Presenting: V/A — The Glastonbury Grove EP, a Tribute to Twin Peaks 7"

Hear it HERE

V/A—The Glastonbury Grove EP, A Tribute to Twin Peaks 7" — The pop-culture weirdness worship of the What's For Breakfast? Records / We Used to Drink Together Records collaboration from last year's X-Files themed Purity Control compilation is back, with the inevitable Twin Peaks centric followup. Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes  (IN) give us a swirly grungy punk dive into Leland Palmer's brain, Badge Collector (TN) take us on a whirlwind hardcore breakdown of the town and its memorable denizens, J. R. Fisher and Jacob Pflanzer (OH) give us a rock n roll slice of Ben & Jerry Horne's lives, The Electric Grandmother (Washington D.C.) use basement electropop to pontificate on Leo Johnson. On the flip, there's a breezy acoustic strummer from James Dean Death Cult's (IL/NY) attempt to recall watching Fire Walk With Me while being stoned to the bone, a snarling haunter from DANA (OH) about the connection between the two worlds, and a feedback dirge interpretation of the theme by American Male Giant Squid (OH). This 7" is a special totem that you can dump your Twin Peaks energy into until the new season arrives. We have faith that it will be much better than that OTHER recent return of a beloved series.

Each record is numbered out of 500 and includes a digital download and full color art insert with the lyrics on the back. Yours for $6 in our store.
WFBR-015/WUTD-012

Introducing: Sunwyrm

Photos courtesy of the band

Sunwyrm is a trio of psychedelic basement thrashers from the outskirts of the St. Louis metro. If you like raw volume, paisley punks, or grim introspection (along with beer and pizza), you should check out their full length I released on What's For Breakfast? Records or any of their other recordings on their own bandcamp page. They keep a pretty busy show calendar, so you can catch them frequently in the St. Louis area.

Backstory first; what is the lineup and when and how did you form? When was that? Did you play together before that?

Forrest John - It’s me playing the guitar, yelping, sometimes diddling on a keyboard, sometimes trading off with bassist Zack, who also does some yelping and sometimes plays additional drums, or trades with Zac Strickland (Minus K), our beat boy. Minus also plays some mean harmonica.

Zack Hamlet Broeker - We all went to high school together. Strickland and Forrest used to play in a different band, and I joined to be their bassist around summer 2015. Before that I hadn't really played the bass more than a few times.

FJ - Me and Minus had a couple of (shitty, to remain unnamed) projects going on at the time. I met Zack in a creative writing class. It was different back then, me and Minus both played guitars and had a rotating rhythm section, but once Zack started playing with us, he stuck. We released our first recordings in August 2014, under a different name, with Minus on guitar and this guy we don’t even talk to anymore playing the drums. Once we ditched the drummer and Minus decided he’d re-join the band and step in, we had our lineup.

Zac

Tell me a bit about your aesthetic.

FJ – Do we have one definitive aesthetic? Haha. I think we try to mesh the vibes of psychedelia and rock music troupes from the past and present. We all smoke a lot of herb so that sort of shows in a lot of ways, but we try not to make anything too droopy, we try to keep the energy up as well… Some of my favorite Sunwyrm songs are what I like to call speedball music, sort of spaced out weird shit but with something fast and driving behind it.

A big part of Sunwyrm is escapism. Fantasy themes, drugs, it’s meant to take you to places that aren’t real, maybe they’re reflections of the real world but our music is meant to cause mental transportation.

I guess we might come off as a bit sleazy, scummy, and overt about our drug use at times, all in alignment with the traditions of rock n roll. But when it comes down to it, we’re just three goofy-ass stoner nerds who like playing loud, weird music as often as we possibly can.

ZHB - Sunwyrm draws influences mostly from things we think are cool; our favorite movies, books, shows, and games. We have songs about Planet of the Apes, Twin Peaks, Hamlet, Cabin Fever. Some of them are more conceptual, like Death of the Sun God, which is about the pagan Halloween. Psychedelic drugs, insanity, Satanic influences, sex, dark magic, and witch craft are all recurring themes that tie a lot of our music together.

You seem to move pretty easily between gigs at houses and dive bars. What's your perfect gig?

FJ - Usually, ideally, we love a house gig, especially if everyone is getting wasted… Due to the nature of our music we obviously play best to the boozed and the drugged. We got really warm receptions at Metal Gear and Rat’s Nest in Illinois, and playing Bolozone was a highlight. Those have been a couple of our most fun gigs. But we also have great friends at Way Out Club and Kismet who are super cool and supportive and let us book shows just about any time we want. We curate a couple shows at Way Out every month.

ZHB - I agree, we definitely prefer the house shows. Some of our first, most important gigs were in basements. Venues are great, too, but house shows are just more comfortable for us—it's an atmosphere more conducive to what we're doing. 

Forrest

It seems like you're incredibly prolific and record constantly. How many releases do you have and/or say something about your productivity.

FJ - We’ve actually been trying to rein that in a bit more recently so that people don’t just stop paying attention. We have an entire album we’re just sitting on that we think we’re probably going to completely re-record in a studio, since it was another DIY job. But not including that one we have, I’d say, four and a half? The half (The Brown Cycle) is just a thing I made where I used a couple of songs from The First Cycle and those sessions to create a weird lysergic little sonic hellscape.

As for why we’re so productive? It really comes down to if something’s good during practice or a jam session or a sonic experiment, why not record it? If not just for self-reference? Why waste it? But then I really enjoy the quality that some of these recordings have and we wind up using them and making these releases. I guess we’re going to be getting away from doing that so much now, but up until this point it was just compulsively recording anything that might be good and using what actually did turn out well.

ZHB - Right around the beginning of the year we picked up this little handheld recorder—Forrest bought it, actually, bless him—and once we had that it was easy to make decent, lo fi recordings of ourselves, on our own time, in our practice space. We have LOTS of songs, upwards of thirty, and we're still writing more. It kinda seems like a lot of material in a short amount of time, but we've got more coming up and we don't plan on stopping any time soon.

What are some musical influences on Sunwyrm?

FJ - I’m heavily into psychedelic rock, 70’s glam, noise rock, 90’s alternative, and experimental/outsider music. Zack and I are heavily into punk. We’re all heavily into stoner metal, rock n roll, doom, surf, and blues. The rhythm boys have some proggy tendencies as well, and me and Minus like to get a bit jazzy and funky sometimes. We also like to experiment, incorporate styles that are more outside of the sphere of what I just mentioned… The idea being we can do just about anything we want to be.

ZHB - Electric Wizard, we all love them. Forrest is huge into Ween, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and thousands of other things I'm sure he'd love to tell you about all day. Strickland's favorite bands are Mastodon, Meshugga, Between the Buried and Me, and Kyuss. He's big into a lot of technically amazing/difficult music. I love Queens of the Stone Age, FIDLAR, Dead Kennedys, Municipal Waste, '68, just a broad spectrum of anything that rocks.

Zack

Seems like you guys may be slightly gear heads—say anything about how much you love your loud toys right here.

FJ - Not the best of gear heads… I’ve broken a lot of guitars lately, all on accident, haha… But my Fender Twin is the love of my life, and I’m happy with the sounds I get out of my pedal board. I use the CryBaby, the OCD, the Big Muff, MXR chorus, delay, & phaser, the Boosta Grande, a Joyo flanger, Boss DS-1, and a Way Huge Swollen Pickle. Zack is a Peavy man, and the pedals he uses are a Bass Muff and a Boss bass overdrive pedal, along with a little booster.

ZHB - We've actually heard from a lot of people about how loud we are, it's kinda funny. We're just using combo amplifiers; like, we're not toting huge six-foot cabs around (editor's note: combos rule). A big piece of our sound is our pedals, particularly Forrest's board, which changes a bit from show to show. We both play Big Muffs, and the Crybaby and Carbon Copy are critical must-haves. He's also got a bunch of nifty distortion pedals that switch out.


What are you looking forward to doing with Sunwyrm in late 2016 and early 2017?

FJ - Late 2016 is probably just going to be more gigging and trying to save some money, because the next steps are getting some studio time and getting some t-shirts made. We’re going to write some new material soon. Minus said to me the other night, “we don’t have enough heavy right now,” we’ve been getting more into weird stuff, extended jams, garage rockers, and some prettier stuff lately, so for our new material we might just shift the overall focus a bit in the heavier direction.

ZHB - We are right now in the process of getting into the studio to get quality recordings for our next release, which will probably be a full length or maybe an EP followed by a full length. Once it's done we'll probably be ready to organize a Midwest tour.

Some dude in a mask

Some of you are playing in other projects. Tell me about that.

FJ - I’m in two other bands: Chalked Up (a powerviolence/sludge/grind band I play bass for) and Aluminum Sasquatch Trio (an experimental jam band I have with my friend Coby on drums and a rotating third member). I write, release, and perform music mostly on my own as H. Smokeskull, and some of those songs wind up turning into Sunwyrm songs. “Go To Sleep” from The First Cycle is an example. I also do some vocals for exitbag, sometimes, if they’re feeling saucy.

There are a couple side things going on basically within Sunwyrm… Zack and Minus K have their own project, Hagfinger, where Zack plays guitar and does all of the vocals and they both really get their prog wiggles out. They haven’t played any shows or released any music yet but they sound fucking great when they practice in my basement. Then me and Zack are Fuzz Police, which is basically just us getting really stoned and jamming with Zack on drums.

ZHB - Chalked Up is great and it's one of the only powerviolence groups in St Louis. I recently joined a doom metal band called Voidgazer, which is set to release its first EP in late October. Forrest also has a whole fistful of side projects. Zac and I are working on something extra, but it's under wrap right now...

FJ - Voidgazer is a great stoner metal band.

Outside of music, what is something you're looking forward to in the next couple months?

FJ - Seeing Shin Godzilla. Eggnog with whisky (editor's note: hell yeah). Maybe making some more art.

Say anything else you wanna say.

FJ - Watch the skies.

Zack, Forrest, Zac

Nine Questions with The Fuzzlers

Athens, Georgia Foam-core gak splatters The Fuzzlers are leaving today for a tour with garage punkers Linda, culminating in an appearance at SLOP FEST in Athens (with WFBR contributor Mr. Clit & the Pink Cigarettes!). I've known guitarist, singer, and ringleader Fuzz-E since 2010, and I was able to corner him into giving me the dirt on this tour. They'll have their new tape, the CYBER EP (WFBR-011) with them. If you aren't on their tour path, the tape is taking preorders in the webstore, with shipping between July 23 and July 30.

WFBR BIG WIG: Let's hear that back story—what's the lineup and when did you form?
FUZZ-E: We formed in 2010. The exact details are foggy, because Professor Scientist was doing lots of testing, giving us lots of abuse. The Fuzzlers are me on guitar and vox, C-Fuzz on drums and vox, and T-Fuzz on bass and intuition.

Fuzz-E

WFBR CIGAR SMOKING CHUMP: You've got a pretty enviable aesthetic. How'd that come about?
FUZZ-E: When we escaped Professor Scientist's lab, we found some weird coats and stuff in the dumpster. We put them on to make our stealthy getaway through the lab facility. But we were just sucked into Cyberspace and all of our coverings were altered. Now we sort of look like henchmen from an 80s action flick...but whatcha gonna do?

WFBR BLOOD SUCKER: Who are you battling on this tour and why?
FUZZ-E: Our constant struggle is against Professor Scientist. He's our creator, but he's not a very good person. He sabotaged our WiFi and trapped us in cyberspace.... There's territorial hardware heads here and they're constantly battling for supremacy. Sacintosh is one of the main factions here. Macrohard is the other. We've seen some cyber face-offs. We do have a friend here, the Troubleshooter. He's helping us out. And per usual, Hungry McGee will surely make an appearance and eat up all our fuzzballs.

The Troubleshooter

WFBR CAPITALIST SWINE: Tell us a bit about Linda and about Slopfest.
FUZZ-E: Linda is a great garagepunk band from Athens. They just released an EP called "This Is Not a Sun, It's a Butthole". They've got great songs about losing your mind and trying to figure out what this is all for. All good, super handsome dudes. The Fuzzlers are looking forward to sharing the road with them. Slopfest is a festival that was originally created by my friend Derek Wiggs as a quick replacement for Athens Pop Fest when that was cancelled. Everyone loved it, so he's continued to do it for a decade now. All proceeds benefit Athens Girls Rock Camp. Slopfest is what's up.

WFBR FUTURE BURGER FLIPPER: Go ahead and name check a few preferred musical influences for The Fuzzlers.
FUZZ-E: Some of our influences are DEVO, The Dead Kennedys, GWAR, The Residents, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Ace of Base, The Scream Savers 7", Peelander-Z, and, while it's not a "musical" influence, Kaiju Big Battel is a huge inspiration in what we do.

C-Fuzz

WFBR GROSS MORON: What's something you are excited about on this tour?
FUZZ-E: I'm excited to see all my buddies on the road and play some rowdy shows. Linda and The Fuzzlers have set up a kind of photo scavenger hunt with each other on this tour, so that's going to make things very interesting. I'm stoked to find some new Pokemon along the way as well! Plus it's always great to spread the word of the fuzz across the land.

WFBR CERTIFIED LOSER: What are The Fuzzlers looking forward to later this year?
FUZZ-E: The next adventure for The Fuzzlers is already on the horizon. Professor Scientist has shown a little too much interest in the Gourd of Truth...and we think he might do something shady in order to obtain it. We're keeping our eyes and ears open. Our human representatives are doing the same.

T-Fuzz

WFBR SECRET ALCOHOLIC: Outside of music, what are some things you're looking forward to later this year?
FUZZ-E: Beyond music, I'm excited to see all the things our visual artist friends are cooking up! Some names to toss out there would include: Austin Lonsway, Laura Maria Ramirez Giraldo, Tarek Patton, Triple Bummer, Adrienne Tabet, Anthony Gaskins, Scott Hensel, Dain Marx, Art Whore Cult, Hemlock Bootlegs, Christopher Liver, and a bunch more.

WFBR SAD CLOWN: Last call, say whatever else is on your mind.
FUZZ-E: There's a little Fuzzler inside of everyone. Come to a show and let it out!

The Fuzzlers & Linda are on tour as of TODAY. Go see them!

Thursday, July 14 -- at Fox Manor in Asheville, NC w/ Snake Prophecy
Friday, July 15 -- at Grandma's House in Greenville, SC w/ Scuds (Acoustic)
Saturday, July 16 -- at Sulfur Studios in Savannah, GA w/ The Gumps (Sing-a-Long) and Tommy Techno
Sunday, July 17 -- at Headlamp in Jacksonville, FL.
Monday, July 18 -- at Ashley St. Station in Valdosta, GA w/ Ben Heddon
Tuesday, July 19 -- at Warhorse in Tallahassee, FL w/ Gorgeous
Wednesday, July 20 -- at Fresh Produce Records in Macon, GA w/ Eskizo and Helen of Coi
Thursday, July 21 -- Linda plays at Slopfest at Little Kings in Athens, GA
Friday, July 22 -- Fuzzlers play at Slopfest at Little Kings in Athens, GA

The Fuzzlers on Facebook and Bandcamp
Linda on Bandcamp

It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take this

Days of Breakfast

Wednesday June 15th at Double Happiness in Columbus, OH.
Thursday June 16th at Silent Barn in Brooklyn, NY.
Friday June 17th at Bucket O' Blood in Chicago, IL.
Saturday June 18th at Kismet in St. Louis, MO.

The Meltaways in Philadelphia on Friday June 17 and Washington D.C. on Saturday June 18.

James Dean Death Cult (Dan Staggs solo format), J. R. Fisher, and Tyler Travis continue westward from St. Louis. More info later.

Preorders running in the store until the morning of June 15. Hit it up.

Label spotlight: Failed Orbit Records

Failed Orbit Records is a rad label based out of Honolulu, Hawaii, currently run by Rob Cunningham and Jhune Liwanag, with crucial recording & logistics contributions coming from William Adair and Eduard Panen. I wound up getting into regular correspondence with Rob just a bit back, and it's clear that he's hell bent on opening up Hawaii to the broader DIY punk community on the mainland. He's already convinced a few bands to head out to the "West-West Coast" to melt some faces—Portland's Blowout is the next one on deck for the excursion. They've gotten a lot done since they got started in 2014, and Rob's band Poncho is recording tracks for both an LP and a split with Will & Ed's band T.V. Microwave, plus there should be something new from Aura Bora in the coming months.

I'm super interested in what they're doing, which is why I got my hands on a fat mess of their CDs for the distro. Check that out pronto, and follow those hyperlinks above for some tunes (or scope the label's new website, failedorbitrecords.com).

Tour news: Turnspit tours the Northeast

hear the HERE

Turnspit (Chicago, IL) heads out onto the road this Friday. They have a STELLAR self-released EP, they're dropping another one on this tour (5/2 in Philadelphia) and they're half of the upcoming WFBR split-single, WFBR-009 (which should drop June 17 at a show in Chicago with J.R. Fisher). I'm really, really stoked about their upcoming release on WFBR.

4/29—Low Country // Lost Years // Turnspit // Turn Around Jumper at Franklin House, Valparaiso, IN
4/30—Atsuko Chiba //Worship This // Turnspit // The Wagon at Fool Mansion, Akron, OH
5/1—Worship This // Turnspit // Swiss Army at The Mr. Roboto Project, Pittsburgh, PA
5/2—Steveo & the Crippling Addictions // Turnspit // Lauren Denitzio // Worries at The Pharmacy, Philadelphia, PA
5/3—Mike Erg // Turnspit // Steveo & the Crippling Addictions // Weird Skin at Hank's Saloon, Brooklyn, NY
5/4—Turnspit // TBA at Mill Hill Basement, Trenton, NJ
5/5—Braceface // Turnspit // My Heart, My Anchor // Rockaway Beach Boys at Sidebar, Baltimore, MD
5/6—TBA Ohio - message Turnspit if you can host a DIY show or have a spot in a showbill!
5/7—The Runaround // Turnspit at Mag Bar, Louisville, KY

Get out there!

Presenting: Loa Hex — Orphan Cuts CS

hear it HERE

Loa Hex — Orphan Cuts cassette — A full length of studio cuts from Chicago sprit-freaks LOA HEX. A mix of heavy rock riffs, crunchy punk cuts, and ambient ‘verb-laden dirges, all with strong female vocals in front. Think Amy Winehouse and Billy Corgan fighting for the wheel of an out-of-control semi truck slaloming down a mountainside. This eleven-track tape (with a twelve-track download card) offers up tracks recorded in 2014, before a lineup change put these in a vault. The crypt has been busted wide open, the ghouls are getting out, and they’re rushing to get this tape queued up in their decks. Edition of 50, hand stamped, download included.

WFBR-006

$6.00 from WFBR mail order, plus $2.00 S&H. Painless wholesaling. Email WFBRecords@gmail.com for orders, or use our Storenvy store.

Presenting: V/A — Purity Control 7"

hear it HERE

V/A — Purity Control 7” — A celebration of the X-Files and our undying love for the truth that’s still out there. Six artists contribute two minutes or less to scratch the itch of our undying nostalgia. Featuring surf from THEE WILT CHAMBERLAIN (Orlando, FL, members of Maximino), postpunk electrogrit from LIEUTENANT DANCE (Columbus, OH, members of Placenta Clause and Hookers Made Out Of Cocaine), lusty folkpunk from JAMES DEAN DEATH CULT (Chicago and Brooklyn, members of Black Bear/Brown Bear), a mutant murder ballad from JASON DOUGLASS SWEARINGEN (Chicago, IL, member of Turnspit), a postpunk devotional from WHITE COKE (Chicago, IL, member of Autonomy, editor of No Friends Zine) and conceptual poetry from ADRIENNE DODT (Chicago, IL, published by Damask Press, contributes to Spoon River Poetry Review). Takes you through all Syndicate approved emotions, with a few songs that call out specific episodes, a few tracks about the series as a whole, a surf version of the title theme, and a tribute to hunky Mitch Pileggi. Probably more fun than the actual tenth season of the X-Files and the packaging has a ton of curb appeal. Culture critic Chuck Livid at TUFF GNARL called it a top five release for January. Each record is numbered out of 500 and includes a digital download.

WFBR-005/WUTDT-009

$6.00 from WFBR mail order, plus $3.50 S&H. Wholesale rates from as few as 5 copies. Email WFBRecords@gmail.com for orders, or use our Storenvy store.