Artist: Wednesday 13 Title: “From Here To The Hearse” Label: Wednesday 13, LLC Release Date: 7/13/2010 Genre: Horror Punk Rating: 3.75/5
Even though Mr. 13 is one of the music business’ most underground personalities, he is also someone that deserves a “Greatest Hits” release of his own and with that in mind we proudly present to you “From Here To The Hearse” – The Greatest Hits Of Wednesday 13. The album takes an interesting slant on the conventional hits compilation and since someone like Wednesday 13 is viewed as a “cult icon” and gets limited if any radio attention, the term “hits” is subjective and is better viewed as “most popular songs”. With that in mind the ghouls and boys who want to sink their fangs into this one should be aware that there are no real surprises to its content, but it is an album that covers a wide range of the musician’s career. Before we continue the fans should realize that for this release, Wednesday has decided to go the vinyl only route and limit the issue to 1000 copies worldwide. This makes sense in some fashion as vinyl seems to be popular again among the collectors, even though I can count on one hand the people that I know who still own record players. Continue reading “From Here To The Hearse” by Wednesday 13→
Artist: The Misfits Venue: B.B. King Blues Club (New York, NY) Opener: The Zombie Mafia Date: 10/31/2009 Label: Misfits Records
After having so much fun at last Halloween’s haunted shindig at B.B. King Blues Club, I guess one could say that this evening would be a serious case of déjà “boo” as I returned to the scene of the crime this year to once again enjoy a performance by The Misfits. The 2008 gig was a whole lot of fun and found the club sold out to capacity and hosting a bevy of opening acts that all got into the spirit of things by dressing up for the most part themselves. Tonight we would only have one kick off act in The Zombie Mafia and since I had never heard them before this evening I would make sure to be inside early to get the scoop.
The Zombie Mafia: The show started rather early and when I arrived The Zombie Mafia was already beginning to do their thing. They all sported makeup of some kind and while one looked like a skull’s grim head another was made up as if he had the same makeup advisor as the guys in Immortal. Having no real background on them before this set I was not able to fairly gauge more than the opinion of their being “pretty good” at their game. They clearly had some fans in the crowd who were pushing them forward with applause and during the final number they would bring up a friend of theirs who would join them for the chorus. I was not sure if there was any deeper reasoning into this outside of it being something cool to do for a buddy and I am sure that this will be a nice memory for the kid to talk about for a while. I felt that The Zombie Mafia was better musically than vocally and observed how a very close tone to that of Danzig was being put out there by the singer. It’s not bad to do for this kind of music but I would rather hear someone be themselves as opposed to anyone else. There are already far too many bands that have guys singing in this register. Good luck to the band either way, and now the club was packed to the doors and it was time for The Misfits to take the stage. Continue reading The Misfits @ B.B. King Blues Club (10/31/2009)→
Artist: Wednesday 13 Venue: Blender Theater (New York, NY) Opener: Mercurial & Unknown Date: 2/8/2009 Label: Independent Artist
According to my mental Metal calendar it had only been about six months since I last saw Wednesday 13 and his band perform, but as I might have stated before, I always have such a good time at his shows and such is the reasoning for me once again hitting the event when he gets to this neck of the woods. He wasn’t touring with any band that I immediately recognized so I didn’t rush to get into the venue but when I did arrive it seemed to be during the performance of the first opener and their name unfortunately escaped me. Since my immediate visual was that of two dudes suspended by piercings I assumed that I had already missed too much to catch up. Mercurial was up next and for some reason their sound just didn’t appeal to me so I opted to hang around with friends that were convening in the downstairs part of the venue instead of remaining near the stage until they finished. Wednesday 13 and the guys have a strong core fan base in NYC and while this venue tonight was not packed there were more than a couple of hundred people there and many faces I remembered from the last gig and the time immediately before that one. Continue reading Wednesday 13 @ Blender Theater at Gramercy (2/8/2009)→
Artist: Wednesday 13 Title: “F**k It, We’ll Do It Live” Label: Independent Artist Release Date: 12/13/2008 Genre: Horror Punk Rating: 4/5
His fans have been screaming bloody murder for a proper live DVD for a couple of years now and “F**k It, We’ll Do It Live” is the answer to their morbid dreams. I’ve been happy to have been a fan of what Wednesday 13 does with his band after catching him on what appears to be every recent regional appearance since about 2006. Now while that’s not really a long time in the larger scheme of things it is enough to have seen shows that addressed every single one of his solo albums – and that made the release of this CD/DVD package something very special for me. The singer/guitarist wanders the musical landscape like a modern day Alice Cooper and his material while quirky and campy at many points is also one that offers up some serious inner perspective on his views about life from time to time as well. The show was filmed and recorded at Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA and was done during the touring for his “Skeletons” CD. The CD was a much darker offering than his campy “Fang Bang”, which is a real homage to the movie monsters and many other things that go bump in the night. “Skeletons” was cited by Wednesday as being his most personal record as well and we found that on the albums title track most specifically. The show snares his band in a noose and doesn’t let them go as they execute each number with skill and the look of having a whole lot of fun. There are usually a lot of visual antics going on and since this was the first go round of Wednesday being able to sling the guitar on again, there would be a little less of the props employed than before but it was still a sinfully good time. Continue reading “F**k It, We’ll Do It Live” by Wednesday 13→
Artist: Gorgeous Frankenstein Venue: B.B. King Blues Club (New York, NY) Opener: Johnny B. Morbid, Car Bomb, Bella Morte Date: 9/7/2008 Label: Evilive Records
Tonight’s show was going to find me exhausted long before I even walked in to the venue for it seemed as only a few hours before that I was leaving the show that the legendary Carcass had held over at the nearby Nokia Theater. The band headlined a six band bill and to do the Metal thing properly we were on point for every single band and this show started early and ended late. Since Sunday’s show was to feature another influential musical personality I had to muster my strength and get myself back into action for it. The guitarist who is well known as Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein comes to us originally from The Misfits and while he had appeared at a number of Danzig shows for the brief Misfit set, he had not done that in awhile and was now adventuring out on his own. The band is called Gorgeous Frankenstein and the show would be at our home away from home B.B. King Blues Club and find three other interesting acts in tow. Figuring we saw some special stuff the night before by arriving early we opted to do so again and see what transpired. Here is the way that the night played out. Continue reading Gorgeous Frankenstein @ B.B. King Blues Club (9/7/2008)→
