As The Story Grows

I'm...still...wiping tears away as I type this from laughing so hard. Just got done talking with Jim Settle, bassist from our own Stephen's Tantrum Of The Muse. If you've never seen TOTM, then you've never seen one of the most entertaining bassists in rock 'n roll. Like a top athlete, Jim played through the pain, gave every single show his everything and usually had to be carried to the van afterwards. But no one EVER said Tantrum wasn't good live. And get this: he's started a hugely successful business and is an electrochemist. Yeah. Listen as we set up how they all met...road warrior stories ranging from squeegee rib injuries to windshield feces...Jim's new business and new band Bore...and an ill attempt at making Bruce Fitzhugh laugh.

Oh...and Stephen may, or may not, have AIDS. Eat yer froot loops, rubbernecker!

Tantrum FB page: https://www.facebook.com/tantrumofthemuse

Jim's new band Bore: https://www.facebook.com/Artistbore

All the time stuff:

Stephen's podcast: http://thetouristtrap.net

Trav's drumming site: http://mynameistrav.com

Listen to Unteachers (Stephen and Trav's band): https://unteachers.bandcamp.com

Free download of Half Bomber (Trav's band): https://veritasvinyl.bandcamp.com/album/prink

Skull Toaster, daily metal trivia for the masses: https://skulltoaster.com

Welcome to the maiden voyage! We have a bunch of guests lined up for the future but we're gonna ease into this first one, mkay? This week we talk about the early and untimely passing of Death bassist Scott Clendenin...only 47 years old. Total bummer. We are gonna discuss new purchases, music we are currently into and any live shows we see. But this time we can combine all three because we went to see a Torche show together. We caught the Wrong/Nothing/Torche show in Philly so we talk about that too. Finally, we review the documentary No New Kinda Story and reminice about the old days and discuss Tooth & Nail's impact on our lives and the music scene. Good times.

This week stuff:

Scott Clendenin's wiki, (R.I.P.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Clendenin

Listen to Wrong's EP "Stop Giving": https://wrongriff.bandcamp.com/releases

Listen to Nothing's full length "Guilty Of Everything":

Listen to Torche's latest "Restarter": https://torche.bandcamp.com/album/restarter

No New Kind Story documentary website: http://nonewkindastory.com

Hey don't forget about Jesse's new Veritas Vinyl podcast: https://veritasvinyl.simplecast.fm

All the time stuff:

Stephen's podcast: http://thetouristtrap.net

Trav's drumming site: http://mynameistrav.com

Listen to Unteachers (Stephen and Trav's band): https://unteachers.bandcamp.com

Free download of Half Bomber (Trav's band): https://veritasvinyl.bandcamp.com/album/prink

Skull Toaster, daily metal trivia for the masses: https://skulltoaster.com

It's been a good run, but Jesse and Trav are calling it quits...sort of. Turns out you'll be getting two podcasts for the price of none. Give us twenty minutes to explain and check out a few tunes from Pennywise and Queen.

Keep it right here for the new podcast "As The Story Grows" which'll be starting up within a week or two. Trav and Stephen Sarro (Unteachers, Tantrum Of The Muse, ...Trav's cousin) will be your hosts. It'll be along the same lines of BVC with interviews, hangouts, topical conversations around DIY, music, vinyl...you get the idea...

Follow Trav on twitter at @asthestorygrows , this'll be the new podcast's twitter home.

www.asthestorygrows.com is under construction and will be alive and well for the start of the new format.

Ok wait...there's more.

On the flipside, Jesse's new Veritas Vinyl Podcast is up and running right now:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/veritas-vinyl/id977872519?mt=2

This podcast will be similar to BVC but it will be "Veritas-centric". Jesse is aiming for monthly so it'll be easy to keep up with. Just SUBSCRIBE already, ya dinkus!

As always, Seth is alive and well at Skull Toaster. He also has a tech podcast you should check out:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-workbench-podcast/id960129609?mt=2

So that's about it. Thanks to everyone who listened, all the great guests we've had and everyone who went as far as reached out to us and encouraged us with tweets, emails and face to face. We couldn't have gotten where we did without ya.

We talk with Brandon Duncan about cassettes, art and the beauty in the fact that everything could be taken away at any time.

Music by Sterilizer and Prong

All Things Brandon: www.expiringsun.com

Guitarist Markus Johansson has had an interesting musical journey. This guy is just a guy. A guy who has forged his own way with an album with so many metal allumni that it looks like it was set up by everyone in the music business. Nope. Just Markus. This is a PERFECT example of musical "DIY". Truly inspirational. His band Sylencer released an album in 2012 with around twenty musicians involved...and if you're into metal you've probably heard of most of them.

From the wikiweb: "For A Lethal Dose of Truth, Sylencer's album, Johansson produced and called on some of hard rock and metal's most gifted musicians to lend their chops to the recordings. The featured guest list on A Lethal Dose of Truth includes Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Rob Caggiano (Anthrax, Volbeat), Brendon Small (Dethklok), Andy LaRocque (King Diamond), and Gene Hoglan (Testament), with nearly a dozen other current and former members of Iced Earth, Jag Panzer, Cynic, Helloween, Halford, Chimaira, Death, contributing as well."

Then...his new band 4arm. Sheesh. Seriously? Based out of Australia, Markus picked up a leg as the lead guitarist. Then 4arm opened for Slayer and Gojira for a while. After an exit from their front man Danny Tomb, they called Markus to be the new frontman. 4arm has a new album called "Survivalist" due out this year. Super excited to see what happens for our new friend next.

Music by Sylencer and a little dab of Modest Mouse on top.

Linkages:

Markus site: http://www.johanssonshreds.com

4arm has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/4ARMofficial

Modest Mouse droppings can all be found at http://modestmouse.com

New intro brought to you by the brainchild of http://thetouristtrap.net , one total trip of a podcast...check it out

Buy vinyls and be the envy of all your friends at http://www.veritasvinyl.net

Daily metal trivia on the twitters at www.skulltoaster.com and @skulltoaster

Thanks. We love you. Take care. Bye-bye.

Sometimes, it's good to know Stephen Sarro. He got to be friendly with Andrew Elstner of Torche via the inter-webs and said he would try to get him on the show...and it worked! Andrew was nice enough to tell us his whole story. We've got hilarious stories about James Hetfield and his cell phone...how he had to get a baby at a restaurant involved in joining Torche...fighting evil robots to save Miami and why overseas venues always seem to have gummy candy. Andrew got his copies of "Restarter" about five minutes before he started talking to us, so he is checking them out for the first time while on with us. Torche's new album "Restarter" out on Relapse Records on Feb 24th. Go. Buy. Rock. Seriously..."Barrier Hammer" is one of the heaviest tunes they've ever done.

Music by Van Halen, Riddle Of Steel, Tilts, Torche, Torche again because they rule, Helms Alee and INXS.

Torche website: http://www.torchemusic.com

Play their crazy video game on your mobile here:

iPhone: http://radi.al/TVRiphone

Android:... http://fb.me/6pcbPx5HD

Torche's new amazing label celebrating their 25th anniversary: http://www.relapse.com

Andrew's other band Tilts is fantastic! Listen here: http://tilts.bandcamp.com

We were honored to be joined by Nate Allen this episode. Unique doesn't begin to describe his approach to music. His kickstarter campaign for "Nate Allen and the Pac-Away Dots" includes a video game, laser-etched mason jars, greeting cards....you gotta hear this. His music is inspired by not listening to much music, just an occasional cassette in the van. It is inspiring to hear that influences can come from silence and your own thoughts and not mimicry. His shows have no PA system and the crowds gather around he and his wife Tessa in a sort of circle gathering rather than a stage for a unique acoustic folk-punk experiance. He tells us all about it and hopefully inspires you to think a little outside the box. He recalls a cool Melvins / Big Business story. We talk a lil' Kansas City sports. He was a booking agent for Emery and As I Lay Dying. This one was fun.

Music by The Melvins, Celan and Nate Allen

Nate's website: http://iamnateallen.com

His wife Tessa does taxes professionally and understands how an artist may have tax challenges. If you have any questions she may be a great person to contact.

Tessa's Tax website: http://tessatax.com

It's not often that you get to talk to someone that you listened to growing up. Mark Salomon of The Crucified hung our with us and picked up where his three part interview with Billy Power left off. (GO LISTEN TO BILLY'S URBAN ACHIEVER PODCAST. Go ahead. We'll wait.) Mark talks a lot about his newest project White Lighter, touches a little bit on the current state of Stavesacre and will blow your mind on how deep he goes with Bill Murray. He even does impressions...

Music by White Lighter, Wovenhand, Minor Threat and The Crucified

Some links and stuff:

Check out Mark's three part episode on Billy Power's Urban Achiever podcast: http://www.urbanachievershow.com

Check out Mark's own podcast "Never Was"

Listen to all of Northern Records discography here:

Jesse and Trav had to do one without the powers of the Seth, but we at BVCHQ couldn't be happier with how this one turned out. Matt has what could be considered an indie drummer's "dream resume." This guy has played with everybody; just check his wiki page. We went a little long but that's because Matt has so much ground to cover. With stories like his unorthodox way of joining Living Sacrifice, breaking up overseas with Eso-Charis and leaving for Ohio to do a short stint with Lovedrug and staying for two years, we're sure you won't mind a little overtime.

Here are a ton of show notes:

Matt did quite a bit of work for us for this show. He is a great guy and we recommend checking out all of his musical endeavors...and there are quite a few. We'll get you started:

Ok so is Matt's wiki page:

Here is a link to a dropbox folder of all of the music that Matt sent us to hear:

Here is the list of music in the dropbox folder Matt sent us, plus a small bio of each song:

Benchmark - The Reality of Distance

I'm pretty sure that Benchmark were the first Fort Smith band that released a 7", but I might be wrong. There are 3 songs and they all rip. This is what we called "Emo" before bands like SDRE (whom I love) and Promise Ring took over the genre and definition. This 7" was a huge influence on Eso-Charis.

Rash Of Beatings - Pig Raped Citizen

This is probably the 2nd 7" released by a Fort Smith band, and it was revolutionary. Punk Grindcore, fast and violent. These guys were legends around here, and still friends to this day. This song is a personal favorite. It was recorded LIVE with Barry Poynter, no overdubs. Each song is one take and the whole thing just melts. Barry did a ton of records with T&N/SS. He said these guys had BO, which is awesome.

Burned Up Bled Dry - Count On Yourself

BUBD was basically Benchmark with the bass player switching to guitar (because he's a riff-master). Awesome Grindcore with a punk feel. They also recorded this entire 7" (Cloned Slaves For Slaves) LIVE with Barry Poynter. Eso-Charis played lots of shows with BUBD back in the day.

Eso-Charis - The Absolute Progress of a Nothing Day

This song is from our only 7", titled "Setting Roots For Winter", released on Deadself Recordings (Jarrod Norris). It had the last 2 songs we ever wrote, recorded after we broke up. It's a SUPER crusty recording, but that's how we wanted it. We took our budget and worked with our friend Matt Depper to buy equipment so we could record it ourselves. We had no idea what we were doing, but we took our time in the studio and added lots of other sounds. It's lo-fi, but I'm really proud of it. I've seen this 7" go for $50 and higher on Ebay.

Current bands I am involved with

Bear Colony - Flask Retort

This song is from my band Bear Colony. It was released on our sophomore album "Soft Eyes" in late 2012 on Esperanza Plantation, an awesome record label out of Jackson, MS. This album marked my first time producing, composing, and performing. It was a blast. I created the main section for this song using acapella vocal samples from the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" sessions.

Family History - Howlin'

This is my band with Chase Pagan, whom I've recorded and played with for a decade. Chase decided he wanted more of a band feel for his next album, so he wrote some amazing songs and enlisted awesome players to join us. We tracked the bulk of it with my brother Adam (Insomniac Studios) and added percussion and vocals in my garage. I love this album and hope it see's the light of day eventually.

Prom Nights - Pissswap

This is my band with an old friend, Evan Garner. He played in Benchmark and Burned Up Bled Dry. He is the riff-master that I mentioned previously. This is just the two of us fucking around in my garage. The best description would be instru-metal with a mathy bent. I recorded these tracks in my garage (turd) and my brother Adam (Insomniac Studios) did an awesome mix/master job on them (polished turd). It's a fun project with a good friend.

Fear Is The Driving Force - Diet Cocaine Habit

This is a band with my brother Cory, who plays in Norma Jean and started Eso-Charis with me. We grew up playing Slayer and Alice-in-Chains riffs together in our parents basement, so the chemistry is great. He is also a riff master and writes songs that blow my mind. We are working on our full length album, and it's close. This is just a demo that we did to raise funds for the full length.

Everyone knows about crowd sourcing, but we're betting not many people actually understand how it works. Alex Kenis, brainchild of metal outfit Solamors (including our own dearest Trav) ran a very successful campaign raising over $6,000 for an album. Wanna hear how it went?

Music by Cynic, Apartment 3G, Goes Cube and Solamors own "Becoming What You Are"