July 2013 Newsletter August 9th

2707 N Kedzie (House show)

w/Youngest Son

Dann Morr

The Film Society

Facebook



August 17th

Lincoln Hall

w/Board of Governors

Daysleeper

Valo

Tickets



August 24th

Martyrs

w/The Maharishi

The Cell Phones

Drose

Click Ryan to buy, buy, buy! Bandcamp moonerband.com Facebook Twitter Email YouTube Mooner sub-Reddit Hey all,



Well, I am like three weeks late with this. It's been a quiet July. We finished the single, some of us went on vacation. We've been regrouping. David's last show at Cole's was one of our best shows in recent memory. Thanks to Belleisle and Innkeepers for having us along. Speaking of Cole's...

"I'm Waiting For the Man"

Live @ Coles 06/28/2013 We covered The Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting For the Man" and Mooner-buddy Dann Morr was kind enough to capture the performance. Our arrangement started out as a pretty straightforward note-for-note recreation, but as we worked it out in practice things took an angry turn and we just went with it. I'd say it's the most fun we've had with a cover.

LISTEN HERE

Since it was David's final show (for now) he's singing lead vocals. Also, he sounds the most like Lou Reed, I think. Adam plays the part of Maureen Tucker, Taylor as Sterling Morrison, Lee as John Cale, David as Lou Reed and Steve--being the prettiest one--as Nico.



No bones about it folks, it's going to be hard to see David go. He is off to Belgium to hang out with his wife and pursue a philosophy degree. Both of those things will hopefully provide the kind of deep insight that cannot be furnished via the writing of songs or shredding of guitar with Mooner. David has been an integral part of the band for almost as long as he has been my brother and it's going to be weird making music without him. Fear not, Mooner will soldier on. We have to--there's a show in a few weeks.



-Lee Since I forgot to ask anyone else in Mooner if they wanted to write a Record Club for this month, I'm gonna do it. Also it's been a while since I've written stuff and work is slow so without further ado it's Mooner Record Club Vol. 4 featuring Bolt Thrower's The IVth Crusade. Spearhead - No victory sublime /

Another fallen victim - I will not beg to you

The IVth Crusade is Bolt Thrower's fourth album and the high point of their flawless three album tenure on Earache. Their earlier albums were clearly made by the Slayer-aping, thrash band that they could have been what with blastbeats and overwhelming misanthropy. With the release of The IVth Crusade in 1992, however, Bolt Thrower gave the band and the whole death metal genre a new perspective. When every other metal band was clamoring to be the fastest and most violent, Bolt Thrower dared to slow things down.



Unable to load thumbnail for YouTube Video Id: b-TIi0jKlIw?t=58s. Please make sure they exist and try again later. # The IVth Crusade (Live 2010)

From the fade-in on the album's first track, "The IVth Crusade", Bolt Thrower has evil melodies on the brain. The creeping, mournful riff that opens the album is patient, surgical and heavy. Most of the group's albums are about war or feature images of war and The IVth Crusade is no different, at least in that regard.



The song Bolt Thrower's intent with the album. The track opens with a tom-heavy drum intro like demonic army insurgents cresting a hill: For comparison, the album before this one, Realm of Chaos, has all the manic stops and starts, cymbal chokes and solos that define your standard death metal album. It's the personification of the faceless death-androids on the cover . But while Realm of Chaos places the listener right into the middle of a maelstrom of violent machinery, The IVth Crusade takes place right on the brink of some serious human violence, a setting illustrated on the album cover (above). It's a snapshot of a war victim about to be stuck like a pig by another person. The pleading figure on the cover is about to be decapitated and will join the other corpses around him. The IVth Crusade wants to know what he's thinking. Pure doom at it's finest.The song "Spearhead" is their best song and a prime example of's intent with the album. The track opens with a tom-heavy drum intro like demonic army insurgents cresting a hill:



Spearhead marching onwards /

Take my soul sacrificial offering

The verses are about a soldier getting ambushed by a bunch of mysterious dudes ( A figure closed in hatred / Faced by this total stranger). Not that you can understand what vocalist Karl Willetts is saying without a lyric sheet, but that is metal, deal with it. The riffs, however, are in your face. Guitarists Gavin Ward and Barry Thompson deliver the most wicked, syrupy riffs death metal has seen. The duo break into melody unexpectedly and then recede back into bass-heavy drones just as quickly. They compliment Karl Willetts deliberate growls and barks, punctuating the moments following Karl's throat shredding roars. Andrew Whale takes a pummeling drum solo in the middle of the song, restating the theme established in the intro. When the band comes roaring back, it's with a renewed energy and fresh riffs that push the song well into the six minute mark. After I heard it, I knew that it was my favorite Bolt Thrower song, but I didn't know why it was that made keep coming back to it. I think it's because the song takes on a clear verse-chorus-bridge- structure.

Bolt Thrower - Spearhead In a recent interview, Rick Rubin said that before Def Jam came along rappers often didn't conceive of their lyrics as songs with hooks or verses or choruses. They tended to keep rapping until they didn't have any more lyrics and then the song was over. Rubin helped make all his crossover hits a success by applying strict pop structures and lean editing to his rappers' lyrical content and, ultimately, their whole persona. Along with Chuck Schulinder's band Death, Bolt Thrower did the same thing for death metal. Not to be reductive, but death metal songs tend to be a string of complicated riffs that sort of fall into each other accompanied by a carnival barker dude yelling unintelligibly. Bolt Thrower made big waves by positing: "why don't we repeat that one drum riff at a later point in the song and have Karl say something thematically relevant." They were more interested in composing some pop songs than they were jamming out. They took what Slayer suggested in Reign in Blood and, in my opinion, improved upon it.



After the first few years of death metal's explosive birth in the mid-80s (watch out for my new side project, Explosive Birth) some industry players started to latch on. What was once a scene supported by a thriving tape-trade and mail-order community was now an international affair with a massive audience, music videos and flirtation with mainstream crossover. In 1992, when The IVth Crusade was released, Bolt Thrower was just one band in a slew of artists that were feverishly signed--often sight unseen--by labels like Earache, Roadrunner and Relapse. These small labels behaved not unlike the majors did when approaching all those mid 90s alternative rockers. They threw a lot of shit at the wall and waited to see what stuck. Every band got an album, six labelmate bands got on the same bus and went through Europe and the American coasts twice a year. As a result, there was a lot of bloat but the world also got to hear The IVth Crusade. Heavy music is better for it. A figure closed in hatred / Faced by this total stranger). Not that you can understand what vocalist Karl Willetts is saying without a lyric sheet, but that is metal, deal with it. The riffs, however, are in your face. Guitarists Gavin Ward and Barry Thompson deliver the most wicked, syrupy riffs death metal has seen. The duo break into melody unexpectedly and then recede back into bass-heavy drones just as quickly. They compliment Karl Willetts deliberate growls and barks, punctuating the moments following Karl's throat shredding roars. Andrew Whale takes a pummeling drum solo in the middle of the song, restating the theme established in the intro. When the band comes roaring back, it's with a renewed energy and fresh riffs that push the song well into the six minute mark. After I heard it, I knew that it was my favoritesong, but I didn't know why it was that made keep coming back to it. I think it's because the song takes on a clear verse-chorus-bridge- structure.

