Thanks to Jimmy Lucas who sent us this genius photo, need I say more…

Beestung Lips talk about doing it for themselves!!!
They play with Prurient + Cold Cave + Iron Fist Of The Sun + Nicholas Bullen at Vivid in May

THORR’S HAMMER + THE ACCUSED + CORRUPTED will all be performing at this years Supersonic Festival, we are over the moon with the news that we’ve finally got this confirmed and can announce these guys to join the line up for what we are sure will be our best festival yet…whoopee!!! Tickets go on sale on Thursday 2nd of April no April Fools, I tell you:)

Greg Anderson & Stephen O’Malley presents their maiden voyage into darkeness: the cult recordings by the black doom act THORR”S HAMMER. Thorr’s Hammer is raw nihilistic doom featuring the unbelievable vocals of Norwegian goddess Runhild Gammelsæter. Presented in her native Norwegian tongue, Runhild Gammelsæter’ gutteral dark vocals are contrasted by beautiful singing creating a huanting atmosphere. Funeral dirge is provided by the collaberation of Stephen O’Malley (ex-Burning Witch/SUNN0)))) and Greg Anderson (ex-Engine Kid/SUNN0)))/Goatsnake). Jamie Sykes (ex-Burning WitchWardrums, ex-CODENAME F.A.D.G.E.) and Guy Pinhas (Beaver, The Obsessed, Goatsnake, Melvins, etc) (Subharmonics). This union is raw, low and heavy as fuck, reminiscent of elder gods HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST,SABBATH, AND VENOM. The material contains the original three demo tracks (from 1995) and a recently unearthed live recording (“Mellom Galgene”) all originally created in the stoned winter of 1994-1995….. grim melancholy.
http://www.myspace.com/thorr39shammer

Corrupted from Osaka Japan THE absolute reference in terms of monolithic and experimental funeral doom.

The band has become legendary: consistently refusing interviews and photo shoots, the band has only been seen in Europe during a discreet tour in 2000 and a couple of appearances last year, this will be their first show in the UK.

Corrupted’s music is bleak, monumental and slow as a pachyderm… Extraordinary brutal riffs-drones played in a very low guitar/bass duo, as well as a drummer who maintains a brontosaurus like striking force on improbable slow tempos serve as a morbid box for a singer with an inimitable tone: guttural and abysmal at will, he declaims apocalyptic texts in Spanish (!!!). The band sometime uses long instrumental, melancholic breaks that admirably contrast with the force of their sound.
http://www.dxmxtx.com/corrupted/

Formed in 1981 in Oak Harbor, Washington by bassist Chibon ‘Chewy’ Batterman, Dana Collins and guitarist Tom Niemeyer. John Dahlin was the vocalist from 1982-1984. The addition of Blaine Cook (frontman of Seattle hardcore punk group The Fartz) fit nicely into the group’s migration towards a more heavy metal-based sound. In 1984, The band dubbed their style “splatter rock,” in homage to their favorite genre of horror films. Their hybrid musical formula was distinguishable by Blaine’s unusual choking-sound vocals, Niemeyer’s muted, choppy, buzzsaw guitars, dark metallic riffs, and rapid-fire drumming. The band are also responsible for creating the wild, zombie mascot Martha Splatterhead, whose likeness (created by Niemeyer) adorns most of their albums and many of their promotional items. The Accused recorded five albums, three EPs, and over 100 songs between their 1981 inception and 1990s hiatus.
The current line-up consists of Brad Mowen (also a member of Master Musicians of Bukakke and former member of Burning Witch and Asva), Dorando Hodous (also a member of Lesbian), Mike Peterson and Niemeyer.
http://www.myspace.com/kingsofsplatter

Line up for Supersonic Festival 2009:
Head Of David (first show in 23 years) / 65 Days of Static / The Accused / Arbouretum / Atomized/ Berg Sans Nipple / Caribou / Corrupted / Chris Herbert / Diagonal / Earthless /Flower & Corsano Duo / Growing / Iron Lung / Jarboe / Khyam Allami / Kim Hiorthøy Kylie Minoise / Master Musicians Of Bukkake/ Nancy Wallace / Pontiak / Pram / PRE /  Scorn / Skullflower/  Taint / Theo / Thorr’s Hammer Venetian Snares / Zu / ZzZ

Tickets on sale from Thursday 2nd of April from:
https://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Feel free to help us spread the good news

These were sent to us by our friend John, editor of the Quietus, produced by his partner photographer Maria at http://www.shot2bits.net/
Pretty damn special!!!

Next up was Tweak Bird from LA, we’d been recommended to check this band out by our friends from Belmont bookings and what a great recommendation it was, this duo are similar to Big Business but with high pitched vocals, very rhythmic and pretty hypnotic in terms of how their set builds, we loved them and fingers crossed they will be joining us for Supersonic.
Popped in very briefly on our way home to see our buddy Drop The Lime, he was just starting to warm up the party and get the crowd going but we were pretty worn out but this point so headed home after a short while, afterall we had fitted in about 8 bands in one night.
The following  day we started with a couple of meetings with various European agents and then a catch up with Gordon from Relapse Records , exchanged some contacts and ideas for Home Of Metal, as Gordon used to be the US press person for Earache back in the day.

Late afternoon we sheltered from the 80+ degree heat by going to a screening of SWEETHEARTS OF THE PRISON RODEO, a documentary as part of SXSW Film, which follows the journey of female prisoners in Oklahoma state penitentiary who compete in a gladiatorial type rodeo. The film had us gasping in horror, shedding tears and also laughing a truely heart wrenching hour and half.
That evening was the Southern Lord showcase, which we attended after going for dinner at Moonshine Bar & Grill with some of the Bristol music group, we consumed a couple of rather potent Patron based margaritas which set us up for another evening of shows.
We took Bristol based sound artists Duncan Speakman along with us and also met up with Brian Hickam from The University of Toledo Libraries who is also working towards creating a Heavy Metal archive, was great to have the chance to talk with him about potential links for our Home Of Metal project and building opportunities for the project to become trans atlantic . Brian was sporting one of our Home Of Metal t-shirts!Southern Lord showcase was a great chance for us to catch with old friends Pelican, we compared pup photos and made sure they weren’t going to get themselves embroiled in any bar room brawls after their heroic involvement in our SXSW showcase with Oxbow in 2007. We arrived just in time to catch Black Cobra, again another duo who make a tremendous racket, heavy as hell! Followed by a solo acoustic set by Wino of Saint Vitus & The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan fame, which was a little over shadowed by the din of people chatting but was still pretty moving.
The highlight however was Wolves In The Throne Room, who we’ve had play in Birmingham just recently, they played a ferocious set, and despite the show being in a white tent in what is normally a car park, they still managed to create quite an atmospheric performance with big candles on the side of the stage and loads of dry ice.
Also managed to pop over the road to Red 7 to catch a few songs by Kylesa before hitting the road for bed.
And still more to come…

So here is a little run down of what we saw while at SXSW in Austin Texas,  it might be useful to get a bit of background info on the festival which began in 1987. The reason for starting the festival came out of a frustration and isolation that was felt by musicians based in Austin, what with them being located in the middle of Texas they wanted to reach out to a global market and bring business to them. To do that successfully, SXSW needed to appeal to people other than local artists whether they were from Austin, Ft. Worth, Chicago, Toronto, Munich or Tokyo. The music event has grown from 700 professional registrants in 1987 to nearly 12,000 registrants, people now come from all over the world in order to network, check out new bands and to showcase labels.

This is our fourth year at SXSW and we have found it invaluable in terms of finding interesting acts for both our year round programme and also for curating Supersonic Festival, it also gives us the opportunity to meet with agents and labels that we work with face to face. Each year we try and approach our time at SXSW slightly differently in order to have new experiences. Of course this is where we had our showcase with Oxbow in 2007 which turned into a full blown bar room brawl (you can read all about that here).

So here is a little run down of what we did at SXSW Music:
Firstly and I guess most importantly was the cupcake van, no festival is complete without some kind of baked delights, this ingenious van was located at convenient places over the course of the week, which meant that I had to try a carrot cake cup cake with cream cheese topping purely as research.
We went and checked out HR from Bad Brains solo project, having been a big fan of Bad Brains we were curious to see what this was going to be like…unfortunately it was a little dull a bit too dub.

This is Flatstock, a huge poster art fair, presented by the American Poster Institute, a truely overwhelming experience when you first enter a huge warehouse type space filled with music related screen prints. Over the years we have purchased many a print, to the point where we no longer have wall space at home. Flatstock features groups such as Burlesque Of North America, Mexican Chocolate Design and Engine House 13.

Teepee records showcase, the highlight was a band called  Black Math Horseman these guys are from Los Angeles and have a female vocalist with a similar vibe to OM in that they are pretty heavy & repetitive, Tee Pee describe them as ambient post-doom.  Also playing were Earthless (who will be at Supersonic this year and feature proloific drummer and skateboarder Mario Rubalcaba, he’s played with Rocket From The Crypt, went on to bang away for the Hot Snakes, was the drummer for hardcore art-punks Clikatat Ikatowi and previously was in the Black Heart Procession.) We first saw Earthless at a Teepee showcase 3 years ago and have been hassling them to play Supersonic ever since, so we’re really excited that they’ll be over in July.

We were lucky enough to catch the Flower Travellin’ Band and wig out to Endless Boogie at the Knitting Factory showcase, it was a real privilege to witness the antics of the Flower Travellin Band from Japan, they were originally meant to open for the Rolling Stones in 1973 but due to visa issues were not allowed into States, so better late that never, they must have been a really big influence on Acid Mothers Temple.

“Their particular brand of psychedelic rock is delightfully heavy and strange, emphasized by the fact that they have abandoned the electric guitar in favor of the hugely complex, wide-necked sitarla. Vocalist Akira “Joe” Yamanaka’s voice is jarring and alien, but somehow suits the band’s style quite well. I don’t often think of this sound as having thrived across the world in Japan, but FTB’s extensive discography says otherwise.” [JDub Records blog]

More to come…

A selection of photos of fans from our last Home Of Metal open day at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery were featured in last weekends Guardian Magazine. The photos were taken by photographer Barry Lewis. As you can see there was a real cross section of fans in attendance old and young, Sabbath to Napalm fans coming together to share their passion for Birmingham & The Black Country.
As a result of the last open day Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have committed to a large scale exhibition in Gas Hall for 2011, as have Wolverhampton Art Gallery and New Art Gallery Walsall – keep watching this space for further news.

Feeling a little overtired after a 24 hr journey back from Austin Texas to the not quite so sunny Birmingham, have seen some amazing bands, met some great people and we are brimming with ideas and exciting news for Supersonic. When I’m slightly more coherent we’ll put a run down of which acts we went to see while at SXSW, in the meantime enjoy one of our highlights MONOTONIX at Don’t Mess With Texas:

“Have you ever seen a hairy Israeli man shove a microphone up his ass while balancing perfectly on a crowd-surfing bass drum? Well, I saw Ami Shalev of Monotonix do exactly that, and as you would expect it was fucking astonishing. The cavemen of Tel Aviv’s Monotonix are capable of Olympian feats of rock and roll jackassery, from spiderly scaling of the stage’s supports to having the audience hold all the drums (except the hi-hat) and the fucking drummer in the fucking air while he keeps a flawless beat. And the music ain’t bad either, a Zeppelin-ish brand of easy greasy riffs and chomping drums that drives simply through all the madness on and off the stage. This is music that was meant for an arena or a packed city block or angry protest or really anywhere with a huge crowd and shit to climb on. In short, Monotonix is anarchic, silly, and they play in their underpants.”

Review by Mike McHugh taken from www.tinymixtapes.com/SXSW-Saturday-Mess-With-Texas