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December 2007 • Volume 18 • Issue 228 

(1) SLUG



(4) SLUG 

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SLUG 

Publisher: Eighteen Percent Gray 

Editor: Angela H. Brown 

Associate Editor: Erik Lopez 

Office Coordinators: Jeanette 

Moses, Adam Dorobiala 

Copy Editing Team: Jeanette 

Moses, Rebecca Vernon, Erik Lopez, 

Jamila Roehrig, Blake McGillis 

Daily Calendar Editor: Jeanette Moses 

Issue Design: Joshua Joye 

Ad Designers: Todd Powelson, 

Spencer Young 

Misc. Designers: Sumerset 

Beuans, Carter Ferris, Levi Lebo 

Website Design: Kate O’Connor 

Website Assistant: Ricky Vigil 

Web Banner Design: 

Travis Gneiting 

Illustrations: Craig Secrist, 

Tim Odland 

Photographers: Jon K. Adam 

Dorobiala, Chris Swainston, Emily 

Allen, Jeremy Wilkins, Chris Purkey, 

Sully, Cat Palmer, Katherine Winters. 

Ad Sales: 

Angela Brown: 

sales@slugmag.com 

Meghann Griggs: 

meghann@slugmag.com 

Mariah Mann-Mellus: 

mariah@slugmag.com 

Robin Brown 

robin@slugmag.com 

Mike Brown 

mikebrown@slugmag.com 

Marketing & Sales Manager: 

Meghann Griggs 

Marketing: Mariah Mann-Mellus, 

Robin Brown, Mike Brown 

Marketing Assistant: 

Jeanette Moses, Ischa Buchannon 

Marketing Intern: 

Andreann Stevens 

Contributor Limelight 

Death By Salt 03 Design: 

Paul Butterfield, Dave Styer 

SLUG Games Coordinators: 

Mike Brown, Adam Dorobiala, Laura 

Hadar, Jeanette Moses, Sully, 

Lissa Thurston 

SLUG Games Poster Design: 

Chris Swainston 

Distro: Bucket, Andrew Glassett, 

Tony Bassett, Jeanette Moses, 

Crystelle Stroud, Kyle Trummel, 

Mariah Mellus, Sal Solvano. 

Office Interns: Josh McGillis, 

Andreann Stevens, Michael DeJohn 

Monkeys with Computers: Mariah 

Mann-Mellus, Mike Brown, James 

Orme, Ryan Michael Painter, Ryan 

Powers, Andrew Glassett, Lance 

Saunders, Erik Lopez, Jeremy 

Wilkins, Jeanette Moses, Dave 

Madden, Bryer Wharton, Laura 

Hadar, David Amador, Peter Fryer, 

Tom Carbone, Spencer Young, Jon 

Robertson, James Bennett, Jesse 

Kennedy, Ricky Vigil, The Kuby, 

Gavin Hoffman, Ross Solomon, 

Jona Gerlach, Kelly Ashkettle, Jenn 

Neilsen, Connor Dow, Makena 

Walsh, Kybir, Kat Kellemeyer, Sully, 

Michael DeJohn, Astara, Davy 

Bartlett, Joseph RIchards, Lyuba 

Basin, Jesse Price, Mike Reff. 

SLUG Alumni: Alan Steed, Laura “Lars” 

Swensen, Bill Frost, Jeff Vice, Jon Shuman, 

Chuck Berrett, Ryan Workman, Jeff Fogt, 

Shannon Froh, Camilla Taylor, Nate Martin, 

Mark Scheering, Cindi Patterson, Stacey 

Adams, Tyler Froburn, MC Welk, Shane 

Farver, John Forgach, Rachel Thompson, 

Katie Maloney, Kevlar7, William Athey, Brian 

Staker, Ruby Claire, Monica Borschel, 

Packard, Pbut, oneamyseven. 

Kate OConnor = Web Designer 

Kate O’Connor, SLUG Mag’s Web Mistress, breaks the stereotype of the computerloving 

nerd. Not only is she a totally hot babe, but her code is just as sexy! Outside 

of keeping our website functioning, Kate is into action sports such as long boarding 

and snowboarding, works at Salty Peaks and is currently accepting freelance web 

work. If you haven’t checked out Kate’s work on our new website, go to www. 

slugmag.com and see . 

Mr. Ken Sanders... On The Cover! 

Cover Design: Joshua Joye 

Stylist: Mariah Mann-Mellus 

Ken Sanders’ clothing provided 

by: Winkie Horman (fur coat), 

Sparks (shoes), Decades (shirt, 

necklaces and cane) and Model 

Citizen (rings, more necklaces, 

fashion stroll gossip and a hat). 

Bulldog provided by: 

Ron Green of the Green Ant. 

Bulldog handler: Ruth Rodgers 

Art Director: Erik Lopez 

Photograph by: Chris Swainston 

Pin Up Paintings: Trent Call 

Special Thanks to the Man, himself, 

Mr. Ken Sanders. XOXO, SLUG

slug presents: 

10 rockers from slc , slug presents: 

death Salt 3 

by 

10 rockers from slc s finest! 

, death Salt 3 

by 

s finest! 

¡ 2 chances to rock ! 

Friday December 21st 6pm 

Kilby Court (ALL AGES) 

Terrance DH 

Subrosa 

Eagle Twin 

The Furs 

Saturday December 22nd 10pm 

Urban Lounge* (21+) 

Sleeping Bag 

White Hot Ferrari 

Kick the Dog 

Ether 



Dear 

Dickheads 

Dear Dickheads, 

Thanks for the lame review on Back 

After Dawn, I see you taste in music 

sucks and I feel for your readers. 

Write us off as whatever you want, I 

have seen your taste in music reviews, 

and PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE 

REASON FOR NO CHANGE IN MUSIC, 

PEOPLE LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW 

ABOUT GOOD MUSIC WHEN IT IS 

STARTING OUT. Wait till it catches on 

then talk about it. 

Fuck you even trying to be apart of the 

music scene, what a joke you are. 

Bet you hate Thursday, Thrice, 

Radiohead. 

We are not part of a scene, hints the 

name of the cd “Scene Set Fire”, a 

message to you and people like you in 

your poser scene, fucking set fire. The 

only one who wears girl pants in the 

band is Debbie she is a girl. I bet you 

don’t even play and instrument, I play 

multiple ones. Go back home tonight 

and cry your self to sleep about how 

you could never be a musician that 

wasn’t a joke. –Steven 

Dear Steven, 

Sorry to be the one to break it to you 

but even after you spent 20 hours 

writing and rewriting this crappy 

letter, your band STILL sucks. For 

those SLUG reader’s that never 

had a chance to read how much 

we loathed your CD ... it’s reprinted 

below. Oh, and one more thing, 

Thursday, Thrice and Radiohead 

STILL suck, too. If your influences 

weren’t so overrated maybe you’d 

create better music. Crappy 

musicians like you need more 

Flipper in their life. XOXO 

Back After Dawn 

Scene Set Fire EP 

ITR Studios 

Street: 05.23 

Back After Dawn = Hot Topic 

bullshit at its worst 

Oh, just fucking shoot me now. 

This is some of the most pussified 

bullshit I’ve ever had the displeasure 

of hearing, and will undoubtedly be 

huge in the under-15 mall crowd. 

Singy-singy, screamy-screamy, pissypissy, 

cleany-cleany…formulaic to the 

point of making me want to fucking 

vomit. Scene hair, white belts, chick 

pants…invoking thoughts of homicide. 

Garbage. –loveyoudead 

Dear Dickheads, 

I personally want to say thanks for 

picking Trebuchet to do the Localized 

Showcase back in June. That was a 

really amazing show for me, and all 

of us. Oh, And I hope you realize how 

many kids your publication saves from 

the suburbs. It’s amazing. –James 

Miska 

Dear James, 

Thanks so much for that lovely note. 

It is part of SLUG Mag’s mission 

statement to save the children from 

becoming Wal Mart shopping, minivan 

driving individuals. Keep up 

the good fight and help us spread 

the word. There’s more to life than 

working a shitty 9-5, living in a 

house with a white picket fence and 

becoming a meth-abusing mother of 

3.5 children. 

Dear Dickheads- 

I can’t believe the fucking jerks in 

this town. We have people protesting 

the Blue Boutique, The Metropolitan 

serving Foi Gras and the the 

supposedly anti-god movie about 

a kid that can talk to his polar bear 

(The Golden Compass) ! There is 

a god damned war going on where 

people are dying every day and they 

just sound not be. Children are losing 

their fathers and mothers and spouses 

losing spouses needlessly. To top it all 

off, it’s all the fault of a lying, crooked 

administration that should be held 

accountable for all the lies they have 

told us and the unconstitutional bullshit 

they have been pulling for almost eight 

years and this is the bullshit people 

get worked up enough to protest? You 

assbags kill me, and I will see some of 

you at the metropolitan eating some 

shit I never really wanted to until I 

heard about your protest...morons. I 

wish Bush and Cheney were sending 

dildos and geese to Iraq, maybe you 

people would get off your asses for 

something that really matters. 

–Shannon Barndogg 

Shannon, just what are YOU doing to 

solve the world’s problems besides 

single handedly keeping the WWF 

and Fisher-Price in business? 

Send us your letter: 

deardickheads@slugmag.com

What the hell 

is going on 

with Death By 

Salt VOl.3? 

On December 21 and 22 

2007, We at SLUG Magazine will give you Death by Salt Vol. 3, 

the first compilation of Salt Lake City bands to be produced on 

vinyl in several decades, and the third installment in our Death 

By Salt compilation series. 

DBS Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 documented all genres from our whitehot 

music scene and featured 59 and 42 artists respectively. 

Band profiles were included in smartly packaged box sets 

limited to runs of 1000. However, DBS Vol. 3 will mark a 

change in creative direction. 

SLUG teamed up with local label Octopus Records to pare 

down the DBS Vol. 3 submissions. Together, we decided 

change was more than desirable. Instead of producing mixedgenre 

single releases every two years, the DBS series will 

now be released quarterly, as genre-specific albums. The call 

for submissions will also be genre-specific. This will make 

each collection more streamlined and allow for more in-depth 

representation of each genre in the scene and its artists, from 

goth to folk to Swedish bell choir. Accordingly, DBS Vol. 3 is a 

rock record. 

The art of DBS Vol. 3 was munificently designed by 

Paul Butterfield and Dave Styer and revolves around the 

theme of early Mormon resistance and rebellion against 

the federal government during Utah’s nascent statehood. It 

celebrates the early courage of Utah’s leaders, touching on the 

irony of their non-conformity 100 years before Utah became 

one of the most anally conservative states in the nation. 

Included is a newsprint zine containing full interviews and 

photos with each of the 10 lucky Salt Lake bands featured on 

DBS Vol. 3. 

DBS Vol. 3 is limited to 1000 vinyl copies. A downloadable 

version of the music is included with every purchase. 

See you at the release parties! 

Bon sodium! 

Angela H. Brown 

Editor 

DBS Vol. 3 • All- Ages 

Release Party 

Fri. Dec., 21, 2007 @ 

Kilby CT. $5 

741 South 330 West 

kilbycourt.com 

DBS Vol. 3 • 21 & Over 

Release Party 

Sat. Dec., 22, 2007 @ 

Urban Lounge $5 

(A Private Club For Members) 

241 South 500 East 





December Localized 

Realized 

by Conor Dow 

tomservo@gmail.com 

Taylor Orton – Drums 

Eric Rose – Guitar 

Adam Virostko – Guitar 

Jeremy Conder – Bass 

Kellen Dopp – Vocals 

“We just want to talk about Broship!” the gentlemen 

of I Am the Ocean express to me as I approach them 

standing outside Positively 4th Street, sharing a jug 

of wine. Obviously they are excited not only to talk 

about the collective network of other bands known 

as Broship, but also their band. We proceeded to 

the nearest Denny’s to share the same booth where 

several band meetings have been held. 

In the past two and a half years, a lot has happened 

for I Am The Ocean. Their full-length album ... And 

Your City Needs Swallowing, which pulls influences 

from heavy sludge metal to indie rock you could 

dance to, was released earlier this year by Uprising 

Records (Fall Out Boy, Underminded). A great 

deal of touring was done to support this record, 

and they found Charles, the official band puppy, 

while touring. “A big deal for us is our brothers in the 

Broship, Clifton and Her Candane have been and 

continue to be a huge influence not just musically 

Localized is always five bucks, and 

happens on the second Friday of the 

month at the Urban Lounge, a private 

club for members. This month’s 

showstopper falls on December 14th. 

December showcases two bands that 

have been staples in the Utah scene 

for a few years, the hard-rockin’ for 

loud parties Her Candane and the 

genre defying I Am the Ocean with 

openers The Schwass. I had the 

opportunity to spend one evening 

but as incredible support. Without those two bands, 

our band wouldn’t have happened the way it did, 

nor would we be in the position we are. We’re very 

fortunate to be part of an amazing brotherhood and 

collection of badass individuals and bands such as 

the Broship,” Jeremy Conder says. 

Thanks to grueling tour schedules by bands not only 

in Broship, but in Utah bands en masse, these past 

few years may have put our state on the map quite a 

bit more than it has been at any other time. “People 

out there and industry people know what’s going 

on here and they know it’s incredible. I think the 

stereotype that we don’t have good music is more 

cultivated by people in Utah than outside,” Eric Rose 

states. “We have the best bands and best scene 

in the world right here, with incredible diversity. For 

what just about every awesome band that’s out 

there is doing, I could show you a Utah band that 

could spank them.” I Am the Ocean shares local 

influences of other bands as well; “We’re proud to 

be influenced by Form Of Rocket, Gaza, The New 

Transit Direction, The Hi Fi Massacre, The Kill and 

many more.” 

As for actually performing, it’s easy to say that 

the band has done a great deal of it all across the 

country. “We hope the crowd has a good time and 

with each band, which resulted in a 

weapons-grade hangover and the 

other that resulted in a belly full of tea 

and English muffins. I’ll let you decide 

which order that was in. 

I Am the Ocean 

that they’re impressed to some degree in one way or 

another and feeling what we’re feeling. We hope that 

they’re close enough to get sweated on, and really 

hope they don’t get into a fight.” 

“Writing is a high all its own because of the fact 

you’re creating something; it’s something new for 

you as well and progress is very satisfying,” Jeremy 

reflects. With several new tracks in the workings, one 

which is 25 minutes long, and a second full-length 

album on the distant horizon, I Am the Ocean’s 

creativity seems far from dry. I had a chance to hear 

a segment from the almost half-hour track and it was 

a heavy, spastic psychedelic experience; hearing 

the full track will be quite exciting. “We don’t set out 

to sound like anyone else or even not like anyone 

else, we just write songs that we like, and usually 

others enjoy them too. If people find us unique then 

that’s awesome.” About the future, I Am the Ocean 

is understandably optimistic; “Hopefully we’re still 

working our asses off with more friends, a couple of 

more releases, maybe all of us a little bit taller.” 

I Am the Ocean has an EP coming out soon in the 

21st century. 

www.myspace.com/iamtheocean 

www.broship.freeforums.org

Photo: Katherine Winters 

Dreu Damian – Vocals 

Mike Deathner – Guitar 

T.J. Fox – Bass 

Dan Edwards – Drums 

Brad the Loy’d – Guitar 

Upon meeting the members of Her Candane for the 

first time, one thing was immediately apparent to me: 

these kids know how to party. My instinct to bring 

a 12-pack of beer to the interview was correct, and 

as I stepped inside the home of Dreu Damian, I was 

greeted with friendly handshakes and hugs. 

Her Candane formed in 2003, and has had several 

lineup changes since. “Former members have gone 

on to join bands like I Am the Ocean, Loom and 

Fear Before the March of Flames,” Dreu says. 

“About four million beers later, we have a new lineup 

and a new album in the works.” Presently, the band 

sports five members, six if you count Scribble 

Jackson, the official band tour puppy and mascot. 

Despite these lineup changes, it was clear that 

these guys are not only close band mates, but good 

friends as well. 

Being a band from Utah certainly can produce challenges, 

since the popular musical offerings from this 

fine state are seemingly limited to The Osmonds 

and The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but Her Candane 

has a secret weapon. “We’ve got what we like 

to call ‘puss,’ it’s kind of the same as heart, moxie or 

gusto” Dreu states. “We’re not too big on choruses, 

religion or any other diluted crap that gets pumped 

into the heads of the American youth. Oh, and we 

party harder.” 

Not only do they seem to have large amounts of 

puss, but it also helps to have a network of bands 

and friends that look out for each other. This is a 

small tribunal of bands known as ‘Broship,’ who will 

be collectively releasing a compilation album in early 

2008. “In this business you are who you know.” Dreu 

continues, “but nothing is as important as writing 

good solid jams.” Living in a city that doesn’t exactly 

go out of its way to embrace local arts seems to 

only fuel their enthusiasm for the local scene. “We 

couldn’t be more proud of our little beehive state. 

Loom, Gaza, I Am the Ocean, Clifton, God’s Revolver, 

Medea. Exigent Records and SVSS (Sound 

vs Silence) are kicking asses; we even have a dope 

basketball team!” As far as local influences go, the 

801 pride runs deep, “The Kill was the best band 

ever. The New Transit Direction should’ve been the 

biggest band on the planet. Parallax and The Hi Fi 

Massacre were fucking legit, and every time I see 

Form of Rocket, they prove beyond a shadow of a 

doubt that no one rocks harder.” 

But all this rocking is somewhat blurry. When asked 

about memorable moments had while touring, “I 

don’t recall ... you see we’re a bit of a clusterfuck. 

We did get to party with Vinnie (Paul) and Dimebag 

(Darrell) of Pantera once, that was probably the 

highlight of our lives.” 

How much of a clusterfuck are they? Where does 

Dreu see Her Candane in three years? “Dead in 

a ditch, or playing covers at a bar in Wendover.” 

Sarcasm obviously, but Dreu proceeds to explain 

the meaning of the band name, “Candane is a word 

I created to describe the habit of self-sabotage that 

people tend to inflict upon themselves. It basically 

means destroying something intentionally as opposed 

to letting it fail due to circumstances beyond 

your own control.” 

However, after two respectable releases, countless 

shows, touring and sharing stages with some of 

their favorite bands, and starting a close network of 

friends and bands that span between Alaska, California 

and Utah, dead in a ditch - or even the act of 

a “candane” seems rather doubtful. But then again, 

that’s rock n’ roll. 

Her Candane is working hard on writing a new 

album, which they hope to start recording come 

springtime. 

www.myspace.com/hercandane 



miret 

family values 

By Meghann Griggs 

Meghann@slugmag.com 

Being a longtime Agnostic Front fan, I was more than 

happy to interview front man, Roger Miret. With the 

band’s new album The Warriors out since November 6th 

and with Miret’s new clothing line Dirty Devil Apparel in 

stores, you would think the hardcore veteran would have 

nothing but business on his mind. Little did the public 

know that Miret recently celebrated fatherhood again with 

the birth of his second daughter, Emily. His oldest, Nadia, 

is a 20 something in college. His youngest daughter, 

now five months old, has led Merit to a major life change. 

He openly admits that he was “on a self destructive 

path…running ruthless, running crazy on the streets of 

New York, thinking [he] was on fucking fire where nothing 

could stop [him], and nothing could hold [him] back.” 

He refers to his former self as an “insane person,” but 

explains fatherhood changed everything. It was no longer 

about “live fast and die young” – he wanted to slow down 

and experience life. He credits the birth of his oldest 

daughter with giving him the will to survive. With the birth 

of his second child, he has had more time to sit back and 

soak in fatherhood in a new way. 

Three pertinent ideas emerged with Agnostic Front’s 

music: unity, loyalty, and honor. Miret believes that 

these principles are important not only for his newborn 

daughter but that they also permeate everything he does. 

The inspiration for the new album, and even its title, come 

from Frank Miller s film, 300. “Those Spartans and the 

way they live, their warrior’s code of honor and respect 

and family, [those were] the same values that I lived by 

and I want to teach my children to carry on the rest of 

their life.” Miret was careful to clarify his view and admiration 

of women. “I come from a world where women 

were women and little girls weren’t bitches and hos.” He 

believes that when you treat people disrespectfully, that 

disrespect spreads. “Your children pick up on that, and 

the next thing you know everyone is a bitch and a ho.” He 

believes that it’s important to make music and inspire fan 

loyalty without belittling others. This is in vast contrast to 

music genres like gangster rap that “talk about bitches, 

guns and money. That deters from the values you should 

teach a family.” Hardcore values traditionally promote 

family and respect alongside individuality. 

While Miret has an opportunity to impart the values and 

history of hardcore music to his five-month-old daughter, 

his oldest girl adds a welcome contrast to his lifestyle. 

“She is a self-proclaimed prep,” he said. “But she’s true 

to herself and lives with those values everyday.” He went 

on to say, “You have to let children figure out for themselves 

who and what they want to be.” Nadia’s mother 

was the lead singer for the well-known 

punk/activist 

band Nausea. 

They figured that 

with her musical history 

and background 

and Miret’s old-school 

street experience, their 

daughter would become some 

“stage diving nut girl.” But like any 

young woman, she’s searching for her 

own individuality. 

Miret plans to take his new family on the 

road. Miret bragged about how he received 

his baby girl’s passport two days prior to this 

interview. He’s excited to be touring with both 

his new baby and with his wife, who is also named 

Emily. The first leg of the tour will take them to Europe 

for the beginning of December and then back to the old 

stomping grounds of NYC for the end of the Christmas 

season. 

Check out the New York hardcore 

legends latest release, 

The Warriors, on their website 

www.agnosticfront.com 

also Roger Miret’s new 

clothing line at: 

www.dirtydevilapparel.com. 

Photo courtesy of Roger Merit







Skate 

Product 

Reviews 

By Adam Dorobiala 

adam@slugmag.com 

Saturday Skateboards 

McRight Art Series Bear deck (8.0), Misc. 

apparel 

www.saturdayskateboards.com 

Lesser known to the masses, Saturday 

Skateboards is a small town board 

company based out of Charlotte, NC, but 

their product is anything but small town. 

The deck they sent is probably one of the 

better non-shop decks I have skated in a 

long time. The wood is super stiff, not to 

mention the perfect shape with the right 

amount of concave, it almost skates for 

you. It even became a little warped through 

shipping, but still maintained its pop. The 

graphics on this particular deck are from a 

limited art series run by artist Bill McRight, 

and since they clear-coat their decks 

instead of fully painting them, expect the 

board to slip and slide while the graphic 

stays relatively intact. Not only does 

Saturday make boards but they also have 

a wonderful selection of colorful shirts and 

hats to boot. I am pretty sure the only shop 

in Utah that carries their gear is Union, 

but don’t be surprised if you start seeing 

Saturday gear throughout the valley soon. 

Go to their website to look at all the cool 

stuff and purchase is mandatory for anyone 

seeking a company that really is as good 

as the products look. 

Grind King Trucks 

Artist Series “Deli- Look Out” and “Dobson- 

Redhead” trucks 

www.grindking.com 

Everybody sees art on decks and it’s 

high time that trucks start to get the same 

special treatment. Grind King has hooked 

up with a bunch of emerging artists to help 

design their new “Artist Series” trucks, and 

let me tell you that they are pretty sweet. 

At first I thought that because of the art 

wrap the trucks wouldn’t grind as well, but 

I was wrong. These babies grind like the 

wind and look sharp too. Unfortunately 

the only problem is the fact that the art is 

bound to get marred as you skate them, 

ruining any chance of saving the design 

after a few months of skating. Although I 

enjoy the designs a lot, the fact that you 

Photo: Adam Dorobiala 

Photo: Chris Swainston 

need a special tool for the king-pin, becomes 

a hassle in the long run, because most kids 

don’t have ready access to an allen wrench. 

The “Artist Series” should be out this fall, so 

if you are interested in purchasing some go 

to any local shop and they are bound to have 

them, but be quick because these trucks are 

limited edition. 

Altamont Apparel 

Jimi Hendrix Lady Of The Night Tee and 

Hoody 

www.altamontapparel.com 

When I met Jimi Hendrix almost two years 

ago in Pittsburgh, he said nothing about 

his plans to get his artwork printed with 

a skateboard company. The lucky guys 

over at Altamont were able to get a hold of 

some never before seen (by the public), 

never before used drawings by the one 

and only “Voodoo Child” and every article 

of clothing in the series is quite amazing. If 

you’re looking for some new threads and 

comfortable ones at that, then you just found 

your stop because these shirts and hoodies 

feel like they are made out of Egyptian silk 

or something. Although the clothes are really 

comfortable, I noticed that the shirts have 

more tags on them than any other company, 

(when one could easily suffice) and since 

some of them are embroidered on they can 

get a little bothersome from time to time. This 

limited edition series has been out for a while 

now and if you haven’t already gotten a piece 

from the collection, chances are you might 

have to live with the fact that you missed out 

on a once in a century event. 

VOX Shoes 

Brighton Series Mayday 

www.voxfootwear.com 

My very first impression of these shoes was 

that the sole looked entirely too thick to 

have any kind of control over the board, but 

man, was I wrong. Never judge a shoe by 

its sole, as someone might have once said. 

The Mayday continued to impress me for the 

fact that I put them on straight out of the box, 

laced them up and went skating and there 

was no awkward new shoe feeling. Expect a 

lot of foot protection too by the fancy “IRS” 

protection located in the heel. The shoes are 

super sleek looking, with black leather and 

a plaid printed cloth where the leather stops, 

almost enough to make your grandparents a 

little jealous. The Brighton Series is available 

on most of their other models of shoes and 

they have a style for every taste. Look for 

them in shops soon. Otherwise, just go online 

and see everything VOX has to offer to the 

general public. 







Noise on the New Horizon: TEAM THUNDER 

Words by Chris Swainston: chris@slugmag.com 

Ben Gu • Bomb dropping the gap. • Shad Photo 

The band of Pirates themselves • Shad Photo 

The artful and curious minds 

of Team Thunder, a local 

crew of snowboarders, are 

turning heads in the snowboard 

industry. They’ve created a 

newfangled creative style of 

riding and are pushing the idea 

of what’s accepted as good 

in snowboarding. “We have a 

different outlook; were not trying 

to prove anything to anyone, we’re 

trying to show a more enjoyable 

aspect of the sport rather than the 

skill level,” explains crewmember 

Will Tuddenham. 

Team Thunder started about 5 

years ago with Sean McCormick, 

Ryan Debbenham, Will 

Tuddenham, Jake Welch, Ben 

Gustafson and other friends 

shredding and filming their 

monotonous high school days 

away. There isn’t one primary 

filmier for the team; everyone 

contributes throughout the 

season, and McCormick handles 

the editing. The first two videos 

produced were Timid and Tame 

and More Funner. At the time, the 

videos were fairly impressive for 

a bunch of kids getting together 

and filming just for the fun of it. 

After More Funner hit the streets 

things started to fizzle. Not as 

much filming got done and a couple 

seasons just drifted by with the cold. 

Last season, new projects arose 

for the team. Cody Comrie 

started regularly shredding and 

hanging out with the crew, adding 

another imaginative mind to 

the group. The riders became 

more dedicated to filming, 

and everyone’s snowboarding 

reached a more progressive 

level. Team Thunder was finally 

at it again. “It is all because we 

get to hangout everyday. If we 

go snowboarding and filming, 

it’s motivation not to work at a 

restaurant or something shitty,” 

says Tuddenham. Thus, they 

started filming for a new video, 

Remember When (2007). With 

minimal snow in the mountains 

and limited street spots in SLC, 

the team adapted by taking a 

different look at snowboarding. 

They experimented with bails of 

hay at the bottom of a sledding 

hill, building pole jams, bonks 

and stalls out of logs in Brighton’s 

back country––taking nothing 

and turning it into something. It’s 

these innovative ideas that set 

Team Thunder’s videos apart from 

the standard video format that 

focuses on how ridiculously gnarly 

you can be. “Snowboarding 

today is a little nuts,” says Will 

Tuddenham, “There are so many 

trends being followed. People 

doing the same thing over and

over, it gets real boring.” Cody Comrie 

shares that sentiment, “You don’t 

have to do a switch back-lip down 30 

stairs to do something sweet in your 

snowboarding… get a bunch of junk 

and slide around on it.” 

While filming for Remember When, 

the team took some of those creative 

days of snowboarding and turned 

them into short teaser flicks—posting 

them on Transworld Snowboarding’s 

website. The videos were much 

different then what many people had 

seen—showing a side that more riders 

can relate to because not everyone 

has access to big mountain resorts 

and world-class snow. Because of this, 

they started getting tons of positive 

feedback from riders all over the 

world. It was obvious that people were 

really taking a liking to what Team 

Thunder was doing. Transworld also 

took notice; they contacted the team 

about creating weekly videos to post 

on the site. There was some talk about 

cash reimbursement for all the team’s 

hard work, but as of late—it’s looking 

like free advertising is all the team will 

be getting from Transworld. Keep track 

of what Team Thunder comes up with 

this season at transwoldsnowboarding. 

com and youtube.com. 

Allied Distribution was another big dog 

to notice Team Thunder, discovering 

them last season through the videos 

and teasers they were posting. 

Allied picked up their latest video, 

Remember When, launching it off for 

distribution through North America 

and Japan. Initially it looked like 

some dollar signs were in the near 

future for Team Thunder, but Allied 

Distribution took the typical industry 

bigwig stance, claiming that helping 

the team out is payment enough. It’s 

great exposure for the team, but I think 

these corporate scrooges need to be 

dishing out some cash. 

We all have to eat, but money isn’t 

everything. Financial struggles won’t 

be stopping Team Thunder from 

filming for another video this season. 

Even though they don’t have the 

cash flow for extravagant helicopter 

follow cam and zip line filming, their 

snowboarding alone will ultimately be 

what sets them apart from other riders. 

When asked about the Team and 

what to expect from this year’s video, 

Sean McCormick said, “We have 

BBQ’s when we go snowboarding, we 

don’t have any money and we love 

to hike jumps instead of snowmobile 

... We hope to make people laugh 

and maybe even cry.” Cody Comrie 

added, “We’re focused on trying to 

develop a full range of snowboarding, 

showing the creative side of it. We 

want to show people the possibilities, 

how much fun you can have with it 

and how you can do anything, anytime 

with it, no matter what the circumstance, just as 

long as you have a little bit of snow.” 

To add some spot diversity to the video and 

uncover some untouched places there’s talk of 

an Amtrak train trip around the country, hitting 

cities covered in snow; an adventure like that 

could be a video in itself. The team has already 

Will T with a supersized front board • Shad Photo 

been busy filming, taking full advantage of the 

few preseason storms SLC got in October and 

November. Its been said that the new video will 

be called Gold Country. Keep your eyes peeled 

for the premier sometime in the summer of 

2008. Until then shred, have fun and “go play in 

the woods” says Sean McCormick. 





SLUG 

‘s 

Photos: Emily Allen 

Models: Shantel Bennett, Erik Lopez 

2007

A Gift for a Thirty-Something Ken Jennings 

Wannabe 

The 80s Game with Martha Quinn 

Funkitron 

Price: $19.99 

The problem with trivia games is how all-encompassing they are. You may 

know a great deal about Ecuador, but that will do you no good if the question 

is about Rod Stewart. The scope is just too broad. This is why an 

80s trivia game makes so much sense. You don’t have to know everything; 

you only have to know everything in a ten year time span. An electronic 

version of original MTV VJ Martha Quinn leads you through questions 

about music, film, sports and culture. And though accessing this chunk 

of knowledge may be next to impossible for the younger generation, it is 

perfect for those in their early thirties who really want to feel smart. They 

may not be able to finish college or hold a steady job, but I’ll be damned 

if they can’t name every single James Bond film starring Roger Moore. 

Say ‘em with me: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, The Living Daylights . . . 

–James Bennett 

Five out of Five Flocks of Seagulls 

A Gift for Your Home Teacher’s Wife 

The Affirmawrap Fleece Blanket 

Affirmagy 

Price: $29.99 

Sometimes, the cold winter months call for more than just the standard 

blanket—especially if the source of your frigid feelings is not the draft from 

the window, but the negativity surrounding you. The people at Affirmagy 

understand this. They know that while any fleece coverlet can warm your 

feet, it takes a special swatch of fabric to warm your heart. Printed with 

positive slogans like “I am calm and centered” and “I am a magnet for 

ease and grace,” the Affirmawrap will flood your life with positivity and will 

surround you with warm, synthetic fibers. When I was feeling particularly 

blue this season, I bundled myself up and watched a movie on Lifetime. 

And though the TV movie was about spousal abuse, I couldn’t help but feel 

good about life. The Affirmawrap is the perfect gift for the woman behind 

the man who brings the word of God into your home every month. —James 

Bennett 

Five out of Five First Presidency Messages 

A Gift for The Lazy Fat Ass Ex-Skateboarder 

in Your Life 

The Beer Belly 

Home Wet Bar 

Price: $39.95 

What may be hands down the best gift idea this holiday season could very 

well get its recipient into some trouble, and that’s exactly why I like it. The 

Beer Belly is an 80 oz. camelback with an insulated neoprene sling that 

allows it to be worn under your shirt on your stomach, looking like a convincingly 

real beer belly. Made mostly for party animals and alcoholics, it 

allows you to become a human keg and sneak your favorite beverage (hot 

or cold) into places where booze is either not allowed or really overpriced. 

Try rolling to movies, concerts, sporting events, family reunions, class, or 

church and getting hammered without anybody even noticing. Although 

it probably violates open container laws and a few other liquor laws, who 

cares? The thing looks so realistic that getting it into any event is a breeze 

and cops might actually respect you more, seeing as you have a fat gut, 

just like them. My favorite part is that this actually reverses the effect 

alcohol has on people. Usually the drunker you get the less attractive you 

become, but with this baby, you start the night sober and out of shape, and 

end the night drunk and looking like a veritable Jenny Craig success story. 

–Sully 

Four out of Five Cheers! 

A Gift for Your Friend With Stub Steak 

Fingers 

Fender Stratocaster 1:3 Scale Replica 

GMP Replicas 

Price: $49.95 

As awkward as it is for someone with stubby fingers to shake hands with 

standard-digited folks like you and me, this is not the most troubling situation 

in which they may find themselves—worse still is when the carniehanded 

attempt to play guitar. Since the dawn of stringed instruments, 

the stub-fingered among us have had to settle for the violin, all the while 

thinking of how much better it would be to plow through the first few bars of 

“Eruption” on a blue-lit stage. Finally, a guitar for people whose fingers are 

a third the size of everyone else. There’s just one problem: you can’t really 

play it. It is a meticulously crafted model, but it is all form and no function. 

It will not help the digitally challenged achieve rock god status. It will only 

remind them of the strat-shredding career that is nowhere near their fingertips. 

Pretty, but useless. –James Bennett 

One out of Five Yngwie Malmsteens 

A Gift for Your Ex-Step Mom 

Fling-A-String Kitty Toy 

Moody Pet 

Price: $16.99 

If your ex-step mom is anything like mine, she used to be hot but after too 

many prescription drugs her organs are rendered useless and have thus 

affected her delicate exterior (meaning she now looks like Skeletor). 

Anyway, she probably has a cat, so this is the perfect re-gift for her. I 

tested the fling-a-string on my cat, Jet Pack. He’s very particular about his 

toys, he usually only likes things that are pink (personally, I think my cat is 

gay, but I respect his sexual orientation). Jet Pack loved the fling-a-string! 

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough batteries to keep the fling-a-string going 

as much as he’d like, so we haven’t been getting along as well lately. 

–Mike Brown 

Four out of Five Oxykittens 

A Gift for Your Anti-War Dog 

George the Lame Duck Dog Toy 

Moody Pet 

Price: $9.99 

There is no better way to show off your political dissent than by giving 

your favorite furry friend a miniature of the president to chew on. When I 

first gave this toy to my dog Rosie, she was apprehensive, but has grown 

to love the soft, plush half-duck/half George W. I thought that it would be 

ripped to shreds and strewn across the backyard in a matter of days, but 



Bowdabra

the thing has survived. And honestly, nothing brings a smile to my face like 

watching my dog throw the quasi-president up in the air, catch it in her mouth 

and shake the hell out of him. –Jeanette Moses 

Five out of Five Shakes of Dog Tails 

A Gift for Your Pot Dealer 

Grow-A-Head Dolls 

Grow-A-Head 

Price: $9.99 

You already know that your pot dealer likes things that grow. You already 

know that your pot dealer likes things that are green. And if your pot dealer 

is anything like my pot dealer she really likes dolls. Combine all three and 

you’ve got the perfect re-gift for your favorite tax free enterprise representative. 

I tried to actually grow the grow-a-heads and they didn’t grow so well. Total 

shwag heads if you ask me. But the reindeer one is exceptionally cute bald, so 

whatever. –Mike Brown 

Three Out of Five Seeds 

A Gift for The Kid You Had With That Rocker 

Chick 

Heavy Metal Fun Time Activity Book 

ECW Press 

Price: $9.99 

The hardest part about having your Aerosmith-obsessed ex-girlfriend raise 

your illegitimate son is not the tragic haircut she’s bound to make him get—it’s 

the sad fact that the revolving door of new men in her life will shower your boy 

with all sorts of expensive gifts while trying to get into her pants. This will make 

almost anything you give him seem cheap and insincere. That is, until now! 

With the Heavy Metal activity book, junior will be able to color Black Sabbath 

and do a Pantera dot-to-dot. His cognitive skills will further develop while he 

searches for which two of the six Van Halen logos are exactly identical. He 

will spend hours working on an Ad-Lib based on Dio’s song “Holy Diver.” He 

will better understand the importance of Metal, and will begin to look to you 

for guidance, understanding that you are a far better man than any of the half 

dozen guys who “slept-over” within the last month. Better still, your ex-old lady 

will realize how much better of a catch you are than the dude with the Theater 

of Pain tattoo. Metal solves everything. —James Bennett 

Five out of Five Flying Vs 

A Gift for Your Spiteful Starbucks Customer 

Keurig Platinum B70 Coffee Maker 

Keurig 

Price: $195.99 

The process is simple: your coffee grounds are pre-measured and pre-ground 

and then packaged into a convenient little sealed plastic cup, which is then 

grouped in a box with a whole host of other nicely packaged single-serving 

cups. After you’ve selected your blend (“Green Mountains Dark Magic,” in my 

case) you just put the unopened grounds cup into the brewer, close the lid, 

select the mug size you desire and press brew. A few minutes later you have 

your very own cup of coffee, you also have a little plastic cup that needs to be 

thrown away, not recycled (apparently the cup is not made of a recyclable material). 

At almost $200, I can think of quite a few less wasteful ways to brew a 

single-serving coffee. I prefer a French press, which only costs about $35 and 

the only waste it produces are composte-ready used grounds and the bag your 

coffee came in, rather than a whole package full of cups. A French press also 

brews a much better tasting cup of coffee than the mediocre and slightly stale 

cup the Keurig gave me. So, if convenience is what you want, then it is a great 

machine, otherwise stop by your local coffee shop or kitchen supply store and 

pick up a French press or get advice on another brewer. –Joe Evans, Owner, 

nobrow coffee and tea 

One out of Five Rainy Days in Seattle 

A Gift for Your Crafty Scrap-Booking Childless 

Aunt 

Mini-Bowdabra 

Bowdabra 

Price: $9.99 

The Mini Bowdabra claims to make beautiful bows quickly and easily––bows 

for hair, candles, scrapbooks, invitations etc. Sadly, the Mini-Bowdabra (a 

piece of cheap plastic that pinches the ribbon to hold it in place) does little 

more than create the loops of the bow. The hardest part of making a beautiful 

bow (the tie off) isn’t accomplished in any sort of fabulous way by using the 

mini Bowdabra. I found myself making neat looking loops with the Bowdabra, 

but once I went in for the tie off my “fabulous bow” would fall apart almost 

instantly. I’d rather stick to hot glue and sewing pins when creating bows. 

–Jeanette Moses 

One out of Five Rousing Ribbons 

A Gift for The Neptunes Hopeful 

MPC 500 

AKA 

Price: $699 

Has someone you know changed life-long career goals of college and 

Veterinary school to becoming a music producer? Want to help them achieve 

their Scott Storch aspirations? If so, forget about that $99 FL Studio software. 

Billboard’s Top 200 songs are really bought from 20dollarbeats.com anyway, 

not produced on some incredibly versatile and affordable computer program. 

The real ticket to music industry success is fashion (just look at Kanye), and 

the MPC 500 is just expensive enough to engender the ire of all the other 

all-over-print hoody aficionados for its sleek black status symbol. The unit’s 

LCD display is ridiculously small and it doesn’t even come with a USB cable, 

but those things are only important if they actually plan on using it, rather than 

just pretending to pound out that loud snare sample at the show. And the envy 

need not be confined to music appropriate venues only! In situations where 

the possession of an entire music production system may be perceived by 

some as unnecessary and vain (such as that crucial first date), just tell them 

to put the unit’s 35 Megabyte memory card on that Han Cholo chain to let the 

romantic interest know they’re well on their way to diddling away more money 

they don’t have on overpriced, limited-edition Nikes. –Makena Walsh 

Three out of Five Delighted Rappers 

A Gift for Your Traveling Hubby 

Noise-Canceling Headphones 

TDK 

Price: $27.65 

“Its so noisy in this airplane!” “Shut-up you stupid people in the coffee shop! 



I want to listen to the new Norah Jones while I type on my Mac and I don’t 

want to hear your stupid conversation about Wes Anderson or leg warmers!” 

If you have ever been in either of these situations, it is obvious that you need 

some type of device that will completely shut out what is going on in the world 

around you. What you need are some noise canceling headphones! TDK 

makes a pretty good pair; the sound quality is decent and they are comfortable 

to wear for extended periods of time. The only thing that is a bit deterring is the 

somewhat large control panel halfway down the cord. I decided to wear them 

for an entire day and I found that I was slowly evaporating into a world of drugs, 

sex and evil dance music. Say no to real life! –Art Glassett 

Four out of Five Jazz Standards 

A Gift for Your Digital Pirate 

PC to TV Converter 

Gigaware 

Price: $99.99 

Paying top dollar for premium cable channels to watch your favorite shows 

or purchasing the DVD a season or two after it’s over is soooo 2000. What is 

cheaper and quicker is downloading them onto your computer to view later, but 

if you are like me, your average PC pirate, you don’t have that great of a set-up 

to watch your ill-begotten gains on your computer. Countless times I have 

tried to watch stuff on my computer and wished I could see it on my TV screen. 

Gigaware’s PC to TV converter offers a nifty solution: instead of plugging in a 

separate converter box that also needs an AC adaptor, this PC to TV converter 

runs off the USB port (and is mac compatible as well!) The only drawback amid 

the countless cables and overly simplistic instructions is that occasionally, like 

a TV antenna, it needs adjusting and if you are going to use it for movies or 

shows with subtitles, they better be in a big font or else it will be a bit fuzzy and 

unreadable. While it does what it’s designed to do, it isn’t optimal for high-def 

conversion. Bummer. If you are interested in anything better than composite 

component images then this quick fix converter is not for you. Novelty ahoy! 

–Erik Lopez 

Three out of Five Billion Dollars of Lost Writer’s Wages 

The Gift for Your Guitar Hero 

Pocket POD Guitar Multi-Effects Processor 

Line 6 

Price: $130 

I have to admit up front that I am not a huge fan of amp modelers for various 

reasons, but this little Pocket Pod is pretty amazing. It’s really tiny and packed 

with a bunch of great features including some cool sounding guitar presets, 

some standard and not-so-standard effects and the ability to create your own 

presets with a simple, intuitive interface. There is even the option to connect via 

USB and create your own sounds using a program called Vyzex. When you’re 

done creating your sounds, you can go online and share them with other users. 

A quick browse through the online library showed plenty of shitty metal presets 

(Dokken anyone?) and there was even a couple for Fugazi. Out of sheer 

curiosity I did put this to the test to see if it would stand up to the real deal. After 

a bit of tweaking, I got something fairly close to what sounded like my Fender 

Hot Rod Deville, but I wouldn’t suggest hocking your stack just yet. If you just 

need to practice your arpeggios and want to feel like you’re doing it through a 

cranked amp, this could be your ticket. –Matt Mateus 

Three out of Five Ratt’s 

A Gift for Your L33T H4X0R 

Roboform2GO 

Siber Systems, Inc. 

Price: $20 

If you have three emails accounts, a university login account, bank on the web, 

purchase stuff through Amazon, etc. you can easily amass anywhere from five 

to twenty passwords or more. Usually it’s much easier to condense all these 

passwords into one or two for all the websites you have to visit, trading in 

security for convenience. But, living in a post-9/11 world, convenience MUST 

be discarded in favor of security. 20 dollars is a small price to pay for good 

sleep and the ability to foil terrorism in all its forms, Roboform2GO is essentially 

a USB jump drive with 256 MB that stores all your passwords, will make 

secure passwords for you, store files, etc and all you need to do is remember 

one master password. And if you have a spare jump drive lying around, you 

can download the program onto it instead of buying their branded drive! It’s 

pretty easy to use – plug it in, go to a website that needs a password that you 

use and voila … no hassle log-in. Unfortunately, its not Mac compatible and 

if you like working with Macs – like I do, you are screwed and screwed royally. 

Another thing to think about – if you don’t use other computers much for surfing 

websites that you need passwords for, then this product is virtually a moot 

point. Recommended for those who don’t have a dedicated computer or two 

that they use on a regular basis. –Erik Lopez 

Four out of Five Flying Windows 

A Gift for Your Circuit-Bending Boyfriend 

The Tremolessence 

The Reverberator 

The Sunny Day Delay 

The Frazz Dazzler 

Dr. Scientist 

Price: $150-$260 

Dr. Scientist was cool enough to send four pedals: The Tremolessence, The 

Reverberator, The Sunny Day Delay and The Frazz Dazzler. These four pedals 

should be packaged together as a “starter” kit, fulfilling the four basic food 

groups of sound manipulation with a sense of class and style that surpasses 

the typical mass-manufactured pedal. Each one was developed with a sense 

of “what can we do to make this just a little bit unique?” while still being useful. 

The Tremolessence does your basic tremolos, but it goes a bit further, letting 

you select the shape (triangle or square), and it also hasrate (with fast and 

slow switch), massive amounts of depth and a light that matches the tempo 

so you can set it before kicking it in. On the Dr. Scientist website they list the 

Reverberator as being both “red” and “radical”. While the one they sent me is 

not red, it is pretty radical. The Reverberator gives you 8 different digital reverbs 

to choose from: 2 Halls, 3 Rooms and 3 Plates. All the preset verbs sound 

warm and real, especially with the mix knob dialed in just right.The Sunny Day 

Delay could easily replace my Memory Man. It does all the good stuff that an 

analog-type delay should. From single to endless repeats and a rate knob that 

allows for some serious tweaking. The good doctor also thought to give you 

some chorus for the repeats if you so desire. Aesthetically speaking, I really like 

the ever changing rainbow LED that flashes in time with the rate and the yellow 

LED in the sun that lets you know you have the chorus engaged Ok, I have 

found my new “can’t live without” pedal. The Frazz Dazzler. At first I thought 

that something was wrong with it. It has this monstrous distortion. I think that 

the word “frazz” means beyond fuzz. It makes anything you plug into it sound 

angry. And for some strange reason, they decided to put a gate on it (adjustable 

by the Sizzle knob), allowing you to get some pretty glitchy effects. Out 

of curiosity I started running various instruments through it to see what would 

happen. The Frazz Dazzler literally shredded my monitors when I ran a bass 

through it. I don’t want to give it back. –Matt Mateus 

Four and a Half out of Five Pumpkins Smashed 



A Gift for Your Technology Loving Yuppie 

S-2 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones 

Cardo Systems, Inc. 

Price: $69.68 

Call me old fashioned, but I didn’t know there was any way to avoid the brain 

cancer you get from holding your cell phone to your ear. I also thought that 

driving 80 on I-80 in a snowstorm while talking on the phone was actually kind 

of a fun sport like fox hunting. Then I got the S-2 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones 

by Cardo. Now , while driving, I can use both hands to adjust the radio, eat, or 

knit a beanie, while I simultaneously drive and talk to Mrs. Cleo on the phone. 

What makes these puppies badass is that, while listening to music wirelessly 

via a Bluetooth enabled mp3 player, you can also field calls from your cronies. 

I would definitely recommend these, but you better do your research on the 

gift recipient first. They would be fucking useless to somebody who doesn’t 

have a Bluetooth enabled phone or mp3 player. That said, give this to an older 

person, because Cardo’s style is definitely geared towards hip executives and 

parents than it is to the younger crowd. For you idiots, I’ll make it easy. Successful 

business people = Cardo. Younger, cooler people = Skullcandy. Got 

it, dumbass? –Sully 

Two out of Five Matthews Named Dave 

A Gift for Your Drum Hero 

Sabian B8 Super Pack 

Sabian 

Price: $350 

Recently Sabian has been bulking up their B8 cymbal pack in hopes to lure 

drummers with quantity over quality. The B8 super pack includes a 20” ride, 

14” high hat, 10” splash and three thin crashes of 14”, 16” and 18”. The pack 

is going for about $300, depending on the dealer. The B8 line is not known for 

having professional, elite quality. B8’s are sheet bronze, which is the cheapest 

form of cymbal production. Sheet bronze contains about 8% tin and the rest 

copper. The B line is considered “beginner’s cymbals” because of their durability 

and low price. The B8’s are pretty bright cymbals. The ride is fairly high 

pitched with considerable sustain. When playing with the shank it sounds like 

a deep crash. The bell’s tone cuts pretty well but has too much ping. The high 

hat is way too bright for my liking. When closed you can get some nice, clean 

“chicks” but once opened it sounds tinny and toy-like. All three crashes have a 

fairly penetrating response and full, upward pitch gain. The 14” is the loudest 

in the bunch and is good for accenting situations with the snare. The 16” and 

18” are ok but lack good, quality tone. The splash has fast attack but isn’t very 

crisp. With its short sustain you could easily disguise the cymbal’s weaknesses 

by integrating other sized splashes. The Sabian B8 super pack is certainly 

a bargain considering the amount of cymbals your receiving. Whether you are 

a beginner or just sick and tired of cracking you’re good shit during rehearsal, 

you might want to look into this cheap investment. –Michael DeJohn 

Four out of Five Splashes 

A Gift for Your Militant Vegan Friend 

The Soybella 

Tribest 

Price: $95.98 

What a novel idea, a device that allows you to instantly create your own 

soymilk. It only takes 15 minutes to make the actual soymilk, but the results I 

got were much less than I expected. The soymilk I created smelled like normal 

soymilk, but had a slight green color, and tasted more like water than anything 

else. The Soybella did come with some rad soymilk variation recipes though. I 

don’t think this $100 dollar soymilk maker is a total flop. I bet with some practice 

I could start churning out some damn good soymilk. –Jeanette Moses 

Three out of Five Pieces of Toast on a Chain 

A Gift for Your Brother Who Thinks Magic 

Cards Are For Wimps 

Star Wars Pocket Model Trading Card Game 

WizKids, Inc. 

Price: $19.99 

My older brother plays Magic: the Gathering, but Mom says that I’ll probably 

like this one better. It definitely seems less complicated than what my brother 

plays, but the game seems to sometimes end too quickly, and easily as well. 

For a while I wasn’t really sure how a game with miniatures would work, since 

it also has dice and uses cards, but after a few rounds, I was able to get the 

hang of it. Admittedly, most of the fun was putting the miniature ships together, 

even though it took a while and although they’re pretty sturdy, I couldn’t avoid 

breaking a couple of the connecting joints with my kid power. But they did look 

way cool when they were all put together and neatly aligned, ready to attack 

the enemy. Now I can create my own prequels, without Jar Jar Binks! There’s 

some expansions that are supposed to come out too, which will probably make 

it even more fun, some are supposedly called “Secret Weapons,” “Scum and 

Villainy,” and “Galaxy at War.” I can’t wait to march over Rebel scum with my 

AT-ATs! –Conor Dow 

Four out of Five Han Solo’s Shot Firsts 

A Gift for Your Internet Stalker 

QuickCam Ultra Vision 

Logitech 

Price: $103.99 

I am tired of grainy, fuzzy pictures from PC computer cameras that look like 

copies of fourth generation, friend-of-a-friend porn tapes. My expectations 

were low and I was ready to be unimpressed with yet another camera that 

makes my creepy and sneaky secret shots seem like a murky loch ness 

monster photo. I was pleasantly surprised at the high resolution of the photos 

and its real time streaming capabilities. Instead of photos taken every couple 

of seconds and strung together like a slide show, the QuickCam gave my video 

shows the extra visual pizzazz of Vegas strippers dancing to “Running in the 

Shadows of the Night.” If you are in the market for a new digital camera for all 

your covert coverage, this camera blows the load on the competition. –Pete 

the Sneak 

Four out of Five Cam Whores 

A Gift for the Up and Coming “Skin-Flick” 

Director 

Vegas Platinum Production Suite (with Movie Studio 8.0 

and Audio Studio 9) 

Sony 

Price: $174.95 

The Movie Studio interface is confusing and lacking but it is definitely an affordable 

choice. The limitation of only four video and audio tracks is manageable 

since I’m usually dealing with single, long takes. One noticeable difference from 

more professional software is there is no source-edit monitor allowing me to work 

with individual POV shots. However, the timeline is comprised of video stills, 

making it easy to trim the tail end of that embarrassing shower slip. On the plus 

side, Movie Studio Platinum offers hundreds of filters and transitions along with 

HDV editing capabilities. Sound Forge Audio Studio was a pleasant surprise. 

Despite only single track editing, Audio Studio comes loaded with about thirty 

filters and a royalty free library of about 1,000 sound effects, which help make my 

side stories more believable. With customizable interfaces the Vegas Platinum 

Production Suite is a great gift you won’t want to regift. –Mike DeJohn 

Four out of Five Fluffers 





where meetings 

happen over coffee 

Pastries • Sandwiches • Tea 

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By 

Erik 

Lopez 

erik@ 

slugmag.com 

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the 

eponymous brick-and-mortar rare book store 

that bears Ken Sanders’ name. In one form or 

another, Ken Sanders has been involved with 

books and the book business his whole life but 

the genesis from bibliophile to book seller is as 

interesting as, if not more so, any printed matter 

that Ken sells on his shelves. 

“I read books omnivorously from the time I could 

read,” Ken says. “I don’t ever remember a time 

when I did not read books.” Born in 1951, Ken’s 

obsession with books started at a young age. 

At Woodrow Wilson elementary, Ken read every 

book in the school’s library that interested him 

– from the fantasy fiction of Lewis Carroll to the 

morose horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe. In 

class, Ken would receive boxes of books from 

the Errol book shipments, which is something 

like the Scholastic Book fairs of today. Every 

week he would get a weekly reader and every 

month he would order bunches of twenty-five cent 

paperbacks. “The rest of the class would end up 

getting a book or two, once in a while a kid would 

end up getting a handful of books and then I was 

always the last person the teacher called because 

I invariably had an entire box of books,” Ken says. 

“I had more books than the whole rest of the class 

combined. To me it was a lifeline.” Thanks to his 

early attachment to books, Ken became a serious 

book collector by age fourteen. 

Fiction, however, was not the only thing that Ken 

read. He also is a self-described “comic geek” 

as well. In the early years of the 1960s, comics as 

an entertaining companion to traditional books 

were in decline; the late 1950s effectively gutted 

the medium with a collective smear campaign of 

“the seduction of the innocent” and the comics 

code of 1955. Things started changing when 

Marvel introduced characters like Spiderman, thus 

reinvigorating a moribund form. “All of sudden, 

there was this weird superhero named Spiderman 

and his secret identities, this messed up high 

school kid, who has all these problems with girls, 

getting in fights, etc. He’s like Everyman. Wow, a 

superhero with problems!,” recalls Ken. To feed 

his growing comic book habit, Ken started to sell 

his 

old 

comics 

and thus 

made his 

first move into the 

foray of bookselling. 

“I used to sell underground comic books in the 

60s with ads in fanzines saying, ‘you must be over 

18 years old to order these books’ but I wasn’t 18! 

I would also wheel and deal in comic books while 

I was still in grade school – buy’em for a nickel, 

sell’em for a dime!” 

The mid-60s saw Ken outgrow his taste in 

Marvel’s superheroes to a more refined palate 

of underground comics such as R Crumb and 

the ZAP! crew. A buddy of his introduced him to 

this new movement in graphic storytelling when 

he moved to San Jose, California. Every year his 

friend would come to visit, bringing with him a 

whole suitcase of new comics for Ken to devour. 

“In the late 60s and onward, I started doing a lot 

of comic and sci-fi conventions. In 1973 I drove 

my old 54 Chevy pick-up truck out to the world’s 

first underground comic book convention in 

Berkeley. People really came out of the wood 

work for those [conventions],” remembers Ken. 

In high school, Ken’s reading habits, as well 

as his life, changed dramatically as his focus 

shifted from fiction to Western Americana. What 

eventually would become his rare book specialty 

developed out of a history class he took at Granite 

High School from a teacher named Wayne 

Stimpson. Stimpson pried open his mind to the 

alternative histories, fascinations and stories of the 

American West. “He debriefed us that whatever 

history we had learned up to this point in our life 

was complete and utter nonsense. It’s just a big 

lie. He was really the first person to open up my 

eyes to the fact that there was this real history, this 

secret history, that existed all along right in front 

of you, yet it was invisible because it wasn’t the 

pack full of crap that we had been learning by rote 

through elementary, junior and high school,” says 

Ken. Through his new found interest in the history 

of the West, Ken became exposed to LDS history, 

the Environmental movement and its authors such 

as Edward Abbey, Wendall Berry and Wallace 

Stegner. Ken saw that through the West, all these 

things were related. “[Western Americana] lead 

into environmental activism, wilderness and the 

realization that it’s all connected – the history of 

this country, the history of this place. It’s like this 

bookstore has evolved into Utah/Mormon/Western 

history. Mormon history, regardless of whether 

you are LDS or not, is absolutely fascinating and 

Mormon history is one of the most interesting 

episodes of the history of the West and the history 

of the West cannot be told without the Mormon 

experience,” states Ken. 

In Ken’s own words, the key to Western history 

specifically and history in general and why 

it’s a vital moment in our national identity 

is this: “I think it’s more vibrant, maybe 

because I am a Westerner; I appreciate the 

civil war, I appreciate colonial America and 

history but it’s the West that really comes 

alive … maybe because it’s so relatively 

recent. The experience of what this land 

was like and this landscape and being 

able to go out today and wander in the 

West desert and still see the imprints of the 

wagons from the Donner/Reed party and 

other western immigrants, it really brings the 

history alive. I think what is wrong with how 

we are taught history in this country – [is that] 

it’s this dead museum fossil thing. You’ve gotta 

experience it, its gotta come alive. The history, 

like geology, is so close to the surface here,” Ken 

explains. 

Concomitantly, Ken became a printer; a natural 

extension of his passion for books. At the time 

two friends of Ken’s, Steve Thorton and Willy 

Realms, ran a printing company called Vanguard 

Graphics. Rob Brown, another friend of Ken’s, 

drew a poster of a hobbit from Tolkien’s Lord 

of the Rings, which was subsequently printed 

by Vanguard Graphics and became a local 

best seller. “I used to go around to the Artists 

Workshop in Trolley Square, Bob’s College 

Bookshop up by the U, the general store, the 

Cosmic Airplane, and sell these posters. They 

were a dollar retail and I wholesaled them for 50 

cents. I sold out a thousand of them and I had 

Vanguard Graphics print them for me. That’s 

how I got interested in printing and for a while I 

apprenticed there,” says Ken. “I learned how to 

run the letterpress and old machinery there. They 

printed a lot of rock and roll posters in the early 

70s for United Concerts and other places and I 

really got interested in printing.” 

The evolution to the current manifestation of Ken 

Sanders Rare Book Store started in 1967 with the 

incarnation of a hippy head shop called Cosmic 

Airplane. Cosmic Airplane was founded by Steve 

Jones and its first location was located next to 

the Phillip’s Gallery on 9th and 9th. The Cosmic 

Airplane specialized in bohemian counter-culture 

items such as pipes, radical political books, 

music, etc. “Steve was always indulgent about 

people wanting to do stuff so I would sell comics, 

graphic novels, undergrounds, just stuff that I was 

into out of the store. Steve never had any money 

so when he had to get all his supplies in during 

the week, the merchandise got shipped to him 

by Greyhound COD, I would loan him fifty bucks 

Thursday or Friday, he would get his stuff out of 

hoc, sell it over the weekend and pay me back 

Monday,” Ken says. But by 1980, Ken expanded 

his modest book selling business into a bona fide 

publishing press, Dream Garden. 

Dream Garden realized Ken’s goal of publishing 

things he was interested in, mainly books on Utah 

history, environmental novels by Edward Abby 

and Western American history generally. It was at 

this same time that Ken became heavily involved 

with Earth First and had the pleasure of getting 

acquainted with Dave Foreman, co-founder of 

Earth First, during a heated Mexican stand-off en 

route to meeting up with famed environmental 

author Edward Abby at the lone rock campground 

in the canyon lands. “There were at least three or 

four hard case, cowboy looking dudes standing 

there, scowling at me, arms crossed their chest, 

cowboy boots and hats on. They wanted to know 

who the fuck I am and what the fuck I am doing,

and I really didn’t care for their bedside manner. 

‘who the fuck are you, and why the fuck do you 

want to know,’ I said. The last thing in the world 

I was going to tell these yahoos was that Edward 

Abbey sent me. Screw them. I backed the truck 

up, went around them and camped. We had a 

pretty classic Mexican stand-off. A pretty tense 

situation at lonerock until later on that evening 

when Edward Abbey showed up,” recalls Ken. 

During this time, book selling was secondary 

to his environmental activities. He continued to 

publish books under the Dream Garden Press 

imprint with the R Crumb illustrated Monkey 

Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey and the Edward 

Abbey Western Wilderness calendar being 

among his big sellers. “[Book selling] was more 

of a sideline and then I plunged headlong into 

publishing and building a publishing empire 

and at the same time spending a crazy amount 

of time chasing James Watt, secretary of the 

interior, around the country,” says Ken. 

It’s now 2007 and Ken Sanders and his current 

book store location have gone through many 

permutations and faces. Before his current 

location, Ken and his family owned property on 

South State street, where he had two locations. 

Before that, Ken ran Dream Garden Press and 

his bookstore out of the old KNAK radio studios 

on Fourteenth South and Seventh West. “There 

were two rock stations in the valley of the Salt: 

KCPX and KNAK. They used to duke it out 

back and forth. For a while, I ran the publishing 

and book operations out of their old studio in 

the west side. Then I had an appointment only 

place down in South Salt Lake prior to doing this 

[current] location,” Ken remembers. 

Ken never thought he would ever go back into 

retail and actually have physical store front 

again. One day, when going to collect on a 

debt, he noticed his current location and on an 

inclination and a fancy, opened up shop with his 

daughter, Melissa. “I came down here to collect 

some money on a publishing debt and, genius 

that I am, thought it would make a pretty good 

bookstore. On a whim, we started remodeling 

and I had absolutely no money at all. I was 

pretty destitute in those days and this place was 

pretty dog gone empty,” says Ken. “I had no 

intention of doing it. There was no plan. Pretty 

much everything I have done in my life, I do bass 

ackwards.” 

New and used bookstores are closing up all 

around this country as online retailers, chain 

stores and big box retailers supply the reading 

public with mass market books. In spite of 

it all, Ken attributes his staying power to his 

adamant orneriness. “I am stubborn and pigheaded. 

The flip side of that is tenaciousness. 

Until recently, I have spent almost every waking 

hour of my life, seven days a week, 100 hours a 

week, talking eating sleeping books. It’s what 

I do. I am trying to slack off to do other things. 

It’s tenaciousness. It becomes a drive and 

obsession. Simultaneously, it gives me a lot 

of joy.” It’s a great cultural blessing to have a 

store like Ken Sanders Rare Books that not only 

supplies the community with an invaluable and 

unique literary history, it is literary history. In the 

end, Ken Sanders is a book himself – a storyteller 

par excellence. “To this day, I have a hard time 

eating lunch if I can’t read something. It’s almost 

like I can’t eat if I can’t read. If my mother said it 

one time, she said it a billion times, ‘read at the 

table, whistle in bed, the devil will get you before 

your dead,’ quips Ken. 

To check out his vast selection of new, used and 

rare books, go to 268 South, 200 East. Stop by, 

talk to Ken and tell ‘em SLUG sent you. 

Photo: Chris Swainston 

The Pimp of the Printed Word ... 









About Face: Plan-B’s Challenge to 

Conventional Theatre 

By Jona Gerlach 

jonagerlach@gmail.com 

Over the years, Plan-B Theatre Company has become 

synonymous with alternative theatre in Salt Lake. 

Recently their highly-politicized, intimate productions have 

garnered a loyal following among a younger generation 

of theatergoers looking for an antidote to the lavish yet 

frequently stale mainstream productions that tend to draw 

in larger (and more conservative) audiences, though it 

has been a long road for the company to get to this point. 

Plan-B was started in 1991 by Cheryl Cluff and Tobin 

Atkinson, and was incorporated as a non-profit in 

1995. Starting a small theatre company in Salt Lake 

was not their first dream: “Plan A was to move to 

New York and get famous. Plan B was this.” Due 

to severe budget constraints, their early work 

consisted of Atkinson’s original plays and reinterpretations 

of classic works, such as MacBeth 

re-imagined as a radio play and puppet shows, all 

fueled by Atkinson’s interest in form and style. 

Jerry Rapier became involved with the company 

in 2000 when he was hired to direct a production 

of Molly Sweeny. During this time, Tobin 

Atkinson left the company and Jerry 

was hired to fill his shoes as 

producing director. It was 

during this season that 

Plan-B produced The 

Laramie Project, 

a show that, 

according 

to Rapier, 

“changed our 

company 

completely 

… 

Artistically, 

I don’t 

have the 

skill that 

Tobin 

has 

… so I had to find a way to 

morph in order to survive.” Rapier 

and Cluff decided to produce work that 

was more political and socially conscious, focusing 

particularly on gay issues and developing original work by 

local playwrights. 

Maintaining a small, politically motivated theatre company 

in a place like Salt Lake is a risky proposition, but Plan-B 

seems to have tapped into a definite need. They have the 

youngest average audience of a theatre company in Salt 

Lake, something Rapier sees as a consequence of an 

ever-growing local arts community. “People from other 

urban centers move here because it’s more affordable, 

and they expect the same kind of cultural offerings they 

left behind; these are the people that are supporting small 

theatres.” Furthermore, Rapier thinks the stereotype of 

the Utah audience outlined above is “bullshit. I think 

people are much more interested in being provoked and 

challenged than being condescended to.” 

So far, he seems to be right. Plan-B’s plays have been 

extraordinarily successful, culminating in last year’s 

Facing East, about LDS parents grieving over the suicide 

of their gay son. The play was a smash hit, appealing not 

only to Plan-B regulars but also folks who normally don’t 

patronize alternative theatre. “For us, a diverse audience 

is bringing in Mormon grandmothers … the makeup of 

our audience during the run of that show was completely 

different that what [we were used to].” Facing East was 

so successful that it went on tour, making Plan-B the first 

local theatre company ever to transfer a show to New 

York. However, the success of Facing East has not made 

Rapier re-think Plan-B’s approach. “People expect that 

every show is going to have some additional life now … 

but what matters most [to us] is how it works here.” 

Plan-B continues to mine Utah culture and history for 

inspiration. Their 2007 season opener, Mary Dickson’s 

Exposed, dealt with the touchy and timely topic of nuclear 

testing and the plight of ‘downwinders,’ people exposed 

to fallout of above-ground tests. The play takes the 

form of a docudrama, a style that, in addition to the 

polarizing topic of this play in particular, tends to divide 

audiences. Rapier insists that this form was important for 

the material as “the government has done such a great 

job of devaluing the personal story of downwinders … 

[Exposed] was a conscious choice to play to the choir, to 

validate these people’s points of view.” Exposed seems 

to have hit a nerve; the show sold faster than any other in 

the company’s history. Plan-B is also working on a play 

about Topaz, the Japanese-American internment camp 

outside of Delta, Utah during World War II. For Rapier, 

“it’s of personal interest for me maybe more so than any 

other play we’ve ever created because I’m first generation 

Japanese-American, and if that camp were still open 

I’d be in it.” However, in spite of the didactic tone and 

unambiguous political messages of these works, Rapier 

says “I never care if people agree with the point of view 

we’re presenting, our hope really is to get people to talk 

about it.” 

Indeed, all Rapier can hope for is that people will continue 

to care about the conversation, and hopes to remain a 

relevant force in Utah theatre as long as possible. “There 

is something vital about what we’re doing and we’ll be 

here as long as that’s true. I don’t think any company is 

intended to exist in perpetuity. Everything has a life cycle 

and we’re in the good side of it right now.” If their current 

wave of success is any indication, Plan-B has a ways to 

go before their cycle is complete. 

For more info on Plan B’s current productions including 

Gutenberg! The Musical! Check out planbtheatre.org. 



Gallery Stroll: KAYO Sailing 

into Uncharted Waters 

By Mariah Mann-Mellus and Erik Lopez 

mariah@slugmag.com 

In boxing terminology, a “KO” stands for a knock-out 

in which one boxer “knocks-out” another for the win. 

It’s no small wonder, then, why owner Kenny Oiwa 

Riches thought that it would be a perfect name 

for his gallery. Playing off the phonetic sounds of 

“KO” and his own name, the Kayo Gallery has been 

knocking-out the other galleries in town by providing 

the final blow to an otherwise oversaturated market 

of fine art prints, romantic landscapes and Norman 

Rockwell-esque scenery. 

The Kayo Gallery opened in the early months of 

2005. Unlike other galleries, the Kayo focuses on 

contemporary art and emerging local Utah artists. 

When Kenny opened his gallery he felt that none of 

them encompased the niche he was ready to fill. “I 

didn’t feel that there were enough galleries showing 

emerging artists and definitely not any I wanted to 

show in myself,” says Kenny. The artists who have 

shown in the Kayo list like a best-of-the-best in 

current Utah art: Cein Watson, Sri Whipple, Camilla 

Taylor, Trent Call, Xkot Toxsik, Lenka Konopasek, 

etc. Not only has the Kayo brought these artists 

together on one wall, it has also fostered a sense of 

community around them. 

Kayo moved from its first location at nobrow coffee, 

taking a short hiatus and finally ending up between 

Frosty Darling and Red Light Books on Broadway. 

Kayo’s final move, however, won’t be a physical one 

but an owner switch. Starting January 1st, local artist 

Shilo Jackson will be taking over the proud fight 

Kenny has fought for so long as he takes his hat out 

of the ring. 

Kenny had been looking for an option that would 

keep the gallery alive, but would also allow him the 

freedom to move on to new things. Shilo’s always 

been an enthusiastic member of the arts community, 

participating in Poor Yorrick’s open studios and the 

contributing to the Women’s Art Center. She was 

ready for another contingency and 

making the transition to gallery owner/ 

operator was a wonderful and fortuitous 

opportunity. “I’m completely excited about taking 

on the Kayo Gallery and furthering contemporary art 

in Salt Lake. I have great admiration and respect 

for what Kenny has done,” says Jackson. “He had 

a specific vision for what he wanted Kayo to be 

and I think he’s done an astounding job of bringing 

incredible artists to light. I plan to work closely with 

him in the transition and future endeavors.” 

When Kenny first started Kayo on 315 East and 

300 South he was full of hope and optimism for the 

future of Utah art. At the time, he was concurrently 

running The Avenues Frame Shop and starting the 

now defunct art zine Art Speak. The frame shop 

funded the gallery until it got underway and the zine, 

with difficulty getting advertising, coordinating an 

all volunteer staff and generally getting its feet off 

the ground, stopped publishing after a few months. 

From the beginning, Kayo has been Kenny’s prized 

project. 

Kenny’s original vision for Kayo was two-fold: to 

create an art gallery like those in bigger cities that 

wasn’t trying to stack piles of art on top of each other 

and to maintain a clean, minimalist space with white 

walls to hang art and give people a chance to walk 

the room, step back and contemplate. Essentially 

Kenny wanted to “open a very progressive gallery in 

a conservative place.” 

The Kayo’s last show, appropriately enough Kenny’s 

first solo show, is entitled Six Sinking Ships and I’m 

Gone. Six Sinking Ships is not only Kenny’s last 

hurrah but his getting back in touch with an integral 

part of himself that he lost during the past several 

years running two good businesses: painting. “Once 

I started the gallery, painting slowed down … except 

for commission pieces,” says Kenny. “ Getting back 

into it now, I am trying to rehash so many things 

that have come up over the last four years.” The 

paintings are painted with oil with photos imposed 

on the canvas. “All the photographs are from antique 

shops,” explains Kenny. “I collect them when I 

travel. I have a theory that photographs help you to 

remember 

and forget 

things. If you go 

to Disneyland and have a 

photo taken, that’s the image you 

relate to the trip. You see that photo so 

many times the rest of the experience fades 

away. I remember my adventures by the photos I 

found of other people along my journeys.” The ships 

in the show represent, like the Titanic at the time of 

its sinking, the unexpected and the feeling that its 

time for Kenny to move on. 

Shilo knows it will be a big job to keep the kind of 

growth that Kenny has sustained but she is hopeful 

that people will remember the Kayo for its wonderful 

energy and professional showing space and keep 

applying for shows. “My goal is to continue what 

Kenny has started and foster emerging artists. I also 

hope to turn people into art collectors,” says Shilo. 

“It seems people think original art is out of reach. I 

plan on changing that notion by stocking the gallery 

with affordable piece in addition to having featured 

artists show on a monthly basis.” 

Though Kenny has many adventures and travels 

ahead of him with his desire, drive and passion for 

life this is not the last word from KO Riches. For now 

at least we have the photos to help us remember the 

trip Kenny has taken us on. Six Sinking Ships and 

I’m Gone will open December 7th for the Holiday/ 

Fashion Stroll with live local musicians Mushman 

and Lord Mandrake. The Kayo Gallery is located on 

177 East Broadway. 





Bellyography 

Bellyography: Adina 

By Astara 

I have long admired the elegant and flowing dance style of Adina, and her 

beautiful solo performances have made me take notice. Adina possesses a 

grace and assurance on stage that is attractive and appealing to an audience, 

projecting strength and delicacy at the same time. She has also mastered 

the veil, sword and zils and appears to be a welcome addition to any show. 

Imagine my surprise a few years ago when I saw her dancing with Dragomi, 

one of Salt Lake’s dynamic Urban Tribal Fusion dance troupes. Not only that, 

but she had a flexibility and intensity that I had never perceived in her cabaret 

performances. I loved it, and I decided that she is one dancer we would all 

like to know better. 

Adina was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and she has always been 

in love with dancing, studying jazz and ballet from age 14. In 1997, on a 

whim, she looked up Kismet in the yellow pages and started taking belly 

dance classes. She says: 

“From the minute I stepped into the Kismet studio and 

saw exactly what belly dancing was, I was hooked. I felt 

I had found a way to continue dancing for many years. I 

also loved the sisterhood aspect amongst many of the 

women in this community.” 

Adina danced with Kismet’s troupe and taught classes there for a while, but 

soon her own independence took hold. She became co-director and teacher 

of Desert Journey School of Dance and founder/director of Desert Journey 

Dance Company. Adina Says: 

“I formed my own dance troupe, Desert Journey, and I 

have been with Dragomi for the past two years. I am truly 

half and half. I love the cabaret style of Desert Journey 

and the earthy tribal style of Dragomi. Cabaret is my fun 

side where I can interact with the audience, which I love, 

and I also just adore the glitzy glamour of cabaret. 

“Dragomi and Urban Tribal represent the darker, more 

mysterious part of me. And I really have to work on my 

flexibility to perform Dragomi’s choreography. It is hard to 

explain. This style of dance is more emotional and comes 

from a deeper part of myself. 

“I love the expanding growth in the Utah belly dance 

community. In the beginning, we seemed so small and 

contained, and today our dancing is all encompassing 

and very diverse. I am truly excited to see where we are 

going to go from here.” 

Adina will continue to dance with Dragomi and Desert Journey, but she 

has stopped teaching in order to become a full-time mother. Last year, 

she and her husband adopted two children, one a newborn infant. They 

were foster parents and they were given the opportunity to legally make 

these precious babies part of their family. Two children in one year is a big 

change and would definitely require a stay-at-home mom. Well done, Adina! 

Congratulations! For more information on where and when to see Adina in 

performance, go to: desertjourney.4t.com.

“Weedpatch” 

Filed by Boo 

Weedpatch is the home of our aunt Katherine Peabody, eldest of the five Dripdry 

sisters, which includes Leona and of which our mother is the youngest. Set 

firmly in the heart of “The Void”, Weedpatch is a huge Victorian battleship of a 

house - once spectacularly grand, but now spectacularly ungrand. Gravy clots! 

It’s like Utah’s own accidental Winchester Mansion. Built in the 1870’s, with 

money made in Utah’s silver mines, it still dominates the neighborhood with its 

ornate tower, fancy roof trimmings, elaborate windows, wrap-around porches 

and balconies — all suffering now from chronic dilapidation. You’d expect to see 

bats flapping about the tower and widow’s walk. Well, on most summer nights 

you see just that, and lots of bats too. There’s a large yard surrounded by a low 

wrought-iron fence and now filled with unintentional booby-traps of collected 

this-and-that’s. The interior of the house, like the yard, is filled with anything and 

everything you can think of. Aunt Kate is a 10th degree certified lethal packrat. 

She collects EVERYTHING and throws nothing out, mountains of useless stuff. 

Weedpatch has a constant inflow of matter that must be just compacting and 

compounding — a black hole of sorts. In among the layered canyons of precariously 

piled packrat-archeology, a person can, here and there, discover attempts 

at interior decoration. The kitchen sports burlap covered walls, now greasy and 

peeling in shreds, and throughout the house on permanent display are decorations 

from every major US holiday. Once in October when I asked Aunt Kate why 

she hadn’t taken down some faded and cobwebbed Valentine’s decorations, 

she replied, “They promote love.” Aunt Kate is a very caring and loving woman 

and is beloved by many. She just glides in her own orbit. After a couple’a years 

of college she originally went the Mormon route, married young and popped 

out a billion kids. Then she got sidetracked and now exists in a perpetual state 

of sidetracked. Her husband, Uncle Prickles, seems to have gotten lost, deep 

in the trenches of Weedpatch. He hasn’t been seen or heard from in years. 

Cousins will randomly and mysteriously disappear and reappear. I’m pretty sure 

there are cousins I haven’t yet met. And I am absolutely convinced that Weedpatch 

is a portal to many elsewheres — parallel universes — other dimensions. 

Sometimes I worry about losing my way while inside and suddenly finding myself 

trapped in another world. Oom, however, worries about getting his clothes dirty. 

Still, Oom and I choose to spend almost more time at Aunt Kate’s house than we 

do our own. 



f r i 7 e r i n b a r r a, s w a n j u i c e, 

s h a d e s o f g r ay , s i n t h e s i s 

s at 8 b a n d o f a n n u a l s, c a l i c o, 

l e t s b e c o m e a c t o r s 

t u e s 11 e t h e r o r c h e s t r a, c o y o t e 

h o o d s, c a l i c o 

w e d 12 s l a j o 

t h u r s 13 n o b o d y, (c o l l e c t i o n o f 

m u s i c, p o e t ry, a rt, m a g i c) 

f r i 14 s l u g l o c o l i z e d w/ 

he r ca n d a n e, i a m th e oc e a n 

s at 15 t e r e n c e h a n s o n 

s u n 16 e t h e r o r c h e s t r a, 

t i m e to ta l k t w e e n t u n e s s ta rr 

i n g d av e pay n e t t t t t 

t u e s 18 t h e c o m e d o w n 

w e d 19 o h w i l d b i r d s!, 

v e n u s a rt e m i s i a 

t h u r s 20 m u s e s o f b e d l a m 

(r e u n i o n s h o w) k i d m e d u s a 

f r i 21 t h e f u t u r e o f t h e g h o s t, 

t e d d a n c i n, 

(c h r i s t m a s s w e at e r pa rt y) 

s at 22 d e at h b y s a lt 3, c d 

r e l e a s e m o t h e r f u c k e r 

s u n 23 t t t t t(t i m e to ta l k t w e e n 

t u n e s) f e at . e t h e r o r c h e s t r a 

t u e s 25 j e s u s 

Lo c a L Mu s i c 

a L L Mo n t h 

Lo n g! 

w e d 26 h e at h e n a s s w o r s h i p 

t h u r s 27 d e a d b e at s, 

t h e t r e m u l a 

f r i 28 r e d b e n n i e s, s ta r m y , 

l e f o r c e 

s at 29 p i n k l i g h t n i n’ 

m o n 31 w o l f s , t e d d a n c i n’ 

holy shIt 2008 b a l l s 



2007: The Year 

I Sold My Soul 

By Mike Brown 

mikebrown@slugmag.com 

2007, what a stupid year. Last year at this time I wrote 

about how much I hated Christmas and New Year’s Eve 

(amateur drinking night). But for me, this whole year has 

sucked so bad. I can’t wait for New Years just because it 

will mean that 2007 is finally fucking over. I know that no 

one likes a complainer, but after four funerals, one black 

eye and numerous fistfights with trees, 2007 has really 

harshed my mellow. 

And it’s not really anyone’s fault, just a string of 

coincidences of life’s special blend of dog shit that gets 

stepped in repeatedly from time to time. Normally, I deal 

with such emotional defeats by making a special “Fuck 

You” list in my zine [The Leviathan]. The fuck you list is 

kind of like a thank you list but instead of people and 

things you’d like to thank it’s for people and things you’d 

like to see go get fucked. The list was too depressing 

after I wrote it up so I decided to leave it out of issue #8. 

Instead, I decided I might as well sell my soul. Literally. 

Seeing how after this year I wasn’t using it much anyway. 

Between atheism, not believing in karma (not one tiny bit 

you stupid hippies, so please don’t try to convince me), 

just plain wanting an extra eighty bucks, and having a 

bad year, how could I not sell my soul? 

It started last night, while I was hanging out with my 

buddy Ryan (whom I work with at the bar) and our other 

friend Abu. Green Street has been closed for a couple 

weeks, and since the bar I work at is close, we’ve been 

getting a lot of Green Street rejects, or Chad’s as I like 

to call them—drinking Jaeger-bombs and Heinekens in 

our bar instead of trying to date rape under age sorority 

sisters at Green Street like they normally do on Friday 

nights. So after a long Friday night, me and Ryan and 

Abu were stone cold kickin’ it at Ryan’s house, putting 

a dent in a PBR twelver, and talking about how stupid 

work was. 

Somehow the topic of Ryan buying souls came up and 

how someone who shall remain nameless, but is an 

atheist as well, would not sell his soul to Ryan. Then 

Ryan pointed to one of his walls and I noticed he had 

eight different contracts, some of which were framed, 

hanging there. Each contract was a soul that Ryan had 

bought at one point or another. 

The contract briefly explained that after signing at the 

bottom, Ryan officially owned your soul. The seller has 

to sign it as does Ryan and one witness. And of course 

the contract was dated. It was pretty much just like that 

Simpson’s episode where Bart sells his soul to Millhouse. 

I looked over these contracts and was surprised to see 

what the going rate for a human soul was these days. 

In case you were wondering, the human soul market 

is at an all time low and now is a good time to buy as 

the market could explode at any moment. Most of the 

contracts were for only $20 US dollars. Resale value 

could quadruple by the time the apocalypse hits. At 

that time, all the non-believers will want their souls back. 

Fuck the stock market; Ryan’s got it right for playing the 

soul market. 

The first soul that Ryan ever bought was from some dude 

named Mike Christian. According to the contract, Mike 

Christian was so hungry on September 21, 2001 that he 

sold his soul for two cheeseburgers and half a bag of 

fries. I can’t remember who the witness was, it could 

have been the hamburgler for all I know. 

So me Ryan and Abu were talking about these human 

spirit transactions for a little while, and I was thinking 

in my head, “why wouldn’t I sell my soul?” I honestly 

couldn’t think of a good reason NOT to do it and I could 

think of eighty good reasons to do it. 

I told Ryan that I’d sell my soul to him right now for eighty 

bones, sixty bucks higher than any soul he had ever 

purchased before. I was mostly making conversation, 

thinking he wouldn’t pay three times as much for my soul 

than for anyone else’s. Without a second of hesitation 

Ryan said, “You got a deal!” And, quite honestly, the 

fact that he didn’t hesitate on my offer … well, it made 

me feel special. No offense to anyone else that sold their 

souls to Ryan, but HA HA! My soul is worth three times 

as much as yours! 

While we are speaking of the value of the human soul, 

I asked Ryan what he would pay for James Brown’s 

soul, seeing how he’s the godfather of that shit. Since 

he’s dead and can’t sign a contract, Ryan said he’d pay 

at least 3,000 big ones to have James Brown exhumed 

so Ryan could get his thumb print on a contract. Soul 

Coughing on the other hand, would have to pay Ryan for 

him to get their contract. And while we are on the topic 

of souls in the media, Ryan pointed out that he plays a 

lot of Soul Caliber and that he has Freddy Krueger’s 

autograph, who steals souls instead of buying them. 

What a jerk. 

But one problem with getting James Brown’s soul now 

that he’s dead and all is that each contract Ryan has 

signed specifically states that the souls are willfully and 

eternally given to Ryan and are eternally his. This was 

another reason I was comfortable selling Ryan my soul; 

Ryan is a good guy and he is actually a state-licensed 

ordained Minister of one of the coolest churches ever: 

The Real Church of the Eternal Andy Paulson (who 

is the drummer for Fuck the Informer). I feel more 

comfortable with Ryan having my soul than I do with 

myself having it, seeing some of the bad life decisions 

I’m prone to make. I can make those bad decisions and 

not worry about how it’s going to affect my soul … that’s 

Ryan’s problem now! 

Also, if the devil is real and one day the motherfucker 

comes for my soul, I can be all, “Sorry Lucifer, if you want 

my soul you’re just going to have to find Ryan. And I 

don’t know where he is. HA!” 

Now if I ever find my soulmate, and I’m not counting 

on that happening anytime soon, they are going to 

have to understand what I did. I sold my soul for eighty 

dollars, went and bought some drinks and records with 

the money. And here’s why: many believe that alcohol 

destroys the soul, so now that I don’t have one, I plan 

on drinking more. And since music fills the soul, I figure 

I can replace all that I “souled” to Ryan with a needle 

dropping onto some vinyl creating a crackling ecstasy 

that no spiritual guru can fuck with. 



All Systems Fail 

Self-Titled 

Alerta AntiFacista 

Street: 08.15.06 

All Systems Fail = Filth + Extinction 

of Mankind + Oi Polio 

All Systems Fail is one of the best 

punk bands in Utah. They’re also 

one of the most underappreciated 

punk bands, in Utah. If you’re 

unfamiliar with this band it’s time to 

get acquainted. They play political 

punk rock in the style of Conflict 

and Crass. Lead singer, Jorge 

Arellano, has a Satanic sounding 

growl that’d you’d never guess would 

come out of such a polite and softspoken 

individual. I’ve seen ASF live 

numerous times and whether they’re 

playing for a large crowd or to a gathering 

of about 20 disinterested kids 

in a basement, the band rips shit up. 

This Self-Titled LP really captures 

their energy and sound in ways that 

many bands in the genre simply 

can’t. The siren-like guitars and 

rapid-fire machine-gun-style drumming 

come through crystal clear, and 

the vocals do, too. My favorite tracks 

were “Four More Years” and “Bully 

Boys”. –Jeanette Moses 

Cavedoll 

Songs That Would Not 

Behave (Vol. 1 & 2) 

Pseudo Recording 

Street: 2007 

Cavedoll = The Killers + Radiohead 

More a collection of B-Sides than an 

album, Songs That Would Not Behave—both 

volumes 1 and 2—cover 

the genres, styles and sounds of 

every project Cavedoll’s solo member, 

Camden Chamberlain, has 

ever been involved in. Whether it’s 

revamping old, unreleased tracks, 

or just playing with new songs, the 

album ranges from techno-heavy 

dance/electronica to acoustic folk. 

It’s everything fans of the group have 

come to expect, but perhaps not the 

best choice for those unfamiliar with 

Cavedoll. For those who know and 

love the band, it’s more than worth a 

listen. But new comers, be advised: 

do your homework on this one and 

pick up a copy of The Harbor before 

going for either of these compilations. 

–Kat Kellermeyer 

City Weekly Compilation 

2007 Slammys 

Self-Released 

Street: 2007 

Slammys = Salt Lake sound + 

star treatment + “Haven’t I already 

heard this?” 

Local 

If the indiscreet wordplay hasn’t 

already tipped you off, the 2007 

Slammys are City Weekly’s equivalent 

of the local Grammy Awards, 

selecting winners in every genre 

the city has to offer. Although the 

compilation boasts a wide array of 

artists, labeling gets a little blurred 

from time to time (example: Best 

Rock/Pop, Best Acoustic/Folk, etc.), 

leaving artists who could have filled 

the counter-genres unaccounted for. 

Additionally, the compilation tends to 

pick tracks that don’t do the artists 

real justice. Best DJ/Turntablist 

winner DJ Knucklez, is represented 

with a low-tempo track that falls short 

of expectations, and the selection for 

Royal Bliss will make those unfamiliar 

think they’re pop-country. It isn’t 

so much a bad choice in awarding 

as it is poor representation. Overall, 

the compilation is a good mix, but if 

you’re already familiar with the artists, 

you won’t miss much by sitting 

this one out. –Kat Kellermeyer 

Fews & Two 

To Get Me Through 


Street: 09.07 

Fews & Two = The Slackers + Dub 

is a Weapon + Afro Omega 

Fews & Two are a young band, but 

this eight-song EP is a light of hope 

for all fans of Jamaican-influenced 

music in our fine state. Fews & Two’s 

steady, heavy rhythms, smooth, 

jazzy horns and sexy female vocals 

bring to mind visions of smoky bars, 

full of people swaying, stomping 

and sweating the night away. This is 

some seriously groovy music, from 

the entrancing “Lady’s Dub” to the 

slow and melancholy “Rhyme and 

Reason.” You want faster songs 

you say? Well, look no further than 

“Salon Shootout,” an instrumental 

scorcher of a ska tune, and “Ten Man 

Raft,” complete with gang vocals 

and an infectious rhythm. If you enjoy 

ass-shaking and good times by way 

of dub and ska, you won’t be disappointed 

by Fews & Two. –Ricky Vigil 

The John Whites 

Sing Their Songs 

Hotel Palindrome 

Street: 2007 

The John Whites = Franz Ferdinand 

– electronics + a dash of 

Coldplay 

There’s a simplicity and sincerity 

about The John Whites that speaks 

volumes about them. Their sound 

is far more mature than their ages 

would lead you to believe, especially 

on a debut. An album you can’t 

seem to put a definitive label on, Sing 

Their Songs is more akin to White 

Stripe’s experimental “Icky Thump” 

than the genre-confused groups of 

today. But unlike Jack White, The 

John Whites opt for a more traditional 

sound. From bluesy ballad “Still in 

Love,” to Franz Ferdinand-like riffs 

in “Song For Rory,” to Coldplayesque 

piano selections, it never 

seems to fall less than par or sound 

over done. The John Whites take a 

hodge podge of styles and make it 

all their own. Pick it up; this is the 

sort of album you’ll want to curl up 

with on a rainy day. Additionally, this 

is the sort of album you’ll want to curl 

up with every day. –Kat Kellermeyer 

Katagory V 

Hymns of Dissension 

Burning Star Records 

Street: 12.04 

Katagory V = straight-up classic 

metal 

Katagory V is definitely moving up 

in the world with their latest Hymns 

of Dissension. The album received 

worldwide distribution, with a U.S. 

and European version of the album. 

It’s pleasing to know that a classic/ 

prog metal band from Utah is being 

heard around the world. Hymns 

of Dissension, the band’s fourth 

album, is arguably the band’s best 

effort thus far. In the spirit of prog 

metal, the record is also their most 

diverse and heaviest. We’re talking 

really big guitars here, all embodying 

what classic/prog metal should, 

that huge epic feel. These guys know 

their metal current and past, so their 

influences are vast, but they don’t 

specifically target a single style; they 

have crafted their own breed of metal 

—intense, complex and extremely 

well played. Add to all that goodness 

a standout vocal performance that 

will leave you singing along. Take a 

metal trip with these iconic Hymns 

that have joined the annals of great 

metal. –Bryer Wharton 

TheKnoItAlls 

The Knockout Jewelers 

Lace Em Up Productions 

KnoItAlls = Facts + Johnny Utah 

+ Briskoner 

They got the top down, they are 

hydroplaning, they rock and talk 

strong with their egos packed in a 

punch. If you are familiar with last 

years release, Kiss The Ring, then 

get ready for this: Mixtape 1 – A 

Prelude To Kiss The Ring. I don’t 

know if the new stuff is really their 

old stuff or vice versa, but it sounds 

nice. With beats from Skinwalker, 

Grizz One, Brisk, Spenzilla, Iggy 

Chop and Rick One, Knoitalls fill the 

instrumentals with clever punch lines, 

one-liners and confident raps. The 

local producers playful beats compliment 

Knoitalls lyrics and consist of 

mostly funky horns, samples, keys 

and strings in a stylistic way. This 

album is a definite local hip-hop collaboration 

addition to the slough of 

talent in Salt Lake City. So you must 

learn, you must listen or you must be 

knocked out. –Lance Saunders 

Larusso 

Sweetest Place 


Street: 10.05 

Larusso = Plain White T’s + All 

American Rejects 

You know that proud feeling all 

parents get watching their kids 

grow up to be successful functioning 

adults? That’s how long-term 

Larusso fans will be feeling once 

they get their hands on the newest 

release. While the band has always 

done well at their live shows, their 

previous recordings never seemed to 

capture them adequately. Sweetest 

Place, however, brings fourth a virtually 

professional quality, and the new 

tunes are better than ever. Smart and 

catchy, Sweetest Place is a healthy 

indulgence for the pop/punk craving 

you might be denying yourself. This 

album proves Larusso is finally ready 

to take their place among the other 

alternative power-houses in the valley. 

–Kat Kellermeyer 

The Lionelle 

Oh, The Little Bee E.P. 


Street: 2007 

The Lionelle = Modest Mouse + 

Danny Elfman 

For The Lionelle, the album cover 

art—a seemingly random cacophany 

of glitter, watercolor and ink—is the 

perfect introduction to the group. 

Like a darker Modest Mouse, The 

Lionelle starts out of the gate with 

eerie chords that seem Danny Elfman 

inspired. Part blues and part 

alternative, the tunes are simple, unsettling, 

and absolutely brilliant. As if 

the music weren’t enough, the band 

is just as strong lyrically. Vocalist 

Tate McCallum-Law jumps into the 

performance 110% and doesn’t let up 

for the whole album. Every line and 

word is emoted on so well that you 

don’t dare ignore them. This is the 

sort of album that won’t just let you 

listen to it; it will possess you. One of

the best local premiers you’ll find this 

year. –Kat Kellermeyer 

Melodramus 

30 Silver Pieces 


Street: 06.20 

Melodramus = HIM + Incubus + 

311 

I confess, it took more than one listen 

through the album, but the Melodramus 

have officially won me over. 

Born from the school of melodic 

metal, the group opts for singing 

over screaming and wins every time. 

The group rides on heavy guitar 

riffs and plenty of epic solos, all the 

while blending in keyboard effects 

without sounding corny or overdone. 

Though the ballads on the album 

aren’t bad, the group really shines in 

their more upbeat numbers. If there 

is a disappointment to be found, it’s 

that the album is split almost 50/50 

between the two rhythms. While this 

is on the whole a great album, you’ll 

likely want to check them out before 

picking this one up. –Kat Kellermeyer 

Mesa Drive 

Take What You Want 

RiPPY FiSH Records 

Street: 07.04 

Mesa Drive = Maroon 5 + Keane – 

girly-man vocals 

Mesa Dr. could easily be Maroon 5’s 

long lost brother; their bigger, older 

br,other in college who is and forever 

will be infinitely cooler. The band’s 

premiere album, Take What You Want, 

combines catchy melodies with jazzy 

bass riffs. Equally breathtaking are 

Chad Hansen’s vocals–a smooth 

pop-jazz hybrid. Not enough good 

things can be said about this album, 

which plays less like a premiere 

and more like a well-seasoned prorecording. 

Cozy and innovative; if 

you don’t have it yet, add it to your 

Christmas list. –Kat Kellermeyer 

Mindstate 

Call the Cops 


Street: 10.01 

Mindstate = Brother Ali + Dilated 

Peoples 

This record’s best attribute is Dusk’s 

organic chorus crafting. He has a 

proclivity for writing a great hook. A 

noticeable trend is that he connects 

most closely with songs he builds 

entirely himself, tracks like “Lead 

Life” and “Drat.” The former is a 

deftly sampled classical beat and 

has the best chorus on the album, 

a rap/sung Brother Ali cadence 

that sounds easy and natural—like 

it was grafted from the beat. The 

album’s interesting opening leads 

to a lugubrious halfway mark, a 

point from which it gradually loses 

momentum until the end. Production 

credit reads like a list of who’s who 

in Utah hip-hop, but these mostly 

jazzy beats do nothing to prevent the 

album’s second half from resulting in 

a nondescript litany. Its saving grace: 

the songs sound like they’d be great 

performed live. –Makena Walsh 

Nolens Volens 

XYZ 

Billygoat Database 

Street: 11.15 

Nolens Volens = The The + Non 

Non + Aa 

This is, like, the second or third 

album Nolens Volens has released 

this year and it doesn’t look like he is 

going to stop, unfortunately. All joking 

aside, if you have been following 

Andrew Glassett’s musical journey, 

you will have invariably noticed 

that this CD is a departure from his 

earlier, pounding club hits. Andrew’s 

earlier work has been typified by 

repetitive Euro-trash beats with an 

incisive electronic edge — kind of 

like wielding a sword that can shoot 

lightning from it. On this release, 

however, Glassett has moved in 

for a quieter, gentler America. The 

headachey beats are still there, but 

they are not as in your face as usual. 

Instead, they break the atmosphere 

of the irregular train whistles and 

meditative moodiness. Do I like the 

new Nolens? A resounding yes! I 

love that Andrew is going in new 

directions and doing it well. Andrew 

is forging a definite style and is on 

E!’s “Artists to Watch in 2008” list ... 

or at least mine. –Erik Lopez 

Pink Lightnin’ 

Self-Titled 

Self 

Street: 2007 

Pink Lightnin’= Muddy Waters + 

Blackhole + a splash of Beck 

Anybody who was at September’s 

Localized knows that these guys 

fuckin’ rock harder than a rocking 

chair on crack. They managed to 

capture this on CD and made it possible 

to listen to it over and over and 

over. I don’t know what else to say 

other than get your ass to somewhere 

that sells this CD and listen to 

it until you have to buy another copy 

because your original can’t take 

the stress of one more run through 

the musical amplifier. Oh, and one 

more thing: make sure you listen to 

the album as loud as you possibly 

can, otherwise you are just wasting 

your eardrum’s fucking time. –Adam 

Dorobiala 

Saint Sebastian’s 

School for Wicked Girls 

How To Do Everything Correctly 

Ape Island Records 

Street: now at Velour 

SSSWG = Blur + The Swiss Family 

Robinson adventures 

Who is this band? Where are they 

from? What wickedness could they 

have possibly committed sending 

four dudes to an all girls’ school? 

Since the band website is not up (get 

on it!) I had to resort to their myspace 

profile (ick): SSSWG is from Provo, 

but I don’t think they really go to such 

a school. I don’t know which member 

sings like Jarvis Cocker, but it’s a 

great album. It’s worth getting just for 

the album design by member Cole 

Nielsen. Limited to 240, the cloth 

cases have stitched edges and are 

hand-printed at Tryst Press by Rob 

Buchert. –Jennifer Nielsen 

Spitsofrantic 

Hood Vibrations 

Soul Shakers Music 

Street: 08.10 

Spitsofrantic = Immortal Technique 

+ Soulshakers 

Spitzo has a solid and balanced, 

if simple flow. His doubles are well 

timed–he knows his verses. The record’s 

frenetic trip-hop-acid-gangsta 

production fits surprisingly well with 

it’s dystopian theme. Case in point 

is the album’s title track, a number 

whose jazz flute vibrato sample provides 

fitting dissonance for Spitzo’s 

rhymes of police oppression and 

totalitarianism. The writing is straightforward 

revolutionary bemoaning, 

leaving no doubt as to his political 

views. Could do without “Arrested 

Developments” police siren sampling 

and the bitten Junior Gong chorus 

on “Light Em Up,” but overall, this is 

some of the better hip-hop to leave 

Dogden’s thuggish ruggish boulevards. 

–Makena Walsh 

The Upstarts 

The Upstarts 


Street: 10.26 

The Upstarts = The Toasters + 

The Specials + The Slackers 

Finally, a band that proves that Utah 

ska doesn’t need to be restricted 

to the realm of high school band 

nerds with a Reel Big Fish fetish! 

The Upstarts deliver some seriously 

awesome ska, chockfull of soul and 

a whole heap of energy. Highlights 

include the organ-driven “So Sharp” 

and the gospel-by-way-of-Jamaica 

“Carry This Load,” while “On the 

Run” would be right at home in a 

Blues Brothers movie. “Feels So 

Nice” and “Leaving” slow things 

down a bit, but that’s where vocalist 

Andy Fackrell really shines. All you 

kids out there who play trumpet, 

trombone or sax, listen up: throw 

away those Reel Big Fish records, 

go buy The Upstarts’ album, and try 

like hell to be as good as them. We’ll 

all be better for it in the long run! 

–Ricky Vigil 

Various Artists 

Around the Bend 

Slowtrain Music 

Street: July 2007 

Around the Bend = Local Musicians 

& Artists + Anna & Chris + 

great vinyl selection + an amazing 

independent music shop that SLC 

is lucky to have + support your 

community! 

Giving SLUG’s Death By Salt recordings 

a run for the money as “Best Local 

Compilation”, Slowtrain presents 

a well produced record of previously 

unreleased tunes by some of Utah’s 

favorite alt-country and acoustic 

soloists. In a talented music scene 

prevalent with singer/songwriters, 

Around the Bend showcases some 

of the best: David Williams, Paul 

Jacobsen, Wuhu Seai, Calico, 

TaughtMe, Wren Kennedy, Catherine 

Eve, Chanticleer the Clever 

Cowboy, Stephen Stanley, Uvada, 

Glade Sowards, Dead Horse 

Point, Cub Country, Marcus 

Bently and the Beat Surrender. I 

especially like the tracks by Band of 

Annuals (not just because I have a 

school-girl crush on Jay) and James 

Miska (not just because he’s one of 

my best friends), as they are classic 

examples of the breadth of impressive 

craft playing on 300 South at 

221 East. Around the Bend features 

four different covers one designed by 

Summer Bivens, one by Erin Potter, 

one by Sarah Martin and one 

by Mary Toscano. Purchase this fine 

cd–burn it from a friend and you’re a 

jerk. –Jennifer Nielsen 

The VCR Quintet 

I Hate Myself 


Street: 09.04 

The VCR Quintet = Castle + 

Waxen Tomb + 1h86635 + AODL 

+ Oval’s 94 Diskont 

The freshest and most exciting stuff 

to come out of Salt Lake is the local 

noise scene. 2006 saw the amazing 

album by The Tenets of Balthazar’s 

Castle (a Top 5 of Andrew 

Glassett) and 2007 is set with a new 

release by The VCR Quintet. While 

not as assaultive as AODL or TOBC, 

I Hate Myself is more layered and deliberatively 

repetitive with a decisively 

industrial edge. Not unlike Nolens 

Volens as a glitchy stop-and-go 

dance sound, VCR Quintet’s sound 

freshly organizes and arranges his 

base line of beats, chimes, scraped 

metal, blips and boops and doesn’t 

loose the listener’s interest in electronic 

wizardry gone awry ala Press 

Your Luck in the early 80s. Engaging 

and interesting, at times soothing 

and pared down, I Hate Myself is 

getting the top 5 treatment. 

–Erik Lopez 



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Alexis Gideon 

Flight of the Liophant 

Sickroom Records 

Street: 11.06 

Alexis Gideon = Folk Sensibilities 

+ Electronic Beeps + Eclectic 

Peeps 

Alexis Gideon is a crazed genius in 

the most beautiful sense of the term. 

Imagine dyslexic droids attempting 

to have a conversation on a Jawa 

Sandcrawler while being interrupted 

by an autistic rapper free-flowing 

stream-of-consciousness rhymes 

on LSD. Yeah, my man Alexis is that 

good. Staccato bursts of crazed rap 

share space with soulful, bass-heavy 

crooning and slide guitar that could 

just have easily been on Beck’s 

One Foot in the Grave. Flight of the 

Liophant comes with lyrics, and 

you’ll need them. When you read 

into what is actually being said, this 

album attains a whole new level of 

intricacy and confusion. Be prepared 

for modern, electronic-heavy music 

that will peak every level on your 

stereo AND give you that muchneeded 

Sasquatch reference that 

no good CD goes without. Taking a 

flight with the Liophant is like going 

to a musical buffet where everything 

sounds and tastes delicious! –Brian 

Van Steenkiste 

Ambitions 

Stranger 

Bridge Nine 

Street: 11.06 

Ambitions = Dag Nasty + With 

Honor + Ignite 

With Honor is caput, which means 

more time for Jay and Jeff Aust and 

John Ross to dedicate their time 

to Ambitions. This is great news for 

hardcore. Ambitions is the modern 

version of the melodic bands from 

the D.C. era. Maintaining strong 

song after strong song is difficult for 

this style of music, and Ambitions 

fall victim to running-togetherness 

at points throughout the album. Jay 

Aust’s vocals are mostly to blame for 

this since he sings rather long notes 

over fast music. This makes it hard 

to grab onto any syllables—music 

or vocal. This small gripe aside, 

CD Reviews 

Stranger is a great first full-length 

for a band that has musical chops, 

melody, and harmonization on their 

side. It remains to be seen how well 

their tight musicianship holds up live, 

but if it comes close to this release, 

it will be a cut above the rest. –Peter 

Fryer 

Battles 

Tonto + EP 

Warp Records 

Street: 12.04 

Battles = Don Caballero + Hella 

+ John Stanier’s sweet drumming 

action 

This is a tour EP from the band 

known as the Battles. It takes the 

song “Tonto” from the album Mirrored 

and gives you the straight-up 

version of the song, then a couple 

more remixed, blipped-out and 

collaged versions of the song—all 

there to bend the mind all over the 

place. The remixes are way weak 

compared to the original version of 

the song. These remixes sound like 

a robot that was dancing to Battles 

at a rave while on ecstasy and got 

stuck repeating the same dance 

step over and over. The EP also 

includes a DVD of the “Tonto” and 

“Atlas” videos, which are all kinds of 

banging. I just want to say the drumming 

of John Stanier rules my life 

and that Battles is better off without 

the random vocal sections. – Jon 

Robertson 

Black Tie 

Goodbye, Farewell 

Socyermom Records 

Street: 12.04 

Black Tie = Tortoise + The For 

Carnation + Ui + Tarwater 

Black Tie is dark and brooding. The 

album begins with the Tortoise-inspired 

first track “For the Dead,” with 

its creamy-sounding reverbed guitar 

lines and tear-inspiring cello. The instrumental 

tracks on this album make 

me want to sit in the rain and watch 

cars drive by. They’re grey-sounding 

and amazing, to say the least. 

However, the tracks that do contain 

vocals take away from the gloominess 

of the album and ruin whatever 

mood the band was trying to create. 

I was in love with this album until the 

third track pulled its head out from 

under the storm clouds and began 

using some untrained vocals to try to 

cheer me up by singing a contrived 

song about hope. Way to ruin my pity 

party, Black Tie. –Jon Robertson 

Bottomless Pit 

Hammer of the Gods 

Comedy Minus One 

Street: 11.06 

Bottomless Pit= Silkworm – Steve 

Albini + An Abyss 

Remember Silkworm? (They were 

only a band for like 18 years.) They 

disbanded after tragically losing 

their drummer. From the ashes 

of Silkworm, Bottomless Pit was 

formed, and from there, the best 

comparisons can be made. For me, 

Silkworm was never as influential as, 

say, Jawbox or Fugazi in the realm 

of post-punk, but still had a definitive 

sound that the 90s couldn’t have 

been without. Legendary recording 

artist Steve Albini always captured 

that sound; he really helped define 

the sound of the 90s anyway. Bottomless 

Pit did not record with Albini, 

but are reaching for the same style 

that they had in the past, leaving 

something to be desired. These are 

obviously a talented group of musicians; 

but I think they should have 

moved in a new direction instead 

of recreating sounds from the past. 

Fans of Silkworm and post-punk, dig 

in; these are a handful of skillfully 

written songs, but I am going to 

pass. –Davy Bartlett 

Cex 

Exotical Privates 

Automation 

Street: 12.04 

Cex = Giorgio Moroder + Daniel 

Miller 

Multi-tasker Cex took all the bits from 

his Actual Fucking album, merged 

them with a few other elements 

and built the four meaty works on 

this maxi-single style EP. Exotical 

Privates resembles the 12” mixes of 

the 80s, specifically, the long tracks 

you find at the end of the record after 

the dance floor favorites, the long 

ones you repeatedly requested but 

the DJ found more suitable for the 

drive to and from the club (i.e., “Fly 

On the Windscreen (Death Mix”). 

Bits of cello and slide guitar from 

“Chapelhill” elide with hypnotic Kate 

Bush vocals, background textures 

from “Chicago” move forward to 

accompany Moroccan chants, and 

the beats of “Los Angeles” are now 

much less Chris Frantz, much 

more Chic, each track working the 

way substantial theme-answerreconstruct-theme 

based music such 

as “In a Silent Way” does—Cex does 

free jazz now? –Dave Madden 

Corpus Mortale 

A New Species of Deviant 

Willowtip/Neurotic Records 

Street: 11.06 

Corpus Mortale = Morbid Angel + 

Immolation + Grave 

There is a brutal simplicity to Corpus 

Mortale, though underlying that simplicity 

is a world of technicality. This 

groove-heavy monster hits you like 

giant wave after wave, pummeling 

and pummeling until you’re drowned 

in their sinister message. The fact 

that death metal has to be fast and 

full of blastbeats is highly overrated; 

I’ll take songwriting that screams 

extreme ardor any day. There is more 

harsh and disturbing brutality in the 

band’s mid-paced stylings than a 

lot of these so-called new extreme 

metalcore acts that use blastbeats 

just to sound cool. The band has 

been around for 14 years and it 

definitely shows. One couldn’t ask for 

the greatness that Corpus Mortale 

achieves with this new dose of 

misanthropy and horror all brimming 

with subtle extremity. –Bryer Wharton 

Edison Glass 

Let Go EP 

Credential Recordings 

Street: 11.27 

Edison Glass = Sunny Day Real 

Estate + mewithoutYou 

I am so glad I discovered Edison 

Glass. Ever since Circa Survive’s 

new record came out which straightup 

sounds like me punching myself 

in the knards, I have a had a small 

void missing in my soul for some 

hard-rocking progressive and most 

of all, anti-cookie-cutter emo music. 

Edison Glass has filled that strange 

void for me. Just listening to this 

teaser EP has made me all excited 

for Edison Glass’s second album, 

Time Is Fiction, which is supposed 

to come out early next year. I’m so 

giddy that I’m going to put my hair 

in pigtails and run right out in my 

schoolgirl outfit to buy their first 

album right away. Edison Glass is my 

rebound relationship after Circa Survive. 

Josh and Joshua from Edison 

Glass could totally beat up Anthony 

Green any day. –Jon Robertson 

Elvenking 

The Scythe 

Candlelight 

Street: 11.06 

Elvenking = Blind Guardian + Skyclad 

+ Cradle of Filth + everything 

under the sun 

Stupid name aside, it was a huge 

surprise to hear this dynamic epic from 

Elvenking. Also, if there is ever a case to 

never judge a book by its, cover it’s with 

this band. I thought just by the name 

of the band I was in for some typical 

power-metal posturing, cheesy falsetto 

vocals, and so on and so forth. Instead, 

Elvenking have created a truly metal 

epic encompassing virtually all styles

of metal except death/grind. There 

is great fiddle work and black metal 

snarls along with the well-ranged 

clean vocals. There are also many 

gothic metal moments amongst the 

fabulous power-metal riffing. Every 

song just brings in something unexpected 

and interesting to listen to—if 

you’re curious about the power metal 

genre, this is something to explore. – 

Bryer Wharton 

Eyes of Eden 

Faith 

Century Media 

Street: 11.06 

Eyes of Eden = Lacuna Coil + 

Samael 

Eyes of Eden’s debut, Faith, would 

be a solid album if it weren’t for two 

things. First, vocalist Franziska 

Huth isn’t appealing at all; her youth 

and inexperience show through and 

pretty much ruin the album. Second, 

the keyboard work is mostly piddling, 

not really going in any direction or 

developing any sort of atmosphere 

or feeling. The man behind Eyes of 

Eden is Waldemar Sorychta, who 

has written and produced songs for 

Lacuna Coil, Samael, Moonspell 

and Sentenced—all truly amazing 

bands in the gothic nature—as well 

as playing in seminal thrash bands 

Grip Inc. and Despair. For the 

record, his guitar parts are straightup 

great, especially with the more 

rocking moments on the album. Also, 

Gas Lipstick from H.I.M. lends his 

drums skills, which stand out among 

the other junk. The fact that the guitars 

and drums were the foundation, 

written well before the vocals and 

keyboards entered the mix, shows 

through and makes for an extremely 

weak and unpleasant gothic-metal 

album. – Bryer Wharton 

Finn Riggins 

A Soldier, A Saint, An 

Ocean Explorer 

Tender Loving Empire 

Street: 11.13 

Finn Riggins = Mates of State + 

Rilo Kiley 

Now, don’t get me wrong—I don’t 

have a vendetta against Idaho, but 

when I read that Finn Riggins’ place 

of origin was Hailey, Idaho, I cringed 

a little. However, my next thought 

was, “Well, if Built To Spill came out 

of Boise, then anything’s possible.” 

I was right in my second assertion, 

because Finn Riggins’ A Soldier, A 

Saint, An Ocean Explorer exceeded 

my expectations and gave me quite 

the pleasant surprise. The album’s 

name is a reference to the shapeshifting, 

working-class spirit that 

roams the Pacific Northwest searching 

for his body, and their music’s 

sound parallels this ghostly search. 

It travels with their experimental/ 

indie vibe that roams to all ends of 

the music spectrum. The dueling 

vocals of Lisa Simpson and Eric 

Gilbert complement each other and 

are equally as good apart from one 

another. I guess Hailey, Idaho, isn’t 

so bad after all. (Dec. 21, Burt’s Tiki 

Lounge) –Jeremy C. Wilkins 

Golden Death Music 

Ephemera Blues 

Helmet Room Recordings 

Street: 11.20 

Golden Death Music = Codeseven 

+ Dave Matthews Band + some 

strange fungus that you licked 

Golden Death Music has a cool band 

name. When I first put this album 

on, I thought it was skipping, but I 

was sorely mistaken. Golden Death 

Music was just beginning to sink its 

psilocybin-laced teeth politely into 

my jugular. This music is made solely 

by one dude. Michael Ramey, who 

drops the most reverbed vocals of all 

time. His voice sounds like a drunk 

guy drowning in the hot tub. If you 

want to feel like you’re floating in 

the air while being softly caressed 

by a gentle hippie, than this album 

is perfect. Every song has a mellow 

feel that is laced with random noises, 

stop-and-start percussion, acoustic 

guitar and layers upon layers of psychedelic 

wonder. –Jon Robertson 

Impaled 

The Last Gasp 

Willowtip 

Street: 11.06 

Impaled = Carcass + Vile + 

Discharge 

Well, leave it to Impaled to ditch the 

standard confines of gore metal 

after 10 years. The Last Gasp is a 

whole new initiation into the genre, 

bringing new elements of thrash and 

a whole lot of punk. This is as about 

as diverse as gore metal gets, and 

that’s a good thing. I can’t get over 

all the superb shredding this album 

dishes out; it has surpassed their 

past albums in so many ways it’s 

not even funny. I’ve been a fan of 

the band for a while, but the band’s 

Willowtip debut leaves all those other 

gore metal crazies in the dust. Every 

tune carries a message of blood and 

gore in its own bloody, unique way. 

There is a plethora of different kinds 

of riffing going on, all with mighty 

solos and fanciful guttural vocals 

mixed with snarling screams. The 

raw production is a nice old-school 

style with the music going in a more 

modern direction. If there were ever 

an album for Impaled to mutilate the 

gore scene, this is it. –Bryer Wharton 

In All Dishonesty 

In All Dishonesty 

Self Released 

Street: 12.04 

In All Dishonesty = Converge + As 

I Lay Dying + All That Remains + 

Slipknot 

This four-song EP starts off with a 

hefty bang, showcasing the band’s 

talent, which is what one would 

expect for any initiation into listening 

to a new artist’s music. The band is 

a strange culmination of what many 

U.S. bands are trying to make popu- 

lar today, meaning clean vocals and 

melodic passages mixed with deathmetal 

grinding. There is enough 

diversity in these four songs to leave 

you wanting more, all without a loss 

of direction. Each one gives you a 

clear path of what the band is trying 

to accomplish and unlike many of the 

band’s peers, it has all the possibilities 

of reeling in listeners of multiple 

genres. Normally, the clean vocals 

that In All Dishonesty use turn me off, 

but I find an honest pleasure in them. 

At times they sound a little labored, 

but in place of the lack of experience 

comes honesty, heart and passion. 

–Bryer Wharton 

Joe Lally 

Nothing is Underrated 

Dischord Records 

Street: 11.19 

Joe Lally = Fugazi + Vic Bondi + 

coffeeshop music 

Joe Lally’s second “solo” album is a 

far cry from his work with Fugazi on 

bass. Musically, the songs featured 

on this album are mellow and 

slow-paced, but they form a strong 

backdrop for his poetic songwriting. 

Many other artists accompany Lally 

on Nothing is Underrated—Ben 

Azzara (The Capitol City Dusters, 

DCIC), Ian McKay (Fugazi, Minor 

Threat) and Andy Gale (Haram) are 

only a few of the musicians that appear 

on this album. “Day is Born” has 

a bluesy stoner-rock feel to it, while 

“Scavenger’s Garden” relies heavily 

on the hypnotic drumbeats. Although 

many of the songs feature an entire 

band, the music is minimal enough 

to let the vocals steer the songs. You 

can’t rock out to this, but it’s good 

music to relax to. –Jeanette Moses 

Lek 

Giant World Knowledge 

Bliss Control 

Lek Music 

Street: 11.27 

Lek = Velvet Underground + Lee 

Ranaldo + Bob Dylan 

The sole member of Lek is Greg 

Pardrusch. His music is from an alternate 

dimension where the spacerocking 

guitar player from U2 known 

as The Edge constantly makes 

sweet passionate love to all the 

members of My Bloody Valentine, 

kaleidoscope-style! Each chamber 

of the kaleidoscope represents a 

new and extravagant world where 

anthemic rock gets all dirty, sweaty 

and scandalous; the wall of sound 

built by the guitars are the velvet 

sheets where the bastard child of 

this strange union is conceived. Lek 

deserves child support from both 

The Edge and My Bloody Valentine. 

They probably would have paid him, 

too, if he would have cut the horribly 

bland acoustic ballads from the end 

of the album. Way to ruin the mood, 

Lek. –Jon Robertson 

Living Hell 

The Lost and the Damned 

Revelation 

Street: 11.13 

Living Hell = Integrity + Shipwreck 

a.d. + Rise and Fall 

Revelation continues their recent 

string of good releases with Living 

Hell’s latest. Although Living Hell 

isn’t breaking any new ground (far 

from it), their mission to put some evil 

back into hardcore is a welcome one. 

Living Hell is the counterbalance to 

Solid State Records’ roster and is 

helping to reestablish an equilibrium 

that feels like it has been absent for 

the last few years. Living Hell takes 

a lot of cues from Integrity; hell, 

Dwid Hellion even did some of the 

artwork and samples. Musically, it’s 

straight-ahead evil-tinged hardcore 

with a guitar solo thrown in here and 

there and lyrics that your grandma 

certainly wouldn’t approve of. The 

recording isn’t overly polished, 

which gives this album a great, gritty 

sound. The Lost and the Damned 

is heavy and dark, but maintains its 

hardcore roots. This is a solid release 

all around. –Peter Fryer 

Memphis May Fire 

Memphis May Fire 

Trustkill 

Street: 12.04 

Memphis May Fire = weakness 

I can almost guarantee that these 

losers from Memphis May Fire probably 

follow around Maylene and 

The Sons of Disaster and Every 

Time I Die all day long and do 

everything they do and do whatever 

those two bands ask them to do. This 

would be slightly tolerable if those 

bands were crazy groundbreaking 

and genius, but they’re not. Those 

two bands are copycat bands as 

well. Memphis May Fire’s music is 

so unoriginal it makes me want to 

track them down and sit with them 

while we compare their album to 

every other aforementioned band’s 

and see if they could somehow give 

me a justifiable reason as to why I 

shouldn’t give them all a lobotomy. I 

really wish that record labels would 

stop signing bands like this. –Jon 

Robertson 

October File 

Holy Armour from the Jaws 

of God 



Candlelight 

Street: 11.06 

October File = Killing Joke + 

Helmet + Black Flag 

There is some serious Killing Joke 

worship going on with Holy Armour 

From the Jaws of God, but that’s OK, 

even with Jaz Coleman, who makes 

an appearance on the record. Unlike 

Killing Joke, as of late the record 

does lack that industrial atmosphere; 

instead, there is a huge punk-rock 

and grunge influence seeping in. It’s 

this strange combination that makes 

October File unique. Sometimes it’s 

nice just to sit back and get pummeled 

by grooves and a knack for 

songwriting than listening to something 

intricately technical, which no 

offense, guys, you are not. That said, 

the band’s ability to strike attention 

is uncanny. Listeners are immersed 

in a world with foundations laid down 

by a huge beat-and-rhythm section, 

hearty bass lines and lead work that 

screams originality. –Bryer Wharton 

Opeth 

The Roundhouse Tapes 

Koch Records 

Street: 11.20 

Opeth = Camel + (early) Katatonia 

+ Porcupine Tree 

Well, it had to happen—the band 

has a multitude of records, so the 

inevitable live album from the mighty 

Opeth was to be expected. It was 

recorded in 2006 at the Camden 

Roundhouse in London. I truly wish 

that when I had seen the band, their 

set-list was as varied as the set for 

this live recording. Admittedly, when 

you see the band live, they are a tight 

unit, but their stage presence is as 

about as exciting as watching grass 

grow. On recorded works, however, 

it’s a different story—Opeth is engaging 

and truly diverse instrumentally. 

Be prepared not to skip through 

any songs, with the shortest cut at 

eight minutes and the full, almost 

20-minute version of “Blackwater 

Park.” As far as live records go, the 

production is top-notch, and the 

crowd sounds and sing-alongs are 

clearly heard. On top of that, there is 

a small amount of stage banter from 

frontman Mikael Akerfeldt, which is 

so lame it’s funny. –Bryer Wharton 

Pain Principle 

Waiting for the Flies 

Blind Prophecy Records 

Street: 11.06 

Pain Principle = Devildriver + 

Pissing Razors + Pantera 

Pain Principle is like a poor man’s 

Devildriver; I don’t think an original 

thought went into the creation of this 

band’s sound. If ever there were a 

time when recycling was bad, then 

it’s in the case of this entire Pain 

Principle record, which soon enough 

will truly be Waiting for the Flies. The 

notion of what these guys put forth 

further conveys my thought that just 

because music is heavy doesn’t 

mean it’s good. Every song on this 

10-cut disc sounds like the one 

before—vocal patterns, drum beats, 

and especially the riffs and solos. 

Yeah, the music is heavy on the 

grooves, fast, a sort of death-metalmeets-thrash 

hybrid, but it has been 

done before and entirely better. The 

fact that Erik Rutan lent his name to 

the production of this album is a sad 

fact—what he was thinking I’m not 

sure.–Bryer Wharton 

Pomegranates 

Two Eyes EP 

Self-Release 

Street: 12.2007 

Pomegranates = Pulp – Jarvis 

Cocker + Thurston Moore 

Expect great things. From the get-go, 

your ears perk up to the vibrating 

notes of a keyboard, then the clapalong 

strumming of multiple guitars. 

And clap you will, along with all four 

band members during the handrhythm 

chorus on “Nursery Magic.” 

They all participate with singing, outstanding 

percussions and plenty of 

fuzzy guitar-picking. Each song has 

the right amount of sparse, imaginative 

lyrics mixed with instrumental 

rock movements similar to early 

Modest Mouse or more dancey bits 

like Pulp. Recorded as a live session 

within two days, the songs resonate 

with an almost lightly spiritual theme 

of two eyes seeing—or not seeing— 

the astounding physical world 

surrounding us. This first release will 

leave you yearning in anticipation for 

their full-length to be released Spring 

2008 from Lujo Records. 

–Jennifer Nielsen 

Saul Williams 

The Inevitable Rise and 

Liberation of Niggy Tardust 


Street: 11.01 

Saul Williams = KRS-One + Nine 

Inch Nails 

Like so many Trent Reznor-produced 

projects, the world wondered 

if this album would see beyond the 

walls of his dimly lit studio. Regardless, 

would Williams and Reznor, 

aided by disparate ears belonging to 

Thavius Beck, Atticus Ross and 

CX Kidtronik, churn out anything 

worthy of either artist? This album 

is a wonderful hydra, heads sharing 

the same body, but retaining an 

even share of Reznor’s and Beck’s 

always-remarkable music and 

production (!!) and William’s cool, 

confrontational austere. “I have a lot 

to say, but I wanted to find a way to 

say it that didn’t get in the way of me 

dancing my ass off,” says Williams, 

an accurate description of these 

sometimes-muscular (the slinky 

march of “Break,” the Public Enemy 

sample-driven “Tr(n)igger”), othertimes 

delicate and gutted (“Raw”), 

always-cleverly-eclectic, meritorious 

songs. At the eleventh hour of 2007, 

you now have a new favorite record. 

–Dave Madden 

Scarpoint 

The Silence We Deserve 

Blind Prophecy Records 

Street: 11.06 

Scarpoint = Meshuggah + Fear 

Factory 

Hailing from Sweden, it is no coincidence 

that Scarpoint are following 

closely in the footsteps of Meshuggah. 

They even brought in Daniel 

Bergstrand, who has produced the 

majority of Meshuggah’s records. 

That said, the band took quite a 

while to hone their skills; seven years 

in fact, before producing their The 

Silence We Deserve debut. That time 

was well spent, because where many 

bands have taken a sound and totally 

copied it, Scarpoint have crafted 

something unique. The beat patterns 

and riffs are unique to the band and 

damn brutally heavy; this thing is like 

taking a sledgehammer to somebody’s 

perfectly designed home 

and having that ultimate destructive 

release. With such a high originality 

factor and honestly extreme power, 

these Swedes have given the world 

something worth listening to more 

than once. –Bryer Wharton 

Sinamore 

Seven Sins a Second 

Napalm Records 

Street: 11.06 

Sinamore = Sentended + H.I.M. 

There must be something in the water 

in Finland; it is a breeding ground 

for great gothic metal/rock bands, 

be it H.I.M. or the 69 Eyes, to name 

a few. Sinamore is poised to join in 

those mighty ranks with Seven Sins a 

Second. The melodies are thick and 

guitars just as thick and heavy, all 

catchy as hell. The key selling point 

with the band is the fact that the 

vocalist has a unique voice—more 

melodic and not as focused on being 

Type O Negative deep. Then there 

are the lyrics. Thankfully, it’s not 

your typical gothic babble; there is 

a greater intelligence to this record 

than the majority of the gothic rock 

out there. “The Burning Frame” is 

a prime example of how to do goth 

rock right—it sounds pleasing, diverse, 

mellowing and just downright 

well-written, not to mention boasting 

a guitar riff so damn cool you have to 

hear it again and again. 


Six Organs of 

Admittance 

Shelter From The Ash 

Drag City 

Street: 11.20 

Six Organs of Admittance = Comets 

on Fire + Current 93 + 

Bonnie “Prince” Billy 

What I have always liked about Six 

Organs has always been the way 

that Ben Chasney, Six Organs 

frontman, has broached the idea 

of psychedelic music whether he 

means to or not. Instead of leading 

up to a fever-pitch of guitar screams 

and wild oscillations, he throws in his 

controlled guitar solos with the flow 

of the music, and wholly unexpectedly 

to the listener. In Shelter From 

The Ash, Chasney has mellowed the 

edge a little, thrown in some standard 

guitar tunings and has given 

this set of songs a darker, moodier 

wanderlust-folk twang. Songs such 

as “Strangled Road” and “Coming To 

Get You” are ghostly and desolate, 

buffering the louder, noiser tracks 

that surround them. More than any 

other album Six Organs has put out, 

this album focuses on the virtuosic 

use of the guitar and requires a good 

hour to set aside to really listen to it. 

–Erik Lopez 

Streetlight Manifesto 

Somewhere in the Between 

Victory Records 

Street: 11.13 

Streetlight Manifesto = Catch 22 + 

Mad Caddies 

When Streetlight Manifesto released 

their debut album four years ago, it 

was a giant kick in the balls to the 

world of ska-punk: it was startling, 

powerful, and it took a while to 

recover from. The rapid-fire vocals, 

thoughtful lyrics, epic horns and 

operatic song structures elevated the 

genre to a place it had never been 

before, and they quickly became 

one of the few ska-punk bands that 

still matters. While Somewhere in the 

Between isn’t quite as impressive or 

revolutionary as Streetlight’s debut, 

it’s still one of the finest ska-punk 

albums in a year that has seen its 

share of fine ska-punk albums. 

“Down, Down, Down to Mephisto’s 

Cafe” retains the epic nature of 

Streetlight’s earlier work, while 

“Somewhere in the Between” takes 

the 90s ska blueprint and injects it 

with plenty of bounciness and fun. 

Don’t be scared of ska. This stuff’s 

good. (Avalon: 01.04) – Ricky Vigil 

Svartsot 

Ravnenes Saga 


Street: 11.06 

Svartsot = Finntroll + Korpiklaani 

+ Amon Amarth 

Bust out your Viking horns and 

get ready to pillage and plunder, 

because that is what Svartsot has 

intended to do with the Ravnenes 

Saga. Mixing a huge vibe of traditional 

Nordic folk metal with some

ig-time riffing and more growled 

vocals, Svartsot is one of the heavier 

folk-metal bands I’ve come across. 

The guitar melodies alone are 

beefy and manly enough to carry 

the record. Add some Medieval 

Times-style flutes and you’ll be biting 

into a giant turkey leg in no time. All 

stereotypes aside, this Danish band 

has concocted a metal record that 

is as fun as it is brutal; how often do 

you get that? –Bryer Wharton 

Syrach 

Days of Wrath 


Street: 11.06 

Syrach = Novembers Doom + 

Black Sabbath + My Dying Bride 

These Norwegian fellows have been 

around since ’93; strangely, you’d 

think they’d know how to arrange a 

good album. The first half of Days of 

Wrath is as drab and dull as doom 

metal can get—recycled riffs, little 

emotion and no diversity. It isn’t 

until the fourth song in “Stigma 

Diabolikum” that things get moving 

and the record actually makes you 

feel depressed in a murky dark realm 

with no escape. Unfortunately, the 

14-minute epic that comes before 

said song is enough to put you to 

sleep. If it were up to me, I would’ve 

booted the first few tracks and left 

the rest as the album; that is where 

the true doom greatness comes into 

play. Riffs that bear the weight of the 

world envelope the listener into darkness 

accompanied by soloing that is 

downright deadly to the mind, not to 

mention the monotone death vocals 

from the beginning get changed up 

and truly make you hurt. Good thing 

you can skip to the good tracks on a 

CD, right? – Bryer Wharton 

Tender Forever 

Wider 

K Records 

Street: 12.04 

Tender Forever = a French Mandy 

Moore + Elliot Lipp + Huckleberry 

Cherry 

It’s nice to hear a female vocalist 

with no ego. Melanie Valera of Bordeaux, 

France, birthplace of Tender 

Forever, just brings truth and the 

conviction of a woman who knows 

her own strength. This album is very 

pure and fun. Wider is filled with deep 

and warm pop instrumentals and 

innocent lyrics. The beauty is in its 

simplistic melodies made out of lowtoned 

Rhodes and Postal Serviceesque 

synth-pop drums—oh, and 

don’t forget about the multilayered 

acoustic guitar riffs in the background. 

Listening to this record and 

knowing that it is the first installment, 

I wonder how many come after this. 

Melanie speaks in a language that 

never ends and I truly do not see an 

expiration date for her honest and 

intelligent approach to the music she 

makes. Wider is definitely a breath of 

fresh air. –Lance Saunders 

Tuxedomoon 

Vapour Trails 

CBOY 1616 

Street: 12.04 

Tuxedomoon = The kings of making 

crazy-sounding pop music 

Tuxedomoon have been around for 

27 years, even though they didn’t 

really put anything out for over 10 

years. Their new album Vapour Trails 

is all worldly-sounding. This music 

sounds like a perverted version 

of Kenny G. (if you can imagine 

anything more perverted), with all 

the creepy classical instrumentation 

and low, desperate moans drifting in 

and out of the music. Mike Patton 

probably lies in his bed at night and 

hopes and prays for Blaine L. Reiningers 

to turn out to be his long-lost 

illegitimate father. Tuxedomoon is 

a well-traveled and senile version 

of Mr. Bungle. I bet if you checked 

Mike Patton’s inner thigh, it would 

have a beautiful Helvetica-lettered 

tattoo of Tuxedomoon on it. 

–Jon Robertson 

The Valerie Project 

Self-titled 

Drag City 

Street: 11.20 

The Valerie Project = Espers + Six 

Organs of Admittance + 

Charalambides 

First off, I’m predisposed to liking this 

release based solely on its premise: 

pretty much everybody from the 

Philadelphia psych-folk scene collaborating 

on a new soundtrack for 

the (IMHO) brilliant Czech new-wave 

film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. 

You have my interest, attention and 

support in this endeavor, ladies and 

gentlemen. But how did they do? 

Well, if you’ve seen the film (you 

haven’t, I realize this) you know that it 

already has an amazing soundtrack, 

and this doesn’t really come close. 

It’s too dour, too dark, and while 

Valerie is a dark film, it also retains a 

childlike sense of whimsy and wonderment 

that is perfectly reflected 

in the original score and noticeably 

absent here. However, this is meant 

as a tribute, not a replacement, and 

it’s quite a nice listen in its own right. 

Film geeks and freak-folk fans should 

definitely take note. –Jona Gerlach 

Various Artists 

Downtown 81 Soundtrack 

Recall Records 

Street: 11.06 

Downtown 81 = James Chance 

+ DNA + Liquid Liquid + Jean 

Michel Basquiat 

My friend Bobby turned me onto 

this movie a few years back when 

we watched an old VHS copy of it in 

the Marriott Library. The movie is a 

nice historically relevant yet fictional 

account of New York during its nowave 

heyday and like the movie, the 

soundtrack is diabetic. The soundtrack 

is amazing in two ways: 1) the 

music smoothly flows from one track 

to the next and 2) all the tracks on it 

are amazing! If you are a big fan of 

the New York no-wave scene, a fan 

of bands that followed their lead like 

Liars, !!! and Black Dice, then this 

soundtrack is a must-have. Better 

yet, get the movie as well. Soundtrack 

includes all the bands listed 

in the equation as well as Tuxedomoon, 

Gray and Lounge Lizards. 

DANCE PARTY! –Erik Lopez 

Vesania 

Distractive Killusions 


Street: 11.20 

Vesania = Dimmu Borgir + Cradle 

of Filth + Emperor 

Well, Vesania would sound exactly 

like Dimmu Borgir, except for their 

use of keyboards to create a 

symphonic atmosphere is a bland 

attempt. Song by song, the keyboard 

use, along with standard black-metal 

blastbeats, vocal-barking so on 

and so forth, all sounds the exact 

same and it’s downright boring and 

a blatant attempt to jump on the 

bandwagon of success enjoyed by 

Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth. At 

least said bands have some creativity 

about writing the songs they do, 

and me saying that about Cradle of 

Filth is a huge compliment because 

I generally think that they are crap, 

too. This effort by Vesania is far 

worse and an insult to metalheads 

around the world. I don’t much enjoy 

listening to the same song roughly 

nine times over. Yes, copying a 

band’s style is a sincere form of 

flattery, but damn, at least try and do 

something remotely different. 


WOELV 

Tout Seul dans la Forêt 

en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous 

Peur? 

K Records 

Steet : 12.04 

WOELV = Ani Difranco + Autour 

de Lucie + the Breeders on a bad 

day 

As SLUG’s resident francophone, 

I always look forward to reviewing 

French language discs. Still, I should 

institute a new rule when it comes 

to music made by French Canadians 

(les Québécois). Everything 

Québécois is a little off. Tout Seul, 

whose full title translates to All Alone 

in the Forest in the Middle of the 

Day, are You Scared?, is the work of 

Geneviève Castrée (translation: 

Castrated Jenny). It is a concept 

album, a record that attempts to 

unite people who share the same 

fears. Using some rather sparse and 

timid musical arrangements, Ms. 

Castrée works through a fair number 

of songs that deal with death, roosters, 

rape and other things people are 

afraid of. And though this decidedly 

feminine work has its high points, the 

bulk of it sounds like a lost little girl 

pretending to be Kim Deal. In all, it’s 

exactly what you should expect from 

K Records. —James Bennett 

The Yarrows 

Plum 

Empyrean Records 

Street: 12.18 

The Yarrows = Neil Young & Crazy 

Horse + The Jayhawks + The 

National 

Even though both performers hail 

from New Jersey, the boys in the 

Yarrows are not arena-rock like 

Bruce Springsteen. Just as manlypicturesque, 

The Yarrows sound 

more relaxed, more country, singing 

more love ballads; which could come 

from the experience of practicing and 

recording at an abandoned cabin in 

hundreds of acres of woodsy New 

Jersey. Or perhaps from the experience 

of long, stable relationships; 

as both vocalists—brothers Pierce 

& Matt Backes—thank their wives 

twice. Many of the songs might be a 

non-saccharine tribute to the wives 

of the band members, though I prefer 

the more general-themed rockdriven 

guitar of the final four songs. 

These are mature songs from a 

mature, tight-knit group of musicians 

who’ve been playing music for years, 

although this is their first attempt 

together. A nice debut. 

–Jennifer Nielsen 

Zs 

Arms 

Planaria Recordings 

Street: 12.11 

Zs = Locust + Lightning Bolt + 

Angel Hair + Canvas Solaris + 

mental institution 

It’s arpeggio insanity—this music 

makes me want to pull my hair out 

and twist the nips. If I was in hell, this 

is what I would have to listen to every 

day non-stop. I feel bad that this band 

makes me feel this way. I just can’t 

help it. Normally I really like experimental 

instrumental music, but I can’t 

stand the repetitive nature of Arms. 

It’s the same eight notes repeated for 

the entirety of the song, then the next 

song they pick another eight-note 

arpeggio. Each band member plays 

the exact same thing with hardly any 

deviation from each other the whole 

time. I respect the talent of the two 

guitar players, saxophonist and drummer 

for being able to match up so 

tightly, but this music drives me bonzo 

beans! You’re hardcore if you can 

handle listening to Zs. –Jon Robertson 



The Anti-Matter Anthology 

Norman Brannon 

Revelation Books [Street: 11.05] 

When you’re writing about music, it’s 

pretty hard not to come across as a 

douchebag or a kiss-ass. Norman 

Brannon never comes off like that in 

this collection of interviews culled from 

his 90s fanzine. Brannon’s interview 

style is very unique. He often asks 

his subjects very personal questions 

(“When was the last time you cried?” 

is a common one) that really humanize 

these figures that so many people put 

on pedestals. Hearing about the frontman 

of Rage Against the Machine 

crying because a journalist betrayed 

him makes his radical public image 

seem less threatening, and learning 

that the vocalist of straight-edge icons 

Youth of Today played at least one 

show hungover reminds the reader 

that everyone, no matter how iconic, 

fucks up once in a while. Brannon’s 

honest journalism is a breath of fresh 

air in a medium that is often fueled 

entirely by bullshit. –Ricky Vigil 

Dead Children Playing 

Stanley Donwood & Dr. 

Tchock 

Verso [Street: 10.01] 

It’s hard to divorce the artwork of 

Donwood from its marriage with the 

sights and sounds of Radiohead, 

whom Donwood has been illustrating 

since the Bends. In this collection of 

paintings and “short stories” (if that’s 

what you want to call them), Donwood 

takes instruction manuals and scribbles 

aphorisms that twist and pervert 

their meanings. His other paintings, 

of places and geography, remind me 

of Paula Scher. Unfortunately, since 

I have been seeing the same pictures 

and paintings since 1994, I can’t help 

but blame Thom York (a.k.a. Dr. 

Tchock) for both helping and hurting 

Donwood––helping him gain a welldeserved 

recognition, but hindering 

him from going beyond himself. Dead 

Children Playing might as well be 

subtitled “the art of Radiohead.”–Erik 

Lopez 

The Haunted House 

Rebecca Brown 

City Lights [09.2007] 

I was incredibly disappointed by this 

book in every sense of the word. 

Brown’s novel was originally published 

in 1986 and was praised as a “brilliant 

first novel”. While I am not familiar with 

any of her other novels, I can say that 

this one simply hit a wall for me. Written 

half as real life accounts and half 

in mystical hallucinations, the novel 

explores the repercussions that the 

antagonist Robin Daily experiences as 

an adult after her turbulent childhood. 

Sadly, it is often hard to decipher 

what is fact and what is fiction, and 

the jolted memories never really come 

together to form a cohesive story. It’s 

well written and I didn’t put it down because 

I was anticipating all the pieces 

to come together. Unfortunately, they 

just never did. –Jeanette Moses 

I Went for a Walk 

Shanti Wintergate and 

Gregory Attonito 

Hollywood Jersey [Street: 09.19] 

Good God, where do I begin? Hippies 

shouldn’t be allowed to write children’s 

stories. They also shouldn’t be allowed 

to do the illustrations. And they 

really shouldn’t be permitted to borrow 

heavily from Maurice Sendak’s 

Where the Wild Things Are. You know 

the story already: a kid daydreams 

about visiting faraway lands inhabited 

by creatures that look nothing like us, 

only to return to reality just in time to 

eat whichever meal they were about 

to miss. The only thing missing is an 

anti-parental subtext and a kid named 

Max. Sure, THIS story has the kid 

visiting distant planets and then taking 

a second trip into the miniscule world 

of subatomic mold, but it is obvious 

that the tale is lifted from somewhere 

else. You could look past the similarities 

if the story was an improvement, 

but it falls short of the original. Add in 

sub par graphics and a kooky “believe 

in yourself” ending and you’ll start to 

understand what I’m talking about. 

–James Bennett 

Marooned 

Editor Phil Freeman 

Da Capo Press [Street: 8.01] 

In his essay on Solid Air, Simon 

Reynolds points out that a Desert 

Island Disc as not necessarily your 

favorite music, they are just records 

you, for sentimental or random reasons, 

can’t live without. As editor Phil 

Freeman notes in the forward, more 

important to this text than the definition 

is whether or not you care to read 21 

intentionally pedantic contributors 

carry on about music, only a portion of 

which you’ve actually heard (if you’re 

lucky); that kid who wore his Holy Diver 

shirt every Fall day in 8th grade failed 

to get you into Dio, so how can someone 

do so now? Surprisingly, all but a 

few of these eclectic journalists —from 

The Wire to Nerve.com to Ohio’s Other 

Paper—convince; they do a brilliant 

job loving on these aural security 

blankets, persuading you—yes, you 

with your 4000 CD collection — to 

check out this music. Okay! I’ll revisit 

Dio! – Dave Madden 

Meta/Data 

Mark Amerika 

MIT Press [Street: 05.31] 

What a bummer this book is! Amerika 

is a digital pioneer not only in poetics, 

but is a VJ, artist, creative writer 

and teacher working and living out 

of Boulder, CO. Unfortunately, this 

book is a mish-mash of what seem 

like whiney blog posts, stream-ofconsciousness 

“creative” writing and a 

vague and wimpy attempt at defining 

digital poetics. What the reader will 

be surprised to find is a bunch of 

self-aggrandizement through his 

writings as a digital persona that read 

like a wannabe artist trying to impress 

other wannabe artists and/or hackers. 

Amerika takes us through a trite journey 

of the early wiles of the Internet 

and its many masks; he spends endless 

pages musing and reflecting on 

what it means to be VJ, to be a digital 

artist, to go to Australia and to write it 

all down all while name-dropping Rimbaud, 

Derrida and Lautremont. Just 

like the real America, Mark Amerika 

and his book are going down the 

tubes. I was super excited to read this 

only to find out it’s one big pat on the 

back for Amerika. Boo. –Erik Lopez 

Interventions 

Noam Chomsky 

City Light Books [Street: 07.15] 

Chomsky’s “radical” views on the 

United States, its foreign policy, the 

mass media and such have been 

hammered home time and time again 

in vast volumes and quantities of his 

books. Anyone who fashions themselves 

“in the know” politically will at 

some time or another point to or quote 

Chomsky. It is refreshing, however, 

to have a book that speaks more to 

current political affairs AND that traces 

the trajectory of Chomsky’s political 

thinking over a specific span of time 

concerning any number of international 

and domestic issues. Interventions 

reprints all of Chomsky’s op-ed 

columns for the New York Times syndicate 

from the years 2002-2007. The 

snapshot that one gets is of a grumpy 

old man calling out the United States 

on every perceived impropriety while 

not offering any other solution or idea 

into the vast debate of global politics. 

Do we really need another pundit? An 

interesting read if you want to fill in the 

gaps of your Chomsky knowledge, but 

otherwise, an old hat. –Erik Lopez 

Rated F 

Todd C. Noker 

iUniverse [Street: 05.08.06] 

When an entrepreneur of a Provo 

video store has the brilliant epiphany 

to start editing movies to make them 

“family safe,” he thought he would 

just be bringing in a little extra dough. 

What he wasn’t counting on was 

suspicion from his distribution rep, 

a murderous husband who wants 

his wife edited out of home videos 

before permanently “editing” her, and 

competition consisting of an uberconservative 

family of blonde alien 

cloned children bent on destroying his 

business at whatever cost. Written by 

that Todd C. Noker of X96, the fictional 

plot is funny, fast-moving and actionpacked––complete 

with Molotov 

cocktails, tire-slashing and stripping 

at gunpoint. But the real power of the 

story lies in its ability to deliver a fable 

that hits oh-so-close to home, of the 

ironic lengths people will go to in order 

to adhere to plastic standards, of the 

questionable practice of burying your 

head in the sand in order to preserve a 

dubious innocence. The owner of the 

video store questions, why are Kate 

Winslet’s breasts in Titanic so offensive, 

but hundreds of people drowning 

on a ship is A-OK? Should we edit war 

movies like Private Ryan and pretend 

the violence of history doesn’t exist? 

Artistic censorship is also covered, 

and ironically, Rated F was banned 

from West High School because the 

original had a 9mm gun on the cover 

and upset a teacher who saw a student 

reading it. –Rebecca Vernon 

SABER – Mad Society 

Roger Gastman 

Gingko Press [Street: 07.07] 

Roger Gastman’s latest book is an 

intimate portrait of the world-famous 

LA graffiti artist SABER. SABER attained 

worldwide fame and recognition 

in 1997 when his LA River painting 

took the graffiti world by storm. The 

original roller-piece, which is visible in 

satellite pictures, measured about 55 

feet in height, stretched 250 in length 

and took 35 nights and 97 gallons 

of paint to complete. In this book, 

Gastman paints a picture of a man just 

as monumental, detailed and intense 

as the piece most people associate 

with him. Photos spanning SABER’s 

entire career, both street and studio, 

will offer something new to long-time 

followers of this legend as well as 

those discovering him for the first time. 

Stories from the man himself and his 

parents and his peers compliement 

the images while giving readers insight 

into the wild world of counter-culture 

graffiti in Los Angeles and abroad. 

–Brian Van Steenkiste 

Third Coast 

Roni Sarig 

Da Capo Press [Street: 05.07] 

My issue with Third Coast is simple: 

too much information. The book 

contains enough anecdotes, quotes, 

opinions, interviews and vague inside 

information to fill several tomes, not 

a mere 336 pages. Due to his flingout-as-many-ideas-as-possible 

style, 

interrupting himself with “oh this is 

important too,” Sarig leaves gaping 

holes in the story. For example, he 

omits Geto Boys’ greatest achievement, 

their contribution to the Office 

Space soundtrack; in a single page, 

Sarig skips from Pharrell’s high 

school days to “Rumpshaker” to 

producing Justified—that’s over a 

freaking decade right there! While 

the book does contain interesting 

and informative passages such as an 

entire chapter devoted to Houston’s 

DJ Screw, the author would be wise 

to revisit this work with a competent 

editor, lop off 3/4ths of the detours 

and develop a few themes (e.g. spend 

more than 10 pages covering the history 

of West African cultural practices 

and the Blues and Reggae). 

–Dave Madden



The Briefs: The Greatest 

Story Ever Told 

BYO Records 

Street: 10.23 

It’s been two years since The Briefs 

released their last full-length album, 

Steal Yer Heart, and I know I’ve been 

getting anxious for a new release to 

be announced. While this CD/DVD 

combo isn’t a new record, it will 

still hold fans over. The 90-minute 

documentary takes an in-depth 

look at the band’s history. There is 

extensive tour footage and quirky 

interviews from band members. 

The band’s story probably won’t 

appeal to people unfamiliar with 

them, but longtime fans will love it. It 

clearly wasn’t created to recruit new 

friends, but rather to give existing 

fans something new. The CD section 

features live recordings of many 

of the songs highlighted on the 

documentary. “Gary Glitter’s Eyes” 

was my favorite. I can’t wait till the 

next full-length album is released. 

–Jeanette Moses 

The Case of Howard 

Phillips Lovecraft 

Arte Video 

Street: 10.23 

This 45-minute documentary covers 

the life of the popular horror writer H.P. 

Lovecraft. The film is an assortment 

of old film footage and arts and crafts 

wherein a narrator talks throughout 

about H.P.’s life from birth to death. 

The strange thing is that the narrator 

addresses Lovecraft as “you.” He 

says, “You are a man that despises 

the real world and only deals in the 

imaginative. You are a racist and a 

conservative…” I’m sure this little twist 

was some artsy slip to induce fear, but 

neither this nor the cardboard cutout 

of H.P. that wanders throughout the 

film is horrifying or provocative. The 

only thing I learned of Lovecraft is that 

he hated immigrants and didn’t care 

much for life; I was more interested in 

reading his work prior to watching this 

movie. Oh, and the clip of the breast 

being cut open was really annoying. 

–Spanther 

Experiments in Terror 

Two 

Other Cinema 

Street: 09.25 

A proposition: narrative filmmaking 

is not the best medium for horror. 

There’s something about a narrative, 

especially an instantly recognizable 

one (as is the case with most genre 

horror) that tends to take the edge off 

of the fear factor, relaxes you a bit and 

lets you know that not everything is 

spiraling out of control. Take away the 

structure and you have groundless, 

random phenomena that you don’t 

understand, some confusing, some 

threatening, producing a feeling of 

genuine dread and unease. This collection 

of short experimental features 

doesn’t fully realize my premise, but 

it does take several steps in the right 

direction, presenting images ranging 

from ghostly to graphic, horrible to 

humorous. While not completely 

mind-blowing or essential, it’s interesting 

viewing for bored horror fans or 

blooming auteurs looking to take a 

stagnating genre into new directions. 

–Jona Gerlach 

Fantastic Planet (La 

Planete Sauvage) 

Rene Laloux 

Accent Cinema 

Street: 10.23 

This animated movie is based on a 

novel by Stefan Wul about the “Oms” 

and the “Draags” on a planet far from 

here, but yet somewhere still in the 

galaxy. The Oms are a human-like 

species that live among the Draags, 

as pets for the amusement and enjoyment 

of their blue alien species. It’s a 

pretty fuckin’ rad show, with a totally 

psychedelic undertone throughout the 

movie. The landscapes on this imagined 

planet are so visually vivid and 

beautiful, it makes you wonder if there 

really are planets that look like this in 

space. I don’t want to give the whole 

story away but, a young Draag stumbles 

upon an orphaned Om, whom 

she takes as her own and names him 

Terr. Terr actually narrates the story as 

he grows up in the Draag society and 

then eventually escapes to lead the 

Oms in a revolution for equal rights. 

This, of course, is a revised summary 

of what the movie entails and there 

are plenty more twists and turns and 

other happenings that I don’t want to 

disclose so as to not ruin the movie for 

you. I highly recommend watching this 

movie, and I wouldn’t doubt that you 

could find it at the library. 

—Adam Dorobiala 

The Film Crew: The Giant 

of Marathon 

Shout! Factory 

Street: 10.09 

With The Film Crew, Mike Nelson’s 

Rifftrax, and Joel Hodgson’s upcoming 

Cinematic Titanic, it’s a very good 

time to be an old Mystery Science 

Theater 3000 fan. Are your hard traded 

bootleg tapes worn out like mine? Are 

you unable to track down divx copies 

of your favorite MST3k episodes? Well, 

The Film Crew is an excellent alternative, 

casting Mike Nelson, Kevin 

Murphy, and Bill Corbett to thrash 

awful movies. The Giant of Marathon 

sees no mercy as Steve “greased 

pig” Reeves does his do-gooder 

duty of rasslin’ the bad guys into 

submission! The 90 minute viewing 

even has a short skit in the middle, to 

add a little panache from the old days, 

and to give your mind a break from 

the deep hurting. Speaking as a long 

time MST3k fan, these releases are 

by no means disappointing, and I will 

gleefully add them to my already vast 

collection. –Conor Dow 

DVD 

The Man Who Souled 

The World 

Whyte House 

Street: 11.01 

This is a deep look into the life of 

Steve Rocco and his marketing 

of World Industries that changed 

the business side of skateboarding 

forever. It was really interesting to hear 

all that happened from day 1, from 

money problems to the media war he 

started, up until now. Filled with loads 

of historical events in the skateboard 

world and even more commentary 

from the people who were there, there 

is no way that you won’t learn at least 

one thing from this DVD. Although I 

am not usually a fan of documentaries, 

this one didn’t seem to bother 

me as much as others have. Each 

interview was highly edited which 

made me wonder how credible the 

story was, because it seemed like they 

spliced the footage up so much that 

they could have changed the words 

drastically, which was quite odd for 

such a subject. Check it out if you 

want to see what the skateboarding 

industry was like before there was one. 

—Adam Dorobiala 

Plagues & Pleasures on 

the Salton Sea 

A Metzler/Springer Film 

Docurama Films 

Street: 09.25 

The Salton Sea: A man made 40-mile 

wide cesspool of a sea, located 

smack in the middle of the deserts 

of Southern California. Right next 

to the water sits Salton City, an area 

with some of the lowest valued and 

least desirable property in the entire 

state. This documentary delves into 

the history behind how the water got 

there (it wasn’t entirely intentional), 

and supplements the well-presented 

information with interviews from 

some of the nuttiest characters in 

this country. The entire documentary 

eminates of strange humor and creepy 

folks, making for a very worthy and 

informative look at such an interesting 

and unknown festering ass-lake, surrounded 

only by the looniest people 

in California. Most certainly, this is a 

worthy watch for the curious. 

—Ross Solomon 

Schmelvis: Searching 

for the King’s Jewish 

Roots 

Jewish Flicks 

Street: 10.09 

Schmelvis is a film about a group 

of Jews from Montreal who travel 

to Memphis and Israel to try to provoke 

and put truth to the rumor of 

Elvis being Jewish. Apparently Elvis’ 

great-grandmother was Jewish, 

which somehow makes Elvis Jewish 

because of Judaism’s rules following 

matrilineal lineage. The impetus of 

the film is pretty stupid—intentionally 

so—hence, the filmmakers argue 

amongst themselves throughout in 

a Seinfeld kind of way with all the 

self-referencing, but sans the craft and 

humor. In the end, the directors fail to 

provoke and put truth, though when all 

is said and done they don’t seem to 

mind. —Spanther 

The Treasures of Long 

Gone John 

Get With It Productions 

Street: 10.01 

This is the long-awaited documentary 

film that follows Sympathy for the 

Record Industry founder Long Gone 

John through his obsession with collecting. 

By focusing on both John’s 

fascination with music, and on his love 

for art, the film treats the viewer to history 

lessons on 70s punk rock, current 

low-brow art trends and the personal 

history of the anti-mogul himself—his 

troubled childhood, his history of 

bootlegging live shows and his all out 

assault on underground music that 

started in the late 80s. We are led 

through LGJ’s collections of records, 

trinkets and fine art, all the while getting 

to know the man and the artistic 

scenes that he frequents. Some 

collection highlights include an original 

Charles Manson family vest, Debbie 

Harry’s prozac bottle, and the jacket 

Iggy Pop wore on the back cover of 

Raw Power. A rare glimpse into the life 

of the industry’s strangest record label 

guru. —James Bennett 

Twenty To Life: The 

Life and Times of John 

Sinclair 

MVD Visual 

Street: 10.30 

John Sinclair is an American institution. 

From his early work with the 

White Panther Party, to his years of 

organizing artists, poets and other leftleaning 

revolutionaries, Sinclair has 

always been a cornerstone of activist 

leadership. He of course went on to 

mange the Detroit powerhouse, The 

MC5, and became an early victim in 

the government’s crackdown on drug 

use—being sentenced to 20 years in 

prison for giving two joints to an undercover 

cop. That itself would make 

an awesome documentary. Sadly, the 

second half of Sinclair’s life is riddled 

with lame radio call-in shows and an 

unhealthy obsession with beat poetry. 

The film focuses a bit too much on the 

“bad poetry performed with a second 

rate jazz band” side of Sinclair’s life, 

and not enough on his early days with 

the Detroit Artists Workshop. It’s 

like the older he gets, the more he 

turns into William Shatner. 

Goddamnit! —James Bennett 



BioShock 

2k Games 

Xbox360 

08-21-07 

Shooter 

BioShock takes everything that makes FPS 

games fun and refines the genre with perfect 

execution and some amazing visuals 

to boot. Gone are the tacked-on missions 

where you have to fly a plane or drive a 

boat (whatever else some developers will 

have you doing) to break up their boring 

games and make you feel like you got an 

extra bonus for giving them your money. 

BioShock is as pure a shooter as I’ve 

seen; no boring cut scenes or out-of-place 

super babe characters or second grade 

scripts here, everything has been written 

for a discerning, adult audience to enjoy; 

BioShock is a modern masterpiece of 

gaming technology.One thing that bothers 

me about many shooters is their efforts 

to make sequences super-realistic, to the 

point of decrementing the fun factor, like 

limiting what you can carry. It’s a game, 

let’s have some fun and carry an arsenal 

that would make Ted Nugent proud! 

On top of the numerous little things that 

BioShock nails, they really shine in the big 

category; controls. Movement and aiming 

is silky smooth and actually a genuine 

pleasure to experience. Also, the design 

level here is amazing and the amount 

of hidden treasures scattered around 

the map make exploring the world of 

BioShock as much fun as conquering it.If 

I have any complaint about this game is 

that it may be a bit too easy as the game’s 

Game Reviews 

By Jesse Kennedy 

developers have worked to eliminate 

frustration from being lost or from being 

unable to conquer any level. This is a minor 

complaint, there are many challenges 

in the game and finishing still provides a 

nice, feeling of accomplishment. 5 out of 

5 plasmids 

Halo 3 

Bungie Software 

Xbox360 

09-25-07 

Shooter 

Halo 3 has been one of the most anticipated 

video games of all time. With all of 

the rumors, hype and advertising I was 

very curious to find out if the game was 

worth all of the anticipation. The first thing 

I noticed about Halo 3 was the graphics. 

The outdoor environments have especially 

come a long way and do a great job of 

making the settings more individual and 

memorable. New enemies and weapons 

matched with some familiar sights and 

sounds keep Halo 3 feeling both new 

and familiar–a nice balance.Bungie 

probably knew better than to tamper with 

Halo’s fantastic gameplay so little has 

changed here. A few buttons have been 

remapped but overall the feel of navigating 

the Master Chief is nearly the same 

as it has been. One new and particularly 

useless feature is the ability to carry an 

extra accessory on your person which 

can be anything from a bubble shield to 

an unfolding automated gun turret. Since 

only one can be carried at a time, the 

impact on the game is negligible which 

makes me wonder why Bungie bothered 

with so many strange options here when 

clearly they should have spent some extra 

time working on the sound in the game. 

Although the voice acting is onpar with the 

previous games, the weapons sound very 

weak, which in a shooting game, is a huge 

disappointment. Now these small flaws 

are only that, small problems in a game 

that otherwise is another thrilling chapter 

in one of the greatest video game sagas 

of alltime. The single player campaign is 

fantastic with a wide variety of challenges, 

opponents, vehicles and settings to test 

the Master Chief to his fullest. Of course, 

Halo wouldn’t be Halo, without the online 

element and Halo shines here as well with 

the ability to design your own levels and 

(rumor has it) you’ll be able to complete 

the campaigns via 4 players online very 

soon. If you enjoyed the last two, consider 

this a must-buy title for the fall!5 out of 5 

geeks think Cortana is hot! 

Psychonauts 

Double Fine Productions 

PS2 

06-21-05 

Adventure 

As part of my quest to dig up gaming 

treasures from the past I am proud 

to present to my loyal SLUG readers 

Psychonauts, one of the most enjoyable 

titles I’ve played on the PS2. At first 

glance this appears to be a children’s 

game but once I spent a few hours with 

Psychonauts I realized that the writing and 

game play here is some of the best I’ve 

seen in a video game to date. Not only are 

the interactions between the characters 

hilarious but the jokes about adolescence 

are classic. Psychonauts may not be the 

most hyped game you play this fall but if 

you spend some time with it you’ll find a 

game with both depth and a great sense 

of humor. Psychonauts is split between 

two worlds, the real world and the world 

within the minds of the characters. As 

you explore each mind you add to your 

repertoire an array of new weapons and 

tools to help you through your terrifying 

quest; to get through summer camp and 

save the world! From the city of Lungfish 

where you are a building crushing giant 

to the sad mind of a dance queen, each 

is a unique and memorable gaming 

experience. Psychonauts is fun to play. For 

starters, once you gain the levitation ability 

you can have fun just bouncing around 

to all of the places you were not able to 

reach the first time through the levels. The 

controls themselves, without being overly 

automatic, allow independent character 

movement and camera control. To make 

things a little more challenging, several 

of the special powers require button 

combinations which require some genuine 

skills with the controller. Boss battles can 

be challenging but this game never really 

crosses the line into frustrating, which in 

my opinion, a plus. Sometimes I want to 

be challenged but still enjoy a game for an 

hour at a time and not have to replay the 

same part 10 times in a row to get though 

it. 4.5 out of 5 first kisses

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Dec. 8th Kris Zeman (folk) 

Dec. 14th Eric Bell 

Dec. 15th Mary Tebbs 

Dec. 20th John Louviere 

Dec. 21st Kettle Black 

Dec. 27th Julian Moon (folk) 

Dec. 28th Eric Bell 

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Friday, December 7 

DJ Curtis Strange – Jackalope 

As Blood Runs Black, Walls of 

Jericho, The Warriors, Born of 

Osiris, Belay my Last, Myrzah – 

NVO 

The Wolfs – Broken Record 

Copperhead – Alchemy 

Dane & the Death Machine – The 

Woodshed 

The Legendary Porch Pounders 

– Pat’s 

I Have Eyes Set to Kill, Blinded 

Black, Olympia – Addicted 

Hermione, Burning Ann Hewitt, 

Knights of the Apocalypse, I’ll 

be Your Eyes, The Carriage The 

Manor, Verses – Avalon 

Captain Captain Studios Opening – 

825 S 500 W 

Vampire Weekend, Grand Ole 

Party – Kilby 

Gentry Densley & Sri Whipple: 

Guitar Art Installation – Red Light 

25 Ta Life, 1000 Mournings, 

Beyond this Flesh – Bar Deluxe 

The Blakes, The Come Down, The 

Cobras – Burt’s 

IAMA Benefit Show: The Precinct, 

Two Dollar Bill – South Valley 

Unitarian Universalist Society 

One Punch!, Dub Life Sound 

System – Monk’s 

SLC Holiday Fashion Stroll 

– Broadway 

Flogging Molly, Murder by Death, 

Dusty Rhodes and the River Band 

– In the Venue 

Iron and Wine – Saltair 

Erin Barra, Swan Juice, Shades of 

Gray, Synthesis – Urban 

Diecast, Mower, Ekotren, 

Hellstrum, NYC, Guttshot – Vegas 

DJ Matrix – Tony’s 

Black Chandelier Fashion Show – 

Union Pacific Grand Hall 

Saturday, December 8 

Community for a Cause: Vile 

Blue Shades, Accidente, Eagle 

Twin, Azon – In the Venue 

Atherton, Paul Jacobsen, Trevor & 

Eileen – Solid Ground 

Devil Doll – Bar Deluxe 

Andrew Rice Art Show – Lucky 

Pirate Denim Bar 

Kris Leman – Alchemy 

Mark Wursten – Addicted 

Better Life – Johnny’s 

Digna Y Rebelde – Red Light 

Books 

Revideolized CD Release – Area 51 

Renegade Krew, Project Infinity- 

Artopia 

A Willhelm Scream, The 13 th Victim, 

Negative Charge, Repeat Offender, 

Charlie Don’t Surf – Burt’s 

Motion City Soundtrack – Sound 

Band of Annuals, Calico, Lets 

Become Actors – Urban 

Dimebag Darrell Memorial Show: 

Separation of Self, Insanity Plea, 

Vinia, This Failure, Cave of Roses 

– Vegas 

Demo Day – The Canyons 

Rome’s Premature Jibulation– 

Brighton Resort 

Sunday, December 9 

Update your myspage page – 

School’s computer lab 

Monday, December 10 

Red, Hed PE, Killing Carolyn, NICE 

– Avalon 

Forth Yeer Freshman, L.H.A.W. – 

Burt’s 

Tuesday, December 11 

Spork – Monk’s 

Cavalier, Don’t Tell Sophie, Bank 

Xaalis – Solid Ground 

Evil Beaver, Dacho, Spork – Burt’s 

ether orchestra, Coyote Hoods, 

Calico – Urban 

Wednesday, December 12 

Jesse Dayton – Bar Deluxe 

Colour Revolt – Kilby 

Alchemy – Rose Wagner 

Amon Amarth, Himsa, Sonic 

Syndicate – Avalon 

Will Hoge, Chris Merritt, Mesa 

Drive – Burt’s 

SLAJO – Urban 

Thursday, December 13 


Moses and Carl, Them Changes 

– Burt’s 

Acoustic Open Mic Night – Pat’s 

Killswitch Engage – Saltair 

Swagger – Piper Down 

The Nobody – Urban 

18 Wheels of Justice – Bar Deluxe 

Nobody, a collection of poetry, art, 

music and magic – Urban 


The Wolfs – Monk’s 

Eric Bell – Alchemy 


Starmy, Glinting Gems – Broken 

Record 

Agent Orange, Swamp Donkeys, 

The Willkills, Numbskull – Burt’s 

Movie Night – Red Light Books 

Seve vs. Evan, Ivy League, Dead 

Lip, Paxtin, The Amorous Conttact, 

Calibra, By Tonight – Avalon 

SLUG Localized: Her Candane, 

I am the Ocean, The Schwas – 

Urban 

Eyedea & Abilities – In the Venue 

Tough Tittie, Life Has a Way, 

Anything that Moves – Bar Deluxe 

Supersuckers, Utah County 

Swillers, Spork – Vegas 


National Product, Kenotia, Bedlight 

for Blue Eyes, Allred, Our System 

in Symphony, A City of Refuge 

– NVO 

Dirty Vespuccis, Negative Charge, 

The Love in and Red Caps- Artopia 

Flash Cabbage – Pat’s 

Go Figure – Johnny’s 

The Electric Pubes, VCR Quintet, 

I Hate Girls with Bruises, Ghastly 

Hatchling – Red Light 

Suburban Hostage, Operation 

Wrong – Burt’s 

Mary Tebbs – Alchemy 

Murt, Broke City, The Lives of 

Famous Men, Larusso – Avalon 


Terence Hanson – Urban 

Sarge, It Never Ends, Dennis, 

Disdain – Vegas 

Charlie on the Move, Soggy Bone 

– Tony’s 

Santa Skis Free – The Canyons 


Cavedoll – Monk’s 

Otep, Drown Out the Stars, 

Massacre at the Wake – Avalon 

The Faceless, 12 Ton Jezus, They 

Came in Swarms, Audrey Rose, 

Under the Rising Tide – NVO 

ether orchestra, time to talk tween 

tunes starring Dave Payne – Urban 


Hillbilly G Had – The Woodshed 

Peter Harvey – Burt’s 

Head 12/16 On Collision, Joshua Insanity Joyes’s Plea, 

tba B-Day – Vegas6p.m.– 

Piper Down 


Pawbox – Monk’s 

Until Further Notice, To the Death 

– Burt’s 

Joshua Joyes’s B-Day– Piper 

Down 

Self Conclusion, Tate Law, John 

Allred, Chris Alder – Kilby 

The Come Down – Urban 

Rockstar Karaoke Kickoff w/ Big 

Sexy – Vegas 


Colbe Caillat – In the Venue 

Black Cobra – Burt’s 

Salt Lake Poker Tour – The 

Woodshed 

Oh Wild Birds!, Venus Artemisia 

– Urban 


Acoustic Open Mic Night – Pat’s 

John Lowiere – Alchemy 

Toys for Tot’s Benefit – Piper Down 

Muses of Bedlam (reunion show), 

Kid Medusa – Urban 

Blonde Assassin, tba – Vegas 


Oni Tattoo Customer Appreciation 

Party: I am the Ocean, Nine 

Worlds, Making Fuck – Broken 

Record 

Gallery Stroll – Downtown SLC 

The Dead Baby Show – Red Light 

Books 

The Night of 1000 Santas: Voodoo 

Dolls Burlesque Show – The 

Woodshed 

Eric Ethan and Joey Taylor – 

Addicted 

Julian Moon – Alchemy 

Finn Riggins, Mathematics Et 

Cetera, Badgrass – Burt’s 

The Ruckus, Calico – Orange 

DBS III Release Party: Terrance 

DH, The Furs, Subrosa, Eagle 

Twin – Kilby 

Hillbilly Swill – Pat’s 

Jerry Joseph and the Jack 

Mormons – Bar Deluxe 

The Future of the Ghost, Ted 

Dancin (christmas sweater party) 

– Urban 

White Party X-Mas Ball w. DJ 

Jeremiah – Area 51 

Tba – Vegas 

Maddog’s Winter Solstice Pray for 

Snow Party w/ Free Swag – Tony’s 


The Nobody Solstice – One Mind 

Studio 

The Lauderdale – Kilby 

DBS III Release Party: Kick the 

Dog, White Hot Ferrari, Ether, 

Sleeping Bag – Urban 

Jeremiah Maxey – Pat’s 

Bad Apples, Darin Caine – The 

Woodshed 

Naked and the Shameless, Tough 

Tittie, Heathen Ass Worship – 

Burt’s 

The Brobecks, Last Serenade, 

For: Fairwether, A Casandra 

Uttrance, Signora, Fourteen Days 

from Forever, The Skaficionados 

– Avalon 

Vinia, Xur, Diggers & Whackers, 

Prosthetic Heads, Varona – Vegas 

X-mas Party w/ DJ Matrix – Tony’s 

Sunday, December 23

Bronco & the Come Down – 

Monk’s 

Owen Hart, Rail Spike – Red Light 

Books 

ttttt (time to talk tween tunes) feat. 

ether orchestra – Urban 

Santa Shreds – The Canyons 


X-mas Eve – Jesus’ Cradle 

Hillbilly G. Had- The Woodshed 


Sni-Fi and the Monster Pod – 

Monk’s 

Christmas Party with Royce – The 

Woodshed 

Santa Shreds – The Canyons 


The Subtle Way – NVO 

Cave of Roses, This Failure – 

Burt’s 

Heathen Ass Worship – Urban 


Zig’s Big Electric Blues Jam – Pat’s 

Pink Traktor – Burt’s 

Salty Rootz – Piper Down 

18 Wheels of Justice – Bar Deluxe 

deadbeats, the Tremula – Urban 


Stacey Board – Pat’s 

Eric Bell – Alchemy 

Circle of Hearts Benefit Show: 

Still Born, Meat, Blessed of Sin – 

Broken Record 

Xaalis, I Hear Sirens, Quasi Stellar 

Radio, By Tonight, Julian Moon 

– Kilby 

I am the – Bar Deluxe 

Red Bennies, Starmy, Le Force – 

Urban 

Three Reasons, Monarch, Super 

So Far, Funk and Gonzo – Vegas 


Pagan Love Gods – Bar Deluxe 

Thornley and the Berges 

– Johnny’s 

Lion Dub, Expulsion, Dublife, 

Soundsystem, Rico Black – Red 

Light 

Spleen, The Shens – Burt’s 

Super Diamond – Depot 

Pink Lightin’ – Urban 

Scripted Apology, Balance of 

Power, Redneck Mafia, Krystal 

Noxx – Vegas 

Jeff Phillips Band, Last Response 

– Tony’s 


Buckeye, Vanzetti Crime – Red 

Light Books 


Vanna, Knives Exchanging Hands, 

My Hero is Me – NVO 

DK Rebel & Tallman – Monk’s 

Thunderfist, Blackhole, Skullfuzz 

– Burt’s 

Patter Starts, Tolchock Trio, The 

Future of the Ghost, Kid Theodore 

– Kilby 

Die Monster Die – Bar Deluxe 

Wolfs, Ted Dancin’ HOLY SHIT 

2008 Ball – Urban 

New Year’s Eve Party w/ DJ 

Radar, DJ Jeremiah, DJ Dance 

Commander – Area 51 

New Years Eve Bash: Massacre 

at the Wake, What Dwells Within, 

Beyond This Flesh, Still-Born, 

Cave of Roses – Vegas 

Happy New Year’s with DJ Matrix 

– Tony’s 

Tuesday, January 1 

Hangover – My Bed 

Wednesday, January 2 

Cuba Gooding Jr. Birthday Bash – 

Bucket’s Place 

Thursday, January 3 

Agents of Change, Funk and 

Gonzo – Burt’s 

Friday, January 4 

Opening Reception for Midnight 

Records – 127 S Main St. 

The Sound and the Fury – Utah 

Arts Alliance 

Last Day of the Sun, Abysmal 

Abbitoir – Broken Record 

Streetlight Manifesto, Grand Buffet, 

The Stitch Up – Avalon 

Pick up the new SLUG – 

Anyplace Cool! 

Sat., JAN. 12th 

Brighton Resort 

thesluggames.com 





a private club for members 

NEW YEAR¹S EVE 

Monday Dec, 31st 

2008 new years bash 

With live broadcasts on X96! 

DJ RADAR, DJ JEREMIAH, and 

DJ DANCE COMMANDER Spinning all your 

requests and favorites From- from- Dance to 80's 80s 

and alternative! 

Champagne by the bottle or the glass! 

Midnight balloon drop! and of course, 

our famous CASH CANNON shooting 

hundreds of dollars on to the crowd! 

$10 cover. Advance tickets available; 

available, 

THIS WILL SELL OUT! 

WHITE PARTY 

X-MAS BALL! 

Friday Dec. 21st! 

With DJ Jeremiah Spinning- pop, top 40 and 

dance favorites and requests! 

Dress in in ALL white for FREE free cover. 

Tons of prizes and free gifts all night long 

as well as holiday drink specials! 

Tuesday 

Upstairs:. "80s Time Tunnel" 80s Flashback 

with DJ Radar 

Downstairs:. Old-school industrial and 

Gothic with DJ B-Module 

$3 dollars before 10pm, $5 after. Ladies Free 

untill 11:00pm $2 pints, $6 dollar pitchers, 

$3 sex on the beach 

Wednesday 

Upstairs:. Transmission with DJ Radar and 

DJ D/C. All request Indie, elctroclash, 

danceparty. 

Downstairs:. "Klub Karaoke" provided by 

Spotlight Entertainment $3 dollars before 

10pm, $5 after. Ladies Free untill 11:00pm 

$2 pints, $6 dollar pitchers $4.50, 

Jager bombs 

Thursday 

This is the biggest 80s night in the U.S.A.! 

Upstairs:. 80s New Wave Flashback 

with DJ Radar 

Downstairs:. “Sanctuary” Gothic and 

Darkwave with DJ Evil K 

$3 before 10pm, $5 after 10pm, ladies free 

until 11pm, $4 Rockstar vodka 

Friday 

Upstairs:. “Klub Kulture” Alternative and 

Techno with DJ Jeremiah 

Downstairs:. “Das Maschine” Industrial and 

EBM with DJ Viking 

3 before 10pm, $5 after 10pm, 

$3 Kamikazes, $2 Coronas 

Saturday 

Upstairs:. “In the Mix” Alternative, Techno 

and Dance with DJ Jeremiah 

Downstairs:. “Subculture” Industrial, Gothic 

and 80’s with DJ Evil K and DJ Viking 

$3 before 10pm, $5 after 10pm 

$3 Sex on the Beach 

A REA 51 • 451 S 400 W • SLC • 534-0819 • www.area51slc.com

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