Recent Features

This past Friday I was asked to join my good friend Mike De Lorenzo on Analog Attack’s What Are You Listening To Episode 80 with Mike Foster and Anthony Corallo. I had a great time. It was one of those chats where you forget other people are watching here and there. Just a group of music nerds discussing vinyl records. Mike has been in more bands than I can count. Currently: Kill Your Idols, Deathcycle, War Babies, Medicinal, Faithless, and Death Certificate. Anthony does Chronic Death Records and is also in Kill Your Idols, Faithless, and Sheer Terror. I can’t wait to do another episode.

For each episode of What Are You Listening To, everyone picks 5 records to share. If you want to know everything I selected and talked about, you’re going to have to watch. I think everyone had a lot of great picks and I have some new-to-me-music to check out. Other choices I have seen, but I didn’t give much attention to, and now I feel the desire to scope. I think it’s great to have access to so much music, but at the same time with everyone’s ability to get music out there, we now have an overwhelming number of releases at all times and it’s hard to keep up.

In fact, I can barely keep up with my own! I nearly forgot about a release I was featured on by four.eight.five studios, The Covid Covers. While I never got into Stone Sour much, after checking out the song Shawn wanted to cover, “Inhale,” I decided to give it a go. It’s a pretty song and it gets pretty heavy too. What Corey Taylor does took two of us to do– Haha! I provided the clean vocals and Shawn did all the instrumentation and aggressive vocals. I think it came out pretty good. A bit more polished than anything I have done, but I think it works for the sound. I’ve embedded the track but you can also listen to it here.

Another recent feature is a little Basement Jam Session with Osi and the Jupiter. It was a pretty humble recording set up because we did not have much time between waking up and getting Kakophonix to his flight on time– ha! But I think it came out pretty cool with what we were working with and it was a nice way to end the tour. This way people got to experience a little something if they didn’t get to see it live. It’s incredible to me where I started with Osi and the Jupiter and where I’m at now with the band. When Sean first asked me to do bass and go to Cascadian Midsummer with him, I was nervous and I wasn’t sure I belonged. I did not sing yet and I didn’t even want to play on the songs because after Osi’s European tour, just seemed like Sean and Kakophonix were such a good fit. That festival was actually the first time Kakophonix and I had ever played together! While I have done a few shows with Osi without Kakophonix, these past 9 shows solidified what Sean knew all along… This is three-piece that is meant to be together. I really love playing with these guys and I’m looking forward to everything we are working on behind the scenes.

Osi and the Jupiter will have a couple shows in October. The only one currently announced is Under Appalachian Skies with Valdrin, Windchimes, Altar and the Bull, and Vile Light.

This weekend I have an Avowal show with the homies in Hell Kite, a metal punk outfit from Akron. We are playing with Vile Light and Ovenhead, both of whom I look forward to watching. I have not seen Vile Light since Nate left, but I’m sure it’s gonna be sick. That show will take place at Bar Lucci in Kent, Ohio. I love that Kent has a music scene again. When the Stone Tavern closed, it was a tragic day for downtown. The Outpost, down the road, is still open but is dead to a lot of us who supported it when certain people were still involved, it doesn’t really do much for the underground or metal scene anymore– so it might as well be closed since the pandemic… It’s been pretty rad that The Zephyr has become such a staple. A lot of the same people involved with the Stone Tavern are helping out with it. And now with Bar Lucci booking shows upstairs, I’m optimistic that we’ll get some good things going again… nice and close to home.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still make trips to Westside Bowl (Youngstown) and No Class (Cleveland). Probably The Grog Shop and The Foundry as well. There’s also The Maple Grove Tavern… which reminds me of yet another feature I almost forgot. Avowal’s last show got a pretty great review from Rustbelt Rock Reviews. Here is the link for the full show review with Tundra and Bound By Fate.

Needless to say, I have been very busy with music-related things. I have had a great time, but I am looking forward to working more behind the scenes in July. This Saturday will be Avowal’s last show until we support Sunrot at The Zephyr in Kent on August 6. We will also provide support for a death metal band from Wisconsin, Yotuma, with our good friends in Ketherot at Westside Bowl in Youngstown on August 11. To close out August, we will open up the Oxygen Destroyer show at No Class on August 23, which I could not be more stoked for as OD is a band I’ve loved for a number of years now. I can’t wait to hear/get the new record! For more upcoming events, click here.