What’s It Worth To You?
Ah the internet. What a magical place it can be. Over the years it’s opened up a whole new world not available to us before. It’s allowed us to find new and interesting music from every corner of the world. It’s also opened up the ability to find and purchase music well out of our market as long as the person selling was willing to send it out. Recently there was an article on The Obelisk about JJ’s purchase of Colour Haze’s Chopping Machine. He paid a pretty penny for it. Just a while ago, an auction on Ebay for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats Blood Lust on Lp for $1,078.75. A copy of The Desert Sessions Vol 1 10″ vinyl closed for $223.50 minutes later. It got me wondering about my own collecting habits and what I’ve paid for music. I know in the past I’ve bought a sealed copy of Dozer’s In the Tail of a Comet from Man’s Ruin for $35. Before Godsmack made it big they recorded an album called All Wound Up. That album would later get remastered and become their self titled (more…)
Vincebus Eruptum Magazine 12 Updates
Just a friendly reminder that issue 12 of Vincebus Eruptum issue 12 is available for purchase in our online store. The issue is available in 2 versions, the magazine by itself or the version with the included comp album featuring some of the best heavy psych tracks out today. The track list is as follows:
Core “Mood Disorder”
OJM “Har(D)ucks”
That’s All Folks! “Hyponotic Pulse”
The Freeks “Vitamin D”
Tectonic Break “Maria”
E.X.P. “DNA Connects Just Like A Kids Tumble”
Vic Du Monte’s Persona Non Grata “Man on a Mission”
Vibravoid “Photosynthesis in Darkness”
Zippo “Night Jam #2”
Colt38 “Amplesso in Dom” (more…)
FARM FEST 2012 (Farmageddon)
As you may have remembered from last year when we covered Farm Fest V, it is now that time of the year to announce this year’s Farm Fest. This year’s lineup looks mighty impressive with a few bands that I’ve known for a while, at least by name. If you’re into psychedelic rock, enjoy drinking in the warm sun, and you’re willing to have a great time in Maryland after July 4th, then you’ll probably want to join us in being at Farm Fest. Plus, if the Mayans are right, what better way to help the year go out with a bang?! (more…)
Epic Album of the Week – Electric Mud
Written by Ian Gerber
For The Soda Shop
So…we all know about fuzz rock these days. Hell, we even call it “Fuzz Rock” as a point clarification in conversations we have amongst the hordes of underground rock fans we run into. In 1968 Muddy Waters didn’t know what fuzz rock was, but he made a cornerstone record in regards to developing the sound. “Electric Mud” is not your typical Muddy Waters records. (more…)
Epic Album of the Week: Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
Written by Ian Gerber
For The Soda Shop
Welcome back! I hope the holidays brought a lot of awesome into your life. If not, let me help.
I figure that the first Epic Album of the Week be something special…so we are going old school. This week’s album is Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. (more…)
Heavy Pink, 7″ Vinyl
I can feel doom like Something under the sheets with bristles That stinks and moves Toward me…. “A Nice Day,” Charles Bukowski, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
From that Maple Forum label… home of those monsters Roareth, we get, bien sûr, this band… this band called Heavy Pink. Which, in all seriousness… well… I can’t go into it here. (more…)
2011 Recap; Hello 2012
By time you read this, 2011 will be of a distant memory. 2012 is upon us and ready to rear its ugly head and possibly end. I hope that everyone’s New Years celebration was a fun and safe one.
2011 was an interesting year for The Soda Shop. First off we seen many many many new releases, a lot more than was expected. We seen some great debut albums like Borracho and The Heavy Eyes. There were quite a bit of albums to hit unexpectedly as well. “Business,” so to speak, picked up quite a bit for The Soda Shop too. As expected, hits to the site and submissions were through the roof. There was so much that I can’t keep up with it all. Between an increase in hours at my day job, the mandatory family time, the time I’ve had left to handle stuff at The Soda Shop has dwindled. If you’ve submitted something, it’ll be attended to but it may take some time. I’ll have my first review of 2012 out soon. I’ve been listening to the album almost non stop for just about 2 weeks. it’s really gotten a grip on me. Once I get that out of the way, I’ll be continuing more reviews trying to get in older submissions done first but mixing in newer ones as well. (more…)
Top 20 of 2011– Henry’s Picks
Honorable Mention:
Indian, Guiltless
Top 20:
20: Skeletonwitch, Forever Abomination
Genre-less pure metal: 1982 Metallica, covering Iron Maiden, with Cronos singing.
19: Hour of 13, The Ritualist
Totally generic but awesome satanic Sabbath riff-worship. (more…)
Merry Christmas
There will be no updates on December 24th or 25th. Please spend the time with your friends, family and loved ones. Merry Christmas
Top 20 of 2011 – Jake’s Picks
Shortly after I wrote last year’s Top 20 list, I knew it was going to be interesting to write this year’s. I’ll be honest, I didn’t hold out much hope for 2011 after the year that 2010 was. There were several huge releases in ’10 that I figured would put it on top for, at least, a few years. Sure, there were a few heavily anticipated releases I knew were coming in ’11 like Graveyard‘s Hisingen Blues, but that still paled in comparison. It wasn’t until this year started to go along that it was clear that 2011 was just as good, if not better, than 2010. This was helped along by several amazing hidden gems that were discovered throughout the year. I must have had fun discovering and enjoying all of this music because 2011 flew by faster than any year in recent memory.
In comparing last year to this year, I did find something curious. Last year, Bill and I shared similar lists with 10 matching entries with several of those in nearly identical placements on our lists. This year, things are a bit different. I only count 7 matches, and only 2 with a similar position. Consider the additional albums on this list an early Christmas gift from the cosmos.
As always, the creating of these lists are extremely hard, and I hate to leave some very deserving bands off of a list like this. Unfortunately, I can’t include every amazing album on this list. This year’s list has been worked on all year. I’ve meticulously arranged albums as I’ve listened to them throughout this year, continually going back to adjust their standings. Some bands have moved up, some have moved down, and some have flew to the top, seemingly out of nowhere. (more…)
Epic Album of the Week – The Elephant Riders
Written by Ian Gerber
For The Soda Shop
Clutch is just one of those bands. Everybody has an opinion on them. There are a few things that is for sure. They have made some rather incredible albums and they all ROCK!!! I’ll be the first to tell you that they were not my cup of tea the first time that I tried and listen to them. My first experience was Pure Rock Fury, which I would still advise against trying to listen to if it is your first experience with the band. After a constant buzzing in my ear about the band, I gave them another listen. Now, I can’t even settle on which album I like listening to more. I find it strange. (more…)
Top 20 of 2011 – Bill’s Picks
Well it’s that time of year again. Time to name my favorite albums of 2011. 2011 brought us a lot of good stuff by a lot of great bands. 2011 also brought on a lot of surprises from bands that were really unknown until their material was released or well afterwards. Bandcamp played a huge role in music discovery for me. It turned out hundreds of great albums not only released in 2011 but in years past as well. This list, my favorites as well as honorable mentions, is no way a complete list of what was released this year. There is just to much out there that I don’t either have time to get to, never heard of or won’t discover until well after this year is completely over. I know there’s going to be a few surprises. Let it be known that I listened to a LOT of new albums this year and picking my top 20 out of the hundreds was very hard to do.
20. 
The Sade – Damned Love – (review) I really didn’t know what to expect when this one came across my desk but I needed to check it out. And check it out I did. I was pretty damn impressed that I listened to the album at least 10 times in a row. In my review I stated “The majority of the album is all alchchol fueled hard rock. Throughout my listening of the album I couldn’t help but think that this is what Social Distortion may sound like if they were more rooted in 70′s hard rock as opposed to their punk roots.” Granted it’s been a few months since I’ve listened to it, it still has a strong spot in my top 20.
Epic Album of the Week: Red Headed Stranger
Written by Ian Gerber
For The Soda Shop
Ok, I warned you…I’m covering all sorts of music, not just bearded stoners laying down righteous riffs. Yes, we are talking country music today. It doesn’t get ANY better, for any music, so pick up your bong and give your ears a break from stacks of Oranges cranked to 11 with the perfect album to end your Sunday night on. Besides, I’m from Indiana and that is in the Midwest (for our European friends 🙂 ) and we get a bunch of country music by osmosis, might as well find the good stuff.
We could talk about the album track by track, but that would be boring. Like all of the albums for this feature, you should already have it in your collection and have committed it to memory. Instead, I would like to discuss why you should care about this album, even if you are one of those close minded S.o.B’s who can’t get past Ride the Lightning. Bare minimum, this is a blog dedicated (more…)
New Feature: Epic Album of the Week
Written by Ian Gerber
For The Soda Shop
Ok guys, here’s the skinny. Every week I’m going to write up a post about an EPIC album. It’s a simple concept, really, but here’s where it’s going to get interesting… I might write about Blonde on Blonde, Kind of Blue, and most definitely at some point At the Fillmore. Maybe for next Christmas, Holy Mountain, but don’t count on it. You see, us “stoner rockers” get a pretty bum rap when it comes to being stylistically diverse. You know what I mean… “Beards and Riffs”? Well, I for one, as a member of the bearded brethren would like to put that one to rest. I’m open to suggestions, including un-signed bands and independent records. Hit me up at iangerber@gmail.com or find me on Facebook. So without much further ado… this weeks EPIC ALBUM is Mastodon’s ‘Leviathan’.
Neil Fallon Featured on Girl On Guy Podcast
Recently Clutch frontman Neil Fallon was featured on the Girl on Guy Podcast:
girl on guy 20: neil fallon of clutch
every kid dreams of being a rock star. they buy the guitar. wear the clothes. paint their nails black. generally act like a douche. and never actually do any of the work it takes to get there. yeah, most kids dream about being rock stars. most kids are posers.
for two decades, clutch has done the gritty, unrelenting work of making that dream a reality. practicing constantly. touring endlessly. walking on stage night after night, town after town, delivering artful no-bullshit music to enthusiastic rock purists.
join lead singer neil fallon and aisha as they jaw about the paralyzing fear of being onstage, the misery of touring with a bunch of dudes in a van, the death of (more…)
Introducing…The Shrine
“On the night of November 6th, 1979 Black Sabbath was at their most drug addled and explosive standing. They were on tour supporting their newly released Never Say Die album and had a night off in Los Angeles. After knocking back a few drinks at the infamous Rainbow Bar, they decided to check out the local rock scene at the Whiskey A-Go-Go. Arriving late, they caught the tail end of a set by The Circle Jerks. Feeling intimidated yet inspired, they rented a rehearsal space and spent the rest of the night jamming. For an unknown reason they exclusively played Thin Lizzy material and Keith Moon was sitting in… These events never took place. But if they did, the results may have sounded similar to Los Angeles’s The Shrine. Formed in 2008, The Shrine play a houserocking breed of heavy, psychedelic, riff based Rock n’ Roll. Their debut, recorded on vintage reel-to-reel tape, by local (more…)
Five Albums That Changed My Life
Noisecreep has an article that I stumbled across recently where they have a different person tell about 5 albums that changed their life. I thought it was a very interesting article and wondered what 5 albums changed my life. I thought about it for a little bit and here’s what I came up with.
Michael Jackson – Thriller – You may be laughing, maybe not. Back when Thriller came out I was 8 years old, in 2nd grade, the M in MTV still meant music and Michael Jackson was everywhere you looked. At 8 years old you’re very influenced by what your friends like, say and do. It’s part of how you grow up. I was no different. Since everyone in my class and all my friends like Michael Jackson, I guess I had to too. Thriller was the first album that I remember listening to, front and back, over and over again. It was the first LP that my parents bought me, aside from the kids oriented LPs back in the day. It was the picture disc too. I listened to it so much that the grooves in the vinyl were starting to wear down. Even after the fad had passed and my friends moved on, I still listened to Thriller. (more…)
Best Sonic Prostate Exams: i.e., metal on the floor– and up your a**
So: when lying on the floor, directly in front of sub-woofers, what qualifies as a sonic prostate exam?
I noticed this perhaps-unique feature listening to Winter’s Into Darkness on vinyl. Further contenders, I feel, include:
Conan, Horseback Battle Hammer Cough, Sigilum Luciferi The Devil and the Sea, Heart vs Spine Sunn O))), Black One Earth, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1 Eyehategod, any Goatsnake, any haarp, The Filth Howl, Full of Hell Northless, Clandestine Abuse Pelican, any Salome, Terminal Sleep, any Sloath, s/t Unearthly Trance, V VYGR, Hypersleep YOB, The Great Cessation Zoroaster, any
Well…? Whaddya think…?! What literally rumbles your bowels…?
An Interview with Tony Presedo – Founder of Tee Pee Records
Written By Ian Gerber for The Soda Shop
Sometimes you don’t know what you can get if you don’t ask. I was surprised that a busy guy like Tony Presedo would have time for me. I came into a knowledge of who he is and what he has done through watching the documentary ‘Such Hawks Such Hounds’ just a few months ago. When I started digging for information on him, I was surprised at how fundamental his hard work really has been to establishing the genre we all love and have come to know as “Stoner Rock”. Whether it was his vision to help release the now monumental and then buried Sleep record, Dopesmoker, or his knack for putting together a roster of heavy hitting bands that include Nebula, The Atomic Bitchwax, and High on Fire, there is one thing for certain… Tony Presedo knows what the fuck Stoner Rock is. After unceremoniously getting the boot in 2008 as the head of Tee Pee Records, the company that he built from the ground up, Tony has taken the time to re-group and re-build his love of all things music. Mr. Presedo graciously gave me some of his time to answer my questions in an effort to help us all know where Stoner Rock came from and where it is going. It went like this…
Some Thoughts on Devil’s Time to Repent
Having been intrigued by the Soda Shop’s review of Devil’s album Time to Repent, I gave it a few spins. I dig it. It’s fun stuff.
But then something occurred to me, and I wanted to share it with you, the diligent and voracious consumer of extreme music.
First of all, I won’t try to act like Time to Repent is anything new. It isn’t.
What I will do, however, is compare listening to Devil (assuming you’ve heard and like doom/ stoner bands, particularly like Graveyard and Witchcraft) to beer, weed and strange ass.
I’m talking about a different kind of novelty here– Devil aren’t anything new; same riffs you’d imagine, same song structure, same late 70s vocals–
They’re still NOT, in fact, Graveyard or Witchcraft or Hour of 13 or any other combination of occult doom, 70s stoner rock and dashes of NWOBHM.
However– (more…)
Poll Time
Here’s a poll I thought I’d throw on for shits and giggles. Well that and I’m trying out this poll feature to see how it works.
DIY – A Helpful Guide
Recently Jake wrote an article on physical VS digital downloads. It brought up lots of different points and arguments from both sides of the coin. That got me to thinking that there may be a number of bands an artists that want to get their music out there but aren’t sure where to start, how to do it or just want to maximize their exposure to their targeted audience. This is a little guide I thought I’d put together to help those out. Please keep in mind that this is not the ultimate guide and due to the way technology and fads come and go, some may be out dated as soon as I hit the publish button. Also please note that we’re not musicians either so some of the advice may or may not work for everyone. Each success story is different.
Goals and Intentions
When you get your band together you usually have a good idea of the style of music you want to play. Once you have that figured out, you have to decide on how far you want to go with it. Do you want to play and just have fun with it? Do want to get signed to a label an have them help out with recording and promotion or do you want to go full on out and try to get signed by the big labels? It’s very hard to get signed to a big label and even if you do, if you don’t sell enough, the label will drop you as fast as they signed you. Even if you do want to get signed by a big label, you need comfy knee pads and have to sound like the next Nickelback or Hoobastank. The bottom line is figure out how far you want to go and don’t stop until you get there.
Recording (more…)
Review: Such Hawks, Such Hounds – Documentary
Written by Ian Gerber for The Soda Shop
It seems that the days of of the conversations that start off with A.) “I like “Stoner Rock” Q.) What’s that” or Q.) “Like the Grateful Dead?” are coming closer to their demise. At least amongst musicians and the hip heavy music loving college students, where these conversations originate. More and more the question to this answer is “Like Sleep?” Thank you, Wikipedia.
Fans rejoice! We now have a documentary we can point to as a good guidline for any newbie wanting to get their fuzz on. This is also beneficial if you want to avoid that awkward conversation where people automatically assume you are a burnout. Such Hawks Such Hounds does a rather right on job at compiling a distinctive group of stoner rock’s upper echelon to discuss what sounds, equipment, philosophies, influences and early underground pioneers are the bread and butter of stoner rock. They even debunk the “unfortunate moniker” that we have grown to adopt as community of fans. If the shoe fits, I guess. (more…)
The Soda Shop 