Consumed by Exhumed Part 2

Doktor Ross Sewage4 Comments

After a long-assed drive from Oakland’s punk-sister-city of Portland, I was back home. Hell, I spend such an inordinate amount of time at the Oakland Metro Operahouse, I even got married there. Tonight, I would rock the stage yet again, but this time with the first band I was ever in worthy of noting. It felt like I would be showing the biggest group of friends ever an old photo album.

And after this, a slideshow of my vacation to Hawaii!
And after this, a slideshow of my vacation to Hawaii!

I showed up early, because I have a nervous fit if I’m not in a club I’m playing before doors open. I had absolutely no cause to be there, but to walk around not actually loading shit. If I’d wanted this set to be 100% old-school, the proper thing to do would’ve been showing up five minutes before playing and realizing I had a broken string.

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Consumed by Exhumed Part 1

Doktor Ross Sewage2 Comments

While I slept, little baby New Year decided to throw me a few curveballs for 2015. I awoke on January 1 to an email from my old bandmate from Exhumed, Matt Harvey. They recently released the Gore Metal re-recording which I had participated in, redoing all my vocals and not being able to speak for two days after. Now, they were going on tour with the crazy gods of Voivod and Napalm Death in support of Gore Metal 2. Their current bassist, Matt Slime, was leaving the band due to job commitments. Matt asked if I wanted to play the tour. Sonofabitch.

Ross and Harv
What a jerk.

I was kicked out of Exhumed 16 years ago. The feud between me and Exhumed lasted for years afterward, affecting both Impaled and Ludicra to varying degrees. Fisticuffs were almost had at one point. I tried to keep it out of the public eye, well, except for when I didn’t (like putting a murdered Exhumed fan on an Impaled 7” cover). Real mature, right? Well, the peace was made long ago and we’re all much more mature people. That includes mature life responsibilities, so I had to decline doing the whole tour on such short notice. But I offered to do some West Coast dates, and Matt accepted: five gore metal filled days traipsing down memory lane.

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Tankcrimes Takes Over 924 Gilman

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On Friday, February 13th, Tankcrimes head honcho Scotty Karate took his magic touch to grace the historic 924 Gilman punk club. Scotty put on an epic show featuring bands with releases on Tankcrimes. It’s the first time in my own recent memory that Gilman hosted a sold out show. And I made a poster for it.

tankcrimes gilman full
Of course this poster is for sale, here

To say the show was a success is an understatement. Punks ages 8-80 (literally) came out to be a part of the festivities. Connoisseur, Brainoil, Born/Dead, The Shrine, and of courpse, Ghoul… it was a line-up so heavy, it had its own orbit.

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Swans poster for Yugong Yishan, Beijing

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Justin from Secret Serpents asked me about participating in an upcoming Swans tour-poster series and asked, “Do you want any weird places?” Well, yes. I chose the show at Yugong Yishan in Beijing, China. This will mark the first time my art has appeared in a communist country; unless you count Impaled’s Death After Life printing in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which for all intents and purposes, might as well be the U.S.S.R. I’m just as giddy as a school girl halfway around the globe. One of my favorite bands is playing a show in Red China and this little piece of art will accompany them:

swans_hold

You’re probably thinking, “I’m going to go buy this poster right now from the Sewage shop,” and then noticed that the poster features a lot of non-English. Is it because I’m a cunning linguist or a polyglot? Yes to both. But I don’t speak Chinese. The Internet, however, does speak Chinese. In fact, it speaks Chinese almost as much as it speaks English (and more than Spanish). With the help of some faceless forum members and my Wacom tablet, I created the poster above. Thanks, Internet.

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5 Easy Ways to Deal with Gear Theft

Doktor Ross Sewage6 Comments

Oh, man, you were so excited! The big tour! Your chance to be a star! You and your band head out on the road looking for fun, fame, and riches. Well, at least fame. Well, at least fun. You’re having a blast out on the road and then it happens. You find the street diamonds by your van or your trailer door is open. You’re no longer a guitarist because you no longer own a guitar. You get mad.

IMG_2290
Fuck you, car! Why didn’t you fight back?

It’s not your fault that someone stole your shit. We live in a cruel world. You can take some steps to curb thievery, however… so actually, it is your fault. What can you do if your gear gets… taken? First, call Liam Neeson and have him throat-punch a mess of thieves until he recovers your stuff. If he’s busy, though, here are some other options to curb theft and retrieve your precious.

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Quick Fix: Ampeg V-4 Guitar Amp

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My boss Mauz’s Ampeg V-4 had cut out. It was very strange… one day he was at practice, and shit first started cutting in and out. Then it stopped making sound altogether. It still had power, which was the weirdest part. This beauty (one of my favorite amps of all time) had to be resurrected.

Ampeg V-4

As I’d already fixed multiple problems on my own V-4B, which is almost exactly the same amp minus a reverb circuit, I was unafeered of delving into Mauz’s. I think he was more afraid than I was. Despite knowing it was in my successful-yet-amateurish hands, it was his baby. His mojo. His tone. He shouldn’t have been worried.

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Keep Calm… They Live

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Some time back, my English friends asked me to design a tee for their band with “some gnarly riot cop with a beer gut and snarling face.” With the 2011 English race riots still fresh, I opted for a more wicked idea: a riot cop inspired by the movie They Live. I wanted to eventually do an art print parodying the “Keep Calm…” poster. It is the most They Live-ish poster design ever. You don’t even need special sunglasses to see the message of subservience. A few years later, I’ve finally gotten around to making that poster.

wesleep_hold

This very limited art print is for sale in my shop right now. It was kind of a bitch to print and I lost about half the prints. That’s because that bright red is actually a metallic ink and it ain’t the kinda shit you can go buy in the art store. It was specifically formulated at our shop, Monolith Press, by moi for another job. I had plenty of ink left over to make a kick-ass poster of my own, though.

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