PANIC Release Show Poster!

Courtesy of the great Michael Comeau -- who has been discussed here before -- a brand spanking new show poster for PANIC's record release on June 6th at The Smiling Buddha, with Wyrd Visions
and DJ Chico!

PANIC LP Release!

PANIC are playing our first ever show next month (Friday, June 6th) at The Smiling Buddha (961 College St., Toronto). It's our record release for the "Bad Fantasies" LP.

Opening will be the enchanting WYRD VISIONS, with DJ CHICO spinning throughout the evening. Come out and celebrate this dark album's release with us.

If you haven't heard "Bad Fantasies" yet, give it a listen.

Starkweather on Buller's Variety

Back in August of 1994, I became aware that there was a Rogers local access Cable 10 show in Oshawa called "Buller's Variety" booking local bands to perform. Starkweather* was of course very interested in the idea.

I called Ben Rotterman, the guy in charge, and he agreed to have us on, saying we'd be playing one song ("preferably unplugged. No swearing, and no acting like a schmuck") followed by a short interview with two members of the band. I asked if the whole band could be present for the interview, but he said the set wouldn't allow it.

The night of the taping, we had a short practise before making our way to the Rogers studio. I'd initially wanted to play our newest tune, "Teenage Sicko", but we decided to go with either "The Bushwhack" or "Aluminum Baseball Bat" and "High Octane Death". When we arrived at the studio however, they told us they wanted up to five minutes of music, so ultimately we wound up playing both "The Bushwhack" and "Aluminum Baseball Bat".

One song was about oral sex and the other featured the word fuck, but we hoped no one would notice (and no one did).  I tried not to act like a schmuck. Jay Matuschka and I were interviewed.

After we finished recording, we emphasized that we didn't want effects such as Shadwell's Jacket had had the previous week; Ben Rotterman showed us a whole bunch of possibilities, and we decided to go with grainy black and white with a slight strobe and some fake hair on the lens for that old timey look.

What follows is the two songs, recorded at the time on a VCR. The interview is missing, which is just as well.



* later changed to The Starkweather Fix

Get the PANIC

First, a couple of sweet reviews from Soaktest 13 and Fuzz Drench...

The PANIC spreads. Our debut record "Bad Fantasies" now available digitally at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify*, as well as in physical 180 gram LP form at Toronto-area record stores such as Soundscapes, Rotate This, and June Records. The LP can also be ordered through our Facebook page.

And... "Bad Fantasies" can be heard at the CBC, Soundcloud, and our Bandcamp page.

*not working this morning for whatever reason. 

la belle et le couteau - quatorze

For the first post of 2014, the 14th installment in an image that continues to hold so much power, le belle et le couteau...

  

 

 

 

 

Best of My Youtube Videos

If you've been following YouTube at all lately, you're probably aware that the organization is undergoing something of a content purge, shutting down accounts left and right due to copyright infringement issues. My own account has been hit hard by "registered to a third party" complaints for the music in my, er, music videos; whenever I receive one of these complaints, I delete the offending video (this happens roughly a third of the time now, incidentally). I do this because, if the owner (or anyone, apparently) actually files a grievance, my account will be terminated, and all of my videos will be deleted en masse.

The point of this post is to mark a likely end to (my uploading to) that account (because I'm tired of dealing with the above), look back at what videos are still available on YouTube, and highlight a few of these along the way. When I first started posting, I was strictly mixing the music with still images because that's all I knew how to do. Later, I learned how to edit actual clips together. From beginning to end, I've also posted what you might call 'album cover videos' since they (usually) restrict themselves to a still picture of the cover; these are also sometimes called "audio only".

Posted about back in April 2011, "Uschi" (by No No Zero) was my first video, and remains the one with the highest view count.



Age restriction effectively slowed viewership of that one to a crawl, but hey, it's still there at least. Incidentally, my second highest view count belongs to Skullflower's "Diamond Bullet" (also an early album cover-type stills video), also still with us. The video with the least amount of views remains "Gush" by the late, great Aube. And this one has been around for a while too, so -- make of that what you will.

Figuring out how to edit video clips together was a revelation and inspired all kinds of different attempts at mixing sound and moving images. What follows is a line-up of some of my faves:

Namanax "Aquanax"


Bodychoke "The Red Sea"


 Shit & Shine "Practising To Be A Doctor"


No No Zero "(Let's Get Some) Vienna Action!"


The Starkweather Fix "My Body Is An Eyesore"


Rake "Remote Sensing"


Azonic "River Blindness"


Ramleh "Utopia Dust"


Pierre Henry "Après La Mort 2"


Merzbow "Black Brain Of Piranese"


James Plotkin "Plunge"


Brainbombs "No More"


B.A.L.L. "R.I.P."


Fushitsusha "The Halation Born Between You And I Who Were Doomed To Appear In Form"


Shar Pei "Xa (I-III)"


Body Rot "Creep Beat"


Terminal Cheesecake "Satan Is Real"


Mick Harris "Astray"


Holy Mount "Garm Of Hounds"


Sleazy Meanz "Sid The Sexist"


Cylon "Seeker"


The Exploding Tits "Rosalba Exposed"


MB "Zebra"


William Burchette "Invoke The Name Of God"