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.
Our featured stream of the month comes from Tonguecutter, whose debut full-length Minnow releases on May 2 on Learning Curve Records. The band is a trio from Muskegon, MI, with a sound that is heavy and aggressive, which contrarily both sharp and blunt. It’s no accident that the first song …
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Jangle pop Manchester band Autocamper just premiered "Again," the lead single from their debut album, out this summer. The band will release What Do You Do All Day? on July via Slumberland (USA) Safe Suburban Home (UK). Listen to the song now: Read more Track List: 1 Again 2 Red …
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Punk musician Walt Hamburger just shared the single "Insolence," a pop-punk number with contributions from Neil Hennessy (Lawrence Arms), Asher Simon (Joey Cape's Bad Loud), Mikey Erg (Ergs, Unlovables), and Jon Snodgrass (Drag the River, Scorpios). The single will appear on Hamburger's upcoming album, ...And Louie!, out June 20 (Thousand …
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Powerplant just released a new 2-song 7", Crashing Cars, out on Arcane Dynamics. The synth-punk band formed by Theo Zhykharyev drew attention with People in the Sun in 2019, a one-man project that recruited bassist Karim Newble (Hitmen, Island of Love), drummer Lloyd Clipston (Arms Race, Tramadol), and synth player …
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Members of Shot Baker, 88 Fingers Louie, and No Enemy have come together to form Pretty Atomic, a new Chicago, IL rooted punk band who will release a 4-song EP called Idle Age on June 6. The band features Tony Kovacs (vocals), Andy Maggio (guitar/vocals), Nat Wright (bass/vocals), and Chris …
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Deadguy has set a date of June 27 for Near-Death Travel Services, the first album from the metalcore band in 30 years, coming via Relapse Records. Formed in New Jersey in another century, the band returned to action in 2021, playing live shows and eventually putting down new music too, …
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Tankcrimes just announced the release of Destination Extinction, a new full-length from mincecore band Haggus -- part crust, part grind, more parts unknown and mixed together. The album comes out on June 20. The band also released a double single, "Rotting Off / Do You Love Mincecore?” Destination Extinction is …
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Summer Darling Tapes just announced its 50th release, also its third year compilation mixtape -- titled Liquid Diamonds. Artists featured are: Healng / Blood Rave / Coatie Pop / Cure For Youth / Total Pleasure / Loner Statue / Blue Heron Holy Ghost / Grass Fed / Lozenge / High …
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Volcano, a short-lived band featuring members of Meat Puppets, Sublime, and The Ziggens, will see their 200$-recorded album release officially in 2025. Titled Volcanic, it releases via Don Giovanni Records on June 20. The band features a core lineup of singer-guitarist Curt Kirkwood, (Meat Puppets), drummer Bud Gaugh (Sublime), and …
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Joliette, a post-hardcore band from Mexico City, just shared a new single today in advance of their next album, Pérdidas Variables, which releases on June 20 via Persistent Vision Records. Formed in 2011, the band play a tempered version of scream. The new record, Pérdidas Variables, is described as "A …
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New band ButcherBird has an EP out on May 30 via Drowning Sea God Records, Drought/Deluge. The label calls the band "extreme, proggy and punky with noises from pedals that the band's guitarist built himself." It's a fair description, though we've personally lean on the hard and heavy elements in …
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Lookers, of Rhode Island, release their new album Deeper today, and SPB is excited to premiere a video for the title track from their new album on Almost Ready Records. The band is equally mood, mysterious, seductive and somber, with influence that ranges from post-punk to pop. We asked vocalist …
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Museum of Light shared a standalone single recently, the song comes from the Diviner sessions, but didn't fit the mood of the album. The song notably features a spoken word interlude from Johnny Chal, noted by their publicist as "a New Zealander who survived a cardiac event while in Sydney. …
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Kansas City noise-rock band Season To Risk recently released 1-800-MELTDOWN for Record Store Day (Init Records), following that up immediately with a run of live dates in the central US. The band debuted with major label Columbia in the 1990s heyday. The group never broke up, but opted for sporadic …
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Scottish punk band Cleavers will release their debut album, Bad Luck, You Can Make It Next Time, on July 11 via Grievous Angles on LP, cd, cassette, and digitally. The record has 11 melodic punk songs, including "Give Me The Time" below. Read more Bad Luck, You Can Make It …
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Originally released in 2010 to a rave 8.5/10 review by SPB, Locian's The Crystal World will get a 15-year anniversary reissue courtesy of Utech Records -- which also released the original back in the day. Preorders are open now for the June 12 release. The first album with drummer Steven …
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Swans has announced more dates in Europe and the UK this fall. The band, set to release Birthing on May 30 (Young God Records/Mute), recently announced North American dates in support of the album, as well as the final cycle for this "big sound" version of the long-running project currently …
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Herb Wiley (Rye Coalition, Black Hollies, WYLIE) just shared a health update and disappointing news for fans. The guitarist of Rye Coalition (and more) has been diagnosed with the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS. Wiley recently recorded his first solo album, under the name WYLIE, shortly before losing the function of …
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Folkish pop punk artist Ryan Cassata has joined Kill Rock Stars, sharing the single "i feel like throwing up" today, in advance of label debut Greetings From Echo Park, set for release on June 6. The new record will include collaborations with Jason Hiller, David Scott Stone (Melvins, LCD Soundsystem), …
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Experimental lute player and composer Jozef Van Wissem has announced a new album with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, titled Concerning Celestial Hierarchy. The 6-track album will release on June 6 on Incunabulum record label. The new record pairs lute and electric guitar in a minimal folk noir. Its release will be …
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