The infrequently-updated site blog, featuring a range of content including show reviews, musical musings and off-color ramblings on other varied topics.
Since beginning the tour for their latest album In Times New Roman back in June,Queens of the Stone Age have been firing on all cylinders - leaving a path of happy destruction in their wake across Europe and the United States. On December 12, the band brought their show to the multitudes of Albuquerque, NM, who were more than ready to receive their offering.
Opening the show with Regular John, vocalist/guitarist Josh Homme led the band through a high-energy set of both new and old favorites like No One Knows, If I Had a Tail and Made to Parade. In the middle of the show, Josh took a sign request from a fan for Misfit Love, an always welcome addition. Josh quipped about also being from a desert town and how, like Albuquerque, “you can call it a city, but it’s not really a city.” There’s a lightness to Homme this time around that was less evident a few years ago on the Villains tour. His trials and tribulations making it to the new album are well recorded, but the old adage What doesn’t kill you make you stronger” would seem to be in full effect and he wears those battle scars well.
QOTSA have gone through many member changes over the years, but when you see them live on this, The End Is Nero tour, it’s easy to see why this is the longest held lineup in the band’s history. Troy Van Leeuwen and Dean Fertita continue their stellar guitar work (as well as Fertita’s keyboard work). Michael Shuman on bass and Jon Theodore’s drumming, provide a drive of surgical precision and are quite simply the best rhythm section in rock. The Queens of the Stone Age juggernaut will be cutting a wide swath across Japan and Europe in the new year and show no signs of stopping. Catch this tour.
This is by no means a comprehensive list. It is largely compiled from News items, Wikipedia lists and Social Media Posts. Please note some of the additions are songwriters or composers of the songs. R.I.P
Every day is an information overload. The web has a lot of great things, but sometimes it feels like too much too.
Politics, news, rumors...it's a lot to take in. But too much music? C'mon. That isn't a real thing.
SPB has a lot of different pieces. Our focus is our written word, but sometimes it's you just want to share the music. And as somebody who won't let the mixtape die, that means you get another playlist of stuff I've found through my SPB work.
In late November, Scene Point Blank received an unsolicited pitch about a fan-made music video to the song "Shorty's Ark" from Matthew Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy. The creator had contacted the band and received positive feedback, and as music fans who put our own spin on our favorite works, we were intrigued about the story behind the video. Plus, I had a bunch of M.U.S.C.L.E. men too.
A guest blog by Andy Rothwell.
On Oct. 23, 2023 I put this fan-made video up on youtube:
That project started the first week of May 2021. I was visiting my parents and clearing out the closet of my childhood bedroom, where I found the ~100 M.U.S.C.L.E. men and the broken wrestling ring I’d owned as a kid.
If you don’t know them, those toys were big in Japan in the early ‘80s, and then big in the States in 1985-86 where they were called M.U.S.C.L.E. – standing for “Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere.”
Superwolves by Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy had come out the week before my visit, and I had it on all week. It’s one of those albums I like every song on. At the end of 2021, when Spotify told me my top 10 songs, 9 of them were the first 9 songs on Superwolves.
Around the 15th time “Shorty’s Ark” came on, the idea for the video started to take form. A decade ago I made a handful of fan-made videos for songs by Robert Pollard, Woods, Tom Petty, and others. It had been about 5 years since I’d started a really complicated one for a Kurt Vile song, stalled in the middle, and never made another.
That night I made a spreadsheet with every animal in the song, and scoured http://blog.uofmuscle.com/ and ebay, buying vintage M.U.S.C.L.E. men that I’d never owned as a kid.
The next morning I had my first moment of regret, wondering if I should really take on a music video for no reason, or just have stuck with the plan of getting rid of my old stuff.
Over the first half of summer 2021, the project moved. In the early mornings before work I invented the lego stadium with the gears, axels, and cams that makes the M.U.S.C.L.E. men look like they are jumping and cheering.
The M.U.S.C.L.E. Hard Knockin’ Rockin’ ring was always a pretty bad toy. You were tempted to squeeze into the plastic hook the fattest M.U.S.C.L.E. man you could, so it wouldn’t get dislodged in the fight. Everyone broke the plastic within a few weeks. I redrew the hook in 3D, adding 9 hook sizes for using the different sized figures, and 3D printed the replacement sets.
Later in the summer, however, I switched focus. In late 2020 I’d gotten into drawing and heat-pressing parody movie posters onto mugs. It was my first hobby I could at least try to break even on; I’d opened an Etsy shop with 5 mugs in early 2021. I’d planned to add a mug every few weeks and now it had been months since I’d drawn anything.
All of the M.U.S.C.L.E. men and panels of the lego stadium went into a plastic bin in my basement, and I went back to drawing mugs and filling out the store.
A couple times in 2022 I thought about reviving the video project, but each time realized how far there was to go and dropped it again. I had other interests. I got into sign-making with my CNC, and made stuff with my niece’s quotes and nephew’s video game progress.
Finally in the summer of 2023 I picked the video back up. It was hard to get going through the repetitive stuff. I spent a Saturday taking pictures and photoshopping the M.U.S.C.L.E men. A Sunday overlapping the letters in animal names with the periods between each letter, to mimic the M.U.S.C.L.E. branding. Another Saturday printing and gluing the paper animal names to the walls of a labyrinth I'd previously made.
But the good thing about picking up an old project is some of it is already done, and you have more skills and tools than the last time you worked on it.
Making the video title board was easy with my recent sign-making experience. I got all the props ready for a shoot in my tiny Philadelphia backyard exactly when my wife’s garden looked perfect. Weekends in a row it rained, but the shoot with my niece and nephew landed on a perfect fall Sunday.
Now the video is up and I'm finally getting rid of all the stuff. Another Saturday went to dismantling 3 panels of the lego stadium; I kept 1 panel so the design isn't lost.
I accumulated a couple of extra wrestling rings off ebay for helping with some shot angles. I 3D printed sets of hooks to go with each one, and put the sets up in my Etsy store.
Now I’m thinking about getting all of the complicated props ready for shooting that old Kurt Vile video idea next summer. Easier to pick back up since I still have paintings in my basement that my wife and I did in 2015.
Dad Hats have a new single, available exclusively below. The song "Brain In A Jar" (acoustic) will appear on an upcoming 7" via Mind Over Matter records later this year but you can hear it first here.
The Nashville, TN based band recently released their second album, Spill, an adventure …
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Each month at SPB we feature a new record on the site. While we like to talk and write about music, the common is goal is simply sharing music with others. And this month we’re excited to present the self-titled debut album from Evansville, IN based Amblare.
The band was …
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Grizzlor is about to release a 3-song EP, I Hate The Internet, out May 3 on a homemade-style CD. The new release from the noise-rock band will be available for preorder beginning on April 26 via bandcamp. Preorders are getting a special treatment, with the band noting that the first …
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London post-hardcore group Tether has shared a new single, "Straight With Me," which appears on their upcoming debut EP. The band will release the Mirror Work EP on June 21.
The band was formed in 2018, setting a mission to counter their own personal challenges by sharing messages of optimism and …
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Last week the Melvins released new EP Tarantula Heart. The band has also shared a mini-documentary, simply titled The Making of Tarantula Heart.
“The way we approached Tarantula Heart was different than any other Melvins’ album,” Buzz Osborne eplains. “I had Dale and Roy Mayorga of Ministry come in and …
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NOFX released Half Album EP yesterday (Fat Wreck Chords), the five-song farewell EP from the long-running California punk band currently on a farewell tour.
"These songs were always there," Fat Mike says in a press releasee. "It just took me a little longer to polish them up."
The EP isn't necessarily …
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Yesterday, Rope or Guillotine records out of The Netherlands released the new Hesoyam from CarlxJohnson of Slovenia, a powerviolence band whose latest record is inspired by video game GTA: San Andreas. The new record is out now and the band is on tour in Europ with Propad & Propad & Ku-Ri-Boh.
The label suggests …
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Plutocracy Planet continues to share new singles in advance of the supergroup's debut, coming out July 12.
The band features members of The Dillinger Escape Plan, American Football, Protest the Hero, Braid, The Get-Up Kids, The Callous Daoboys, Far, The Sound of Animals Fighting, Secret Chiefs 3, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, …
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Annual punk rock festival The Fest is back, announced ticket sales and wave 1 of acts to play at FEST 22, which takes place October 25-27, 2024 at several venues in downtown Gainesville, FL. Tickets go on sale April 22 at 10am EST.
Bands to play at FEST 22, announced …
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Coliseum, recently performing as C.L.S.M. in a stylistic changeup (and recently releasing Infinity Shit under the moniker), has shared its first new song as Coliseum in nine years, "You Might Be Dead." Listen below.
The band, comprised of Ryan Patterson (vocals/guitar), Kayhan Vaziri (bass/backing vocals) and Carter Wilson (drums/backing vocals) , …
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Three-piece ahem has shared the new single "Lapdog," the first song on the band's upcoming second album. Titled Avoided, the record releases on May 17 via Forged Artifacts, five year's after the band's debut, Try Again.
The album was recorded at Pachyderm Studios (Nirvana, Babes in Toyland, PJ Harvey) with engineer Nick …
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Immersion has announced the upcoming June 14 release of Nanocluster Vol.2, out on swim~. The lineup features Colin Newman (Wire), Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact), Thor Harris (Swans), and Cubzoa (Jack Wolter of Penelope Isles), along with Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck) on drums. It will release on on 2x10", cd, and digitally. …
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Danish hardcore band Omsorg will soon release Echoes, a new EP out May 17. Below, the band shares the title track, one of four on the follow-up to last year's Movements.
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Track list:
1. Resurgence
2. Echoes
3. Modern Misery
4. Every Day Is A Different Dose
OMSORG Live 2024: …
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Do you like rock 'n' roll music? We like rock 'n' roll music. And today we're debuting a brand new video for "George Romero Got Flesh Right" from The Triceratops, a duo with a misleading tri-name from Brooklyn, NY, and recent signee to Learning Curve Records.
The combo of Josh …
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A self-titled record is coming from Alaram!, the Stockhold, Sweden-based band that reunited last year. The band features three members of Victims, plus Henrik Lindqvist (Outlast) on vocals.
The 9-song crust-punk record comes out on June 14 via Armageddon Label on vinyl.
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Alarm! by ALARM!
Alarm! tracklisting:
1. Into …
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Longtime OSEES drummer Dan Rincon is throwing us a different kind of beat on his new solo LP, Spotlight City, his first solo record. The concept of the new record comes from Rincon's exploration of artificial landscapes, as he calls it, making melodies with Moog Grandmother, Mellotron, and "a kinky Modular …
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A one-off single from a band calling itself GBI will release a 7" single, The Regulator, on April 20 for Record Store Day (Megaforce Records). The GBI of the band stands for Dave Grohl, Charlie Benante, and Scott Ian, who are covering Bad Brains on a limited release to raise funds towards …
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Feel it Records is prepping for a May 17 release date of Outsider, the debut from Bermuda Squares -- a not so mysterious Minneapolis, MN band founded by vocalist/guitarist Tony Milek, and including members and former members of The Sinks, Citric Dummies, Color TV, Retainers, Dummy, the Soviettes, and more. …
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Richmond, VA has a new festival coming up. Sponsored by Persistent Vision Records and Yr Screaming Youth, Dark Days Bright Nights will take place Sept. 13-15, 2024 at The Broadberry venue. The lineup features Pageninetynine, Portrayal of Guilt, Thou, and Young Widows and headliners, with more to join them, such …
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Check out the new single from Better Lovers, "The Flowering" below:
Greg Puciato comments:
’The Flowering” is a song we’ve been playing live since day one. It came from the same batch as the God Made Me An Animal EP, so it’s nice to finally have it recorded and out …
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