. And that something is Invisible Oranges.”<br />

However, there is good news for the site’s dedicated followers. If all goes<br />

according to plan, Lee will pass his phantom fruit to a worthy successor. “I don’t<br />

think I’m so unique that when I leave the site its functioning will diminish. I think<br />

my thought processes can be duplicated, and right now I’m in the process of<br />

finding people I can school in my methods and principles so the site can continue<br />

doing what it does,” he says. “I haven’t had much time to figure out succession<br />

issues, but I really need to come up with a plan and people to carry out that plan.<br />

But it’ll happen. It needs to happen.”<br />

invisibleoranges.com


o a k l a n d<br />

Since 2004, Saviours has been keeping Bay Area<br />

metal alive with its gigantic, doomy sound. On<br />

their third and latest album, Accelerated Living,<br />

the band combines the breakneck riffage of<br />

classic 1980s New Wave of British Heavy Metal<br />

with the infectious twin guitar leads of Thin<br />

Lizzy. We spoke with guitarist Sonny Reinhardt<br />

about what’s keeping heavy music alive in his<br />

Oakland hometown.<br />

Eli’s Mile High Club<br />

Right now there’s a bunch of warehouse spots<br />

and smaller venues going on, and Eli’s Mile High<br />

Club. They’ve been doing quite a few punk and<br />

metal shows. They did a secret Sleep show that<br />

was pretty crazy. There was no advertising or<br />

anything but it was pretty packed.<br />

Crossing the Bay Area Divide<br />

The East Bay is definitely more punk oriented—<br />

grind punk and sludge and some thrash—but it’s<br />

pretty varied, and a lot of the different bands<br />

play with each other. People hang out a lot, it’s<br />

not super segregated as far as scenes go. There’s a<br />

fairly good crossover of stuff from San Francisco,<br />

and the San Francisco scene has good shows, and<br />

there are bands that will play both. Everybody<br />

tries to help each other out on both sides.<br />

Scene Report<br />

1-2-3-4 Go! Records<br />

1-2-3-4 Go! Records is really cool. It looks like<br />

they’re going to be expanding soon and, from<br />

what I hear, possibly become a venue. Most of the<br />

warehouses and places besides Eli’s are all ages.<br />

1-2-3-4 Go! is definitely my neighborhood store that<br />

I go to all the time. I also find stuff at swap meets.<br />

The Oakland Metro<br />

They’ve been doing a lot of really cool metal<br />

shows. They’re a bigger spot with a bar that’s allages.<br />

They just had Doom and Brainoil. They do<br />

bigger metal gigs.<br />

The Ruby Room<br />

Me and a couple friends do a metal DJ night at the<br />

Ruby Room on Tuesdays, and there’s a new metal<br />

DJ at Merchant’s on Wednesdays. Even if there isn’t<br />

a show, you can hang out and listen to metal.<br />

As told to Maud Deitch<br />

killforsaviours.blogspot.com<br />

myspace.com/saviours666<br />

Watch an interview with Saviours and videos of their<br />

live performance at Scion’s Metal Matinee series at<br />

scionav.com/metal


BloG roll<br />

Interview: Maud Deitch<br />

From Slayer and Slipknot to the latest fresh-faced thrashers, Metal Injection is a website<br />

dedicated to exposing every subgenre of metal to headbangers everywhere. With videos,<br />

interviews, live coverage and a weekly “Livecast” podcast that offers, according to editor<br />

Robert Pasbani, “a metalhead’s perspective on world events,” Metal Injection is a mustclick<br />

spot for all things heavy. Below, Pasbani answers some questions about the history<br />

and the approach of the site.<br />

How did Metal Injection start?<br />

We’ve been doing Metal Injection for seven years. It started when we were in<br />

college, and two of us were TV and Radio Production majors. We would get together<br />

and hang out and watch metal videos, and then one of our friends made us aware of<br />

this metal show on Brooklyn Public Access (BCAT). We watched it for a few weeks<br />

and we would always get so mad at how terrible the show was and would be like,<br />

We could do this so much better than she’s doing it. Finally we were like, Let’s do it.<br />

Later we realized that there was a much bigger audience online, so we took it there.<br />

What was the initial objective of the online show and then the blog?<br />

The goal was always to expose all forms of metal. We cover the whole spectrum—<br />

mainstream metal bands like Slipknot and Lamb of God, but also really small<br />

bands, like Wormrot. The goal is to get some of the mainstream kids on the site<br />

and maybe hear some smaller bands and really get into the scene. The goal is to<br />

champion the metal cause.<br />

What has worked and what hasn’t?<br />

I’ve definitely learned that there is not as much money in metal as there can be in<br />

other types of websites. But it’s not about money. It’s very hard to predict what is<br />

going to become popular in metal. You can sort of guess, but you’ll never know. I<br />

never would have predicted that deathcore would become as big as it has now. This<br />

has taught me that you should always be nice to everybody because you never know<br />

who’s going to make it. It’s really nice when we interview a band on their first record<br />

or first tour, and then we can go back four or five years later and interview them again.<br />

metalinjection.net


SCION STREAMING RADIO TOP PICKS:<br />

Adam Shore, host of Radio Doom! on Scion Streaming Radio and<br />

booker of the Scion Rock Fest and the Scion Metal Matinee series,<br />

spotlights what’s currently interesting him in the world of metal.<br />

Nightbringer<br />

Certainly not among the more popular black metal<br />

bands around, Nightbringer is a lost crew from<br />

Colorado who have been burning the candles at both<br />

ends, conjuring up truly awesome spells of chaos for<br />

10 years over 10 releases. Firmly in the second wave,<br />

their music consists of the usual noise layers, shifting<br />

melodies, weird digressions and demonic vocals, yet<br />

there’s a overall mood, a power and density, and a very<br />

dedicated sense of mission that makes them among<br />

my favorite black metal bands. Their new album<br />

Hierophany of the Open Grave (Season of Mist)<br />

is a monster. Their last album 2010’s Apocalypse<br />

Sun (Anja Offensive) is even better, filled with an<br />

unfiltered, uncompromising intensity. Nightbringer<br />

doesn’t tour that often, so see them when you can. I<br />

did once, at a weird hollowed-out Mexican restaurant<br />

in Compton in Los Angeles last year. There were more<br />

people onstage than in the audience, and the sound<br />

was louder coming out of their monitors than through<br />

the rickety PA. But they were mesmerizing.<br />

Yob<br />

Doom is as much about the space around the notes as<br />

the notes themselves. Normal song components like<br />

lyrics, melodies and hooks are much further down<br />

in the list of priorities. There needs to be suspense<br />

and anticipation hanging off every chord, a feeling<br />

that that there’s something unimaginably heavy<br />

coming up next, soon, at the precise moment when<br />

it all it’s just too much. Then repeat. The best bands<br />

have a depth of maturity and a level of concentration<br />

unimaginable for us mere mortals. That’s Yob. Yob<br />

just crossed over from being a first-rate doom band<br />

to being one of the best doom bands ever. That’s<br />

partially due to the excellent Atma record now out<br />

on Profound Lore, but just as much because of the<br />

amount of touring they are doing, and will continue<br />

to do, night after night, getting deeper and deeper<br />

into the zone.<br />

Lustmord<br />

Brian Williams has been making terrifying music for<br />

30 years now, first as part of the SPK/sound terrorism<br />

crew and continuing through his massive collection<br />

of solo records, some of which get pigeonholed as<br />

“dark ambient.” But this is not some depressive sonic<br />

wallpaper, new age music for saddos. It’s precise,<br />

claustrophobic, constantly shifting and moving<br />

sound, and it sounds like no one else. Williams<br />

makes his living doing sound design in Hollywood—<br />

you’ve heard his terrifying soundscapes, whether you<br />

realize it or not, in films, trailers and video games. He<br />

talked about it at length recently in a rare interview<br />

for Radio Doom!, right before his first New York City<br />

show since 1981. (Yes he made the stunning visuals<br />

for the show too, go to YouTube now!). It’s easy to<br />

highlight his releases with the Melvins and Tool<br />

camp, but instead get records like 1990’s Heresy<br />

(Soleilmoon) and 2009’s The Dark Places of the Earth<br />

(Side Effects), put on headphones, turn off the lights<br />

and enter into a completely new world.<br />

Playing Non-Stop<br />

Alpinist, Lichtlærm (Southern Lord); Maruta,<br />

Forward Into Regression (Willowtip); Dark Castle,<br />

Surrender To All Life Beyond Form (Profound<br />

Lore); Deathspell Omega, Paracletus (Norma<br />

Evangelium Diaboli); Thou, To the Chaos Wizard<br />

Youth (Howling Mind); and yes, even Gallhammer,<br />

The End (Peaceville).<br />

Listen to Radio Doom! at scionav.com/radio/channel8


Burning Love at Scion<br />

Metal Matinee in Los Angeles, CA<br />

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in Los Angeles, CA<br />

The Accüsed at Scion Metal Matinee<br />

in Los Angeles, CA<br />

Check Morris at The Big Idea opening<br />

at Installation LA<br />

Gaza at Scion Metal Matinee in Los Angeles, CA<br />

Guests at the Pacific opening at Installation LA<br />

All Pigs Must Die at Scion Metal Matinee<br />

in Los Angeles, CA<br />

Guests at Scion Metal Matinee<br />

in Los Angeles, CA<br />

aBout town<br />

Burning Love at Scion Metal Matinee<br />

in Los Angeles, CA


Scion’s commitment to artistic expression provides a<br />

platform for passionate artists to focus on developing their<br />

art and exploring the endless possibilities. To learn about<br />

current and past projects from Scion Audio/Visual (SA/V),<br />

please visit scionav.com.

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