PUKEHAMMER

  After many years of listening to (enduring? surviving?) Merzbow, I've come to realize that for the most part I tend to enjoy his collaborations and splits more than I enjoy his solo material.  I have to be in a very specific mood to handle the Japanese God of Noise's all-out aural overkill, but when there is another artist present to balance him out, it tends to make things a bit more palatable. Such is the case with Retribution By All Other Creatures , the latest release from Merzbow and long-running California noise-agitators Bastard Noise.  The album is billed as a collaboration, but the promo I received didn't include any credits, so I'm not sure if the artists actually guested on each others' material, or if this is just a more traditional split release.  Whatever the case, it's easily one of the most unsettling things I've had the (dis)pleasure of listening to in 2022. Bastard Noise kick things off with "Animals Running Human Factory Farms"...

  It's more than a little weird to think that up until last week, I hadn't been to a club show since October of 2019.  Thanks to our pal COVID-19, the last show I saw was Michale Graves at Holy Diver in Sacramento, CA, playing songs from the Misfits albums he sang on.  While it was fun at the time, it ultimately ended up leaving a pretty bad taste in my mouth for the last few years after finding out that he's a tiki torch waving dipshit . Anyway, since moving from California to Nevada to Oregon, I've seen listings online for a number of shows that've piqued my interest, but nothing I would consider must see, that is until I saw that the goddamn mighty Shellac would be playing a string of West Coast dates, including three nights at Mississippi Studios in Portland.  If you're familiar with the band, you'll know that live shows are few and far between (if you're not familiar with the band, well, I just told you) and this was something I definitely could not...