NEW INTERVIEW WITH ME OVER AT STRANGE REACTION.

Read me running my mouth as usual but with some nice different questions for a change.


http://strangereaction.com/2010/09/03/interview-with-brian-walsby/

THE DETECTIVE..AT LAST, IN COMIC FORM.

MELVINS "NEWS OF THE WORLD"

MANCHILD 2, 3 AND 4 NO LONGER BUYABLE FROM ME.

It seems sort of weird to say this but the last three of my books will no longer be buyable through me, as we are almost out of all three of them. You can still write to Bifocal Media and order them but time and supplies are running out.

I still have plenty of the first one, and if you haven't seen it, it is a pretty big book. I will be selling that until they are gone.

Look for the fifth book at the end of the year.

thanks.

ONLY IN AMERICA.....

The world must be a right place when I can wake up in a hotel room across from New York City, draw cartoon posters of Adolph Hitler and then turn around and sell them at a rock show later that night. And even better is someone will post it on the internet less than twenty four hours later.

..profiting off Hitler. It is like a dream come true!

And if anyone who I have met on this most recent Melvins tour is reading this, I would like to thank each and every one of you for buying something of mine. I appreciate it a lot. No one has to give a shit, and people do so that is great. Thanks!

CUTE BAND ALERT: POLLUTION!

Pollution is a band from New York City that people should check out, as they successfully cross the boundaries and subcultures of loud music that could appeal to the hardcore kids, the metal kids and even the hipster ironic tight pants wearing kids without ever pandering to or even noticing them. The band just plows through their songs and doesn’t acknowledge anyone’s existence. That is a great stance for any band. There is something so bone simple in a way about how they have re-thought aggressive music, an ever slight tweak to the program but it really works well.

A brutal loud quartet, Pollution is the brainchild of former longtime Raleigh resident Sean Livingstone. Double Negative’s Scott Williams and myself had played with Sean in one of our previous bands, Daddy. They were both the guitar players in that band and both wrote the riffs. You could almost see some of the roots in both Pollution and Double Negative stemming from Daddy when you look back on it, sort of tweaked and fucked up loud music that once in awhile was fast.

Sean eventually re-located to New York City where over a period of time he had tried to put something together, which I think was sort of tough. Eventually, he met each of his Pollution bandmates one by one by hanging out at shows. Sean is the only one in Pollution that isn’t in another band. They are all super cool people that I would personally hang out with all of the time if they lived in Raleigh, and the band is pretty fucking great. They seemed to have a little bit of a buzz behind them when they recently played down here due to the tapes and album that have trickled out into the universe. For once, it is deserved. Go see this band and support them. Look for a new record coming soon and get in touch with them to find out what it is all about.
It is just a tweak, a slight tweak in the program that Pollution offers, but it is a tweak that will make you scratch your head and go “man..why didn’t I think of that?”
You could have dude..but you didn’t!





Here is a recent article about Pollution that some guy from the Village Voice wrote about the band awhile ago:

No, Pollution Are Not on Twitter
Gleefully foul Brooklyn metalheads revel in the toxic stew you ignore

By Adam Ganderson
Wednesday,
Jul 22 2009

Greenpoint is home to various unnatural disturbances: the Death Star sewage plant, the unpleasantly visible air, the underground oil spill. Most residents, too occupied with frantic Twittering, etc., are indifferent. But local rockers Pollution are four men aligned against the mass delusion of thousands, in revolt against the digital toys that keep the public entranced. They're also adherents to the belief that humans are past the point of return—that, in addition to a poisonous dispersion of refuse, technological advances are only distractions from the neurotic toxins breeding inside each of us. They are purveyors of a reality that destroys—as stated on their recent release, the oddly titled n.s.DRUGS—the "glamorous poisoning process." Through the sound of a world drowning in industrial poison, they set fire to hippie communes and embrace Brooklyn's filth viscerally—not just with instruments but, if need be, with strong drink and drugs.

Though they're now flourishing amid our beloved industrial decay, Pollution's roots actually stretch deep into Raleigh, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia. The former is the hometown of mastermind/lead guitarist Light (a/k/a Sean Livingston); in the '80s, Raleigh gave birth to both the pummeling distortion of Corrosion of Conformity and the more technically mutated rhythms of Confessor, bands that would come to play a role in both Pollution's drum sound and guitar work. Meanwhile, Richmond established itself as a vital incubator for hardcore. "I saw Confessor a lot and was always blown away by their song structures," says Light. "But it was Pen Rollings [guitarist for Richmond bands Honor Role, Butterglove, and Breadwinner] who was a big influence. That guy was the guitar giant from '86 to '89.”

Rollings's innovative work is often cited as a touchstone of what would come to be called math-rock, a throwaway rock-critic term that, when used more accurately, is actually a clever way of describing a dissonant, off-kilter, ominously infected sound that Rollings dispenses in its purest form. Regardless, it's a sticky label that Livingston quickly puts aside: "I don't think the math-rock was an influence, but rather unconventional songwriting," he says, adding that such unconventional fare was, of course, not specific to the East Coast. "Later-era Black Flag are so fucking gross-sounding. I'm still trying to make something that sounds that gross and actually ties into Butterglove, who are the grossest-sounding band ever."

With Pollution, that unhinged fuse is lit by what Livingston describes as "a colossal amount of reference points coupled with very different approaches to playing." Raspy howls from vocalist/bassist Radioactive are grounded by drummer Invasive Species, who approaches his kit the way a hurricane approaches a coastal village. The rhythmic work of Atmospheric Dispersion strikes like a hammer drill in an abandoned building, whereas, on the floor above, Light focuses on feedback strains, often fitting them between notes, where they slowly emerge as electrical apparitions. "I love using feedback for a guitar 'lead' or even a main riff," he explains. "But I try to not overdo it. There is an entire slew of bands lately that are so saturated with feedback that it loses its impact completely."

Each member of Pollution contributes, in addition to pills and booze, his particular strain to the band's sonic poison. "Those guys kill it!" Light raves of his cohorts. "They've been writing a lot of the new riffs. But our greatest commonality is calling bullshit on the same exact crap out there."

For more information, contact Pollution at:


www.myspace.com/pollutionpollutionpollution

photo taken by Corey Kittrell

HEY...I GET IT.

I have recently had sort of an ephinany about being in a band right now and being allowed to still play music in this day and age. It sort of also ties in with like..life and stuff.

I am very lucky to be able to keep doing this thing that I should treasure at all times because you know it is a gift, or a privilege, and it won’t be here forever, like anything else. I can remember looking back at the first year of this band I play in now and how I fought it, looking at it as this thing that was supposedly a pain in my ass but in reality was always this really good special thing to do. Especially with people that you have known and been friends with for over twenty years. That means something. You know, it isn’t everyday that you can re-connect with a handful of people from that long ago in this manner. It has been over four years now that we have been a band, and nothing has seemed to stop it, not ourselves, not our everyday lives, not our problems, not our ages, nothing. So that is pretty cool. Doing a band now seems to mean something FAR MORE NOW then it did when we were children. Back then, life was easier. You thought that you had all of the time in the world, so no big deal. Well, it is different now. You don’t have all of the time in the world, time is running out. I have found that being an adult with adult problems and concerns and responsibilities makes the outlet of having the outlet of playing fucked up crazy music seem more sacrosanct. It is way more of a release and makes me think that more oldsters should do it if they want to. Punk rock: originally designed for children, secretly made for adults. Who knew?

I will let you in on a little not so secret: I have more than occasionally had a love/hate relationship with the idea of being in a band and playing music. Being in so many bands over the years, it is easy to get that way. And as a lot of you know, being in a band is a lot like being in a relationship with three or four people at the same time, like being married to them or something. It can be tough at times. In this band, we finally learned how to yell at each other if need be and not make it a big deal. It took me YEARS to realize this. And then things were fine afterwards. It would have been nice to realize all of this earlier because it would have saved me a lot of unnecessary petty bullshit but that is okay…better late than never.

I am going to now talk very highly and somewhat lovingly about the concept of being in the band I am in now. This is not something I usually do, talking about how great something I am doing is, but here goes: A neat thing about this band is that in a way we are defying what is expected of anyone at our advanced ages; people at this point of the game just don’t usually play in bands, much less a band like this. We are not re-living old glories with an old band of ours, we are doing something new. We are not re-inventing the wheel or are on some holy crusade or anything; we are just weirdos doing what feels good. And I think that we have sidestepped all of the things that people who play music are supposed to care about. We are all years past wondering or hoping if we will be popular or famous, years past thinking that we are going to spend a month in a van on tour in hopes of some kind of career, years past impressing all of the right people or being cool or caring about that. Just playing is enough. And to have people at your shows is even better, especially when they are into it. To have kids come to your shows that wear homemade t-shirts with your band’s logo on it… I used to do that when I was a kid.

That is great. I can’t think of a better endorsement than that. I remember meeting creepy older people in bands when I was a dorky kid and how much it meant to me to find out that you could go up and talk to them, that they were actually people instead of heroes and you knew that it was okay. To become one of those creepy older guys with instruments in their hands that play scary music, to help send some people on the same path that we were all sent on years and years ago is really cool. It is like getting the torch, passing the torch, and then having it handed back.

An old band mate of mine told me years ago that if you weren’t going to be excited about what you were doing, than what is the point of creating it? took me awhile but I have actually relearned a few things just by being in this band, mainly, if it makes you happy, gives you purpose and it makes you feel good, than keep doing it. Don’t let anyone tell you not to do it, don’t talk yourself into thinking you shouldn’t do it because of your age or how you look or if it is good enough, just fucking do it.