VOLUMEN: SET TO POP AT BIRTHDAY BASH! (and) PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE PANTS.
Lots of reportage here in KBGA Country, friends: first things, first: KBGA is now streaming over the web! link up and listen from anywhere with a decent connection! http://kbga.org/ is the site! Next up: KBGA's big- summer co-sponsored to-do, Total Fest VIII was a smashing success, and in particular, the station's contribution of Oakland boogie-rockers Drunk Horse helped make this August event one of the most memorable yet! The Horse rumbled, rocked and ultimately slayed a packed Badlander house on August 22nd. This Holly Huthman photo attests to the wildness. Other highlights: Japanther (juicers gone wild), Wildildlife (psych psounds!), Electric Dandelion (dandelonious!), Helms Alee (!!!!holeeee SHEIZ!!!!), Filth Mattress (wahooooo!) Etc. etc. etc. It was an epic year, and KBGA was a proud part of the festivities.

NEXT UP: KBGA's 13th annual Birthday Bash is nearly upon us! The Bash happens Friday, Sept. 25th at the Badlander and Palace Lounge, downtown Missoula. Click here to avail yourself of all the Birthday Bash festivities. Heavy Missoula new wavers Volumen (who've been a band for just longer than the station, but who've been one of the local bands the station's always had a soft spot for) are using the occasion of the Birthday Bash to push out a BRAND NEW ALBUM! The record, entitled "Skipper of Reverses," is a heavy-hitting collection of this great band's last few year's worth of material. It's music that's largely based around single riff, or a at max a couple riffs per song, when in the past the bands ability to multi-song on single songs was a big part of their stock in trade. I've always liked comparing to Volumen to (good) XTC, with its heaviness, great melody, wild hooks and a serious grounding in pop. The record was enginered my Shmedley "Shmed" Maynes at his Club Shmed studio.

Other star power at the birthday bash comes in the form of Spokanite and sound-mixer extraordinaire, James Pants. Pants has been putting his hometown on the map for a bunch of years as a guy you'd be much more likely find in downtown Philly, or the Bronx, rather than the self-proclaimed capitol of Washington state's (rural) "Inland Empire." He's got over 8000 myspace friends and is buds with Peanut Butter Wolf. What more do you jive turkeys need?

KBGA IS BRINGING DRUNK HORSE TO TOTAL FEST VIII!
Oakland, California's a town with a musical pedigree. From Tower of Power to the Coup, and back over to High on Fire, Brainoil and the Fleshies Oaktown's a powerhouse. Sitting well atop the pile of talent that decides to call the East Bay home is Drunk Horse. Drunk Horse's dynamic, loud rock and roll is the kind of music that you don't hear in crappy punk clubs, unless ... it's Drunk Horse playing. Lyrically, Eli Eckert's words deal with a wide range of themes, ranging from the biblical to Bach, and man's fallibility.

They started their career on Frank Kozik's upstart imprint, Man's Ruin, and released an epic couple of records, Drunk Horse and Tanning Salon/Biblical Proportions, and then moved along to Tee Pee.

Somewhere along the line, they hooked up with the Fucking Champs, Cherry Valence and Federation X, played Total Fest I (in 2002) and toured like men posessed. They went to Slovenia. They came home. They put out the Prince covers 7"s on Wantage. Their most recent, 2005's In Tongues, upped the ante for the Drunk Horse deal. It brought their straightforward hard-boogie sound to new levels, and left fans with the record left on perma-repeat for months. Songs like Reformed Asshole and Vatican Shuffle showed that they were erudite dudes who could fucking rock. And then, right around the 10th anniversary of the 'Horse's founding, they began to play a lot less. Cyrus upped his commitment to equally shredding Saviours, Eli stepped up his fathering duties, and the Horse came through much less frequently.

Well, that all had to change, and the forces that be at KBGA decided that to commemorate year 8 of Total Fest, we'd invest in bringing this crew back up to the Treasure State. Total Fest happens August 20-22 in Missoula, Montana at the Badlander/Palace. Enjoy.

FINNS ON PLAYLIST PATROLS: AAVIKKO
Leave it to the land of the midnight sun to produce a band whose aesthetic is a hybrid of ultra-kraut and Soviet disco (especially Latvia's Zodiaks). Aavikko, which is Finnish for Desert, are a three piece group with two keyboardists and a drummer. Their new record Novo Atlantis has landed itself squarely onto KBGA's playlist, and we're excited to have it there. You are invited, listener, to familiarize with Aavikko.

DEATH: 1975 DETROIT BROTHERS OUT PUNK MOST PUNKS.

Who would've guessed that in 1974, in Detroit Michigan a band of three brothers would be writing some of the world's earliest punk rock? I guess weirder things have happened, but this is a pretty special deal that Drag City's unearthed on the For The Whole World To See, an excellent 7-song ep. The story is a wild one, with the label holding the release of these songs against the band, untill the they picked a more market-friendly handle. Like the punks they were, Death refused and the album was buried, with just one single (Politicians In My Eyes) ever released. Until NOW!

Death (not to be confused with the dullish, contemporary Florida metal group) formed in 1974 when the Hackney brothers started writing music. Death's sound definitely has more of a proto punk vibe ala DMZ and MC5 (ca. Back in the USA) but with a keener ear for dynamics, stops, tougher lyrics, more angst and hell, it was '74 when this happened.

Detroit was always a gritty place, and in lots of ways, musically ahead of the curve for aggressive, angry music, even though it wasn't coastal. Next time some Lydon/Jones etc. ex-Brit punk gets up on his tea box to tell the world that he started everything, the only answer necessary is "Death."

Stay Tuned for Montana's early hardcore contribution with Deranged Diction!

GET SAUCED!
Rooster Sauce have finally released their brand new Zombies of the Ultra League long-player into the wild. The thing clocks in at well over 30 minutes, features most of their best material, and is a loud, clear, excellent representation of what this outfit does on stage. It's pretty exciting for us at KBGA because this group features bass-thumping by long-time KBGA 9AM-12:00 PM Fridays DJ Adelaide Mermaid, also counts Chris "Count" Knudsen, Dave Jones (ex-Herman) and Havre Dave (most recently from Streetlight People, who also just self-released a real stellar piece of work).

Lyrically, the music seems to center around front-dude Knudsen's fascination with Italian Horror films, John Carpenter films, and little else. It's the work of a fan who's made a film-obsession interesting to others, and that's a somewhat rare feat. Who would've figured that a band from Missoula, Montana in 2009 would be channelling Kurt Russell's Jack Burton character from Carpenter's Big Trouble In Little China released in 1986? Not me. Though, I guess if you told me this was a Chris Knudsen project, I might have guessed true on a T/F test.

The LPs are beautifully hand-silk screened, stamped and numbered and the first run was limited. Request it on KBGA and look for copies when the band plays live (often) and at Ear Candy Music.

Doc at the Proverbial Radar Station, Dude. I.E. Come Rock with KBGA!
Joe Kingdom and his mighty manatees of metal, Kingdom of Magic make a one-night only "domer/stoom" stop in the Garden City, May 7th at the Palace. The terms "stoner" and "doom" are totally overused, but may be some of the best easy descriptors of the epic sheets of sound the Kingdom are responsible for. KOM has been a band for scaring the heck out of 4 year, are vets of a couple Total Fests and have been on the road promoting their newest, and first vinyl release. We're looking forward to partying with the lads.

In other, much more immediate news, the wild-Japanese of Ghost steer their star-ship into the welcoming arms of Missoula this Saturday night! This group is nuts and this is as epic a show as you're likely to see all year. Opening up is (former Missoulian) Jamie Henkensiefken's new group H Is for Hellgate and our very own Rooster Sauce. Last but hardly least, the Sauce are dropping a beautiful BRAND FREAKING NEW 12" record! It's called Zombies of the Ultra League, features a spot-on loud and raucous Club Shmed recording, and Aaron Farseth screen-printed cover. Dagg is right. The KBGA connections run deep in Rooster Sauce, as you should know. Both members of the rythym section are DJs and long-time station supporters. Come out and hear their first rate tunes first hand, and buy a record~ That's this Saturday, May 2nd at the Badlander.

THUS SPAKE ZOROASTER: DOOM-STONE BLAST FROM DEEP SOUTH or Part of the cosmic struggle between truth and lie?
Zoroaster's label, Terminal Doom, just got KBGA a copy of this hefty new gem: Voice of Saturn. We promptly playlisted it. Why? Well, for starters it's got some great pieces of plutonium-heavy rock and roll on it, and when the band gets up a head of steam, things get interesting. There are a couple of delay/echoplex/etc. extra jams pumped in mid-record that add some space and depth. At roughly minute five of the album's first track, a hammered-on piano comes into the mix, adding an entirely pop element to what otherwise might have been just a bludgeoner of a song. I like a doom band with a sense of adventure and enough confidence to know when melody is just another tool in writing music.

Zoroaster (pronounced "zoro-aster") is the latinized version of Zarathushtra, the Persian prophet who kicked it in what is today Iran a couple dozen centuries back. Wikipedia reports that Zoroastrianism's philosophy is based on the "cosmic struggle between asa (truth) and druj (lie)." That's pretty heavy stuff, and sounds like a good philosophy for a heavy duty pot-rock outfit too.

The recording is a good one and it captures what's generally most difficult to capture for a deafeningly loud band, sheer weight and power. Like most music, this record sounds best loud, so tune in, turn up, and proceed the proverbial weedian. There's plenty to dig about this for the non-stoner rock enthusiast too, don't get us wrong. Voice of Saturn just offers plenty to fans of Sleep, High On Fire, Kingdom of Magic and the more epic, sludgy, riffing metal. Only available (on the airwaves) of KBGA 89.9 FM