[Mr. Smalls Theatre, Pittsburgh PA, 10 March 2013 – photo by Valley of Steel]
Today is the Day – No Good to Anyone (29 February 2020)
Just like this article from Monday, here is another album that had been released at the end of February, by an artist who subsequently headed out on a major tour to promote said album, only to end up with numerous scheduled dates canceled mid-trip and being unexpectedly forced to return home.
The artist we will be discussing today is none other than Today is the Day, the highly experimental trio that for decades has featured founder/guitarist/vocalist Steve Austin and a pair of constantly revolving doors for his supporting cast. This new record No Good to Anyone is the band’s eleventh full-length release, and the first since 2014’s Animal Mother.
Hello again from the unofficial VOS WFH substation. Things are starting to settle down around here, at least to some small degree. At least, we’re all doing the best we can to adapt to this new reality of staying cooped indoors and never interacting with anyone except via a computer or other electronic device. To be honest, aside from no longer driving to and from work each day, that description isn’t all that far from how things have always been for me.
But anyway, disruptions to the day job modus operandi have really wrecked my publishing schedule, especially with large chunks of each day now spent on conference calls and in Skype meetings. But it’s time we get back into doing what we love best around here: talking about music we’ve enjoyed hearing lately and that you also may enjoy hearing.
First up is cinematic doom duo Insect Ark. Since the last time we checked in with them, founder/composer/bassist/slide-guitarist Dana Schechter (who has added collaborating with Swans to an already impressive resume that included work with Wrekmeister Harmonies, Gnaw, and others) has now been joined by new drummer Andy Patterson (who coincidentally had been looking for a new gig following the dissolution of his former band SubRosa right around the same time this group’s drummer had moved on).
And then more recently, Insect Ark‘s third album The Vanishing had just been released and the twosome had just headed out on a scheduled tour of Europe and the UK throughout the month of March, when the whole world suddenly went to hell (leaving the band with numerous cancelled dates and scrambling to find their way back to the USA). So, without any further ado…