Ruminating and Keeping It Local
Our first gear recommendation, great new metal, and a way to save your favorite venue
Ah December, the month of cold winds and colder hearts, unless of course you live in Los Angeles, in which case it’s the month of cool winds and the coldest hearts. Location aside, it’s the perfect time of year to cuddle up with a glass of something warm and a soothing black metal album. Listen to the screams of people who sound like they’re actively being strangled to death while snow softly lands on bare tree branches devoid of their usual finch residents. I can think of nothing better to do, and it’s not like you can go outside anyways.
To be honest, the continued lack of human interaction is surely getting to all of us by now, if it hasn’t claimed your sanity already. But time away from social interactions with people who don’t live in my home has started me down a rabbit hole about the value of social interaction.
This particular spiral was kicked off by a show called “How to With John Wilson” on HBO. You’d probably classify it as a comedy, but it doesn’t cleanly fit into any real category. If you’re a fan of Nathan Fielder, or his show “Nathan for You” you’ll immediately recognize the signature cringe comedy stylings he’s brought to the show as a producer. But as much cringe as there is in the show, it comes from a deep well of sincerity that we often refuse to plumb.
The first episode of the show dives right into the deep end of cringe. On the surface, and judging by the episode title, “How to Make Small Talk,” should be about… how to make small talk. It begins with some basic tips, given just about as awkwardly as possible by a person who seems to be the last guy I’d take social life tips from. It quickly devolves into madness as John Wilson is unable to properly engage in small talk, and instead gets to know people far too intimately. Through a convoluted series of events, Wilson ends up at a multi-day MTV music festival, and makes small talk with a man named Chris who seems (rightfully) weirded out by the upsettingly sober Wilson. As the night unfolds, their conversations deepen despite Wilson’s repeated attempts to steer back into the superficial. Their discussions end up revealing a surprisingly complex side to the formerly two-dimensional expectation we had of Chris.
The next morning, Chris sits down for an interview with Wilson. In the interview, the two men share stories of love, loss, life, and their personal beliefs. Throughout this conversation, I found myself drawn to Chris, not because he was especially charismatic, well-spoken, good-looking or even morally impressive, but because he was human. Seeing him share his experience was revelatory in how banal it was. These stories of common folk are more common than the people who tell them, but that ubiquity is their strength. For lack of a more eloquent statement; everyone is a person, fully realized and fully fleshed out.
By the end of the conversation, you get the sense that both Wilson and Chris have grown much closer to one another. It bleeds through in the smile Chris flashes the camera at the end when he once again asks Wilson how he’s liking New York. It’s a knowing smile that indicates small talk no longer serves a purpose between the two, and that this brief experience of self-realization and honesty with a stranger brought more value than a dozen parties and empty conversations.
I’m starting to go long, but the episode made me think about my own social interactions, even my own parasocial interactions, like the one that I have with many of you. Obviously this newsletter exists to perform small talk. Music is a fairly safe topic in a lot of ways, but I hope that sometimes I hit a little deeper than small talk. That I present a perspective you haven’t considered before, or dive deeper into something than you may have thought possible. Because it’s the moments of depth, the moments of knowing and thoughtfulness that make the small talk revealing. I hope that every so often you find that here.
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Green Druid - At the Maw of Ruin
Doom metal is such an odd genre. Many of the musicians who attempt it are so catastrophically untalented that it leads to stagnation by virtue of the genre’s focus on tone over all else. This is probably a bit unfair, but the general trend exists in one form or another. But when you get a group of stoner-doom musicians who know how to play well and write well, you’re bound to get magic. Green Druid are here to prove that the magical connotations of their name aren’t for show. At the Maw of Ruin is stoner-doom through and through. The riffs are suffocating, the lyrics doled out slowly across 10+ minute tracks and the debt to Sabbath is constantly being paid. But unlike many doom bands, there’s a lightness of foot surrounding the vocals and guitar work. It calls to mind the immaculate Suck out the Poison by He Is Legend both tonally and lyrically, in fact the screamer sounds remarkably like Schuylar Croom, which is about the highest compliment I can give a screamer. Best of all, Green Druid isn’t afraid to get exceedingly heavy. Many of the riff passages in this record are equaled in heft only by monstrous groups like Sleep and neànder, and the fantasy elements are a perfect call back to origins of metal at the hands of a bunch of nerds. The ecological bent to the lyrical themes only make it better. You can't tell me that hearing someone scream “The earth is not dead yet / her wrath cannot be undone / you tried to claim her / as your own / now she devours your bones.” doesn’t make you want to run through a wall.
Great Metal From This Week
Despite the relative lack of releases the past week, there were quite a few excellent records that dropped. Each one of these really made an impact, and is more than worth your time. A special shout out to the Show Me a Dinosaur album, which hits the same emotional notes you might have expected from Deafheaven, and does it all with stellar production and clarity.
Find tracks from all these artists and others by following our Spotify playlist. I’ll also be putting together a special playlist for the top albums and top metal albums of the year, so keep an eye out for those in upcoming newsletters.
Something for the Gearheads
I’ve spent a lot of time talking about merch you should buy, but today I’d like to highlight something bands should buy. As someone who can’t play a single note on a guitar or stay on key to save my life, the conversations metalheads have about gear often elude me. What I do know, from how many times I’ve wandered into a metal forum and left with my head spinning, is that gear is clearly of paramount importance to a band’s sound.
Of all the different types of gear that metal bands require, few, if any, outweigh the importance of the guitar. As the signature instrument of metal, your guitar can be a deeply personal expression of your musical style, or it can just be something that looks wicked on stage (whenever stages are a thing again). But getting a custom guitar seems like a pipedream for a lot of musicians and bands who are just getting started. And rocking the same Fender or Gibson that everyone else has doesn’t feel very sexy.
Having never thought of this much myself, I was surprised to find out that there are local custom guitar companies that will actually put a whole new guitar together for you. I was even more shocked to find out there was one just a few miles away from my old hometown.
Fireplant Guitars, based in Southern California, creates custom guitars in a variety of body styles, and offers a wide range of customization options. The photos on the site probably do a better job of conveying the guitar styles than my words do, but as neat as they are, what really captured my attention was who they want to sell the guitars to.
On their featured artists page, which boasts artists like THOR, Toy Called God, and Beneath the Embers (to name a few), they state that “We're interested in helping out real, gigging musicians who are working their asses off to make it big. We're not as concerned with bands who already sell out arenas. We want to help out the little guys in relatively unknown bands who are working hard, writing music, playing gigs and grinding away with their old gear.” Given the popularity of the bands that I often highlight, a company like this fits right in with the ethos of this newsletter.
I’ve long been a proponent of shopping at small businesses whenever possible. I just never knew that you could do that for a guitar too.
“I Come to You, In My Own Newsletter, Asking for a Favor.”
This week, instead of writing one of my signature essays, I’m actually going to ask you all for something. As this is the first year of the Apotheosis newsletter, I’m sure there are things that you would like to see that this newsletter hasn’t attempted or delivered on quite yet. Because it’s ultimately all of you who read this newsletter, I’ve created a survey asking a few questions about what you’ve liked and what you want to see more of in the future. I’m also sneaking in a readers poll, which I’ll post the results of in the last newsletter of the year.
I look forward to reading your answers, and guarantee that I’ll deliver you the best newsletter in the metal world in 2021.
Non-Metal AOTW
Your Old Droog - Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition
I refuse to sit here and lament the state of modern hip-hop as “the new pop” or “a bunch of kids melodically mumbling about drugs” but I also won’t deny the joy I experience when someone does “old-school hip-hop” well. Today, few people capture that old-school spirit better than Your Old Droog.
Reminiscent of rappers like MF DOOM, Your Old Droog weaves lyrically dense raps that aim more for your funny bone than your heart, but the effect is equally potent. Whether he’s spitting nonsense about former Soviet states on “Uzbekistan” or saying he heard that “Your grandma’s got an OnlyFans” on “Babushka III” he always makes it sound damn good. Add in a top tier beat selection and you’ve got one of the most compelling profiles in modern hip-hop.
Runners-up
“You Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone”
I’ll keep this short, but you’re likely aware that musicians are struggling to make money during this pandemic. Album sales (and now streaming) have never been the best way for an artist to make money. Tours and merchandise sales are by far the biggest driver of a small band’s financial success. The insidious bit is that if you take away concerts, you mostly take away merchandise as well. Most bands do a majority of their merch sales at concerts, so without them, they’re unable to effectively support any kind of lifestyle.
At the same time, venues (obviously) rely on concerts in order to make money themselves. Due to the closure of, well, everything, this has become an insidious cycle of destruction that hurts venues, bands and concert organizers and promoters.
Recently I was starkly reminded of this fact by local LA promoter and organizer, Sid the Cat in one of their Instagram posts. The message is good, the site is legit, so I figured I’d pass it on. Check out Save our Stages by clicking the button below, and if there’s a venue you love that is in dire straits, toss a few bucks their way. Music impacts all of us, and making sure it’s widely available to everyone at all price points is one of the many ways we connect with one another’s humanity and individuality, even if it’s only for a night.
Looking Towards the Summit
Despite a late announcement from Taylor Swift that she would be dropping the sister record to folklore, this week is still looking a little light as December weeks often do. Here’s what has popped up on my radar.
Metal Albums
Boris & Merzbow - 2ROI2PO
New Age Doom - Himalayan Dream Techno
Non-Metal Albums
The Avalanches - We Will Always Love you
Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon III: The Chosen
James Blake - Covers
Taylor Swift - Evermore
Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments.
Shrinekeeping
That’s all for this week, only two more standard newsletters left for the year then you’ll get a whole week where Apotheosis will be in your inbox almost every day. If you want to debate my lists with a friend, click the share button below so they can subscribe before the lists hit your inbox.
If you’re here because someone shared the newsletter, welcome! I know that there’s been a lot of blood rain as of late but I promise the weather usually lightens up in the depths of winter. The corpse snow is particularly pleasant in late December.
Catch you all next week with another smattering of excellent records and whatever else the world has in store. No but seriously I’ll catch you, I’ve been working on my cardio and I really doubt you can hide for much longer than you already have.