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Incoming! 23 for ’23: The Rock And Roll Fables Guide To The Greatest The Next Year Has To Offer… As Of Right Now

27 January 2023 By jesse Leave a Comment

Here we go again! Part wishful thinking, part playing detective while piecing together social media updates, and part actual facts! We could only be talking about our latest crystal ball viewing as we look to the year 2023 and hope for the best that those “confirmed” releases actually come out and that maybe our thoughts and prayers are answered when it comes to those with less concrete plans as of this posting. Join us, won’t you?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: 16Volt, 2023 music, 72 Seasons, A Cause In Distress, Andy LaPlegua, Anthrax, Blackened, Cattle Decapitation, Century Media, Combichrist, Cool Thing Records, Corrosion Of Conformity, Drab Majesty, Eldridge Rodriguez, Electric Sun, Every Time I Die, Filter, Garrett Vernon, Golden Robot Records, Grave Pleasures, Hinayana, In Flames, Jason Bieler, Jason Bieler And The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra, Josh Homme, Matador, Metal Blade Records, Metallica, Metropolis Records, Midriff Records, Narrow Head, Nuclear Blast Records, Peter Gabriel, Project 86, Prong, QOTSA, Queens Of The Stone Age, Replicant, Richard Patrick, Rock And Roll Fables, Run For Cover Records, Silent Civilian, Stanton Moore, Steve Albini, Sunshine Riot, Terrasite, Texas Hippie Coalition, The Cure, The Faint, VNV Nation, VOWWS, Will Haven

18 for ’18: An Exhaustive Look At All The Albums You Should’ve Already Heard In The Year 2018

20 December 2018 By jesse Leave a Comment

It’s here! The moment you’ve all be waiting for! And instead of splitting it in half this year I decided to bombard you with one huge pile of word vomit featuring everything that got our goat in 2018. Enjoy! Because we definitely did (Links to reviews highlighted where applicable):

But first! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables, Year End Tagged With: "Ghost", Alien Weaponry, Amerikkkant, ASG, Cardi B, Carissa Johnson, Clutch, Corrosion Of Conformity, Emigrate, Eminem, Jonathan Davis, Liam Howlett, Magnetic Eye Records, Middle Class Rut, Ministry, Ohgr, Rock And Roll Fables, Soft Kill, Strvngers, The Clay People, The Prodigy, Turnstile, Underoath, VNV Nation, VOWWS, Will Haven, year end list

Woody Weatherman: A Rock and Roll Fables Conversation V.2

15 February 2018 By jesse Leave a Comment

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, the classic mid-’90’s version of Corrosion Of Conformity is back! Back as a quartet! Back with Pepper Keenan! Back on tour! Back with a new album! Back!!!

But I digress. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Interviews, Music, New Releases Tagged With: COC, Corrosion Of Conformity, Interviews, No Cross No Crown, Nuclear Blast Records, Rock And Roll Fables, Woody Weatherman

Corrosion Of Conformity Returns As A Quartet, Delivers Your Ultimate 2018 Rawk ‘N’ Roller With No Cross No Crown

21 December 2017 By jesse Leave a Comment

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!!

Pepper Keenan, Mike Dean, Woody Weatherman, and Reed Mullin. The “classic” Corrosion Of Conformity line up is back with their first album of new material as a quartet in almost 13 years and it’s as if they never left. It’d be unfair to compare any of No Cross No Crown to anything that’s come before because, not only does the album immediately stand on its’ own within the storied discography of COC but it’s inevitably going to sound like bits from your favorite Deliverance, Wiseblood, etc. tracks because of the shared musical DNA. Also, this foursome is just really, really good at what they do. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: COC, Corrosion Of Conformity, John Custer, Mike Dean, No Cross No Crown, Nuclear Blast Entertainment, Nuclear Blast Records, Pepper Keenan, Reed Mullin, RNRF, Rock And Roll Fables, Woody Weatherman

17 for ’17: The Rock and Roll Fables Guide To The Best Releases Of The New Year

6 January 2017 By jesse Leave a Comment

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Whew! Glad the 2016 retrospective is finally over. Now we can get to some reviewin’ and interviewin’ and stuff….wait, we’re doing a 2017 preview, too? UGH! WHY????? Then I guess without further adieu, the top 17 albums that may or may not surface in ’17: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: !!!, 3Teeth, Blacklight Media, Chk Chk Chk, Chris Santos, Clutch, Cold, Corrosion Of Conformity, David Duchovny, Gozu, Grave Pleasures, He Is Legend, Life Of Agony, Marilyn Manson, Mastodon, Ministry, Mutoid Man, Napalm Records, Noel Gallagher, Queens Of The Stone Age, Rammstein, Rock And Roll Fables, Soundgarden, Summoner, tr/st, White Noise Owl

Woody Weatherman: A Rock And Roll Fables Conversation

6 May 2016 By jesse 2 Comments

unnamed

Alright kiddies! We have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that a new Corrosion Of Conformity featuring the Deliverance-era of Pepper Keenan, Woody Weatherman, Mike Dean, and Reed Mullin is definitely coming out through Nuclear Blast Entertainment. The bad news? You’re probably going to have to wait until 2017 to hear it. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Interviews, Music, New Releases Tagged With: Clutch, clutch band, COC, coc interview, Corrosion Of Conformity, House Of Blues, Lamb of God, Mike Dean, Nuclear Blast Entertainment, Nuclear Blast Records, Pepper Keenan, Reed Mullin, Woody Weatherman

16 for ’16: A Rock And Roll Fables Guide To The Best Releases Of The New Year

26 January 2016 By jesse Leave a Comment

americanheadchargetangocd

Happy New Year’s! New year, new music! So what are we excited for this year? Glad you asked! Here’s a rundown of what we think will be played incessantly at the Rock and Roll Fables offices: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Music, New Releases Tagged With: 16Volt, All Tvvins, American Head Charge, Bob Mould, Child Bite, Corrosion Of Conformity, Crazy Eyes, Diiv, Eric Powell, Filter, Gozu, He Is Legend, Incarnate, Killswitch Engage, Knives Out, Merge Records, Middle Class Rut, Napalm Records, Nuclear Blast Records, Patch The Sky, Pledgemusic, Richard Patrick, Rock And Roll Fables, Summoner, Surgical Meth Machine, Tango Umbrella, White Lies, Youth Code, Zack Lopez

Karl Agell Returns With King Hitter

27 April 2015 By jesse Leave a Comment

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Getting to experience Blind-era Corrosion Of Conformity during the annual New England Metal and Hardcore Fest was a blessing in disguise as it reintroduced me to the beauty of Karl Agell’s voice. Returning home, I scoured the interwebs to discover King Hitter, the latest project from Agell which coincidentally enough feature members currently touring with the Blind-era line up of Corrosion of Conformity. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: Candlelight Records, Chuck Manning, Corrosion Of Conformity, Jon Chambliss, Karl Agell, King Hitter, Mike Brown, Rock And Roll Fables, Scott Little

15 for ’15: A Rock And Roll Fables Guide To The Best Releases Of The New Year

29 December 2014 By jesse Leave a Comment

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In no way in any sort of order, here’s the albums we think you should be looking forward to in 2015:

1. Amen (TBC/TBA)

No clue what the album is called and no clue when it’s coming out but it should be coming at you in 2015. Casey Chaos is back, my friends! Reinvigorated and alive (Didja see Amen’s triumphant set at Knotfest?!?!?!), Chaos rules next year and is joined by former Amen bassist John Fahnestock and some guy named Dave Lombardo playing drums. Make no mistake, this should be one of the heaviest and most prolific metal release of 2015. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: 36 Crazyfists, Amen, American Head Charge, Brandin Lea, Casey Chaos, Clutch, Corrosion Of Conformity, Duran Duran, Fear Factory, Filter, Guster, Jetta In The Ghost Tree, John Carpenter, John Fahnestock, Jonny Radtke, Killing Joke, Marilyn Manson, Marriages, Noel Gallagher, Sons Of Anarchy, Stabbing Westward, The Dreaming, The Pale Emperor, Torche

Mike Dean: A Rock and Roll Fables conversation

20 June 2014 By jesse 1 Comment

fabiola santini coc 4

Corrosion of Conformity bassist/vocalist Mike Dean has the perfect answer for those out there looking for a description of his band: “Well, it’s kind of an eclectic long standing heavy band that was originally born out of the American hardcore and crossover metal/punk hybrid era of the mid to late ’80’s. We went through many line up changes and configurations and have sort of landed in this spot where we just dabble in various Black Sabbath-inspired swarms of musical expression. That’s kind of it. It’s just heavy stuff with a little melody and attempt at being timeless.”

On their latest, IX, Dean along with guitarist Woody Weatherman and drummer Reed Mullin are once again in the trio “configuration” and that suits him just fine: “There’s less participants in the creativity but maybe the opinions are stronger. I think there’s a clearer sort of focus. You can play more notes. You can try crazier things harmonically when you don’t have a second guitar (In terms of the bass and the guitar). Things will come across a lot better but if they’re not working it’s really obvious because there’s nowhere to hide basically. Politically, it’s expedient. Financially, 33% is pretty good compared to 25%.  It’s another format. I like the 4-piece band. It’d be awesome to play with Pepper (Keenan, guitars/vocals). I like Thin Lizzy guitar harmonies and things like that so that’d be cool. We’re open to his contribution and kinda logistically just trying to make that happen and it’s something that everybody wants to do but for now, I like this format a lot as well. We’re just gonna roll with the changes or lack thereof and see what happens.”

Speaking of Keenan, Dean says the door is always open for his return but please don’t expect the current band to attempt any Pepper-fronted songs: “At some point we just figured that Down was too busy for us to do something with Pepper. Most of that stuff is just not gonna happen without Pepper. I don’t know, man. It just doesn’t quite feel right to take any of that on. We were supposed to do some shows with him in 2010 and it turned out he couldn’t make ’em and when he heard we were gonna go ahead and tour I think that’s one thing he was really concerned about is we would just take a lot of work that was his and try to ride the gravy train and that’s not something we’re interested in doing, y’know?”

Elaborating more on the song writing process and the songs for the latest record Dean continues: “I think the approach to writing is pretty much the same. It’s not like we’re great troubadours that sit down and we’re moved by seeing this bird with a broken wing singing to her mate and we wanna write a sad song and compose lyrics and music on the spot. We’re basically heshers. We come up with some cool riffs and some ideas, we show ’em to each other and make a basic structure and at that point it’s time to see what sort of vocal and lyrical ideas it compels you to produce. The basic style of writing is the same and some times we do it by committee collaboratively and sometimes we bring compositions that are nearly complete to the group.”

“As far as writing lyrics…since we come from traditional hardcore and at that point we were all 18 years old and we knew everything the songs would be pretty topical, pretty on the nose, taking on weighty issues and things like that. Over time we’ve kind of moved on towards more evocative type of lyric writing. We like to put things that will work to different people at different times in different situations and still resonate. We’re looking for imagery and sometimes there’s an agenda there that’s a little sneaky and a lot of times we’re just starting off with the usual gibberish the universe gives us.  Put that together with some nice turns of phrase and you start to see a coherent pattern merging. There’s a little bit of a stream of conscience element to it.”

“An early favorite was “On Your Way”. We kinda fast tracked that one to do a little music video that’s probably gonna be nice and strange. We were working last night at a very hot warehouse location deep into the morning hours just this morning. Y’know we’ve been playing that one live and it works pretty well. Beyond that, “Trucker” is one of my personal favorites and the riffs that Woody brought for “Brand New Sleep” in the studio just fell together. I really like writing lyrics and coming up with vocal melodies for songs with musical structures I didn’t have anything to do with much and I’m hoping we end up playing that piece for sure.”

Outside of C.O.C., Dean has reactivated Righteous Fool with Mullin which came about initially during the gap between 2005’s In The Arms Of God and 2012’s S/T album and handled live bass for Vista a Chino: “I would looove to work with them down the road. I went and did a couple tours with them and I felt musically Bruno (Feverey, guitars) and Brant (Bjork, drums) and John (Garcia, vocals) and I were communicating really well. It sounded really good. It felt really good. It felt like they were coming out the other side of a dark period imposed on them by an overly litigious legal action concerning the Kyuss Lives! name. It actually felt like there was some blacklisting type of activity going on that I was witnessing and privy to.”

“All in all it was pretty positive. I just enjoyed playing with them and enjoyed their new material. For awhile, John has been hatching the idea of doing a solo project so he went ahead and did that so Brant kinda did the same thing  so they’ve got these simultaneous solo endeavors which is cool cuz it gives me time to work on C.O.C. and dedicate some time to that. I would anticipate with one record remaining on their contract that certainly within the next year and a half they’ll probably reconvene on some recording. I hope they ask me to take part in that because that’s sort of what we were planning  and to play with Bruno Fevery is an awesome thing. Brant and Bruno and I would jam quite a bit and I thought we could be really comfortable just winging it and come up with a pretty good musical result just about every time so I’m looking forward to continuing that. But, y’know, those guys  have a great musical contribution whether separately or combined or whatever. Whether it’s with me or not, there’s amazing chemistry between Mr. Feverey, Mr. Garcia, and Mr. Bjork.”

Looking back, Dean agrees it’s a completely different world for musicians these days: “I would say the major difference is the landscape for music. Rock music, in particular, is not as big a piece of the cultural landscape and certainly a lot less of the cultural economy simply because there’s so much competition for our attention in terms of entertainment and all types of online time-sucking activities (Or inactivities really). Plus, the collapse of actually being able to sell a musical document to people when they can just figure out the bit torrent situation. That has kind of eaten away at the economy of it and while it’s been a great equalizer in a way it’s sort of taken out some of the meritocracy of the situation because anybody with with a certain amount of money can go and produce their music and, to some extent, distribute it so there’s actually kind of an overload of sort of mediocre to incompetent musical output with very little audience. It’s kind of an unfortunate situation in that regard but I like the egalitarian aspect of it in theory but the actual result of that development is less than ideal as far as there being a lot of music I want to listen to. I mean, there is a lot of music I wanna listen to but you have to dig around to find it.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to dig hard to find Corrosion of Conformity’s latest, IX, which streets on June 24th through Candlelight Records. Our review (With pre-order links) can be read over here.

 

Filed Under: Interviews, Music, New Releases, Rock And Roll Fables Tagged With: Candlelight Records, coc new album, Corrosion Of Conformity, Down, Mike Dean, Pepper Keenan, Rock And Roll Fables

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