Friday Heavy: May 13, 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 don’t clench your teeth like that. Cliff,

Cliff: My dentist told me the same thing.

Kyle: Each episode we cover for those of you who are joining us for the first time. Welcome for those of you who are joining us for the not first time. Welcome back each episode, we cover three things, one brand new release, and why we think it will be worth a spin.

One playlist we’ve curated to explore a heavy sub genre or artist or scene, et cetera. And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all one organization doing critical cultural impacting work in their community so that you can do something with all that punk rock, energy and guilt. Let’s get into it.

Cliff. It’s a very good week to need heavy music. And this might be the heaviest one so far in terms of new releases, what are we talking?

Cliff: We’re going really hard on all fronts for the next like 18 minutes. So buckle up. This week, we’re going to talk about primitive, man. We are fixing our eyes on the latest release from this band who we’ve seen a number of times. Kyle really pulled me into their orbit. Primitive man describes themselves as planet earth first and only death sludge band.

So, we’re on the right track there. New LP is called insurmountable out today on closed casket activities. Now we have gotten to cover some really great punk and hardcore on this podcast already. But primitive man is already going to kind of say that. From what we’ve discussed for sure. Now, especially to the train does not the right word, but trained ear for heavy music.

Okay. Primitive man is a really good example of why we chose the word heavy to try to talk about this range of music that we’re talking about anyway, because yes, they are planet Earth’s first and only death sludge band. But like, you can even hear. 30 seconds of what we’ll play. It’s also noise and it’s drone and it’s, I would go so far as to call it like a new form of doom, um,

because they’ve, they’ve really captured the zeitgeists of that sub genre itself. And it’s scary in a way that black Sabbath must have been

scary when you first heard black

Sabbath.

Kyle: I would prefer instead of genre words that we use words like scary or slow or tall or dark or molasses, or kill you in your sleep. I don’t. I, if you’re like me, those genre labels probably mean nothing to you and are like the difference between colors of white paint in home Depot, swatches. So just bear with us for 60 more seconds and get to the audio snippet and you’ll understand what we mean.

Cliff: The first

year.

Kyle: this is why cliff. You normally get more literal disruptors from cliff and you get stuff like a hunter S Thompson, trying to write about the sound of a bag full of marbles, going down a staircase in his hotel room.

Cliff: listening to primitive man is like trying to hold up an Advil with your eyelashes.

How’s that?

Kyle: And if you don’t, someone will kill you.

Cliff: So they’ve released a single 11 minute single called cage intimacy. so, like I said, honestly, the first 30 seconds of this are not only going to touch on the reason that genre is don’t work here.

Um, but also quite honestly, this is about to be as accessible as this band gets at all. Uh, so you’re about to get the idea.

 

Cliff: And then whatever you just felt about whatever you just heard this. On another level entirely when you.

see them live, whatever they’ve decided to do. everyone in the audience is trying to hold up an anvil with their eyelashes together and failing, uh,

every it’s massively intense And you need to get some serious ear protection.

If you want to enjoy a primitive man show at all, uh, because they are going to play, at least at this point, they’re going to play at a really tiny room and they’re going to play it sun. Oh. Levels. It’s going to hurt. Like I watch

people hurt every time we

see primitive,

man.

Kyle: And I hurt. I feel like I know there’s someone listening to this. Who’s like, these guys sound insane. None of this sounds like a thing I would voluntarily do with my body and my attention. And I’m like, well, what about all those people that have kids? That’s an insane choice to getting married is an insane choice.

I don’t know, man. Life is pointless. Try, and hurt your body with sound waves once in a while. So anyway, that’s our five-star review of insurmountable out today on closed casket activities, uh, which by the way, is this sick, sick label. And it didn’t Dawn us on us until just before recording to this.

And it didn’t Dawn on us until right before recording, this how much we apparently love all things closed asset. They gave us end. They gave us some full of hell. They gave us gatekeeper Gulch, uh, soon to be rip and Cindy area. Uh, nail’s portrayal of guilt, twitching, tongues, vain, who we covered in the first episode of this.

So shout out to close casket. Thanks for all you’re doing for the world of heavy music. Very, very sick stuff coming out of your label. So insurmountable go listen to it, however you want, and then send primitive man, your money through shows. They. We’ll probably be in your town. Soon-ish they are relentless tours cop their merge.

They have sick March and through a D a direct donation of your variety.

Cliff: So Kyle every week, uh, I, feel like I’m giving you an insurmountable task. Oh, oh. I just referenced the record. That was great, buddy. I feel like I’m giving you an insurmountable task with a, with a playlist, but we always say, we’ll see how this comes together. So how do you even play list this and how did you achieve this this

pinnacle.

Kyle: I I logged on to doom and selected the hurt me plenty skill level, and just said, give me that. But for my ears and body, the playlist can all be fun. If this one doesn’t work for you, go back to the, DIY punk flyer. Wasn’t from a few weeks ago.

Cliff: Yeah, the theme of this episode is not uplifting.

Okay,

Kyle: Yeah, this is this one’s bleak. Um, so I think the thing to know about this kind of music that I came to a sort of a terminal velocity from desert rock, like Kayas eventually led me to this. This kind of music is a way of, I guess, Sabbath. Everyone to this, like with everything else this kinda music is a way of life.

Like either you were born to play in a band like this, and it just comes naturally to you. Or this music probably scares you. At least a little it’s slow V like very slow on purpose. It’s enveloping, tonally, and volume wise. It’s got massive and crunchy tone. It’s like insane guitar tone. That’s a little different than anything you’ll hear anywhere.

And huge, huge, typically fairly harsh feedback. Uh, very different than someone who uses feedback to sort of like mellow and harmonious. And it is for my money, the heaviest stuff there is, there’s no heavier music than you can make. Like you can go in the drone and noise or death grips or chaotic lightning bolt, whatever type of direction.

That’s harder. That’s harsher. This is the heaviest matter. In the universe, this is blackest ever black here. So this has its origins in our peak downloading days where like you and I would scour the hyper niche blogs. And we would just follow the related artists recommendations as far as they’d go like, oh, I like this band.

I’m going to go check out. Our week. I like this band. I’m going to check out Knuth Grush and you have all these bands on your iPod. 30 days later that you’re like, I don’t know what any of this shit is, but I’m going to put it on shuffle. And I was back when you could download whole discographies straight from the blogs on media fire, and then you’d make up for the guilt of SN, but spending all your money that you already didn’t have on shows in March.

So shout out to the early and mid two thousands. I also threw in some, I guess, less harsh stuff like electric wizard, cause groove helps break up the monotony on there, but frankly, thinking of a song like funeral Apolis as a palette cleanser is, hilarious. But I, think it ventures to be some of the lighter fare on there, but it’s, that’s like one of the heaviest songs I knew.

Again, if you’re at the holy shit, why would I even venture to do this place? Cause this is like two and a half hours of face smackers. Um, the recommended listening scenario is. One, if you’re just curious about the outer limits in one direction and you go and explore it and you’re like never going back there, but glad I got a postcard at the gift shop after about two or three bourbon drinks, when you need just like a tidal wave of loud, and there are days where that helps and you like can’t do scream therapy or when you’re doing hard labor, like if you’re chopping wood or you’re building something in your backyard and you just need.

Pain to offset the pain. Like when you have a headache and you pinch the part between your thumb and your index singer to focus on something else, it’s a real good for that. Um, so if we haven’t sufficiently scared you off or intrigued you in a weird dark way, the playlist is called primitive and we’ll share it in the thread.

Cliff: I love it. Another possible angle in case we haven’t caught somebody yet, I can also see, you mentioned this kind of somehow being the Terminus of desert rock for you in a single direction. Another would be. If you’re a person who likes Melvins or especially if you kind of got in a little bit to Harvey milk at Athens, the band like this is sort of like, if everything just gets evil, it’s like the evil termination of all of that sense of like super, slow, super heavy rift stuff that kind of felt good or felt classic rock.

This is the end of

the

road.

Kyle: That’s super, super spot on. It’s like the Rick and Morty episode where they go to the spa and they suck the evil versions of themselves out. the, original version that’s both of them is the Melvins. The S the cleanse diversion of them is torch. And the dark version is every band on this playlist.

Cliff: I love it. We did

it.

Kyle: We did it. it’s, it’s a week where you could use the gnarliest music you’ve ever heard. and every week, you know, we talk about an organization doing meaningful work in their community are hoping we do that as to make you aware of an underlying societal situation, and then show you that the people around you, uh, are often the most powerful partners in making change.

Because they’re already working on doing that this week, buoyed by the sounds of primitive man, we are filled with the rage of a thousand suns. So I’m going to try to use my nice words and we’re going to keep ourselves focused because we collectively have to because a majority of the. Literally unelected and completely unaccountable Supreme court will be telling America that they can now be arrested and sentenced for even attempting to receive health care in the form of an abortion.

Um, this is already happening unconstitutionally and yes, this will disproportionately harm the poor and minorities, like always. Yes, this gives the already violent police, something new to enforce with their own biases. And these justices are fully aware of this and fully don’t care. And you could argue that they were put in place for exactly this purpose.

And yes. Finally, you can give up the idea that there is something redeeming here. Or that this is not as bad as it seems. It turns democracy upside down and it puts our system of government into question as a whole. They did this on purpose, knowing that Americans favor access to abortion nearly two to one.

And yet this is where we are. So cliff, what can we do?

Cliff: Yep. We’re going to, we’re going to keep each other focused. We’re going to focus on what we can do, man. Oh, First stop is, and we’re always going to encourage people. If you’ve listened to tune, dig at all in the past, you’re going to have heard us say that. First stop. When we notice that something like this is going on is to listen to the folks who have been telling us that this was happening.

There are a lot of people who told us this day would come. So what we’re going to do here is we’re going to reflect on our assumptions as people. And we’re going to be more thoughtful than ever about where our money and where our energy goes about this. Um, because to quote the title of a blog article, that meant a lot to me at the time.

Uh, no one is coming it’s up to.

So I want to start just by calling out Mariame Kaba is a well-known prison, industrial complex abolitionist and organizer and author of books that we both love. Like we do this till we free us. I want to just read a tweet from her. I think this will put us in the right place.

She said I’m already seeing calls to donate to planned parenthood and NRL, et cetera. What are they going to do? What marching orders have they issued to regular folks? What is the money you donate to them going to facilitate? Not a cent for me. She said,

At abortion funds on A national level. And so others have echoed this call to support abortion funds right now.

And others have echoed specifically supporting the national network of abortion funds. So that’s who we’re talking about. They’re a non-profit

whose stated mission is to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive.

Justice their website, which is abortion funds.org offers a really easy process for connecting with local organizations that can support the needs of any person needing an abortion. If you’re listening to this, you probably already know this, but you know, someone who has had an abortion, you love someone who’s had an abortion, whether you know that.

Or not. So, this network of abortion funds helps with the financial and logistical needs of arranging this procedure because it’s, it’s a lot, right. The lie. And a lot of people need support so we can support the in and out. With donations or direct membership or purchases from their store. They’ve got some like really cool merge, honestly.

They will connect you with your local abortion fund as well, so that you can help people access this very medically necessary procedure. While her injustly evil people impose their religion on our bodies. Okay. You can use this organization, not only to support overall abortion funds, but also to get connected with the ones in your area so that people in your community have access to the care that they need.

And I’m really calling this out personally. I’m a, I’m a former. Planned parenthood and monthly donor. And for myself, reading up on abortion funds, specifically, local ones was really necessary work for me. Uh, and so by sharing this, me and Kyle, we’re hoping that it will benefit others kind of within the sound of our voice. so that is the national network of abortion funds and you can check them [email protected]. And if you have not heard of an abortion fund as a concept before, I would encourage you to, especially if you kind of reacted to that, take a deep breath, go learn some more about it and try to understand when and why people might need access to this procedure so that you can help them.

Because we’re, we’re about to need all the help that we

can get. Anything else.

Kyle: I don’t think so. Look out for the others and outcasts take care of yourself. You find the power. This has been Friday heavy and we will be back in two weeks.

Cliff: 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.