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.
Just released in February, SPB’s featured stream for the month of March is a fierce and heavy split LP between Illinois bands Righteous Propaganda and Mycelium Cloak, out now -- released jointly by the two bands. Righteous Propaganda formed in 2016 in DeKalb and play brutal hardcore befitting of their …
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Forty years after landing on Earth, GWAR return with a new album, The Return of Gor Gor, out on July 25 on Pit Records. A lineup of BälSäc, Beefcake, JiZMak, Blothar, and new addition Grodius of the Maximus Clan wrote the album in search of a pet Tyrannosaurus Rex, or …
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Slovenly Recordings has three new releases -- one out now and two more on the way. The label released En Las Sombras Se Mueven Mucho Mejor from Los Idiotas ((Valladolid, Spain) on April 1, a full-length LP of garage punk. Then, next month Puppy and the Hand Jobs will release …
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Announced a month ago, Canadian heavy punks Propagandhi are back, set to release At Peace on May 2 (Epitaph). The political-as-always band just unveiled a new single/video from the record, "Cat Guy," which is emblematic of the band's style while countering sober political truths along some cute cat clips. The …
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May 1 marks the release of a new split featuring Teens in Trouble and Bat Boy (pictured), followed by a joint tour en route to Pouzza Fest in late Mat. Both bands also shared a tour last year. This time around, the new EP, on Asian Man Records, features one …
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Rad Skulls just announced a new EP, a 2-song affair called The Seeing Rad 7", out on digital (and free) now, and coming on vinyl at a to-be-determined date. The EP features the original song "Slow Skulls," plus a cover of "Seeing Red," originally by the one and only Minor …
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A year after releasing debut album The Blackburns (Sell The Heart), Philadelphia, PA band The Blackburns is back with anew single "Video Den." The band, featuring current/former members of Plow United and The Danger O's, "write the kind of songs that used to be the backbone to great movie soundtracks …
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Toronto's The Dirty Nil has announced a US tour, joined by Heart Attack Man, Carpool, and Dear Seattle, kicking things off on June 4 in Pittsburgh, PA. The band also just posted a cover of The Stooges' classic "I Wannt Be Your Dog," joined by George Pettit of Alexisonfire/Dead Tired), …
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Temporary Residence Limited has shared a listing of upcoming tours from the label roster, including Mogwai, Young Widows, Explosions In The Sky, Party Dozen, Grails, and Pinback with (separate) dates in North America, plus William Basiniski and MONO (also separately) in Europe. Read more Mogwai Apr 13 - Montreal, QC …
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New Brunswick, NH band Miracleworker has shared a new 2-song EP, Set Your Aim, out as of April 10. The indie-punk band features members of Banquets, Ensign, (Damn) This Desert Air, Nora, and more, as well as a first-time singer/songwriter. "'Set Your Aim' is a story of leaving home," the …
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Miller Lowlifes just released the new record Pinch Hitters, just in time for baseball season. The record came out on April 8 on A.D.D. Records, described by the label lovingly as "Blue collar kids with white collar jobs screaming about the same shit you scream about. It’s angry and funny …
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Long-running Kuma No Motor has shared a new video for the song "Haize Kontra", from Baiona zikina (2003, Dispear Records). While the song itself is not new, the band does have an update: an upcoming tour in France and the Basque country, hinting at future studio dates. The song "Haize …
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Secret Garden, the Philadelphia, PA blackened death metal band featuring members of YDI, Eat The Turnbuckle, Crackhouse, Woods of Ypres and Woe, has resurfaced, sharing a new single from their forthcoming album, Dreams Beyond Control, out later this month on April 25. The 13-song record will release on Strange Mono, …
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Upper Michigan's Emo-Rockers, Charmer, have released their new single, "Blue Jay." The track comes from their upcoming album, Downpour -- available May 23rd on Counter Intuitive Records. You can check out the track and pre-order the album NOW. Vocalist/Guitarist David Daignault comments: It’s about a specific day that completely shifted …
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It's album no. 4 from Orthodox, titled A Door Left Open and out on June 6. Besides the new record, the band just shared a new video for "Sacred Place" (from said album) and a US tour to follow its release this summer. There are 12 new songs on the …
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DCxPC Live keeps the live hits coming, this time with a split LP featuring Red at Night and Marc-Alan Prince -- two solo punk acts recorded at Kick Butt Coffee in Austin, TX. It's full title is DCxPC Live Vol. 34 Presents Marc-Alan Prince and Red At Night. Al, better …
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Alien Boy is set to release their debut full-length in about a month when Get Better Records will issue You Wanna Fade?, coming May 9. The Portland, OR based band released Don't Know What I Am back in 2021 and the new LP follows the same trajectory, blending pop rock …
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May 9 is the release date for the debut album from Canadian death metal band Prophetic Suffering, From Edmonton. The album is called Rivalry of Thyself, a blast of brutality just under half an hour, and a follow-up to the band's 2022 demo. “Gift of Decay” from the album just …
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Death Pill, the trashy Ukrainian trio, is back with a new album called Sologamy, out June 20 via New Heavy Sounds. It's the band's second album, and the first written since the group's members have been forced apart by war -- one member staying in Kyiv, with others in Spain …
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Burnt Tapes just dropped the new single, "Mothersguilt," a teaser for a new full-length out this summer. The new record will be titled new Lungs and will release August 8 on Wiretap Records / Lockjaw Records and Nasty Cut Records. The band last released The Grower EP, preceded by 1 …
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