What Do I See Over the Horizon...

Hello there, my loyal minions! At this point perhaps I should say "... my loyal minion". That is assuming that my mother actually reads this blog. Here's hoping that life is treating everyone well in 2017. Ours has had some ups and a couple of downs, but nothing that has not been, or cannot be overcome.  Monica and I went back to our favorite home away from home, Barcelona, back in February.  We simply cannot get enough of that place!  This time we convinced our mothers to come with us so that they could get a glimpse of what we find so inspiring about the heart of Catalonia. They were indeed impressed!  At some point in the future I may write about what a "metal" city Barcelona is.  Our friends from the Day of Doom festival, Samo and Jose, were both kind enough to take time from their busy schedules to show us around and keep us entertained as they have every time we've been to visit. Saludos mis amigos, and good luck with the next Day of Doom.

Back here at home things had been pretty damned busy until just recently.  We spent much of the first part of the year working on the house.  They never mention how much work and money are required to keep a house up when they talk about the joys of home ownership. They only talk about all the savings and the pride of owning a home.  They should really talk about how you may be broke for the rest of your days as everything that could possibly go wrong with a house can cost thousands of dollars and that the time it takes to keep one up eats up whatever free time you might have unless you can afford to pay other people to do it for you.  Fortunately, underground metal drummers always make gobs of cash so any day now the truckloads of loot will begin to roll into our driveway and everything will be easy peasy, right?  You're shaking your head for some inexplicable reason and laughing... what is so funny?

I know none of you are interested in our daily lives, so let me segue into band news.  I have great news!  Loincloth have finished recording their second album! All of the mixing and mastering have already taken place.  There were some changes made to the layout design we gave the label, but even though things were changed in a significant way they did a great job of putting everything together.  It's a really solid design that has even more immediate impact than what we handed them.  Plus it puts one of my photos on the cover, so who's complaining?  Last I saw the album was slated to be released sometime later this summer, but that may be subject to change as the label has several things to consider when timing album releases.  Southern Lord have been unbelievably easy and fair to work with and we are very proud to have been accepted into their family of eclectic weirdness.

Though we are excited to finally see the release of our second album we have decided that the album will be our final gift to you... our minion.  Loincloth have called it a night.  It has been a very long ride and we worked hard to keep things together over the years when other bands would have fallen by the wayside.  The logistics of maintaining a long distance writing project have been complicated and over the many years there have been long stretches of time when only two people have kept things moving along.  In fact, most of the time the band found itself held together by two people in varying configurations.  Loincloth was always more of an idea than a product and in a way it was almost easier when there were only two of us trying to contribute to that idea.  The vision was still the most important thing then, and the outlet was critical for our growth and exploration as musicians.

Loincloth was originally meant to be a project only, no shows... just an album.  Once Tannon and I started doing interviews to coincide with the release of our first album, 'Iron Balls of Steel' and once we saw some of the reviews that were coming out we decided we simply had to play live.  We found two people here in Raleigh who were excited to play with us and their contributions made it possible for us to play out as a band.  We worked really hard to make that happen and both of them made sacrifices to be a part of our twisted metal family. Though we all had different roles to play within the band, everyone was just as much a member of our adventure as the next person and without the contributions of any one of us we would never have been able to set foot onstage and bring our magic show to different parts of the world. 

At this point I would like to thank Thomas Phillips and Craig Hilton for making it possible to get our music not just onto a stage, but for making it possible to have a second album written and recorded.  Both of them were down at our rehearsal space grinding it out well past midnight with me for years when some of us had to wake up five or sometimes four hours later, or to teach college the next morning, or when it was their only night off all week. Everyone gave up something to be in this band and Thomas and Craig both have my everlasting gratitude and respect for sticking it out with me as we tried to hold our music up to our own standards.  It was an honor to work with such fun, committed and talented musicians, each with his own special insight or skill to make things fit into place, despite some of the inherent challenges of being in a band whose main songwriters lived in separate states.  My hat's off to you both, and eternal thanks for putting up with the late nights and insanity of being in Loincloth.

Finally, I'd like to thank Tannon Penland for sticking it out for seventeen years to write two of the most uniquely curious metal albums out there.  Loincloth started as a conversation between Tannon and Pen Rollings in an apartment in Richmond and what came of that conversation helped shape the course of our lives and the direction of our musical expression.  When I was not getting what I needed out of other musical endeavors I had Loincloth to lean on as a source of inspiration and gratification.  Writing music with Tannon was something I truly looked forward to every week.  Our vision was a shared one, to twist and contort simple metal riffs into a new form of confused rhythmic chaos and to deliver that chaos with thunderous determination.  At a time when I needed to be challenged by what I was playing, Tannon and his infinite bag of riffs were there for me to experiment with and to keep me inspired.  Yes, it took forever for us to get things accomplished but when you look at all the obstacles that were in our way it is a small miracle that we ever made it as far as we did. 

Loincloth helped me grow as a musician, and I do look forward to taking all of the things I have learned from the experience into whatever musical adventures lie ahead.  Confessor will not be the only thing I do musically, and I am very excited about making more beat breakdown videos now that things have calmed down a bit.  Between Confessor and Loincloth there are several things I could film to explain to anyone who might be interested exactly how I, or we got from point A to point B.  Basic techniques, polyrhythmic exercises, how to rock and look cool at the same time... the sky's the limit!  

Many apologies for the long delay in updating things here at The Poundry.  Know that the Loincloth album will be available very soon, and that Confessor are hard at work continuing the tradition of twisting riffs and finding new ground in the world of underground metal. Please give a mental thank you to Tannon, Thomas, Craig and to Cary and Pen as well for making Loincloth more than just a wild conversation so many years ago.  If you enjoy experimental metal on any level you owe them all at least a small thank you for expanding that universe.