The Witzard

Nothing by Ghouli Ghouli are a macabre-inspired Richmond, Virginia-based Hardcore Punk band, who just released their debut EP, NOTHING , earlier this morning. We, actually, first learned about Ghouli last week, when Stereogum Senior Editor, Tom Breihan , posted the first installment of his new Let The Roundup Begin: The Month In Hardcore - January 2020 column. Ghouli hail from an area that boasts a decades-long pedigree of great Punk/Hardcore bands, which includes newcomers One Step Closer, CANDY, Break Away, NOSEBLEED, Division of Mind, Red Vision, and Left Cross. Ghouli were formed in early 2018 and their current line-up consists of frontwoman Sam Poe , guitarist Mikey Kent , bassist Ethan Mackenzie , and drummer Eric Kelly , including former members of Hold Tight, Radio Reds, and Teen Death. Mikey Kent recently told The Witzard, via email, that Ghouli are "heavily influenced by 80's Hardcore bands, like T.S.O.L. & Poison Idea, old school Death Rock, like Chri...

S/T by Witchtrial It's always reasonably enjoyable when artists start up a new side-project or band that's slightly outside of their typical/expected genre; for example, Hardcore Punks playing "Classic Rock" ( Angel Du$t on Pretty Buff or The Men on Tomorrow's Hits ,) Norwegian Heavy Metalers playing sunny Power-Pop ( Kvelertak as Beacheads ,) Fleet Foxes drummer J. Tillman re-emerging as Indie Rock/Folk heart-throb Father John Misty , members of Anthrax, Fall Out Boy & Every Time I Die joining forces as Pop Punk -inflected Heavy Metal band The Damned Things , Brownout covering Black Sabbath as Brown Sabbath , Ty Segall 's Noise-Rock/Punk side-band GØGGS ... I could, honestly, go on and on! So, this brings us to the latest band of merry misfits doing unexpected things musically: WITCHTRIAL . A primarily DC-based band, WITCHTRIAL consists of members of some of The East Coast 's finest Punk/Hardcore bands, including, but not limited t...

Rock "N" Roll and quite arguably, music as a whole lost one of its most charismatic, uniquely individual, and beloved figureheads when David Jones aka The Thin White Duke aka Ziggy Stardust , otherwise known as the one and only David Bowie unexpectedly passed away early Sunday morning, January 10th, amongst the company of dear family and friends following an 18-month battle with cancer. I'm not even going to attempt to write a fully fleshed-out obituary to Bowie, hands down one of my all-time favorite performers since I was about 12, but I figured I would at least assemble a few of my thoughts and feelings into an all-too-brief hand-written tribute; a proper David Bowie obituary can be viewed over at Stereogum , which was written by Tom Breihan and served as a loose structural basis for this very piece. Throughout the course of his storied and ever-developing 52-year career, Bowie released some 28 genre-blending studio albums, produced one of the most critically-ac...

"B-E- darNielle - weinGarten -A-H-Z-I #tcot ... #tcot (top conservatives on Twitter ) is the first band I've been in since 2007. Ecstatic to be back in the game for Cassette Store Day ," @1000TimesYes , better known as Rolling Stone music critic, Christopher R. Weingarten enthusiastically Tweeted late Thursday morning. He's teamed with The Mountain Goats frontman and life-long wrestling super-fan John Darnielle for what can best be described as a spastic, cassette-only self-destructive drum and piano-assisted Jazz/Noise improv tape in conjunction with Saturday's third annual Cassette Store Day festivities; "the #tcot tape is now SOLD OUT [at] @northernspyrecs ! If you want one, these stores will have 'em on Cassette Store Day ." Charlottesville -based Senior Editor at Stereogum , and apparent mutual acquaintance, Tom Breihan wrote, "full disclosure, I guess: I'm friendly with both of them, though I had no idea this thing was happ...

"Last year, a mysterious rapper named Your Old Droog came out of nowhere with a self-titled mixtape. He sounded so much like Illmatic -era Nas that people thought it really was Nas , rapping under a Clockwork Orange -inspired pseudonym. Well, no, as it turns out, Your Old Droog is just some white guy from Coney Island ," Stereogum "Hip-Hop Head In Chief" Tom Breihan wrote in a recently penned Your Old Droog -centric piece. Following a whirl-wind year, which showcased two 2014-issued releases, Your Old Droog [LP] , critically-acclaimed Your Old Droog EP , and a handful of non-album singles, Your Old Droog unleashed an 11-track Rock -themed KINISON EP late Wednesday afternoon. It's littered with inventive Rock "N" Roll samples ranging from Johnny Cash to the Beastie Boys ("Pass The Mic") and at least 40+ cleverly inter-woven references including Sam Kinison , Pornos for Pyros, Rage Against The Machine , and Sonic Youth (track titles)...

"[a] beach boys meets ty$ kinda vibe," @diplo Tweeted early Thursday afternoon, attempting to best describe his latest Soundcloud upload, "LONG WAY HOME;" a quasi-remix, or more so a loose cover, of Ty Dollar $ign 's non-album single, "Stand For" re-recorded with Grizzly Bear/Vampire Weekend members Ed Droste & Rostam . "its about time that indie rock acts started to co-opt rap beats," Diplo lamented in the track's short-lived Soundcloud description, which Pitchfork points out, was imminently deleted. I was just telling my beautiful girlfriend, in terms of sheer line-blurring concept, "LONG WAY HOME" vaguely reminds me of Vampire Weekend 's middle-of-the-road Indie Rock/Hip-Hop hybrid track, "Step (Wintertime Remix)" featuring appended verses from Danny Brown , Heems, and Despot . "Stand For," the structural basis for "LONG WAY HOME," was actually co-produced by Diplo ...

It's almost unfathomable to me, as both a home-grown music writer and music-buying all-American 20-something, to hear that musical luminaries Michael Jackson and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury once recorded a number of incomplete tracks together that have been sitting in a vault somewhere in "Neverland," collecting dust for nearly 30 years! Mercury supposedly brought the potentially über-fruitful 1983-84 sessions to a screeching halt after Jackson attempted to bring a llama into the recording studio. Head Stereogum writer, Tom Breihan basically conceptualized the whole mind-boggling scenario perfectly: "[it's] like finding a giant pile of money under the bed in your hotel room and deciding, what the Hell, you'll just leave it there" ha. But now, Grammy -winning producer and Madonna collaborator, William Orbit has gone back in and meticulously re-produced/mastered the long-lost Queen -backed track, "There Must Be More to Life Than This,...

In all honesty, I've never really been all that into Garage-Psych Rock man-machine Ty Segall and his various projects, but I know he puts out quality material at a pretty consistent rate. While I don't personally own any of his countless records, I did in fact try to get a copy of his Record Store Day exclusive, Ty-Rex EP a few years ago to no avail. Segall is currently readying his first LP since last year's marathon three-album release schedule ( Sleeper, Gemini, and Fuzz ); " Manipulator [features] Ty's helium-cooled vocals, sounding more powerful and dynamic than ever, and many sounds in the mix, but most of all, SO many guitars!" reads a rather disjointed Drag City press release. Seattle -based radio station KEXP 90.3 FM premiered a download-able stream of album track, "Susie Thumb," one of 17 tracks culled from the nearly hour-long record, which supposedly took Ty Segall almost a full month to record to tape. Tom Breihan over at St...

Shamir Bailey is a self-described 19-year-old "musician, comedian, singer, rapper, twerker, chef, writer, film-maker, tumblr, [and] skinny fat ass" hailing from Las Vegas, Nevada . GODMODE founder and Mr. Dream drummer Nick Sylvester discovered and ultimately signed Shamir after hearing his DFA -style modern Disco-House music demo tape; even though Sylvester had previously sworn to never sign artists based outside of New York City . Slightly ahead of his forthcoming Northtown EP , Shamir and acting producer Nick Sylvester have strategically leaked two glitched out R&B/Dance tracks thus far, "If It Wasn't True" and newbie "I Know It's a Good Thing." From what I can tell, Shamir 's first label-backed track, "If It Wasn't True" was released earlier this year on GODMODE 's cassette compilation Common Interests Were Not Enough to Keep Us Together ; it's a bona fide " Disco-House anthem with rare levels ...

"We had been kickin' the horns idea around for a little while, thinking about Fun House by The Stooges , Exile On Main Street by The [Rolling] Stones , and all those old classics Stax and Motown records," The Men singer-guitarist Mark Perro recently told Rolling Stone . It seemingly exemplifies the most Punk Rock , rebellious quality about The Men ; their ability to effortlessly switch genres... whether it be Punk Rock , Country, Classic Rock , Surf-Rock, Folk-Acoustic , and now Bluesy Rock "N" Roll. "Another Night" kinda sounds like some retro Springsteen melded against a righteous-sounding Blues-Jazz high school band. Although The Men are a former Post-Punk Noise band formed in Brooklyn around 2008, who most recently released New Moon and Campfire Songs EP , somehow both issued through out the course of 2013. After a few solid repeated listens, I'd guess that "Another Night" is about a failing relationship on the rocks...

Even though she released a new John Lewis -backed Keane cover just the other day, British Indie-Pop star Lily Allen has finally returned with "Hard Out Here," which could be a sonic indicator of her forthcoming third studio album. It's titular refrain goes something like "Forget your balls, and grow a pair of tits / It's hard, it's hard, it's hard out here for a bitch" and Allen addresses jarring topics such as body image, media-propelled sexism, super-sexed up video vixens, non-equality, injustice, etc. "Hard Out Here"'s companion Christopher Sweeney -directed video essentially conveys everything that Lily Allen whole-heartedly despises about Hollywood/London elite: plastic surgery, TWERKIN', Robin Thicke , wasteful champagne-pouring, ridiculous weightless ideals, wildly expensive cars. It's done in a very tongue-in-cheek way though, whereas if you didn't know any better, you might think that Allen was a terribly ...

While Dave Chappelle is sadly nowhere to be found, "Breakfast Can Wait" features dancer/director/etc. Danielle Curiel masquerading as The Purple One . okayplayer really put it best... "When we put the teaser image (those lips, that eye!) out to our network and said "who's this girl impersonating Prince ?" the answer we got back (from some people who should know) was: That's Prince 's new girl!" It's seemingly a non-album online single, which marks Prince 's first widely-released, proper music video since "Musicology" (2004). Somewhat surprisingly, "Breakfast Can Wait" was partially inspired by Dave Chappelle's imgenious Prince -bashing Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories sketch; wherein Eddie Murphy 's brother and his friends got challenged, badly beaten, and schooled by Prince & The Revolution at a mid-80's pick-up basketball game. "Breakfast Can Wait" is one of seven ...

Internet -spun legend had to that Chief Keef discovered Polish beat-maker Young Ravisu (Radoslaw Sobieraj) himself in later 2012-13 while perusing YouTube for " Finally Rich -type beats;" after some additional mixing, paperwork, and legal mumbo-jumbo, Young Ravisu 's instrumental slowly morphed into "Citgo." The 2 like-minded 18-year-olds' collaboration eventually ended up appearing as a bonus track on Chief Keef 's commercial debut, Finally Rich . Before this piece goes too far, let me just say that I'm far from a Chief Keef expert/super-fan: I'm really only familiar with him through his Kanye -affiliated tracks, "I Don't Like" (Remix) and more recently, "Hold My Liquor" with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) . Now, nearly 8+ months after it's initial release, "Citgo" has been re-hashed as a proper video-single, more or less. A mere coincidence or not, GBE Ent. also unleashed a 16-track mixtape, Bang P...

Marcus Mumford, Winston Marshall, Ben Lovett , and Ted Dwane are four British chaps that have been making some pretty All-American -sounding Bluegrass and Folk Rock together since about 2007; While Mumford & Sons' sophomore album, Babel was released back in September 2012, Island/Glassnote Records are still earnestly pushing successful Modern Rock radio singles from it. Mumford & Sons don't even appear in their latest music video, "Hopeless Wanderer" ...instead, director Sam Jones quite ingeniously re-cast former SNL alum and Arrested Development funnymen Jason Sudeikis (Mumford), Will Forte (Dwane), Ed Helms (Lovett), and Jason Bateman (Marshall) as a slightly exaggerated, ramped up version of the band. Now, it could just be a mere coincidence, but Ed Helms & Jason Sudeikis , who I think kinda look alike, are also co-starring in the upcoming summer blockbuster, We're The Millers , along with middle-aged bombshell Jennifer Aniston . ...

It's pretty damn awesome and utterly ridiculous that a respected online news magazine like The Hollywood Reporter seriously tried to interview FIDLAR bassist Brandon Schwartzel about Nick Offerman 's dick! FIDLAR recorded a righteous Skate Punk -infused cover of traditional standard "Cocaine [Blues]" for their self-titled full-length and somehow managed to recruit Offerman for the Ryan Baxley -directed video, which was unleashed 2 Fridays ago. Sounds like the Parks & Rec actor (Ron Swanson) is a family friend of Max & Elvis Kuehn 's dad, Greg , a founding member of Long Beach Punk legends T.S.O.L. : "[Greg]'s played music for a long time with Nick's wife Megan Mullally -- she does music when she's not acting. Nick would do these comedy shows every now and then, and play music -- Elvis played with him a few times. Elvis played him some stuff, and we always were hinting, "Oh man, it would be awesome if you did a FIDLAR video!...

Although he largely retired from competitive figure skating around 2009-10, Braden Overett has decided to make a comeback, of sorts... call it a "blaze of glory" by way of Pissed Jeans new Joe Stakun -directed music video, "Romanticize Me." While the phrases Hardcore Punk and figure skating don't exactly line up, Stanuk makes it work much better than I could've (n)ever imagined; Upon announcing his retirement nearly 4 years ago, Overett penned an insightful article for USFS SKATING magazine, which blatantly laments, "In my mind, I was different... When I was done, it would either be because I had won the Olympics 19 times and broken all possible world records. I would have reached the pinnacle of sports fame, driving a different exotic car every day of the week and buying small countries with my 900 bazillion dollars. Or, I'd walk into the rink one day and there would be a giant neon sign reading: "Braden Overett's Retiring Today!...

Since voluntarily self-dissolving his long-functioning Hip-Hop label Def Jux around February 2010, El-P has somehow managed to release 3 full-length records over a 2 year span, straying away from his previous crippling album/5 years pattern. Run The Jewels is actually El-P 's first proper album with close friend and fellow veteran rapper, Killer Mike ; It's Proto-Rap that pays homage to Hip-Hop 's "golden era" and even lifts it's boastful group name from a old school LL Cool J track, "Cheesy Rat Blues" (1990). Preceded by 3 equally glitched-out teaser singles: "Banana Clipper," "Get It," and Adult Swim -backed "36" Chain," Run The Jewels [album] was uploaded to Fool's Gold Records early Wednesday morning (June 26th) for FREE download. But for diehard record collectors like myself, Fool's Gold has also pressed up a limited number of specially-designed 2xLP/T-shirts/herb grinder/standard CD sets...

It's pretty safe to say that No Age have effectively re-defined the all too commonly-used phrases "make a record" and "do-it-yourself." Dean Spunt & Randy Randal l have written, produced, performed, recorded, and even manufactured their upcoming fourth album, An Object . No Age physically manufactured , prepared, and assembled 5,000 LP's and 5,000 CD's along with Grammy -nominated designer/close friend Brian Roettinger ; long-time collaborator Facundo Bermudez also lent a hand during the record's production [music] phase, too. No Age 's lengthy discography includes a lot of fuzzed out weird, slightly fucked up-sounding Art-Punk EP's and whatnot, which were quietly released across a number of small label imprints: Sub Pop , FatCat Records, Teenage Teardrops , Youth Attack, Upset! The Rhythm , Deathbomb Arc, Soundscreen Design , Spunt's own Post Present Medium (PPM) somewhere in-between 2007-12. Roughly 2 months ahead of it...

Action Bronson 's almost effortlessly able to cram a bunch of misplaced syllables into "Shit on my chest, shoot colors like a Care Bear / All year see me tan, hopping out the van... Eat steaks off a cold plate, stoned listening to Coldplay ," a few of the introductory rapid-fire lines of "Strictly 4 My Jeeps" sounding like a high school English teacher on Speed ; It's more or less, the lead single from an upcoming joint mixtape with rising Brooklyn producer, Harry Fraud that's been quite ingeniously dubbed Saab Stories . Noisey , sister site of Bronson's new-found major label home (VICE Records) premiered the Jason Goldwatch -directed music video mid-Monday afternoon, which was preceded by a collection of equally EPIC behind-the-scenes footage. Fraud has previously produced a number of scattered beats for Action Bronson including: "Jar of Drugs" (2011), "Muslim Wedding," "Mean," and tracks from Adrift/High ...

Run The Jewels are already poised to be a little different than El-P & Killer Mike 's previous collaborations because it'll feature the 2 emcees trading bars, rather than just acting as rapper/producer. The LL Cool J -inspired "dream team" are planning to unleash a currently untitled free album [mixtape] by June on Fool's Gold . "Get It" is our first LEGIT taste of what Run The Jewels really have in store for the unsuspecting world of Hip-Hop , unless you count that short and sweet 90-second "Banana Clipper" sample. Tom Breihan recently attempted to describe "Get It" 's overall sound as "someone beating up Kanye 's "Clique" with an aluminum baseball bat," which I think is a pretty accurate description for El-P 's borderline mainstream, robot squall-accented brand of Experimental Hip-Hop . It's almost impossible to explain how HARD this track hits using mere words... so, here's a...