PODCAST: Summer 2023 Pt. II Episode (August-September)

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EPISODE NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS:

Welcome to the "Summer 2023, Pt. II" episode! Much like Part I covered June and July, this extended mix covers August and September, not only highlighting great new music and classics from the vault, but also throwing the spotlight on a ton of great tours and events that will be happening between now and our beloved Halloween. While this will be the last "regular" episode until November, there will be two specially-themed episodes coming your way in the meantime: The annual "Compilation for the Dead" in September, and, of corpse, the annual Halloween Special in late October. 

This episode begins with an anniversary salute to one of my favorite darkwave albums of the early 2000s -- a period that forged a lot of community in the goth scene, even as much of the music you'd hear in clubs was drifting towards trance and other rave-y styles. Enter The Last Dance, who had begun as a traditional goth act in the '90s, but had incorporated just enough synth work by the early 2ks to land on dance floors and fuel tours that brought them around the world. While on top of that world, they suffered the sudden loss of their drummer and friend, Ivan Dominguez, a tragedy that would have understandably derailed many other bands -- but in August of 2003, The Last Dance emerged from their grief with their most powerful work to date: Whispers in Rage, an album filled with moments that make my hair stand on end to this day. In honor of its 20th anniversary, I have chosen two of my favorites to open this show: First, one of the most beautiful love songs of that era, "Breath," and the de facto title track "Whisper," which carries an emotional punch that still chokes me up two decades in.

From there, we turn the spotlight an upcoming North American tour that's too stacked to miss: The Mission, The Chameleons, and Theatre of Hate, all together! Originally scheduled for 2022, the dates were all moved to the same time this year, which means it's kicking off in just a couple of weeks. I'll be catching the Atlanta show on September 9th, but you can see the full dates here. In honor of these goth legends coming together, set one begins with personal favorites from each band, beginning with The Chameleons (also in honor of the 40th anniversary of their debut album, Script of the Bridge this month!). Speaking of momentous anniversaries, you then get one of the greatest of all orthodox goth rock songs, Corpus Delicti's "Twilight" in honor of the 30th anniversary of their 1993 debut album of the same name. We then shift to brand new music, starting with the post-punk-tinged b-side of System Syn's new single, Ashes in the Wind, then moving to  some debut darkwave from California's Soft Vein. 

Set two begins with a spotlight on DRAGON CON 2023! Yes, it's that time of the year again, Spooky Nerds! For the uninitiated, Dragon Con is a massive convention held in Atlanta, Georgia each year, focusing on every aspect of fandom you can imagine (sci-fi, fantasy, comics, film, gaming, horror, art, etc.) every Labor Day Weekend (August 31st - September 4th this year). Full disclosure, I am the Assistant Director of The Horror Track at Dragon Con, (follow us on Facebook / Instagram) where I handle and moderate the Goth related programming each year. Our home base is at the Westin in Peachtree 1-2 on the 8th floor.

In addition to the annual Goth Panel (aka "Release the Bats", this year featuring members of The Cruxshadows, Aurelio Voltaire, Vision Video, Tears for the Dying, along with DJ Spider, Black Sunshine, and myself), we are also bringing back The Open Casket Party: Goth Night at Dragon Con this year, in a longer format: 10pm-2am on Friday, September 1st in the Hyatt Regency VI-VII Ballroom. Come dance with us, as I am joined in the DJ booth by Goth Dad & Twin Powers (aka Dusty and Dan from Vision Video), DJ Spider, and Black Sunshine!

Back to the show at hand, set two focuses mainly on the music aspect of the con, featuring new material from four of the bands that will be performing this year. First up, blankenting the break, is the title track from Valentine Wolfe's 2023 release, All My Nights Were Trances. Following several amazing live scores the band has performed at DC over the years, Valentine Wolfe will once again class up our track room with their treatment of a silent horror classic. This year, it's Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera! Catch it on Sunday night in the Horror Track room (Westin Peacvhtree 1-2, 8th floor) at 10pm, according to the schedule just loaded to the Official Dragon Con App.

Speaking of the schedule, here's a quick glance at some of the Goth-friendly events happening this year. Download the app here to see the full (and regularly updated)  schedule of events, including all of the Horror-related content that also might appeal to those of the goth persuasion:

Friday    5:30pm        Goth: Release the Bats (panel)                         Westin Peachtree 1-2

Friday    7pm             Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe (panel)           Westin Peachtree 1-2

Friday    10pm-2am   The Open Casket Party (dance)                        Hyatt Regency VI-VII

Friday    1:30am        Vision Video (live show)                                     Hyatt Centennial

Saturday    2:30pm     An Hour with the Cruxshadows                        Hyatt Intl. South

Saturday    4pm          Horror Hosts: An American Tradition              Streaming!

Saturday    8:30pm     Valentine Wolfe (concourse set)                      Hyatt Concourse

Saturday    11pm        Aurelio Voltaire (live show)                               Hyatt Centennia

Sunday    7pm            Burned to Light: Vampires in Classic Cinema Westin Peachtree 1-2

Sunday    10pm          Vision Video (concourse set)                             Hyatt Concourse

Sunday    10pm          Valentine Wolfe (Phantom of the Opera)       Westin Peachtree 1-2

Sunday    1:30am        The Cruxshadows (live show)                            Hyatt Centennial

We then dive into a brand new song from a band that rarely plays a US show outside of Dragon Con: Perennial convention mainstays, The Cruxshadows, with their single "Kingdom of the Moon," which gives us a taste of their forthcoming new album (available here as a pay-what-thou-wilt single). Aurelio Voltaire, also a fixture at the con, comes next, with a song from his current Bowie-inspired album, The Black Labyrinth. The set then shifts focus to Goth Dad and the Gang: Vision Video, who will not only be performing live at Dragon Con this year (twice, in fact!), but also in Nashville this Thursday night at The East Room for Fascination Street! Sharing that bill will be the next two bands in the set, Austin's Urban Heat, making their debut here with TWO versions of the same great song, and Washington D.C. natives VOSH, making their Coffin debut with a track from their new album Vessel. We then close the set with the brand new single from the aforementioned Vision Video, a heartfelt take on unchecked capitalism called "Normalized," which you will no doubt see them playing both on tour and at Dragon Con this year.

Set three turns our attention to some seriously cool fall tours heading our way. First up, we have Twin Tribes, who have blown up in the last few years, landing incredible festival slots. Their fall tour rolls through Nashville on October 3rd at Eastside Bowl, crossing paths with Nuovo Testamento's fall Love Lines tour, yielding one of three special dates on which the two bands will play together! As a Nashville-exclusive bonus, we've brought in Louisville's Scary Black as the opening act, so you'll hear all three of them in the first half of the set. After that, we hear a debut from Colorado act Dead on a Sunday, who will be opening the September 29th Nashville date of Seraphim Shock's first tour in many years. In honor of that, you'll hear a classic from the band's 1999 EP Nightmares for the Banished, followed by a more recent track from The Fairmount Chronicles, Vol. 1 -- the second volume of which will be coming out soon.

Set four begins with two 30th anniversary nods, first to the Dead Can Dance classic, Into the Labyrinth, then to the much heavier, yet somehow of similar spirit, Enemy of the Sun from Neurosis. By this time, you've realized we're in the dark metal portion of the show, which starts in earnest with new music from Dymna Lotva out of Belarus, before reaching back to 2017 for an overlooked crushing-doom entry from Chile's Mourners Lament. We then hear some less-often-spotlighted Mexican Black Metal from Nostalghia's The Last Path album, before beginning this month's Ukrainian Trident with a new track from Burshtyn's Апокриф (Apocrypha) LP. The trident continues to assemble through the break with new dark ambient strains from Sonnov (now located in Japan), before ultimately closing the show with Colotyphus' "The First Fallen," the opening track from a new Ukrainian Black Metal benefit compilation entitled Nation of the Unconquered. You can help the cause by grabbing that one here. 

All of that PLUS: New dark ambient from Finland's Torus Dome and Brazil's Dusk Sunlight; A visit to the horror vaults; Tour news, and more! 

 

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PLAYLIST BEGINS HERE
Format: Band Name - Song Title [Album Title, Year]

(each band name is also a website link)
(sets and talk breaks separated by dashes)

"Out ov the Coffin" w/ Ichabod
  Summer 2023 Pt. II Episode (August-September, 2023)
  Show recorded August 22nd, 2023

Opening Theme:
Elliot Goldenthal - Libera Me ["Interview with the Vampire" (soundtrack) 1994]

The Last Dance - Breath  [Whispers in Rage, 2003]
The Last Dance - Whisper  [Whispers in Rage, 2003]
-
Torus Dome - Nature Itself Shows the Way  [Selected Creations 2, 2023]
-
The Chameleons - Don’t Fall  [Script of the Bridge, 1983]
The Mission - Wasteland  [God’s Owen Medicine, 1986]
Theatre of Hate - Original Sin (single version)  [Original Sin, 1980]
Corpus Delicti - Twilight  [Twilight, 1993]
System Syn - Ashes in the Wind (1000 Years Remix)  [Ashes in the Wind (single) 2023]
Soft Vein - Bloodletting  [Pressed In Glass, 2023]
-
Valentine Wolfe - All My Nights Were Trances  [All My Nights Were Trances, 2023]
-
The Cruxshadows - Kingdom of the Moon  [single, 2023]
Aurelio Voltaire - The King of Villains (When I Said I was Evil)  [The Black Labyrinth: A Requiem for the Goblin King, 2022]
Urban Heat - Have You Ever (Piano version)  [single, 2023]
Urban Heat - Have You Ever  [Wellness, 2022]
VOSH - Falling  [Vessel, 2023]
Vision Video - Normalized  [single, 2023]
-
John Cacavas - Untitled  [“Mortuary” (soundtrack) 1983]
-
Twin Tribes - Heart and Feather (live)  [Live at Fascination Street, 2020]
Nuovo Testamento - Heaven  [Love Lines, 2023]
Scary Black - Tragedy  [single, 2022]
Dead on a Sunday - Dammit (After Dark)  [Undercover, Volume 1, 2023]
Seraphim Shock - Molly’s Web  [Nightmares for the Banished, 1999]
Seraphim Shock - Ascend  [The Fairmount Chronicles, Vol. 1, 2020]
-
Dusk Sunlight - In My Eternal Sleep I see the Night  [Deathless, 2023]
-
Dead Can Dance - The Wind That Shakes the Barley  [Into the Labyrinth, 1993]
Neurosis - Raze the Stray  [Enemy of the Sun, 1993]
Dymna Lotva - Пахаваны Жыўцом (Buried Alive)  [Зямля Пад Чорнымі Крыламі: Кроў (The Land Under The Black Wings: Blood), 2023]
Mourners Lament - This Storm  [We All Be Given, 2017]
Nostalghia - Of Chaos is Born the Night  [The Last Path, 2023]
Burshtyn - Тартюф (Tartuffe)  [Апокриф (Apocrypha), 2023]
-
Sonnov - Uga  [Wyamof, 2023]
-
Colotyphus - The First Fallen  [“Nation of the Unconquered” (comp.) 2023]

 

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