One Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, I was routinely digging around for new music when I stumbled across “Guilt” in the New Blood section of Spotify. Within the song’s opening seconds, I was hooked. Seeped in a thick, dismal atmosphere, this morose offering hit me in the face like 1,000 hammers. It sounded tough, menacing and, most importantly, fresh. This powerviolence trio from Manchester, UK is called Leeched and they’re out for blood. Formed in 2017, the band have already caused sizeable waves in the underground metal scene with last year’s EP, Nothing Will Grow From the Rotten Ground– an abrasive blend of grind and hardcore. 2018 is set to be an even bigger year for them as they tour with Full of Hell and prepare to unleash hell with their debut album next month. I’ve recently had the pleasure of talking to the band’s frontman and bassist, Laurie, to discuss lyrics, songwriting and what their live shows set out to create.
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Simon: Firstly, thanks for your time. I’ll break the ice by asking the obvious: how did you guys form the band and what were your goals for writing music?
Laurie: Thanks for taking an interest! Tom [drums] and I knew each other from previous bands and we knew Judd [guitar] mutually. We started Leeched as a side project which quickly took over our lives. As for aspirations, our goal was to see…
To those of you who actually keep up with this: I thank you. This week’s interview was meant to have a ~secret~ guest, although he was unfortunately unable to make it tonight (therefore, he’ll be making his appearance on a future interview). But more importantly, I sat down with TheLongShot, fellow Beach Boys and Elton John enthusiast and talked for an ungodly amount of time (4hrs, 13mins to be exact). LongShot earned himself a one-way ticket to the frontpage with his stellar review of Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, which can be read here.
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
So, with every interview, as redundant as it is, how did you discover Sputnik? Was it the rockin’ Web 2.0 layout or the ghost town-esque comment section at 5 A.M. that attracted you to mx’s humble abode?
Amazingly, the aesthetic was not the main draw. I had known of Sputnik for some time, but I hadn’t bothered to check it out further until about a year ago. I’m the head administrator of this other music-related website called The Range Place, and one of the primary contributors on there is a semi-frequent Sputnik poster (he goes by IhateMana on TRP and Jasdevi087 on Sputnik). After hearing him talk it up on the TRP Discord, I decided to check it out, and within one day I had made an account, posted a review for Queen’s Innuendo, and also posted a…
On the third round of interviews, I’ve received the opportunity to pick at ‘ol Young Bloon, resident Ween fan #2 and devoted Goofcore (what is it???) follower. I proceeded to stuff my face with chinese food as he told me his life story and then some, but when it came down to it, Bloon was just like me: another dude on his computer on a Friday night. How did this turn out? Wonderfully…as wonderful as Billywitchdoctor.com showing up at your front door, perhaps. If you want to know Bloon some more, just peep his stellar review for Deen Ween’s Rock2 here.
You won’t like Bloon when he’s angry…
I’m gonna start this off relatively simple, something everybody’s gotta a story for: how did you find Sputnik? Were you forced to sign up one day at gunpoint or were you feeling ~experimental~ in your teenage curiosity? Although, I could be entirely off the mark and you may be some 40-something roleplaying as a teenage boy on the internet….just like my Dateline VHS!
Well, it’s probably more close to the first one. A very good friend of mine, on Sput as BBGames, called me one day on Skype and told me to make an account, saying we could keep track of the albums we listened to. I joined the same day and started rating my CD collection. I’ve only been on the site for a little bit but I am very glad he told me…
Yet again, the review competition featured some fine entries in which I had to sit for a moment to evaluate my options. This time around, I had the pleasure of chatting it up with granitenotebook, who won the competition with his review of DJ Taye’s Still Trippin’, which you can read here.
(And to anyone interested in future iterations of the competition, I’ll further emphasize this aspect of the game: it’s bi-weekly. The next competition will take place on the week of March 16th. This allows for a week’s time for all entries and for me to not get burnt out on the process. A winning strategy hopefully? Now, on to the interview…)
Look, I could make a shitty joke here but I got nothin’.
…uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so to start things off (along with congrats on winning this review comp) how did you stumble upon the website? Was it by curiosity or was it due to Wikipedia citing some bad 2006 staff review?
Thanks, I actually don’t remember. I got here around 2013, lurked for a while, and then made an account in 2014 when I wrote a review I thought was good enough to publish (a tbt of Since I Left You (Avalanches), which kind of destroyed the point), but I don’t actually remember what led me to finding a website that didn’t even focus on the kind of music I liked at the time. it happened…
So, with the blessing of those who will not be named though know who they are, our lovely expose on the users of Sputnikmusic shall make a bi-weekly return to no remarkable avail; with little haste on my end, the first of the revived series ended in a crossfire of three reviews that all took a trip to the ~features~ queue, but in the end, TheBoneyKing won an all-expense paid trip to meet yours truly for a one-on-one interview that ultimately revealed Boney’s level of thinking to be far superior to my pea-brained self and by proxy, all of Sputnik. In a way, he really made me think! And with such a fierce appetite for knowledge, Boney has an equally voracious hunger for Indie and Americana (or alt-country idk); his review of Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You can be read here.
~Boney’s true form~
Let’s start with the beginning of the user known to all as TheBoneyKing: how did you come to find sputnik in the first place? What drew you to this wonderfully outdated music website and its community?
I remember when I was first falling down the wonderful rabbit hole that is music, I spent a lot of time reading about albums on Wikipedia and Sputnik reviews would often be linked on those pages. Usually these were klap or SowingSeason reviews due to the kind of music I was exploring at the time. So I was aware…
TalonsOfFire here – This is the second of a series of staff on staff interviews. Arcade and I decided to keep things conversational, but in the interest of clarity, my posts are bold. Enjoy!
I’m glad to finally see someone else enjoyed the new LCD Soundsystem as much as I did. Why do you think it got such a mixed reaction from so many fans that were initially excited that the band were back?
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t under the impression American Dream was doing too poorly until they cancelled their Australian tour recently and chalked it up to ‘scheduling conflicts,’ or some other code for ‘nobody’s buying.’ It’s especially jarring considering the hullabaloo around a year or 2 ago that made it seem like this was meant to be the next big comeback. Blogs were hyping this as a bigger deal than the Guns n’ Roses reunion, and now here we are, with what is probably their worst album yet.
But (and I hate to say this because it’s actually the stupidest thing to say and doesn’t articulate very much, but whatever I’ll say it anyway) that’s still pretty good, considering Sound of Silver and This is Happening are meant to be classics of that whole David Byrne soundalike New York thing that was inexplicably big about 15 years ago. In that sense, I think American Dream was sufficient synth bullshit for that audience of guys in their 30s with receding hairlines and a evangelical love of New…
This is going to be the first in a series of staff on staff interviews. I’ve been brainstorming ideas on how to grow the site, and bring new traffic in, and I thought there’s no better way to achieve that than to do a circlejerk staff on staff kind of thing that is going to be of no interest to anyone not already very familiar with Sputnikmusic.com. Anyway, here’s my interview with JohnnyOnTheSpot.
*(Signifies post-interview footnotes).
—————–
Treb: all right let’s do this. Hard hitting questions first. What’s it like having two first names?*
*(question regarding Tristan’s real name context which is lost because he uses an alias on Sputnikmusic.com).
Tristan: I wasn’t aware “Jones” was a first name used by anyone.
I didn’t actually know your last name.* Were you always JohnnyOnTheSpot on sput? Or did you ever get a name change/use a different profile?
*(Me completely missing the fact that Tristan is referring to his online handle versus his real name).
I’ve existed in/around the site prior to that profile but that was the first/only profile I created that I used to any extent, beyond maybe rating a bunch of stuff in 2008-2009(?)*
*(Tristan’s official join date is 2012. I’ll get to the bottom of this if I ever do a follow up interview.)
How did you first hear about Sputnik? I remember for me, I was a big Wikipedia head, and I would read about almost every album I listened to, and I started to see Sputnikmusic…
MarsKid just kinda popped in my head. I thought something like UranusBoy might be a bit sketchy –MarsKid, 7/23/2017
Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones. This week’s winner was MarsKid, who reviewed Bloodclot’s “Up In Arms”. Without further ado, please read on below as I sat down with him to discuss everything from zakalwe to Linkin Park.
I’ll start you off with an easy one: Would you rather spend the rest of your life as Ed Sheeran’s sound-checker (and you’re forced to be present to the end of every concert as well), or a stage dancer for Meghan Trainor?
Oh shit, this gets deeper than I thought.
I feel like being a stage dancer would honestly be a pretty nice gig. Get to shake it off in front of big crowds. Bitches like the male dancers. Having to stick to Ed Sheeran like glue would probably be like having to babysit Futures for a lifetime, so I’ll definitely pass.
Maybe I could teach him math operations though, that’d be fun.
Dancer takes the cake tho
Sound logic that I honestly can’t argue with. But let’s step back from those two hells for one second to talk about you. It’s…
He needs no introduction. But here’s the quick and dirty: Anthony Fantano, aka TheNeedleDrop, is one of the most prevalent music resources on the net. He has nearly a million YouTube followers. He’s been blogging for a decade, and vlogging for roughly eight years. Fantano has an impressive output, and uploads videos at a voracious pace. He’s a busy man. I reached out to him for a few words.
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Tristan: Kicking off with the burning question: did Sam Hyde ever get around to beating up your dad?
Anthony: Nah, he pussed out. Sam is a lotta bark, but not a lotta bite. He’s a big softy beyond his abrasive, disorienting outer shell. His odd behavior is more like a test to see who is truly with the shit. It’s like he’s testing you for a fight club that exists in his mind. It’s all as a means to weed out the normies who can’t take his bullshit, and entertain himself by attempting to take the piss out of any situation he finds himself in. It’s all harmless fun for him. However, I wouldn’t wanna be there to witness the moment Lena Dunham makes him feel like he’s in physical danger.
That being said, there are ideological views Sam holds that I vehemently disagree with, but I personally don’t see that as a reason to trash or silence his artistic endeavors. There have been much bigger scumbags to climb up…
Jay Gambit is the driving force behind L.A.-based experimental noise/metal/everything project Crowhurst, and feverishly produces noise music as a solo artist. He has dozens of albums to his name, and has collaborated with the likes of Today is the Day, Tanner Garza, The Body, Oxbow, Black Leather Jesus, and countless others. Last year, I reviewed II, an album featuring members of Ævangelist and Caïna. The third album in that instalment features “guest appearances by King Dude, Tony Wakeford (Death In June, Sol Invictus), Tara Vanflower (Lycia), Justin Pearson (The Locust/Head Wound City) and Ethan Lee McCarthy (Primitive Man),” and is slated for next year.
I felt compelled to reach out to Jay for a few words, so I did, and here’s the result. We discussed a bit of the noise scene, his influences, mental health, and what we can expect from Crowhurst in the future, or in the past when combing through his discography.
Chicago, 2016
Tristan: Artists you’ve collaborated/played with include Tanner Garza, The Body, Water Torture, Steve Austin, and plenty more. Any stories come to mind that you’d like to share? Humorous anecdotes? Heart-to-hearts?
Jay: I think everyone you’ve mentioned have all been super nice. Steve is a great dude and I think Tanner doesn’t get nearly as much credit as he deserves. He’s one of the better underground ambient artists of the past decade.
Tanner Garza’s “Give Up the Ghost” with Vomir got a bit of a burst in popularity on…
Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.
This week’s winner was user ScuroFantasma for reviewing Usurpress – The Regal Tribe (here)
First question, something I’ve wondered for a bit: what’re the origins for your username ScuroFantasma?
Well at the time I joined Sput I was really enjoying Ghost’s debut album, it was actually the first album I reviewed too, and I took the ‘scuro’ part from the Italian lyrics on ‘Con Clavi Con Dio’ for no other reason that it sounded cool to me. I’m not entirely sure where I stole the Fantasma part from (I do not speak Italian haha) but there’s something ironic about a ‘black ghost’ that appealed to me so I went with it.
That’s a pretty awesome way to get a username, and I’ve noticed how much you love Ghost. You seem to be the ultimate authority on Swedish metal on sput, given your ratings and reviews. Would you consider them your favorite new metal band? How’d you first hear about them?
I hadn’t even noticed until you pointed it out but I suppose I
Hailing from Long Island, NY, The Republic of Wolves are a five-piece rock band with an aggressive edge and boundless creativity. They’ve earned something of a cult following in the darker alt-rock scene, with their earliest releases drawing influence from acts such as Brand New and Glassjaw. They’ve set themselves further apart with each subsequent release though, the most recent being 2013’s No Matter How Narrow. To date they have dropped two studio albums and several extended plays/compilations, and everything they’ve done so far has been met with unanimous praise from fans and critics alike. I was fortunate enough to sit down (figuratively) with each member of The Republic of Wolves recently and discuss everything from 2009’s “Daisy demos” to their latest single and upcoming third LP. The interview answers were written in Mason Maggio’s (lead singer/guitarist) voice, but the entire band provided input with regards to content. So without further ado, I present to you Spuntikmusic’s first and very rewarding interview with this talented group of young musicians.
Stream “Northern Orthodox” from the band’s upcoming third LP.
You guys recently unveiled your latest single, a fiery rock piece entitled “Northern Orthodox.” Following the more upbeat and pop-oriented style of No Matter How Narrow, can you tell us what prompted such a noticeable shift back to the band’s heavier roots?
For those unfamiliar, Piero Scaruffi is a well-known (and, to some extent, notorious) figure in online music journalism. He runs an eponymous website/database, scaruffi.com, and his opinions regularly stir up controversy among musicians, music labels, and fans. His infamous Beatles article is still routinely copypasta’d (read: here) and gained him a spike in popularity amidst the music community for being a well-argued (albeit often argued against) analysis of their career, and a contrarian stance to the music community in general.
But, beyond that, his database is expansive, covering 7000+ artists, as well as commentary on politics, science, travel, cinema, technology, and multiple lengthy essays pertaining to the histories of music genres.
Scaruffi is a significant figure for me because, back in, about, 2006, I was just getting interested in music journalism, and stumbled upon him via discussions on listology.com, where he is/was regarded pretty highly by users, many of whom would make “favourite album lists” that more or less copied his choices. Of any singular person, his opinions did more to influence my developing interest in music, and, in some indirect way, probably inspired me to start reviewing. I recently contacted him and he agreed to answer a handful of questions.
Tristan: To what extent is musical history important in analyzing music? Can a reviewer cover a genre alien to him/her and deliver a worthwhile think piece? This is a relatively general question, but feel free to go on whatever tangent you’d like.
Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.
This week, Mort. won with his review for Crystal Castles’ newest, Amnesty (I) (read: here)
Excerpt: “Overall though “Amnesty (I)” is mostly devoid of warmth. It’s also weirdly industrial in its execution at points, the drums packing more weight and the synth more intense, yet at the same time lacking the robotic feel a lot of industrial has. It might be cold and harsh but it still feels very human. It’s a good example of how Crystal Castles can nail down the darkly serious style they were so obviously attempting on “(III)” without sacrificing momentum and the ecstatic energy they’re known for. It may not be a total curveball in the band’s discography, but it is the most cohesive and focused Crystal Castles have ever sounded which is saying something for such a scatterbrained band.”
I had the… dubious honour of sitting down with Dean (aka Mort.) and asking the tough questions.
Tristan: I sent you some pics earlier. What’d you think? Yay / nay?
Mort.: what pics man??
Next question. This is totally off the record btw: thoughts on SowingSeason? I think he’s doing a pretty bang-up job eh.
Greetings fellow users! As some of you are aware, I’ve started a little user review competition in which the winner receives an automatic feature, as well as a “user spotlight” session. It basically consists of an informal chat in which I ask some personal questions as well as some silly ones.
This week, the winner of this titanic battle was none other than Archelirion aka. AaronIsCrunchy aka. Aaron Chidwick. He was chosen for his neat little review of Gatecreeper’s new album, Sonoran Deprivation – do check it out, if it’s not too much trouble.
Arch’s file photo – might be outdated.
Jac: Alright, I’m terrible at breaking the ice so I’m just gonna jump straight into it. You’re the first non-Aussie to win this review competition in about 5 weeks. How does it feel to have finally dethroned us
Arch: Didn’t realise there were so many Australians on Sput to be honest, let alone writers! Feels good though, gotta return some kinda title to Britain.
Anyways, tell us about the man behind the Archelirion moniker (also, is it pronounced “Arch” or “Arc”?); who is Aaron Chidwick and what makes him tick?
It’s kinda ‘Arc’ as the ‘ch’ is similar to that in ‘loch’. I could tell you the IPA for it, but that’d be pretty fucking lame. But anyway, I’m a 21 year old history student currently living in Portsmouth, UK. I have an unhealthy interest in language, enjoy shit telly and love…
