Ben Levesque joins us at the shop to talk shop about shows, concerts, gigs and such! Ben has been with Manic Presents for about as long as we’ve had the store now (over 17 years!), but recently made a huge jump from working essentially 2 full time jobs to dedicating all his time to Manic Presents in a yet to be named position. When it comes to running and booking shows he’s a jack of all trades. We talk about some inside baseball – the inner workings of things without blowing up any spots.
Ben of Manic Presents
We talk about music in general and we push out in all directions pertaining to Manic Presents and its venues and what Ben hopes to do with all of those and more!
You can buy tickets to all their shows at the store with no online extra fees (they are emailed and not physical, but no fees). You can also check them out online (and buy tickets) through their site: https://manicpresents.com/
Nick & Tim helm a relatively new project called Disfigure. So far, they have just one tape release though they are working on more. Nick worked on many of the songs in relative isolation while living in New Hampshire and then recorded them with Tim once back in CT.
Tim (Left) and Nick (Right) from Disfigure
We start as usual talking about what we’re listening to. We recorded in October which lent itself to some opening talk about horror movies and bake off. We quickly veer into how the band started and what inspired it to happen; how they were inspired by Godflesh, d-beat and black metal to create their sound.
Conversation continues down that path and veers off until we finally trail off talking about the first Redscroll release after becoming a store, Hostage Calm‘s Lens – a record Tim is on and a band Nick later joined and also a band that bares little other connection to this current project sound-wise other than the people who made it. Anyway!Fantasy battle metal madness!
We are joined by a man, Byron Coley, who has more stories than we could fit into every past episode of our podcast and we surely packed as much as we could into a single sit down. We start off with some talk about what we’re listening to as usual and we move on to record fair talk (don’t forget about our Record Fair at Counter Weight Brewing Co. on October 13th featuring Byron selling upstairs!).
Byron Coley in Redscroll Records
Byron tells tales of driving John Fahey around looking for classical records, his process for listening to 10 new records everyday, writing for weekly publications and magazines like the Wire, Forced Exposure, Spin and on and on. We talk about the label and store he runs with his friend Ted in Florence, Western Massachusetts.
We go back to his start writing a tour diary with Devo, but this is yet a scratch on the surface and this podcast is our longest yet for good reason! Check it out!
This month Paul and Will joined us on the podcast. Paul sings and Will plays guitar in Dissolve. We just released their latest record, Burnt and absolutely were honored and stoked to do so. Dissolve has been around since 1991 and released records with wide time gaps between them. They endure and we talk about how that works with their band and how those releases have progressed to the most recent record, Burnt.
Dissolve’s Paul & Will
We talk about the bands they played with and other bands they were in. We talk briefly about Paul’s writing career (a book of short stories called Weakling Planet) and how that relates to how he writes lyrics. We talk about the bands they got to see and play with in the 90s and we go on from there. Check it out!
New London’s Michael Slyne joins us on the podcast this month. We talk about his hometown a bunch and the changes that have happened to the landscape of downtown and the town in general recently and over the years. We talk about Michael’s many projects / bands including most prominently Slyne & The Family Stoned.
MIchael Slyne at Redscroll
We talk about Michael’s show on WCNI (check it out!) and self-releasing records and his hopes for future releases and his recent trip to the UK. We talk about what we’re listening to and branch out in all directions. Give it a listen!
