Whalehammer 'Subterranean' Launch Party - Saturday 11th October 2008

Perth music label 'Farmer Frontier' (run by Cameron who has been in such famous bands as Soul of Condemned Ape, Joy Division and At War With Gayle. Watch out for his long-awaited print zine 'Ferris Bulwer' which I hear is coming out soon and contains lots of great writing not tainted by bad humor/taste) is putting out our album 'Subterranean' in a nicely packaged CD format. Thanks Cameron!

As part of this initiative there is a launch party happening on Saturday 11th October at a house in Leederville. Whalehammer and Splendid Friends (an ethno-psych-gaze supergroup consisting of At War With Girls, Craig McHardspelling and Dylan Michel) are playing but this is not really a gig but a party. Bands just get in the way of a good time IMO. There are bunch of dj's who will be playing music. Is it somebody's birthday as well?

Due to the private nature of this residence I am unable to divulge its exact location, also I do not know it. However I will give a bunch of cryptic clues to let people who should come know where it is...

*eerie strata plan*

*i had a dream about studios in a metropolitan video store where I walked down a street about 4 blocks away from a bunch of thugs who had recently graduated from oxford university (majoring in hotel AND street management no less!) and then 'whoosh' i.e i lived in the house with dylan thomas*

*swimmers once bathed in me*

As for the CD, 'Subterranean' was recorded in late 2007 I think, or early 2008. It was recorded at a rehearsal studio in a day, on the same street as the launch party actually. It kind of tells a story of a subhuman underground mutant who lives in total darkness, infects the over-ground populace with poisonous sex spores, and grows desperate for union with another, only to be enveloped and destroyed by a female of the species when this union finally occurs. It may or may not be a dream, narrated by a human ripped to the gills on opium tea.

Musically it runs the gamut from dreamy psychgaze to blackened sludge to abstract shimmer. Personally I think it's worthy of multiple listens at worst, ritual suicide at best.

Here's the Farmer Frontier verbage on this matter, from their site (http://www.meupe.net/farmerfrontier/)

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WHALEHAMMER - SUBTERRANEAN - Krautocosmic drone ship orbiting reanimated birth ritual surgical swab...

FARMER FRONTIER is having a top secret house party to celebrate our fifth release (FF005): WHALEHAMMER's SUBTERRANEAN.

On October 11 2008, come see WHALEHAMMER, performing with special guests SPLENDID FRIENDS.+ DJs DYLAN MICHEL, JAMES BECK, DAVID WEST & BEN TAAFFE!

STARTS AT 6 PM! COME EARLY FOR BBQ, DRINKS, FRISBY AND DJs. ENTRY: GOLD COIN DONATION BBQ: GOLD COIN DONATION [VEGANS WELCOME!] BYO

EMAIL US (farmerfrontier@gmail.com / whalehammer@gmail.com) for event details or try searching the event on FACEBOOK.

Farmer Frontier catalogue will be available on the night. Whalehammer's Subterranean will thereafter be available from Dada Records, 78 Records, Harry High Pants and Planet.

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Hope to see you all there.

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In other news, one of my semi-solo projects Frank A.T.C.I.S (aka Frank & the Can I Speaklys) has a myspace, check it out - www.myspace.com/frankatcis. Kind of a mirror image of Rat Columns I guess (www.myspace.com/ratcolumns).

Enough garbahge - see you later

Gig - Friday Sept 19 - Grim Fandango, Suffer, Burning Sensation, Magic Window

5$ / 9pm start / hyde park hotel

Grim Fandango - rev/sum dc-ish punk rock, killer twin guitars
Suffer - PV/HC Infest-esque
Burning Sensation - trash punk treble
Magic Window - art-punk new-wave strobing

'DULLSVILLE' - PERTH PUNK/HC BLOG

Well a perusal of the internerd has alerted me to the fact there is another Perth obscure music blog, dunno how long it has escaped my attention for but it's pretty cool and I am hell out of the loop for not knowing about it sooner. I think it's called 'Dullsville' and the address is http://www.perthisacultureshock.blogspot.com/.

I think Rohan who plays/played in such bands as Extortion, AIDS, The Collapse, Hospital Beds yadda yadda is the sole(?) contributor. The focus is on old Perth punk/hardcore and the obscure offshoots of band family tree's relating to the acts mentioned above and he's going pretty deep into the bowels I gotta say, it's good to see a blog that features things that people genuinely haven't written 15 thesis' (thesi?) on already. It also has a higher 'real band' ratio than this blog, not to mention he has mastered the art of direct linking to things in a really efficent way. Two fine achievements!

Anyhoo it's pretty sweet and worthy of construction site-esque checking out.

On a side note perhaps I will list the perth-related music blogs I know of;

http://www.perthisacultureshock.blogspot.com/
http://www.mondobarbara.blogspot.com/ - interview site crafted by some link-obsessed tall guy i think? Excellent vocabulary - privately educated no doubt.
http://www.vibrationsfromthecosmicgrove.blogspot.com/ - not perth music related but written by Richard from Whalehammer, the hilarious and erudite wordage on display prompts me to mention it anyway. You too could become a kraut/prog/thrash/tech-thrash/death/jazz-thrash expert with the aid of this blog, a high-speed internet connection, a serious amount of time on your hands, some quality aged cheeses and a well-stocked Jolt Cola/homemade mead bar fridge. Not to mention serious fu**ing dedication!!!
http://perthmusic.wordpress.com/ - run by pendulum chap, open contributions


If anyone knows of any other decent perth-related music blogs please mention them in the form of a 'comment'.

Rack on

Upcoming Whalehammer Gigs

14th August @ The Rosemount w/ Injured Ninja, Genghis, Hagar

22nd August @ SPECTRUM ART SPACE (beaufort st, highgate) supporting Fabulous Diamonds (melbourne) with Chris Cobilis and somebody else?

In other news Leopard Messiah have a myspace. www.myspace.com/leopardmessiah.

Debbie Gibson (Perth) - Practice Tape

Debbie Gibson were a short-lived d-beat/hardcore band from Perth, Western Australia. I would say their timespan was approximately late summer, early the-season-that-comes-after 2006. The music was a mixture of thrashy d-beat and occasional blast beats with a bit of an 80's hardcore scrappy feel and liberal doses of chaotic feedback. Their influences were Discharge, Rudimentary Peni and modern Scandinavian/Amerikan d-beat acts. The lineup was Zaheer on guitar, Luke on bass, David on vox and Rama on drums. Zaheer and Rama had previously played in the quite popular asian-power crust/d-beat punk band The Magoos.

Three quarters of the band had been together in an un-named previous incarnation with a nice English (I think) chap named Dee on vocals. This didn't work out for some reason and through a convoluted doom-band-member-wanted ad scenario the second, aforementioned lineup was formed and the appropriation of the Debbie Gibson name occured. They practised for a few months and played their first and only gig supporting the awesome Amerikan d-beat band Artimus Pyle at the 208 House in Maylands. Highlights of this period include leather drumming gloves, crispy squid, 'dbeat-blast-dbeat-blast-dbeat????', extreme volume and excessive coffee consumption (primarily attributed to guitarist).

This gig went reasonably well, however it was to be the end of the Debbie Gibson tale. After the first gig, practices ceased to exist and an icy exchange between the exam/caffeine-stressed guitarist and the singer prompted a lengthy period of silence which was eventually broken with a phone call giving the singer the boot.

The other members regrouped to continue the d-beat direktive. Luke moved on to second guitar, Craig (of Perth hardcore punk bands Battletruk and Negative Reply I think) joined the band on bass, and a Swedish chap named Dennis took up vocal duties. This band, as of mid-2008 still exists and is called Nine Must Die, now a quartet, as Zaheer was given the boot due to his attention wandering away from the band's pure d-beat direction.

As for the present day, Zaheer is now playing in a stoner-rock band called Atolah, Rama sings and plays guitar in the Misfits-esque combo Raped By Wolves as well as drumming in Nine Must Die, Luke is a crack submarine pilot as well as the guitarist in Nine Must Die and David plays in Whalehammer, Burning Sensation, Leppard Messiah and Rat Columns.

As far as I know, Debbie Gibson left behind one sonic artifact, a tape recorded in a rehearsal room at Lounge Guitars in West Leederville. The tape captures the band's set of 7 or 8 songs or so. It was recorded through one Radio Shack mic into one track of a Tascam four-track cassette recorder. The mic had to be placed outside, behind the door of the rehearsal room as the band's vicious volume level inside the room was too much for the mic to handle. As could be expected, it sounds like a really loud band playing in the next room, where a tornado and/or an industrial vacuum are wreaking havoc. The songs include 'Hammered', 'War (This Is What It's Good For), 'Torture Chamber', 'DIY Surgery', 'Born Again (As A Scumbag)', 'Mandatory Vasectomy' and some others I can't recall the titles of. It's actually pretty raging! I left the 10 minute set unedited as it is quite enjoyable in this fashion, with false starts and short, vague between song discussions in place. D-BEAT APOCALYPSE!!!!

Check it out at www.doddrell.com/mp3, in the Debbie Gibson folder.

Various linx;

Nine Must Die - www.myspace.com/ninemustdie ??? Google it, their site comes up first, but won't let me know what it is...
Raped By Wolves - www.myspace.com/hollywoodgraves
Atolah - http://www.myspace.com/atolah
Battletruk - google 'Battletruk'
Negative Reply - www.angelfire.com/punk2/australianpunk/negreply.html
Whalehammer - http://www.myspace.com/whalehammer
Burning Sensation - www.myspace.com/burningsensationburningsensation
Leppard Messiah - www.whalehammer.blogspot.com/2008/02/leopard-messiah-emerald-fyre-lp.html
Rat Columns - www.myspace.com/ratcolumns

Whalehammer Duo EP - 'Translucent Sex Mass'

The Whalehammer Duo have recorded another opus, though this time it clocks in at a skimpy 27 minutes, making it the first Whalehammer-related E.P. 'Translucent Sex Mass' was recorded and mixed on a Monday evening in a Leederville residence, 2nd June 2008. The Duo lineup once again is Richard and David from the Whalehammer camp, again recording two-track-live to laptop via SM57, this time a few overdubs were permitted. The two utilised Korg synth, Alesis synth, SM57 vocal microphone, Fender Telecaster, the infamous DEMON1000, two combo amps and various FX pedals for the recording.

'Translucent Sex Mass' finds the Duo exploring a fairly light-hearted (for WHLHMR) side of their music, like their previous recording 'Static Reverence' it is very electronic but unlike that work it is rather forceful at times with rhythms coming to the forefront. At various points the music recalls 70's kraut ambience, german techno, industrial, contemporary rhythmic noise, country soul and garbled Chrome-ian sci-fi garage funk.

Opening track 'Metal on Flesh' calmly opens proceedings with gently fluttering synthesized ambience, which slowly grows into a blast of static noise, blooming into the gentle country soul second movement. 'Furnace' is a synthesized joy ride down an apocalyptic autobahn. 'Dimension' is an abstract, wobbly vododer funk jam. 'Skull Drill' takes 'Furnace's mangled car crash body and jams it into the concrete jaws of an industrial crushing machine. 'Beached' is the calm morning after the chaos, a vague recollection of salty spray and white sand.

Anyhoo, the new EP is available to download from www.doddrell.com/mp3 right now!

If you would like a copy on CD-R send us an email at whalehammer@gmail.com.

Coming soon...

Whalehammer - 'Subterranean' LP - mastered for your pleasure...
Whalehammer - As yet untitled newest LP - sci-fi stoner rock and tin-scraping noise damage feature heavily...

Whalehammer Gig - June 5th - Hyde Park Hotel

The Betty Ford Experience - Self-titled EP

- Matt (right) and David of The Betty Ford Experience.

Whilst performing a routine sweep of a rubbish-filled storage box in Subiaco, a gleaming treasure was found. Now, it can shared with the world – the self-titled EP by The Betty Ford Experience, an imposing monument on the barren field of Perth rock’n’roll history.

The year may have been 2002. Juvenile garage-punk freaks Orgy of the Undead were disintegrating in a whirlwind of laziness, unwarranted member firing, disorganisation and the refusal to acknowledge that one of them would truly have to be ‘the singer’. OOTU had charted a reckless course through the blown speaker lo-fi punk/rock’n’roll spasms of the ‘Don’t Just Lie There, Say Something’ EP into the murky waters of art-punk with the full-length ‘Love is Dead’ release. Matt the drummer quit after being hazed for his inability to keep time whilst somewhat drunk at one of the very rare Undead rehearsals. This move shunted OOTU into true ‘recording project’ territory.

Matt holed up at his mother’s house in North Perth in their airy front room, home to gorgeous wooden flooring, a drum kit and a decrepit PC with a bootleg copy of the recording program ‘Cakewalk’. He begun to write the music that would become The Betty Ford Experience. Feeling a desire for collaboration he drafted in David, one of the guitarists and reluctant singers in Orgy of the Undead.

The half-formed recordings were fleshed out (some more than others), and a scattered, occasionally vicious, occasionally glorious EP was delivered. Guitars and drums were played by Matt and additional guitar was played by David. Both contributed vicious abuse of bizarre sound effects, digital distortion and insane delay/echo mangling. Spurred on by his colleague's insistence that his singing voice was reminiscent of ‘a young Lou Reed’ Matt handled the vocals with occasional manic outbursts from David. The result is fairly traditional punk rock and garage pop twisted into some weird, interesting, sometimes malformed shapes with the surgical precision of mountain apes.

As for the songs, there are a few gems of uncanny proportions floating amidst half-formed, scattered musings. ‘Death of a Salesman’ is a careening punk nugget, a brilliantly repetitive 3-chord diatribe against confused crap peddlers. Matt lays down an authoritative vocal with a guest interjection from an unhinged, demented David. Following a spazzy acid-punk guitar solo, a flurry of ethereal backwards guitar solos swoops in and the song morphs into a recitation of Dante’s Inferno over campfire acoustic guitar. Truly a piece de resistance. The other hit on the EP is ‘Corpse Eater’, a similarly propulsive, distorted garage/punk rock anthem promoting the virtues of human flesh.

Against these twin pillars the rest of the EP is less substantial, but still intriguing. The opening punk blast ‘Dead’ delivers the truism ‘you’re dead or you die’. Can’t argue with that! ‘Black Rain’ starts with an early emo-meets-Pixies introduction before settling in to introspective guitar pop with oddly mixed (i.e. way too loud!) vocals. ‘Twerp’ is a minimal, moonlit slice of crystalline guitar wandering, which really should have had vocals added to it. ‘Windmills’ is anthemic garage rock urging the listener to ‘stab seventeen needles in my eye’. An obscenely distorted and completely inappropriate drum and bass track offers confusion and an aching head.

The Betty Ford Experience was to come to an early end, as Matt took off on a lengthy excursion around Australia and David went overseas. However before this door slammed shut The Betty Ford Experience and Orgy of the Undead joined forces for one last blast in the faces of innocent party-goers and indulgent friends at Matt’s going away party. The Betty Ford Experience/OOTU line-up laid waste to Matt’s mother’s charming backyard garden settings with a volatile set of Betty Ford and Undead tracks, along with a thorough maiming of the Misfits classic ‘Skulls’. This gig was recorded and will be covered on this site in the future.

In the meantime feel free hit www.doddrell.com/mp3 and download The Betty Ford Experience EP and the ‘Live at Matt’s Farewell Party’ BFE/OOTU live recording.

Adios

DW

Vibrations From The Cosmic Grove

Channelled Beast Spirit aka Quintus Colourscape aka Richard the guitar/synth player from Whalehammer, Mink Mussel Creek and many other entities has a new website where he discusses his favourite records, typically of a prog, metal, kraut or weird nature and offers possibilities as to their extraction.

http://vibrationsfromthecosmicgrove.blogspot.com/

On the topic of music sites this one is pretty cool too;

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/

Much love

Whalehammer gig - Wednesday 14th May - Hyde Park Hotel