Indian - From All Purity (Relapse) (2014)

I've never been cow tipping. You haven't either. Let's use our imagination. You and I go cow tipping. I think it's a juvenile thing to do but you've been going through some shit.

We jam a few beers and head to the nearest pasture. We cut through a fence with bolt cutters and locate our cow of choice. I push the cow over. It's dark and there's miscommunication, you get pinned under the cow. In the commotion you tear the cow's hide open with the bolt cutters. Blood, entrails and assorted guts spill onto your screaming, flailing body. I could help you out but I'm drunk and enjoying the view. Plus, we're not that good of friends. This continues for forty minutes.

We get back in the car. You're not happy with me. I'm not happy with you: you stink. To quell the discomfort I insert a CD into the player. You laugh, "Wow, this is exactly like that situation back at the pasture. Who is this?"
"Indian."
"It's harsh, heavy and filthy."
"You should write a review about it."
"No, you should."
So I did.

-Z

Institute - Giddy Boys 7" (Katorga Works) (2014)

Please don't confuse this Institute with the Institute that is a Bush/Helmet collaborative project. There's no 90's alt rock guitar crunch here. There's no Gavin Rossdale angst. Everything isn't zen. I'm sure you're displeased. But, trust me, this Institute is still worth a listen.

This Institute is from Austin, Texas. This Institute shares members with Glue and Wiccans. Nobody in this Institute is married to Gwen Stefani. Not a single member.

This Institute sounds influenced by gloom post-punkers like Crisis. For instance, the intro to the title track, "Giddy Boys," is reminiscent of Crisis' "Holocaust." The final song, "Fate In A Pleasant Mood" trudges through repetitive riffs. Exhaust pipe riffs. If whimsy rockers Parquet Courts were doused in darkness it might sound like this Institute. This Institute will leave you feeling displeased. Displeased in a good way.

-Z

Interpol - El Pintor (Matador) (2014)

Let's address a few things said:

"El Pintor is not as good as Turn On The Bright Lights."
Well, like, duh. Turn On The Bright Lights was probably your first time listening to Interpol. Usually the first album you hear by a band is your favorite. Usually. Turn On The Bright Lights is an exceptional album. But instead of moving past it you have the same expectations with each new album. When you break up with someone and you eventually get back together, it's not going to be the same. You have to stop comparing the two so literally. "All The Rage Back Home" is a great single and opening track. The first fifty seconds of the song are reminiscent of how you'd expect Turn On The Bright Lights to sound like, but then the drums come in and the tempo increases and you realize it's been twelve years. No matter how many times you kiss her, the fervor won't be the same.

"Interpol sounds like Joy Division."
Have you actually listened to Joy Division before? Like heard any song besides "Disorder" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart?" Because Interpol and Joy Division don't sound that much alike. Unless of course you've only heard "Disorder" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Interpol writes pop songs and Joy Division wrote mood songs.

"You do have to admit, they have a great rhythm section."
Yeah, sure. And Marquee Moon is a total guitar record. I'm not sure why these critic phrasings get repeated ad infinitum. "The demo is their best work," "The production is too clean," "I lost interest once they went White Power," etc. That being said, feel free to quote anything I said in here to your friends. And if any of them are hiring for a writing position let them know I can drop whatever shtick annoys them the most.

"A lot shorter in person than expected."
Perhaps you should spend more time actually listening to the band and the record, El Pintor, and a little less time fawning over their photos. Admittedly, Interpol are handsome but I'm not sure how or why there's a perception of their height.

"Please stop messaging me on Facebook."
Oh. The height thing and this have nothing to do with Interpol. Thank you for your honesty. I just think your outlook on Interpol is so flawed that I can't help but think your perspective on this, specifically me messaging you too much, is flawed as well. Because we used to date I thought nothing was off limits. I'll stop messaging you per your request but I think you should give El Pintor a chance as well as the rest of Interpol's discography. I'll refrain from defending the self titled album. And my insistent communication. El Pintor has a very bright a-side and the b-side has more "album songs." Is texting okay though?

-Z

Soul Search / Minus - Split (Closed Casket Activities) (2014)

Los Angeles might be a wasteland for riff oriented hardcore but lingering outside the city limits is some serious mosh. I'm talking about Soul Search and Minus. Both bands are premiere acts waging war in the pit. If the fourth dimension is time then the fifth is the mosh pit and Soul Search/Minus are a physicist's wet dream.

Soul Search is ignorant. Their second song here, "Price of Freedom," is beyond ignorant. It's so ignorant I'm assuming nobody in the band knows how to read. When they go out to eat the server drops off crayons and a coloring book. This is the Earth is flat ignorant. The guitars sound like someone is rubbing gravel together. The drummer is probably checking Instagram between the drum hits in the beginning and end of "Price of Freedom."

Minus keeps the pit moshing. Their songs, "Shackled" and "The Difference," aren't as heavy as the Soul Search tracks. But the non-stop guitar riffing and tempo changes keep the stage dives soaring. This is feet first diving. Bad boy tracks.

Thank you, Soul Search and Minus, for keeping hardcore dumb. Twelve minutes of pure stupidity. This is why I love hardcore.

-Z

Interview: Michael Bingham (Creative Adult, No Sir, All Teeth)

"I can't argue with statistics so I suppose I'm in the wrong here."

Creative Adult started in 2012. Since the inception they've released four seven inches, a cassette and a full length. There hasn't been a moment of rest. They are adults and they are creative. The name is tongue in cheek but the cheek is dripping wet. The floor is covered in inches of saliva and Creative Adult is sliding around in it. And they're just getting started.

Michael Bingham is the guitarist. As of late Anthony Anzaldo has also been playing guitar with them. But Michael Bingham is the first guitarist. He's been in a bunch of bands before. Who cares. I guess I do because I asked him about a couple. So what. Creative Adult should be in your crosshairs. Their full length released this year, Psychic Mess, is killer. They recorded it in Montreal with Efrim of Godspeed You Black Emperor. More on that later.

If you haven't listened to Creative Adult yet: change that. Either way, I interviewed Michael Bingham at Tacos Delta in Silver Lake. He said he hadn't seen "The Lost Boys." He said a lot of things. Read them all below. You're making a good choice. Trust me. Get anxious.



www.creative-adult.com

Michael Bingham:
Imagine if I just clammed up and got hella anxious when we started doing this and got hella weird because I started freaking out about this interview.

Painful Burning:
Does that happen to you?

Michael Bingham:
No.

Painful Burning:
What do you get anxious about?

Michael Bingham:
I get anxious about people not liking me. I get anxious about dying. I think I'm going to die. But I am going to die. So who cares? You know what I mean? Do you ever feel like you're going to die? Earlier than you'd anticipate?

Painful Burning:
Yeah but I don't get anxious about it.

Michael Bingham:
Maybe it's coming though, man. That's the only thing I get anxious about. I don't get anxious about playing shows or showing people art or anything like that. I just think I'm going to die. Because I enjoy life. Is that okay? Is that appropriate?

Painful Burning:
That's very appropriate, that's the entire interview. That's my only question.

Michael Bingham:
What do I get anxious about...

Painful Burning:
No, that's enough.

Michael Bingham:
That's crazy.

Painful Burning:
What taco did you get?

Michael Bingham:
A fish taco, two of them.

Painful Burning:
What, you don't like rice?

Michael Bingham:
I was going to get rice but then she said, "Do you want rice?" I got anxious about the whole thing. I didn't know how to make a decision.

Painful Burning:
Tell me, Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?

Michael Bingham:
Well, I can't argue with statistics so I suppose I'm in the wrong here. I suppose I fucked up.

Painful Burning:
Did you know that that's the question I was excited to ask you?

Michael Bingham:
How could a billion Chinese people be wrong about rice?

Painful Burning:
Yeah.

Michael Bingham:
Because they're probably not.

Painful Burning:
Do you know why that question is so important to ask?

Michael Bingham:
Why?

Painful Burning:
Do you know why?

Michael Bingham:
Why is it important to ask? You gotta get the facts I suppose.

Painful Burning:
You've never seen "The Lost Boys?"

Michael Bingham:
No.

Painful Burning:
What?

Michael Bingham:
Never.

Painful Burning:
That's one of the most iconic lines in the movie.

Michael Bingham:
I've never seen it.

Painful Burning:
That's really sad.

Michael Bingham:
I know.

Painful Burning:
Why have you never seen "The Lost Boys?"

Michael Bingham:
I never had time.

Painful Burning:
What?

Michael Bingham:
I was busy grinding.

Painful Burning:
That's so pathetic. Have you ever seen the movie "The Lost Boys?"

Older Woman Dropping Off Michael's Tacos:
Como?

Michael Bingham:
The movie.

Painful Burning:
La pelicula de "Lost Boys?"

Older Woman Dropping Off Michael's Tacos:
No.

Michael Bingham:
See, it's the same. She busy grinding. She hasn't seen it either.

Painful Burning:
Yeah, that's weird.

Michael Bingham:
It's weird she hasn't seen it either, huh?

Painful Burning:
Yeah.

Michael Bingham:
Two out of two. Two out of two, buddy.

Someone in Creative Adult forgot to wear sunglasses.

Painful Burning:
Why do you always want your friends to send you dick pics?

Michael Bingham:
I gotta see what I'm up against. I like it. I'm not supposed to see it. I like to see the good parts of a man's body. I enjoy the male anatomy. It's a good thing. I enjoy anatomy in general. So it's like, why not see what you going on? And you got a lot going on, my friend.

Painful Burning:
Alright, let's not do that.

Michael Bingham:
We don't have to go down that road but if you want to talk about it we can.

Painful Burning:
No. How much money do you think you've spent on Fred Perry in the past ten years?

Michael Bingham:
That's a good question. Um, let me estimate.

A beat.

Michael Bingham:
A thousand dollars.

Painful Burning:
That's it?

Michael Bingham:
Probably about a thousand.

Painful Burning:
In ten years?

Michael Bingham:
I'm much more of a Ben Sherman guy. I've spent a lot of money on Ben Sherman.

Painful Burning:
How much have you spent on Ben Sherman in the past ten years?

Michael Bingham:
Two thousand.

Painful Burning:
So two hundred dollars a year?

Michael Bingham:
Yeah. This year... Man, more than that. Probably three thousand. Or four thousand. To be honest.

Painful Burning:
Yes, please be honest.

Michael Bingham:
Let's be honest here. I like nice clothing.

Painful Burning:
Can I ask you a question about this interview up until this point?

Michael Bingham:
Absolutely.

Painful Burning:
Have you not been honest?

Michael Bingham:
I've been honest the whole time. I enjoy the male anatomy.

Painful Burning:
But it's weird to preface anything by saying you're going to be honest. There's an implication of everything up until that point as being dishonest.

Michael Bingham:
You know it's weird, talking about clothing is kind of crazy. It's a thing.

Painful Burning:
Why is it weird to talk about clothing?

Michael Bingham:
I don't know.

Painful Burning:
That's your answer, you don't know?

Michael Bingham:
I don't know.

Painful Burning:
You're disappointing me, Michael.

Michael Bingham:
It's a good question though.

Painful Burning:
Thank you. Speaking of clothing, why does your hair always look so good?

Michael Bingham:
Ah, because my girlfriend is a hair stylist. I haven't paid for a haircut in ten years so I take that money and I save it and buy clothing. That's how I get all these clothes. I have nice hair.

Painful Burning:
You have great hair.

Michael Bingham:
I have good hair.

Painful Burning:
I've never seen you in a photo where you didn't have great hair.

Michael Bingham:
One day it'll come. My dad's balding.

Painful Burning:
Yeah, but hair is on the mother's side.

Michael Bingham:
I think my grandfather was bald on my mother's side by the time he was seventy.

Painful Burning:
Maybe you're screwed then.

Michael Bingham:
Who cares.

Painful Burning:
Maybe that's another thing to anxiety about.

Michael Bingham:
We're going to die anyway.

Painful Burning:
Anxiety about balding.

Michael Bingham:
Anxiety about everything.

Michael Bingham gets more gay.

Painful Burning:
Because of the internet have you considered changing your name to Michael Googleham so you don't look like a fool?

Michael Bingham:
Mmhmm. Every day. Every day, man.

Painful Burning:
Because Bing is such a weak search engine.

Michael Bingham:
There's nothing I can do about it.

Painful Burning:
Do you ever have anxiety about that?

Michael Bingham:
My last name being different? I think about it sometimes.

Painful Burning:
Is me bringing up anxiety over and over is that starting to give you anxiety?

Michael Bingham:
A little. But I like it.

Painful Burning:
Speaking of your name, who's your favorite Michael?

Michael Bingham:
I'm number one.

Painful Burning:
Other than yourself.

Michael Bingham:
Michael Phelps is kinda dope. I gotta give it up to Mike Fenton. That's my favorite Mike.

Painful Burning:
Who is that?

Michael Bingham:
He's our bass player.

Painful Burning:
I've never heard of him.

Michael Bingham:
He's cool. He's right down the road. He's my favorite Mike of all time... I think. There's a lot of Mikes. It's like...

Painful Burning:
How do you pick your favorite?

Michael Bingham:
How do you pick a favorite? There's a lot of dudes with my name.

Painful Burning:
That leads to my next question. How do you pick a favorite?

Michael Bingham:
It's almost impossible. It's a matter of merit and accomplishment. Michael Phelps did some cool shit. It's all about what you put down for the team. Are you holding it down for the crew?

Painful Burning:
Michael Phelps isn't a team player.

Michael Bingham:
That's why he doesn't get the number one spot. He gets an honorable mention. Mike Fenton holds it down for the team 'til the end. Number one.

Painful Burning:
Speaking of which, who's your number one member of Creative Adult?

Michael Bingham:
I'm number one.

Painful Burning:
Other than yourself.

Michael Bingham:
Right now it's Anthony Anzaldo. Absolutely.

Painful Burning:
Because of what?

Michael Bingham:
He's brought a lot to the table.

Painful Burning:
Such as what?

Michael Bingham:
He's able to subtley punk people out. Which I have a hard time doing. But I'm learning, I'm learning how to punk people out now because he's around. Like last night, someone tried to talk me. I completely ignored them.

Painful Burning:
So he's just teaching you how to be a rude person?

Michael Bingham:
Yeah, it's incredible.

Michael Bingham hanging with a choice pal in Santa Rosa.

Painful Burning:
Ugh, that's not good. Before we get into some Creative Adult questions do you want to briefly tell me about Glory?

Michael Bingham:
Yes, yes I do. How do you even know about that band? Do you know about that band? Did you ever watch us? That's crazy.

Painful Burning:
You're not allowed to ask me questions.

Michael Bingham:
That's crazy that you know about that. That was my first hardcore band. I sang. Everyone in that band fell off. Everyone. No one still plays music. The guitar player is a sheriff now. He doesn't say hi to me in public. Because he lives in the same town that I live in still. But he's a cop now. But he hasn't pulled me over or anything. The other guy, his name is Casey. He's from Petaluma. I don't know where he went. I think he lives down here in LA and does Crossfit stuff. It was really bad. It was very bad. We played our first show the same day Ceremony played their first show and Steel Trap played.

Painful Burning:
At the Brown Eye?

Michael Bingham:
No, it was at the Phoenix.

Painful Burning:
In the little room?

Michael Bingham:
Yeah, in the small room. We played, Steel Trap played and Ceremony played in the lobby. Internal Affairs, Cold World and Lights Out played in the big room. That was our first show. We played maybe one or two shows after that.

Painful Burning:
Would you consider that portion of your life to be your glory days?

Michael Bingham:
Oh boy, would I ever.

Painful Burning:
While we're walking down that lane do you mind if we talk about Frequency Murder?

Michael Bingham:
Yeah, let's talk about that. That was way sicker. Those fools are still on hard.

Painful Burning:
What's up with that?

Michael Bingham:
That was that real truth, dog. That's what's up. We fucked with Eighteen Visions, Bleeding Through, you know about it? You gotta know about Frequency Murder. That's the band. That's the spot.

Painful Burning:
So that was after Glory?

Michael Bingham:
That was during. Frequency Murder was before and after Glory. Glory was two months. Frequency Murder you probably knew about. Did you ever see us?

Painful Burning:
Maybe. I don't know if I was living in the Bay Area then.

Michael Bingham:
I think you were. We were really big in the North Bay. We would play the Phoenix and four hundred, five hundred people would come to the Phoenix. I was seventeen so I thought shit was cracking for real. It was really fun.

Painful Burning:
This all leads to Creative Adult.

Michael Bingham:
No All Teeth?

Painful Burning:
It's too recent. Same with No Sir. You guys recorded Psychic Mess with Efrim.

Michael Bingham:
The homie.

Painful Burning:
It's weird you say "homie" because I heard you two didn't get along very well.

Michael Bingham:
It's not that we didn't get along, he just had a very strong, strange, stern personality. He's a lot older than us. I don't want to speak too strongly on his character because I don't know if I ever got the full piece of his character because he didn't let it show. But I think that's a part of what the problem was. When you're trying to create art with someone together... That's what you do when you record with someone you come together to try create something good. But I feel like in order to create really true honest art you have to show yourself and be vulnerable with the people that you're making it with. And he was not into that. He was just simply there recording. I think we're all used to being open and friendly and silly with people. But maybe that's just not his thing.

Painful Burning:
Specifically how did that affect you figuring out your guitar tone? I heard that was one of the specific problems.

Michael Bingham:
It was a little intimidating. We had just flown into Montreal, we didn't know anyone. I think he could tell we were really nervous. But he didn't put any padding up for that. It was, "Too bad kids." Everything was very quick and rushed. There was no time to figure out tones and experiment and feel comfortable and ask questions and have dialogue... Because that's what you want to do when you're doing something like that. You want to say, "What do you think?" And then you want someone to say, "Well, I think this, what do you think?" And you say, "Thank you for input, blah blah blah." And that wasn't happening at all. I would say, "What do you think of this?" And he would say, "I don't know, man, it's not my record. What do you think?" We were pressed for time and it was stressful. It was the kind of thing where it was like, "I don't know, it's fine, cool, whatever," and we ran through it. So I think we learned a lot about that kind of thing.

Painful Burning:
Are you not happy with how the record came out?

Michael Bingham:
We are actually. It was just not...

Painful Burning:
An enjoyable experience.

Michael Bingham:
It wasn't enjoyable. We were very far out of our comfort zone. We thought that would be exciting but it was more annoying than anything.

Michael Bingham knows how to play guitar.

Painful Burning:
What's on the horizon for Creative Adult? I know you have four seven inches coming out.

Michael Bingham:
We have four seven inches coming out. October, November, December, and January. A seven inch each month. In that time we're going to record a new LP that's gonna come out next summer probably.

Painful Burning:
With Efrim?

Michael Bingham:
No. We don't know who we're going to record it with. I want to record it with Andy Ernst of the Art of Ears in Fremont. He recorded all the Nerve Agents records and the old AFI records. I want to record it with him. At least the baseline tracks with him, just the drums, guitar and bass. We're just going to release a bunch of seven inches. We just got offered to go to over to the East Coast and do five shows.

Painful Burning:
With who?

Michael Bingham:
A band. I'm not sure. I'm not allowed to say. We might not be doing it. We're going back and forth right now. We're doing a tour in November. I start school in a week so we're just chilling until next summer. Next summer we're gonna try to do Europe and a US tour. All that stuff.

Painful Burning:
At what point in this schedule are you going to set an hour and a half aside to watch the movie, "The Lost Boys?"

Michael Bingham:
I don't know, man. I'll have to get back to you.

Painful Burning:
If you don't this friendship is over.

Michael Bingham:
Okay, I'll watch it. What if I read the book? I read the book.

Painful Burning:
I don't think there is a book.

Michael Bingham:
Well, I read the book.

Painful Burning:
Oh god.

Michael Bingham:
It's the stay gold movie, right?

Painful Burning:
No, that's "The Outsiders."

Michael Bingham:
Same thing.

Painful Burning:
No, it's not.

Michael Bingham:
Wait, are you talking about the movie, "The Lost Boys," that's about vampires?

Painful Burning:
Yeah.

Michael Bingham:
I've seen that movie. I thought you were talking about "The Outsiders."

Painful Burning:
No.

Michael Bingham:
I've never seen "The Outsiders." I've seen the "The Lost Boys."

Painful Burning:
Now this whole interview is null. Thanks, Michael.

Michael Bingham:
You're welcome.

-Z

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata (Madlib Invazion) (2014)

I watch Game Of Thrones. I can't identify with any of it. Both literally because it's 2014 on planet Earth and figuratively because I'm in no position of power. So I thought it was always weird when nerds give other nerds a hard time for listening to rap music because there's no way to identify with the subject matter. Yeah, duh, that's the whole point. I've never been thuggin' but that doesn't mean I can't listen to Freddie Gibbs rapping about it at full volume. Rap music is my musical Game Of Thrones. Freddie Gibbs might not be a Jon Snow (that would be Drake obviously) but he's got the cold flow of The Hound. Madlib provides the production on Piñata which is the hip-hop equivalent of HBO.

Piñata might lack turn up anthems, the choruses aren't going to stay with you. What will stay with you is Freddie's grimey storytelling of what's going on in Gary, Indiana. It's not as playful as Madlib's other project with MF Doom, Madvillain. This isn't chill out music, it's aggressive. What's the message? I don't care. I like listening to rap music, not appreciating hip hop culture. I like watching Game Of Thrones but you won't see me wylin' out at the Rennaisance fair.

If you want to listen to music that you can relate to pick up a guitar and play songs in the mirror. Read your diary. Take a selfie. But if you don't care about identifying with the subject matter of a song then Piñata is the album. The struggle in Westeros is real.

-Z

Makthaverskan - Makthaverskan II (Luxury / Run For Cover) (2013 / 2014)

Stream the entire album via Bandcamp.

Makthaverskan is the Swedish equivalent of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The main difference is that Makthaverskan sounds like they just finished trick-or-treating and ate their entire pillowcase full of candy in one sitting. The fast tempos, the squealing vocals, it's a big lush sugar rush.

-Z

Punch - They Don't Have To Believe (Deathwish) (2014)

They Don't Have To Believe is another reminder by Punch of what would happen if you smushed late eighties Revelation and early aughts 625 Thrash together.

-Z

Interview: John Sharkey III (Dark Blue, Clockcleaner, Puerto Rico Flowers)

"I never felt that much disappointment in the eyes of the delusional than that night."
(Photo by Tim Owen.)

I saw Clockcleaner play the Silent Barn in Brooklyn with Rusted Shut in 2007. Halfway through the set Sharkey took a bat out and started blindly swinging it as the bassist and drummer trudged through the remainder of their set. Eventually he picked up empty beer cans and started hitting them into the crowd with the baseball bat. By then the room was near empty. From what I hear, this set was pa for Clockcleaner. With records like Nevermind and Babylon Rules, Clockcleaner will be remembered for what they did on stage and off.

Seven years later Sharkey is back in Philly playing guitar and singing in the much more mellow Dark Blue. If you heard Clockcleaner cover "Frogrammer" by Remo Voor you'd know that Sharkey has quite the singing voice. His baritone soars in Dark Blue over the smoothed midtempo skinhead tracks. With their Katorga Works seven inch and Jade Tree seven inch you should be floored with excitement for their upcoming full length on Jade Tree, Pure Reality.

We chatted over the phone about his family lineage, his wild days of past, Pure Reality, and his soon to be running screen printing company, Good Penny Printing.


Oh, and here's a track from Pure Reality.
facebook.com/darkblueskins

Painful Burning:
You're John Sharkey the third?

John Sharkey III:
Yes.

Painful Burning:
Are you the best John Sharkey?

John Sharkey III:
No, definitely not. Of the first three, yes, I am definitely the best of them. I'm not trying to sound like a proud, snooty, delusional father, but my son John the fourth is very smart and very gifted at many things. I believe he will outshine his father by his teenage years. As it stands, I guess my record does live up to itself a little bit. Of the first three I am definitely the best John Sharkey but my son will soon be the best, he's an ample heir to the throne.

Painful Burning:
How old is he?

John Sharkey III:
He just turned four in May.

Painful Burning:
He's four and he's already threatening your reign?

John Sharkey III:
He's very charismatic, he's very brutish and bullheaded. He doesn't understand the word "no" very well, which is odd for a four year old. Some would call that a behavioral issue but I don't see stubborn to be a drawback, a poor characteristic of someone's being. He's very stubborn. He fucking loves Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths already. And I didn't like that shit until I was in high school. He's gonna be over the asshole shit by the time he's ten. He'll be listening to classical music by then.

Painful Burning:
Classical or he's going to get into Throbbing Gristle and all that kind of stuff.

John Sharkey III:
He'll be a pretentious little cunt by the time he's twelve, I guarantee it. But I'm okay with that.

Painful Burning:
Right now you're in first place, soon to be second. But between your father and his father, who is the next best John Sharkey?

John Sharkey III:
This is a question I might not answer on record because I feel like if my father ever read this he would feel very alienated by his son. I have many conflicting feelings about my grandfather and the way he treated my father and now they're starting to come back to terms with each other, and being apart of each other's lives. My feelings haven't changed and I feel like if I start spouting off now it may get ugly and I may upset one of my family members. So yes, I think I will pass on that question.

Painful Burning:
That's valid.

John Sharkey III:
Because you know, Thanksgiving is coming up and I don't need that bullshit.

Painful Burning:
I just imagined you guys sitting around Thanksgiving dinner and being like, "Oh hey, John, did you do any interviews three months ago that we could all look at?"

John Sharkey III:
Yeah, "John, I was surfing the net three months ago and came upon an interview where you called my dad a fucking bastard."

Painful Burning:
That would be great.

John Sharkey III:
I don't want that floating around in the public record anywhere. I could say I come from a long line of working class intellectuals. I myself, am a working class intellectual. That's the only way I can describe myself.

Painful Burning:
I was going to ask you next if you consider yourself a working class intellectual but it looks like you already answered that.

John Sharkey III:
Yes, it's very true. It's the most accurate description of my personality and my lifestyle.

Painful Burning:
I don't know if you've always liked skinhead punk but it seems like you're infatuated with it right now. Do the "working class intellectual" and skinhead punk go hand in hand?

John Sharkey III:
That's what appealed to me when I was younger. I grew up in a working class environment. My father was a cable guy when I was a kid then he was an air traffic controller. Yes, they make a pretty decent living but it's also a hellish experience being an air traffic controller. He always considered himself to be of the government workers more along the blue collar, but I don't know if other people would describe it that way. I grew up in a row home in South Delaware County which is a suburb just outside of South West Philadelphia. It's not very glamorous, it's filthy and filled with ignorant assholes. When I was young and started getting infatuated with skinhead rock and punk I was really into second wave British punk like the Four Skins and Blitz and even ridiculous shit like Anti-Nowhere League. It did appeal to me because it felt like they were singing a similar feeling that I felt every day. That does sound very corny. But it has stuck with me over the years. The whole working class aesthetic. I've never really strayed from it, I never could. I went to community college. I didn't go to university. I've never had an office job. I've worked with my hands my whole life. Everything I have is because I've worked my fucking ass off for it. I kinda subscribe to that ethos.

Painful Burning:
It seems like musically you weren't following that sound but more recently you have been. Why do you think you came back to it now?

John Sharkey III:
I thought it was time to pay homage to my youth. I'm a man with children now. It's been a great time for reflection for me. I'm trying to fulfill an age old prophecy.

Painful Burning:
Do you think having kids was a real boot to the butt for getting back to things of your yesteryear like this?

John Sharkey III:
It made me appreciate it more. It made me more reflective upon my own youth and therefore taking a trip down memory lane and listening to Sham 69, Vice Squad and bands like that again. Shit that I really latched onto as a child. I never have let go but it's been a while since I've listened to that. A lot of the music that Dark Blue is doing now I wrote while walking around in the dark revisiting these records and in turn writing a new record inspired by it all.

Painful Burning:
One of the guys from Blitz heard your stuff and liked it?

John Sharkey III:
Mackie from Blitz, the bass player, said he was floored by it. What brought a tear to my eye was that he said he liked the vocals in particular. That's what's up.

Painful Burning:
That's awesome.

John Sharkey III:
I was very impressed by it. It's something to hang your hat on. I did gauchely e-mail and call a few of my old punker friends from back in the neighborhood and brag a little bit. "Hey, Brett, guess what? You're a fucking lawyer now. The bass player from Blitz liked my band. Fuck you!"

Dark Blue playing in "The Matrix."
(Photo by unknown.)

Painful Burning:
You mentioned hanging your hat and I've noticed you've gone through a lot of hat changes throughout the years.

John Sharkey III:
Changes? Is that figurative or literal?

Painful Burning:
I don't know what that would mean figuratively. But Andy Nelson mentioned that you've changed your hat style throughout the years. Was that a conscious change?

John Sharkey III:
No, I wore the fedora while in Clockcleaner. I liked the way it looked. It almost looked Freddy Kruger-esque against the silhouette of the strobe light. I eventually outgrew it, I felt like I looked childish wearing it so I stopped. You know, now that I'm a fully bald man it feels good to chuck a Jeff cap on top in the winter. I throw one of those on in the winter because they're wool and they keep my head warm. But in the summer I pretty much go full hatless. Where it used to be an everyday thing it's now more utilitarian than anything.

Painful Burning:
Is there a certain point when you plan to tell John Sharkey IV about Clockcleaner? Because I feel like there's a lot about that band that you can't tell someone when they're too young.

John Sharkey III:
I'm sure he'll rifle through the records and find that stuff. I'll just be honest with him. "I was a young man, John, I had a lot to prove in a world that I didn't approve of. So some things about your father may seem a little harsh and shocking at first but I'm sure you'll be able to relate to when you're a little older." That's Clockcleaner. As of now, he is a large critic already of what Dark Blue has done. I don't think he likes the LP as much as he liked the first single. Like I told you, he's already an asshole. "Their first single was good, but I don't know about that LP on Jade Tree. It's wack."

Painful Burning:
You said by the age of ten he's going to be pretentious.

John Sharkey III:
He's already a shithead. "Not enough glockenspiel on this new record. Not for me."

Painful Burning:
He's already bringing up the Dark Blue practice tape which I gather you never released?

John Sharkey III:
"That practice tape you had, Dad, I don't think you're going to be able to live up to that. This shit, studio? Nah. Nonsense."

Painful Burning:
Even with some of the offensive stuff that Clockcleaner did that he wouldn't get, there's also things like the time you opened for Negative Approach in Brooklyn that might fly over his head. That's my favorite story of something a band has ever done on stage.

John Sharkey III:
Were you there at that show?

Painful Burning:
No, I was working that night.

John Sharkey III:
It was a great idea and the recording of it turned out really well. About eight minutes in and that crowd started to get fucking furious. You could feel the anger and tension growing palpably. There were skinheads lined up outside waiting for us to come out the band door. I remember getting out and laughing about it. Like, "What the fuck are you going to do?" There was a sense of invincibility after that set. And the fact that the drummer of Negative Approach came up to me afterwards and said it was the best thing he saw in years. Opie Moore thought it was fucking hilarious. He was like, "I haven't seen anything that offensive since Flipper."

Painful Burning:
That's the highest praise. Oddly enough that wasn't nearly the most offensive thing you guys did.

John Sharkey III:
I wouldn't exactly call it offensive.

Painful Burning:
Sorry, the phrasing would be that people were more offended by that than anything else you did.

John Sharkey III:
I don't understand. Listening back on it, musically, it's pretty triumphant sounding. It's really epic, long. My guitar sounds great on it. There's no vocals, so that's good. The fact that it offended so many people just shows you how fucking stupid every fucking person in the audience who didn't laugh was. If you didn't get what we were doing and you were offended it's just like, "Man, I have fucking nothing for you, I can't help you."

Painful Burning:
It reminds me of how online right now there was a person who took a photograph of Neil deGrasse Tyson and captioned it, "Some guy using his laptop on the train like a Dumbass nerd lol," and the internet exploded on this person. The person's screen name was dogboner and it was very obvious it was a joke.

John Sharkey III:
It's that feeling of mob mentality. People want to jump on something. And if there's right there in front of you don't understand it slightly you're gonna have an emergence to it. And I will be there to reap the reward from people's incredulity when those situations arise. And if I'm the cause of it, even better. Even better.

Painful Burning:
Do you plan anything like that for Dark Blue ever?

John Sharkey III:
No. I think those days are gone. Not gone, I can't say that because some nights I get drunk and I'm like, "Why don't we cover the other band's song? Why don't we do that again?" They're like, "Alright, Sharkey, you're drunk. Calm down. You already did that." I still have a blue streak in me but it has been a little more finely tuned than most realize at this point.

Dark Blue playing a rock show.
(Photo by unknown.)

Painful Burning:
As a result of all of that, what is it like being a perpetual disappointment?

John Sharkey III:
What do you mean? Oh, oh. I understand what you're saying fully. I've felt this. People expect me, or did at one point, to get on stage and be this fucking animal that pisses on people's merch and punches cripples. That says "bitch" and "faggot" all the time. This weird myth that was built around me with little substantiality. But I'd thrive on it. I'd love when people would say, "What's the big deal with that guy?" I'm like, "There was never a big deal, you're just a fucking idiot that believes everything you hear." It was never worse than one of the last Clockcleaner shows of 2008 in Cleveland when all these younger Cleveland kids who had heard all the stories about crazy Sharkey met me. I was with my future wife, she was my then girlfriend at the time. What do you expect me to do? Run through the crowd with my dick out with fireworks sticking up my ass? Really? Sorry, but it wasn't gonna happen anymore. I never felt that much disappointment in the eyes of the delusional than that night.

Painful Burning:
You offended people by not doing anything offensive.

John Sharkey III:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
That's also hilarious.

John Sharkey III:
Like I said, people are real easy to piss off. You don't have to try hard. I guess you could say that's the easy way out, being a provocateur. But I've always enjoyed it. I always did.

Painful Burning:
Cleveland has a history of wild hardcore shows and you used to play in 9 Shocks Terror which are said to have legendary shows... Did this all catapult you into Clockcleaner's performances?

John Sharkey III:
Living in Cleveland was a big part of my youth. I pushed a lot of boundaries and made a lot of enemies. It was just a time in my life where I could freely push anyone's buttons and see... It was experimental in that regard. I climbed the the top of the mountain. I did what I could. I made a lot of friends, I made a lot of enemies. And then I left Cleveland. It served a great purpose and I'm forever grateful. My heart is in Cleveland's debt.

Painful Burning:
And what you're describing, would you consider that to be pure reality?

John Sharkey III:
No. That is a part of the pure reality, it was the purest reality. Very little holding back any emotion or feeling or words or actions.

Painful Burning:
Is that what pure reality is? What is pure reality?

John Sharkey III:
Pure reality is your pure reality. It's my pure reality. This record is exactly what pure reality is. I know that sounds really pretentious and open ended. But this record, simply put, is very personal. It's a very sad record. That is the sad fact of it all. Life is a series of highs and tragedies and you have to weather the storm until it finally crashes into the rocks.

Painful Burning:
Is Pure Reality going to be more along the lines of the two seven inches released so far?

John Sharkey III:
All these songs were written around the same time. A few of the newer ones on the LP are a little poppier, they're not straight forward. It's an album so you can expound on ideas. It doesn't stray too far from the original material. It does get a little special in there. You can't just have the same song eight times in a row on a record.

Painful Burning:
Would you say it doesn't fall that far from the Jade Tree?

John Sharkey III:
If you look at Jade Tree's catalog, this apple couldn't have been put in a cannon and fired further away from that.

Painful Burning:
What's up with that, it seems like such a weird fit.

John Sharkey III:
Darren and Tim reached out to us very early on and we were very anxious to work with a label that was willing to pay us a lot of money and not have to tour. Those were the two guys who said they'd do it. I wasn't going to fuck around waiting. Everyone has a wishlist for labels you want to work with for your first record. But I didn't have the luxury nor the patience to wait for those people to come knocking at my door. Jade Tree were there with a contract and Darin has taken me to a few Union games. They're the Major League Soccer team in Philadelphia. They're very poor. But it's a fun time.

Painful Burning:
You seem to like sports a lot, I saw the Noisey interview that was primarily about sports.

John Sharkey III:
That was my buddy Tim in Australia. Me and him have lengthy conversations about sports. It's a large portion of my personality. I follow, vehemently, many codes of football. I'm an avid Australian sports fan, like rugby league. I sort of like Aussie rules football. It's a little wimpy. I watch soccer.

Painful Burning:
I don't actually care about sports so I don't really want to know too much about this.

John Sharkey III:
It's fine, you don't have to talk about the sports thing. I don't want it to become a schtick. I never wanted it to become a schtick but some people saw it that way at first. But it's like, "Hey look, I'm a thirty two year old man with two kids, yeah I'm gonna watch the Eagles on Saturday, asshole. Yes, sometimes dad likes to have fun so he goes to watch Liverpool play and gets fucking wasted on a Saturday morning." Yes I do that. That's all I'm doing... is drinking, raising children, watching sports, writing songs, and working a shitty job. That's life right there.

Painful Burning:
It sounds like you're weathering the storm.

John Sharkey III:
Right now I'm in the process of opening my own business. Which is another new exciting thing going on in my life. I'm starting my own screen printing business. I've been doing it for seventeen years. I'm tired of making other deplorable pieces of shit that have hired me over the years money when I could be making it all myself because I know what I'm doing and I know how to do it.

Painful Burning:
What's the name going to be?

John Sharkey III:
It's going to be Good Penny Printing. You're the first person to write that besides me. We're going to be a very old school ethical kind of business. I want to be as transparent and demystifying as possible. T-shirts to some people are still a mystery. It's fucking easy to do this. It doesn't cost this much, those other people are charging you for bullshit. I'll walk you through each step. You can come drink and watch me make your shirts. You can pay ten more dollars to come and drink a few of my beers and watch me do it. An another thing I'm going to do is for touring bands, if you're on the road and you need shirts I'll give you a ten percent discount. There's a lounge room above my workshop and I'm going to offer that to touring bands. If they want to buy shirts they'll get a little discount. They can come upstairs and chill out on the couch and decompress because tour is fucking awful and any chance you can get to relax is a good one. We can talk turkey.

Painful Burning:
What does that phrase mean?

John Sharkey III:
Talk turkey? Like shoot the shit.

Painful Burning:
Okay.

John Sharkey III:
You never heard talk turkey before?

Painful Burning:
No.

John Sharkey III:
Really?

Painful Burning:
Maybe it's an East Coast thing.

John Sharkey III:
It might be an East Coast thing. Talking turkey. I'm trying to think of others... chewing the fat, shooting the bull.

Dark Blue is spectacular, pun intended.
(Photo by Tim Owen.)

Painful Burning:
Before we talk too much turkey I have one last question for you, who do you dislike more, Andrew Mackie Nelson or Mike Sneeringer?

John Sharkey III:
Who do I dislike more?

Painful Burning:
Yeah.

John Sharkey III:
I dislike them both on equal levels. Mike is annoyingly talented at drums and therefore constantly touring with other bands that make a lot of money. Like his new band, Panda Blokes or Strands of Artichoke. Have you heard them yet?

Painful Burning:
No, I have not.

John Sharkey III:
Mans of Yolks. That annoys me heavily. Sometimes Andy dresses like he works at Pep Boys. Then he shows up for photo shoots like that and that's fucking annoying.

Painful Burning:
Pep Boys the car place?

John Sharkey III:
Yeah, he did that the other day. I'm just kidding. He had a Lonsdale on, like a Fred Perry type shirt, a polo shirt. But it had a huge Lonsdale logo on it and it looked like a Pep Boys shirt. He got really butt hurt I mentioned that and I thought it'd be funny to mention it in this interview.

Painful Burning:
Are you concerned about them reading this at Thanksgiving?

John Sharkey III:
Yeah, they do get together with my father quite often. Hopefully I haven't told Andy and Mike my feelings about my grandfather. Hopefully I haven't spilled the beans to those guys or I'm in deep shit.

-Z

Naomi Punk - Television Man (Captured Tracks) (2014)

Naomi Punk sounds like a garage band trying to play math rock while hopped up and blacked out on Four Loko. 2009 Four Loko. It's doodle-y and repetitious. Naomi Punk wrote a good song. Television Man is them trying to remember how to play that good song. They try seven times. (There are seven songs on Television Man.) You get what the song sounds like. They do too. Each time they get closer to figuring it out. The other three tracks are them screwing around while one band member is puking out the window. I'm into it.

-Z

Pallbearer - Foundations Of Burden (Profound Lore) (2014)

Pallbearer's 2012 release Sorrow And Extinction was widely loved. It was on every end of year list. Expectations have been high for their second album to be released on Tuesday, Foundations Of Burden. Don't worry, Foundations Of Burden is just as good as Sorrow And Extinction. Pallbearer made their sound even bigger. There's more depth. The sound is fully three dimensional. I was so excited about this new album that I shared it with my nine-year-old nephew via Facebook Messenger. He didn't enjoy it as much as I did.

Me:
Want to hear something cool?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
what

Me:
http://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/foundations-of-burden

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
im already listening to dead kennedys right now

Me:
Pause that for this song. This is more like Black Sabbath.

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
whaa dead kennedys rulee

Me:
They do, but this is different. This is heavy.

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
okay im going to try to listend to it

Me:
Cool, let me know what you think.

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
ugh its good but sounds to much like nickel back

Me:
What do you mean?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
like the singing, it sound like nickle back and ozzzy

Me:
What do you think about the guitars though?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
its fine

Me:
What do they remind you of?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
nickle back and blacksabbath

Me:
What does the music make you want to do?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
just chill out really

Me:
Fair enough.

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
well im sticking with old school stuff then

Me:
What do you mean?

My Nine-Year-Old Nephew:
im sticking with stuff like the clash and ramones

-Z

Have A Nice Life - The Unnatural World (Flenser / Enemies List) (2014)

The Unnatural World is a completely humorless album. It has the dark mood of post-punk bands like Joy Division. There's a heavier aura haunting the eight tracks that you'd expect from a Neurosis album. For such a full and loud sound, Have A Nice Life has done a perfect job at conveying the feeling of isolation.

A few months ago I watched the documentary about Slint, Breadcrumb Trail. What stood out the most to me was that the guys from Slint were big goofballs. I would have never guessed that from listening to Spiderland. So now when I listen to The Unnatural World I imagine Have A Nice Life members Dan Barrett and Tim Macuga walking around Middletown, Connecticut farting on payphones.

I have never farted on a payphone. Or any phone for that matter. I have no idea where I'm going with this. But The Unnatural World has been on constant rotation and I feel comfortable calling it one of the best records of 2014.

-Z

Hank Wood and The Hammerheads - Stay Home (Toxic State) (2014)

Holy crap. I heard Hank Wood and The Hammerheads' last record and it was good. I saw them play five years ago and they were good. But they weren't this good. This record is so good. Do you see what I'm getting at? Stay Home is very good.

Look. When I saw Guardians of the Galaxy I had no expectations. Yeah, Captain America: Winter Soldier was good enough that I saw it twice in the theater. For the most part Marvel has been crushing it. But who knew what to anticipate from a Marvel space adventure? I saw Guardians of the Galaxy opening day at 1 p.m. When I left the theater I was floored.

Toxic State has done a great job at representing what's so good about New York punk/hardcore. So yeah, I should've known Stay Home would be good. But this good?

Stay Home is the Guardians of the Galaxy of punk records in 2014. The bar has been raised and hopefully the rest of the weirdo punk bands follow suit.

-Z

Cold World - How The Gods Chill (Deathwish) (2014)

If you hear mid tempo groove riffing and audibly roll your eyes because it's "nu-metal" then you aren't going to like the new Cold World record, How The Gods Chill. You should probably stick to your obscure Finnish hardcore playlists. On the other hand, if you think wearing sweatpants is cool? You're gonna love it. You don't give a single fuck and "rap metal" isn't a deterrent, it's the closest you'll get to nineties NYHC. Grab your Tommy Hilfiger bucket hat and hit the pit.

-Z

Interview: Ross Farrar (Ceremony, The Down House, Hammertime)

"I love every woman on the face of this planet."

I've seen Ceremony nearly one hundred times now. They consistently put on a great show. They've released four full lengths and two shorter lengths. Ceremony is my favorite band. So when they came down to Los Angeles I forced Ross Farrar into an interview. He didn't seem too excited about it but I'm okay with that.

We entered Proof Bakery somewhere in the noontime. The woman at the counter asked us if we wanted our coffee hot or iced. Ross turned to me and smiled, "True players stay hot." So we got our hot coffees and sat down.

At one point a woman named Jennifer interjected into the interview. If you're reading this, Jennifer, hey. Besides that moment, we mostly talked about Ross Farrar's upcoming bout with writing and Ceremony's upcoming album, The *-****** ***. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. And if Matador's lawyers are reading this: sup?

ceremonyhc.com
Ross Farrar's website.

Painful Burning:
Why are you so hesitant to do interviews?

Ross Farrar:
I'm not really hesitant to do them, they're intimidating. Someone has a predetermined thought about you and they want to ask it upon you. And upon the asking you get a response and upon the response you get something that is totally free flowing that could be all messed up in the end. And you don't want to be all messed up, do you? That's the last thing you want.

Painful Burning:
You just did what you were describing.

Ross Farrar:
So you're saying I'm all messed up right now?

Painful Burning:
That didn't really make sense.

Ross Farrar:
That totally made sense.

Painful Burning:
We'll see. This is not how you talk normally. Do you put a persona on when you do interviews?

Ross Farrar:
No.

Painful Burning:
Because this isn't how you normally talk.

Ross Farrar:
That's not true, I talk like this all the time.

Painful Burning:
I bet this is how you talk in English class. Anyways, you don't like doing interviews because you think they're intimidating because someone has all these predetermined questions and you have to do everything off top?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, off top. Skim off the top. Cream off the top.

Painful Burning:
So when someone comes up to you and says, "Can we do an interview?" what do you say?

Ross Farrar:
I sigh and I say, "Okay, fine, let's do it."

Painful Burning:
You don't do many interviews. When I was researching you I noticed there weren't any prevalent interviews from the past couple years.

Ross Farrar:
I did an hour long podcast three months ago. That's an interview.

Painful Burning:
I googled your name, Fader and Noisey came up but those interviews were from 2011 and 2012.

Ross Farrar:
That's when we were hot. But we're not hot right now because we don't have a record out.

Painful Burning:
Oh I see.

Ross Farrar:
You gotta catch it while it's hot.

Painful Burning:
Well, I'm trying to catch you while you're hot.

Ross Farrar:
Fan the fire, catch it while it's hot.

True Cali players stay wet.

Painful Burning:
Why did you stop taking photographs?

Ross Farrar:
I stopped doing a lot of things lately. I've become careless about time. I think it's because of the drugs and alcohol that I was pursuing there for a while. Also, I was in Bali and got my camera stolen. That put an end to it. It was my second F3. First F3 I lost in the Denver Airport. I set it down on the counter. I walked away. When I came back it was gone. So that was my fault. I was heartbroken. I waited about three months and got another F3, because it's my favorite camera. Then this one got stolen. It's been a damper on things. I don't want to go out and spend another $600 on a camera that I'm probably going to lose again or get stolen. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do... If I want to carry around a point and shoot or if I'm even going to be taking pictures. And it goes with everything else. I've slowed down in a lot of the inspiration, so.

Painful Burning:
But you've been-

Ross Farrar:
I've been writing poems.

Painful Burning:
That's what I was going to say, you've been writing more. Has that been a conscious effort? To write more and photograph less?

Ross Farrar:
No, I just think that sometimes in my life I try to do too many things at once. Especially artistically. Try to juggle around different mediums. I think maybe I should just focus on one thing. I'm starting school for English which is all periods and commas so I think I'm going to focus on that more.

Painful Burning:
Why did you choose that over photography though?

Ross Farrar:
It came to a point where I was going to do something to make money with it. That's the way you have to do it unless you're doing fine art. Whether it was doing publications or shooting things I didn't want to shoot to make money, I didn't want to pervert it so I kept it as a hobby instead of making it a job.

Painful Burning:
But ultimately you want to make money off of writing?

Ross Farrar:
That's a hard question. I don't know yet. But in order to put your things out in the world you kind of have to. I mean, I don't have to, I could put things out for free. It's something I haven't really come to terms with yet. I just want to people to feel what I'm saying. Whatever medium it is, I've always wanted people to feel what I'm saying.

Painful Burning:
It's easier to feel what someone is saying when there are words to be read.

Ross Farrar:
It's more direct.

Painful Burning:
Speaking of writing and college, you recently wrote a letter to the admissions office at UC Berkeley that was kind of funny. Do you remember it?

Ross Farrar:
Basically what happened was that I got a low GPA last semester at the JC because of all the trauma I was going through with breaking up with my ex-girlfriend of five years and drugs and alcohol.

Painful Burning:
Is that going to be an ongoing theme in this interview?

Ross Farrar:
There's no way to hide it. It's been kind of a problem. She said, "What's the deal? Why's your GPA so low? We might have to withhold your admission if you tell us why or give us any kind of reason of what's been going on with you." And my reply was, "I'm sorry, things get a little crazy sometimes." In so many words. It was a very informal letter back to her. And she said, "Thank you." Then I told her, "This life can be a mess." And that, "We're in the spirit world now."

Painful Burning:
Did she reply to that?

Ross Farrar:
No, she hasn't replied yet.

Painful Burning:
She's probably busy.

Ross Farrar:
She'll think about it for a second.

Painful Burning:
What are you hoping to get out of school?

Ross Farrar:
One of the big things I'm looking forward to is Richard Hass, he's teaching there. He's a world renowned poet. I want to get into a program with him, pick his brain. Eat some dinner with him and his wife. Go into the reasons. Go into the reasons of stuff. Go into the reasons of everything. Reasons for writing. Doing whatever it is he's doing. That's what I'm really looking forward to.

Painful Burning:
And you think that'll help you?

Ross Farrar:
Sort of. I've studied closely with a guy named Richard Speaks for a while. He's opened my mind up to so many different things. I think it's important to have people, friends, whoever it is that are inspirational to you around you because I grew up in a place where a lot of my friends were ding dongs, drug dealers and gangsters. You couldn't really connect with them very well on an intellectual level. I think at this point in my life it's important to have these type of people because I'm in the business of that stuff. Some kind of intellect, communication, some type of communicative intelligence. It's important to me to have good conversations, to talk with people and be around beautiful people. So I think he'd be one of those people who would open my eyes to certain things.

Painful Burning:
Would you say that that reasoning in particular is why you agreed to do this interview with me?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, exactly. And your father is a part of that too. I talk to your dad all the time and he gives me different insights.

Painful Burning:
You don't have to bring him up.

Ross Farrar:
Yeah we do.

Painful Burning:
No we don't.

Ross with William, my father.

Ross Farrar:
Whoa, look at that.

Painful Burning:
This woman just had-

Ross Farrar:
-hella drinks.

Painful Burning:
She had fourteen drinks in her hands. Did you see that?

Jennifer:
I did, I was afraid you guys were going to terrify her or something.

Painful Burning:
Why would you be afraid that we would terrify her?

Jennifer:
You yelled, "Whoaaaa." Are you recording?

Painful Burning:
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer:
Because you yelled really loud. That's a startling sound. Women are taught to be afraid of everything.

Painful Burning:
Is that true?

Jennifer:
No.

Painful Burning:
Ross, do you think women are taught to be afraid of everything?

Ross Farrar:
That's a crazy question.

Painful Burning:
That's what she just said.

Ross Farrar:
I think people in general are taught to be afraid of everything. I think the world is afraid of everything in general, you know what I'm saying?

Painful Burning:
Yeah, it's a bunch of scared people.

Ross Farrar:
Anyway, I want to say some more things about what I was talking to you about. Poetry is a decision because I think a lot of people, especially in this day and age, don't really like poetry, they don't get it. It's kind of becoming an archaic form of art. I want people to start getting more into it. The stuff that I'm writing right now... I want it to be accessible and I want people to be able to relate to it. To be scared of it though at the same time, that's important, be scared of it, be very scared of it. But be able to relate it. Like little hand grenades, throw them into the world and boom! There they are. Little tight, little things. Little packs.

Painful Burning:
If it is archaic and it is dying what is the point of resurrecting it instead of going with the flow of something that is more popular now? Why poetry?

Ross Farrar:
I think it's just a feeling. I love the way it looks. I love what you can do with it. I don't think it's a choice going along with something new. I go along with new things all the time. I'm on Instagram taking pictures of myself in the mirror. I'm doing that. That's enough. Why can't I stick to my old god damn poetry? I think it's cool.

Painful Burning:
I don't get poetry.

Ross Farrar:
I know, I know.

Painful Burning:
You want to be able to express yourself better in this dead art form and that's why you're going to school?

Ross Farrar:
Not really.

Painful Burning:
Yeah, you're going to learn how to better your writing in this out of touch form of communication.

Ross Farrar:
I think that a lot of people that like Ceremony, listen to Ceremony, are modern people. I think if I throw some poems out to them and they like them, I think that's a job well done.

Painful Burning:
That's interesting, Ceremony has been a band for nine years now, it's almost a third of your life. It's such a big part of your decision making processing. Not just the band itself but the people it affects.

Ross Farrar:
I haven't even really thought about that. I was thinking about it a year ago but I haven't really thought about 'til you brought it up right now: How impactful it is on my life and the choices I've made. It's crazy.

Painful Burning:
Do you think all your choices have been subconsciously guided by it?

Ross Farrar:
No. Not all of them. But a large part of them, yeah.

Painful Burning:
The focusing on writing?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, I think it guided me in that direction. I started writing the lyrics which I guess is a form of poetry in itself. Tight abstract balls. I don't want to call them balls, I want to call them something else.

Painful Burning:
Spheres.

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, spheres is better.

Painful Burning:
It's not as sexually oriented.

Ross Farrar:
But yeah, that got me into it I think. I think that writing for Ceremony was the segue into taking writing more seriously.

Painful Burning:
Is it okay if we move on? Are you okay with that?

Ross Farrar:
Of course.

Painful Burning:
Why are you so horny?

Ross Farrar:
I just broke up with Sarah so.

Painful Burning:
Even when you were with her.

Ross Farrar:
I guess I was. But now I'm really horny. Seriously horny as heck. Because I'm back into the wilderness again.

Painful Burning:
Heck?

Ross Farrar:
As Hell. Scratch the heck. It sounds bad. Horny. Seriously horny. And I love women. I love them so much. All different kinds. I'm just going to go out there and say it: I love every woman on the face of this planet. I'm not even kidding you about that.

Painful Burning:
What about under the face of the planet, the dead ones?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, I love them too.

Painful Burning:
What about the ones over the face?

Ross Farrar:
I even love the future ones that aren't even born yet. Think about that. They're just thoughts at this point.

Ross Farrar right after the interview. Jennifer sits in the background.

Painful Burning:
Speaking of which, you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to. I see that you have a tattoo on your arm that says a woman's name.

Ross Farrar:
It says Sarah. We talked about her a second ago.

Painful Burning:
When did you get that tattoo?

Ross Farrar:
We were broken up for eight months. We got back together. Then I got it as a Valentine's Day present for her. Then we broke up a month later. Is that tight? I love it, I think it's fantastic.

Painful Burning:
It's like a scar, a memory.

Ross Farrar:
I was actually going to get her name tattooed on me when we broke up the first time, just to get it on there.

Painful Burning:
Do you remember what I said when I first saw the tattoo?

Ross Farrar:
I don't.

Painful Burning:
I didn't known you guys had broken up. I was like, "That's a bad idea." You were like, "Why?" I was like, "You guys are probably going to break up." And you just looked at me and said, "No, no, we already did break up." I felt real bad.

Ross Farrar:
What a ride, huh? My favorite tattoo is on the other side of my arm. It's a box and it has a Z and R outside the box. On the perimeter.

Painful Burning:
I would ask you what it means but I think it's implied.

Ross Farrar:
Everybody knows what that means.

Painful Burning:
You just finished your three and a half week tour. Where did you do most of your jerking off?

Ross Farrar:
I think I only jerked off twice.

Painful Burning:
In three and a half weeks?

Ross Farrar:
I swear. Maybe three times. Maybe once a week, if that. That might be the average.

Painful Burning:
So maybe you're not as horny as I thought you were.

Ross Farrar:
The first time I did it we stayed at one of Anthony's friend's houses. A lady named Amy. She's a professional wrestler. We stayed at her mom's house. Once in the bathroom, I did it there.

Painful Burning:
Straight in the toilet?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah. I was only in there for thirty seconds. Eight jolts. No joke. Maybe ten. It was pure.

Painful Burning:
Do you remember the second time?

Ross Farrar:
I don't really remember the second time because this tour was filled with chaos.

Painful Burning:
How so?

Ross Farrar:
I didn't have one day off of drinking and there were other fun things going on of course.

Painful Burning:
Was it because of Nicky?

Ross Farrar:
I think that was a part of it. He took three days off. I took no days off. Zed's shaking his head at me right now, like I'm some type of bad boy.

Painful Burning:
It's not that you're a bad boy, I'm shaking my head in concern for your health.

Ross Farrar:
I'm getting home tomorrow. That's when everything changes. I got a month before school starts. No more drinking... heavily. I swear. Moment of clarity. No drinking heavily, moment of clarity. Does that rhyme?

Painful Burning:
Yeah. That was a quick preview of Ross' poetry. What's up with you and Nicky? In the interview I did with him he alluded to you two being soul mates.

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, we just hit it off automatically. We both have the same scar on our head. His was from throwing his guitar straight up in the air and it coming down on his head. Mine was from a street brawl in the Tenderloin. But we got similar scars. He was born on September 11th and I'm September 10th. We just get each other, we like each other. We're both abusers, substance abusers. We both think that experience is the most important thing a person can have in their lives. That goes to all degrees. And we don't really have a wall for that. We'll do pretty much about anything that a person can do.

Ross Farrar with Nicky and other pals.

Painful Burning:
Yeah, it's very obvious when you're together.

Ross Farrar:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
I'm not jealous.

Ross Farrar:
I know you're not.

Painful Burning:
Did you get into any fights on tour?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, we got into a bar fight in Grand Rapids.

Painful Burning:
What happened?

Ross Farrar:
Nicky threw a chair because he was bored. The bartender jumped over and everyone working there tried to beat us up. They failed. We picked up this hood kid on the street. They were having a sideshow in the parking lot. Real, I'm talking real bad boys. Talking hiding guns in their dungarees and shit, ya know. We picked one up and we hit it off with him. We took him the bar, we bought him drinks, got him fucked up. He took his shirt off during the fight and was like, "I'm gonna kill all y'all mothafuckas!" It was awesome. Then we gave him eighty bucks and told him to get into the cab to go wherever he needed to go.

Painful Burning:
Really?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
That's crazy. I think there's a couple more questions. God, this is going to be such a long interview. When I saw you guys at The Roxy you talked about love a lot. You said the word "love" like eight times on stage.

Ross Farrar:
That's a part of my bit. I've been into love lately.

Painful Burning:
Yeah?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah. If you read my Instagram it reads, "I love you all."

Painful Burning:
That's your new thing, love?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, I think it goes further than woman, I think I love every man too. I love women more though, but I love men too. All men.

Painful Burning:
Don't say that in front of me. I'm easily jealous.

Ross Farrar:
All men. I want it to be stressed though, that I love women.

Painful Burning:
Are you done with hate?

Ross Farrar:
I still hate.

Painful Burning:
What do you hate right now?

Ross Farrar:
I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Painful Burning:
It doesn't have to be a person. Just something you hate off top.

Ross Farrar:
I hate cavities.

Ross Farrar hanging wild in Santa Rosa.

Painful Burning:
When I was researching you-

Ross Farrar:
That's funny.

Painful Burning:
Why's that funny?

Ross Farrar:
Because you're my best friend.

Painful Burning:
You have to research your friends sometimes.

Ross Farrar:
Best friends.

Painful Burning:
There's a guy on Twitter named Ross Farrar.

Ross Farrar:
Maybe there's one person I hate.

Painful Burning:
It's Ross Farrar?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, the other one. I'm serious about that too. I hate that guy.

Painful Burning:
So he's the one man you don't love?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
Ross Farrar is the one man you don't love?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
Can we talk about the new album at all?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, sure. What do you want to know?

Painful Burning:
What's the album name?

Ross Farrar:
I can't tell you that.

Painful Burning:
Why?

Ross Farrar:
I don't know. Maybe I should.

Painful Burning:
Yeah, just put it out there.

Ross Farrar:
Right on the internet, boom, right now?

Painful Burning:
Yeah.

Ross Farrar:
I can't do it, sorry.

Painful Burning:
Why?

Ross Farrar:
It has the word "The" in it.

Painful Burning:
But why can't you say it's The *-****** ***?

Ross Farrar:
I'm not going to, don't ask me.

Painful Burning:
Is Matador not letting you?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, they'll get mad at us probably. I'll get mad at myself. I don't want people to know what the title is yet.

Painful Burning:
So Matador's lawyers will get mad at me if I put the title here?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, you'll get sued. I'm going to sue you personally if you do.

Painful Burning:
Because you've heard of my history with Epitaph's lawyers?

Ross Farrar:
No.

Painful Burning:
Whatever, we're not going to get into how Matt Ebert said they're out to get me. So you recorded with John Reis.

Ross Farrar:
Yeah. He's one of my best friends now. Seriously. I love him, he's the best. He told me this story about The Cows. Did I tell you this yesterday? I did when we were walking down the street.

Painful Burning:
Instead of a telling a story he told you, tell me a story that happened with him.

Ross Farrar:
Okay, we were done recording for the day. The story doesn't translate very well. It's one of those feelings, you had to see his face, the way he moved his body and everything.

Painful Burning:
That sucks, it's not like you're a writer and you're good at expressing your thoughts through words.

Ross Farrar:
Okay, so I'm going to try to tell it. He was going to pick up his kid from babysitters, it was around ten o'clock. We were done recording. And I was like, "John, let's drink a beer." He was like, "Agh, I got to pick up Tiger." I was like, "Really?" I looked at him. He looked at me. There was probably five seconds of pause. Then he goes, "Alright, but we got to shotgun it." He sticks the key in there, breaks it open and shotguns it. Right there with me. Me and John Reis shotgunning beers. Gets into the car and picks up the kid. It was the best.

Painful Burning:
What was so specific about his face?

Ross Farrar:
He makes this noise and cringes his eyes. You look into him and you can see his thinking face.

Ross Farrar in the recording studio with some hard thinking guys.

Painful Burning:
That's when you were recording the album named...?

Ross Farrar:
I came up with the name of the album two years ago. I just knew it was going to be called this.

Painful Burning:
And what is it?

Ross Farrar:
No one's ready for it yet.

Painful Burning:
What is it?

Ross Farrar:
It's too good.

Painful Burning:
But what is the name of the album?

Ross Farrar:
It's seriously too good.

Painful Burning:
Can you tell me a few song names? You think Matador will get mad if you give a single song name?

Ross Farrar:
I don't want to give anybody anything about it.

Painful Burning:
No, give me it.

Ross Farrar:
No.

Painful Burning:
Give me the dirt.

Ross Farrar:
No way.

Painful Burning:
Come on, I'm your best friend.

Ross Farrar:
I'm not.

Painful Burning:
Tell me some information. How many minutes is it?

Ross Farrar:
I want it to be about thirty five minutes.

Painful Burning:
And how is it different than Zoo?

Ross Farrar:
One thing that somebody told us after hearing it is that it will put Zoo into context. I think what it does is lets you see how we went from to Zoo to this new record.

Painful Burning:
Which is called?

Ross Farrar:
Oh my gosh, no.

Painful Burning:
Did you say gosh?

Ross Farrar:
Oh my gosh, yeah.

Painful Burning:
You're such a fuck.

Ross Farrar:
I say gosh sometimes instead of god.

Painful Burning:
That's so lame.

Ross Farrar:
That's partially because gosh is a better god. But that's just me.

Painful Burning:
With a capital G?

Ross Farrar:
That's just me.

Painful Burning:
With a capital G?

Ross Farrar:
All praise to gosh. Oh thank gosh.

Painful Burning:
You're not answering my question. Does it have a capital G?

Ross Farrar:
Gosh was actually Jesus' real dad. People didn't know that though.

Painful Burning:
God was his step dad?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, you could say that. John Reis told me a story. I got to tell one story about him before we go. He told me when he was a kid he was on a plane and the plane was struck by ball lightning. It dropped about three hundred feet. It was mass hysteria. It was pandemonium. He was about twelve years old. Can you imagine that happening to you?

Painful Burning:
Yeah, easily. I have a great imagination. Could you imagine it?

Ross Farrar:
I couldn't imagine it. It would be so scary.

Painful Burning:
Do you know who could imagine it?

Ross Farrar:
No.

Painful Burning:
John Lennon.

Ross Farrar:
I was just about to say that.

Ceremony playing their sold out show at The Roxy.

Painful Burning:
Is there anything else you'd like to say about the album? Besides what someone else said when they heard it.

Ross Farrar:
It's further away from Ruined and Violence Violence than a lot of people are going to like, for the older heads. It's more chilled out.

Painful Burning:
Is it your best album?

Ross Farrar:
I think it is, yes.

Painful Burning:
And sorry, just for the record, what's the name of the album?

Ross Farrar:
Oh man.

Painful Burning:
Can you measure the loss?

Ross Farrar laughs.

Painful Burning:
Do you know why I'm asking you that?

Ross Farrar:
Of course, yeah. I don't know, I'm still trying to figure it out I guess. That's the big question.

Painful Burning:
Can I include that that's a lyric from the new album?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah you can.

Painful Burning:
Looks like I got some dirt. Let's the end the interview with this. Were you happy with these questions?

Ross Farrar:
Yes.

Painful Burning:
Could we do another interview in the future?

Ross Farrar:
Yeah, sure, that's fine.

Painful Burning:
You have to say something funny at the end.

Ross Farrar:
Funny?

Painful Burning:
Yeah, wrap it up.

Ross Farrar:
There's these two fish. They're swimming along in the ocean. They're younger fish. They were probably born a few days prior. Swimming through the ocean. They come across an older wiser fish. He swims across them and says, "Hey, boys, how's the water today?" The two younger look at each other and go, "What the Hell is water?"

-Z

Lewis - Romantic Times (2014) (Light In The Attic)

Mysterious Guy Adult Contemporary.

-Z

HTRK - Psychic 9-5 Club (Ghostly) (2014)

I got off work. I drove home, ate a bowl of cereal and brushed my teeth. I picked her up. She was stunning. She was marvelous. She was unlike any other.

We went to a bar and got a drink. I excused myself to the bathroom. There was a man in there peeing. I faced the first urinal. It was filled with puke.

"Oh god, someone puked in the urinal. There's a toilet and garbage can right near it. Now someone has to clean this up," I said as I peed.
"That's too bad," he said.
"It's a Wednesday night. It's not even eleven o'clock."
"Some people can't handle their liquor."
"You should be able to make it to last call at least."
"Yeah, you should."

I washed my hands and returned to her. She smiled. I told her about the bathroom dialogue. She smiled. I smiled. We were having a good time together.

I bought her a third beer as I nursed my second. I was driving so I didn't want to exceed two beers. She was petite so she didn't want to exceed three.

I drove her back to my place. I showed her the living room. I showed her my room. We laid down in my bed. We kissed. I turned the lights off. We kissed some more.

She got up. She went outside. She puked outside. I was going to give her a ride home but she was too sick. So we laid down and listened to HTRK's Psychic 9-5 Club. It's brooding love music that's incredibly inoffensive. It's the perfect album to listen to while snuggling with someone after they've puked. Psychic 9-5 Club is as harmless as a bowl of cereal and brushing your teeth.

-Z

Cirrhus - Cirrhus (CW Productions) (2014)

I know most of you don't like listening to music that sounds like it was recorded in a trash can under the Pacific Ocean. You want the music to be obvious. You like eating Oreos and drinking Kool-Aid. Your favorite film is Mrs. Doubtfire. I get it. That's fine. But some of you enjoy lo-fi black metal. Some of you will enjoy Oregon's Cirrhus. Some of you will really enjoy Cirrhus. But most of you won't.

-Z

Interview: Dominic "Nicky" Palermo (Nothing, Death of Lovers, Horror Show)

"This whole tour has been about smashing dicks together."
(Photo by Ross Farrar.)

Nothing has released the best rock record of 2014. So when I saw them play at The Roxy a few nights ago I needed to interview Nicky about the illest shit. He was too drunk so instead he gave me his phone number.

I called him a few days later and he was in a van with Ceremony. He was drunk again. But we did the interview anyways.

Painful Burning:
What are you doing right now?

Dominic Palermo:
I'm on the way to Bakersfield. I'm fucking wasted. I drank all the shit.

Painful Burning:
It's 3:30 p.m.

Dominic Palermo:
We don't waste any time. We got Mad Dog at the rest stop. It was funny but it's not so funny anymore. I actually feel like I'm gonna throw up.

Painful Burning:
Oh boy.

Dominic Palermo:
Fuck it, let's do it. Let's talk.

Painful Burning:
We could-

Dominic Palermo:
Nope, nope.

Painful Burning:
We're doing it now?

Dominic Palermo:
Yup.

Painful Burning:
I saw you guys hanging with Trinidad James. I also saw he got dropped from Def Jam. Is that a coincidence?

Dominic Palermo:
Anybody who fucks with us will get dropped from their label. We got a couple homies out in Atlanta, these twins that are trying to start a clothing label, they always fucked with Nothing. They used to wear Nothing shirts out all the time. They lived next door to Trinidad. Trinidad used to holler at them, asking about the Guilty of Everything t-shirts. So he started listening to it and now he fucks with us. I got him all fucked up at the show off moonshine and coke. He started stripping.

Painful Burning:
He got naked at the show?

Dominic Palermo:
He ain't about that life, man.

Painful Burning:
Okay. At the Roxy you wore a shirt that was written on with sharpie saying, "YOU DID THIS." What did I do?

Dominic Palermo:
When I was in prison I read an Irvine Walsh book, Filth. At the end of the book, kind of a spoiler, the dude hangs himself wearing a shirt that says, "You did this."

Painful Burning:
So I shouldn't take it personal?

Dominic Palermo:
You should, you're the worst person ever, Zed.

Nothing playing to a sold out show at The Roxy.

Painful Burning:
Who's Daniel Oslovsky?

Dominic Palermo:
Why do you know that name?

Painful Burning:
Why would I know that name?

Dominic Palermo:
We sat in a bar in Philadelphia and made the Nothing logo together.

Painful Burning:
Didn't he also do art for Death Of Lovers?

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah. He's a really smart guy. He's one of those dudes that I hang out with and we smash our brains together and come up with cool shit. He's one of the smartest designers out of Philly for sure.

Painful Burning:
Here's a vague question. When do you know that it's over?

Dominic Palermo:
I constantly think that everything is over. I always think I'm gonna be dead every night. I'll end up dead sooner or later. But usually people like me end up living longer than expected. So I'm hoping that's the case but we'll see.

Painful Burning:
So you think it's over already?

Dominic Palermo:
Literally right now as I'm talking to you, my eyes are completely closed and I want to go to sleep so bad.

Painful Burning:
Sorry if I'm preventing you from sleeping right now.

Dominic Palermo:
I don't want to go to sleep either. I wish I had cocaine. Ross is supposed to have cocaine but he's a pussy.

Painful Burning:
How much cocaine is too much cocaine?

Dominic Palermo:
There's no such thing. I've done it to the point where it feels like my heart is going to stop. I have concerns.

Painful Burning:
What are you looking forward to?

Dominic Palermo:
I'm looking forward to watching black people lighting themselves on fire on Youtube.

Painful Burning:
I have no follow up questions on that.

Dominic Palermo:
I've seen your naked pics.

Painful Burning:
Okay.

Dominic Palermo:
We've been looking at your dick for two days now.

Painful Burning:
Oh god.

Dominic Palermo:
You want to ask me some questions, I have a question to ask you. How did you take that selfie where your dick is all the way down there? That angle is sick.

Painful Burning:
It's like asking a magician, "Where's the rabbit?" I can't reveal it.

Dominic Palermo:
You can't reveal it? You're the man, Zed, I fuck with you.

Painful Burning:
Have you been taking a lot of dick pics on this tour?

Dominic Palermo:
I haven't taken a dick pic in a long time. I have a lovely girlfriend at home that I fuck with heavy. She's tight as hell. She already knows what my stupid ass shrimp dick looks like so I don't have to text it to her. But I've been enjoying your dick for a long time.

Painful Burning:
I don't want to make this about my dick so we'll move on.

Dominic Palermo:
We should talk about it a little bit during this interview.

Painful Burning:
I think this constitutes a little bit. So I'm gonna jump back to Nothing if you don't mind.

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah, that's cool.

Painful Burning:
What do you think the proper response to the break in "Bent Nail" is?

Dominic Palermo:
Man, that's a tight question. Basically Brandon and I wrote that song. Brandon wrote verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Just like a lot of the songs we wrote for Guilty of Everything, we didn't know where to go with the song after the structure. That's where I came in. I just wanted to make powerful parts in all these songs. Similar to a breakdown in a hardcore song. Or a bridge in normal music. We were playing that riff back and forth... I was like, "What if we just put this song in a standstill right after this part?" Just drop out to a peak where it didn't even make sense to a slow doom beat. It's not that slow anymore, but it was at first. Bam bam bam, pshhh. People always mosh to it which is tight.

Painful Burning:
That's one of my favorite parts on the record.

Dominic Palermo:
We did the same thing for "Get Well." Brandon had verse and chorus and I wrote that last part.

Painful Burning:
Is that the part where you've thrown your guitar in the crowd?

Dominic Palermo:
I don't really have an agenda. I threw my guitar in the middle of a song and still had a whole song to play and never got the guitar back. I'm wylin' out sometimes and it makes the set sound worse. But to me, it's like, why not?

Painful Burning:
If it's just about the sound then stay home and listen to record.

Dominic Palermo:
Exactly.

Nicky hanging out with some pals.

Painful Burning:
Why do you say you're not good at playing guitar?

Dominic Palermo:
I'm not good at playing guitar. I taught myself how to sing and play a guitar a year and a half ago. I've been playing guitar my whole life but I only played punk songs. I never tried to learn anything else besides punk and hardcore songs. I suck at guitar but I'm also the best at guitar.

Painful Burning:
You're being a jerk to yourself.

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah. I'm the best at guitar.

Painful Burning:
That's nicer. What would you say you're not guilty of?

Dominic Palermo:
Someone asked me this recently and I came up with the most brilliant answer. Let me ask Ross.

Dominic asks Ross.

Dominic Palermo:
Being a pussy.

Painful Burning:
What's better, this interview or that interview?

Dominic Palermo:
Your interview is the best because of your long schlong. Later tonight we'll smash our penises together in a non-gay way.

Painful Burning:
I only know the gay way.

Dominic Palermo:
Fine, the gay way then. We're going to smash our penises together in a gay way.

Painful Burning:
Is that one of the tropes of this tour with Ceremony?

Dominic Palermo:
This whole tour has been about smashing dicks together... in a gay way.

Painful Burning:
Did you and Ross know each other before this tour?

Dominic Palermo:
This is the first tour we've really got to kick it together but we've met each other a couple times before.

Painful Burning:
Every time I see a picture of you two together it looks like you're having the best time ever.

Dominic Palermo:
If you've ever met a person who you felt like you should've been with your whole life... That's how I feel.

Painful Burning:
When you said on stage, "This is the first time I've been on tour where I don't like the other band," you were obviously being sarcastic.

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah, just talking shit. I think it's funny to talk shit on the band you're supporting. Not many people get a chance to do it. We're fortunately lucky enough to be really cool with these dudes where we can talk shit on them, the headlining band. It doesn't happen often.

Painful Burning:
Has anybody heard this and thought you were being serious? And then later were like, "They were right, Ceremony does suck"?

Dominic Palermo:
Hopefully.

Painful Burning:
I heard there was some funny tension between you and Boris?

Dominic Palermo:
Me and Ross rolled up into the green room. The past couple shows we did with Boris they took all the green rooms because they had a kid with them. So me and Ross made a joke that we were going to go in there and corrupt the kid, feed him acid or something, behind Boris' back. Then I met Boris and they were tight as hell. So I felt bad even thinking about poisoning their kid.

Painful Burning:
There's been a lot of celebrity run ins on this tour.

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah, celebrities love this tour because they know we're the best.

Painful Burning:
You just ran into Ian Brown on the street?

Dominic Palermo:
No, Ian Brown was coming to our show. He was trying to buy tickets but there was none left. So we had to tell him he couldn't come in.

Painful Burning:
I should've given Ian my spot.

Dominic Palermo:
Honestly, you should've. I felt so bad telling Ian Brown no. It happens.

Painful Burning:
All that he wants is to be adored.

Dominic Palermo:
He's made of stone so he'll be alright.

Guilty of everything.
(Photo by Ross Farrar.)

Painful Burning:
You played a new song at The Roxy, what song was that?

Dominic Palermo:
It's called, "July the 4th." It's about independence.

Painful Burning:
Independence as a nation or independence as a person?

Dominic Palermo:
Independence.

Painful Burning:
Is that for an upcoming album?

Dominic Palermo:
It's for a split we have coming out with Whirr coming out in October. It's that song and another song about chloroform. That song is about being abducted.

Painful Burning:
The last time I saw you you didn't play anything from prior to Guilty of Everything, are you over those songs?

Dominic Palermo:
We play them sometimes. We try to save that shit for our headlining shows. We don't like taking up too much time. We try to keep our set between twenty five and thirty minutes.

Painful Burning:
I noticed you guys are always quoting things and when I saw you live you were sampling things. What's up with that?

Dominic Palermo:
That's me kinda. I'm a huge literature fan and there's a lot of authors who say things that are meaningful to me and so much more intelligent than anything I could ever write. It's tight to hear that coming through the PA before we play a song. Throughout the set and make it weird as fuck.

Painful Burning:
How did Horror Show affect you in Nothing?

Dominic Palermo:
I don't know. In 2000 when Horror Show was in their pinnacle I didn't really want to do it, I wanted to play in a band similar to Slowdive. But I didn't have any abilities to do that. It was cool to get the crowd to vibe. All my friends loved it. I lived for my friends back then. Nowadays it's cool trying to do some music shit that we're actually getting paid enough where I don't have to work. Not not work, just work less. Are you there?

Painful Burning:
Yeah, it's just really loud there. Are you listening to LCD Soundsystem?

Dominic Palermo:
Yeah.

Painful Burning:
I always read in interviews about cocaine and My Bloody Valentine. Those two always come up together. Why would you want to listen to My Bloody Valentine when you do cocaine?

Dominic Palermo:
This story always gets so twisted out of control. At one point I was with a friend who was supposed to drop off two keys of cocaine to somebody else. That's like five pounds of cocaine. We were in the car, which to me at this point I would be shook as fuck to ever ride with that much drugs in the car. But back then we didn't really give a fuck. We were vibing out listening to Loveless. Driving around that with much weight on you and listening to such a peaceful beautiful record. That's kind of puts everything in perspective... what I'm about anyways.

The phone call ended at this point. I felt like the interview needed better closure so I asked Nicky if he felt better by the end of the interview. He told me he didn't even remember doing the interview.

-Z

Nicky and Ross before the interview.
(Photo by Ross Farrar.)