Rock Star Journalist

Grave Mistake Records label head Alex DiMattesa recently teamed up with Bobby Egger, owner of Richmond’s Vinyl Conflict record store to relaunch the label of the same name. While formerly a subsidiary to No Way Records, it’ll now be a sub to Grave Mistake, but will keep the original incarnation’s “focus on Richmond Punk and Hardcore bands.”

First on deck for the relaunched label is Barge‘s No Gain 7-inch. It was pitched to me as “fast hardcore, like Infest / No Comment.” Yes, yes it is. Holy fuck, it’s fast. Eight songs in eight minutes. The first side blazes through so quickly and punishingly, you need that time it takes to flip the record over to brace yourself for what you know is about to come in the second half.
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The more I listen to them, the more I think Best Practices are a hardcore band playing garage rock. A lot of it has to do with the drumming, which has that energetic backbeat, steady as a goddamn metronome.

On Sore Subjects, said drumming (courtesy Paul Denichio, whose Tor Johnson Records teamed up with Willow Tree Records to put this EP out) has a looser feel than most hardcore drumming. It doesn’t sound like Denichio is going to put his sticks through the skins.
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Deafheaven‘s newest album, Sunbather, comes out tomorrow via Deathwish. It’s a record that Stereogum describes as “expansive, melodic, blinding, textured, dynamic, and moving.” For those who’ve followed the band since their arrival in 2010, the new album will come as no surprise, but for people discovering Deafheaven’s music for the first time, it will seem like a revelation, mixing as it does shoegaze, doom, and black metal for a hypnotic listen. We were lucky enough to be able to ask vocalist George Clarke a few questions via e-mail about Sunbather.
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Regarding the whole Midcoast Cares Rock For Relief concert on Monday, here’s what I’ve been able to confirm: Obviously, some banners were torn down. See the above Twitter exchange for 96.5 the Buzz personality Slimfast’s reaction to an inquiry. This tweet doesn’t help matters any, either.
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Greg Hughes of Florida band Among Giants reached out to us about their upcoming tour with fellow Orlando band Zap Dragon & the Attack, as well as their forthcoming split 7-inch on Say-10 Records with New Jersey’s Aspiga. We took a listen to the split and were more than impressed. When we took a look into the band — especially when it became apparent that this was the first recording as a band, rather than just Hughes all by his lonesome — we asked Hughes a few questions via e-mail about the band and their upcoming plans.
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Last night, Georgia’s Baroness played Lawrence’s Granada Theater, with openers Coliseum. It was the first tour for the Savannah metal quartet since their April 2012 bus crash in England, as well as the departure of drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni in March of this year.
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With their third full-length LP, The Distance Is So Big, Buffalo’s Lemuria have finally won me over completely.

Given the amount of attention we’ve given the band here at Rock Star Journalist, and the fact that my Lemuria t-shirt is one of the few band shirts I care enough to wear to my office day job, that might come a surprise.
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The Sickoids have been name-dropped to me as a band to check out repeatedly over the last few months, so it was pretty great to have their latest EP, No Home, show up in the mail last week. The 12″ is a split release between Grave Mistake and Sorry State, and it’s loaded with visual imagery that clues you into what’s ahead before you even have a chance to drop the needle.

The cover of No Home is a photo of a 1965 tornado survivor sitting on the steps of what used to be his home. The back cover is an image of the skull of Phineas Gage — a railroad worker, who in 1848 had a tamping iron driven through his cheek, exiting through the top of his skull, yet survived. These are not going to be songs of hope. These will be songs of survival.
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There was a benefit for Moore tornado victims at the Kansas City Power & Light District last night. And, it being a benefit, nothing stayed on-topic. At some point during the show, Slimfast, a DJ for 96.5 the Buzz, allegedly tore down a banner for the Kansas City Local Artists Radio Show, an online streaming radio program. People are collectively losing their minds on Facebook, as well as in a post over at Day to Day ASA.

I appreciate the thoughts behind this but the “Apparently they do not support freedom of speech either!” line kills me. You can delete anything you want to off your Facebook page. It’s your subpage of a private website ran by a multi-million dollar corporation which receives ad revenue from other multi-million (if not billion) dollar industries.
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We’re quite fond of the latest album from Japonize Elephants, Mélodie fantastique. We had lots and lots of ideas and questions regarding the band the album’s production, so we reached out to the group’s Sylvain Carton (guitar, vocals, alto sax, bass clarinet, bari sax) for an e-mail interview. He was kind enough to explain Japonize Elephants’ name, how Mélodie fantastique was recorded, and some more ethereal things.
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