EARTH'S NEW ALBUM STREAMING!!!

Hey guys, just thought you all be interested in checking out EARTH'S NEW ALBUM!!! I'VE BEEN WAITING TWO (ALMOST THREE) YEARS FOR THIS RECORD!!! NPR has the entire record streaming right now, so go check it out at this link!!!

SUPPORT BANDS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2011 METALLIANCE TOUR

Ok, so this is a tour we've been really excited about, and it just got twice as epic. Helmet, Saint Vitus, Crowbar, and now Kylesa has been announced as an opener. This is looking to be a concert that I will be talking about for years!!! Here's the press release!

The 2011 Metalliance Tour has just announced the complete line up for their already impressive and highly anticipated tour. The run of dates are now complete and will be supported by metal heavyweights KYLESA, RED FANG, HOWL and ATLAS MOTH. The tour organizers had the honor of having Brian Mercer also provide all of the visuals and artwork for The Metalliance Tour. He is best known for creating artwork for such bands as EYEHATEGOD, ZOROASTER, BLACK TUSK, LAMB of GOD and countless others. (www.mercerrock.com)

Dates have officially been announced. The tour sponsored by Revolver Magazine, Loudtrax.com, Brooklyn Vegan, Mosh Potatoes Cookbook and Giddy Up! Sauces is proud to announce HELMET, SAINT VITUS and CROWBAR for its inaugural line up. "We are glad to be part of this tour; I think it's a great bill. The bands I have heard so far each have a strong musical identity as opposed to so much of the generic, lowest common denominator music out there,” says HELMET front man Page Hamilton.

03/17/11 Dallas, TX @ Southside Music Hall
03/18/11 Austin, TX @ Dirty Dog / SXSW
03/19/11 New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks
03/20/11 St Petersburg, FL @ State Theater
03/21/11 Orlando, FL @ Firestone Live
03/22/11 Greensboro, NC @ Greene Street
03/23/11 Springfield, VA @ Jaxx
03/24/11 Worcester, MA @ Palladium
03/25/11 New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
03/26/11 Cleveland, OH @ Peabody's
03/27/11 Joliet, IL @ Mojoe's
03/29/11 Denver, CO @ The Summit
03/31/11 Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
04/01/11 Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
04/03/11 San Francisco, CA @ Mezzanine
04/05/11 Hollywood, CA @ House Of Blues

$50 VIP tickets will be available courtesy of Artist Arena. This very special package will include:

- A General Admission Ticket
- Access to a Meet & Greet with Metalliance lineup
- A Metalliance hot sauce bottle
- A Commemorative VIP Show Laminate
- An Autographed poster
- 1 Issue of Revolver Magazine

One grand prize winner will be randomly selected for a Dinner With The Bands, an autographed Mosh Potatoes Cookbook and one T-shirt from each of the bands.

One second-place winner will randomly be selected for a one-on-one guitar lesson with Kirk Windstein from Crowbar and an autographed Mosh Potatoes Cookbook.

VIP tickets are on sale NOW. Click here for more information on this once in a lifetime experience! http://bit.ly/gLC2to

Legendary alternative metal band HELMET will perform their 1992 platinum-selling release of Meantime in its entirety. The Interscope Records release gave the band mainstream attention with songs like “Unsung” and “In The Meantime”. With the band's renewed success after getting back together in 2004, this tour will be one of the most anticipated of 2011.

One of the most highly influential Doom Metal bands in America, SAINT VITUS are regarded as one of the first bands of the genre starting out as early as the 1970’s. The band featuring Scott “Wino” Weinrich, bassist Mark Adams, guitarist Dave Chandler and drummer Henry Vasquez have influenced so many bands in Doom and Metal . "Saint Vitus is more than ready to infect The Metalliance Tour! We've been wanting to do something like this for some time now...so prepare for destruction!!" says lead guitarist Dave Chandler. The band has done a handful of shows and some European Festivals but this will be their first full US tour in over a decade.

CROWBAR front man Kirk Windstein concludes, “Wow! This tour is gonna rule! I've loved Helmet since the beginning and loved St. Vitus even longer. With the new Crowbar record having hit the streets by then, look out! This bill will bring just what we need to crush each city with an avalanche of stylistic thunder!”

Metalliance Website Site: www.metalliancetour.com


SUPPORT YOUR METAL!!! GO SEE THIS SHOW!

Our favorite albums of the week!!!

Just a short top five of the albums we're listening to this week, post what you've been listening to, this site is for sharing knowledge about every band you know!

1. Mastodon "Crack The Skye"

2. Black Sabbath "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"

3. Electric Wizard "Black Masses"

4. Saint Vitus "Born Too Late"

5. Godflesh "Streetcleaner"

So, that's just a short list for this week, like I said, post any good bands you know about! We have a constant need for new music and I hope that all of you can help us find more great bands, as hopefully we help you. DOOM!!!

Interview: Conrad Sundholm of Sunn O)) amplification

For those of you who are guitar players, and into underground metal or just into vintage amplifiers, you have probably heard of Sunn amplifiers. I was given the opportunity to interview the man who started the company, Conrad Sundholm. This man is an awesome person who is still, at 72, pushing himself to make new amplifiers. So here's my complete interview with the man himself.

Scott: What made you decide to start building your amplifiers?

Conrad Sundholm: Well I’d always been a hi-fi buff in building my own equipment, you know, for my home use. And then when my brother was a bass player for the Kingsmen, at the time he was working at a music store in Portland, Oregon, and he was using old Bogen 60-watt tube p.a. amplifiers for his bass. And then he brought a, let’s see, a 2x15 cabinet to me and we modified the cabinet so he could get more low end out of it. And that’s kind of what started it. And then, I told him that I would build him a cabinet for him. And he wired up an old dynaco 60 watt mark 3 power amp and we used a dynaco preamp with it, threw it in a box, and I built the cabinet which was a rear loaded folded horn which later became the 200s cabinet. This particular one had extra bracing in it, and it sounded great. And then he got involved with the Kingsmen, and took that system out on the road and you know it was outperforming anything else that was out there so people were asking about it, and he told them to go to their local dealers to ask them to carry the product. I was back at home, building this stuff and he was out there kinda promoting it out on the road playing for the Kingsmen.

SW: Wow, that sounds like it worked out perfectly. Did you have any formal training in electronics or was it just messing around when you were younger?

CS: No I had no formal training, but as the company grew I hired people who had very good electronics backgrounds.

SW: What was the creative process like for creating you amplifiers, like the model T and Solara. Were there any epiphany moments, where you decided that that would be a good sound?

CS: Well, the big epiphany moment for me was the 200S cabinet, I had kind of a…I don’t know…a guidance coming out of sleep, in terms of a design for that. And the next day I got up and built the design which turned out to be the 200S, which norm used on the road, which proved to be a very good bass cabinet. The other stuff like the Model T and the Solarus, was just a matter of me providing inputs from the marketplace and the kind of performance that was needed, and then sitting down with the engineers and discussing it and having them design the product and then doing the sound testing and field testing of the product that was involved with that.

SW: Are you aware of how many bands still use the Model T, and still tout it as being one of the best amplifiers?

CS: Um…yes I, see that model T was developed just as I was leaving the company, so I was not too aware of everybody that used them but I know there were a lot of big groups, a lot of regional groups, which were big back in that day, though it’s not happening today. I know West of Mountain and other big name groups were using that stuff.

SW: Well actually, as of right now you have a band that’s named after your company.

CS: Right, I think they’re a death metal band or something like that.

SW: It’s actually kind of a drone thing, they originally didn’t even use a drummer, and they just use your amplifiers. I always thought that was really interesting because the sound was thick enough that they don’t need other instruments.

CS: Well, on the early units we used really high quality output transformers that could go down to even 10 Hz [sw note: that’s an octave lower than the average human’s hearing…that’s bass folks] and they were very very linear. We used a method of connecting the screens to a screen tap on the output transformer, which is called an ultra-linear output and they were very very clean and deep in their response.

SW: It could get to 10 Hz?

CS: I had a 2000s on my bench a couple of months ago and I measured it and it could go down to 10 Hz.

SW: Wow…that’s low.

CS: You know, a bass guitar, the fundamental low frequency is around 42 Hz, but, you know,  if you can go down one octave below the fundamental frequency of the bass guitar then you have a really good performing amplifier. The only question is how you get a speaker cabinet that will go down there.

SW: So in the 90’s Fender bought out your company?

CS: Yes, I sold the company to Hartsel Industries out of Minneapolis, Saint Paul. They wanted to diversify into electronics and then they operated the company for a number of years and then they eventually sold it to fender, and fender operated a factory here in Lake Oswego Oregon, which is a suburb of Portland. And they did a lot of their builds here; in fact I think they might have built some of the Fender product here in that location, I’m not sure about that.

SW: How did you feel about the buyout? Was it ok with you to have that name be used by Fender?

CS: Well, I have no control over that ha-ha. You know, we worked hard at building a quality reputation and a product that would really withstand the rigors of road travel and I’m not so sure that was maintained by Fender. But you know, by that point I’m really totally out of it, emotionally, psychologically, and physically. And I really didn’t pursue what they were doing.

SW: Have you ever considered re-acquiring the title of Sunn, since they have seemingly stopped all production.

CS: You know, I haven’t. You know for me in my life, too many schematics too little time, you know what I mean? I’m 72 years old now, I’m just happy to be doing what I’m doing now, building the amps that I’m building. I have given some thought to building a clone of the Model T; I would probably call it a Model C.

SW: That would be amazing. I know for my friends and I, we’ve always wanted to find a good first generation Model T, even a second generation but really we have tried to ignore the post-fender model T’s. But they’re in such short supply that we can’t even find them.

CS: Well, I’ve given some thought to that and maybe as a result of our conversation here I’ll dig in and get it done. Yeah…the second generation Model T had some weird midrange switch in there using an inductor, it was kinda funky, I’ll have to study the schematic on that a little bit. Yeah, the first generation is the best unit. The key will be to find a good output transformer, duplicate what they had back then, and that transformer company is no longer in business.

SW: So you would have to find another company that makes an equal power transformer?

CS: Right, I’d have to find someone to build that transformer.

SW: What is the difference in design and performance of your newer amplifiers with your current company [Conrad Amps] than the amplifiers built with the Sunn Corporation?

CS: Well, I tell you what, we were best known in the era that I was involved in, for our bass amps and we always struggled coming up with a really good guitar amp; probably the first one was the model T. Although, there were others, the Solarus and so forth, but they really weren’t quite there. Because we were so clean oriented, you know what I mean? Linear oriented, we didn’t do anything that was high gain or designed to create distortion. And most of the musician input that we were receiving was more in the jazz orientation and cleaner tones. So anyways, here in the last few years, I’ve had a desire to build a good guitar amp, to see if I could really do that and so that’s kind of what motivated me to build the amps that I’m building now.

SW:  Do you mostly focus on getting a clean warm sound out of your newer amps instead of a high gain sound?

CS:  Well that’s the direction I’ve been going, and you know, that’s kind of where the model T is as well. The model T is not a high gain amp, you just really have to drive the snot out of that thing to get it to break up. I’ve had an interest here recently of doing some higher gain stuff.

SW: Was it your idea to go into mixers and P.A. systems?

CS:  Well, the initial push was bass amplifiers, but when Dick McCloud was hired in the engineering department he kind of took us in that direction with the solid state circuitry and stuff, so that led to those products. Later on I started another company called Bi-amp systems, and we were really big into mixing consoles, equalizers, power amps and stuff for the semi-pro audio market.

SW: Did your brother, Norm, ever help with the design of any models?

CS: Only from the standpoint of marketing input, you know he wasn’t a technically oriented person, he was a musician. He was involved in evaluating cones, and sound testing products.

SW: Well I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk with me.

CS: Sure, No problem. 

www.conradamps.com

Check out these amplifiers! Let's all pray for the coming of a possible Model C!!!

Doom remains relevant...

So, in this age of digital downloading, not going to shows, and buying every band shirt at hot topic, it comes as no surprise that a form of music which prefers vinyl, as their medium for which to destroy eardrums, is still somewhat popular. On alot of Southern Lord releases (home to Sunn o))), Pelican, Boris, etc.) you will find the quote "maximum volume yields maximum results". These are not albums for your quaint little ipod headphones. These albums make even the largest of sound systems a bit nervous. The amazing thing about these recordings, is that the louder they get, the better they sound. There is nothing like a Sunn Model T being pushed to it's limits, it will destroy you and everyone in a thirty mile radius. The reason all of this is coming up is because we are sick of seeing bands with solid state amplifiers, choreographed moves, and hair that took longer to get right then their songs. I want my bands having loud tube amplifiers, possibly not even moving onstage, and hair that doesn't look washed. The uglier the people, the heavier the music.

So, to finish, next week we will have an interview with a man that you can thank for records ranging from saint vitus to sunn. We will have an interview with Conrad Sundholm, the man who created the Sunn 0))) amplification company. I am excited beyond words because I never have found interviews with the amp makers that create these amps that are practically worshipped by musicians and fans.

Thanks for reading.

Five Bands You Must Check Out (for Your Sake and Theirs)

1. Bongripper
      "These dudes constantly create something crushing and then lull you into a false sense of calm right before
        crushing your skull again. The super low tuned guitars are an obvious reason, as well as the heavy as hell
        bass sound, but what will really get under your skin is the unbelievable groove. Buy their albums, all of
        them, now. Besides, how can you not afford to have an album called "Satan Worshiping Doom" in your
        collection?"
2. Kongh
      "Swedish metal trio's fucking rule, Kongh is no exception. Destructive guitar riffs, mind blowing calm
        interludes, and awesome vocals make this band something you, as a metal fan, cannot ignore. I only wish
        these dudes had more of an opportunity to tour the U.S. Go listen to "Voice of the Below" and tell me this band doesn't have an epic album in their future."
3. Isole
      "More Swedes, and more epic music. Not as crusty as most recent doom has been, Isole take the route of creating mind altering melodies while having some of the best guitar riffs I've heard in a long, long time. They also can satisfy anyone's taste for awesome shred guitar, without a sense of pomposity or showing off. I
       recommend you listen to their song "Dark Clouds" and immediately buy some robes and candles."
4. Ahab
      "From Germany, comes the heaviest band I have ever, in my life, heard. Ahab may be the first band to be
       completely deserving of the title of their genre, Nautic Funeral Doom. In other words, expect epic songs
       about Moby Dick. Now I know some people are going to get all upset and be like "well that's not cool
       Mastodon did it first." That may be true, but Mastodon didn't take the same road, while their album was
       fast, sludgy, and heavy, the albums Ahab produce are funeral dirges played at coma speeds. This is not
       for your average grindcore fan. These albums will give you the sensation of drowning in the loneliest part
       of the ocean. I defy you to find a heavier band."
5. Blood Ceremony
     "This band is the epitome of old school doom...with flutes. It's like if jethro tull didn't suck and actually
       played badass doom. These records sound like they're from the seventies in tone and quality. There isn't
       much more to say, they're fucking awesome."


So, I guess the point of all of this is that these five bands, among a large group of many others, deserve your attention. So check them out, if you know any others that we should be checking out, give us a list! We'll keep looking and post as much as we can about new bands and the guys mentioned above as we find them.

Welcome to the black mass

Hello fellow occult-loving, riff-worshiping, doomheads.  We have created this blog with the full intention of bringing you what no other website or magazine, that we have found, has been able to. A full coverage of Doom, Stoner, and all around slow, heavy as gods, metal.  With such a lack of tour information, interviews, album reviews, and all around good shit in this genre, we have decided to try to please your appetites for doom. We truly love this music and we hope to bring you everything you would ever want to know about all of the awesome bands, current or not. Let the black mass begin.

Albums We're currently burning candles to:
Bongzilla - Hate Ashbury
Electric Wizard - Black Masses