TOTAL FRIEND: THE PASS, THE SHIRT, THE KOOZIE, THE FEELING.

Do you know in the Commodores' song Easy, when he's all "I wanna be free, soooooo free.. free to know things I do are right...." and how it just kind of captures a lot of the uh, human experience. We know it, we sing it in the shower.

Well, we've been doing Total Fest for 10 freakin' years now, and we're proud of that. We know it's important to have good bands, and to work hard to make it an event that's ultimately about community rather than commerce, and I think that's kind of our secret.

Lots of platitudes here, but our point is that it happens because of people who love music and love seeing it live, and love sharing that feeling with others. It's pretty simple really. To honor that sentiment, and to say thanks to people who have given us ten great years, we've put together a package called the "Total Friend" this year. It offers something unique to the people who make total Fest happen by watching, listing, participating and patting backs and buying records and clearing out their spare room. You know who you are. For sixty bucks, a Total Friend package gets you a three-day all-show pass, a unique T-shirt (Wantage design), an ultralimited koozie and a thank you in our program. It's a 10-year anniversary only sort of deal, so don't expect next year. We'll have a preview of the special shirt design up here soon. the Total Friend is among the Purchase Passes and Tickets tab.

JAPANTHER RETURNS!

When it comes to late editions, one hardly seems more relevant than Japanther. Total Fest pioneers and perennial Wantage artists, Ian and Matt supply some of the best summer time beats that you desire ... and a ton more than you thought that you'd want. Let's be frank: Japanther kicks ass. If you don't dig on their sound, well go back and hate on your grandmother some more. Japanther asks us to take notice of the world we exist in but not to be cynical shits. You have to dwell in it, but you also need to create. There's enough to bitch about; what do you celebrate? And once you celebrate it, you need to move on and find something else. Their records do the same thing as they shift gears, tweak tempos, mix-in art house, noise, lo-fi and punk. It's a virtual stew of influences and impulses, and, well, like every other thing in this world, Japanther appropriates them and weaves them together into something that in theory seems overly complicated, but in practice seems simple and seamless. We're preaching to the choir here. You want Japanther. You have Japanther. This is happening! Come ride the train or get the hell out of the way. In the words of Flipper, "life is the only thing worth living for" ... and these cats give you the soundtrack.

THRONES!
Really, that's all that should need to be said.

Joe Preston possesses a teeth-kicking resume that puts Chuck Norris to shame (you know who he's played with). Thrones is one of those groups that helps you to organize your friends (if you're one of the chosen few riding the google + comet, the first thing you should do is create a Thrones circle and non-Thrones circle ... and then never speak to the non-Thrones circle again). A one-man orchestra, Thrones moves away from the "days-of-yore-two-degrees-of-separation" indy-metal and strips it down to its most primal parts.

Thrones has released a slew of albums in its close to two decades of existence, but for my money, 2000's Sperm Whale is like staring into the mirror at 4am -- hide the tweezers and razors because Joe composes layers of sound that are thicker than any Rothko painting. You want to lie belly down in it and dig in your fingers, but you soon begin to lose your limbs. It's hard to swim so it's better to just let go and hope that the teeth that are mashing you save your brain for last. You need to feel it. A friend recently told me about centipedes in Maui that still bite weeks after she cut off their heads. This seems like an apt metaphor for Thrones -- an unstoppable, nightmarish beast that keeps calling you back for more. You brave the bite because the experience is therapeutically surreal. Adjectives are pointless here. This is the stuff that crafts your dreams.

WHITE MYSTERY VS. BAD NAKED
You all know that among the bands playing the Total Fest start-up event, Thursday, August 18th at the are radical, free-rock and roll bro-sis, windy city, Bus Beaver Button Co. employees and ginger ambassadors (drum roll): White Mystery. They're a heap of fun rolled up into a single two-piece band, with some stuff that sounds like the Gories and Cramps, some stuff that sounds like yadda yadda, and an awesome, participatory live show and good vibes galore. It's killer, just g'head and find some and listen for yourselves.

So what's Bad Naked's deal? Well, you know, local misanthrope, music dork, radio guy, punk show promoter, weirdo about town, vegetarian, photographer... you know the type. In short, awesome dude all rolled up into a one-man, gluten free spazz fest. And, he does a radio show on KBGA called Naked Missoula.

Interested in hearing what happens when that selfsame KBGA DJ and local performance art wild man interviews Chicago rock and roll duo White Mystery? Wellsir, look no further than thisahere LINK to the interview. It was nicely engineered by Duane Raider!

DEAD: TOTAL AUZ.
Melbourne's (technically, Brunswick's) Dead, pronounced "did" (we believe) in their native tongue are coming to Total Fest. They've got Jem from We Empty Rooms, Fire Witch and Fangs Of, and Jace from Fangs Of. Here's a video of them ripping a bit more ponderously that usual. Wantage will debut their LP called Thundaaaah at this year's Total Fest, August 18th.

PRE-TOTAL FEST BLASTS.

For those of you in Missoula, the buildup and anticipation for Total Fest X must be utterly insane (I know it is for all of us behind the scenes, as we look forward to this year's shows and their insane line-ups). To tide you over, like last year, we're doing a batch of killer Total Fest lead-in shows and the first two are coming up soon -- one on July 3rd for Richmond, Virginia's noise rock mad men HEX MACHINE and another on July 6th for Minneapolis power trio THE BLIND SHAKE. Both play some top shelf, noisy and incredibly awesome rock/punk/whatever you wanna call it.

Sunday, July 3

Zootown Arts Community Center

8:00 PM

$5, all ages

Weirdos HEX MACHINE bring their mad scientist math-metal and noise rock to Missoula all the way from Richmond, Virginia. They'll be road-tripping their long way home from a brief US tour and a week layover in San Francisco recording a brand new album with TF veteran Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Nation of Ulysses). Do yourself a favor and check out some choice cuts from their last album Omen Mas (of which they just pressed up a super limited 12" version) and a couple older singles/EPs on their bandcamp site here. Featuring locals and heavy instrumental duo LB. and the debut of THE GUTS, a new Missoula group with some Deny The Dinosaur pedigree.

Wednesday, July 6

The Palace

9:00 pm

$5 in advance, $6 at door

Total Fest favorites THE BLIND SHAKE, from Minneapolis, return to Missoula on the last leg of a tour in support of their upcoming full length Seriousness and a insanely limited new single on Amphetamine Reptile. They're sure to bring down the house with their wildly energetic, dual-baritone-guitar garage rock/punk attack. You can check out a few new songs from their upcoming record on their site here. With support by locals, SHAHS and 10YOGF.

Come get your pre-Total Fest fix with these sweet upcoming shows. Tell all your friends and bring some extra dough for their cool new records and other junk. Oh and we're selling advanced tickets for these at Ear Candy. If you stop by the shop, be sure to grab the newly released Mordecai and Trashies LPs!

HAMMERHEAD, VAZ BRING PLAINS-THUNDER TO TOTAL FEST X.
Back when many of us were impressionable young men in the early 90s, there was a noise rock renaissance happening. It kind of centered loosely around the monolithic Amphetamine Reptile record label, Your Flesh fanzine and probably some bars/clubs that I was never old/cool enough to figure out about. Granted, Missoula's about 1200 miles west of Minneapolis, but you know, we got a lot of it through here too. We got bands like the Cows, Janitor Joe, the God Bullies (California), Steel Pole Bathtub (Californians with Montana roots), Walt Mink, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (New York)... uh, there were more I'm pretty sure. And a lot of us spent what little money we could scrape up on things like AmRep's Dope, Guns and Fucking compilations. All of it had this sort of built in coolness, and allure. Every third shirt you saw a show had the huge NOISE AmRep logo on its back.

Looking back, I'm not sure exactly why it had that built in allure. I think for Missoula, it was the confluence of some recent North Dakota transplants in John Fleming (now Ear Candy Music co-owner) and Kelly Gately (Honky Sausage, Fireballs of Freedom, etc) and how ready to be blown away by loud, epic, desperate rock so many of us were. Lots of it was and is awesome, and certainly much of it hasn't aged terrifically.

For my money, the absolute top of the heap was the band Hammerhead. I saw them probably three separate times in the '90s. Once at Connie's bar, a scuzzy biker/hippie sort of place shut because of massive health code violations. Connie's gave a new, dark meaning to the words "dive bar". Anyhow, Hammerhead helped destroy the place, with bassist Paul Erickson knocking loose ceiling tiles with his base, to punctuate some song. The two other times were at Jay's. Every time was like Christmas. You heard about the show about 6 weeks ahead of time, and just spent the time carefully anticipating how excellent it was going to be. And it never failed to deliver in the excellence department. It was loud, though a big feedback/Ampeg rumble powerful and driving kind of way. They pulled you into what they were doing and dropped you onto the floor afterwards. They each had Soviet space program inspired band pseudonyms, they had songs about World War I.. and they had the White Album of the noise rock epoch, Into the Vortex. There was always lots to like. After a final record (Duh, The Big City) and tour, Hammerhead called it quits. I never read an official account of the break up, but the third party scuttlebutt made it sound like there wouldn't ever be a reunion.

Following Hammerhead's demise at the end of the '90s, Paul Erickson and Jeff Mooridian, the rhythm section, moved to Los Angeles and began a new band, Vaz. In lots of ways, Vaz picked up where Hammerhead had left off. It had all the paranoia, all the driving through space sonic blast, and their first record was called Demonstrations in Micronesia. Since then, Vaz has released a major catalog of full length records, each of which continues the excellent saga. At some point, Vaz moved to Brooklyn, and base from there now. They tour much less frequently, but when they do, it's a special thing.

About a year ago, word started circulating about a Hammerhead reunion in time for the Amphetamine Reptile (AmRep) 25th anniversary. We were beside ourselves with joy over the possibility. And when it happened, we knew that someday, if we played our cards right, there might be a chance to get them back to Missoula.

Here's the Brooklyn Vegan piece that ran for their reunion show at the Amphetamine Reptile 25th anniversary.