Friday Heavy: April 29, 2022

Cliff: Welcome to Friday heavy your guide to the world of aggressive and abrasive and loud music brought to you by the folks behind TuneDig. I am Cliff.

Kyle: and I’m Kyle, for those of you joining us for the first time, each episode we covered. Three things. First, one brand new release in the world of all things heavy and where we’re at and why we think it’ll be worth the spend. Second one playlist we’ve curated to explore a heavy sub genre or artists or scene rocking the jukebox and third, and perhaps most importantly, one organization doing critical cultural impacting work in their community. So you can do something with all that energy. Let’s get into it. Item number one, cliff.

Cliff: So don’t rock the juke box. Thank you,

Kyle.

Kyle: Play immediate metal sound. Alan Jackson is from right near us. That’s not why we’re here

today. Tell us about the

new

release

Cliff: Yeah. So let’s talk about something that’s not Alan Jackson related. Unless someone can connect those dots. That’ll

Kyle: thread is Harriet from way down, yonder on the Chattahoochee

Cliff: Way down, yonder on the United Kingdom. I don’t want to keep doing this. Yeah. So, uh, we’re talking about Harriet this week, H E R I O T a UK based hardcore band that is, it’s getting a lot of attention. Their latest EAP called profound morality is dropping. It’s about to be 20 ish minutes of. I don’t know how to describe this other than urgency at a level that becomes kind of head swimming.

Because once again, we want to direct your attention, especially in this podcast towards a new generation of hardcore bands, like re infusing nineties genres, um, like industrial and. Because frankly it is producing arguably better music than, uh, it’s muse in the original nineties there. So for instance, uh, when we’re talking about Harriet Julia engaged, the drummer was amongst among the.

First members to develop a taste for heavy music, quote, picking up his first Slipknot CD at age 10. And he says it wasn’t just the face. um, so we’re, we’re drawing that out of an article because we wanna remind you that when we make jokes about a new generation of hardcore kids who got into Slipknot and wrestling, we w that’s literally true.

That’s literally what we’re talking about. It’s really interesting.

Kyle: A cousin at my family reunion one year gave me a burn copy of the Slipknot self-titled. And I sat there with my disc man under the trees in rural Georgia, listening to sick. And my eyes widening as people were getting potato salad and Mac and cheese. And I was never the same after that day. And mine wasn’t just a phase either.

So I feel you, Julian.

Cliff: slip down as the silent backdrop of the family reunion. That’s probably a pretty universal experience.

Kyle: equal shit, even fear related to me.

Cliff: But pair this kind of mild fascination we have with this kind of new sub-genre, but pair that with another quote from the guitarists Debbie gal, uh, she said in her old band quote, we had, we always had chariot and diligent escape plan in our

Kyle: Hell yeah. Automatic. I will listen to whatever this is. Let’s go.

Cliff: exactly. Mathematically, this is the correct thing for us to be talking about this

week, for sure. so kind of as if it were some kind of like reality riddle there’s a new release that leans into the better nature of nine inch nails and Deftones, but since the guitar through an M, so like, it’s just, it’s really impossible not to talk about

Kyle: What did I text you? Cause I’d never heard of this man. I was like, is this him to

gays?

Cliff: Yeah. It basically like if the answer we’ll get you to listen to it more than the answer is yes. even one single here from the band is a pretty good example. We’ll usually throw two or three at you to kind of give you the breadth of what’s happening on the record that we expect. But actually instead of playing multiples this time around, we can just.

Two parts, basically the first 30 seconds and the second 30 seconds of one of the singles coalescence. So the first 30 seconds is going to give you the kind of energy, tone and aggression that shows up across these tracks.

 

Cliff: But then. Seconds later after that clip ins, it drops into this second bit that we’ll play and we’re doing this sort of like wide open sludge industrial thing. I like to point this out before it kind of gets played because this is really easy to hear as an interlude or just an instrumental break.

And it can seem like really on thoughtful. It’s really, really hard to do a musical interlude like this, especially this early in a song when it’s supposed to have this level of like energy. And so the production, it has to be great. and so here’s a really good example of what that actually sounds like when someone can use a quieter interlude to tune into the mood and keep things active and it eventually starts to feel a little bit spatial.

So check this out.

 

Kyle: And that was one of the first things that caught my ear was like, this sounds great. It’s so well-made, Uh, And so I’m excited to hear the whole thing

and full, I, it also reminded me, you know, we’re, we’re already sort of getting self-referential with this podcast in a much shorter time than,

we did with tune dig, uh, because it reminded me of vein FM spiritually a little bit. And the genre mashing atmospheric, very deliberate attempt at like, kind of world-building sound, uh, We covered vein FM in the first Friday, heavy that record. Absolutely ribs. So as you’re thinking about like next generation, new metal, industrial grunge, all of that stuff, Harriet as another great example. Check out the van FM episode for more on that phenomenon.

and then come back around to Harriet and enjoy both of those records together.

And Hopefully maybe at some point we would see vain and Harriet on a tour, together. That would be sick.

Um, so check out the record again. It’s called profound morality. Uh, out today on church road records, go give a listen, however you want. And then if you dig it to any degree said, inherit your money. By going to a show by Coppin merge or just a straight up DMM on IgE and be like, what’s your Venmo.

And send them money directly, get money in their pocket. Keep these bands in the studio and on the road, um, because great things are happening in the scene. And we, we Harriet as a band that we want to see a lot more from in the future.

Cliff: Hell. Yeah. And one, actually one little punch note towards that bit about just giving bands your money. I saw a tweet earlier today and I’m going to paraphrase it, but it’ll get the point across. It was just like, look, remember rent is hurting artists right

now. Okay. A lot of the people who are in bands that you love need rent money, send them money,

Kyle: And, and our practice space

money.

Cliff: Yeah, that’s you right on. So, all right. Uh, Kyle, you built another killer playlist, uh, in, I’m usually stoked about these, but th this one’s a whole ass mood. So what, what are we going to do this week?

Kyle: Uh, I just call it a void and the thesis is, it’s not sad. GFE it’s mad goth, or, or, or hell prom. I don’t know. Take your pick. So what was really interesting? I listened to the title track from Harriet before I listened to coalescence and heard some nine inch nails. Hurts them Deftones. I think we’re, we’re probably going to.

name, check the Deftones and like every episode of these ever the, the ultimate in heavy bands band for genre, busing, um, I heard other industrial, but mostly just the huge, chunky, crunchy guitar tone that they had dialed in.

Um, so I just picked a bunch of bands. This is probably the like most random me feeling on its face. Like not a lot of these artists are in the related artists for each other, Which is normally the case with these playlists. Um, these are all bands. Almost maddeningly Unclassifiable

but I think unequivocally pretty much we love them all.

So you’re going to get a lot of mid-tempo on this, a lot of huge guitar, town, big atmosphere, and lots of, uh, what feels like the Photoshop layer effect of like a grit brush for your ears. Like a lot of really kind of grudge. I put it in the notes. It’s like the black paint around Batman’s eyes. This, this playlist is vengeance.

Um, But I feel kind of validated because

it’s not far off from, they have a playlist on their Spotify profile called heavy cleanse that they curated. And there are a lot of similar artists. So this is just kind of our version of heavy cleanse. It’s a very good. Uh, now that the weather’s getting a little warmer, roll your windows down and play it absolutely loud as shit while you’re driving around.

And just kind of let, let the tone explode out of your speakers. A lot of bands that you really like,

on this one, like a conjurer made it under the sun. One of the better live heavy bands we’ve seen in a long time. Um, cultive Luna. We got an old man gloom song on this

one.

Cliff: Dude, I’m obsessed with the run from track nine through 14 behemoth, author and Punisher Roslyn cuff thou conjurer Calloun wall, city. That’s yeah. Yep.

Kyle: It’s sick. Oh,

and right before the behemoth song, you just saw behemoth and, and said that they were great. And I am, I hate that. I missed that bright before that.

is an employed to serve song and employ an early employee to serve song with just like a monster riff. You talk a lot about rifts that are so heavy. it sounds like the guitars detuning in real time. And That’s like that’s a Peaky example there. So I would go from eight to 14.

cause. Employed to serve song is probably one of my favorite on the thing, moving right along third. And most importantly, every week we talk about an organization doing meaningful work in their committee. And our hope. And we do that is to make you aware of an underlying societal situation and then show you that the people around you are often the most powerful partners in making that change happen. Uh, I really love that we do this and it means a lot to me that we do um, Typically our focus is on organizations that?

take direct action toward a solution and the spirit of punk rock.

So like monetary or legal assistance. Um, but as you and I know cliff, there is an unescapable dimension of messaging and marketing and everything, but it’s, you gotta make a tree fall in the forest where people can hear it. Uh, especially under capitalism where they’re clear cutting set forest, how the public thinks and feels does shape our society and lots of invisible ways.

So today we wanted to focus on someone doing work directly addressing the perception of homelessness, which was really

interesting.

Cliff: Yeah, I I’ve actually gotten to talk about invisible people who we’ll talk about today, uh, for a number of times over the years, because they’ve always been a really interesting organization. Who’s been very dedicated to a singular idea and just gets better and better and better. Um, but actually what tipped me off to this and just cause I, I liked throwing out this reference.

So I was watching the show woke, uh, recently because it has Blake Anderson and Lamar and Morris from new girl in it. I mean, that’s pretty much All I

Kyle: Comedy gold baby.

Cliff: and so, and it’s, it’s a cool show. I mean, it’s funny as expected, right. And, uh, it’s well done, but part of the story, and this is what reminded me of invisible people, part of the story of woke, especially the second season was how we can devalue and trivialize homeless.

Even in our earnest attempts to fix it. Um, and they make the really fine point in that show that we have to be really thoughtful and interrogate our own assumptions, even about the people that we think we’re helping while we’re helping them. Uh, because our tendency is actually to try to dehumanize people because.

Really want to be faced with our responsibility of how this situation came about to begin with. So our tendency pretty naturally is to dehumanize people before helping them, because we imagine that that helps us to help them better. Um, and, and that’s not always the case. So, but so this reminded me of invisible people, a long running nonprofit whose explicit purpose is to change the narrative around homelessness by telling you a meaningful story.

In fact, a lot of stories over and over and over again, uh, and telling a good story is really powerful when done well. And they do it really well. Um, so they’ve been around since, uh, 2008, primarily using video. Like, uh, if you’ll recall the USB. Camera little phenomenon. So about that timeframe is when this started picking up, um, and really pushing into a YouTube channel, which now has over a million subscribers.

Uh, and he, so invisible people has been sharing more or less. Um, authentic interviews, uh, with, and the stories of people who are experiencing homelessness. Uh, and so one of the reasons that this is even possible for it to even come across as authentic and meaningful, uh, mark Horvath, who is the founder of invisible people.

So he experienced homelessness himself. Uh, he’s got his own story to tell, and that’s not super critical here, but the point is he builds community with. Experiencing homelessness. He’s like there normally he’s not just there to extract content from them because they’re interesting to talk about. And I think that that’s a really, really important thing to note, uh, as to why it’s worth really checking out invisible people and their work, because you can’t just take a giant corporation and send three people downtown with like a big camera crew to go get the equivalent of this.

This, these are interviews and stories and conversations with people who are in a far more trusting environment and are willing, you know, openly consenting to having their stories told. And on top of it, this has been going on for so long that you’re able to see some stories of people moving in and out of homelessness, right?

People getting homes, people, getting jobs, um, in people experiencing that in the real and human way that we know that they do. Okay. It is easy to forget about because it’s really intense. Um, and so invisible people’s about page actually starts with the quote. There is a direct correlation between. What the general public perceives about homelessness and how it affects policy change.

And so that’s why this work is worth noticing because you won’t make it far into watching any of these videos without realizing that homelessness is like a few simple misfortunes away for basically everybody. Okay. Catastrophic medical incidents, like singular ones can demolish generations of wealth here.

Okay. And I know people are probably like, yeah, yeah. Like nodding along, we understand the system is broken, but like, it’s really important to remember all the ways that that affects everyone around you and you. And so not only are you closer to experiencing that than maybe you’ve realized, but many, many more people than you.

Then you realize that you do know have spent days and weeks in their car and I’ve had to do so with children and people that they love and that they care for. And a lot of times, because it’s not easy to talk about it, you may not have ever heard anything. So it’s important to bring yourself back around.

And that’s why the messaging of invisible people is really powerful and important because it will help you remember how you’re connected to all these people.

Kyle: I really appreciate you bringing this organization to my attention. I’m moved by the work that they do after spending a little bit of time with it. And by that same token, I would encourage anyone listening to do the same thing. And go go spend some time with our work at a miserable people that TV, uh, you click get involved and it offers you a simple indirect Path.

for making change happen in your community.

Um, but you know, whether or not you ultimately get involved, we hope that you’ll spread the word and, and we definitely hope it makes you see those experiencing homelessness in a different light, perhaps most importantly of all, and begin to notice how deeply, deeply troubling it is that we allow people to live like. When we literally have more than enough, way more than enough in our society to go around and meet basic needs. Uh, all of these people are human beings worthy of dignity and respect. And, uh, we hope that this will be a light in your eye and that you will share that light with others. So with that cliff, anything else before we

depart?

Cliff: Nah, just be nice to the next person who asks you for money. You don’t have to give them money if that’s not right for you, but be nice to them and then get out of there.

Anyway. That’s That’s my pro tip. Yeah, be cool, dude. Be excellent to hear.

Kyle: A party on dudes.

Cliff: Yeah, this has been Friday heavy. We’ll be back in two weeks,

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.