Twofer: HMB # 7 / Moss Icon

Two-long gestating pieces went live yesterday. I'm happy with how they turned out.

1) The seventh installment of my jazz/metal interview series, Heavy Metal Be-Bop, featuring Weasel Walter. Invisible Oranges has the abridged version, and you'll find more or less the complete Q&A at heavymetalbebop.com. Weasel is a great talker, and since he and I knew each other prior to the chat, there was an easy flow to the conversation that wasn't as easy to achieve in some of the earlier installments. We touched on some of the same issues I discussed with prior HMB subjects—can one musician excel at both jazz and metal? what are the core prejudices of both scenes? what about Naked City?—but we were able to go deeper more quickly. I hope you enjoy the interview.

2) A Pitchfork review of the new Moss Icon reissue, Complete Discography, on Temporary Residence, a label that has become a key post-hardcore mini archive. (They put out last year's Bitch Magnet set as well.) I'll state plainly that I'd never heard Moss Icon before news of this set dropped a few months ago; I'm not even sure I'd heard of them. But I'm passionate about the period they came out of: the space between first-wave hardcore and what came after. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to study this body of work over a long period, to hear the band way after the fact and find a way to incorporate them into the underground-American-rock timeline I've spent the last 20 years or so constructing in my head.  It's been easy to see why Moss Icon has bred obsession. I find myself wondering what it would be like to see them live. Has anyone reading this had the chance? Obviously, there are reunion shows coming up, and I hope to check one out, but I'm specifically curious about their late '80s/early '90s shows. If I had to guess, I'd say they had life-changing potential.