Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Playlist 08/31/2011 - Thanatoseptis - Sacrificial Septic Tank Tomb

Tonights show begins a new segment of The Vault. I have a million demo tapes laying around and while I almost always play demo tracks on the show, as listeners know, it's just not a real good way to really get a feel for a band's ability, style, and worth. Every show from now on, I will be playing the entirety of one full demo starting at 10:00, effectively splitting the show in half, with the more extreme side of metal taking over the show the second half, and leaving the first half of the show for the old school, head banging metal of the 80's.... give or take of course.

Thanatoseptis - Sacrificial Septic Tank Tomb


Kicking of this new segment is a rarity of unimaginable, weirdness, a combination of black metal, primitive death metal and industrial ambient / noise. Thanatoseptis' Sacrificial Septic Tank Tomb demo. The one man project is a US creation, hailing from some slime ridden cave in the United States of America, and this demo contains new tracks and tracks from their first demo as well. There really is no describing this. Simply calling himself STW, all instruments and programming and audio has been created by this sole creature.


The seven tracks present contain otherworldly echoes of demonic incantation and sewage spewing grimy, ugly death metal mixed with noise. There is a reason this is limited to 60 copies... it is too obscure and bizarre for the everyday human. A true masterwork in abrasiveness. While listening to this with a friend I compared the sound to the feeling of having a rapist in your house. It's unsettling, pressing nerves together with a singular effort of original malevolence. Tracks such as Ritual of Unholy Resurrection Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 both contain awkward ticking, as if an old clock is ticking down on your sanity. The title track, is a mammoth ugly monster of distorted genres clashing. The slow, plodding nature of doom is prevalent, along with the archaic melodies of ancient death metal all soaked in a noisy ambient storm of incinerated bone ash.


And all this on two sides of a TDK. I don't know why the two sides were split on the tape at all. They all could have fit on the one side. Regardless, there is little for me to complain about on this one. A totally unique take on whatever genre or anti-genre STW is embracing. Listen to this antidote to the mainstream music conglomerate at 10:00pm on The Vault.

PLAYLIST:

01. Morbid Sin - Twisted Souls In Hell
02. In Solitude - Demons
03. Holy Terror - Distant Calling
04. Motorhead - No Class (Live)
05. Manowar - Gloves Of Metal
06. Obsession - Killer Elite
07. Overkill - Overkill (Request - James)
08. Dio - Gypsy
09. Mercyful Fate - Gypsy
10. Fates Warning - Orphan Gypsy
11. Heathen - Set Me Free (Sweet Cover)
12. Manilla Road - Into The Maelstrom



13. Thanatoseptis - Hydra Of Polluted Water
14. Thanatoseptis - The Black March Of Disease
15. Thanatoseptis - Ghost In The Sewer
16. Thanatoseptis - Sacrificial Septic Tank Tomb
17. Thanatoseptis - Seweritual Of Unholy Resurrection Pt. 1
18. Thanatoseptis - Seweritual Of Unholy Resurrection Pt. 2
19. Thanatoseptis - Black Vapors Of Possession



20. Primordial - Lain With The Wolf
21. Mandatory - Where They Bleed
22. Abazagorath - Bestial Moans
23. Primitive Graven Image - As I Wander
24. Aeternus - There's No Wine Like The Blood's Crimson
25. The Wakedead Gathering - Wasps From The Chamber Of The Divine
26. Death Strike - Pay To Die
27. Apolion - Winds
28. Source Of Deep Shadows - Powolne Zatracenie
29. Mystifier - An Elizabethan Devil Worshipper's Spell Book
30. Grave - Awakening
31. Hellwitch - Mordirivial Dissemination
32. Skepticism - The Organum
33. Burzum - Valen

Friday, August 19, 2011

Abazagorath On The Vault August 24th


Black metal fans rejoice! NJ Black metal legends Abazagorath will have their day to recant tales of demon worship and cosmic chaos on The Vault. Wednesday, August 24th, Chris Warhead and Dave Nyarlathotep will join me for several hours. Abazagorath's debut album Tenebrarum Cadent Exsurgemus was released in 1997, predating the trend of US black metal we see today and helping to lay a foundation for black metal in the United States. Their 2004 album Sacraments of the Final Atrocity continues their cosmic assault on the vermin of humanity.

Tune in Wednesday, August 24th at 9pm for another special interview only on The Vault. Be sure to call in with your questions for the Beasts of Abazagorath and your requests.

www.GOBRAVE.org



Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Deadly Illness - Deadly Illness # 4


Deadly Illness #4 is a great midday read for an underground zine with a heavy load of reviews, some really cool interviews with bands from the hardcore punk scene, death metal and black metal and thrash realms, and a some slight exploration of the expansive noise scene as well. Ultimately, you're not going to read interviews with any major bands, not going to hear the same tired responses from people you could care less about and not going to see space wasted on whole page adds for products and releases you're never going to buy. It's a pure underground labor of love. Hungary's Poller Csaba has done a great job of incorporating bands that he wants to see do well and that he believes should get some help spreading the word. Bands like Germ Attach, Anguish, Sardonis, Grave Ritual, the awesome Protector, Psycopath Witch and Slaughter Strike. Also included is about five pages of quick reviews and an interview with Brandon of Skeleton Plague Records.

The writing is good, readable, and even though Csaba is from Hungary, he still writes with more English proficiency than I've seen in some zines from homegrown papermakers. There is, predictably, some humorous quirkiness in reading English from someone who I expect does not use English as their first language but that makes it all the better. Deadly Illness is a sweet little zine worth the time of someone looking for a small zine to digest without feeling overwhelmed.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Lit-Ning Metal Box Restoration

Some people may know that I am an avid do-it-yourself-er. I figured that this would be an interesting post outside of my normal musical reviews and may come in handy for any metalhead interested in doing refinishing work on perhaps a metal music case, or whatever one might run across. Let's face it, metal music tends to impress upon us a sense of creativity and thriftiness. Regardless of what your reasoning for using this information may be, the steps are pretty much the same for any metal item. I will most likely do another post like this in the future just for my own personal interest as this blog has also become a journal of sorts for my creative endeavors anyway. So without further pause, this is the tale of how I turned a $1.00 tool box at the flea market into something worth much more.

The story behind this particular project starts at a trip to one of my favorite record collecting spots - the local flea market. Generally, I don't bother with the regular vendors, instead I go straight to the weekend warrior booths, your everyday Joe's selling random crap from their house. This one guy was selling an old Craftsman toolbox, a really nice metal one from who knows when for $2.00. I bought that one for the $2.00 and he threw in this one for an extra $1.00. Three dollars, why not. This particular box was in pretty decent shape apart from the rough looking paint job. This particular tutorial will be specifically for this tool box. I will detail how to remove the old paint, some light rust which coated the bottom of the box, and also the painting procedure. I will give reasoning for why I decided to do what I did as well. Of course, any questions regarding why I did what, or whatever, feel free to ask in the comments. Being my first post of this sort, I may not have pictures for every specific step but I will ultimately try to accompany most of the main steps with some sort of images. Anyway, those wondering about my record finds from that specific trip will be pretty disappointed. I picked up two VHS tapes, Tales from the Darkside Volume 4 and 1981's Ghost Story. Music wise, only two cassettes were to be nabbed that day, Dokken's Back for the Attack and Def Leppard's Hysteria. Anyway...

The first thing that I had to do with this particular tool box was to remove the old paint that looked worn, scratched, and generally deplorable in every way. There are two methods for removing paint like this from metal. The first would be to use a stripping agent such as Jasco's Paint Remover. I personally don't like using a paint remover for something I plan on repainting. Paint removers leave a residue which, if not removed correctly, will affect how the second coat adheres to the metal. You can always use an afterwash solution, but it's just another step and you wind up with a messy clump of liquid and paint. For this box, I decided to use a wire brush drill attachment to remove the paint on the box. First, I own several drills so there was no added cost to me having the necessary hardware. Strippers and an afterwash would add up to roughly $11.00 or more.

The wire brush attachment I bought was $2.50. I actually bought two, a smaller style attachment to reach into the corners inside the box. I got two attachments which I can use over and over again, in many different situations, for half the cost of the liquid solutions. The left brush is a coarser haired wire brush which I used on the flat surfaces of the box and generally everywhere that I could. It not only strips the paint faster than a fine grit brush would, but it also leaves a slightly rougher finish on the metal, giving the paint a better surface to adhere to. I used the finer wire brush (right) to do some small touch up on the metal hardware without removing too much of the patina. It ultimately resulted in a more consistent finish on the parts of the box that I knew I wasn't going to paint. For instance, the name plate on the top of the box, I wanted to leave with the oldish patina but there was some slight rust in the corners near where the handle is located. I used the fine brush to remove the rust, while leaving the patina.

I started removing the paint on the outside of the box. Of course, I wore a general purpose mask to prevent me from breathing in the small particles of paint which are never a good thing to breath in for many reasons, mostly Lead. It's also a good idea to wear some sort of eye protection. In my case, I also wore a pair of work gloves so should the wire brush come in contact with my hands, which did happen on several occasions, I would still have some sort of epidermis left. If you are really clumsy, you may want to also wear some sort of arm protection. I happened to briefly nick my arm with the brush and it left about seventeen thousand hairline scratches.



If you're a big strong tough guy like me, feel free to do this whole process in the nude, wearing no shoes, no face mask and while consuming your favorite cold beverage. Ultimately for my particular project the two most important liquids to have on hand were my 1/2 pint of paint and my 12oz bottle of Stone Pale ale. Of course, the other liquid which is necessary unless you want to keep buying paint brushes over and over again for eternity is a can of Mineral Spirits.




The finished exterior of my box. The exterior of my box took me approximately forty minutes to strip the paint from. If you really like the stainless steel look, you could actually just leave the box like this. It would be more susceptible to further rust without a protective coat however. For a real professional look, you would ideally want to use some sort of polishing powder or tool to give it a real smooth finish. Unfortunately, I did not take more pictures of this in progress. On the larger tool box, I will be sure to take more pictures, but then again, that is an entirely different project, quite a bit more difficult than this box. Anyway, with the outside of the box completely stripped I turned my attention to the inside of the box. Generally speaking the inside of something is always harder to work on than the outside. It is more difficult to get into the tighter spaces with tools specifically. I used an extension tool for my wire brush so that I had more room to maneuver within the box itself. There really is no right or wrong way to go about it. You can do the inside, then the outside, you can start on the lid or the bottom... whatever floats your canoe. I happened to start on the bottom first. The previous painter had painted the hardware so I made sure to get at that with the fine wire brush. To get in the corners, I actually couldn't fit the coarse brush so I just jammed the fine brush in the corners and removed the paint with that. There was a tiny small area of paint left there which I scraped off manually with some 60 grit sandpaper I had lying around.

Voila, the finished stripped box. All paint removed. The total time to remove all the paint on this box took about an hour and forty five minutes. I also think I took a minute of that to get a second beer. After finishing removing the old paint I took a damp rag and just removed any of the remaining dust from the metal so that I would have a completely clean surface to paint.

Before going ahead with painting the box, here are some more close up images of the box totally stripped. First, is the plate on the box showing the handle - very easily - disassembled.


I found it much easier to strip the stop of the box by removing the metal handle from it's holders just by using a little extra force to get it out. If you can remove hardware with ease, do it. Breaking down something into separate parts will make everything move along smoother and you don't have to worry about accidentally ruining a part of whatever you're working on.

Another picture of the plate on the box, showing the patina I wanted to leave as is. I felt it gave the box a bit of an antique-y feel and added a bit of detail to the box.

So we are ready to paint the box. I used a Purdy one inch brush for this project and for some of the really small details, I used hobby brushes - a #2 and #4. For this specific project, I saw no reason to prime the metal surface before applying my paint. The surface was already rough, due to the stripping of the older paint and I don't plan on having this box outside, in a situation that would endorse rust appreciation and the material was uniform across the whole project. If I planned on keeping this box in a place with high humidity, or outside or in an environment which would be more harsh than normal, using a clean metal primer would increase the already excellent protection from rust that your standard oil based enamel would provide. I would not use a latex based paint on a project such as this. For a small box like this, you only need a small amount of paint. I chose a gloss (shiny) finish and tinted the paint towards an industrial-gray-green color. Oil based paints are practically impossible to remove from clothing should you get some on a shirt or pants. Trust me, wear something you don't mind getting dirty.

I painted the inside of my box first. No reason to start there, I just thought it a good place to start. I specifically decided to leave the hardware with the metal showing. The rivets holding the company plate on the top of the box, the hinges and the front latch I left completely unpainted. I applied my first coat on the inside of the box and allowed for twenty-four hours to dry as directed on the can. I then proceeded to do a second coat to get a consistent finish across the whole surface. Be wary of applying too much paint at once to vertical surfaces. Over application will cause dripping marks. It's better to apply a thinner coat of paint, and do several thin coats and get a clean finish than to apply one massive thick coat and just get it done. On flat surfaces, this is not a problem and I often apply a thicker coat to surfaces such as the bottom of the box so I have less to touch up on the second coat. Be careful around detail spots such as hardware. If you are uncomfortable "cutting in" around tight spots with a larger brush, use a fine detail brush to get in the small areas. Remember, it's better to be careful than have to try and remove paint from a surface. Oil enamels are incredibly durable and a pain to remove from places where you don't want paint.

The most important part of doing a job like this, is making sure you clean your brushes properly after each coat. Paint brushes can be expensive, especially high quality brushes. Do not use a chip brush, or a cheap brush on a project like this. Chip brushes are generally one-time use brushes and have coarse hairs which leave unsightly hair marks on your finish. Cheap brushes work for a few coats but wear down when using chemicals to clean them - a required part of cleaning paints, particularly specialty paints such as oil based primers and enamels. For latex paints, economy brushes are acceptable at times but, if you use a premium quality brush, you will not have to buy brushes after each project and you can reuse them, over and over again.

For cleaning oil paints, mineral spirits an ideal solution to clean brushes. Pour a little amount into a cup, shake your brush around and you should be able to remove all the oils from the brush. After wards, rinse the brush in warm water with soap. Don't let the brush sit in the mineral spirits and rinse the brush immediately after painting. Oils are impossible to remove after they have dried and will ultimately cause you more trouble than is worth. You'll be forced to just buy another brush. After washing the brush, just let it hang on a peg hook or wherever to allow it to air dry.

I let the inside of the box dry completely before working on the outside. I did the outside part of the box in two steps. I applied paint to the upper three-quarters of the box first and did my recoat and then I finished the bottom of the box in the same manner. I then waited another twenty-four hours before reattaching the handle or handling the box. I cleaned my brushes after each coat, the same way as I described above and completed the box. The total project took me about four and a half hours excluding drying time. With drying time, I spent about 3 days, letting the painted parts dry for a full day between coats Here are some completed images of the tool box:
Finished Box without handle
Finished face plate without handle
Finished box with handle
Open Finished Box

Friday, August 5, 2011

Playlist 08/03/2011

01. Mercyful Fate - A Dangerous Meeting
02. Mortal Sin - Mayhemic Destruction (Request - Tony)
03. Dekapitator - Haunted By Evil
04. Slauter Xstroyes - Black Rose And Thorns
05. Pentacle - Storming Through A Hail Of Steel
06. Liege Lord - Rapture (Request - Lumberjack)
07. Judas Priest - Savage
08. Judas Priest - Beyond The Realms Of Death
09. Anthem - Fire N The Sword
10. Midnight Priest - Rainha Da Magia Negra
11. Obsession - Always On The Run
12. Manowar - Dark Avenger
13. Forefather - These Lands
14. Mental Aberration - Last Exit Suicide
15. Carcass - Death Certificate
16. Akercocke - Shelter From The Sand
17. Queensryche - Queen Of The Reich
18. Solstice - Hammer Of Damnation
19. Heathen - Open The Grave
20. Abazagorath - When The Skies Opened
21. Exxplorer - Metal Detectors
22. Manilla Road - The Riddle Master
23. Manilla Road - Shadow In The Black
24. Manilla Road - Voyager
25. Manilla Road - Necropolis
26. Manilla Road - Haunted Palace
27. Manilla Road - Shadow
28. Manilla Road - Helicon
29. Manilla Road - Mystification
30. Manilla Road - The Deluge