Boring GM Stuff: Houndstooth, Rare Metals, Moab (73-78)

Hello to everyone reading this. I don’t know why I feel obliged to start every one of these articles with a “hello.” That’s so weird. No one else who writes articles starts like this. “Hello I’m Thomas Friedman and welcome to my opinion column. Sit back relax and get ready to enjoy my stupid and shitty opinions.” You don’t see that when you crack open the New York Times, and yet, that is what you see when you come here to read these blog posts. Why is that?

It simply must be because I am a revolutionary genious, and a voice of a generation. Hello, reader. Welcome to Boring GM Stuff.

Anyway, welcome. Let’s go through my notes through the last batch of episodes.

Ep 73: Dead Man Riding

In this ep, the crew finally skedaddle out of Phoenix. fun fact, I first assumed the crew would head west from Phoenix into the desert. I was casually thinking about how the crew might run into the Sonoran Leviathan, Neon Guard Mechas, or run into desert bandits guarding treasure in a downed blimp. Then Mike told me he was interested in pointing Xanadu north east, to make their way to the Moab Lich. Pretty wild - I was trying to figure out how I’d wrap up that story if the crew never delivered the message. Now it’s a big hook! You never know with this show, even if you’re the guy drawing the maps.

Speaking of maps, here’s a look at the NeoScum’s journey through the new New Mexico Technopolis, broken down by ep.

Total time in NNMT: 2 days

One more cool thing about this episode - I had no idea where the crew was going to deal with Darius Pender. My best guess was they would just dispatch him in the back while they were en route to Moab. Z’s request to find a street doctor caught me by surprise, so real quick I had to come up with something that made sense for the area they were traveling through. I had the idea that crystal magic was a major facet of Neo New Mexico Tech life, and thought this would be a good way to weave that in. Bingo bango bongo, the crew are traveling to Houndstooth to get crystal healing.

Ep 74: Oracle

To prep for this episode, I measured about how long the crew had been on the road, and determined that Houndstooth would be about where modern day Sedona is located. It was a good match, because Sedona is rife with some very silly new age-y, yoga instagram influencer style gunk along with some spectacular natural scenery.

In reading up on Sedona, I decided that Houndstooth would be a small mining community to the south of the main city hub, and that Kiss of Quartz would be located within the modern day Chapel of the Holy Cross.

In case the crew decided to kick their heels up in Houndstooth, I wrote up on a ton on the history of the region, and decided that, broadly the area was defined by a violent struggle between a mining union and the owners. I figured that kind of conflict would justify why a street doctor could operate a business outside of the previously established private insurance based function of the other hospitals in the Neo New Mexico Technopolis. The general vibe I hung onto was painted signs, filthy 70s carpet, air thick with the smell of cigarettes and roast chicken.

There’s a note here that references solipsism in relation to meditation healing - that’s probably not the right way to do it. I try to anticipate where big monologue moments might pop up, and try to make those moemtns more collaborative. In the end, I’m really happy with what Dak and Tech put together in the following ep.

Once I figured out the rough vibe and power relations in the town of Houndstooth, I mapped out exactly the area where the NeoScum would be parked. I made a map just in case one of the scum went rouge and just fled into the town.

The ice cream joint would be one of the little squares to the south of Kiss of Quartz. Fun fact: to the south west of the church, there’s this absolutely hideous, sprawling mansion. An unbelievable eyesore among some spectacular scenery. I figured some of the major elements of the mining union would be working out of there.

Also, I had fun portraying an NPC that actually was interested in helping the NeoScum complete their murderous objective. I figure the nurse would be ambivalent to the violence, understanding that clearing any trace of the act would be more beneficial to the facility than attempting a violent encounter with these strangers. Also the Nurse has a giant auto crossbow, because I established that guns are mostly banned in the Neo New Mexico Technopolis.

Ep 75: Goodnight

I’ve heard some people wondering about the “entity” introduced at the end of this episode. I like to think the entity was first encountered as the NeoScum fled the RoboBison back in episode 5, and that every flashback Z experiences was the entity “knocking on the door.” The technomancers of the Denver Cube were able to connect Z to Legacy of Adam from the unique matrix signature from whatever this entity was. Finally, the dying Cleaner in Phoenix mentions to Z something about an “organic matrix entity.” Anyway, that’s just my theory. I’m sure I’ll understand more as the events unfold.

Ep 76 - 77

For these next two episodes, I built out the settlement of Rare Metals. I had no idea how off the rails the ep would go, so wrote a lot. Here’s the map:

And here are some pics of the cool guys who live here":

Ep 78: Ruin Town

This is the map I made and was working off of. I wanted to set something up where there were many avenues to the Lich, and had no idea what direction they’d go.

At the end of the ep, they run into some other shadowrunners. Here’s what they looked like:

The Story of Crange

Finally, I would like to humbly offer the official crange playlist i made in 2017. i can attest that it still rocks, and is the official music to crange to:

The term crange was created back when me and Mike worked for a tracking logistics company. they would play music through the whole building, the same 3 playlists of classic rock, "indie", and country. One song that I heard a lot was some Cage the Elephant song where the guy sings "you can find a reason/ a reason to change/ standing in the pouring rain" being an incredible genius of satire, I would sing the song changing the word "change" to "crange."

I would get lethally caffeinated on the worst office coffee in the world. back then, two cups of coffee would send me into such an incredible tailspin I would either feel like god or like I was dying. I would pound as much as I could handle. this is "Cranging."

So this song would always play and I'd be out of my gourd. I would declare to Mike that this lead singer was actually singing about how the "pouring rain" gives him reason to "crange," taking an insane drug that makes him feel like a burning corpse. I thought this was very funny.

This is the story of crange. I liked to think doing crange felt like living in this robert williams painting. anyway, do me a solid, drink 3 coffees over your limit and listen to the official cranging playlist today

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Boring GM Stuff: Phoenix (eps 68-72)

Hello, Gannon here. Here are some very fun pics and inside info on eps 68-72 of the neoscum podcast. I’m sorry the image sizes are so big. swear to god there’s good stuff if you can just get around how big these images are. Can’t figure out how to make them smaller. It’s probably very easy. any way, I’m still the best gm in the biz, even if i can’t work a squarespace page.

enjoy!

Ep 68: In Too Deep

I made this grid up so that I could get a good grip on where everyone was, how far apart they were, how they moved. Useful for orienting yrself!

wow look at those guys go

Ep 69: Not Nice

Here’s where the crew start off.

here’s pox, z, and the technomancer in the basement. hi guys!

here’s the guy dak sniped, and theres the other two goons gangin up on sam arg. good luck guys!

here’s daks sniper tower, and theres the big guy he killed. wow!!!

Ep 70: Raining Death

Here’s the diagram I had to whip up mid ep to figure out Dak’s heroic flight.

Also here’s some pics of the new technomancers. check it out i figured out how to not make the pics so big

Ep 71: Over and Out

Here’s the graph I whipped up for this ep: here are the guys hangin out on the second floor of the dome building, and there’s Pox riding the StairWhale to jump and grapple to sleeping TW.

Ep 72: Factory Settings

In ep 72, the crew starts making their way out of Phoenix after causing some havoc. My big goal was to give the crew the space to go anywhere in a city, while also being pursued by cops, an potentially running into vigilantes. I made a map:

I started with environmental descriptors - I wanted to make each street feel alive, like you could just go nuts going down any street. I broke the city down to districts and then a general vibe on each indv street

From there made an enviro randomizers for what a block might look like. Also wrote 20 more specific, weirder things they might see. For each street the crew would go down, I planned to roll a d6 and a d20 to get the lowdown

To figure WHO or WHAT would be on each street. I made a generator with a deck of cards. I drew twice for each street: first for what was there, second for how many and how they felt about the crew.

This was the result. I think red was aggressive, pink was friendly, green was suspicious, yellow was ambivalent. (There were also more esoteric encounters - one street one of crew would encounter “a memory,” on another, there was a bunch of bugs, etc etc)

I also made rules for the cops pursuit. Wrote down the factors that might lead to reaching the crew, wrote down the factors that might throw em off the scent.

Hers the route the crew ends up taking, the beats, the timing, and the fuzz. Oh well for me. I’ll get em next time

Finally , here’s a pic of the copper factory they ventured through. wo!!!

Cyberpunk Essentials: 5 Songs that Work

These endless months have been a bit of a music desert. I’m still listening to a lot but I’m not grabbed by many. As we all know, everything sucks shit and feels pretty hopeless. The good news is, I have some songs that I turn to:

“Vegan Chicken over Rice with My Cougar Bitch Who Look Like Jada Pinkett Smith”

LORD JAH-MONTE OGBON

I love Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon. He’s a great lyricist: funny and using all the words that sound great running together, but still tripping on the beat, delivering with force. He’s confident - he calls himself Charlotte’s best rapper. Maybe this would be a somewhat innocuous statement to the greater US population 2 or 3 years ago, but DaBaby has been blowing out the top ten charts for the last year. DaBaby is from Charlotte. Lord Jah-Monte still calls himself Charlotte’s greatest rapper. Fuck yes. I am on board with that and I agree. 

This song is triumph. It hits like a blunt instrument, but right into the part of your skull that holds a bloody ruby. When that ruby gets smacked it glows like a fucking boss fight on the N64, and by that point I’ve already turned the car I’m driving toward the nearest household. I’m gunning the gas. I smash through the wall of the modest multimillion dollar California property into their living room. Everyone is around sitting on the couch, looking at the blue Subaru that has ruined their home. My windows are down and I’m blaring this song. My forehead is burst open and within is my bloody ruby, screaming with light. I exit the car, heaving. My eyes are also blood red now. I open my mouth and a huge blast of energy wipes out all the app developers up to three blocks over. I get back into the car and merge back onto i-280. I really like this song. 

Here are a few other songs that have me cruising into the blood zone: 

“Fuck Rap”

18veno

This is a classic mean rapping tied to the sickest, sweetest hook possible. Totally perfect juxtaposition. Feels like a kick in the teeth that you are both giving and receiving. 

“We Paid”

Lil Baby feat. 42 Dugg

Another crusher. Absolutely solid track that gets better with every listen. 

“Dior”

Pop Smoke

RIP pop smoke. Hits hard. Perfect song

Finally, an old DIY folky from ’71:

“Another Normal Day”

Tucker Zimmerman

A perfect song for the times - a beautiful way of summarizing how the perpetual cruelties of life, played out in a roaring tedium. The singers exhaustion is palpable. You listen as the singer’s rage melts into a bitter apathy.  Bodies ground up, blasted apart by some bloated middle managers half hearted shrug. Everything is perpetually stupid and miserable.  But ah well, what the hell, Baby that’s life, and you can’t win em all.

· Playlist · 5 songs · 0 likes

DIVE - A Lala Pune Story

Lala by alex mitchell || @red_fathom || alex-mitchell-studio.com

A few months ago, my mom sent me a link to a Linkdin job opening for an app called “Choices.” You might have seen it - it’s a choose your own adventure style “game” where you get to play as a somewhat customizable lady who has a will they wont they adventure around a hot dude. It’s like a modern day bodice ripping dimestore novel very much for teenagers. Frankly, not my scene. Also the place seemed like the conditions were pretty crummy and the pay was bad. All to say, not a dream job.

Still, I couldn’t shake this persistent nagging voice in my head telling me, “if I was too good for the job, I should prove it.” How could I consider myself good at what I do if I couldn’t fart out a little romance sample? It was too much of a challenge to my pride for me to dismiss. A few days later, I had a story written: an account from Lala’s point of view of the night she met Tech Wizard.

I’ve uploaded it below. I hope you dig. PS: I did not get the job.

***

Lala Pune, a monkey woman, squeezes between a troll the shape of a refrigerator and a ghoul wearing a ten-gallon hat. She leans over the bar and waves her tail in an attempt to flag down the bartender. Lights flash above her, Christmas lights veining in and out of half broken light panels, bleeding neon pink and greens over the slouching truckers surrounding her at the bar. 

Even among the unseemly, with eccentric appearance of the customers in this dusty trucker dive, Lala stands out: her body is covered in a light grey fur so fine  that it shimmers in the dusty light. Her appearance is amiable - a button nose and large mouth that rests in a light smile. She wears frayed, ankle cut jeans with a hole in the back for her tail and a tank top with an image of a cat asleep on top of a truck. 

The bartender smiles as he approaches her. Lala raises her voice so that he can hear her over the animatronic country band:

“Can I get the ZiekWeiss on draft, and a green tea?” 

He nods, grabbing a goblet and clicking on the hot water heater. The country-singing robots plunk out the opening verse of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone.” Lala turns to watch them. The three-headed chorus bot is malfunctioning: every time the heads open their mouths to sing the sound is a warbling shattered glitching noise, washing skittering drums and bassline with a quivering white noise. The lead singer is a steel bodied mannequin with a cowboy hat. He grips the microphone with sexual fervor - altogether his body movement is too enthusiastic for the song. 

The chorus bot crackles, clipping and chirping, echoing the singer’s last line. Lala’s ears perk up at loud conversation at the door. The boisterous laughter ignites the bar, as the patrons turn to them. Some recognize them and wave at them, smiling. 

Her eyes lock onto a blonde twenty-something garishly draped out in wizard robes covered in moons and stars. A gentle face, warm, sparkling blue eyes. A soft exterior that belies burning passion. He's got a nervous smile, but the nerves can't hide his dimples. A natural charm comes from him, even though he seems guarded. She holds her gaze on the blonde stranger in a wizard robe. . She catches him looking back at her, his face turns red as he turns putting on a casual act. She laughs at that. 

“He’s cute” she thinks. He has a gentle face, soft, blonde, laugh lines around the eyes. She feels compelled to get closer to him, wonders, briefly, what would it feel like to be held by him.

Lala jumps as the bartender plops down a glass goblet of beer and a mug of tea before Lala. Embarrassed, she murmurs a thank you, and grasps the stem of the goblet and the hot handle of the mug of tea. She shakes her head as if trying to get a dream loose, stepping across an abandoned dancefloor. 

The corner of the bar smells a bit like sawdust.  The lights are dim, except for the spot on the band. Lala crosses to her companion, Popo, a cloaked man, sitting on a worn couch. He is middle aged, with long hair hanging over his face. He looks at her and nods as she approaches him. She hands him the mug, he takes it, hands on the steaming hot ceramic. If it hurts, his face doesn’t show it. He takes a sip of tea, and closes his eyes, a slight smile on his face.

He’s quiet. He’s always quiet. Conversation is minimal in the cabin of Lala’s truck. He sits looking out the open window, smoking, she drives, listening to the radio. Most of the time the silence is comfortable, like a quiet moment shared with a close friend, but in small moments it is lonely, howling emptiness. Lala takes a seat next to him, taking large gulps of her beer to drown out his quiet. 

What I'd do for a little conversation, she thinks. She glances back at the bar patrons, coming to life as they greet  these new visitors. She shirks at the thought of actually walking up and starting a conversation. 

What would I even say? I'm such an idiot, I'd just stumble over my words. I'm not that interesting anyway. 

Lala thinks about her day today. It was long, she’d been driving since six in the morning. The ride today was monotonous; the highway extending before her eternal, surrounded by a sun scarred landscape. It had been like that for weeks. Lala shudders at the thought. How had her life come to this? Isolated and tedious, every day the same unrecognizable stretch of road, every night shacking up at sleazy truck stops with their greasy food, surrounded by people facing the same deep loneliness of the road. She had grown to recognize that sadness even behind their smiles.

Is this me now? Is this the rest of my life? She thinks. 

She takes another deep swig of her drink. As she finishes her beer, the dwarf server approaches her with another full goblet. 

“From the wizard in the corner.” She says, handing Lala the beer. Lala turns red. The dwarf smiles 

“Good luck tonight.” Lala takes the drink, unable to control her huge smile. She takes a deep breath, stands up. Popo glances up at her. 

“I’ll be back later, Po.” She crosses to the wizard and his companions.

Her heart beats as she approaches the circle.

She recognizes the cat-eyed man in the middle: a fellow trucker, Dak Rambo a wild and gregarious lunatic of a man. She’d once ran convoy with him from Fresno to Las Vegas. The rest of his companions are similarly striking: a slight elf woman with flowing silver hair, a young man with a scarred face covered in mechanical augmentation, and a roly-poly one-armed boy. 

“One of you guys buy me a drink?”

The group look over to her. Clearly, they were egging their friend along to buy her a drink. He stands nervously looking around the bar, fidgeting uncomfortably. When his eyes catch Lala, there is an undeniable spark of attraction. The rest of the group starts to feign interest in other parts of the bar to give their friend space. The augmented man makes a great gesture of feigning interest in a broken Sex and the City pinball machine by the bathrooms.

“Oh, wow, they have an arcade! I’m gonna go check out one of those games.” He waves to the wizard, “Catch you later, Tech Wiz. You got a ton of money to buy drinks though, right?”

The cat eyed trucker bursts out: “He does! He’s the richest man in the east!” Dak winks at Lala.

The young woman with the silver hair stiffens up, giving the wizard serious side eye. 

“You bought someone a drink?” She gulps and laughs it off “Aha! That doesn’t make me jealous at all. Not at all.”

The trucker waves to the pinball machine. “Hey everybody, let’s go over there to that side of the bar!” They display over the top interest in the dilapidated arcade. 

The young woman sighs. “But I’ll be over there if you decide you want to talk to me instead.” 

The young woman turns dramatically and walks off with an incredible sass to her step. 

Lala takes a drink of her beer and gives flirting eyes to the young wizard. 

“So, what’s your deal, huh?” 

“Uh… oh, god, what is my deal? Um…” the wizard is lost for words. His eyes dart around as if seeking out what “his deal” is.

God, how am I this bad at flirting. She takes a corner of her robe in her hand 

“Those are some funky robes.”

“These?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, god. Yeah, they’re pretty cool, they’re actually antiques.”

She raises her eyebrows, “Wait, are you a magic user?” (Come on Lala, as if that wasn’t obvious.)

He gulps, “Let me ask you a question. Would that be cool - If I was a wizard?”

“Oh! Yeah - yeah, I’m with Goro-Goro-Quick. Only magic adept truckers get to be involved in the company.”

Tech Wizard’s eyes light up, “Whoa. That- are you serious? That is so cool.”

Lala smiles shyly “Yeah, yeah.”

“So you do magic?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I can do some light magic work. I know there’s all this bias here stateside, I don’t need to talk too much about that but yeah, yeah.” 

Jesus, she thinks, stop saying “yeah.”

He extends his hand, “By the way, my name is Squirt, but you can call me Tech. That’s what my friends call me.”

Lala takes his hand 

“I’m Lala. Call me Lala.” 

The band kicks into a raucous rendition of “Born on the Bayou.” The bar is roaring now. 

Tech leans to Lala’s ear. She can feel his breath on her neck. The fur on her arm stands on end at the thrill. 

“Hey, um… do you wanna- it’s kind of loud-“

Lala lightly grasps Tech’s hand. 

“Hey, do you want to go up on the roof?”

He laughs, “Roof? Yeah, I was, no joke, literally just about to say that.”

“Yeah, I know how to get up there.”

Lala takes Tech’s hand and leads him through the pulsing dance floor to a door to a stairwell beside the animatronic band. She glances to the ruined couch - Popo’s head has fallen back, mouth open, fast asleep.The two rush up the stairs, and open the door to the roof. The night rush out to them - the evening is warm, the moon is waning bright, illuminating the brick roof in silver light. Lala guides Tech to a seat beside the bar’s gleaming neon sign.

Tech exhales, “That was a good call.”

Both bodies breathe short breaths consumed in the electric tension between them. Lal’s heart is beating fast, she can almost taste the thrill of the moment. Tech’s arm is around her. His arm feels strong around her, but tender. She can feel that he is shaking slightly. Lala squeezes his hand. “You’re cute, you know? You’re cute. You’re a cute wizard.”

He turns red, “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I really like your fur.”

“Thanks.”

“And your style, and your face. Basically all of it. I…” Tech’s face is bright red now. He sputters attempting to keep composure, “I’m so sorry, I… I don’t do a ton of normal social interaction, so I feel like I’m kind of rusty.”

Lala gives Tech a big grin. God, I’m glad I’ve run into someone as socially inept as me, she thinks.

“You’re doing a great job.” She says.

Tech takes a deep breath.

“Do you ever feel like… do you ever feel like sometimes there is… like there’s the astral plane, right? There’s magic, and you can pull something from the air, right? There are energies in the air that I feel like we’re tapping into when we cast spells and I guess… do you feel like that there might be more to that energy than we know? Maybe there’s energy between people? Like magnets or something? I mean, I don’t know, I only know so much about my spells. I’m a stupid American.”

There’s a pregnant pause. Lala leans in to kiss Tech Wizard.

His lips are sweet, his beard is warm. She climbs into his lap and he holds her. She can feel his body against hers. Warm, welcoming. Every kiss pulls her deeper. They let themselves fall gently to the floor. His hands trace love lines on her lower back. 

When they finish their embrace, they both sit up, cuddling up to each other. He takes her hand. Their legs sway off dangling off of the roof. The sun is rising. Lala feels him drifting to sleep. She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. Maybe the loneliness of the road is not forever.

Cyberpunk Essentials: Open Your Heart to Oozing Wound

Hello CyberPunk Essentials Readers. 

I swear I’m trying to figure out a way to open these up without saying “hello cyberpunk essential readers”. I’m doing research - reading all the great music writers. How do they open their pieces? It seems they all to open their pieces with “Hello Readers.” Lester Bangs,Robert Christgau, Bob Pitchfork: every music critic ever article ever written starts their articles this way. No one has figured out how to start these without saying hello. It is super fucked up.

Anyway, hello Cyberpunk essentials readers. Wanted to talk a little bit about one of my favorite modern metal bands: Oozing Wound. Comedian and killer artist Sarah Squirm debuted a music video for their song “Surrounded By Fucking Idiots” the other day. It’s gross, very funny, and it rocks: they call this “The Bastard’s Trifecta.”

I love Oozing Wound. They got riffs for days and some of the best named songs out there. The music is funny and cathartic, and it totally rips out of control. Today, I’m walking down memory lane and spinning some of my favorite tunes. Play loud:

RETRASH

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Everyone I Hate Should be Killed

Great song with an agreeable premise. Comes out with a burning riff right out the gate. Totally unstoppable: greasy, vicious: Great music for chasing down a depraved lunatic through the woods by the light of the moon

Call Your Guy

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Beautiful bass walk in. You put this on and you immediately start stalking the pit. Even here, in quarantine, as this song leads in I’m making a circle, my shoulders are hunched, I’m huffing big breaths, ’m doing the Kubrick face where I’m looking up and you can see the whites of my eyes. I’m holding my hands outstretched, making sure my cats are not in the way as I prepare to do a cool slow motion thrashing dance. 

My cats do not understand, and that’s fine. At this point of the day they’re taking naps - they’ve had their moment of thrashing already today, doing laps up and down the hallway, trying to impress me enough so that I feed them. It’s worked: I was impressed so I fed them - they’re napping now. Meanwhile, I’m losing it in the pit to the Oozing Wound song “Call Your Guy.”

The song crushes, after the walk in there’s a lovely stomping lunge build, that moves into a straight thrash, and then into a truly triumphant punctuated riff, sending it home, leading me to dance so hard I am ripping up the carpet doing the “grabbing pennies” dance. My cats and finace are as far away from me as they can possibly be. That’s fine. I am enjoying myself with the sublime art of music. 

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Welcome to the Spaceship, Motherfucker

Another unbelievable and great song name. Come on man. I’m pumping my fist: Hell yes. Fuck yes dude. Hell yes.

 The riff begins like a curse, a “fuck you” that blasts straight through the minds eye, into the vault of memory, melting all wrongs done to you by your enemies into a molten flame. From this flame you will build a great sword, and in time, you will wield it in a transcendent quest. For another era. For now, dig the riff.

Tremendous thundering riff here. Not fucking around. It gives you everything you want, a beautiful walk out, fist pumping brutality, into a classic rollicking thrash riff. See you later, alligator! 

EARTH SUCK

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Going Through the Motions Til I Die

Another walk in to a riff delivered to us by the the gods of hell. It rules. The production on this album whips ass - every riff feels like an axe pummeling deeper into your skull. It’s a beautiful thing! The louder you play it, the closer those bladed tunes get to the jewel of your brain, purifying it, making you powerful.

The opening line crushes: “I’ve lost the will to live an honest life” Hell yes, brother. Definitely vibing out to that. 

It’s a beautiful thing when you run into a 6 minute song that feels short. I’m impatient: I see a 4 minute song and I’m rolling my eyes, declaring loud “who do we think we are, Emerson Lake and Palmer???” I look around the room, smiling at my very clever reference. My cats and fiance aren’t reacting a lot, but they’re just playing it cool being around such a smart and interesting music listener as myself.

Anyway, I’m an impatient baby, I love hooks, I love songs that are 3 minutes long, but I love even more a song that know how to space out something longer that does not let up. This tears ass top to bottom. Respect!

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Hippie Speedball

Wonderful droning walkout, with a tremendous, heading banging “GJN GJN” bass and drum kick - leads into a delirious doom headbanger, leading into a tense dancy riff, back into that drone. I unconsciously started whipping my head to this song, almost throwing my headphones off. When a song inspires you to move without your even thinking about it is a surefire testament to the power of the tune.   

I’m awed by the amount of incredible riffs this band can stick into a song. Most bands get 1 riff for their whole life. Oozing wound gives you 5 life affirming riffs in one song. Unreal. 

WHATEVER FOREVER

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Rambo 5 (Pre-emptive Strike) 

If this title doesn’t have you jonesing to cruise through your streaming service of choice to the next washed out  Reagan Era day glo gore fest while pounding an extremely shitty beer, I don’t know what to tell ya, bub. It’s over for you. 

God damn the production just pumped up again. Everything feels that much more powerful. The axe is going deeper now, and I grow more powerful with every swing. The light is coagulating into a vision of truth - hope you’re seeing this too ;)

The quivering chorus guitar riff takes the cake - a shuddering thing of beauty. 

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Diver

All time riff here. This was the first song of Oozing Wound I had on repeat. These riffs clean impurities like fire - like taking a sauna where the screaming heat sinking into your pores pushing out your impurities is not heat but the Coppola classic Apocalypse Now made airborne. Cathartic and cruel, a soothing tune to meditate to. 

Also, as the song wraps up, the melody of the outro has me verklempt. I’ve never noticed before, but something in outro guitar riff has a timbre of melancholy, which adds a layer heartbreaking emotional intensity as the song subsides: an emotionally resonant to drive the thrill of thrash even deeper into the brain. 

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Everything Sucks, And My Life is a Lie

Another all timer for song titles. On top of that, the riff is lovely: where others devastated, this grieves. The rythmn heaves as the guitar pulls a tingling high end. Reminds me of The Jesus Lizard’s “Zachariah” - another killer a downtempo crusher to implode to.

HIGH ANXIETY

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Surrounded By Fucking Idiots

Kicks in with a tremendous crunch. I love the way vocalist Zack Weil sings “Every day/ Every night/ Every Moment of my life” His tone expresses it all: the disgust and fury of the tedium of the working weekdays. The band gets the mind numbing of the day, and rends into it with a fervor. Who can’t relate! 

We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

Birth of a Flat Earther

Lyrically killer, the song walks through a man piecing together the perceived paradoxes that birth a flat Earth believer. Weil delivers paranoid and furious - his voice churns with a tense hate, you can hear him piecing together that he’s been lied to his whole life. It’s funny, cathartic, and hate to say it, but not entirely unrelatable!  

The band builds beautifully for the first half and tears it down on the way out. Screaming guitar feedback gives way to a doomy build, establishing a spaced out tension that reaches its crescendo at a spectacular lyrical drop: “There is no space/so there are no SATELLITES.” The birth is complete band lets loose from there. A crushing, beautifully built song. 

***

These are my go-tos- but here’s the thing, in a month or two I’ll probably have more favorites. The catalogue is deep, every song has a life you can get lost in. Cards on the table, I had to change my shirt because I was sweating too hard absolutely ripping to Oozing Wound. Is that going to happen listening to Steely Dan? No way, dude. Just my body’s way of confirming Oozing wound rips, and its time you accepted them into your life.