Grunt Van Winkle

I started setting up my studio again. I haven’t done any serious music since I finished The Aberrant Laboratory. That came out on Dark Vinyl a little more than five years ago. There was a track released on the Desolation House 2xCD compilation in 2008. It was recorded in 2002, at the same time as Chronicling The Famine, the record I did with them. (Looks like they have the wrong cover up for my release on the site, nice.)

Stopping wasn’t a conscious decision so much as a combination shifting of priorities, lack of space, and general disillusionment. I have always tried to take breaks between records to reset and “forget.” It allows me to come at the next one fresh. In 2004-2005, I did three records back to back, The Eulogists Assembly (Eibon), The Passions Of A Cripple (Force Of Nature) and The Aberrant Laboratory. I knew the break that would follow would be longer than normal. The above mentioned factors made it quite a bit longer than I expected.

Here’s a sip of the only music I spent any time on (and not much at that) in the last 5 years. I was asked to contribute to a tribute compilation for Akira Yamaoka. I wasn’t familiar with him, but I researched it and came up with most of a track. I never heard from the person that was doing the compilation again, so rather than finishing it, I threw some samples on it and stuck it in the vault. I called the project The Corvidae Cabal (which is perhaps a post for another time.) The samples used came from an interview with Jim Sparks. It’s unmastered and really more of a demo than a real track, but I like it.

The Corvidae Cabal – 0001Two Futures

I don’t have an agenda.  I’m sure some Gruntsplatter will emerge. I’m just going to start fiddling and see where it goes.

Sample Page Update

Added some additional MP3′s to the Sample page. There are a couple tracks from each of the Gruntsplatter full lengths and some other bits. I’ll get more goodies on there soon.

old live show 6.10.00

I was digging through an old box of masters and various musical odds and ends and found this recording. It’s a live performance I did in June of 2000 in San Francisco. It was only my second performance as Gruntsplatter. The performance was part of Troniksfest I, other projects on the bill included Control, Petit Mal, and Sleeping With The Earth. Hmm, none of the Petit Mal’s on Myspace seem to be the right one.

Things definitely got better after I had played a few shows and figured out what I was doing. But I thought some of you might have an interest in hearing it. This is an edited version of the set that was going to be released as a split LP with the Control set from the same night. It was truncated for time so it would fit on an LP side, but it’s just as well. I don’t remember why it never came out, but the world seems to have gotten by just fine without it. The huge white void behind me in the attached picture was a video screen, but pic was taken with a flash that washed it out. Hopefully it was a little more entertaining than the picture would suggest.

Gruntsplatter Live in SF 6.10.00

Cinder Skin

It occurred to me I probably haven’t posted about music as much as I should. So, here is a long story that ends with some MP3′s of a demo few heard.

Cinder Skin was the first solo project I did.

I had a project in Michigan called Grinch with my brother in arms, Marty Rytkonen (Worm Gear, Bindrune, Charnel Valley etc…) for a few years. There was no drummer, towards the end Bob Green (now creating Alien Devices) joined up on drum machine. Grinch wasn’t a band really, but it was all we had in Northern Michigan in the late 8o’s. I left Michigan in 1991 headed for San Diego. Once there I tried to get into a couple of band situations. Here’s my favorite of those stories…

This guy would come into the record store I worked at talking up a bunch of  songs he needed bass and vocals for. Bass and vocals were what I did. He assured me the influences of bands like Godflesh, Voivod, Neurosis, Scorn (that I was mentioning to him) had been woven by their deft hands into Obituary, Morbid Angel etc.  style Death Metal. I was skeptical.  His enthusiasm and an actual a drummer eventually convinced me to give it a go.

When I showed up for my first and only practice, the drums were in the bedroom closet, the guitar amp was on one side of the bed, and I set my amp up on the other. I think the mic was plugged into a Peavy Audition. The guitarist and drummer launched into their repertoire enthusiastic that I might be the last piece of the puzzle. Each of the 8 or so songs they played sounded exactly like Bad Religion. Crap.

We practiced a couple tracks and I tried to get some vocals arranged. The call to break out the boom box and record was sounded. The room was too small to record and not have it sound like Incapacitants. So they opened the bedroom window and set the boom box on the hood of the car in the driveway. One of the resident girlfriends was tasked with hitting record when we were ready to bring the hammer down!

I wish I had a copy of that tape but alas the magic captured on that day has been dispersed in the ether.

That was the last straw for me, and I decided to go it alone. I bought a 4 track, sequestered myself in my sweatbox studio apartment, tried to figure out gear I had no idea how to use and started writing. At the same time I also started experimenting with noise and found sounds. This was in 1993 I believe. The first track I recorded (Memory Scars) I used a toolbox,  a plastic pitcher and some other crap from around the house for drums. It sort of works, but I decided I needed to shell out for a drum machine. I bought an Alesis SR-16 from this guy and set to figuring it out. I got a couple of tracks recorded with it before it crapped out on me.

Some of those tracks ended up on the first Gruntsplatter release, and “Irritation Hive” ended up on the Cinder Skin release. While I was trying to save up the cash for a second drum machine I continued to work on the experimental stuff figuring I would mix the noise tracks in with the “regular” tracks. I ended up with more noise tracks and Gruntsplatter was born. The first Gruntsplatter release came out in 1995 and was made up of stuff recorded either originally for Cinder Skin or during the down time between drum machines.

I scraped together the money for a Boss DR-5 which I chose because it some synth sounds. I continued to work on Gruntsplatter but also needed to finish this Cinder Skin project. In 1996, 3 years after it started, it was released on cassette. The original mixes of the tracks sound better than what ended up on the tape. It was mastered by someone whom I found out later mostly worked with church groups on spoken word recordings and aspiring mariachi bands. He muddied it up real good. I made him do it over, the second time was a little better, but at that point he was done with me. These MP3′s were taken from the release, the original masters are in a box somewhere. I tried to re-eq it a bit. So, culled from a 13 year old cassette that sat in a number of dank basements and miserably hot apartments over the years is the Cinder Skin “Sunken” demo.

Cinder Skin – “Sunken” Demo

1) Cadaver Man
2) Congeal
3) Memory Scars
4) Introspection
5) Blood Gutter I
6) Irritation Hive

There are some reviews on the Cinder Skin page I linked above. I still have a bunch of these tapes, without covers. They are sitting in my dank basement.

I always intended to come back to do something in this vein with proper equipment.  It never happened. I’m finally going to have a my studio set up again in the next few weeks as the wife and I are moving to some place with more room. It will be the first time I’ve had my full studio set up since I finished “The Aberrant Laboratory” that Gruntsplatter released on Dark Vinyl in 2006.  So who knows…