Friday Heavy: March 4, 2022

Cliff: Welcome to Friday heavy your guide to the world of aggressive and  abrasive and loud and weird music 

Kyle: loud noises. 

Cliff: brought to you by the folks behind tuned dig. So. 

Cliff: So we’ve got a new idea. Friday heavy is a new idea that honestly was birthed out of two main things. First of all, our unique love for heavy music.

Cliff: Cause we just absolutely can’t get away from it for whatever reason. And then noticing like the constant luge of quality, new releases and heavy music that are just impossible to keep up with. And we like to talk me and Kyle a lot about saying we’re in a kind of golden age of music. And so that means a lot.

Cliff: Digital crate digging and stuff we used to do in record stores has never been more rewarding to do digitally because there’s so much out there. So really quickly the F what we hope to do with these bi-weekly discussions is invite new folks into the heavy fold that we’re talking about. Like we want you to get into what we’re sharing and hopefully latch onto an idea to you might not have considered it before.

Cliff: Almost all of us who enjoy punk and metal and drone and doom and all that stuff started from a place where we thought that we wouldn’t like heavy music and then a thing clicked, 

Cliff: right. Someone introduced us 

Cliff: to the right thing and all of a sudden it turned things 

Kyle: For me, for me, it was you.

Kyle: So let’s, pyramid scheme that on out. 

Cliff: Yeah, that’s right. Pass the contagion baby. I’m going to get, I’m going to get people sicker. So here’s the new format. So each episode, here’s the idea we want to keep it really punchy in quick into the point. Uh, so there’s three elements of every episode. First, we’re going to hit one new release for that Friday and tell you why we think it’ll be worth a spin.

Cliff: We’ll be talking about it on the Friday that. 

Cliff: so 

Cliff: we won’t have heard the whole album either necessarily. So we’re bringing you in a little bit on why we think it’s going to be worth the spend, uh, and give you some kind of backup reasons for thinking about that artist or that album, or honestly, just kind of like, why am I be tight to spend on a Friday?

Cliff: So we’ll hit one new. Second, we’ll hit one playlist that we’ve curated for the week to explore like a heavy sub genre or an artist or a scene or an idea. And we’ve got a killer one today already. And then lastly, because we always want to point our energy about music and each other back towards helping and loving one another better.

Cliff: We’ll also hit one organization. Who’s doing a critical and culture impacting bit of work in their community. So that you can really take all of this energy. We have around heavy music in the community, that’s there and turn it into something actionable. Because 

Cliff: punk is way more than a 

Kyle: It’s a state of 

Kyle: mind, baby.

Cliff: Yup. 

Kyle: The other thing is we want to do it all in a fast paced and digestible format, right?

Kyle: One so that you can keep up with the tidal wave of new music that’s coming out. And two, we know that. There aren’t a lot of music podcasts that are short and punchy, and that was something that we aspire to do early on. Anyway, uh, we, we wanted to be sort of like NPRs news minute in the morning, like get in, get the headlines, get out, get on with your day and live your life because, uh, we would much rather you be listening to the heavy music, very loud in your car than listening to us drone on and on for your whole commute.

Kyle: For longer conversations though, check out the main tune, dig podcasts, especially a handful of what’s become sort of our heavy cannon, a deep dive episode on the pedal. Thanks for that. Cliff converges acts to fall and sleeps dope smoker, our holy Trinity forevermore. Amen. In fact, it was the response to those episodes.

Kyle: That was a large part of the inspiration behind focusing more on heavy music. Cause we both love it. And we were pleasantly surprised by the volume and passionate of the reaction that we got. So this, this mic is your mic. This stage is your stage. Uh, let’s get into it. Cliff. What release are we covering today? 

Cliff: This world is a stage sick around hell. Yeah. So we’re w legitimately stoked to have something that we’re so stoked about to line up and be the first one that we can talk about. So, so this week we’re talking about vein FMS. This world is going to ruin you. This is their second full length it’s dropping today, and it’s a really killer place to start when it comes to thinking about heavy music and why it’s interesting, uh, and where a lot of the energy is coming from, especially from.

Cliff: Just honestly, like folks 

Cliff: younger than us in the 

Kyle: Yep. We, we, it’s weird to be the old people in the scene. now, but I feel it in my knees, I felt it in my knees, all furnace Fest weekend long, 

Cliff: Oh yeah. I feel it in my lower back if I 

Cliff: haven’t gone to physical therapy recently. 

Cliff: Yeah. So 

Kyle: I’m never going to come out of 

Kyle: Pitt retirement. He says before he 

Kyle: jumps into the pit. 

Cliff: Oh man. So the band formally known as vain, uh, made their mark on me personally a few years ago with their release Arizona. And it’s, it caught my attention cause it’s mostly full of like short. Violent tracks that smashed together this like late nineties and early eighties, like metal core doesn’t really cover it.

Cliff: So we can just kind of say early two thousands, hardcore sound maybe, and then it mashed together with what I could 

Cliff: only describe 

Cliff: as new metal 

Cliff: I 

Kyle: absolutely. The, the thing that I like about it is vain and other Bain bands that are kind of doing the same thing, realize that, like you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water with new metal that’s our groove lives take the best parts of Panthera that went into the best parts of corn that went into the best parts of Slipknot.

Kyle: And like the groove you can make botch groovier was sorta, I think the thesis, and I’m glad to see bands doing that sort of stuff and not, and like rejecting genre labels, which was one of the worst parts of the alternative scene. 

Cliff: Yep. And I mean, a lot of these bands are just straight up mocking us basically, because not only do they like new metal, they 

Cliff: also like rustling and Slipknot, 

Cliff: non ironically, 

Kyle: I’m like well, where the basketball jerseys to 

Kyle: prove 

Cliff: Yup. So like bands like code orange, especially, I’ve just, I mean, have kind of been smashing expectations about what you can do.

Cliff: Right. So coming back to, to vain FM the singles that are out right now, I think give us a good idea of like why this album in particular is going to be kind of wild because there’s a few singles out and it really gives us like a spectrum of genres that they’ve contained even within this own, like this singular release.

Cliff: So first the killing womb is one of the singles they’ve released and it’s, it’s, it’s the kind of modern hardcore that we would come to expect. Uh, and this is going to be a will Putney produced 

Cliff: record. And so it, it 

Cliff: sounds pretty 

Cliff: much like you expected. 

Kyle: Yeah. Killer low end is one of the immediate things that you notice, which I think is the, the sort of new metal legacy influence.

Kyle: But the base town that will Putney gets is out of sight. I think he’s sort of fearless in that room. 

Cliff: and then and then you’ve got these other two fear and nonfiction, which starts to introduce melody in some really interesting ways. And even as a guest spot from Thursday’s Jeff Wrigley, which the whole song kind of takes me by surprise, but then you integrate this third single wavery and you’ve got to got a totally different vibe going on on the single that’s on the same track or on the same record.

Cliff: This release is probably 

Cliff: going to be a heck of a ride from 

Kyle: And wavery was really cool because

Kyle: the first minute and a half of it are basically Deftones RX queen, which is like how cool to introduce that to a whole new generation of people now that, that records almost a quarter century old. And then it goes into like a huge sort of. Thing. So they they’re unafraid to mash up genres and in ways that would have felt inappropriate.

Kyle: And like, I always feel old even just pointing that out because that doesn’t really matter. Uh, but I, I just want to go on record as saying that I appreciate. It’s not trying to.

Kyle: be one thing for One thing sake, like there they’re really trying to be fearless and it’s obvious that they are consciously trying to mash up moments that maybe wouldn’t go together or other bands wouldn’t be able to pull off.

Cliff: Yep. One of the Psalms where it sounds really stupid on paper and it’s just somehow really 

Cliff: working out. Yep. Good artists and a good producer can do that from time to time. 

Kyle: So 

Cliff: So if a if this excites you and you’re kind of into this a couple of quick notes, first of all, we’re always gonna encourage you to go through a band’s back catalog.

Cliff: It’s not super long with vein FM or vein but a couple of quick notes, you can go to the. 2017 EAP split with a band called Jif from God. Who’s also really awesome. Uh, I think I’ve only been able to find it on band camp, but it’s, it’s a pretty cool place to go back further, uh, before they got a little braver with the melody and all that stuff.

Cliff: And so it’s got 

Cliff: your real abrasion if you want it. 

Cliff: And then we’ve mentioned code orange as well, 

Cliff: man, start with 

Cliff: code 

Kyle: kids everywhere everybody’s making and growing out of names in the 

Kyle: scene 

Cliff: Yup. 

Cliff: We’re going to try this name until, 

Cliff: oh, we’re big enough to have lawyers now. Oh, 

Cliff: we’re going to need to 

Cliff: shift that. 

Kyle: now. 

Cliff: Yup. So, but co code orange will give you an idea of this arc as like a genre. If you start with 20 fourteens, I am king and just kind of work your way up through that chronologically.

Cliff: Um, you’ll, you’ll start to see some pretty interesting stuff. 

Cliff: Check out this world is going to ruin you out today via closed casket activities. Uh, we’re always going to mention this to you every week, but go listen to the music however you want, because if you want to give a band money, there are a lot better ways to give your bands 

Cliff: money than trying to 

Cliff: stream it enough to send them a buck. 

Cliff: Okay. 

Kyle: just goes to Joe Rogan and Taylor swift anyway, 

Cliff: It does at this point, and it doesn’t seem like they want to change anything about that. So if you want to send a band money, go to their shows, buy tickets, whether you can go or not go to their store, their store and buy merch from them. Or this is a wild idea. Just send them money, just send them money.

Cliff: Just literally ask them how to send them money and send them money. So that’s a great way to support bands. Hell yeah. 

Cliff: So let’s talk about our awesome 

Cliff: playlist 

Cliff: that we get to talk about this week.

Cliff: You want to take. 

Kyle: we mentioned will Putney. You know, I think one of the things that’s really exciting to us as of the kind of immediate previous generation of heavy music lovers. Is, we love the bands that sort of emerged as, I don’t want to call them the cool bands, but like the different bands, the other bands, they weren’t bands that sounded like other bands.

Kyle: They sounded like themselves. And that was the whole point. Right. But your converges, your batches, your coalesces, uh, for me, your every time I dies, the, the ones that emerged as just trying to be their singular, one of ones.

Kyle: A lot of those bands were anchored by a converge and by God city and by Kurt Ballou as a Sonic anchor.

Kyle: And I think we have a lot of that again in will Putney as sort of a spiritual descendant also from the Northeast. So, so this playlist I’ve, I’ve done. Labeled Putney zone. Uh, we put together a playlist of some of the stuff that he’s produced and the things You want to listen to here are the huge tone that he achieves basically with everything that he engineers and The clarity that he gets in separation of instruments.

Kyle: It’s not just big one.

Kyle: big mid-tone wall of sound. So there, there are three sorts of categories in this it’s 19 tracks. It’s about an hour. Um, the first thing is. Of this generation of cool other heavy music. He’s putting out most of the heaviest shit right now, period. Right? So there’s, there’s all sorts of death, metal and death core and whatever, but, uh, the stuff that doesn’t sound quite like anything else and is extremely heavy, you’re knocked loose your vein FM, your straight from the path, your gray hair.

Kyle: Pretty much everything that’s rat right now, other than a turnstile and code orange and like Jesus peace. So you have a handful of those tracks there. We started with a track from errors zone very much on purpose. Cause that was a record that blew us away and we saw vain. The first time that we ever saw vein live was, uh, with turnstile and eat it a couple of years ago.

Kyle: And it was a holy shit moment for us, which are harder to come by now that we’ve seen. Thousands of shows sorta similar would knock loose to, where the first time we experienced it live, we were just like, oh, this is a, this is a moment where witnessing a moment right now. So, so will, is, very much at the forefront of this Vanguard of a moment.

Kyle: Also whale has kind of a thing for career defining efforts from scene vets. Uh, so he’s produced the last two. Every time I die records easily, their best, certainly their best sounding. uh, we, we put a cut from radical that features Josh Kogan from Norma Jean, the chariot and the 68, uh, and unearth track.

Kyle: We saw our nurse at furnace Fest. This is probably their coolest sounding record extinctions, uh, an a Casey strain song who I’ll admit was a I didn’t like early on. And I think everything that they’re doing right now is super rad. And I think Putney has had a hand in that and then body count our man, I see a record called, is it called blood lust?

Kyle: Is that the name of the record? Yeah. And it’s got a song called no lives matter. It’s got a song with Dave Mustaine. It’s got a song with Randy Blythe from lamb of God. Uh, so like the coolest body count shit ever, period. We got a couple of tracks from Will’s own bands fit for an autopsy and end, which I would say cliff.

Kyle: And it’s probably like in your overall top 10 right now. 

Cliff: Yeah, 

Kyle: certainly, 

Cliff: These days for sure. 

Kyle: also a very rad live band, super heavy. And then there are a couple of stretch moments in there right around the middle of my ticket home and the song called Iowasca. Uh, so some of the early stuff he did before he really started like finding.

Kyle: Zeal and ardor who I don’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole Zealand order is a really, really cool, like blues metal project with some racial exploration and then Knight versus which has Eric and proto on the drums. And he’s now in the fever. And it’s sort of like an instrumental jammer in the middle, cause it can’t be all down tune refs, bludgeoning your face the whole time.

Kyle: So there’s a little bit of breadth in there. Um,

Kyle: but it’s about an hour’s worth of. For you to just kind of shock and awe at at Putney and the heavy music that he’s putting out all, all out of one studio in New York. 

Kyle: No, 

Cliff: You know, we, we talked about finding moments to hook people into heavy music in new ways. This is not the way I listen to music, but I know a lot of people love a good, like heavy, aggressive track for being active or working out or whatever. This is probably a good one for that those little stretch moments can come in when you probably need to take a little break before your next round.

Cliff: Anyway, but this is, I mean, if you’re a person who loves a good, heavy rhythm while you were. This might be a good place for you to figure out what, what catches your brain, 

Cliff: uh, while you’re doing some physical stuff. 

Cliff: Cause like this stuff is really 

Kyle: if you’re trying to hit a new PR with lifting or you’re biking in an area with a lot of Hills, this is a good playlist for digging deep and getting to that place. It, uh, Yeah.

Kyle: it’ll pull it out of you. It’s very animalistic.

Cliff: Yeah. send us your 

Cliff: CrossFit stories though. Thanks very much. 

Kyle: We will block 

Kyle: you. We love you, and we are proud of your fitness journey and your self care, but we will block you. 

Cliff: We will recommend you see a physical therapist immediately, and then we will block you, but we love that you’re keeping up with your body. That’s that’s great, bro, SIS and, uh, whoever else so awesome for real, that playlists, uh, fucking rules already. Uh, so let’s get this last bit, this thing we want to talk about where each week we give you.

Cliff: To think about an organization doing something real that you can be involved in. And, uh, at the, in an attempt to not over editorialize too much, we always want to give you a little bit of context for why we picked a particular organization. Right now in reality, things are, are super terrible in general, 

Cliff: which is probably an intro for any section on any 

Cliff: podcasts.

Kyle: need heavy music. 

Cliff: That’s right. So, but one thing we want to focus on is there’s a lot of noise going on in public school systems. And Kyle is a new parent. I am a child-free, we’re both really happy in that. And we both care though. About public school systems and the quality of the education that people get, because that really really matters.

Cliff: And right now there’s a lot of noise going on around public school from people who really like to hear themselves say the word Liberty really loud on Facebook and what what’s happening, thanks to especially astroturfing organizations and all that is quite literally, spreadsheets are being passed around to go get books out of libraries because.

Cliff: And threatened the sensibilities of certain people. And that’s in a situation where you already usually have a lot of say in what goes into books in your school library. Like it’s a panic over, not a lot of stuff, but the downstream effect of all of this bullshit. Uh, an empty politicking is, is literally a dumber body of knowledge for kids.

Cliff: And for other people who are using that library to learn stuff like w we ought not be taking knowledge away from people. We ought to be teaching people how to use it and how to understand it when they get it. Because the fact that you read a thing doesn’t mean 

Cliff: you 

Cliff: believe it. And I’m not, I’m 

Kyle: we got 

Kyle: really confused by that.

Kyle: We’re trying to, if you’re listening to this podcast, we’re trying to tap into your punk rock guilt a little, like there should not be this level of censorship anywhere in society. So,

Kyle: For the fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me, crowd. This is somebody trying to tell you. 

Cliff: Yup. So on top of paying attention to that, what we want to do is give a little 

Cliff: context for what we focusing on with an organization this week, because there are other sets of people in our society who have access to knowledge. That’s limited by other people who have really shitty intentions and that other set of people are incarcerated individuals.

Cliff: Okay. So we just want to highlight. Quickly books to prisoners. It’s a Seattle based nonprofit organization and their mission is to foster a love of reading while behind bars and encourage a pursuit of knowledge and self-empowerment and break the cycle of recidivism. Uh, and they were founded in the early second.

Cliff: They’re sponsored by left bank books. And it’s one of the largest and oldest prison book projects in the country. It’s really awesome. Okay. And hopefully you can see how these ideas tie together. People deserve access to knowledge and information. It doesn’t mean that you become the thing that you read.

Cliff: You don’t have to be afraid of knowledge. Okay, go ask Wong in Dr. Strange. He says no knowledge is forbid and only certain practices. So maybe take a note from him. I don’t know. So learn more about books to prisoners at books, to prisoners.net and consider making a monetary donation because that’s always the best way to support an effective organization is just to give them money.

Cliff: But there’s also a way to donate your actual books if you want. So be respectful and check out their rules and all that stuff before sending them anything and just figure out how to get them. And help them because ultimately again, we feel access to information and culture and new perspectives is really critical.

Cliff: And it’s a part of your right as a 

Cliff: conscious human being, even 

Kyle: tow of punk. Number one, all knowledge should be open 

Kyle: and free. 

Cliff: That’s right. So fuck censorship, go give some money to books, to prisoners. So that’s 

Cliff: awesome. So thanks for 

Cliff: joining us this week, Kyle, anything, 

Cliff: before we

Kyle: No, thanks for tuning in. I’m excited about this. I hope y’all are excited about it. And, uh, looking forward to keeping this train going.

Kyle: So we’ll see you in a couple of weeks. 

Cliff: Hell. Yeah, this has been Friday heavy. We’ll see you soon.

Cliff: Go to tune digg.com or follow us on Instagram and Twitter for links to the new release, the playlist and the organization that we talked about today.