It seems that even in Life’s
harshest moments… it’s the simplest things.
The sweetest things.
They bring you back to my mind.
Warming my heart
and welling my tears.
Those things- those ever-present things…
Meaningless without you.
The grey and cloudy sky
choiking back it’s tears.
The rain will fall and the gods
will shed their tears
with or without you my darling.
Sweetness, sweetness
dead and gone
Stolen.
Sleep well my sweet…
Don’t know I ever will…
I have a band preparing to tour on the West Coast, and we have some dates to fill from June 3rd through June 8th. Any venues that have interest, please get with me as soon as you can. This is a show that truly has to be seen to be believed.
Check the site for more detailed information, press clippings, and samples: http://itchyo.com/booking/
They are a very entertaining line-up and have impressed many in the community. Please get back with me as soon as you can.
Anyone who has read my posts before knows of my history as a DJ in the Gothic/Industrial/EBM etc. scenes, and it takes a lot for a band to truly stand out in my mind. With the thousands of bands in the “genres,” it gets to a point where you feel anyone with a computer can be a musician. It does work in some cases, but far fewer than you would think. So when I get approached with a Debut Full Length Album, regardless of the source, I go into listening to it a bit pessimistically. I first heard Revolution State years ago on a few compilations and a few remixes. That was all there was at the time. Now, I get an honest chance to hear an entire album from a band that I think I truly under-rated.
Around a decade ago, Revolution State was conceived by Ben P., and Bonnie P. These beginnings built the basic framework for what was to come. Each song was started from scratch, and the duo has maintained that as part of their philosophy; always writing the songs from rhythms and sounds they make themselves. Although this is their Debut Full Length Album, RevState has made their mark on the Electro/Industrial Scene. 
RevState, as the duo is often called, contributed two songs, “Misery,” and “Eva” to the 2003 Velvet Acid Christ album Hex Angel: Utopia Dystopia. For the past five years, RevState has been writing, singing, producing, engineering, painting, dreaming, and tweaking all those knobs, with a plan to complete a brand new 13 track LP. Finally, Viridian Resonance is here.
The album itself has a very Electronic feel with just enough of an edge to fall into the Industrial category. One of the major things that grabbed my attention while listening to this album was the use of analogue equipment. With the incredible recent advances in musical equipment and software, it’s amazing not only to find musicians that remember what analogue equipment is, but musicians that know how to use it in such a way that it helps them cross musical genres.
The album starts out with the feel that this will be a club-worthy Industrial album, but quickly moves into beautifully scripted Electronic and back again. It’s an album that does one of the few things bands in these genres are able to accomplish – it doesn’t get boring. Each and every song stands out in it’s own way, and you have to go back and listen again just to make sure you are on the same album. This is definitely an album that was worth waiting for.
Track Listing:
01. Rooms Of My Past
02. Killed For Your Convenience
03. Dissonance
04. The Individual
05. Viridian
06. Yggdrassil
07. The Manufactured Idol
08. No Kami
09. Glow
10. The Departed
11. Scars [Fresh Cuts]
12. Where Am I
13. Bit Lip
Artist URL: http://www.revstate.com
Label URL: http://www.vendetta-music.com
ARTIST: Revolution State
TITLE: Viridian Resonance
LABEL: Vendetta Music
CAT# VM0034
BARCODE: 729440588007
FORMAT: CD, Digipak
GENRE: Electronic, Industrial, Electro
CD Release Date: April 12, 2011
Digital Release Date: February 22nd, 2011
Distribution: Nail (North America), Audioglobe (World), Iris (Digital)
I don’t pretend to be all-knowing or anything like that, but I just want to speak about the state of Music today in my own eyes… I wanted to call this little blurb “Case in Point” but my wife knew better than to allow me to piss everyone off. So what is the point? Exactly. It’s music… regardless of the style, it tells a story.
Growing up, thinking I was a poet, and an actor, I thought I knew everything you needed to know to be creative. How wrong was I. Not a question, a statement. I thought I was an Actor… I thought I was a Director… I thought I was a painter… I thought I was an artist.. but alas… not alas poor Yorick or alas, I failed.. but alas, as it is…
When I realized I was just like everyone else, and I was one of them… I wretched in my own lap…
I didn’t make it a life-goal intentionally, but I made it nonetheless… I had to make a point, a difference, and a protest…
Then Music bitch-slapped me. Literally… I want her to pay for that although she never will… Back in my day, the only music that made a point or gave a flying fuck about anything beside the corporate boiler-room pop-crap was Punk. It suited me well for quite a few years…
It was only 6-8 years until I heard Industrial… and that found all of my anger that I was afraid to accept… and put it to song. So I knew who I was… or did I? I got really dark… not in skin or hair or dye… but in my soul…
“The Bible is bullshit – but the World is a lie…” – Corporate Avenger
So what is the State of anything, but moving on and growing up? I wish I could guide you on my rocky path.. but I have nothing to offer… just good music.
So listen, take it to heart, and enjoy the living fuck out of it. And Yes, I do mean take it to a dark place… melted wax, straps, lies and tomorrow… go with it…
There is nothing like finding a band that just comes into your path and can help define you more than you know yourself…
So.. I guess the point of this rambling story is…
Who are we?
What do we want?
and
Why do I care?
It’s taken a long time to realize… or not even to realize, but just remember how much music means to humanity. Fuck the cliches. Some people say they do shit and they just have hobbies. I say Music is everything, and I have actually lost jobs because of. I also admit I am a complete “this world idiot.” It’s also why I have always said I do not belong here.
Fuck these stereotypes and the regret of our own lives. I say Damn the digital age and remember our souls. But why? Does it make us any stronger or weaker? No. This age gives us a reason to hate or to love. To kiss the butterfly on our shoulder, or to take that piece of clod and shove it up our ass.
I always try to say so much more than I ever want to reveal. Dick-slap me in the face so I finally get that point. Kick me in my vagina to be ironic, and call me tomorrow and say Mom.
We, as humans have no idea. We gave up. Accepted media, discounted theory, and broken thoughts.
Obviously, anyone that is deeply involved in music has to admit that America is next to impossible to “break into.” We won’t go into the whole Corporate controlled jibber-jabber, but seriously, there is so much music we just don’t give a chance.
This band, The Death Notes, is one of those purest examples. Mind you, at this point, I only have a brand new single to judge by, but it makes me pause. When I am sent something with this verbiage: “Nottingham based alt rockers The Death Notes release their new single “In The Spiders Web” on December 13th. The download single is the band’s second release. The band’s sound has been compared to Sonic Youth, The Pixies & Siouxsie and the Banshees,” I have no choice but to pay close attention to what it sounds like, what it says, and just what it is.
Rarely, I have a chance to say that the PR spin wasn’t just a spin. It’s familiar in a way I don’t know. It’s a song I thought I had buried in my iTunes archive. No, it’s new. It’s European. It’s out in December, and I have already had the chance to hear it. Thankfully.
Be prepared America – the British are coming… back.
Album Cover
This is one of those times that people have to ask themselves how much they really know about their “underground music.” Quite frankly, many are misled by sparkly, poppy crap that means nothing. Enter Unit 187.
Enter Industrial Music. Or for some readers, welcome it back. This album, although just available today through vendetta-music.com sings a marketing song of something new, means nothing more than something just released that reminds those weird, freakish kids of what this genre can be.
Yeah, freaks are freaks, let it go. This is not an article about the weirdness, but about the music. Unit 187 has always just been on the outer reaches of what I considered good Industrial. It seemed a bit contrived, forced, and EBM-ish. How my perception has changed. No matter the “underground scene” or the “underground chatter,” this is back to the basics of “Industrial.” I know, I am using a lot of quotes, but I’m just trying to prove the point that a lot of people don’t know how to classify music… myself included. We resort to commonplace terms of EBM, Pop, Weird, or I don’t know.
Listening to this album, I found myself stuck in that rut as well, until the song “Threatened” came on. It was a whole new story. I had to start the album over again because I felt like a judgmental prick. Yeah, I was right. I am that prick.
Anybody who has been in the music industry at all, let alone the “underground” music industry, tends to be biased to their favourites. I have always liked Unit 187, but as an outsider sort of band that I could fall back on when I got bored. This album changes all of that. It’s a short, smaller album, that speaks volumes… literally. The first 4 songs make you think, and the rest of the album kind of bitch-slaps you into a “what-were-you-thinking” mode. This is not an outsider band. Maybe they never were. This is the album that answers the yea or nay question. It answers it well. For the first time in a lot of years, I cannot say there is anything on this album I would have left out had I made it myself. Each song screams for acceptance, and each song earns it.
Listen a few times – listen well, and enjoy it.
As their Bio says:
The new album marks a new turning point for the band, working hard in the studio to produce raw heavy music that punches fist-first through the current trend of goth euro-cheese with a solid dose of old-school industrial that hasn’t been heard in years. Mixed by Skinny Puppy’s producer, Hiwatt Marshall, “Out for Blood” pulls out all the stops to musically and sonically pound your eardrums into a memorable pulp, while at the same time leaving you with sweet melodies to sing along to long after your sound system fails from transistor overload.
A lot of bands over-blow their bio, but this can not be more fitting.
Track Listing:
1. Sick Obsession
2. Rolling Vengeance
3. Threatened
4. Living to Die
5. Guilty Pleasures
6. Ddd
7. Lethal Injection
8. Kurva
9. The Wait
10. Sofadermatosis
It may sound a bit strange to enjoy a band that goes so against the everyday, but take a chance. Be something else, and take this with you.
The Tour will be approximately 25-30 dates – so we look forward to bringing them your direction…
Starting in January of 2011, cities across the United States will have the unique chance to have their ears assaulted by one of Industrial Music’s most prolific personalities.
For those of you that have not heard the name “Roughhausen” before, it features Jeff Stoddard (most commonly known for his time spent with Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy, Will, and many others). Here is a chance to hear them: http://www.roughhausen.com/ or through Reverbnation here: http://www.reverbnation.com/#/roughhausen
The Project Roughhausen was born out of a series of late night, drug fueled, sonic atrocities against man and God in the bowels of the infamous Subconscious Studio complexes. Those sessions eventually became the material found on the first Roughhausen release, “Defenestrated.”
Addiction, madness, withdrawal and death marred the next few years and it was during this time that the Roughhausen ethos was focused and refined to what it eventually became – a hard-core beat driven schrei against the pandemic mediocrity that is not only tolerated in the modern world, but seemingly celebrated.
This is Electro-Industrial. The beats will move you and the feeling will stay with you. If you are interested in bringing the show to your venue or your city – let us know here or send us an e-mail!
If you are a venue or a promoter around the country, please get in touch and we can see about getting them in your Location. You can contact Pharoahmoan Productions at info (at) pharoahmoan (dot) tk or venues (at) pharoahmoan (dot) tk. And of course, remove the parentheses.
Facebook Tour Page: Here
***FYI – for those across the pond – Roughhausen will be touring Europe as well but that will be at a later time.
It’s been since May of 2008 since I have done a show, and it’s all about the comeback, right? At least that’s the way I have always viewed it. I can’t start doing shows again with random bands just to get my name known again or just do a show to do a show. I made a decision months ago that if I was coming back, I was coming back strong. So I put thought into it.
This couldn’t be any other show, it would have to be a band that meant a lot to me, and also a band that people would want to see. In a budget, mind you. It also had to be in an inexplicably gorgeous venue – no dive bars here, baby!
So it came to pass….
The band would be Android Lust. They did my 100th show for me way back in 2005, so what better band to come back with? Since 2005, the passion kind of faded because I only worked with local Bands, and I just couldn’t keep losing my ass on every single show anymore. But now, it’s different.
Venue? Well, ever since back in the day when we were doing the Colorado Dark Arts Festival every year, I have always wanted to put on a show at The Church. (If you aren’t from Colorado, you may not understand just how impressive this place is.. but trust me it’s incredible). Normally, just doing a show there, you would assume that you would be stuffed downstairs in some corner and people would be lucky to hear our band or find out about you, but this time, it would be different oh yes!
So it happened. On September 12th this year, I had both dreams realized. Never mind the cost or anything, but we were back. In the big way we wanted. We had The Church, and we had it UPSTAIRS! We had Android Lust finishing their Animalia Tour here in Denver, and we had Mankind is Obsolete on the bill as tour support. To make things even better, I finally got to book a local band on the bill that I had never worked with before – Torso. Each and every band impressed me beyond words. It’s been so long since I’ve been happy, and this was the night to change it all.
We had a HUGE turnout and every single person seemed to enjoy themselves. It’s all I wanted.
Thank you to all of the bands, the fans, The Church, Android Lust, and to music in general for allowing me to remember what makes me smile.
PharoahMoan Productions and SoCo Nightlife District Present…
Android Lust
w/ special guests
Mankind is Obsolete
…and Denver’s Own “Torso”
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Church
1160 Lincoln Street
Denver, CO 80203
$8 advance on the CoClubs Website
$10 at the door for 21+
$15 at the door for 18-20
Online Tickets Will be available soon, and we will also be announcing some Ticket Giveaways! Spread the word!
