Rob Nabbe interview - HSML - S/T (2004)

This one has been sat on my shelf for ages. Just waiting for the right time to be posted. feeling like shit and hungover, this morning seems to be the right time.
I first met Nabbe when my then band played Trashfest in Holland many many years ago, having previously toured with his old band Insult. Spent all weekend hanging out with people, drinking and playing noisy fast music.Nabbe has been responsible for being involved in some pretty sweet bands. Insult, Jason obsessed gore metal with Bile and today's offering.
HSML where a band he followed Insult up with. The album never really got distributed that well, which is a shame because its certainly better than most stuff mining a similar vein in sludgy hardcore.
But who better to explain it all to you than the man himself.......Rob Nabbe, and his thoughts on a few things.....

HSML........

HSML stands for Hot 'n Steamy Monkeylove and started out in the early '00s after the demise of Fastcore pimps Insult. The idea was to create Sludge/Punkmetal influenced by the likes of Iron monkey, Buzzov*en and Entombed amongst others. As a band we never really got picked up since our style wasn't hip or happening at the time. We didn't have the right tattoos, shitty facial piercings, haircuts, dance moves or social skills to fit in with the herd. The fact that our debut LP/CD was poorly distributed and promoted didn't really help either. HSML was heading for the shallow mass grave of obscure and forgotten bands. Sure we played shows with a bunch of well known bands such as Tragedy, Gadget and Cursed amongst others, but whatever. It was painfully obvious the scene wasn't ready for sexy riffs and sexy beasts. To this day I stand behind our record 100% and now that you've uploaded the thing here, all the nerds, wimps and posers can pretend they like us.

Current trends and the lack of any sort of backbone to modern music............

The backbone of modern music is snapped like a twig.
Or was it a spineless worm to begin with? It seems pretty trendy to play weak and lame music that is easy accessible and your girlfriend can mosh to while you hold her purse, Lucy.
There is no substance, no power, no violence. There is nothing good about modern music.

The point of creating/being involved in music.............

The only reason you need to be involved in creating music should be the fact that it's interesting and exciting to yourself and your bandmates. Music aside, it's the drinks, the laughs and the bullshit that makes it worthwhile. As long as you enjoy the music you create, that's all that counts. Who the fuck care's about the internet rumour mill, flavour of the week or how many idiots "like" you on facebook? If I can sit in my car, crank up one of my own records and feel like driving off a fucking cliff out of sheer adrenalin or aggression, that's all that matters.

Current musical highlights..........

My personal musical highlights at the moment involve this project/band I'm doing with a couple of dudes from Ghent, Belgium. The band is called Blind to Faith and is all about malice, violence and distortion. Dwid Hellion (Integrity) picked us up and released our debut LP through his Holy terror records. Recently we've released a split 7" with Gehenna through A389 records and we've only played a few shows so far. We don't wanna play every shithole and will do everything on our own terms for a change. We play whenever we want and that's that. If this means 5, 50 or 500 shows? Time will tell. So far, we've shared the stage with Eyehategod, Voorhees, Geriatric unit and a few others and will be playing with Buzzov*en in April. We're currently in the process of writing a new album and fans of heavy, raw and violent tunes should keep an eye out. Since nerds are to lame to pick up an album or visit a show they can download our debut LP through the Holy terror records website. Google "lazy" or "easy" you cunt.

Friday 13th...........

Daryl Kahan from Citizens arrest played a little part in one of the Friday the 13th movies. I will not spill the beans on which movie it is or if he's getting killed, maimed or mutilated or not.
Bring out the pizza's and beers and good luck.

What stuff you doing musically these days..........

Besides Blind to Faith I'm currently active in Skullhog and Mutank. Skullhog is working on new material that is basically filthy, moronic and utterly barbaric. Like Autopsy and Hellhammer's retard offspring. Mutank is a new Sludge band that focuses on crushing skulls and crumbling buildings and cities through low frequency obliteration. 

Straight from the mouth of the jacket destroying madman himself. This is HSML.............

HSML - S/T

AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO

AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO AGGRO

Sho'nuff

Tonight we spin tunes while trying to soundtrack films being projected onto a wall.It has huge disaster written all over it. Anyone that lives in my shitty neck of the woods come down. Which is no one.

Coalesce - Last Call For The Living 10" (2000)

As I have said before, there are certain bands and albums, that if someone doesn't like, then I don't trust them. Anyone that reads this blog will know which I mean. Well Coalesce are on there as well. A prime influence on me musically and also one of the best bands ever. Fact.
So as a treat for a cold, dark Sunday night, here is the "final" release they put out just before they split up in 2000. It was made available at the "final" show. Of course, it being Coalesce, they reformed inside of 6 months and stopped selling this making it a pretty rare item.
"Last Call For The Living" is made up of very early demo recordings, when the band was still finding its sound. The recording quality differs quite a bit to anything else, but they are demos. Sean Ingram had not yet discovered "that voice" and his vocals on here owe more to the 90's hardcore scene they played for. The first 3 tracks are said demos and are followed by early versions of SXE baiting classic Harvest of Maturity and On Their Behalf as well as a early version of Simulcast. Bitchin' stuff.

Coalesce - Last Call For The Living

Certainly a completely different listen compared to any other Coalesce album and only real Coalesce geeks will get anything out of this. But then if your reading this, your a Coalesce geek like the rest of us losers.

Sorrows - Lethe (2010)

Far too good to let pass by. It was courtesy of the awesome Cosmic Hearse blog that I came into contact with Sorrows depressive and atmospheric take on black metal. Internet presence is kept to a bare minimum in Sorrows world. A single blog keeps it ticking over. Something which I really think has perked my interest in them. 
Of course, this might be a result of Sorrows being immensely boring individuals and having nothing to add about they're music. Who knows? One thing I do know is Lethe is well worth investigating. Showing a wide ranging appreciation of black metal past and present and managing to shape those influences into something greater than the parts. Keyboards, harsh noise, frost bitten blasting, spoken word, indulgent arrangements, its all here and all done with a genuine honesty that is pretty refreshing to hear in the black metal world.

Sorrows - Lethe

GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM, GRIM,

Altered Beast - Toshio Kai - OST (1988)

How many of us got this free with the original UK Megadrive bundle? Yep, and how many actually completed this? Thought as much. You took the easier option of Sonic or Golden Axe didn't you? Well, I really don't blame you. Altered Beast was one of those games that people do remember. But its usually for everything other than the game play. It was a combination of the frustrating lack of extra credits, the wacky attack patterns, the assumption that you must be able to mind read the enemies movements and the fact if you missed all 3 blue power up balls you where fucked when it came to the boss. Think about it!

Despite all those bad points, Altered Beast was still pretty bitchin'. Come on, you could change into a beast that flew around the screen and fired lightning! That was pretty sweet. Plus you can't ignore the intended-ominous-but-shitty-soundboard-issues-caused-it-to-be-distorted legend "Wise fwom youw gwave".
I always remember the soundtrack. Toshio Kai, the man responsible for the Pac-Man theme, managed to compose a pretty memorable score, in fact its my most solid memory of this classic. So here we go, Toshio Kai's soundtrack to Sega's gateway classic Altered Beast.............

 

Toshio Kai - Altered Beast OST

Soundgarden - Live at Brixton Academy (1997)

You shouldn't need much of an introduction to Soundgarden. 90's rock legends. If you do then your not welcome. Superunknown is on the stereo on a regular basis at Pony Trot Towers. Amongst the slew of live sets knocking around online, I have realised that Cornell seems to be lacking the ability to hit those high notes these days. While musically spot on his voice seems to have taken a beating doing James Bond themes and rapping some one else's songs. This is a sound desk recording from the last documented UK show before they disbanded in 1997. It was the Brixton Academy and the setlist is pretty solid ( despite omitting "The Day I Tried To live"). The crowd seem pretty into it and do in fact sing along louder than Cornell at points which does disguise his sometimes off key warbling. But hey, its Soundgarden. You can't and won't complain.

Soundgarden - Live Brixton Academy 97

Only thing its missing is this masterpiece....................

Face lift - New year same old shit

There has been a little redesign. Gonna Make The Pony Trot has had a little face lift. No real reason other than the old one was bugging me. I tend to get bored with stuff after a while and usually change it on a whim. This is one of those whims. Got some good stuff lined up for the very few folk who actually read this. As I have found since stepping into the world of blogs, there are always people who have done it better before you. I am not trying to put up the latest or most underground stuff I can find. Plenty of other blogs do that. I just post stuff I like, that I actually listen to in the real world, that I would hope people with the same tastes as me would dig. Hopefully someone will find something to like about it all. Hopefully someone will leave some more comments as well to let me know what they think of it.

So there

Oliver

James Horner - Commando OST (1985)

Saturday special, the soundtrack to an 80's classic. James Horner's, steel drum loving, stirring score, one of Arnie's best films, Commando. Arnie has to rescue one of those lasses from Charmed from nasty Dan Hedaya and defeat ex-comrade and now rival Bennet ( Vernon Wells, under used guy). I really shouldn't have to explain anything about this film to you. Its almost an unwritten rule for anyone that grew up in the 80's.

 The score itself wasn't released until 2003 if I remember correctly. It was part of some film club series and ended up being a pretty limited release. James Horner, for those that didn't know, loves steel drums. He used them quite a bit on the score for Walter Hill's 48 Hours back in 1982. 

As a special bonus as well I have included the Power Station track "We Fight For Love". This plays over the end credits and was never included on the original release due to licensing but I have included it within the download link along with the album artwork. That's it for now, listen to this when you are cruising around town in the early hours, waiting for a date or just to inject some drama into your routine. My drummer even had me remove this from our van playlist due to it making him feel like something was going to happen at any moment. So here you go..........

 James Horner - Commando OST

Unsane - The Peel Sessions (1994)

The awesome, pummeling sound of Unsane is one that has been much copied but never bettered. If you don't know who Unsane are then you really should not be reading this blog. Along with The Kittens album I posted a while back, I don't trust anyone who doesn't like either. I remember there being a point when I was a kid, my friend had a compilation he got from somewhere. On it where a selection of bands that would dictate our musical paths. My three friends followed the mundane sounds of The Wildhearts and Honeycrack while I was introduced to Unsane with the the song Scrape. Never looked back since.
This is a compilation of two separate sessions they recorded for John Peel ( a total of three where recorded over the years but the third has never been made available) back in May and November 1991. The live medley and "Bath" feature original drummer Charlie Ondras as well. Download this and bathe yourself in that crushing tone.

Unsane - Peel Sessions

* Listen out for the string drop as Chris Spencer tunes down for Exterminator on the live medley.

Pete Postlethwaite 1946 – 2011 RIP

 

Learned this morning of Pete Postlethwaite's death after a long battle with cancer. Despite making a few solid gold turkeys in his time he had the same thing Morgan Freeman had in that he brought a level of class and professionalism to everything he did. RIP.