I recently got to chat with Tweaker mastermind Chris Vrenna. we talked about everything from his new album, his studio secrets, his views on modern music and american idol. Chris is one of the coolest and most down to earth musicians ive ever talked to. He had zero ego and answered every question i asked like we were old pals.

Chris Vrenna is recognized as one of the top producer/remixers in the music world, having worked with artists including U2 , P.O.D., GAVIN ROSSDALE, as well as COLD, NELLY FURTADO, WEEZER, David Bowie, Xzibit, and Rob Zombie amongst many others. In addition to his current recording incarnation TWEAKER, Vrenna was one of the founding members of Nine Inch Nails. His new Tweaker album is available for pre-order now via www.tweaker.net and will be out on 4/20.

Damion: so hows the live band setup coming?
CV:we had tried to do a ya know, we were going to try to do a tweaker tour for the first record, but ya know, 9/11 and everything that could go wrong went wrong so that never got off the ground, although me and Clint and Paul(our bass player) we actually did get it together conceptually and half way musically so we’re just expanding upon that, we added a fourth player cause the new record, well, the first records more electro loops. it was more doable by 3 people cause I could just trigger more stuff and with the new record, the writing is much better I think, haha. more band sounding, we just needed and decided to add a forth guy musically

Damion: hopefully that will take some strain off you guys.
CV:it actually does, because I have to, well half the songs off the new record, I don’t have to worry about triggering anything, i’m just playing drums. which is just really fun and then there’s half the songs that the background arps like the verse of truth is or sleepwalking away, it starts off with all the little arps all those types of things, I break those up and sample them and then I trigger them all as loops. Read More »

The God Curse Chicago Interview Conducted by OCTOBER1 I had the rare opportunity to have an interview with Douglas P. from Death in June on Friday December 12th in the afternoon via phone. I apologize with the delay in the review being posted. Douglas is a very interesting and down to earth person to talk to, and he cares about his fans quite a bit.

Death in June formed sometime around 1980-1981 in the wake of the dissolution of Crisis. Douglas Pearce and Tony Wakeford were leftover from Crisis. Since than Death in June has utilized the talents of his friends to make Death in June a kind of collaberation project over the years. Today, Death In June uses more acoustic guitar and is said by many to be the alpha of Apoclalyptic folk, or militant music. This interview was done on the afternoon of Friday Dec 12th here in Chicago, a show that was scheduled to occur on the 13th, but fell through due to a leftist political protest. This is the only interview of official type for what is now known as the “God Curse Chicago” show. I spoke to Douglas for about forty minutes, and actually Douglas was using a phone card. We couldn’t arrange an in-person meeting, so we did the interview by phone, and I couldn’t write down everything we discussed. I did get some of the key points, But I didn’t want to take up Douglas’s time so my interview was rather compact. Read More »

Saemskin has been a Darksonus regular for years, and through these years he has honed a skill for brooding sounds and rhythmic beat driven madness ala Ad Noiseam or Hands label artists. He had released Simile for Murder a 7 track soundscape which has ever since been gaining momentum, being reviewed by such sites as ReGen, Side-Line, Smother, and Heathen Harvest. Here it is, a year later, and I thought it would be good to get the thoughts of Saemskin on the past and future of this project.

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