...Ice Metal In Retrospect... "The Perfection of the Hideous"...

"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places."

Yes, that's me, "Bernie Vulture," apparently dressed as a zombie in a snowbank. I played guitar ("Rhythm and Lead," according to the liner-notes of "The Virgin Forest...") in (Ashes of) Frost.

"For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries."
Kate "The Ice Queen" Kirby. Vocals.

"They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia."

Johnny Scarecrow. "Rhythm and Melody" guitar, bandleader.

"The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands."

Mac "The Bass Barbarian" MacDougal. Bass. Obviously.

"But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England;"

Sir Nathaniel Ward. Synth, keys, sequencing, sampling, noisemaking, etc. I think at one time we called him "Dr. Doomsday"?

"For there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous."

Nick Drouin. We had all sorts of derogatory nicknames for this kid, mostly out of harsh respect for the fact that he was WAAAY too good for how young he was at the time. Child, Princess, Nicky-poo, etc... sorry Nick. Drums.


"Of the hideous... Of the hideous... Of the hideous..."

The first flyer that I made for Frost. I was told that it was "too punk-rock" and that I wasn't allowed to make any more.

(The quotes in bold above the proceeding pictures are from the introduction to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Picture in the House," which we used an audio-rendering of, read with an expert-level of spookiness by Dark Dave, as the introduction-sample to most of our sets. I wish that I knew how to host and post audio, so that I could put that track up [it's featured on the "Complete Ashes of Frost" disk that I referred to in the last post] because it's quite excellent and entirely worth hearing.)

A later flyer; I believe that this is for a show that got re-routed to the Icy Cavern Of Death with the entire crowd in tow; I think I sprained my ankle, most of the band drank alot before we played, and alot of other strange things happened...


A flyer for a show with one of our favorite bands to play with, New Haven Connecticut's organic trip-hop darlings Tarmak... I miss that band quite alot...


The insert cut-outs for an extremely low-budget cassette compilation that we released/ were featured on...


A newspaper clipping, with my boots.


The rest of that picture. "Bernie Vulture of Frost goes Hard Core in Manchester." Hilarious. Press-kit fodder from near the outift's end...


This has been a presentation of Battleaxe Promotions, New Hampshire. Whatever that means.

Ashes of Frost, 7 Years Later.

Fall and early winter in New England is the sort of setting in which well-written heavy metal makes the most sense to me. Maybe it's because, then, that I'm back in New Hampshire at this particular time of year that, of all the bands that I've played with in the past, one in particular has been a recurring theme of conversation in the last couple of weeks.

At this time seven years ago, six of us were crammed into the extremely cold and dank basement of a colonial farmhouse on a hill in Candia, New Hampshire. It is apparent now that the music that we were creating there was intrinsically influenced by our surroundings and sensations at the time that, years later, that still proves to be the element that the music skillfully speaks to.



My first encounter with the band was as a spectator. I was requested by Johnny Scarecrow, the guitarist and band-leader, to attend their first show. Although the band that played that show was very different than what Frost was to become (the band was called merely "Frost" until very near to its demise, when the "Ashes of" was added) I was captivated by the vibe that they created. Within a week, I had been brought on to play guitar for the outfit, at the same time that the band was working on making a couple other post-first-live-experiment changes, like adding synthplayer Nat Ward to the fold. (I'm oversimplifying quite a bit and very knowingly leaving things out; If I were to relate all of the anecdotes of this act and time period that I personally find relevant or entertaining this entry would be a book.)

Within less than a month of Nat and I joining the band, we were working on our first recording, attempting to go it ourselves in that cold basement that, by this point, had adopted the snarky name "The Icy Cavern of Death." What we recorded during that time-period became (originally) a cassette-tape titled "The Virgin Forest is the Devil's Last Preserve..." (a quote from Arthur Miller's 'The Crucible'). That recording undoubtedly has some sonic "issues" (we were dealing with a VERY loud six-piece in a VERY small concrete box; I distinctly remember sitting with Scarecrow by the fireplace upstairs with headphones on, trying to get the mix right, exchanging scared looks and shrugs), but it could be argued it also captures the frigid atmosphere of our songs and our mindsets better (or more succinctly) than our later recordings. The last two songs on the music-player above, "Witchhunt" and "SMDR," are taken from that early cassette (that I have since done a bit of remastering to).

Later in the band's career, a second EP was recorded, in something closer to a "real" recording studio. This record was titled "Mysts of the Iced Morn," and was definitely a more "competent" recording, if not quite as "cold"-sounding as the first (I tend to think recording in the summer was part of that. I think others might lay blame also on the band beginning to decline and lose its focus by this point.) The EP was never officially released, but the first two songs on the player above ("Lullaby" and "Nightmare") are taken from it.


A disc containing both records, in addition to remixes, outtakes, and samples used in our live shows, labeled "The Complete Ashes of Frost," has been sitting on my shelf since shortly after the band's demise, and I still don't quite know what to do with it.

I think I'll post more pictures tomorrow, as while packing my car for the recent drive across the country I found a briefcase stuffed with promotional materials from several of my past bands, much of which I found to be quite hilarious. In the meantime, visit the retrospective Ashes of Frost page on Myspace.

Photos and Notes From the Road...

We'll call this entry a photo-journal, of sorts. Basically, I'll relate anecdotes with pictures, pictures with anecdotes, and otherwise ramble multi-genre-ously in general.




Toward the beginning of the trip, I was taking pictures of basically nothing, to demonstrate to Miss Hysteric that there was basically nothing to take pictures of. Ironically, some of these photos of basically nothing turned out sort of interesting.



A sunrise out my window, splattered in bugs.


Steamy sunrises in Tennessee.

These sorts of views made driving through the night completely worth it.

I reached these mountain lakes at just the right time.


I've been told that these foggy images look like they could be used for Opeth records.

I can see that; the music fits the mood of these shots quite well, in my eyes.

In fact, this segment of the drive made me realize why I was such a lukewarm metal fan during my time in Arizona. Dark orchestral music is so much better matched to the chill of the late-year in the east than it is to the desert. I think I'm beginning to understand dark music again.

My cross-country car in the fog of sunrise.

The purple reflections in puddles of clouds. Definitely something that I missed.



Trucks on a bridge in a foggy sunrise. This picture somehow captures where my mind and feelings were at through most of this trip. Stare into the fog for a bit and figure it out.



A tugboat on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, early in the morning.



Someone told me that they liked willow trees...

...RiverTao...




The first snow of the season. Somewhere in Pennsylvania... I think...?


Returning to fall as I remember it, in Bristol, Connecticut, just out of the Catskills.





As strange as this may sound, it's so good to see a sky that's gray instead of blue...


I'm back in New Hampshire now. More images and updates should soon follow.

There are more of these photos in my photobucket account, in the main album, and in the one subtitled Vagabond.

A show review, or a review of shows in general? (Today is the Day, et al, at Stray Cat in Tempe, AZ)

(...picking up where I left off yesterday...)

One of the shows that I found my way out to last week was the September 28th Tempe, AZ stop of the Supernova Records "Axis of Eden" tour. Headlining the show was Today is the Day (whose most recent record lends the tour its name), with support from fellow Supernova acts Defcon 4, Christine, and Taipan, with Phoenix locals Black Hell opening the show.

I have to begin by commending Tyler King, who booked the event, for choosing a local opener extremely well-suited to the show. I had been hearing Black Hell's name around town for quite a while, had heard some of their recorded material, and had been meaning to check them out, although admittedly with expectations that were far from high. I was extremely pleased to have my assumptions debunked in this regard; The band only played three (fairly long) songs, but I was thoroughly impressed. For one reason or another, from a combination of their recorded sound/ the contexts in which I usually heard their name/ etc., I was expecting a performance from the band that was far more cliche-ridden and formulaic, and a sound that was a bit "crustier." I'm definitely not going to claim that this band is doing anything that hasn't been done before, but these guys do it extremely well. I found that my knee-jerk reaction to this act was to question for a moment some of my idealistic preferences about "good" or "noteworthy" musical performance (when I'm speaking critically, I most often vehemently hold that in order to have artistic value at the present juncture, an act must offer a complete package, which involves elements of showmanship, well-calculated/ artistically appropriate appearance, etc, in addition to the music itself). I found Back Hell's no-nonsense approach to "get up there, play your instruments, and play them really well" suprisingly refreshing. Their performance was tight, heavy, and musically proficient, and their stage-demeaner was humble (I don't usually think that humility and the stage mix very well, but for some reason that vibe works for these guys). While perusing the band's websites, I was pleasantly suprised to notice the use of the word "Psychedelic," which came to my mind while they were playing, but I would have figured would be an element that much of their audience might have been oblivious to. Their well-sculpted and precise guitar-tones seemed to spiral around the room, often-times transcending and elevating the more conventional (although also skillfully accomplished) "brutality" of their rhythms, creating a more "spacey" effect than your average (particularly local) metal band.

(whew, that was more time than I was planning to spend on the opener. Oh well, I enjoyed their set.)

Next on the roster was another short (three- song) set, this time from a band that I've since learned is called Taipan, a Today Is The Day side-project. Frankly, their set scared me, and not in a way that's akin to how some metal bands might want to "scare" their audience. I have to admit, I hadn't actively listened to Today Is The Day much in quite a while. So, when Taipan took the stage looking an awful lot like the slated headlining act (both bands are trios, and they share two out of three members between them...) the first thoughts going through my mind involved questions of why they were playing so early, such a short set, and so poorly. Jotted in my notebook about this band are phrases like "Steve Austin's voice is shot... struggling with guitar-work... not very tight..." I don't think I need to elaborate. I wasn't impressed, and I was extremely relieved when Steve Austin and bassist Chris Debari took the stage again later in the night with a different drummer to play a much more fulfilling set as the real headliner.


Next up was a band from Nashville called Christine. This band would easily be my prediction for "every metal-head in America's next favorite band," if they cleaned up a few fairly minor things. They are a female-fronted act that walks that dificult line of doing enough genre-blurring to stay interesting while also remaining coherent, while mixing in less than orthodox elements, like an occasional steel-guitar part, without becoming too avant-garde for metal fans. This band's overall biggest selling-point, in fact, are these sorts of issues of "balance." Most bands that skirt the vague boundaries of "doominess" choose to be infuenced either primarily by sources that are blues-based or classical-based, whereas these guys meld the two in under-attempted ways that would make Sabbath proud. The vocals waver from growls to angelic/ child-like clean parts, which is a balance that very few bands that attempt can pull off with any success at all. The main issue that I feel could keep this band from their potential is their stage and promotional demeanor. The vibe that their presense and banter between songs portrays is not at all the sort of image that their sound and songwriting conveys. A perusal of their myspace page after the show proved to present the same sort of slapstick-ish sarcasm (They list themselves as "Regional Mexican / Southern Rock / Crunk"... "southern rock," sure, that influence is definitely there... the other two? definitely not) that doesn't seem an adequate match from the fairly serious and dark feeling that their music conveys. Again, my peaves have to do with merely wishing that the performance-package presented were complete, which a more caculated attention to their demeanor and conduct (making sure that it is well-suited to the artistic statement being made or attempted by their music) would easily achieve for this band. It is obvious that their songs and sound are carefully crafted. A bit of similar care to other elements of their performance would do this noteworthy material far better justice.


OK, I think I'm going to cut it off here for today and give the readers' eyes and heads a break. I'll finish this tomorow, with (hopefully) a final installment of "how many posts can a single review possibly take," as well as some attempts at critical "conclusions." Remember, my attempt is to write on broader phenomenon than the bands themselves.

(All images in this post have been pilfered from the band's own websites. I apologize and will remove them if this is a problem to anyone. I didn't have my camera with me on this night.)