It is with deep regret and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Dogbane guitarist David Ellenburg. David peacefully passed away, surrounded by family and close friends, on Monday July 30th, due to complications of a severe stroke he had suffered the previous week. Dave was a great many things to a lot of people, a husband, a father, and a creative force behind Dogbane. Most importantly, he was our friend. Never the less, Dogbane will eventually continue to forge ahead in his honor, as we feel this is what he would have wanted. We ask everyone to please respect the privacy of his family and the band, as we try to cope during this very difficult time.
“Darkness Within”, the new video from San Francisco Bay Area metallers MACHINE HEAD, can be seen HERE (courtesy of Loudwire). The clip was filmed in the Czech Republic between May 4 and May 9. The song comes off the band’s new album, “Unto The Locust”, which sold more than 17,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 22 on The Billboard 200 chart — putting MACHINE HEAD in the Top 25 for the first time in the band’s 17-year history.
Regarding the making of the “Darkness Within” video, MACHINE HEAD guitarist/vocalist Robb Flynn said, “The first time I visited Prague was on the ‘Burn My Eyes’ tour cycle in 1994 as support to SLAYER. I’ll never forget the city. I was blown away, I’d never seen anything like it before or since. The baroque and gothic architecture, the religious symbolism everywhere, the Charles Bridge, St. Vitus’s cathedral, but also the Eastern Block feel it still carried, it was one of the most unique and beautiful cities I’d ever seen and still is.
“And yet, it had a dark underbelly to it that ran through her streets. Heroin use was open and rampant back then, and having dabbled in that, and having had friends who did more than dabble, I was all too aware of it. But there was something about that that charmed me. That there could be that dark side within such a beautiful, religious place. I said right there and then, ‘I want to do a video here someday.’
“When our label, Roadrunner Records, approached us about shooting a video for ‘Darkness Within’, I already had a lofty concept. It tied in perfectly with the fact that we were hitting Prague opening for METALLICA, so I wrote a pretty fucked up treatment for the video, and then refined it over the next two days, sent it to the band, and they loved it.
“I got sent a bunch of video by other bands to look at directors, and honestly, I fuckin’ HATE most videos nowadays, especially metal bands’ videos. They’re boring, thoughtless and pointless. Dudes in a warehouse playing. But there have been two bands in particular who have always impressed me with their videos. RAMMSTEIN and BEHEMOTH. RAMMSTEIN, with their insanely creative, movie-like, performance-less videos. They’ve been pushing the video concept for years, from the bizarro-world of ‘Sonne’, to the stark sadness of ‘Ohne Dich’, or the flat-out controversial awesomeness of ‘Pussy’. These dudes know how to make people care about a video. It’s art.
“And BEHEMOTH, too, they continue to make videos that blow me away. ‘At Left Hand Ov God’ was huge, but ‘Lucifer’, man, ‘Lucifer’, it was a game changer. I remember seeing ‘Lucifer’ for the first time, we were just about done editing the ‘Locust’ video (which we were very happy with), we had one scene left to shoot, fly in and it was done. I took a break and stumbled on ‘Lucifer’, loaded it up and watched it with my video director Mike Sloat, it blew my head off. I looked at Mike and said, ‘That is the future of videos, in one fell swoop, Nergal just changed why bands make videos.’ It was dark and beautiful, weird and cool, erotic and evil, and totally fucked.
“It was inspiring, not in the sense that I wanted to make a video that looked like ‘Lucifer’, I didn’t, but in the way that it became so crystal clear that the former restrictions and guidelines that bands used to have placed on them from MTV no longer applied. There is no reason for a metal band to make a video for MTV anymore. They don’t play videos, and if they do, it won’t be metal.
“‘Headbangers Ball’ is on MTV2.com!? I love Jose [Mangin], and the interviews are great, but who goes there to watch their video playlist when you can go to YouTube and watch exactly what you want in an instant? Music videos are for the Internet, Vimeo, and YouTube… or in the case of RAMMSTEIN‘s ‘Pussy’, YouPorn! You’re free to go as crazy, or artful, or weird, or provocative as you want. There is NO REASON for a band to stand in a warehouse and play their instruments. Those days are gone. They’re not coming back.
“So with that mindset, at 3 a.m. on a jet-lagged, sleepless morning, I had a burst of inspiration and I wrote a treatment that made a crazy, warped, poetic, epic, dark story that’s partially attached to the lyrics, but also adds a visual meant more to evoke images, to disturb, to arouse vague, uncomfortable feelings, primal feelings. We shot it over six days in Prague with a great company called Meija Productions, I co-directed it along with Milan Basel and Jorge Nunez. It was shot in three locations: downtown Prague, a small village called Krashov (which means ‘fadeless’), an awesome rock bar in Prague run by a great dude named Jakob called Mighty Bar, and briefly at the infamous Bone Church in Korta Huna.
“The scenes in front of and inside St. Vitus cathedral were shot on location; we actually snuck into St Vitus at 6:30 a.m. to shoot the scenes and got kicked out by a very angry, eerily calm priest, who walked up to us with unblinking eyes locked, and said four words that chilled me to the bone: ‘You must leave now.’ My director of photography protested, and in the same intensely calm voice, the priest stared into our souls and repeated, ‘You must leave now.’
“I was fuckin’ outta there!
“The rest was shot in a small village about five hours outside of Prague where myself and our man-of-many-hats Pando stayed with me in what we called ‘the Russian bunker,’ a hotel (really a converted farm house) that was straight out of post-World War II Russia; no heater, woodburning stove, but it was homey with a friendly non-English-speaking staff. The church we filmed in had been abandoned for about 100 years, but still had German plaques from when the Germans still controlled that part of the Czech Republic. It was fucking cold!! Three days in a row we shot 20-hour days, getting three hours of sleep, wake up and repeat. I talked some locals (an all-girl horse-breeding team) into hiring their horses to us, and they rode them nearly four miles to where we were, and they were bad-ass horses, much like the ladies who rented them.
“The rest of the guys came in a few days later, and did a great job, Dave [McClain, drums] nearly got thrown from his horse, and then later it tried to kick him! Adam [Duce, bass], in particular, rode really well. Their crew was great, and we all became quite fond of the make-up artist. The rest of the cast were hired by the directors and they froze along with us and they did a fantastic job, though none of them spoke a single word of English. It was strange, fun and vastly huge undertaking, and I am certain the Head Cases of the world will love it! SO proud of the end result.”
Morning Show hosts Tim Benz and Bob McLaughlin of the 105.9 The X radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were joined by Prague Post reporter Jonathan Crane this morning (Tuesday, July 31) to discuss the latest developments in the incarceration of LAMB OF GOD singer Randy Blythe in the Czech Republic in connection with the death of a fan more than two years ago. You can now listen to the chat HERE. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).
Blythe was arrested at the Prague airport on June 27 and is accused of shoving a local fan off the stage during LAMB OF GOD‘s May 2010 concert in the city. The man, who is said to have stormed the stage three times during the show, reportedly suffered a brain hemorrhage that resulted in his death nearly a month later.
After the court doubled Blythe‘s bail two weeks ago from about $200,000 to about $400,000, the prosecutor once again filed a complaint against the singer’s release.
On the latest developments in the Randy Blythe case:
Jonathan Crane: “There’s not really been much change in the case. Randy Blythe is still in prison. His bail hearing is still ongoing. I know that’s kind of causing a lot of concern for people because it has been going on for so long. But as it stands right now, the state prosecutor here has appealed the bail terms again, so it has to go back to one of the appeal courts, the Municipal Court, and at the moment we’re waiting on them to make a decision on whether Randy Blythe can be released or not.”
On why Randy Blythe‘s bail was doubled after he posted the initial bail:
Jonathan Crane: “Yes, this is the confusing thing. He posted bail, originally, of $200,000 — that was at the start of his arrest. I mean, this has been going on now for over a month; I think he was arrested June 27, so already more than a month. That was challenged by the prosecutor. The prosecutor challenged the amount of bail and also he said that Randy Blythe could re-offend if he was let out of jail, which seems a bit ridiculous to me, but that was what the prosecutor said. That appeal was thrown out by the Municipal Court, but they did agree to increase the bail, so they doubled it to $400,000. That’s also been posted. So this is the strange thing for people in the United States, and also for me as a Brit from England, usually when you post your bail money, you’re free to go, but the Czech Republic has a slightly different system in that the prosecutor can file complaints against the bail, and this is what’s happened here. So, yeah, $400,000 is currently sitting in the Czech court, but Randy Blythe is still in jail.”
On why there hasn’t been more international reaction to the Randy Blythe case:
Jonathan Crane: “It’s had a bit of coverage in the Czech media, especially in the tabloid press. But there doesn’t seem to be too much in the United States. I’ve had a few media outlets contact me wanting information. There certainly isn’t that much information out there in the English-speaking media. But certainly it’s an interesting case. And I’ve been trying to get answers from the Czech police and also the U.S. State Department, because I think they do have a lot to answer. The confusing thing was that LAMB OF GOD came over to the Czech Republic at the end of June to play this gig and they had no idea that the Czech police were after Randy Blythe. The Czech police were waiting at the airport and arrested him once the plane had landed, but LAMB OF GOD were completely unaware that this case was ongoing. So I think questions need to asked of the U.S. State Department whether they did indeed have any contact with the Czech authorities and if they did, why wasn’t the message passed on to LAMB OF GOD‘s management. That seems to be the big question in my mind, because it seems very strange that it’s taken two years for all this to come to light. It really is quite an interesting case and it’s surprising that there isn’t that much attention being paid your side of the channel.”
On whether there has been any outrage in the Czech Republic over the way this case has been handled:
Jonathan Crane: “I think at the moment things have died down a bit, because, of course, it has been a month. But at the start, there did seem to me to be two certain camps — obviously on the U.S. side, a lot of support for Randy Blythe, a lot of anger why he was being imprisoned and why it was taking this long. Obviously, there’s been these videos put up on YouTube of the alleged incident. Now, LAMB OF GOD‘s management say this is a key to proving Blythe‘s innocence, that you can clearly see it’s a security guard that throws a boy or a man off the stage. Now, other people I have spoken to here who were at the gig, and it’s also available on Czech metal-review web sites, they say, actually, the man in the videos is not Daniel, the young man who, unfortunately, died two years ago. So there’s a lot of confusion. But I certainly think there are two camps. Obviously, like I said, the U.S. side [where] there’s a lot of anger, but in the Czech side, at the start the Czezh tabloids were quite vociferous about Blythe and the reputation of LAMB OF GOD and portraying Blythe, especially, to be quite a violent person and an aggressive person. And so there certainly was that. But as I said, things have calmed down a lot now and we’re just waiting for the Czech courts to make their decision. All I can say is it’s frustrating for us trying to cover the case because it seems to be very slow going, but we have to just hope that the Czech Republic and the courts here do their job and I’m aware that that’s what their doing and we have just have to be aware that it’s a slightly different situation.”
On what sort of rules exist in the Czech Republic that would protect Randy Blythe from prosecution seeing as how he was the one performing when the person came on stage before he got shoved off and eventually died:
Jonathan Crane: “That’s something I also asked the Czech police, but they were very uncooperative when responding to my questions. All they would say is that they investigated the case in 2010. A friend of Daniel‘s whom I spoke to said that the police were investigating even before he had died — he was in a coma, don’t forget, for two weeks before he passed away. Of course, I don’t know what the state of their investigations are, so that would be hard for me to say. In terms of the actual case, the trial could take up to six months, so even if Randy Blythe does get released from prison, he’ll have to wait six months for his trial. That’s an interesting one. We’ve spoken to lawyers and legal experts who said that, actually, the defense team does have quite a strong case, because even if Randy Blythedid push the fan off the stage, it would be very difficult for the prosecution to prove that it was that alone that was responsible for the fan’s death. I mean, they said potentially fans could have accidentally trampled on him on the floor, the ambulance could have taken too long to arrive — things like that. So there does seem to be a strong case for the defense, but at this stage, I think the main focus for everyone — and the focus for LAMB OF GOD, certainly — is getting Randy out of jail and released on bail.”
POWER THEORY would like to welcome renowned metal guitarist Steve Stegg, into our family as our newest band member. Steve is a founding member and former guitarist for Blood Feast, Sleepy Hollow, and Tapping the Vein.
“Power Theory has been looking to add a second dual rhythm/lead guitarist since the end of the recording sessions for “An Axe to Grind”, but our commitments haven’t given us the time to do anything but start to compile a list of potential candidates” BB explained.
“Steve is a great friend and supporter of the band, and has been a regular at our local shows; in fact he replaced me as the Colossus guitarist and played with Jay Pekala prior to his first Sleepy Hollow tenure. We would always jokingly added Steve as our top candidate when we discussed it, but knew he was very busy with Sleepy Hollow and there was no chance, so we moved on to other names” added BB. “Steve informed us he had become available in mid July and was interested in jamming to see if there was chemistry and it was evident from the first few minutes it was a great fit for both Power Theory and Steve.”
Immediate plans for the band are 2 area shows in August: August 11th
FalloutZine Presents: at O’Reilly’s Pub in Phila – October 31, Anvil Bitch, Sinister Realm, Power Theory, Hammer Fight, and Mistress August 19th
Magnetar Media and Biz R Entertainment Present at Jimmy’s Place in Allentown, PA: North American Assault – White Wizzard, Icarus Witch, Widow, Power Theory, and Infernal Opera
We will then take a short break from live shows to start demo tracking for a new full length CD we are planning to start recording in February 2013 and release in 2013 as well. We are currently negotiating with a legendary artist/producer for the project (more to come soon on that). Steve will be a very big part of the writing and recording process for the new album, and we will resume some live shows in October 2012. European dates are being planned for 2013 with Red Lion Music.
KILLING JOKE frontman Jaz Coleman has allegedly gone missing after a mysterious announcement was posted online that the group was canceling its U.K. tour.
Last week, a statement appeared on KILLING JOKE‘s Facebook page explaining that the band was pulling out of its trek with with THE CULT and THE MISSION, which was due to start on September 10 at the O2 Apollo in Manchester. It was first thought to have been posted by Coleman, but is now alleged to have been the work of a fan.
The announcement, which has since been deleted, said: “It gives me great pleasure to announce the cancellation of the upcoming gigs with THE CULT and THE MISSION. Frankly, playing at a gig with THE CULT never appealed to me in the first place. Gatherers [as KILLING JOKE are affectionately known] would only get to listen to a one-hour set. Then there would be a problem with the dressing room and witnessing THE CULT charge the fans $200 per head for a meet-and-greet.
“Lastly, all their songs suck! They clearly have no integrity (they refer to their hometown as L.A.).”
KILLING JOKE members Geordie Walker, Martin “Youth” Glover and Paul Ferguson have since taken to Facebook to say that they haven’t heard from Coleman since the previous announcement was made.
“A statement was posted on Facebook, reputedly by our singer, maligning both THE CULT and THE MISSION and pulling us out of the shows,” they wrote. “He is now AWOL and has not contacted any of his band mates.
“We are deeply embarrassed by this and offer our sincere apologies to all involved.
“We are all concerned about our missing singer’s welfare.
“KILLING JOKE made a collective decision to play with THE CULT and THE MISSION in September.
“It was agreed by all of the band that we would do these shows. Indeed, we thought that they were something to look forward to, even though they were downsized.
“We would still like to honour our commitment to this tour, the other bands, and all the Gatherers and people who have already bought tickets and made travel arrangements.
“If this proves not possible, KILLING JOKE will make alternative arrangements to compensate for the trouble caused.
“Meanwhile we are doing everything we can to make this tour happen and locate our missing singer.”
The original lineup of KILLING JOKE released its latest album, “MMXII” on April 2 via Spinefarm Records.
Swedish blues rockers GRAVEYARD have set “Lights Out” as the title of their next album, due on October 26 via Nuclear Blast Records.
Commented drummer Axel Sjöberg: “The title ‘Lights Out’ sums up the feeling of the new album, and a feeling that we have. That these times that we live in are strange times, where no one really sees anything straight/the way they are.”
He added, “We all know that both we and pretty much everyone was really excited about the cover of ‘Hisingen Blues’. So we had to come up with a really strong idea to match the strength of that cover. It’s just about finished now, but even without having seen the final version, we are convinced that no one will be disappointed by the cover to ‘Lights Out’. We’ve worked with several people that all added their part, and as the saying goes in Sweden: the sum of the parts is bigger than the parts alone. So sharpen your raven’s hatches and get ready for ‘Lights Out’.”
GRAVEYARD was honored with the “Best Hard Rock/Metal” award at the Swedish “Grammis” gala, which was held on February 14 at Kungliga Operan in Stockholm.
GRAVEYARD‘s second full-length album, “Hisingen Blues”, sold 1,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at position No. 48 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.
“Hisingen Blues” entered the official chart in Sweden at position No. 1. The CD, which was released in North America on April 19, 2011 via Nuclear Blast Records, was produced, recorded, and mixed in 100 percent analog by Don Alsterberg (JOSÉ GONZALES, JUNIP, SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES, THE INTERNATIONAL NOISE CONSPIRACY) at Don Pierre Studios in Gothenburg, Sweden.
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 