A box of tapes showed up this week from our pals J/Q, aka Johnny Northrup (Clouds, Pet Genius) and Q (Clouds), with cute little notes for everybody at the office. Check out their new jammers at www.jslashq.com and snag one of the J/Q cassingles (limited to 100!) before they're gone. 

Steve Brodsky's, of Cave In, Pet Genius, Stove Bredsky & The Octave Museum, Top Ten Of 2009

1) Cooking skills elevated beyond bachelor-pad level from working at restaurant.

2) Minuteman and Cape Cod Rail Trail bike rides; no wipe-out's.

3) Live excursions with Cave In for the first time in nearly four years.

4) Camping trip + dance party-jam with New Generation of Cave In Children at Warner NH compound.

5) Trips to Funspot in New Hampshire for lengthy old-school video-gaming sessions.

6) Getting to play on a Converge album for the first time in over ten years.

7) Doomriders "Darkness Comes Alive" sounding fantastic dubbed onto cassette for car-listening.

8) Getaway's to Maine for complete silence & starviews uncluttered by city lights.

9) Jesus Lizard, live @ The Paradise, wiping the floor with my face.

10) Stop-motion movies starring my little sister created w/the family over the Christmas holiday.

Also, Hydra Head would like you remain aware of the fact that Steve completed a phenomenal solo album recently titled, "Heres To the Future." Hydra Head will be releasing this as a limited cassette (including an awesomely illustrated novel of a booklet) and digitally late February/early March... (the sketch above is one of the many images that are being incorporated into the layout of the booklet...)

Purchase Steve Brodsky Merch Here!

Happened upon some pretty killer Brodsky clips.. if you have the time (if your reading this its safe to assume you do) check them out!

Its nice when we come across a blog that actually ASKS for permission to post tracks online...Behind The Redwood Curtain recently posted two live tracks from both Pet Genius and Isis. The Pet Genius tunes are from their record release show from the Middle East in Cambridge, MA last October. "Man of the Mountain" is from their self titled debut and "Howdy Hi Hey Hello" is a non album track which can be found on the limited CDEP, "Elvis Unreleased", available through the band at shows or through the Hydra Head Shop. The Isis stuff,"Celestial (The Tower)" and "Divine Mother (The Tower Crumbles)", is from a Groningen, Netherlands performance from 2004 or 2005, we can't remember exactly...afterall it WAS Amsterdam we were in...enjoy!

Pet Genius are featured today as Spin's Artist of the Day. Since the day is over and we're just getting this post up now we sent you to the page itself, but we do feel it is important to note that Spin did choose to put a nice pic of the band on their front page...see they DO have taste after all! And, honestly, the brief synopsis of the band sorta nailed it...maybe we need to start flipping through Spin again while mom is doing the grocery shopping. Nice!

CLICK HERE to preorder

Pre-order time again, Pet Genius' new record comes out October 23rd and we've crapped out some amazing new shirts and stuff for this one. Per the sacred code, these items are one-time-only thingies and once the pre-order is over the art will be thrown into a volcano on Mars, never to be printed again. See above for some pics, Garments are available for order until October 11th.

Track Listing:

1. Doomsday [3:28]
2. The Visiting Dynamiter [2.20]
3. Walls of Etiquette [2.12]
4. Man of the Mountain [3.46]
5. Float My Boat [2.14]
6. Emit Fo Deeps Eht Esare [1.13]
7. Erase the Speed of Time [3.20]
8. Cosmic Erosion [3.24]
9. Trash Heap Swing [1.25]
10. Chromatic Blues [2.20]
11. Scrapyard King [4.08]

CLICK HERE to order.

As far as the title: as everybody knows, the KING Elvis Aaron Presley died on the porcelain throne. As everybody also knows from watching CSI or L & O SVU etc, the human body evacuates its waste receptacles upon passing i.e. when you die you piss and shit yourself. (Hence, when something dies, organic or inorganic, the colloaquial expression, "The thing totally shit the bed.," may be employed.) This worked out for THE KING as he was already on the bowl. However, he did not get a chance to beat it before he died--check the autopsy--so he actually died without release. That final unexpelled load was then extracted from the kings scrotal sack and cryogenically frozen. On the 20th anniversary of his death--August 16th, 2007--that final dose of hate paste was unfrozen and heated to 270 kelvins where it was baked on to 1/4" magnetic tape. The Genius acquired this tape through a series of shady backroom deals, and the ep was recorded directly on to the baby gravy coated tape--a sort of sonic ejaculation, if you will. Finally THE KING had his final release via the hands and mouths of Pet Genius--via guitars and microphones, of course. In final tribute to Elvis' frozen load, we decided to call the ep "Elvis Unreleased."

www.myspace.com/petgenius