Paranoia Keeps Jogging

hupp hupp hupp hupp...

Blah Blah:

Been pretty bummed lately and needed to find something to clear my head/ blow off some steam so I started running on the treadmill again for the first time in well over a decade. Did two miles yesterday as kind of a “warm up” with no problem, barely even got winded which is impressive considering I currently weigh somewhere in the ballpark of 285 lbs… I don’t think I’ll ever get back up to running 5 miles a day the way I was before I blew my knee back in Oakland, but it would be cool to get up to like 3 or 4 miles three times a week or something like that.

Guess I’ll keep at it and see what happens.

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Muzak:

Paranoia Keeps Crawling - Dissonant grindy metal from Germany. Reminds me of other German stuff like Systral/ Morser/ Acme/ Carol with an added splash of crustiness ala His Hero Is Gone/ Neurosis/ Counterblast. This band seems to be all but forgotten nowadays which is a real shame cos their stuff was solid as fuck.

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ZEROID - More dark/ crusty/ dissonant hardcore on the same label that released that Paranoia Keeps Crawling 10 inch. Total Union of Uranus/ HHIG/ early 90’s Neurosis/ ABC Diabolo vibes crushed down to 3 minute blasts of total sonic obliteration. I almost sold my copy of this album when we moved a couple months ago and listening to this now I’m so glad I never got around to it.

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Today is the Day - I’ve been a huge Today is the Day fan since I was about 15 years old (which is closer to 30 years ago than I’d like it to be), but man… The new album is profoundly fucking weird

Almost sounds like a dissonant, metallized, version of mid era SWANS or early Sonic Youth jamming with Lou Reed and Rollins Band... I fucking HATED it the first couple time I heard it, but then I threw it on this afternoon after listening to a bunch of Rudimentary Peni and think something finally “clicked.”

Not my favorite TITD album by a long shot but it’s definitely growing on me… Sounds like a work of legitimate mental illness, which is kinda concerning considering how many guns this dude owns.

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Total Shutdown - Anyone else remember this band? Weirdo spazzy no wave/ hardcore/ grind from the Bay Area. Killer shit, and I believe their singer was also in this band called “Dig That Body Up, It’s Alive” that I was, and still am, completely fucking obsessed with.

Can’t find any of their albums online so here’s a live video.

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Dig That Body Up, It’s Alive - As Mentioned above… Zonked the fuck out tech/ prog/ no wave/ death. Membership ties to Burmese, Total Shutdown, Pink and Brown, Coachwhips, The Oh Sees, and the unfortunately named (but totally goddamn crushing) Child Abuse.

I am obsessed with this album beyond the point of reason, really wish it had been released on CD.

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Batushka - Doomy/ melodic black metal with eerie liturgical chanting vocals. I missed pretty much all the hype and controversy surrounding this band and got into them way after the fact which is cool ‘cos that means I can just like them and not have to give a fuck about anything but the music… That said, I do find it kinda amusing that a band that was way into Orthodox religious imagery was so Orthodox they had a schism.

Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1054 AD.

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Rotting Christ - Hellenic black metal legends. I’m pretty sure “Morality of a Dark Age” was the first black metal tune I ever heard ‘cos my friend’s older sister was way into them back when I was like fourteen… Their first couple albums are my favorite, but I remain a big fan of their output to this day.

People gripe that this band only does one thing over and over, but I dunno man… so did Bolt Thrower. Sometimes you just find “your thing” and fucking run with it.

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Pinnick/ Gales/ Pridgen - I’ve been a big Kings X fan since I was a literal little kid (first time I saw them was with my uncle when I was about 8 years old) and lately I’ve been digging through their various side projects… This is the one I’ve been into lately.

Kings X Bassist Doug Pinnick with an Ex- Mars Volta Drummer (Pridgen), and a guitarist who plays with Lauryn Hill (Gales).

Groove heavy, soulful, hard rock/ rock. Well played. Good shit.

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Bozzio/ Levin/ Stevens - Prog rock supergroup. Had somehow never heard this album ‘til like a week ago… It’s real good, especially the moments when it gets weirdly flamenco-y.

My playing ability is hampered by pretty severe nerve damage in both hands from boxing and doing martial arts when I was younger, so I’m pretty in awe of anyone who can play like this.

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Satanic Planet - Dave Lombardo, a dude from the Locust, a dude from the Satanic Temple, and a bunch of others doing creepazoid ritual industrial. I legitimately bought this album after someone I know trashed it to me saying it sounded like “Hipster MZ.412.”

I dunno man, “hipster” or not it kinda fucking rules.

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Yazz Ahmed - British/ Bahraini trumpet player/ composer. I don’t feel at all qualified to describe this stuff, but it’s real pretty and I’ve been listening to this particular album a lot lately… Guess I’d say it’s somewhere between some kind of electronic/ cinematic jazz music, Djivan Gasparian, and Dead Can Dance?

I dunno, I’m an old punk kid who plays in a hideous noise/ sludge band so make as much or as little of my opinion as you will. I just think it sounds nice.

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HateWave - More fucked up, spastic, no wave/ tech death weirdness… This time from Weasel Walter, Nondor Nevai, and a couple other dudes I’m less familiar with. I think this band was kind of a precursor to/ early ancestor of Encenathrakh?

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Trivium - People I talk to often seem shocked by how much “mainstream” metal I listen to, probably ‘cos the music I make is so fucked, but I dunno man… I just like metal. I like heavy guitars and cool riffs and pounding drums and screaming vocals and if you have pretty much any combination of those things I’m probably gonna be pretty onboard.

I have my favorites and some of those are completely fucked up sounding, but I don’t expect every band on earth to sound like my favorites… You know what I mean?

Like, I don’t go into a Trivium album expecting SWANS or Khanate, I go into it expecting something catchy and riffy and fun to run and lift weights to, and that’s fucking fine… And it’s fine if someone only listens to shit like this and doesn’t give a fuck about my favorite shit.

I dunno, chalk it up to me growing up with parents who listened to a lot of radio country, but I think most metal is pretty fucking great…

The world is enough of a fucking drag without constantly looking for more shit to hate.

Oh and for the sake of describing this album at all: Trivium sounded like 00’s metallic hardcore ala Killswitch Engage meets Judas Priest “Painkiller”. It’s not my favorite thing, but it’s pretty fun when I’m in the mood to run/ lift/ take a long walk…

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Silentist - I really dig Silentist and thought I had picked up all their records over the years, but I recently found out they had a real short EP from back in 2009 that I’d never even heard… Spazzy/ shrieky/ pounding shit built around piano, drums, and vocals. Sounds sorta like Lubomyr Melnyck channelling SWANS.

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E-Town Concrete - I’m not the biggest E-Town fan in the world, but I’ve never been able to fully write them off either. They get me pumped to run/ lift and “Mandibles”/ “A Father’s Marathon” tend to make it onto a lot of my workout playlists.

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Video Games:

Silksong - Got the witch crest, which was surprisingly difficult to pull off during act 3. Now I’m gonna knock off a couple side quests and get back to the main plot.

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Reading:

Deadworld - Q: Hey MZ do you like The Walking Dead? A: No, but I liked Deadworld a lot back in the early 90’s… It wasn’t for wussies.

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Warriors of Plasm (Defiant) - Oddball 90’s title with lots of monsters and random phlegmy glorp… I honestly thought the art in this title was pretty fucking cool and kinda similar to Comico’s Elementals, but unfortunately I think Defiant lost a ton of money in a lawsuit with Marvel and the company didn’t stick around very long.

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Tube:

Auntie Lee’s Meat Pies - Whacko early 90’s satanic horror comedy starring Pat Morita and Karen Black.

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Cape Cod Cthulhu - Good god this flick looks cheap… Needless to say as a lover of Neil Breen/ MST3K/ Red Letter Media I’m wholeheartedly looking forward to seeing this mess when the full thing releases hopefully soon.

Look at Cthulhu… Look at him… What did they do to our boy?

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Devil Story - Here, watch this, it’s real fucking stupid.

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