#Label Sampler

[burlveneer-music]

VA - Q4 Statement, 2023 - a name-your-price sampler from Woodford Halse & related labels

Free/pay what you feel digital promotional sampler featuring physical and digital releases across Woodford Halse, Preston Capes and Fenny Compton. The purpose of this collection is to encourage our followers to investigate further the full WH/PC/FC catalogue by having tasty morsels from each release available in your collection without having to open your wallet. (Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app). Click on the links below to buy the full albums in digital or physical form (where still available). Includes excerpts from: October: The Xenakis Station by Audio Obscura audioobscura.bandcamp.com/album/wf-76-the-xenakis-station Changeable Depths by Greenshank woodfordhalse.bandcamp.com/album/wf-88-changeable-depths-2 It's Not Fine by Angeline Morrison fennycompton.bandcamp.com/album/fc3-its-not-fine November Above Inlets by Duolant duolant.bandcamp.com/album/wf-77-above-inlets Between Shadows And Lore by Pennycross Coven townandcounty-woodfordhalse.bandcamp.com/album/wf-75-between-shadows-and-lore I Don't Want To Worry You Unnecessarily by TVO and The Incidental Crack prestoncapes1.bandcamp.com/album/pct-15-i-dont-want-to-worry-you-unnecessarily December Penny - Original Soundtrack by Maya Hardinge & David Louis Zuckerman maya-woodfordhalse.bandcamp.com/album/wf-87-penny-original-soundtrack

[horrorpatch]

Noble Demon Releases Label Sampler!

Noble Demon Releases Label Sampler!

German metal label Noble Demon has issued its yearly label sampler and announced three new signees to the label! Take a look at some of the heaviest metal Europe has to offer with the sampler and get more info on the new signees down below. From The Press Release Like the approaching holiday season, the release of the annual Noble Demon label compilation has turned into a festive tradition…

[elizabethplaid]

morning note - aug 21, 2024

Placed my order for phone-friend's birthday gift (a book) this morning. When looking at my own wishlist, I felt that recurring paralysis of "Well, I don't need these things," being unable to treat myself or prioritize what would be best to buy first. (I did buy myself something, as well.)

I went through the same struggle back in May, as I have done many times over the years. It's easier to be patient with myself in recent years, thankfully. The best non-committal items on the list are mp3s, though there are some books on there, too.

Many years ago (2010?), @beegoould and @shaebay bought me mp3s for my birthday. I played the albums while I slept, during the years of bad nightmares and rough sleep habits. The music still holds an important place in my heart, reminding me of my friends each time I revisit it.

Hammock - "Chasing After Shadows... Living With Ghosts" (deluxe)

Jacaszek - "Treny"

Bonus shout-out to @ghoulnextdoor, as she recommended the albums, along with lots of other wonderful music.

[mariocki]

Peter Wyngarde guest stars as Dr. John Hallam, eminent physician - but also criminal mastermind - in The Champions: The Invisible Man (1.2, ITC, 1968)

[thoroughlycollected]

there are strange strange songs in here, also there are some bangers. i’ve never heard of any of these artists before. some of them are on spotify rn. many of them cannot be found in a quick, cursory internet search. i’ll have to try later to see what a deeper research dive unearths. i am going to make Tear House by M- 1 Alternative from their album Aviary (a song i cannot find online anywhere) my personality for the next week.

the week after that it’ll be Feurio! by Einstürzende Neubauten from the Rough Trade GMBH EP (which is on spotify).

[transxfiles]

picked up some weird little indie cds from the secondhand bookstore :] listening to some funky tunes

[sibelin]

How to find new goth music that you'll love : a silly tutorial for people wanting to find new dark songs to obsess about.

Okay so following my last post, I'm going to do a tiny tutorial on how I find new goth/post-punk/darkwave/etc music and bands with only two tools : Internet and a bit of free time. I can guarantee it's worth it, especially if you want to invest yourself more into the subculture. Supporting new and active bands is a must if you want to see the goth genre flourish.

(Sorry in advance, most the screenshots will be in french. And if there's typos, my bad. I did my best but english is not my native language!)

the "Similar Artists" feature.

Probably one of the easiest way to find bands similar to the one you already like is using a website that will give you similar artists. This feature is a common one on listening plateforms like Spotify (left) or Last.fm (right). I tend to prefer the Last.fm one because you can see what genres the artists are tagged with. This gives you way more informations about the band, its influences and why it's in the similar artist section in the first place. You can also click on these tags to find other bands or, even better, repeat the process with the newer bands you find to delve deeper down the rabbit hole!

Both these exemples are "similar bands" found on the Boy Harsher page.

2. Playlists and sets

This one sounds obvious but it's one of the most efficient method to find new music without putting too much work into it. The only thing you have to keep in mind is to be precise with your keywords. For exemple, if you want to find new goth music but don't like EBM, you'll have to type your research with keywords like "gothrock", "deathrock" or "synthpop" "darkwave", etc....

Personally, there is two plateforms that I use fairly often for this purpose but I'm pretty sure it exists on every listening plateforms, so feel free to use the one you prefer. For me, it's Youtube and Spotify. I tend to prefer Youtube because it's more like a DJ set, with someone picking a limited amount of songs and new releases and sharing them like every few months. There are several accounts that do this, you just have to keep an eye out for them.

The images featured are the first playlists that pop up when I type "goth 2024" and "post-punk 2024" in the mentionned plateforms.

Keep in mind that you won't like everything and that you can skip the songs until you find one that makes you bop your head dracula style.

3. Music labels and samplers

We're entering a more niche category with this one. So, you really like a band and want to find something similar or, at least, something with the same qualities (be it the level of production, the subgenres explored, etc). Well, labels can help you! A music label is a production or publishing company that usually have several bands to manage. Some bands, of course, do everything by themselves but for the others, it's a GREAT way to find new similar music.

You can find the labels by looking at a band's website, social media or, even more efficiently, by looking at the records themselves. Usually, the label name/logo is somewhere on the cover. When you find it, you can simply type the name of the label and find the artists that are associated with it.

A lot of labels have a strong presence on Bandcamp and do "samplers". These are basically playlists featuring the artists they publish. If you don't want to click on every artists one at a time, you can simply listen to a sampler and see if anything is interesting you before going further.

The images I have used are both labels that are producing goth, darkwave and ebm music. The first one is Artoffact records (ACTORS, Cevin Key's solo work, etc...) and the second is AVANT! records (Buzz Kull, Blind Seagull, etc...)

4. Touring bands and opening acts

GREAT! One of your favourite band is touring. Maybe it's a big band, a classic goth staple, or maybe it's a tinier band you already enjoy. Either way, it will probably have an opening act, maybe several depending on the dates. When I see a band I like announcing gigs, I usually check the other bands that are following them in the tour. They can be less famous or they can even be local bands sometimes. No matter if you can attend the event or not, this is a good way to stay in touch with the scene and what's being played in venues. You can also just check the scheduled dates in goth or post-punk venues, nearby or far away.

The big plus of doing this is seeing the amazing art some tour posters feature (illustraded here by Buzzkull/Kontravoid and Rue Oberkampf). If you follow bands or venues on Instagram (and other social media where bands actually post), they are seen fairly often in tour and dates announcements. You can also check tour dates on several websites like Songkick, Bandsintown, etc.... I always prefer following the bands and venues themselves, though.

5. Webzines (and other internet tools) We're going even more niche with webzines, something that will probably disappear in a couple of years but that thankfully still exist nowadays. Basically, a webzine is just like a magazine/fanzine but online. By looking up the right keywords, or even looking at webzines focused on alternative music in your area, you might find a great ressource not only to find new music but also to find gigs and events related to the subculture. I'd advise everyone to broaden their horizons when looking for webzines : as an exemple, the one i use fairly often to find gigs in my area is not only goth related. it's more of an underground culture thing which leads me to find non-goth events that I could enjoy too!

Of course, Webzines are only a little part of the iceberg. I am sure there are plenty of facebook groups, blogs, forums and newsletter that basically lead you to find the same kind of informations. On this side, you have to be ressourceful depending on where you live, what is the culture around you and also how safe it is for you to navigate in these spaces.

6. Word-to-Mouth, mutuals, etc... At last, we are lucky enough to be on a website that allows everyone to share links like Spotify, Bandcamp and so on. There are several accounts dedicated to share goth music. For exemple, there is @nugothrhythms who share modern and newer goth sounds or the more recent @gothlisteningclub which is a great way to discover and listen to goth albums you've never heard of. I won't plug my own sideblog but you know, do your research, find mutuals that actually put a bit of work into sharing music! And, of course, feel free to do the same! I hope this little tutorial can help some people to find new music. The internet is a fabulous tool to keep subcultures alive. If you put a little work into it, you'll soon discover great bands and maybe even find a few gigs to attend. Remember, stay curious, don't limit yourself and always expend your horizons with art! Feel free to add anything that can help people finding new goth or post-punk music : blogs, playlists, etc!

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

Flake (from about 0:04) reading for Drecksack evening 2024-10-18

Topic "His better half" which Flake first mentions is his wife, who everyone who knows them will say is definitely his better half, but then moves on to the actual subject of the reading: his keyboard ❤️

While doing so, he mentions a couple of nice side-notes (like Flake always does) like the disadvantages of playing with Rammstein

like wanting a little painkiller at the dentist only to be laughed at '....but you play with *Rammstein*!"

or people charging him to pay double for stuff because Bild wrote how many millions Rammstein earn, without mentioning the costs they have

or his place getting burgled because the tourdates are published so everyone knows when he's away (but his place is a bit of a mess anyway so he still doesn't know if something went missing)

has a little dig at guitarists who give their guitars a women's name, Flake names his keyboard just what it says on the label. Keyboards and samplers all have nice long names like Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus, not like guitars which are just called 'Gibson' or something.

When Flake got a real keyboard that he could take along to concerts, his dad got him an old violincase, a straight box, which fitted the keyboard perfectly. For concerts further away it also had room for a toothbrush and some underpants. After Flake got a new keyboard that was a little bit bigger, it still fitted the case, but there wasn't room for underpants anymore.

(After 20 minutes and turning another page he says "such a long text...who writes something like that" 😄)

His band (and himself) got a bit tired of the keyboard and got the idea of getting a sampler, with which you can take random noises and play them with the keys, at 0:30 he mimickes how a sampler works 😊

Flake loves music because it just exists in a moment, then it's gone, there's nothing left. Just air being moved in specific waves (at abt 0h32 he mimickes this) which create sound, it's there when you play it, and then it's gone, and evrything is back to how it was, but different because the music changed things. Just like a concert, it's there in that moment, but after that it's over and that's it, everything back to normal. Just like life..

The Ensoniq sampler was very complicated and you had to think of a whole lot of things to use it, and even had to take care to remove the bits you didn't use, because storage space on the device was very limited, for storage you needed floppy-disks (Flake says he sounds like opa before the worldwar talking about it)

At one show (0h36) Flake wanted to play his solo with a broken down micstand, but then the sampler didn't play any samples anymore...when he tried the old trick of turning the sampler of and on, it didn't even do that. At Rammstein Flake's sampler starts the sequencss at which the whole band takes direction to start songs, so when the sampler broke down, the others just stood there and waited (Flake chuckles mischievously at the memory) 😊 after that he got an external harddrive, and a UPS (in case electricity failed) and had to schlepp more and more stuff to shows, but nobody really noticed because by that time the guitarists had started to a (gear) competiton (bringing ever more stuff)

As there came more songs and Flake wanted to have them all on one sampler to avoid having to changes storage in between, he ran out of keys to put the samples on and often shifted an octave to different keys, until no key actually matched the right note anymore... at this point the band 'with soft pressure' to move with the timds and made him start using a keyboard device linked to an Apple notebook, and Flake was amazed how much music he could now play with the one keyboard. He had to redo all his samples, get used to playing this all new, and what was worst...because all the others in the band used a similar system and actually did understand it, they all felt they could help invent new samples and keyboardmusic, some even better than his own.

With all these electronics, when a loud bang happened on stage or a huge pyro or light went on, sometimes the computer froze and had to be elaborately restarted which took it's time. Maybe that's the reason why you can see Flake dancing or walking around on stage so often.

In the end all the electronics failed too often, and the Ensoniq got too old (like Flake himself he says) so he bought a Nordstage organ, two of them, both having the same sounds on it so he can choose which to use. Problem with that one is that everyone has it, you see it everywhere, like a Volkswagen Passat car, everyone has it, it works, but you'd rather have something different.

(0:43) Imagine saying that about your better half, Flake realises he is a lot better off with his wife 🌺

(couldn't help doing a little 'take'...i miss his podcasts)

[helslastangel]

Speaking of Water Sign Junos...

We can come off as players (I'm a Scorpio Juno, see this label put on Cancer Junos a lot too. Pisces Junos get it often, maybe not on first sight but definitely over time). It's not always the case, but it often seems that way to those who have been left behind.

People with Juno in Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio want commitment, probably more than anyone, but our choosiness hurts more than it helps. It's not wrong to choose wisely, but water sign Junos tend to have the attitude of sampling the entire buffet just to decide they're not hungry anymore and go home.

Usually, their best-case scenario is to stay true to themselves and stay single until the right time comes for their person to show up. To run with the example, that could be like our picky buffet sampler going home and one of their friends showing up with a meal they'd like (someone the friend knows well and can introduce to them).

People with Juno in Water signs do well with being matched to compatible people through friends and family, or getting with people who had the chance to observe them and vice versa for some time (neighbors, childhood/high-school friends, roommates).

↤ go back to the masterlist

[covid-safer-hotties]

Reference archived on our website

Published in 2023. Proof positive that just breathing spreads covid over a large area. Mask up. Ventilate. Clean the air.

Summary Background Effectively implementing strategies to curb SARS-CoV-2 transmission requires understanding who is contagious and when. Although viral load on upper respiratory swabs has commonly been used to infer contagiousness, measuring viral emissions might be more accurate to indicate the chance of onward transmission and identify likely routes. We aimed to correlate viral emissions, viral load in the upper respiratory tract, and symptoms, longitudinally, in participants who were experimentally infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Methods In this phase 1, open label, first-in-human SARS-CoV-2 experimental infection study at quarantine unit at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, healthy adults aged 18–30 years who were unvaccinated for SARS-CoV-2, not previously known to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, and seronegative at screening were recruited. Participants were inoculated with 10 50% tissue culture infectious dose of pre-alpha wild-type SARS-CoV-2 (Asp614Gly) by intranasal drops and remained in individual negative pressure rooms for a minimum of 14 days. Nose and throat swabs were collected daily. Emissions were collected daily from the air (using a Coriolis μ air sampler and directly into facemasks) and the surrounding environment (via surface and hand swabs). All samples were collected by researchers, and tested by using PCR, plaque assay, or lateral flow antigen test. Symptom scores were collected using self-reported symptom diaries three times daily. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04865237.

Findings Between March 6 and July 8, 2021, 36 participants (ten female and 26 male) were recruited and 18 (53%) of 34 participants became infected, resulting in protracted high viral loads in the nose and throat following a short incubation period, with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Two participants were excluded from the per-protocol analysis owing to seroconversion between screening and inoculation, identified post hoc. Viral RNA was detected in 63 (25%) of 252 Coriolis air samples from 16 participants, 109 (43%) of 252 mask samples from 17 participants, 67 (27%) of 252 hand swabs from 16 participants, and 371 (29%) of 1260 surface swabs from 18 participants. Viable SARS-CoV-2 was collected from breath captured in 16 masks and from 13 surfaces, including four small frequently touched surfaces and nine larger surfaces where airborne virus could deposit. Viral emissions correlated more strongly with viral load in nasal swabs than throat swabs. Two individuals emitted 86% of airborne virus, and the majority of airborne virus collected was released on 3 days. Individuals who reported the highest total symptom scores were not those who emitted most virus. Very few emissions occurred before the first reported symptom (7%) and hardly any before the first positive lateral flow antigen test (2%).

Interpretation After controlled experimental inoculation, the timing, extent, and routes of viral emissions was heterogeneous. We observed that a minority of participants were high airborne virus emitters, giving support to the notion of superspreading individuals or events. Our data implicates the nose as the most important source of emissions. Frequent self-testing coupled with isolation upon awareness of first symptoms could reduce onward transmissions.

[creepyscritches]

My therapist gave me a great reframing of something I'd been thinking abt recently! I had a uh :) tumultuous childhood :)c and since like, god, idk 5 or so I'd always been kind of a loner either by choice or by circumstance. It's not really a unique situation for kids and I've always been a little off-put by the notion I was "more mature than kids my age". Especially since I knew a lot of kids through my childhood that were similar to me and none of us were really "mature" as adults defined it when it was just us kids (moved around a lot so I had a sampler platter of peers).

This all to say, I shared that I was still a child, I had a child's developing mind, and I still had a child's needs whether or not they were apparent. One of the biggest things is I never learned uh I guess "social play" because I never had social connections that were stable until I was like 16 or 17. My mother also agreed that I just never really "played" like other kids (instead I was reading 400 - 500 page books at 6 years old and preferring puzzles to the jungle gym). The answer that is always floated in general for kids like this is "you're somewhere on the spectrum, duh" which, even if true, is reductive to children's development AND dismissive of environmental factors that affect neurodivergent and neurotypical children without discrimination. I MIGHT be on a spectrum but I'm not really interested in finding a label - - just knowing myself! And I know! This was more linked to environmental factors than anything that can be tidily wrapped into "neurodivergent kid experiences". Other kids I knew like me were not always ND - - kids are sophisticated adapted learners, so they LEARN their environment as NT or ND either way.

Anyway, I have convoluted thoughts on it all and my therapist just like stabbed thru the ice and said:

"It sounds like as a kid your play was playing as an adult. Would you agree?"

And my mom and I just kinda leaned back and thought like jesus? Yeah I guess? At 5 I began to stifle emotions bc I was mimicking adults and was trying to not be another squeaky wheel during a really hellish time for us. It wasn't until I was 25 that I began to process emotions, even more recently did I begin to process non-judgementally. I didn't learn how kids play with each other bc I was mostly given opportunity to just play as an adult. :/

Idk it's part of a greater realization that I'm learning how to be a social animal and how to participate in social play in my late 20s. It's really nice to feel part of a pack for once, but kinda crazy that I missed these major interpersonal milestone experiences at critical ages. Thank God I took the college exams at 12 though, that sure made up for it huh. Idk maybe that's why it's been a learning curve as I play around w the kids in my life rn. "What do kids even do?" no wonder I ask that bc I am just now doing kid stuff too!! Turns out kids are great and just want to be genuinely engaged with when they share :) I'm an adult playing as a kid and it's nice!

[toskarin]

hi toskarin!

i am kind of new to noise/industrial acts like HEALTH and was wondering if you had any recommendations for adjacent artists or music styles. (i do like Slaves of Fear and Rat Wars a ton but do not want to make myself sick of them immediately lol) thank u!

here's some quick recommends along with what to expect of them! to make getting a handle on them easier, each name links to an album, and I'm not necessarily sticking hard to genre here

consider these a sampler to see which directions you wanna branch out in. some of these are admittedly kind of insane pulls that only make sense through the lens of "these are somehow adjacent in my head"

MIND | MATTER - french dark industrial

Years of Denial - goth industrial with some EBM mixed in, often vocal

downy - post-rock, but oftentimes noisy enough to bleed into being 'gaze adjacent and nearly noise rock. very chill

Merzbow (with caveat) - you probably know Merzbow if you've dipped even a little into harsh noise, but Merzbeat (the album I linked under the name) is honestly pretty accessible and not at all indicative of Masami Akita's broader body of work. if you enjoyed GET COLOR, you might like it

王子健 - psychedelic dark folk. only really has one album readily accessible afaik, but it's a good one

Maenad Veyl [WARNING: this album art is a photo of surgery] - industrial, but gets a little blendy. check out VEYL, the label he runs, for more like his stuff

Credit 00 - kind of a blend of everything as far as electro goes, but definitely industrial as well

の子 - although they're more lo-fi nowadays, their debut album (released under their own name) is extremely noise rocky

HOLY FAWN - post-rock with some blackgaze stirred in

[jbbartram-illu]

Hi! I love all of your work, but I am absolutely entranced by the glaze test bowls! Are you planning on adding those to your shop?

Oh! I didn't think people would want them (they're a bit rough & wobbly as I gave myself max 10mins to make each one), but I can definitely consider sticking some in my next update.

I am, however, going to keep some for reference for future projects, so I won't be able to sell all of them (at least not right away, as some of these glazes are brand new to me & it'll be good to have little samplers hanging around while I plan future rounds of glazing!).

Also, since you gave me an excuse, here are a few more shots of the test bowls, feat. one with an absolutely gorgeous finger-on-phone-screen-scrawled glaze/clay-type label from a batch of annotated photos I sent to a pottery pal :)

[randomvarious]

Today's mix:

99.2 by Timecode / Aquasky 1999 Drum n Bass

Man, I legitimately have no idea why some of these releases from UK dnb juggernaut label Moving Shadow's 'year-decimal' series are rated so poorly on Discogs. Usually when something has an average rating that's below 4 out of 5, it has noticeable flaws, but this sampler mix from MS head honcho Rob Playford—operating here under his DJ-mixing alias of Timecode—is an excellently steady clinic in fun, turn-of-the-millennium dnb bounciness. And the release that preceded this one, 99.1, which also has a sub-4 rating, is one of the greatest dnb mixes that I've ever heard in my life! So, like, what the hell is wrong with you people?!

And you couldn't beat this deal when this thing dropped, either. £1.99 for this disc, a bonus disc with an exclusive 20-plus minute mix of Omni Trio tunes done by the great trio of Aquasky, and CD-ROM freebies that included snippets of Aquasky remixes in WAV format, promotional videos for some Rockstar Games titles, and a playable demo of Grand Theft Auto 2 as well! They were practically giving this shit away for free!

So we've got a full, chugging, 65-minute workout here with a slate of bangers delivered by Moving Shadow's top talents: Dom & Roland, Calyx, E-Z Rollers, TeeBee, Aquasky, Omni Trio, Technical Itch, and more. But nothing here seems to hit as nicely as the moment when Playford transitions between E-Z Rollers' "RS2000" and 60 Minute Man's "Brand Nu Day." "Brand Nu Day" as a standalone track opens up with this terrific sax line, and to then hear it uniquely played alongside the fuzzy bass groove of "RS2000" just really unlocks something special 🥹.

So don't listen to all the haters and overlook this one. If you want a trip back to those lovely y2k days when music CDs also came with bonus CD-ROM content, this promo mix from Moving Shadow boss Rob Playford is terrific. And I dunno how long the GTA2 demo is on here, but I'm willing to bet that if you fired up the bonus CD in your PC, and then put the main one in your stereo, you were probably in for a good time, because the type of drum n bass that's on here really does feel like the perfect, adrenaline-fueled soundtrack for boosting some cars and wreaking havoc 😎.

Listen to CD1 here. Listen to CD2 here.

Highlights:

CD1:

Renegade - "Terrorist (Dom & Roland Remix)" Calyx - "Diablo" nCode - "Spasm" Kudos - "Boiling Point" E-Z Rollers - "Cops Don't Like Us" Tekniq - "Shark Food" Kudos - "In the Dark" E-Z Rollers - "RS 2000" 60 Minute Man - "Brand Nu Day" Calyx - "Fortune Cookie" Decoder & Substance - "Heat" TB & K - "Arctix" Aquasky - "Bodyshock (Aquasky Remix)" Omni Trio - "Byte Size Life (Shimon Remix)" Calyx - "Code Red" Dom & Roland - "Can't Punish Me" Technical Itch - "Generation" AK1200 & Danny Breaks - "Deep Porn (VIP Mix)"

CD2:

Aquasky - 25 Minute Exclusive Mix of Omni Trio Tracks

[angstics]

the foundations of decay (2022) x vampires will never hurt you (2002)

FIRST SINGLE

Gerard Way: ["Vampires Will Never Hurt You"] will always be my favorite recording of the band, because it was the first. Having little money, or for that matter the songs, to complete a full-length album, we hopped in a van and headed to Nada Studios.

(may death never stop you booklet, march 2014)

["Vampires Will Never Hurt You"]'s recording was so passionate that, despite being intended as a demo, My Chemical Romance decided that they should use it on the album. It would go on to become the central cog of the record they were about to make, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. It would be the album that launched their career.

(not the life it seems, sept 2014)

[Under the /audio tab on mychemicalromance.com, there is a table of titles and downloadablable mp3s. At this time, there is only one audio file listed for "Vampires Will Never Hurt You". Below the table, it reads: "From our forthcoming full length album on Eyeball Recordings, due out this summer. This is a rough mix of the song. The final mix will appear on a summer sampler and the full length. Recorded March 3rd, 2002 at Nada Studios in upstate NY."]

(mychemicalromance.com, arch. june 2002)

[Alex Saavedra] gives a lot of the credit to the influential local DJ and scene stalwart the late Mario Comesanas. He used his Under the Stars slot on the South Orange, New Jersey college-radio station WSOU to air "Vampires" for the first time. Comesanas, who was also first to play Thursday on the radio, remembered the response was overwhelming. ‘The reaction was ridiculous – I knew that there was something special here,’ he said. ‘When we counted the requests, there was so much more for them than there was for any other band at that time.’

(not the life it seems, sept 2014)

Frank Iero: I think the first time we really recognized the power of social media was right around the time Thursday was being signed, Midtown was signed. Basically, all our friends from Jersey and Long Island were getting record deals. And My Chem had really just started. We recorded one song because that’s all we had the money for at that point. And we put it up on Myspace immediately and were like, “Hey listen, we’re gonna do a record soon once we get the money. But this is like a sneak preview kind of thing,” and once we put that up, there were literally major label A&Rs calling the practice studio. How they got the number for the practice studio, I have no idea.

(stereogum.com, march 2020)

Frank Iero: This is just something we figured out like... last week when I was hanging out with everybody. The first song we ever wrote and put out on the internet, like, our first single was a song called "Vampires Will Never Hurt You" and it was a song we wrote at the practice studio and recorded and put it out. And we were like, "If people like it, then... they'll let us know through this song and we'll get enough money that we can record," right? So that's what we did. That song was six minutes long. And the last song we put out ["The Foundations of Decay"] is six minutes long. Kinda crazy.

(two minutes to late night, august 2022)

Frank Iero: No one has bigger balls than us right now… I pulled out songs that like… Can you rip a song like a song that we did in 2001 and never released? […] You feel like a badass when you can do that. You feel like a musician then. Like the musicianship and the artistry, that can’t be fucked with."

(one life, one chance, oct 2022)

"favorite" / "couldn't be happier"

(mikey way and frank iero on instagram, may 2022)

STORM

Gerard Way, about recording "Vampires": We started moving the drums out to the van and I was surprised to see what it looked like outside. The sky had become dark blue and jet black and the wind was so strong we thought Mikey was going to blow away. Trees were whipping around and a huge storm was rolling in, but it was strangely warm and felt very comforting. Then I knew my vocals were going to come out just the way I wanted, I could feel this weird excitement.

(mychemicalromance.com, arch. may 2002)

(foundations of decay, may 2022)

SWARM

What's all this nonsense about bats??? The band likes bats. Who doesn't? If you've seen the band live you might have heard Gerard mention something about turning into one or unleashing some sort of swarm of them. "Unleash the fucking bats" is something they say to each other seconds before starting the set to get themselves pumped up. This all started back in Jan '02 when the band finally came together and started playing together with an intensity none of them had ever known. That fateful night they rocked together so hard that a "rock portal" opened up and out flew a swarm of giant bats. No shit.

(mychemicalromance.com, arch. may 2002)

Some rumours I have heard is that you guys like Bats, what's the fascination with them, is it the Will Haven song BATS, or you just like the species? Gerard Way: Haha...the whole bat thing came about at an early practice when Mikey joined and we finally gelled. Our energy just came together and a giant heavy metal vortex opened up and out flew a swarm of bats. We all saw it. It was like an awakening. After that we accepted bats into our lives. It was also while we were playing "Vampires Will Never Hurt You" so it probably had alot to do with that.

(anemicmagazine.com, 2002)

So, the whole vampires, bats, bloody stuff. Where did that all come from? Gerard Way: I probably haven’t ever said this in an interview, but the whole “unleash the bats” thing came from a Birthday Party song called “Release The Bats.” [...] The whole vampire thing [came up when I thought], “Man, nobody writes songs about vampires. How cool would it be?” I thought it was kind of risky or ballsy to play a rock song or a hardcore song that was about vampires.

(starsandscars.com, april 2004)

(foundations of decay, may 2022)

[tweehearts]

when i was 14 years old, dont ask me how, but i happened to get obsessed with this specific indie label: TEEN-BEAT! maybe their well documented history on their website made it fascinating for my young autistic brain. i could deep dive into EVERYTHING, because my god they documented everything!

everything they've released has a number, including stuff from CDs to posters. kinda like factory records but run by the dude from unrest and his friends. for example, here's TEEN-BEAT 160: a christmas card featuring all the staff members in 1994. lovely right?

ok but what about the bands? THEY ARE AMAZING! the label released twee pop, indie rock and more experimental stuff. if you want a good introduction to the label then i totally recommend checking out their yearly samplers, ESPECIALLY their 1997 sampler. my favorite band on the label is TRUE LOVE ALWAYS! they only write love songs. its all so ridiculously sweet.

it has been a pleasure to infodump on y'all. tweehearts, OUT! here's a great true love always song