GARDENS AND VILLA, HOSANNAS, AAN ( Bunk Bar , 1028 SE Water) Read our article on Gardens and Villa . BLACK ELK, NETHER REGIONS, RABBITS, WIZARD RIFLE ( Branx , 320 SE 2nd) Forgive the labored analogy, but if you will: Black Elk has shed its old antlers, and now sports a new rack for a new year. Ugh, I am sorry. Anyway, they've reformed and regenerated, lurching back onto the stage with [...]
The boys in Black Elk Speaks announced new music on their Facebook a couple of weeks ago, which turned out to be a (free) five-song EP entitled Meltdown. The whole release is marked by the band's penchant for oddity; they can go from sounding like a lounge act to hip-hop over the course of the...

Since Racer and I have been doing this whole Ripple Effect blog thing and reviewing all of this great music that we've been discovering, there's been this weird phenomenon going on where we'll both receive a piece of music that we listen to once . . . twice . . . three hundred times and we know somehow, in some whacky way, said piece of music is one of the most important pieces of music that we've stumbled on. The problem is . . . we just don't know what to say about it. Sure, we could throw [...]

Zigzagging between puddles, I walked hesitantly down 13th Avenue toward The Crystal Ballroom , motivated purely by the thought of my dear friend, Jonathon, waiting patiently for me inside. Though I had never seen, nor listened to these guys, and even though Jonathon had seen them four times before, he insisted that the Jesus Lizard would be the "greatest concert experience of your life." I scoffed at his audacious prediction but, after weeks of his incessant begging, I agreed to go. Basilisks are lizards from Latin America who sometimes run like bipeds across [...]
Arghhh! Beards! The absence of primary colors! Guitar riffs that sound like the musical equivalent of being turned to stone by Medusa! Every breakdown means another mere mortal petrified. The fresh faced and faint of heart are not welcome here. It feels good to be back home in these murky waters. You can't see a [...]
Tomorrow night is a crazy night for live music in Seattle, there are at least three different venues I'd like to be at. However, when push comes to shove, there is nowhere I would rather be tomorrow than The Comet to celebrate Carly of Starbird Promotions' birthday with a few of her favorite bands. Not that Black Eyes & Neck Ties with Helms Alee and Black Elk shouldn't be enough to get you through what is sure to be a very crowded Comet door...just check out the trippy, slightly scary, completely awesome poster.
Today's the day. The sheep awaken at 4 in the morning so that they can invade shopping malls across the nation to fulfill their cheap, consumeristic desires. Me? I thought it was only fitting to wake up at 7:09 a.m. on this Black Friday so that I could bring you the new weekly feature here at The Days of Lore called ... "Black Friday." However, this new Friday tradition should not be confused with shopping, or historical disasters. TDoL's Black Friday will examine the unholy underworld of metal. Why? Because I grew [...]

by Black Bubblegum DOWNLOAD: Kill The Client - "Divide And Conquer" (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Kill The Client - "Cleptocracy" (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Planks - "Deluge" (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Planks - "A Sunken City" (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Beehoover - "Dance Like A Volcano" (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Black Elk - "Hospital" (MP3) [...]

Ever since the self-titled debut from Black Elk came out in '06 I don't think I've been recommended a band by people more so than them. I really don't remember when I first got around to listening to their debut, but I know it took awhile. I'd have to dig through the archive of mixes because I know as soon as I did a song from it ended up on one of them. All of those people telling me about Black Elk were certainly right in the end. Black [...]
Continuing on with our "coverage" of the weekend, here are my experiences (straight from my eyes and head-spooky) from Day 2 at Ye Ol' Block Party. The day was highlighted by an even bigger crowd full of people doing their darnedest to look ugly, several more first time encounters with a band (6 out of 9!), the ridiculous amount of trash produced by all the free garbage being given away (Jones Soda, Monster, Kettle Corn), and a delicious Polish sausage to accompany my High Life. To the music... The Cave Singers [...]
Sorta like Refused (apocalyptic dynamics nudging approachable) and Jesus Lizard (frontman absent boundaries) and Slayer (pride in craft seething coiled aggression), but still not really like them at all—even the enlightened metal circuit can't easily explain Portland's Black Elk. Bristling musicianship bent toward ineffable muse doesn't lend itself to capsule reviews. Imagine the cut/cut/cut and scrape/scape/scrape against a well-polished mirror, imagine the sudden euphoria, imagine the disconnected paranoia ever after. Conduct the narrative through Erik Trammell's bravura riffage, Tom Glose' unhinged vocals above lock-step rhythms from bassist Don Capuano and fresh-from-The-Icarus-Line drummer Jeff Watson, and...still doesn't quite sound like Black [...]