Via: L.A. Times

Influential heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, best known for his iconic wailing for Black Sabbath and, before that, Rainbow, has died of stomach cancer. His death was announced via a statement on his website from wife Wendy Dio, which read:

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever. — Wendy Dio

[Updated at 2:45 p.m.: Dio's stomach cancer diagnosis became public in late 2009. Earlier this year, the artist announced that a planned European tour with his band Heaven & Hell would have to be canceled due to his declining health. Dio, however, was able to appear in Los Angeles at an early April metal event sponsored by hard rock magazine Revolver, where he spoke of the challenges of dealing with chemotherapy. [Read More]

As for the festival itself, I would definitely consider it a success. There were at least 10,000 people there, and the layout of the Strip, the set times, and the overall logistics of the festival were superbly executed. I never had a difficult time working from one end of the Strip to the other. When I got hot, I would check out bands in the clubs. I must say here, that I would actually try to get out of the clubs within a half-song of most of these bands who were really, REALLY bad. To me, this element of the show re-enforced the image of Sunset Strip as the Pay to Play capitol of the world, and I think the event would have benefited by adding some of the great bands from the Silverlake/Echo Park scene that is located a mere 5 miles down the road. I walked into The Whiskey for the first time in over ten years, thought to myself, “Wow, they have a great set up, I wish they had good shows here again.” Then some lame rich-kid band from one of the Valleys went into some lame rap-rock crap that drove me back into the street and the heat within 45 seconds.

Nico Vega had a really strong set. I’m not a big fan of their songs which are kind of a second-hand Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but they put on an interesting live show. They held the people who entered to escape the heat, and by the end of their set—which was at the same time as Korn and LMFAO playing the outdoor main stages—they had a packed Roxy totally into singer Aja Volkman’s spastic gypsy dance routines. I caught Japanese legends Glay (23 million records sold in Japan!) at the House of Blues after Ozzy’s set, and they actually had a greater command of their crowd than Ozzy did at the main stage. Of course, the entire crowd was Japanese. I tried walking into the pit, and I felt like I was seven feet tall. People were hanging off the rafters and girls were crying. The band was a cross between Guns and Roses, Jonas Brothers and Queen. I have no idea what they were singing about, since it was entirely in Japanese, but I like to think the songs were about hard drugs and hookers. Sometimes, the audience would wave and move in perfect synchronicity. The lead guitarist looks like a space-age anime Nick Rhodes, but he played that noisy Melt Banana style guitar breaks into his glam boogie foundation. I think I like 2 or 3 songs. One of them I named “Hai Mojito.” It was probably named something else. They yelled it a lot. I hope it doesn’t mean friendship bracelet in Japanese. I’m glad I saw them. It was like traveling to Japan and seeing a show, except that I wasn’t afraid of going to jail for smoking pot in public, because West Hollywood is enlightened, and they don’t arrest people for smoking pot there.

As for the other main stage acts, Korn doesn’t work for me in middle age (mine or theirs), Pepper had an enthusiastic crowd, but I didn’t last 3 songs. Hot women in bikini tops like LMFAO, and that is probably the best thing about that band. I am not embarrassed to say, I like Shwayze; Ok, well, maybe, a little bit. If The Donnas were guys, they wouldn’t have any purpose. Coffee Bean gave out free coffee and Frappacinos all day, which was awesome, so even though I was dehydrating myself, I was still able to maintain a rapid heartbeat. I ate at least a dozen free Soy Joy energy bars, and they didn’t make me sick. I took a box home with me also.

Overall, it was really cool seeing the Sunset Strip shut down, and I think that while the Festival was a success as a draw, I don’t think it will increase traffic to the Sunset Strip, because ultimately nobody wants to deal with high costs for parking or drinks and admission to see bands that aren’t worth the transaction, and unfortunately that’s the majority of the local action. The Roxy actually does a good job with booking good local and national acts, but clubs like The Whiskey and The Key Club I’ll skip until next year’s festival.

—Scott Schultz

Emeralds are extraterrestrial metal shredders from Seattle who see nothing but optimistic omens in the exploded body of a Texas buzzard. They speak now between lightning and thunder. This interview by Dan Collins and Tessa Goldston.

You guys are on tour in the South! Is it hot as the dickens?
Ian: It’s been raining.
Adam: Raining the entire time we’ve been in Texas. It’s like monsooning—like torrential the whole time. We brought the rain from Seattle or something.
What’s the worst thing that’s happened so far?
Ian: We ran out of pulled pork sandwiches.
Have you seen any flying cockroaches?
Ian: No, but I heard a story from this really nice country rocker about how she saw her barn explode and she found her cow like four miles over. In a tornado.
Sounds very Wizard of Oz.
Ian: We’ve seen some stuff that’s pretty Wizard. We saw a buzzard pretty up close. We were coming into Texas and going about ninety and a buzzard exploded on our windshield. Not much blood—just sort of exploded. Like a gigantic balloon.
That sounds like ancient Roman augury. Did you get a good look at the intestines and could you tell your fortune from them?
Ian: No. It was just a metaphor for our explosive time in Texas.
When we interviewed Om, they talked about how there’s a spiritual plane that they come from and that they are sort of vessels for a higher power. What is the spiritual basis for your music?
Adam: I don’t know. Native American shaman, and the consciousness of smoking meat. I think that’s the most spiritual thing. The energy from people when you’re playing live music is like a good thing, but it’s mainly just to have a good time.
Why all the donkey imagery in your stuff? You have a song called ‘March of the Mule.’
Adam: That’s about a drug mule. It’s about somebody who starts taking drugs and starts getting into it more and more, and then looking back on his life and realizing how much it’s been wasted. The last verse is like ‘When cadavers cut the cord in service to their lords, you’ll never know how it feels to be a loner, a drifter, a vagabond: an empty vessel that sails on and on.’ It’s about being empty inside.
I totally had a different interpretation, and I feel foolish—I thought it was about Jesus coming back to Jerusalem.
Adam: Everything’s open to interpretation.
Ian and Nick were in a band called Death Ass. I thought maybe the donkey was their spirit animal.
Adam: Ha ha!
Ian: Oh man—I never saw the coincidence, but yeah!
If Death Ass could be a member of the Little Rascals, and Emeralds was a different member of the Little Rascals, which ones would they be?
Ian: Emeralds would definitely be Spanky. Death Ass maybe Alfafa.
Right now Broken Nobles are staying at our house and they were saying how incestuous the Seattle scene is. What other bands do you guys collaborate with?
Adam: Obviously the Broken Nobles dudes and Wildildlife which half of those guys are in. We’re pretty versatile. We play with metal bands, hardcore punk bands, straight up rock n roll bands. We also have a connection with a lot of the B.C. bands, which is pretty cool. In Seattle proper, we’ve been playing with so many bands, I don’t even know… Wildildlife, Sioux City Pete and the Beggars…
You opened for Pentagram, right?
Adam: Oh man, that was awesome. Bobby was, like, 60 years old and he’s totally got the crack mouth going on, and he has these wild eyes. And there were all these underage girls at the show, and he was wearing like a purple lame jacket and leopard print pants and an Indian headdress and he was gyrating his crotch into them. It was kind of awesome. Bobby is a great guy, but it’s obvious he’s pretty far gone on the drug train, I think.
But he’s found Jesus!
Adam: He switched back and forth. It’s like the Sabbath thing, where he’s evil but good at the same time.
Ian, before you were playing metal, you were in a bunch of electronic bands. Coming from electronic music, does that make you think about tempo in a way that’s unique? Are there rules about tempo? Is sludge like 55 beats per minute, and doom is 65 beats per minute?
Ian: I have BPM mood swings. It depends on how hyperactive I’m feeling.
You? Hyper? Ian, that doesn’t sound like you. Lee, who inspires your bass moves?
Lee: I’m the new bassist. I’m trying to adapt myself to their style. I have a background like punk rock, classic rock, Led Zeppelin, a lot of prog rock, King Crimson…
There a lots of space-metal bands coming out nowadays. What do you do that’s unique?
Lee: A lot of those bands are like early seventies, very Zeppy bands. I think we do a really good meshing of bringing elements more… holistically? We bring elements of seventies metal bands like Judas Priest with psych rock with also proto-metal and even punk rock.
Why Emeralds? Why not, like, sapphires or rubies?
Adam: I wanted to call the band ‘Devil Worship,’ but nobody was really into that. I think it just comes from the Thin Lizzy song ‘Emerald,’ and it’s just a name to throw out there that’s not going to pigeonhole anything, ya know? And it also sounds like a type of weed.
That’s true! And if you go on to do separate projects, one of you can go on to do ‘Lincoln Green!’ And one of you can do ‘Amethyst!’
Adam: Ha ha! Lincoln Green. Emerald Green. Green Cock!

EMERALDS WITH THE STAHL BROS, RATS’ EYES, AND IT’S CASUAL AT THE RELAX BAR, 5511 HOLLYWOOD BLVD, FRI., SEPT 18, AND LOCATION TBA ON SAT., SEPT. 19, SOMEWHERE IN DOWNTOWN. VISIT MYSPACE.COM/EMERALDSOCCULT OR WATCH LARECORD.COM FOR UPDATES.

Stream: Midnight “Black Rock ‘n’ Roll”

(from Farewell To Hell out now on Nuclear War Now)

Satan’s favorite party band is Midnight from Cleveland, who match the best parts of Venom and Motorhead with the sleazy visuals of the Mentors. They’re true members of the new black trash generation of bands—keeping the faith of rock ‘n’ roll metal and forsaking the trappings of over-technical playing and production. These guys serve up beer- and blood-soaked blasphemous anthems with the best of them and yes, your flesh shall burn as you enter the flaming pentagram. This interview by John Henry.

I was recently down in New Orleans with some friends of mine that do a metal DJ night called Hades Night and they played your new record. I was immediately sold on that Venom/Motorhead trash metal sound you guys do. Is there a scene of other bands in Cleveland doing this kind of music? Have you done other bands like this before?
Athenar (guitar/vocals): Maybe—I guess? NunSlaughter is from here. They’ve been around since the eighties. They’re more death metal-style. I was in a band called Boulder. Some people would call it like between Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath and Motorhead—I don’t know, hard rockin’ metal? We did like three albums. We started in the early ‘90s and went all the way to the beginning of the 2000s. 2002 was, I think, when the last album came out. I’ve always been a fan of heavy metal but in the case of most of my favorite bands anyway their musical tastes doesn’t necessarily reflect their fan base. You wouldn’t guess the stuff that I listen to by what I play. I don’t consider myself part of any metal scene or punker scene. I just like good music. I like songs. I’m not much of a free-form jazz type guy. I like some or whatever, but a good song is a good song whether it’s done by Love or Twisted Sister, you know? Distorted rock guitars and bass and drums­­—that’s all it is. The lyrics and the singing is maybe all that differentiates it.
The first thing I thought when I heard you guys is that you obviously get the joke. You’re not some guy living with his mom and using her credit card to buy spiked gauntlets and thinking he’s evil.
That would be even funnier, I think. Again it’s just whatever you like, I guess. You look back at Venom obviously—they’re just playing songs. They were fans of Kiss, you know, and so am I. Most music you want to have a good time with. You don’t want to just put it on and then pretend you’re depressed and wear razorblades on your wrists. That’s more humorous than anything else, I would think.
You fool with fascist imagery but you’re obviously not skinheads.
We’re bald but that’s not by choice. It’s just our age—but you know, it’s just imagery. It looks sort of Star Wars. If you look at Star Wars, what was Darth Vader and all the imperial guards? What were the Stormtroopers, you know? It’s the same kind of shit but who made it? George Lucas. It’s imagery. It looks cool.
So the reason you guys wear executioner hoods is not to hide your identities from the cops or that you’re really ugly?
Yeah, I would say the latter!
How did you get the band started?
Originally it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a band. I do all the crap on the records and stuff. That’s just all me doing everything like the drums and guitars, the bass. The guys I’m playing with just forced me to have a band. They called up and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a band.’ I said, ‘Nah, it was just meant to record the stuff.’ Then they came over and knew all the songs and forced me to have a band, which is cool because in the end it turned out all right.
A lot of black metal guys do that—record by themselves and get guys to play it later. It’s just one idiot with an idea and it works out from there.
That’s kind of what I was doing. I was saying, ‘Well, if Prince can do it and Quorthon can do it…’ Those were the only people at the time that I knew that did that kind of stuff, you know—recorded everything by themselves.
Do you do the band artwork as well?
That back patch was ripped off from an old Venom design—Cronos standing in the fire like that. People that know it would think it was funny and people that didn’t know would think it was generically cool. I have no idea how to do that kind of stuff. I have the idea and say, ‘Hey, do this or that’ and let people with tech skills do that part.
How did you hook up with Nuclear War Now Records?
My friend Omid. He does a label called Outlaw Records and I’ve been friends with him for years and I’m the worst at self-promotion which he’s always been good at. I just make it till it’s recorded and I’m done with it. He’s good at actually taking stuff and getting it to people who might be into it. So he gave it to Yosuke at Nuclear War Now and he liked it and he said he’d put out a reissue of everything that’s already been out. Like I said—the way the band started out is I just wanted to record like a mini LP and that was intended to be it, but then my other friend who had some bands booked at a studio and the band ditched said, ‘Hey, can you come to the studio tomorrow and record a few songs? Whatever you want to record.’ So I said, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll make up two more Midnight songs.’ I made up two more Midnight songs that night and then recorded them the next day and that was the 7-inch. Then I was like, ‘OK, that’s it—there’s no more.’ Then Yosuke at Nuclear War Now wanted to put out a compilation and he said, ‘Oh, will you do one song?’ and I said, ‘OK, I’ll just make up one more song.’ So I got all the bases covered—a 12-inch, a 7-inch and a comp track. Now there’s Farewell To Hell which is the newer one that just came out in September. We actually have two CDs worth of crap.
Which has ‘Black Rock ‘n’ Roll’? I fucking love that song.
It’s on Farewell To Hell. That was a tune that when I made it up I thought it was going to be too simple and retarded. I didn’t know if it was going to be too dumb.
What about the live shows? Is it violent or more of a party?
It just depends on the mood, you know. They’re not all the same. There have been full-scale bloodbaths and then there are parties. There’s been some snooze fests, too, you know—we were supposed to be billed before the puppet show.
At the end of your tour this May you end up at the Chaos in Tejas fest—how’d you hook up with that?
There were a couple of people from Cleveland that moved to Texas a few years ago and I guess they turned us on to some other people and that’s where that guys from. It just kind of started from there. We’ve already played Texas and it’ll be our third time playing there. I don’t know what any of these gigs are going to be like. I have zero idea. That’s the way I usually go into it. I’m like, ‘We’ll find out when we get there.’ That might be kind of bad but it’s less to worry about. Just worry about it when you get there. What’s that place like that we’re playing at in East L.A.? Gang members out here are only into rap and shit but you talk about the west coast and they’re into crazy metal—that’s pretty cool. We played Mexico once in Nuevo Laredo—I don’t know, I guess it’s a drug cartel border town? It was pretty shady. They were a lot of people saying, ‘All right, hurry up—go over and play and get back over to the states.’ When we were there some Mexican biker gang wanted us to play for a biker rally coming up in a couple months. I was like, ‘Uh, what?’ But I guess it would be cool as long as we played the right tunes.

MIDNIGHT WITH D.A.F. AND MORE ON MON., MAY 18, AT THE BLVD, 2631 WHITTIER BLVD., BOYLE HEIGHTS. 8 PM / $8 / 18+. THEBLVDCAFEANDBAR.COM. AND WITH SUMERIAN AXE, BASTARD, MUNDO MUERTO AND BROKEN PATTERN ON TUE., MAY 19, AT DIPIAZZA’S, 5205 E. PACIFIC COAST HWY., LONG BEACH. 9 PM / CONTACT VENUE FOR COVER / 21+. DIPIAZZAS.COM. VISIT MIDNIGHT AT NWNPROD.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/ATHENARSMIDNIGHT.

Download: The Budos Band “Budos Rising”

(from The Budos Band II on Daptone)

The Budos Band are an eleven-piece (and sometimes larger) instrumental funk-soul-Ethiopiques-style band from Shaolin—Staten Island—who recently had a song appear on Wale’s Mixtape About Nothing and who name all their albums in numerical sequence, although they are considering skipping ‘III’ just to torture people. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

Do you still practice in that former Pentacostal church?
Jared Tankel (baritone sax): Yeah, we do. We have pentagrams hanging on the wall.
Mulatu Astatke said he tries to repurpose religious instruments for secular compositions. Is that connected to Budos band making secular music in a religious structure?
We’ve been in that building for 15 years now at this point. Keep in mind that half the band has come along the way, but that practice space has been inhabited by Budonians for the last 15 years—so I don’t doubt that there had been some repurposing, both intentional and unintentional. The space is just a second home for a lot of the guys. We’ve spent so much time there over the years. It’s been the hang, the party spot, the practice spot and it definitely has that history to it that’s really important. And it stinks like the rest of us, too.
Which is your favorite metal band that practices down the hall?
Oh man, I don’t even know their name. ‘Favorite’ is a generous term. We’re not opposed to metal at all, but we’re the one non-metal rock band in the building so we’re surrounded by—for the most part—pretty bad metal bands. Sometimes they try and cover Metallica or Slayer and—not trying to talk shit on them, but it leaves something to be desired. It’s hard to hear what we’re doing.
Ever consider a Slayer cover?
I’ll tell you what—we actually tried out doing Black Sabbath ‘Black Sabbath’ because a lot of us like Sabbath and there’s a metal thread through our tastes. And it was a little weird—we felt like we weren’t quite doing it justice. Having the horns play—you couldn’t have anybody play Ozzy’s voice for the lyrics and since we don’t have a vocalist so we tried to do it instrumental and it was kind of weird. We had this dream of doing a Black Sabbath cover album—just covering the entire album. We had attempted to initially start with ‘Black Sabbath’ and it just felt weird and a couple of the guys who are more metal purists weren’t really down with it, so we put it on the shelf.
Where did that idea come from?
A couple of us were having dinner one night and talking about how bands do cover songs. We’ve done a couple of cover songs on the album and we stick pretty close to the family of the genre that we are associated with. And we were like, ‘What if we totally did something completely different?’ And Sabbath—like I said, a lot of us are fans and we definitely go for that heaviness and darkness, and we share at least that with them so why don’t we give it a shot? We talked to our manager and he flipped out and thought it was the best idea ever—but like I said, it didn’t feel right.
How was it decided that you’re the guy who takes care of all the Budos money?
It’s funny because I was one of the last guys to join the band—about 6 years ago now. It’s a crew. There’s a couple of guys that started playing with them around the same time as me and aren’t around anymore and quickly got the picture that they were not part of what was going on. I don’t know why but we jive really well. Some people think we’re hard to get along with which I don’t really agree with.
Would you say ‘Screw you if you think we’re hard to get along with’?
Yeah. It’s that pack mentality and a bunch of the guys grew up together so there’s a common brotherhood sort of feeling I think. Sometyimes guys do stupid stuff and things get broken and some of the guys like to drink a little too much beer now and then probably. But like I said—we look out for each other. I’ve gotten really good at talking to hotel managers. I think part of it is—getting back to your first question—since we’ve been able to make some records and be on the road and stuff, somebody needed to step up and do some of the organizational, taking-care-of-talking-to-hotel-manager sort of things.
Is that easier with all your guys standing right behind you?
That depends. Sometimes they aren’t there—they’re still sleeping or they’re in the car. We almost got kicked out of one place last year, but we worked everything out. When it comes down to it, we’re all good guys and we’re not trying to make somebody’s life more difficult but sometimes we do stupid shit so it’s more about finding a common ground. This place that we almost got kicked out of, the people that run it were from Staten Island originally, and that came up and then we were best friends all of a sudden after a couple of guys just destroyed one of the rooms.
How badly was it destroyed? Who-level?
It was pretty impressive. I went in there in the morning and they had made a point to touch every single thing in the room. Beds were flipped over, the tables were flipped over, the mirror was off the wall, the microwave was flipped over, the TV was turned around. It was thought out. I think only one thing was actually broken-broken beyond repair—maybe a lamp and a chair—but besides that it just looked like a disaster zone, lots of broken glass.
That’s good you’re so thorough.
There was another place with a hole in the wall one time.
How important is scholarship and research is to the kind of music you guys make?
The way the band first came to all this was our drummer was a DJ at the College of Staten Island radio station and he came across some Desco records and he was like, ‘Wow this is amazing. These records must be from the ‘60s!’ But no, these guys are making this now in New York. Desco is no longer around—now it’s Daptone.
Do the Daptone guys know this story?
Yeah, they know that the band got our inspiration and the roots of what we’re doing by listening to what they were doing for sure. The ferry rides came into play when the guys started taking the ferry to Antibalas shows in the city around 2000 or a little earlier.
How did you go from zero to deep Afrobeat-Ethiopiques music?
That initial discovery of Desco was big and then just following that train and then once you get into it there’s never an ending—so we got the soul thing and the funk thing and then the Afrobeat thing and then the Ethiopian jazz thing which was huge for us. I can’t remember who was the one who initially brought in the Ethiopique series, but it became required listening and everyone was so heavy into it—we all are to a certain extent, but on that second album, that sound came through a lot in our writing.
Is that the sound you feel most comfortable with now?
We’ll be playing a lot of new songs out there—8 or 9 songs from Budos III. We’re thinking about calling it Budos IV, but we’re not sure.
Budos IV? Not Budos III? Did you have a conversation where you sat around and thought about how you’re going to mess with people?
Kinda, yeah. It was more like—‘I don’t know, maybe we should skip III. Fuck it, let’s just do IV.’ And when people ask, ‘What happened to Budos III?’ we can be like, ‘Oh, you didn’t get that? I guess it was super rare.’ The Ethiopian influence is still very much there, dark melodies and things. Definitely more of a metal influence on this one, too—again, we’re not a Sabbath cover-tribute thing, but heavy guitars and heavy bass lines. Not distorted, but playing in unison and sort of just heavy-sounding music. Especially our bass player and drummer who have a doom-metal side project. They’re still working on the name. For a little while it was called Bog, but I’m not sure if they’re sticking with that name or not.
Where do you guys like to source songs from? You’ve done Motown, Bollywood—
We kind of like to take things that people think they know and put our spin on them and hint at what’s there—so people know what we’re playing but put our stamp on it. The ‘Chicago Falcon’ thing was a fluke in that our guitar player was on tour with the Dap-Kings—he plays with them, too. He was in Holland and this guy in Holland was putting together this Bollywood comp and gave him some Bollywood music and we definitely improvised with it so even somebody that knew the original—which I don’t know if anyone does—they probably wouldn’t recognize it. So that one was a different story. It’s interesting because we’ve been talking about what we’re going to cover on this III/IV album and we’ve had a really hard time. We haven’t come up with any ideas yet. We did the Motown thing and we don’t really want to repeat ourselves like that. The first album had a Sly Stone cover and Sly is amazing—we love him and his songs are perfect for us to cover but we don’t want to repeat ourselves like that.
What makes a song perfect for you to cover?
The certain soulfulness behind it—and there is very much a psychedelic rock thing going on that we get into and I think those elements are what makes it so accessible to us. The first album we had the Ethiopiques cover—‘Aynotchesh Yererfu’—and we don’t want to go there again. We’re having a hard time. We’ve tried a lot of things out and nothing’s stuck yet, so we’ll see. We have that song ‘Up from The South’ that has been taken by a lot of folks in a lot of different ways but especially by b-boys and breakbeat guys as a great song, and we’re thinking of doing another song that goes in that direction. Or maybe we should do a rock song. But we don’t want to do something funky-funky because that’s not where we’re at right now.
What kind of rock stuff are you guys into these days?
It’s a wide wide range of stuff. Somebody suggested an early Floyd song—‘Bike,’ maybe? That was one suggestion.
Do you feel anything is off limits?
Probably folk. I don’t know if we could get down with that. Maybe not modern country, but we could do old country for sure. Some of the guys like surf rock. I think there’s a pretty wide range of stuff and that’s part of the reason why we’re having a hard time with the cover for this next one, having a hard time focusing in on the sound we want.
What exactly is the Budos stamp on a song?
The rawness. We don’t try and sound pretty like a full band would or an Afrobeat band would. Fela is amazing and incredible with the rawness that he had on his recordings but a lot of Afrobeat bands these days are trying to get a polished, pretty sounding-sound, especially in their horns and harmonies and bullshit. We’re heavy and raw.
What did you think of the whole Vampire Weekend ‘Afropop’ moment last year?
About three months before they were on the cover of Spin or whatever their first cover was, they opened for us at a eMusic party.
So do they really sound… African?
I haven’t really listened to their album to be perfectly honest, but I didn’t think so. I don’t really get it, to be perfectly honest. I don’t want to talk smack on another band too much, but I don’t really get it.
Ever think of covering one of their songs?
I think that’d be pretty funny, actually, but the guys wouldn’t go for it. It has to be pre-1980 at least.
Once Reagan got into office, it changed music for the worse?
Maybe. Certainly the music that permeates most of our listening diet is before then.
What year would make you guys feel the most at home?
I think it would vary widely depending on who you ask in the band. Maybe 2012 when supposedly the Mayan calendar calls for the end of the world.
What does Daptone change your song titles to and why?
The one example that I remember from the first album was ‘The Volcano Song’—which was really only named that because there was a volcano on the front of the album—was originally called ‘500 Wolves.’ We thought it sounded like a Ghostface Killa song title, so that’s the one that always sticks out. We come up with stupid names and I’m sure on the new album they’re going to rename one of our songs we titled ‘Super Dirge.’ ‘Plague Wind’ is another one.
Sounds like it all bled over from the doom band.
Our drummer names the songs, that’s why. He wants the album art to be like wolves tearing apart a carcass.
‘THE BUDOS BAND’ dripping blood over a pentagram?
If we can’t get it as album artwork, maybe we can at least make some t-shirts out of it.
What’s the best time you ever had with Inspectah Deck?
Our guitar player played with part of the Wu Tang at SXSW a few years ago and from how he says, he was a genuinely nice together dude who’s really talented and just—for whatever reason—hasn’t got his full due. He’s overshadowed by the other guys in Wu Tang. Maybe he had a little more modestly about him that made him a much cooler dude to play with and also has a talent that hasn’t been fully recognized.
What’s the best time you had with Maceo Parker?
Maceo is a legend and as a saxaphone player, he’s bar-none one of the best guys I’ve listened to a lot over the years. His band is weird. These old funk bands that have sort of a more jazzy funk whatever. They don’t look like dentists but they play like them.We played with him a couple of years ago at a festival in Vermont and just played with him a month ago in Philly. The best time we had around him or associated with him was probably stealing all the beer in his dressing room.
You stole Maceo Parker’s beers?
Shameful. But nothing happened.

THE BUDOS BAND WITH THE BOOGALOO ASSASSINS ON THU., APR. 16, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 9 PM / $15 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. THE BUDOS BAND’S II IS OUT NOW ON DAPTONE. VISIT THE BUDOS BAND AT THEBUDOS.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/BUDOSBAND.

Fourteen songs of shirtless sleaze rock by a bunch of swaggering ’70s guitar degenerates. We will probably DJ about half of this tonight. Note: podcast does not include the actual Pylon song “Feast On My Heart,” but we did add that separately at the bottom of this post!

Download direct here!

SWEET “SOMEONE ELSE WILL”
B-side of the “Turn It Down” single from Desolation Boulevard. No one ever believes this is the “Ballroom Blitz” Sweet but it surely is.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY “LAZY WOMAN”
Midwest hard-rock from a band that disappeared after one hard-ass LP on RCA, which is yet to be re-issued on vinyl as far as we know. Except for one soft track the label supposedly made them include, For Love Or Money is a must-have for heavyists.

EUCLID “GIMME SOME LOVIN””
Spencer Davis Group cover from the Heavy Equipment LP, another heavy rock album with little filler. One of the guys from psych-pop trainspotter band Lazy Smoke is playing on this with the same producer as the Shaggs!

SIR LORD BALTIMORE “MASTER HEARTACHE”
This song is for Short Shorts because she has this record. No band ever said the word ‘woman’ better.

DUST “LOVE ME HARD”
Marky Ramone in his teen drum-prodigy years. Their first and best LP.

BANG “THE QUEEN”
From these Florida Sabbath fans’ first LP, which features equally endearing cover art of a gun shooting rainbows into some wizards or maybe policemen. (Album is buried in pile; will go look at it later.)

PENTAGRAM “FOREVER MY QUEEN”
True brutality from the band that lived so hard they almost had to amputate singer Bobby’s arms. Many quality reissues available.

SOUND MACHINE “WOMAN”
Competitive delivery of the word ‘woman’ from the very raw Psychedelic Minds Vol. 1 comp, which is full of bug-out stuff like this.

RANDY HOLDEN “SCARLET ROSE”
Solo track from ex-Blue Cheer/Other Half/Population II guitarist. Think this is a ’90s recording of a song he saved since the 60s, and has original Blue Cheer drummer Paul Whaley on it.

CLEAR BLUE SKY “VEIL OF THE VIXEN”
By far the most cheerful song on the Downer Rock Genocide compilation. Pretty long but they try about four kinds of downer moods so we put it in.

SIMPLY SAUCER “INSTANT PLEASURE”
Canadian Stooge-rock band that recorded live on top of a shopping mall. This track recorded by Daniel Lanois!

CACTUS “LET ME SWIM”
…in a sea of sleaze!

BLUE CHEER “THE HUNTER”
The most famous Blue Cheer love song.

BLACK SABBATH “EVIL WOMAN”
Seems like it was really hard to meet nice people during the ’70s. Even Jonathan Richman had the same problem.

BONUS TRACK: PYLON “FEAST ON MY HEART”
Not in the podcast and not scum rock but will still get your blood rushing.