The Saint Vitus Dance

Listening to: Sheet of Flames by Hyatari

Working on a piece for an upcoming art show where I am going to be displaying some of my stuff. I like letters a lot so I will be using a lot of those.

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Very good doom, nice and heavy and slow. If you like this stuff you would probably like Church of Misery. Japanese doom-metal band that sings about serial killers.

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Freight of the day

Evangelica Houston

Listening to Bliss and Void Inseperable by Black Boned Angel

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So far I've shaved my head like 4 times this summer. Can't wait to go to the midwest because I love it there, it's my home. I've been working intermitingly on some new stuff for an art show that's forthcoming. If I can sell some of my stuff that would be cool. There probably isn't anything like making money by doing what you love. I'm sure that Mr. Krink could tell me what it's like though.

Krink-filled extinguishers for maximum effectiveness.

Krink'd mailbox

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We like the same music.

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I was doing a search on meth earlier and this is what came up at the top of the page. Really. (Note this was at work, I have a Mac.)

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Freight of the day

Absence due to projection

Untitled track by Rwake

Nirvana was a great band, one of my favorites actually. This is a really good documentary about Kurt and his death. I never knew that Courtney Love was so off, but this brings a lot of things to light about her that are disturbing. I can relate to Kurt Cobain on a few levels in the way that he liked music plain and simple, didn't seem to be making music only to become rich and famous. He seemed to be a pretty simple guy, it's just that he obviously was dealt a raw deal when it came to his family life, or lack thereof. Nirvana, along with the Smashing Pumpkins and a few others from that era seem to be a rarity in he world of 'known' music, or music that pretty much everyone knows about. Check this documentary out.

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Speaking of documentaries, I just saw one last night about the history of hacking. Real cool stuff. The words 'hack', 'hacking' and 'hacker' have a negative connotation in society but really the fact is its quite the opposite, at least it started out that way and for the most part it still is. Basically a hacker is someone who likes to tinker with gadgets, discover what their capabilities are, not just what they have been programmed to do or are supposed to do. Put it this way, without hackers we would not have a lot of the things we have today in the way of computers and such. Steve Wozniak, co-creator of Apple, was a hacker and probably still considers himself one. Learn all this and more by watching the History of Hacking.

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Freight of the Day

STEL and PORE

Live simply

Listening to: The Sinking Belle (Black Sheep) by Sunn O))) & Boris

Thanksgiving is over and hopefully everyone had a good one and got to spend time with their family and loved ones and pets and all. Since Barack Obama and Joe Biden's victory I have been able to come down to earth, somewhat. It's still very remarkable to hear the words "President-elect Barack Obama..." spoken on the news or to read it in writing. Amazing. There have been many things in the news recently like the attacks in India, the ever-sinking economy and the massive loss of jobs by many of the nation's hard workers. There has also been talk of possibly letting michael vick back in the NFL to play football. It seems that despite the good news of the recent election, there haven't been many other positives. I've always been one to think more with my heart than logically when it comes to dealing with the welfare of people and animals. When it comes to certain causes, there are many that I am passionate about but a few that I would consider myself to be near-militant about when it comes to my views. These are animal rights (animal fighting, abuse, neglect, etc); stopping domestic violence (spousal and child abuse of all kinds); women's rights (being of the persuasion that I think it's pretty silly that a small group of lawmakers, usually men, think they know what's best for a woman's body); civil rights (basically affording any minority the same rights as anyone else, sexual orientation, race, gender, ethnicity, faith, all of that) and human rights. 

I have always had a very active mind and attached to that is my heart, it's hard to separate one from the other. I am not about to delve into my views on any one of these or all of these topics because I don't want to lose focus in what I am trying to say, which is actually very simple, almost too simple. 

A topic that I have been thinking very hard about recently more and more is humanity. Ignorance really is bliss because when one is ignorant to certain things, it's much more likely that the rose-colored glasses they see the world through will never come off. Simply put, the world is a sad place, a sick one. I am not talking about the earth and the people, beautiful land and wonderful wildlife though, I am talking about how humans have created a dystopia for themselves. It's not a coincidence that I used the word dystopia to describe the world as it is also the name of a band that I listen to. Basically a dystopia is the opposite of a Utopian society. Dystopia is a society that is totalitarian, environmentally degraded and basically all around unpleasant. By no means is this supposed to be a negative tirade on my part, but more of an awakening that I have slowly come to terms with over many years. Dystopia, the band, plays a type of rock n roll that sounds very dirty and is often times referred to as sludge or sludge metal. This band specifically deals with many of the topics that plague our society with the one underlying message being that humans have basically destroyed the world, they've infected it with greed. One of their albums, HUMAN=GARBAGE, puts it quite succinctly. I felt that tangent to be necessary but also meaningful. What I have been thinking about and realizing over time is that it seems that humans are innately more good than bad, however, greed and materialism have played the part of the veritable 'bite into the apple' that has since left a curse on us. This is not to say that it's unnatural or bad for us to want to succeed. It's not wrong at all, it's human nature, but when the intoxication of material items, money and power outweigh the desire to be ethical and treat others the way that they themselves would like to be treated, then there is a problem. I have been looking at the world differently and it's been a long time coming. Lately the one phrase that could be used to sum up my thoughts would have to be 'ulterior motives'. There are plenty of commercials on TV that appeal to your emotions and if you were none the wiser you would probably think "Oh, that's nice of Coca-Cola to wish me a happy holiday season! They really do care about me." Perhaps I have been analyzing everything way too much (doubt it) and perhaps the large companies really do care about me and my well-being (money) but I tend to see beyond things. It's hard for me to justify buying a certain product when I have found out through research that said company tests on animals. One thing that I cannot justify are things like this. When a company treats it's employees poorly, pollutes the environment, supports causes that negatively impact other people and/or animals, all of these things make me ever the more cautious. This extends to other things besides corporations and greed in it's simplest form, it also can and will be attributed to politics. Emotion can work wonders when it is used to further your own ends. This is unethical though, it's underhanded, it's Rove-like behavior. As it is probably already known, I am decidedly left-leaning, but that does not mean that I would completely ignore something underhanded that was done by a left-leaning or democratic politician, for example. 

Basically to cut to the chase I have been trying to live my life while trying to have the least possible negative affect on others, people and animals. The more you know about what actually goes on, the harder it is not to think about those that we impact negatively, even though we may not be doing it directly or even knowingly. This is not to say that people should feel guilty about themselves and be unhappy, it is just to open up eyes and think about the possible affects that certain actions may have on others. Simply put, try to live simply so that others may simply live. Treat others the way you wish to be treated, and believe me, at times it can be hard, but for the most part if you have common sense and a conscience, you should be fine!

Freight of the day

History has been made! YES WE DID!

Listening to NPR

Barack Obama is our new president! This is so great and such a happy time. I am so proud and happy for America and I am proud to be part of history! Too much to say right now. Unbelievable!

Today is the day

Listening to CNN election coverage, although the band Today Is the Day is good.

Couldn't sleep last night because today is the election! My friend and I got up at about 6 am and went to go vote. It restored my faith in humanity because so many people were already lined up in the rain before 6 am. Incredibly awesome, this is most certainly history! It's about fucking time I say, and I think this voter turnout reflects those sentiments. It's very important that everyone vote, doesn't matter for who, as long as they exercise that civil right, even if you have to wait in line for a little over 2 hours like we did. Now we play the waiting game and watch all the numbers roll in...

wow

family is important

listening to: Blood Swamp by Sunn O))) & Boris

Pretty interesting stuff here. Basically after the televised political talk was over, some  interesting things were said about McCain's pick for vp. 

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freight of the day (RIVER)

Sarah Palin spoke at the RNC tonite- great stand up comedy!

listening to- Green Plant by Cherry Smash

So Sarah Palin spoke at the RNC earlier tonite. Good stuff I suppose. It will really be difficult for me to actually dignify her and the other speakers though with any legitimacy though because I lean to the left, there's no doubt about it. We've got a real historical thing going on right now. My cousin Ben is really into politics and we've been talking about this upcoming election and what it means for history. Simply put, this is historical either way you cut it. We will have a woman vp or we'll have a black president. Wow. That's pretty exciting! From what I heard and saw of Palin's speech it seems that she is certainly not ready for the office she is vying for. I say this knowing full well that experience doesn't really matter these days, though it really should. What we have today is more of a popularity contest than anything actually political. It's that and mudslinging and muckraking for the politicians and media respectively. It's no real secret that our country is 'kinda dumb', for lack of a better term. That combined with our ever decreasing attention span makes us a powerful yet ignorant nation. We want to see things more than we want to understand them. That's probably one reason Fox News is so popular. There are lots of colorful graphics to mask the un-intelligence and decidedly right-leaning viewpoints camouflaged as fact. If you say it enough then it becomes fact. I didn't watch Fox's take on the RNC for two reasons, one because I wanted to watch actual news coverage of this event and two, because I don't have cable. What I saw more than anything else when Palin spoke was that her main platform seems to stand on two issues, drilling and attacking the Democrats. To be fair, I didn't watch the entire speech, just most of it. These are interesting times no doubt.

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Freight of the day (HEIST)

sludge from the depths

listening to Isolation by Grief

Recently got my hands on a copy of the Daleth/Blue Shift split album and it's damn good! It's sludge from Florida (it's hard to believe this music came from the Sunshine State!).  The best way to describe Daleth is a"One man instrumental band. All songs originate from recorded drum tracks which are then pieced together in an attempt to create a song." 

Download here

Daleth myspace

Daleth Blog

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Freight of the Day (GLUE dissed by ARYS)

Both writers are ill, don't understand the dis.

sludgecast

listening to Death goes to the Winner by Harvey Milk

Finally got the new MacBook Pro. This computer is sweet as hell, its so damn nice, can't say enough about it! New podcast up, or should I say sludgcast. It's 

complete with album art and everything. Still trying to figure out the whole feedburner stuff, not having much luck with it though for some reason so for now the link is here.  Enjoy.

MR.CAFE

i'm fearful of flying and flying is fearful of me

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land of some other order

listening to: ripped on fascist ideas- Earth

The semester's over and I am hoping for a miracle, the kind that comes in the form of me passing French class. Now I unabashedly spend more time on side projects that probably 'won't amount to anything and don't do nothin' for society". Art is what you make it though.

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Found some pretty good stuff of note, in the form of videos and podcasts. Unfortunately I won't be uploading them to my ipod because some moron stole mine out of my car. That was pretty sweet to wake up to, having my friend call me in the morning and be like "um, someone broke into your car." At least she was looking out for me.

Podcasts:
Bracken's Autumn podcast (anticon)
SJ Easu podcast (anticon)
Dax Pierson's Spring podcast (anticon)

Video:
The Power Of Nightmares (documentary)
This is a very good and informative documentary in three parts about how political parties and movements have changed the world by using the power of fear rather than instilling hope for a better future. In short it talks about two major factions in the world: The Neo-Cons and the Islamic Fundamentalists. It's done by the BBC so you know it's good. This is some heavy shit, some things that I think the U.S. Government would be happy to never have seen the light of day. On a side note, they make good use of Brian Eno's music.

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freight of the day (DEPTHS)

ignorance breeds ignorance. remember that.

listening to: dirty living- Ultralord

Seems I've been on a conspiracy theory kick the last couple of weeks. I find it interesting, the ideas that some come up with. I don't automatically discount these theories, but some of them seem to be a little out there, but anything's possible I suppose. I saw Loose Change a couple years ago; interesting. Good points were raised but when you produce a documentary things can be skewed or biased without seeming like they are overtly being biased. I've been watching a few the last couple of weeks and I found some of them interesting and food for thought. I always wonder who financially backs these certain documentaries however, because once you find that out, you can see where the motives may lie. Here are a few of the films I have seen recently, you be the judge. I realize that the extreme Right-wing, tax protest movement, white-power, racialist, neo-Nazi ultra-patriot followers were one of the first to use the Internet as a vehicle for getting their message of hate out and I know that there are many of those in the same movement who also subscribe to some of these conspiracy theories. I would like to make it clear that I am not part of this movement, I just happen to have a good amount of knowledge on this subject because I have been studying it and researching it for some time now. I don't know that much about the whole New World Order (NWO) theory so I can't talk about that very much but I do not subscribe to the anti-Semitic theory of the Zion Occupation Government or ZOG, as it is commonly known as in these circles. That said, I still think these are rather interesting and, for all we know, could have some truth in them. Others will probably follow when I find them.

911 In Plane Sight

September 11 Revisited

Zeitgeist
This one's pretty well done and it's in three parts. One regarding religion. Good stuff.

Loose Change

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freight of the day (COUPE) somewhat of a diversification of his usual style

A bad tree bears bad fruit

listening to: microporous tape mix by Duggadut

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I was sent this mix tape a few days ago and am now just getting around to listening to it and it's damn good! Good beats that never stay stagnant for long and always keep you moving. Check it out here---> microporous

tracklisting:
1. D.I.M. - Airbus (MSTRKRFT's JFK Re-edit)
2. Isa GT - Pela'o (Crookers Remix)
3. T.L. - B.T.B.
4. Yelle - A Cause De Garcons (Riot In Belgium Remix)
5. Larry Tee ft. Princess Superstar - Licky (Herve Remix)
6. Klaxons - Golden Skans (Erol Alkan's Ekstra Spektral Edit/ Switch Remix)
7. Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler (Duggadut Edit)
8. Simian Mobile Disco - I Believe (Switch Remix)
9. Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT Remix) 10. SebastiAn - Walkman (Insane Edit)
11. Tyskerhar - Workout
12. Dusty Kid - The Cat (Crookers Remix)
13. New Young Pony Club (Herve Goes Bananas Remix)
14. Sinden And The Count Of Monte Cristal - We Don't Give A Damn
15. The Freelance Hellraiser - Weightlessness (Puzique Remix)
16. LCD Soundsystem - Disco Infiltrator
17. Simian Mobile Disco - It's The Beat (The Teenagers Remix)
18. Digitalism - Pogo
19. Mr. Oizo - Transexual
20. Surkin - Midnight Swim (Riton Re-rub)
21. Mark Ronson - Stop me

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freight of the day (ELK)

BORIS

listening to: Ramblin' in the Shadows- Across Tundras

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I went to see Boris lastnight and the the show was indeed great. There was definitely a different scene than I was used to, probably because it was in a college town. I got the feeling that most of the kids at the show were there because there was a show going on and more than likely had never heard of Boris before. That's cool as well though, but I was expecting quite a different crowd, more of a stoner/doom/sludge/drone type. No complaints though! I was hoping they would play Flood but it was probably too long of a song to play at a show, seeing as how it's about 80 minutes in length. Like expected, the atmosphere was made by the sounds and beautiful quiet melodies only to be taken to a greater level with the sudden yet somehow expected onslaught of pure sound; like a wall crashing into all senses you thought you had under control. Here are some pictures from the show.

she was awesome.

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freight of the day (ATAK)

blessed wings

listening to: mother nature's son- the beatles

It's been a while since I last wrote in here and I guess for good reason, maybe not, I'm not sure. Things happen. I've found a plethora of great fucking music though and I am going to share it with all of my 4 readers. I'll get right into it and start talking about them.

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• I recently discovered this band called Boris. They are a 3 piece band that makes, to put it succinctly, a fuckload of noise. Scuse the French. Some interesting things to note about this very awesome band are that they have two sides to their coin, if you will. Glad you asked why they are named Boris though. The band got their name from a Melvins song of the same name which was on the album Bullhead. The song is something like 8 minutes or so or crushing slow heaviness. It's beautifully ugly. As I was saying about the multifaceted band Boris, it is said that when they release an album with all uppercase letters like "BORIS" then it is most likely a heavy stoner/rock-ish album but if lowercase letters are used, like "Boris" or "boris" then it is an experimental album. I like that. If I were to recommend any one album then it would most definitely have to be Flood. It's basically one song, though I've seen it broken or partitioned off into four parts, or movements, but it functions best as one song. The song/album clocks in at a not-too-shabby 70:33 (that's 70 minutes and 33 seconds, for those of you living in Montana.) Basically what this album sounds like is what it is also conveniently named. It sounds like a flood. To get the full effect of this monumental piece of work you must listen to it from beginning to end. Like a good film or book I will not spoil the ending or give anything away but I will say that, like a flood, the album starts out quietly, peacefully and eventually builds up until the levee just can't handle the amount of water anymore. And then...you'll have to listen to it to find out the ending. Psst, listen to the album here!
• there will be more to come but I am about to get kicked out of this cafe so I'll finish later.

freight o the day

ever cushioned bottle of shrimp plated festivities

listening to: speed scratchers- stifling

Went to this great show last night that had Weedeater headlining with some great local and semi-local stoner/sludge bands. It was outtasite. There was Human Smoke, InterArma, Stifling and finally Weedeater. All the bands crushed and it was ultra heavy and loud. Weedeater, being the last band to play, must have had some effect on the one and only vocal speaker there was. If you know Weedeater then you know what their vocalist ('Dixie' Dave) sounds like. Loud. So loud, in fact, that he must have just killed the speaker. From then on out Weedeater was only to be heard in instrumental for, which was a first. They still rocked though. Check out the rest of the pics from the show here!

This is how close I was to the vocal speaker.

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freight of the day (VELCRO)

drip fed

current song: legalize it- peter tosh

A few weeks ago my mom and her twin sister came to visit me and that was real cool, especially since neither my mom nor I had seen my aunt for something like 6 years. We had fun around town and all that and stayed up late into the night watching documentaries on serial killers, somehow i was able to pique their interest enough to have them watch some. I then asked my aunt how her son was since I had not seen or talked to him in years. We used to be like brothers and she gave me his number. Since he lives in Oregon and I'm on the east coast I don't get to see him much at all. But then we were reunited via myspace. Lame as it is, that was one way to keep in touch. He's a fucking awesome musician, so you should check out his page here!

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I recently found this great archive of stuff on Jack London which include a lot of his work and even some photographs he took. Great stuff in the Jack London Online Collection.

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freight of the day: (AREK.CON)

accidentally like a martyr

listening to: dove- 8 letters to your name


I had my arm hair burned today by my friend whilst driving her to work. Can you believe that? And she thought it was funny too, she then proceeded to throw trash out the window and attempt to start a little bonfire in my car. What fun!
I've got a ton of freight flicks to upload and they will be up on the For The Love Of Freights site soon enough.


Here is a great nugget of fuzz garage rock history for you that my friend showed me. The Music Machine...

I just added a brand new podcast that I created. This is all about the slow, heavy, stoner sludge sounds. If it's over 50bpm then it's wayyyy too fast! This monster weighs in at a hefty 71 minutes. For all you stoner rock heads out there, enjoy!

Click here to listen to/download HEAVY.SLOW.DEEP.AND.LOW now!

Here's the tracklisting if you want to know the track specifics:

buried at sea- the dogs of doom are howling more
dove- 8 letters to your name
harvey milk- dick slater
floor- iommi
fleshpress- rise of the superior
dove-sight and seen
bongzilla- lighten up
core of the earth- labrador
smoke blow- west virginia
psilocybinide- capsized
bongzilla- grim reefer
negative reaction- sludge

Freight of the day- (REUP)

kings, they don't jump

listening to: dopethrone- electric wizard

Got some new art that will be for sale in a few days at a show and then some of this art is going to be free, as in it will be set out in the public. A free for all, if you will. Let's just call is a sociological experiment to see how people react to 'art' just lying around. Will they take it? I don't know.

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The 5Th installment of my benching exploits is now up. Nice freight shots with some good music to back it up. This time a somewhat obscure, to most of the general public, Pink Floyd track called Lucy Leave. Dig it.

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freight of the day (SILK)