Black Skies preview 2 new songs from upcoming album!

I was VERY excited to get this email today: Chapel Hill's Black Skies -- who have been quiet way too long -- are previewing two new songs from their upcoming release, Circadian Meditations. You can pre-order the album and listen to a preview of the song "Time Lord" on their Bandcamp page. And you can see a video for a second song, "Celestial Coronation," above. That video seriously makes me want to go hiking.

Also, the band is releasing a digital single featuring an unreleased track, "Echoes In The Void" b/w "Dead Batteries" (previously released on a Digguptapes limited edition split cassingle with Caltrop). Bass player Michelle Temple says: "Both songs were recorded with Nick Petersen at Track & Field Recording Studio and feature Tim Herzog (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Milemarker, DesArk) on drums. As an added bonus to our fans who purchase the download of Circadian Meditations, we will include a free download of this single. You can listen to these songs here.
Enjoy!

This week's cool shows: Troika!

Troika fest is easily the best way to see as many local bands as possible in a short amount of time and for a great price ($25 for three days). This year's line up is a fine one, with some of my favorite local heavy bands. See the full schedule here, and check out my list of the best shows of the festival.


Thursday: Valient Thorr with Double Negative and Hog at Motorco
Friday: In the Year of the Pig with MAKE, Americans in France and Naked Gods at Pinhook; also, try to catch Whatever Brains at 618 Foster
Saturday: Organos with Phil Cook & His Feat at the craft show (1 p.m.); Filthybird and Chatham County Line at Motorco (7 p.m.); Pink Flag at Motorco (midnight); Mount Moriah at Fullsteam (11:30 p.m.) and Spider Bags at Pinhook (11:30 p.m.)


Also, not part of Troika, but happening at the Casbah on Friday and definitely worth your time: a heavy show with Black Skies, Cough (doomy Relapse band) and Resister (from Greensboro). CORRECTION!: This show is at Nightlight in Chapel Hill on Friday. Lurch, Black Skies and 38 Gauge are at Casbah TONIGHT (Wednesday)

Hopscotch Day Parties, Day 3: Mann's World Party and Local Time

Many thanks to everyone who came out to my day party yesterday at Kings! The bands sounded awesome, and we had a good crowd. Thanks to all the bands who played, thanks to Patrick from Death Came Down the Mountain who actually flew in from Portland for the show, thanks to Kings for letting me hold it at the club, and thanks to Kaci from Pabst Blue Ribbon who came out and gave out some cool goodies, including bike bells, T-shirts and headbands. We got started a little late, but we had fun. 

Hog was the first band. 

Hog at the Mann's World Day Party from Mann's World on Vimeo.

MAKE from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Death Came Down the Mountain from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Black Skies from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Before my show I caught Flute Flies at the Raleigh Times Local Time party.

The Flute Flies from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Announcing: The Mann's World Hopscotch Day Party!

On Saturday, Sept. 11, yours truly will present a Hopscotch day party at Kings with four of my favorite heavy local bands! This is going to be a free show, and will take place during the afternoon (start time isn't set, but it will definitely be done by 5:30 p.m. so you can go catch Public Enemy and the Love Language).

I'm proud to announce that the line up will consist of two of my long-time favorites: Black Skies (above) and Caltrop;  plus two bands that have recently blown me away: MAKE and Hog. In fact I'm so impressed with MAKE that I put them on this bill without ever having seen them live. They're that good.

This is a FREE show, and will be a good appetizer for the amazing Hopscotch show to happen at the Berkeley (U.S. Christmas, Kylessa, Weedeater, In the Year of the Pig) and the Pour House (Dungen) that evening. I should also note that this is not an official Hopscotch event, but that Grayson and Greg have been very cool about helping those of us (including Trekky Records, Churchkey and 307 Knox) who are putting on day shows.

I am really excited about this show and hope you all can make it -- and since it's a free show, I hope you drink lots of beer and buy lots of merchandise to make it worthwhile for Kings and the bands.

See you there!

Better late than never

Beach jaunt, plus houseguests plus ongoing computer issues = these videos from Thursday not going on the blog until today. Sorry about that. I'm thinking of correcting the computer problems by buying a Mac, specifically a Macbook pro. Should I do it? I've always been a PC person, but I'm just really tired of my computer not working correctly. Whatever I get, it needs to be able to handle me uploading large videos on a regular basis. Thoughts?

Anyway, on Thursday I finally got to see Free Electric State at Tir na Nog, and I liked what I heard. These guys covered The Pixies at the Raleigh Undercover, and I can definitely hear that band's influence in FES.


Free Electric State from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Two doors down at the Pour House four metal bands were playing, but since it was a school night I only got to see the thunderous Black Skies.


Black Skies from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Vote for Black Skies

From a Myspace bulletin:

Vote for Black Skies to win Best New Band of 2008 on Total Rock Radio. Since our songs have been played this year on total rock radio's show called New World Order, we qualify for the contest.


On Monday December 22nd 8-10pm (UK time) it will feature the 20 Best New Bands of 2008. But this time, instead of TotalRock DJs Tina & Thekla picking the playlist - you choose.


To vote for us to be featured on the show and to get our track played, send them an email to: newworldorderradio@googlemail.com with the subject, "NWO 2008 Black Skies" and whatever pleading message you want to include in the body, by 9am (UK time) on Thursday , December 18th.


And don't forget to tune in to the show to see whether we win! Mon 22nd Dec (8-10pm UK time) at http://www. totalrock. com

Catching up

(Colossus) I know, I've been totally slack for the past couple of weeks, so now I'm forced to do a round-up of what I've seen. Thursday, Sept. 4: The T's at Tir na Nog The T's sounded great as always, but the sound on my video sucks. Evidently I was too close to Andy Kerr's amp. Anyway, here's video of "Mr. Rebel."

The T's from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008: Suburban Sweethearts at Slim's I didn't get video of this show, but I can tell you they sounded great. This was the band's last show with guitarist Joe Yerry. Andy Kerr is joining the band, and according to singer/guitarist Erik Sugg, they will likely change their name. I'm looking forward to hearing the new incarnation. BTW, I didn't catch much of the downtown live stuff, but did manage to hear part of the Annuals, who played to a small-but-dedicated crowd in front of Raleigh Times.Saturday, Sept. 6: Black Skies and Colossus at Slim's The best show I saw all week. Black Skies were heavy and powerful. I've been listening to their new CD non-stop. Colossus had the potential to be great, but were way too sloppy. There's a difference between having a great time without worrying about the details, and just plain being out of tune. These guys are too good to let themselves sound like this. But they did have a lot of energy, and they were obviously enjoying themselves. Earlier in the evening I tried to catch Sir Arthur & the Royal Knights and the Loners at Sadlack's, but someone in the dorm next door kept calling the cops to shut down the music. I hope that doesn't become a regular occurrance.

Black Skies from Mann's World on Vimeo.

(Black Skies) Looking way back, here's some video of Dirty Johnny & the Makebelieves that I didn't post. They were at Slim's on Aug. 29.

Dirty Johnn & the Make-Believes from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Catching up from Thursday and Friday

Thursday a gang of folks from The N&O went out to the Pour House to see N&O photographer Jason Arthurs' band, Whoa ... an Ellipsis, and to say goodbye to another co-worker who is off to USA Today. The band was kind of screamo, which really isn't my thing, but I think they did a good job of it. They just need to get a simpler name. I missed the teenage hardcore band, but I understand they totally kicked ass. Here's the video for "1060 W. Addison."

Whoa ... an ellipsis from Mann's World on Vimeo.

Two doors down at Tir na Nog, all-star alt-country group The Whistlestop was playing, so walking back and forth between the two clubs was certainly a strange juxtaposition. This is the latest band with Rob Watson, Scotty Miller and Pee Wee Watson. Here are two songs from The Whistlestop. The first is a fairly quiet song, so you hear a lot of chatter among the Tir na Nog patrons. I suppose most of them were hangers-on from dinner. Otherwise, I can't think of any reason why someone would go to a show and just talk through the whole thing.

The Whistlestop from Mann's World on Vimeo.

(first song) See more photos.Friday was a different scene altogether, when Angela and I went to Chapel Hill to see Blag'ard's CD-release party at guitarist Joe Taylor's house. Black Skies and Caltrop -- who is now officially my favorite band in the Triangle -- opened up. Black Skies and Caltrop are both heavy and sludgy, while Blag'ard had a slightly poppier feel. Angela compared them to Pavement, and I don't think that's far off the mark. Regardless, it was great to go to a house party again. There's nothing like seeing a band play under a bunch of Christmas lights in a back yard. Plus I saw a couple of folks from way back in the day, including one woman I knew during my years at ECU in the late '80s. The video of Caltrop unfortunately was corrupted, but here's video of Blag'ard's "Kick Out Queen."

Blag'ard from Mann's World on Vimeo.

See more photos.

Wow, I am enjoying my new G9!

Still getting used to it, but enjoying it nonetheless. Here are a few photos and some video I got last night of Black Skies at Volume 11 Tavern here in Raleigh. The sound is a little blown out, but it looks good -- or at least the raw file looks good. It kind of looks crappy on youtube. I need to investigate better ways of getting my videos online. Going to shoot Caltrop and Colossus tonight, and I got some advice from a co-worker who is a video expert, so hopefully those videos will sound better.

(VIDEO DELETED)