Unruh Effect

It should come as no surprise that Einsturzende Neubauten is a huge influence on how we as Skull Servant work - their repurposing of metal throughout their career to make noise at first, and now as instruments in their industrial approach to writing songs. We too like what they've done, and take it as great influence on the things we do. In every piece we work on, develop, and ultimately destroy, we want to have this element of percussion, preferrably with found objects.

N.U. Unruh takes us through his storage, which only serves to whet my appetite when it comes to percussion. I want one of those mallet-like hammers, I want to meet him and scrounge with him, banging on every object from here to the East End. Much respect is due, and this clip above certainly make absorb every scrap (pardon the pun) of the development process that Unruh takes to get his sounds.

Video Evidence of Communique #3

From our show where we performed, then did a brief collaboration with Snake Charmer. Mr. Woodford took some great photos. Thanks Mike, we owe you a beer.I ended up smashing my left foot smashing the the shopping cart. Big thanks for Column of Heaven asking us to play, Snake Charmer for indulging our wacky ideas.

We're working on a lathe, the Watching 7" and some other projects (maybe another cassette?). Maybe a show as the full band, and some other art stuff (a video perhaps). Keep an eye out for our activities.

Fall Events

People must like us, or need us to clear rooms because we keep playing to people. I believe our good friends in Snake Charmer and us are going to do something brilliant, or something (as our good friend Imants used to say) utter shit together. I think it'll be cool, but we'll see how it all turns out. If you can't make it I'll be recording the audience again with our set as background music.  

Speaking of surveillance, here's the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/281674118640997/

Been working on getting gear together to do the Watching Dub in the proper way. Think it'll end up being a flexi of some sort. All those early Jamaican Dub records were subject to shoddy presses (probably due to record manufacturers having a stranglehold on the equipment and resources to do "good" work) so a flexi pays proper homage to what they did in the 70's.   

We still want to do an alley show, but the soonest we can do it is October... maybe a Hallowe'en thing? I like the sounds of that...

Also, the Watching 7" EP is stalled, buy a tape or a button or something so we can afford to start working on it again. It's ready for the presses, just need a down payment while unemployment hinders our progress.

If you like bands, you might like Water Torture.

Skull Servant NE/SE set July 2 2013

July 2 Show

So we're planning on bringing out the noise and omitting the funk (unless that's our smell) on July 2nd for a stacked noise bill featuring:

NOISE NOMADS (Load Records, RRR)
http://bonescraperrecordings.wordpress.com/ 

BELLTONE SUICIDE (Feedingtube Records)
http://youtu.be/K2Dag7TWrvU 

with support from
ISOLATION ORDER (London, ON) http://youtu.be/5N5JxSNNmAA
FOSSILS (Hamilton) http://www.youtube.com/fossilsband
and us (Skull Servant NE/SE).

9PM, $5

Yes, the punks in us might want to see Infa Riot down the road, but really, you aren't going to see anything this good in this area this year.

Post First Show Blues

So to remedy the post first show blues, we're doing a second noise show. Once all the details are finalized, you gentle reader will be appraised of all the details. 

Also, our tape is available at our newfangled Skull Servant shop. You'd think that we would be ecstatic about the Edward Snowden leaks, and Prism, unfortunately, it's just the truth. The only way to foul up the system of surveillance that we live in is to either opt out of the Internet (unlikely to happen) or to purposefully obfuscate the messages and identities of who we are. Make their data worthless, or so onerous to decode what is truthful (and really what is the truth?) and what is manipulation. That's part of why we hide our identities when we play, as a symbolic gesture as to retain privately who we are. It's not a secret who we are, especially in our own communities and cities, but it's a fleeting, ultimately futile gesture of how things should be. Private when we want to; public when we want to.  

Skull Servant NE/SE set May 15, 2013

Watchful Tapes Now Available

The production line is done. Purchase at our Bandcamp - $5 plus postage. There's only 15 or so left out of the run of 50. Interesting trades considered (skullservantnoise@gmail.com).

Skull Servant NE/SE - Watchful Tape

So the Watchful tape is in semi-production (the tapes were so noisy they broke the duplicator) and will be ready for next week's thing. In the meantime, enjoy these tracks of pounding, impending doom.

Skull Servant - Watchful tape In Production

Skull Crushing Set

Skull Servant NE/SE - May 15th 2013

Playing at The Doors Pub with Greber and Godstopper. Get fucking pummelled.

Flyer by Chelsea Watt.

Youtube Bullshit

So for those of you who want to watch videos on YouTuibe, here's our forthcoming 7" EP. Enjoy, or don't.

Spring Update

We're just in the beginning of the long and arduous process of duplication of cassettes using our latest gear acquisition (a cassette duplicator). I suspect that we'll have these ready shortly. Two ten minute noise tracks, in our typical style. If you liked what was going on with the "Hinckley Was Right" track, you'll dig these two tracks which, in our opinion, serve as a nice companion to the Skull Servant Watching 7" EP tracks (available for free on the Skull Servant Bandcamp, physical media coming sooner or later).

The songs on the Watching 7" EP are about surveillance; both of the tracks on Watchful deal with surveillance from the perspective of the power mongers. Suppression, control, distrust, suspicion... all those ideas feed into the system that we live in currently. They are the ideological touchstones for the ruling class. If one breaks those ideas, one can begin to build a society based on other, less competitive ideas. Or more restrictive. Depends on your view of humans, no? We take others' words and recontextualize them, perhaps revealing an inner truth? Or just to make us smirk.

We'll be doing a version of these with a bit of improvisation as Skull Servant NE/SE at the upcoming Greber show towards the end of May. More information will be disseminated as it becomes available.

Also forthcoming, will be a do-over of the apocalypse collaboration show - perhaps in May as part of Art Crawl on James St. North. We're just finalizing the ideas with Snakecharmer, those fine young lads. Speaking of which, they are putting out a 7" EP soon, you really need to get it when it comes out. Both Servant #2 and I are really excited about the possibilities with engaging with the environment in the location we're planning. Lots of metal, good resonance.. will be fun.

Dub Sirens and Watchful Tape

Two pieces of news this post. Here's number one.

We've never received a "prototype instrument" before - but there's a first time for everything. 

We ordered a dub siren back in October of last year because we saw one on a board that had a joystick control for the oscillator, as well as a built in delay. Also, it had an etched top and other slick as shit stuff. Anyways, fast forward to February, it hasn't arrived. We realize that ordering anything from Italy is a crapshoot because of their notorious postal system (famous for trashing packages or losing anything of value) but we really didn't think we were getting it because there were so many delays in the manufacturing of the product. After numerous shady statements, we finally started causing a stink and was finally offered a refund. Nice that they offered, and gave it. 

So we ordered one from RigSmith, which arrived 10 days after purchase. That's an ace transaction. This one's a little simpler than the one we tried to order from Italy, but it sounds great, and will be a great addition to the arsenal. We could've built one for half the price, but when there's great builders out there, why not support them in their craft?

Now you may be wondering what is a noise/punk act going to do with a dub siren? Well, lots. In addition to it being a great oscillator, but we're doing a "Watching (Dub)" 7" as well. How else would a dub record work if we didn't actually use the same sort of stuff that dub artists use? Anyways, we'll try and fuck up a song that we love (Watching) by making it more creepy and dropped on it's head. If you don't know what a dub siren does, well here's an example in the video below. Also look into the works of King Tubby, Scientist and Lee "Scratch" Perry. 

Why make a dub version of a punk song? Well, there's a long lasting connection between reggae and punk going back to the beginning where Don Letts was spinning reggae in between punk sets at the Roundhouse because there wasn't enough punk records. There's hundreds of bands since 1976 who have been directly influence by punk and reggae (or reggae's predecessor ska). Plus Imants Krumins was a personal friend of the members of this band, and a huge influence on this sort of project, and he loved dub and reggae, so it's a bit of a nod to our dear friend who passed away a couple years ago now.

The second is that the "Watchful" tape is recorded and will be Skull Servant NE/SE's debut.This will probably be out soon, looks like the end of April, we're just finishing up the art for the cover and insert. Two compositions (don't know if we can call them songs per se), each running about 9 minutes, taking up an entire side of a tape. Think of it as a companion to the Watching 7" EP. Should be duplicated later this month and as soon as the covers are printed, we'll be good to go.

Listening 7" EP (Digital Version) Now Available

This thing took too long to make.

Go to the Skull Servant Bandcamp and grab it for free. Donate if you like. Recirculated if you like. Feedback on it is appreciated, but won't influence us. Unless it's the ear-piercing squealing kind. E-mail us at skullservantnoise@gmail.com if you're really keen on sharing your two bit ideas.

Patches are available again, visit Hammer City Records to pick one up - $1 suggested price.

Servant #2 Would Like To Announce

This happened in the last MRR...

We appreciate the kind words written by Al Quint. Intriguing is something we're hoping to provoke from the listener. We're trying not to sound like other bands, we don't want to sound like them. Fuck them. 

Ominous. Yes. Industrial Clatter. Yes

New Year

Well, the apocalypse didn't happen, neither did the collaboration with Snakecharmer due to shit weather. No one thought it would rain on December 21st in Canada. Think of us as the saviours of the world, because had we played clearly the apocalypse would have happened. We'll be sure to get together soon and work out some times to actually collaborate and perform. Hopefully with no chance of rain. We're nihilistic, but death by electrical shock is a bit too much.

More last minute changes to the Watching 7" mix before it heads off for pre-mastering, then to the plant. I'm finally happy with the mix, had to bring up the snare and finalize the song names. Been working with the order as well. So the Watching 7" is:

A Side:
Listening
Listening 2

B Side:

Watching

We posted Watching on Soundcloud already. If you dig it, you'll like this whole 7". Mid tempo punk songs, with oscillators, tape loops, samples, metal percussion and noise. Think Born Against meets Test Dept with an undercurrent of Confuse. Bandcamp will be available soon, at that time I believe we'll offer the whole thing for free. When it's back from the plant, I'd like to get the price point about $6 North America plus postage. There's only going to be 200 of them, and more if the demand is such that we need more.

Already working on the Citizens 7" which will tackle the themes of how people respond to media manipulation - covering the range of emotions from fear, paranoia, impotence, and silence. Three songs are written, one partially recorded. I suspect these will be faster shorter bursts and maybe we'll continue the tradition of one longer blast on side B of the records.

Also working on a Skull Servant NE/SE tape to be out mid summer focusing more on the noise constructs that Servant #1 and #2 are crafting. I think it will be a companion piece to the Watching 7" - with the compositions "Satellites Falling From the Sky" and "Watchful Overlord" making up a side of a C-20 each. Recording is done, or as done as these things get, with art being constructed soon. These things take time.

Servant #2 has some solo noise works planned. Cassettes under several different monikers and dealing with many different subject matter. More as those projects develop as well.

We also acquired a button press so I would think that we will be pushing out tiny buttons. Those won't be too expensive. Spread the message, serve your skull.