If this doesn’t make your whole damn week, well then you’ve had a stupendously sucky week. Fuck, this may make your whole damn month.

A scant 10 days ago, first-time NCS guest contributor The Baby Killer gave us his review of the new album by the wonderfully inventive and technically mesmerizing Blotted Science. The album is called The Animation of Entomology. Before it came out, guitarist Ron Jarzombek was reported as saying:

““As many of you know, all 24-plus minutes of the EP are a musical score to some type of bug movies. We will reveal the first one at my YouTube channel next Friday [Oct 14]. We’ll miss Friday the 13th by one day, but hopefully this viewing will be creepy enough for you. And so until the video appears, enjoy the audio. I realize that it all may be beyond wacky at this point, but it all will soon make perfect sense.”

Well, the first clip has now been released. Whatever you may think of the 2005 remake of King Kong, starring Jack Black and Adrien Brody, it was worth every penny because it has furnished the video accompaniment to a Blotted Science song called “Cretaceous Chasm”.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

It’s that time of year again, and by that I mean it’s vacation time (almost)! Yes, your humble Nitwit-in-Chief will soon be embarking for sunnier climes, leaving behind the fucking day job and the Seattle dank in search of a little R&R. While I’m gone, my blogging time will be significantly restricted. My wife, Mrs. Nitwit (which I can say because she never reads NCS) remains adamant that when she and I are on vacation, hours spent blogging every day will NOT be tolerated. She can be a scary person when angry and she’s good with a knife, so I don’t plan to push my luck.

I know our regular staff members — Andy, BadWolf, and TheMadIsraeli — will step up their game while I’m gone, and I’m hoping for the same from some of our more or less regular guest writers (Phro and Trollfiend, I’m lookin’ at you). But, as I did last year, I’m also appealing for help from our loyal cadre of NCS readers to help keep the site from going dark while I’m away by sending me guest submissions.

If you’ve ever toyed with the idea of writing something for publication at NCS or some other metal blog, now’s a good time to give it a shot. Or maybe you’re already writing for another blog and you’d like to upgrade the content quality at NCS (good luck with that).  Regardless of your situation, we want your shit! Uh, I meant, we want the eloquence of your written expression! Details after the jump . . . Continue reading »

A reminder:

NO CLEAN SINGING was originally launched by three people almost two years ago. My two comrades have sort of fallen by the wayside as time has passed, though on rare occasions one of them surfaces to contribute a post. On this site, he goes by the name IntoTheDarkness. Beginning last month, he became the Metal Director at KSUB, the internet radio station of Seattle University. He’s responsible for the station’s metal playlist and he also personally hosts a two-hour metal show every Thursday night at 10:00 Pacific Time.

There’s not a lot of talking on that show, apart from IntoTheDarkness telling you what you’re going to hear, or have heard, but I can pretty much guarantee that the music will be killer — all extreme metal with no commercials. Now, I know there are 1,000 other ways you can find metal on the web for listening purposes, wholly apart from your own personal collection of music, but this is one way that I can’t help but promote, (a) because I know the dude pretty well (that’s an understatement), and (b) because I respect his taste. So, give this a shot.

To hear the show, you’ll need Winamp, iTunes, XMMS or an mp3 player capable of listening to shoutcast streams on your computer. You can listen by clicking this link. And for future reference, here’s the URL:

http://www.seattleu.edu/ksub/default.aspx?id=66045

And yeah, this is Thursday, so the show will be on in about 30 minutes from now.

This seemed as good a time as any to set out some thoughts that have been rattling around my head, but I’m doing it in the hope of getting some feedback from NCS readers — both those of you who are fans of metal and those of you who are musicians, too, to get both kinds of perspectives. Writers of other metal blogs, PR people, and even label reps sometimes stop by here, too, and those perspectives would also be useful.

So, by social media I mainly have in mind Facebook and MySpace. They serve many functions for their users, but today I’m only interested in what they have to offer metal fans and bands. As I see it, for fans, they serve three primary functions: First, they allow fans to track what the bands they like are up to (ie, news), and to interact with the bands at the same time. Second, they provide a vehicle for listening to new music. Third, they allow fans to interact with each other — and here, I’m thinking mainly about fans exchanging music recommendations and other info about bands and the scene.

For bands, social media serve goals that are connected to the functions they provide for fans: First, they give bands a way to stay connected to their fans by providing a place where they can post news items and comments and get feedback.  Second, they provide a vehicle for attracting new fans — a place where they can stream their music, provide music downloads and videos, and post basic info, such as how the band started and its history to date, who’s in the band, descriptions of the music, links to other sites related to the band, etc. Third, they provide a forum where musicians can exchange ideas among themselves and make connections with each other.

When we started this blog more than a year and a half ago, MySpace was the dominant social media presence for music. For me as a budding metal blogger, it was the one place where I knew I could go and listen to virtually any band’s music. I could read their MySpace blogs for news, and I could use MySpace messaging to communicate with them. It was like one-stop “shopping”. Back then, I didn’t pay much attention to Facebook, because it just didn’t really offer much in the way of music resources. (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

NPR (formerly known as National Public Radio) is a non-profit media organization that syndicates radio programming to almost 800 radio stations around the U.S. It gets about 10% of its funding from the U.S. government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which makes it a perennial whipping boy for conservative politicians who want to cut or eliminate its government funding — or simply compel NPR to become as bland as possible.

NPR has a web presence, too, and today they just did something that undoubtedly will stir its opponents into a fine froth: They posted a video of the Australian band Portal playing a song at last year’s Maryland Deathfest. The clip comes from a limited edition version of the Maryland Deathfest:The Movie II DVD, which is now available for pre-order from Handshake Inc. with a larger release planned for August.

Portal is a band about which I have mixed feelings. Like the NPR writer who posted about the video, I found the Portal’s 2009 album Swarth to be a horrifying, but perversely riveting listening experience. I like extreme music quite a bit, as you can possibly tell, but Swarth isn’t an album I’ve listened to repeatedly. I’m glad it exists, I dig it, but it’s punishing to hear.

Now, as for that video clip, it’s fucking awesome — the music is still horrifying, but watching these hooded and masked ghouls inflicting it live was cool.  Or, at least I thought so. I have a feeling NPR’s political opponents won’t be so fucking appreciative.  (more after the jump, including that video . . .) Continue reading »