KEEW playlists: November 2015

November got off to a somewhat confusing start in terms of the Kill Eat Exploit the Weak schedule... For whatever reason, an exciting guest appearance by St. Catharines' Vile Creature on November 4 didn't end up airing until November 11.

Nevertheless, they were delightful guests and picked some excellent music - it was a great pleasure to share the studio with them. Do yourselves a favour and check them out on bandcamp: vilecreature.bandcamp.com/releases. You can also check out their culinary skills through their brand new Rescue Dogs vegan food cart!: www.rescuedogs.ca.

November 11, 2015

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
Warscroll	Split release with Age of Collapse	Esperando Lo Peor
Kataklysm	Of Ghosts and Gods	Marching Through Graveyards
Pinkish Black	Razed to the Ground	Ashtray Eyes
Tesseract	Altered State	Retrospect
Vile Creature	A Steady Decent Into The Soil	Constant Yearning to Leave
Ragana	Wash Away	Wash Away
Gold	No Image	The Controller
Antibody	Space Qveen	Rejection is Agony
Spectral Wound	Terra Nullius	Under a Purple Moon
Exes for Eyes	Tongues Like Figure Eights	Done for Good (feat. Speed Strid)
Profaner	Signs of Nine	Symbol of Supremacy
Yellow Eyes	Sick with Bloom	Sick with Bloom
All Them Witches	Lightning at the Door	Death of Coyote Woman
Old Witch	Come Mourning Come	The Frost and the Tyrant

November 18, 2015

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
Girlschool	Guilty as Sin	Take It Like a Band
Anthrax	Spreading the Disease (30th Anniversary Edition)	Madhouse
Machine Head	The Burning Red	Message In A Bottle
Amorphis	Under the Red Cloud	Under the Red Cloud
The Apex	The Apex	Attack
Ending Tyranny	Fall From Grace Compilation, Vol. 1	Sin
Killitorous	Party Grind	Godking
Allegaeon	Fragments of Form and Function	A Cosmic Question
Draconian	Sovran	The Wretched Tide
Swallow the Sun	Songs from the North	Rooms & Shadows
Paradise Lost	The Plague Within	An Eternity of Lies
Bauda	Sporelights	Vigil
Enslaved	Bloodhemn	Ansuz Astral
Melted Space	The Great Lie	Terrible Fight
Pseudo/Sentai	Bansheeface	March of the Selkies
Dead Temple	Dead Temple	Black Death
Flight	Flight	As Silence Falls
Twitching Tongues	Disharmony	Cruci-fiction
Gorod	A Maze of Recycled Creeds	Celestial Nature
Bleed	The Hatred Inside	Conquer
Venefixion	Defixio TAPE	Morbid Casket
Shooting Guns	Brotherhood of the Ram	Predator II

November 25, 2015

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
Woods of Ypres	Deepest Roots and Darkest Blues	The Northern Cold
Amorphis	Magic & Mayhem - Tales From the Early Years	Black Winter Day
Agalloch	Pale Folklore	Dead Winter Days
Danzig	Skeletons	Let Yourself Go
Paradise Lost	Symphony of the Lost	Tragic Idol
Rush	R40 Live	2112
Magic Circle	Journey Blind	A Ballad for the Vultures
Panopticon	Autumn Eternal	A Superior Lament
Naarvhal	Naarvhal	Ancient Quasar
The Visit	Through Darkness Into Light	Cast off the Veil
Beyond Creation	Earthborn Evolution	Elusive Reverence
Horrendous	Anareta	Ozymandias
Al-Namrood	Diaji Al Joor	Adghan
Immensity	The Isolation Splendour	Irradiance (For the Unlight)
Altars of Grief	Subarctic Nocturnes - Doomed to Be Vol 1	The Plague that Haunts the Darkness

scimetalvegan holiday guide for the last-minute shopper (2011 edition)

I have mixed feelings about this whole Christmas/xmas thing. I enjoy celebrations, excuses to get together with people, maybe dress up, and eat and drink decadent things. And I'm a sucker for things with schnazzy lights (even if I cringe at the energy getting sucked up into strings of plugged-in xmas decorations). But sometimes it's all a bit much in too short a time.

It's a similar deal with the xmas gift exchange. I get a kick out of the challenge of finding the right present for the people I care about, but there are more people I care about than my time/money budget can cope with. And, like many folks, I take issue with the uber-consumerist insanity that this time of year has a tendency to perpetuate.

In a lot of cases, I just try to see people, share some good food and drink, and enjoy the company. But there are still a few people I need (and want) to buy for, which raises a whole string of related quandaries... How do I satisfy several important, but often competing criteria, while on the quest to find the right gift?

My main goals:

• support local and independent businesses, especially socially-conscious and vegan-friendly ones (or use gift-giving as a way of supporting important charities)
  
• get people something they can actually use, need and appreciate (and avoid contributing to unnecessary clutter or waste)
• be generous but thrifty (and I don't have any particular talent for making gifts)
  

I can't check off all these ideals with every gift, but I make an effort. So, in the spirit of ethical giving, here are some holiday shopping resources it can't hurt to keep in mind.

• Bazaar of the Bizarre: neat, usually handmade stuff, much of it vegan-friendly. The holiday version takes place in Toronto on December 11.
• Vegan Etsy: discovered this through Sick on Sin. The worldwide shipping might be a turn-off for the greener shoppers, but there's also a chance there's a member nearby, wherever you may be.
• Local farmer's market (Hamilton version): aside from the usual fruits and veggies, local markets tend to be a go-to source for delicious baked and prepared treats, but they often feature great homemade crafts as well.
• Artists' co-ops and galleries: Hamilton features at least a couple of stores run by or supporting local artists and filled with their unique creations, and I expect this is true of many cities. I've happily perused the goodies at Textures and AllSorts Gallery.
• Simply Zen: begun as an online business, this eco- and vegan-friendly shop in Hamilton has an amazing array of gift-giving possibilities packed into a relatively small space. Smells good too!
• Animal shelters and wildlife protection: as a Burlington Humane Society volunteer I came home with several gift baskets designed for friends' and family members' pets. But there are other ways to support groups that care for animals while working through your xmas shopping list, and donations are only the start! (but giving someone a surprise pet is NOT recommended)
• Metal: how could I complete any list of gift giving suggestions without at least one shout-out to metal? From a heavy-metal playlist designed with someone's particular tastes in mind, to an independent/underground artist's merch, to concert tickets or a music DVD, it's hard to go wrong with metal (well, as far as I'm concerned, anyway). A few potential sources - Sonic Unyon Metal, Catacombs, Dr. Disc.
  

This list (just a start! - there are many more deserving places for your holiday business!) comes a bit late for online shoppers (many small online businesses have to set a fairly early xmas order deadline). Maybe next year?

vegan events in st. catharines

From Niagara Action for Animals, two events of interest to socially-conscious vegans and their political allies...

First:

Wednesday, November 30 at 7 pm, Brock Animal Rights Collective Film Screening Series presents, along with the Live Free Collective and Queer Action Niagara, MARK, winner of the Best Feature Documentary, The Accolade Competition, La Jolla, CA, 2010.

Director Mike Hoolbloom, who will be at the screening, introduces us to "an impassioned animal rights activist, political vegan, [and] dedicated mental health worker," through visual remains and interviews with family, friends, and "his life-partner of ten years, trans performance artist Mirha-Soleil Ross." Mark Karbusicky committed suicide in 2007.

The event is free to the public and everyone is welcome. Vegan treats will be provided. Contact dylanjamespowell@gmail.com or checkout the event page on Facebook.

And a regular event with a special guest:

NAfA Potluck Series presents Justice for Migrant Workers, Friday December 2, 7 pm at the Unitarian Congregation of Niagara, 223 Church St., St. Catharines (Beside Delta Bingo).

This event features guest speaker Tzazna De Las Tunas from non-profit collective Justice for Migrant Workers.

The potluck is free to the public, but all food must be vegan and marked for common allergens.

Also accepting non-perishable food donations for a vegan food serving program at The RAFT!

More information on the event page.

animal news mash-up

Yesterday was about metal; today is about the animals, a couple bits of recent news and info that caught my eye.

Apparently it's worldwide vegan bake sale week. The website has a list of participating bakers and fundraisers. Locally (as in southern Ontario) you can find baked goodies in Toronto, Guelph and London. Not posted there is the Niagara version - June 28th from 1-5 at 73 St. Paul Street in St. Catharines, with all proceeds going to Story-book Farm Primate Sanctuary located in Sunderland, Ontario.

Thursday and Saturday CBC/CBC Newsworld is airing a documentary focusing on dolphin exporter Chris Porter. Apparently the film is not about Porter himself particularly but his activities and the ethics involved. What are the ethical implications of catching wild dolphins and selling them to aquariums for $100,000 US each? Does swimming with the dolphins contribute to more ethical human/dolphin relationships or is it exploitation? CBC Documentary: The Dolphin Dealer.

a concept album about the exploitation of animals

A few days before Adrian Bromley died, he sent me an email about one of the upcoming releases he was doing PR for through his company, Ixmati Media. I'd heard of the band, Deadlock, before, and knew there was a vegan connection in there somewhere. Reading through the song titles of the new record, Manifesto, it was pretty clear that the band's concerns about animals persist: "Martyr to Science," "Seal Slayer"...

I received the album in the mail today from LifeForce Records. I've only given it one listen, so the jury's still out as far as my assessment of the music goes (on first hearing it seems a little heavy on the melody side of the melody:aggression ratio) but I have to respect Deadlock's willingness to take an unequivocal ethical stance.

The description on the slip cover describes Manifesto as an album of "melancholy and dark undertones" but with a "positive outlook," despite its "conceptual storyline" about "mankind's gorging and exploitation of animals" - more positive, in fact, than Earth.Revolt (2005) or Wolves (2007). I'm actually still waiting to snag myself a copy of Wolves, which I found about through Herbivore magazine not too long after it came out... Apparently there's a lot of indie material before Earth.Revolt that I haven't heard either.

There's already a video for the track “The Brave / Agony Applause” up on YouTube - check it out, if you're so inclined - some interesting imagery, probably not what you'd expect.