Friday Heavy: April 15, 2022

Cliff: welcome to Friday heavy your guide to the world of aggressive And loud and abrasive music and music related things that are also aggressive and abrasive and loud brought to you by the folks behind TuneDig. I’m Cliff.

Kyle: And I’m Kyle, uh, for those of you just joining us for the first time, welcome just a to quickly run it down. Each episode, we cover three things. First, one brand new heavy release, and why we think it will be worth the spin. One playlist we’ve curated to explore a heavy sub genre or artists or seem. Trying to get cliff cliff, trying to get me to make as many playlists as humanly possible.

Cliff: It’s working, 

Kyle: working, it’s working, uh, and thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, one organization doing critical culture impacting work in their community. So you can do something with all that fucking energy. Remember folks punk is more than a genre. It’s a state of mind. Let’s get into it. Item number one, cliff, what new release are we talking about this week?

Cliff: This bright and beautiful world by gray Haven. That’s our featured new release this week?

gray heavy inhales from Louisville, Kentucky. the closer to the, uh, to the center of Atlanta, the closer to 

our hearts. these people are, are relatively close 

Kyle: Lou has such a killer scene and it’s so it’s so diverse. There’s so many great Kentucky bands. And I would probably have never looked up gray heaven or like looked into them that hard. But then I saw that Isaac from knock loose I guess now formerly of knocked loose was in this band early on. So immediately I was like, oh, I’m a fan of this band.

Let’s go.

Cliff: Yep. Now they rip and they caught a lot of attention back in 2018 with empty black. It had that kind of like just before the wheels fall off sensation kind of

all the way through. and that’s, that’s, that’s a real hard balance.

to strike, uh, especially when you’re kind of making that like angular post hardcore, chaotic, 

noisy stuff, and occasionally introducing melody

Kyle: it’s, a lot of time in the jam room. That’s that’s 10,000 hours. Shit. You gotta, get real tight to play that loop.

Cliff: Yup. And there were lots of references at the time, especially in reviews of that record, uh, references to like eat it right. Every time I die, the early, Norma Jean stuff early he is legend, Before each of those three bands really kind of like found their own specific column to fill out like early on

There was this overall sense between a lot of those bands of that chaotic post hardcore. I don’t know what this genre. is going to be yet Type of stuff And grey Haven manages to capture a lot of that.

You know, 20 years on 15 years on, especially. 

Kyle: it’s cool. They sound like their own thing. Like you hear not only those bands. I hear a lot of Dylan Jer in for sure. One of these new singles, they are pretty open about their influences and reference points, but it’s clear that they are maybe probably pretty close to our age. I don’t know anything about these toots as people.

Um, but certainly that they were in some of the same pits that we were in over the past 15. 

Cliff: Yep. I think that’s a fair bet. So the upcoming release this bright, and beautiful world, or the one that releases.

so again, we always get to talk about a new release. We record this. before the new release comes out. Uh, so in most cases, we just like you listening to this podcast are going to experience it for the first time, but we got some singles in all that.

past information to go on.

Right. So based on what we’ve heard so far This bright and beautiful world sounds like it’ll be pushing pretty directly into what has become a kind of like post grunge movement. Some some serious flirtation with radio rock, but in a way that, doesn’t make me very nervous, which is how we know it’s called post grunge. uh, if it’s radio rock that doesn’t make you nervous as postgraduate, if it does make you 

nervous, it’s about rock. And that is how we divide those two 

Kyle: I hate all the words. I mean, w what is a 

podcast, but just some words, like, I hate all the words stickering around it, but it’s like, all right. One of these guys was really in a, nevermind, you know, had like a formative young person’s I listened to nevermind experience, and that was the gateway drug. And then it just sort of like went punky from there.

Cliff: Yup. The, the hint that you can catch when you’re listening to a band like this is that they always basically maintain a sense of surprise. And every part of the song that really has no business being that creative, right? It’s like structurally, usually a more simplistic song, but every time they rotate into something different, or shift, it’s a little bit different. than you expect. 

And like, that’s, that’s the reason we wanted to talk about this band today, 

especially. 

Kyle: a lot of little left turns. Yeah. I agree with that 

completely. 

Cliff: so, okay. So to bring this direction. into relief, Let’s first listen to one of the singles that they’ve released. They’ve released three, let’s listen to.

The one that’s closer to the formula that they had on empty black from 2018. So this is for an anchor.

Cliff: And With that in mind, either the first single they released, which was called all candy or the latest release, they, the latest single they released ornaments from the, well, either way you kind of get a taste of the range that I think is going to end up showing up on this record.

so I went ahead and picked ornaments from the well,

Cliff: and definitely check out this entire track because the, you know, we, we’ve already joked on this

particular podcast. We’re only going to give you the first 30 seconds of stuff. Um, maybe we’ll venture into another slice of 30 seconds in the future. But 30 seconds isn’t enough for a band like this. So definitely check out that whole track because The last couple of minutes shift pretty strongly into like, oh, brother

thrice and almost kind of dead poetic territory.

You know, we’ve, we’ve talked about channeling that post hard core vibe you know, especially from the early aughts and like that’s another place where it happens.

again with kind 

of like a totally different set of bands and genres. 

Kyle: I hear a lot of, he has 

legend and 

ornaments from the well to some of the later stuff where it’s just it’s good experiment and minor key, clean tone type stuff. That doesn’t sound like all the other bands trying to do it, you know, like pulls in a little bit of bluesy, pulls in a little bit of other type hardcore stuff.

It’s a, it’s not the, I learned how to play this kind of guitar from a YouTube video type of thing. It’s like it’s pushing into its own stylistic territory invoice.

Cliff: absolutely. And just to tack on, you know, we told you on the first Friday heavy episode, that will 

Putney is everywhere and here he is 

again.

Kyle: insert Snoop dog audio. This mother don’t miss

Cliff: Yup. So we’re already making loops back to previous episodes inside of this podcast, which is barely four episodes old. So that is, this is the way. So check out this bright and beautiful world by gray Haven, which is out today on equal vision. Like we always tell you go listen to it. However you want

Cause your stream pennies don’t matter nearly as much as sending your band actual money.

by going to shows or buying merch or just literally just like cash at them. You know what I’m saying? Just like literally find out where their bank accounts are and send the money. That’s another way to do it. 

Kyle: From here, I think we go into a playlist and this one was almost too easy. because when I started poking in on a gray Haven a little, it was like, oh, well, so just basically like your iPod from 2007. A couple of the highlights on here. Bands we’ve already mentioned. He is legend every time I died, Norma Jean Dillinger, escape plan all bands that they.

Either were, or would have been on a bill with relative certainty. You also have some stuff like straight from the path on there. The bled poisoned, the well 18 visions all stuff that if you grew up around it, you know, that orbit very well. You may or may not have been at furnace Fest, seeing a number of those bands, but there’s some deeper stuff in there.

Like the Callisto boys from our hometown of Atlanta. Some up-and-comers that are dope. The threats also from Atlanta, I promise we’re not always trying to just say like secretly slot in Atlanta, but definitely an under underappreciated punk town, for sure. We snuck in because they’re a big system of a down fans and I think you will hear that.

And the tightness of the grooves we snuck in. System of a down track there in the middle a symphony and parallel track that is a wing to cliff and pretty much only cliff and then ended with some snap case there. It’s probably the longest playlist we’ve done so far coming in at 24 tracks. I wish we could’ve added Holly Springs disaster from Canada who were from the like mid two thousands.

We’re spiritually very much in this lineage, but they are not available on streaming. So go look their shit up on YouTube. But I think on here, you’re going to find really like really driving grooves, some cool breakdowns a variety of guitar work. Can’t say enough good things on this podcast or the main tuned dig podcast about the work of guitars like Adam from, he has like.

But good stuff all around. And would it be curious to know please share with us on social media, if this is the kind of thing that you’re into, we had somebody like tweet at us about the Norma Jean episode of tune dig pretty recently, uh, and how they thought that was a band that only they knew about.

And they saw Norma Jean and me without you show back. So if you’re in that very, very small and specific circle of people who saw bans like this, or did not in, are finding them now sometimes posthumously, uh, we would be very interested to talk to you about that because this field, this feels like our little corner of the world.

Cliff: That’s true. My, my favorite from this playlist is the evergreen terrorists call out because if you were playing in any band, anywhere in the world.

in the early aughts, you, you played a show with evergreen terrace. They played more shows than there were days in the 

year for like at least five years. 

Kyle: and always brought it. I, it was always you could do the roulette and any show that you went to either had evergreen terrorists fear before the March of flames, or I don’t know, throw down or something like that, but certainly those first two, I feel like I accidentally, but pleasantly, so. Before, before another band that I was there to see like dozens of times

Cliff: Yep. Number one band I saw the most 

accidentally, despite not being opposed to seeing them on 

Kyle: mine was Houma stank. Uh, so that’s pretty, it predates all of this a 

Cliff: I guess you found a reason for you to change who you used to 

be. Huh? If you were seeing who was thanked that 

Kyle: that’s right. I want saw on the same bill JZ three 11 Hoopa, stank, and any RD. It was a tour sponsored by Sprite 

20, 20, 20 years ago. This month, 

Sprite, liquid mix store, Google that one.

Cliff: that just sounds gross now. I don’t know where to go from 

Sprite liquid mix tour. That’s just really gross me out saying that 

Kyle: Let’s completely take a hard left and do something important and meaningful. Let’s talk about social justice brought to you by ginger ale. 

Cliff: Oh, my God. Ah, so today’s April 15th, which is traditionally known as tax day in America. And yet this segment does tend to lean a little bit more on America that’s because 

we’re in it. And it’s fun to talk about the problems more 

Kyle: we know it’s bad other places, but we got a lot of our 

own. 

Cliff: Yup. So today’s traditionally tax day and that day continues to exist in the zeitgeists in its current horrendous and anxiety inducing forum. Thanks. In large part to Intuit. Let’s go ahead and give them a shout out. Thanks Intuit. This episode is sponsored by Intuit, who is lobbying against you. Being able to file your taxes in a reasonable way for about 20 years now.

Thanks so much. So that keeps taxes. ’cause they like to make money off of how difficult it is for poor people to do taxes. Thanks again so much for that. You’re welcome back to sponsor our podcast anytime, but We’re not going to talk about that. actually So much as we’re going to use

the opportunity to talk about.

Something tax day related. We want to use this moment to talk about actually bear with me tax credits.

that are left literally unclaimed every year. This is money that should be in your pocket or your family’s pocket or your friend’s pocket, or your kids. Potentially. so let’s take, for example, like one of the most popular ones or one of the

biggest ones that’s, that’s not being used to its fullest and that’s.

the earned income tax credit.

So actually according to a recent article from Georgia state university so earned income tax credits are an underused tax policy This has been identified,

Effective way to help build economic stability for low income earners which is obviously an important driver.

of health outcomes, right?

Because here you need money to stay alive. Okay. So despite the proven benefits of those tax credits catch this. Okay. More than one in five eligible individuals nationally.

and in Georgia do not claim it. So more than more than 6 million eligible households are leaving approximately $2,500 on the table every year, adding up to $15 billion nationally in money that is already set aside for you and for your family and your friends. okay. We already don’t give anyone enough money. this is money that’s already being given. and we’re still not using it Because 

our government fails effectively to do the research

backed in evidence-based work of simply giving people more money. and in the absence of that, even when they do set up programs like this, the programs, are basically impossible to know.

Right. like

if you don’t have a tax advisor, who’s going to advise you about taxes and how are you going to go get a tax advisor? If you don’t have any money, Like they’re all concentric circles of real ridiculousness. And so it can be really impossible for folks to understand that these programs exist And how they can get this money and how to file for it. and how any of that process works. So the organization we want to highlight today is campaign. Campaign for working families. They’re a nonprofit organization committed to helping working families and individuals get economic empowerment by providing free tax preparation.

and resource building an asset development. Okay. So create a back in 2003, the campaign for working families works to increase the Economic viability, of low-income working households, so that they can plan for stable and secure futures. I love the way that they say this and can fully participate in civic.

and community life. Like, yeah, like That’s that’s, what’s behind

financial stability is the ability for individuals to meaningfully and fully participate in civic and community life. And so, um, campaign for working families does this by connecting people. to tax credits, to financial services, to savings options, to building resource wealth building.

resources And public benefits, including that earned income tax credit.

And so we wanted to highlight them because,

they’re helping connect people to the help that they need in filling in the gaps where,

our government really should. Currently isn’t. Um, and so you can learn more about the Philadelphia.

based nonprofit campaign for working [email protected]. So consider making a donation to their mission, or look For similar organizations,

in your community.

That’s always the meta thing. We want you to take away. Go look at an organization, doing awesome work, and then look closer to you and go find the other people who are doing work similar to this so that you can continue to build things up in your committee. And at the very least seriously. Make sure you personally are getting the money that you are owed. Help the folks around you do that as well. Like folks are here.

Okay. Folks are hurting. Inflation is rough. Things are tough right now Everyone needs all the help that they can get. So checking on yourself, checking on your friends and family. And see what you can do to not only get a little bit more for yourself, go get that bag.

But also help connect people to community services that will help them to build wealth over 

time 

and be able to participate.

Kyle: That’s how we fight the power baby. I just want to raise a glass to you really quick for being the John Oliver and a hardcore shirt said, so thanks for that. I can’t 

believe, 

Cliff: feminism. 

Kyle: I can’t believe we got from is that this is the second time. I think I’ve called you John Oliver, but it’s never not appropriate. Hi. Hello. I’m John Oliver. Let’s talk about dangerous state plan. No, that’s it. Please look out for. Your, your people and try to take care of yourselves. This has been Friday heavy rock over London, rock on Chicago, all power to the people. We’ll be back in two weeks. 

Cliff: Peace

go to tunedig.com or follow us on Instagram and Twitter for links to the new release, the playlist and the organization that we talked about today.