You Should Be Listening to... The Hidden Hand

Many of us who enjoy the heavy stonerrific side of music are bound to discover certain bands. Black Sabbath is an obvious one, and leading on from that there may be Saint Vitus, and from there you get into the depths of DOOM. However, from Vitus we may find out a little about a man known as 'WINO', Scott 'Wino' Weinrich. Before long you come to learn of the myriad of bands that he has led, including The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, and most recently Premonition 13. But it's one of his lesser known acts that I want to turn you onto today, a band that in my opinion the man produced his best work; THE HIDDEN HAND. The final line-up was comprised of Wino on guitar and vocals, Bruce Falkinburg on bass and shared vox and Matt Moulis on drums. Moulis, unfortunately never got the chance to commit anything to record as the band split in 2007. Here's standout track, 'Desensitized', with Dave Hennessey on drums, from 2004 full-length 'Mother Teacher Destroyer'.

The band were surprisingly explosive live. Here they are in their prime performing the southern tinged 'Majestic Presence' from their final record 'The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote', and followed by oldie and fan favourite from their first full-length, 2003's 'Divine Propaganda'; 'Sunblood'.

YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO THE HIDDEN HAND

Edward Gerard Brophy,
bornagainnihilist@gmail(dot)com

B.A.N Digs...Fan Videos That REALLY Do Work!

Search for any moderately well known band on Youtube and you will finds a huge amount of music videos, made by fans for certain songs. Now, 99 out of 100 of these tend to be rubbish. The footage doesn't flow with the music, it doesn't capture the mood and may just be simply inappropriate to the song. I don't want to put a downer on the people who like to make these videos at all, I think it's a lovely demonstration of a labour of love. Some of these, however, stand out against the rest. Videos that have been inspired and well thought out, and I'm going to show you a few personal favourites now.

First up is ALEATTITUDE's video for Melvins 'A History of Bad Men', featuring footage from the film 'Sin City'.

The 'music-meets-movie' is probably the most common kind of fan-made video. Here's another, this one from CubicleWarfare666: High on Fires' 'Turk' meets 'Braveheart'.

I'm not the biggest fan of Braveheart but High on Fire music set to scenes of war is just gorgeous!

Next is The Hidden Hand's 'Vulcans Children' by Akultra, reposted by WINORULES, a channel that's always a joy to visit! A psychedelic, colourful sci-fi mind rush!

The oddly named scuranima made this stunning video for the Oceansize track 'Savant'. Taken from a scene from Disney's 'Fantasia'.

Finally, my personal best, fuzzjunky's video for Kyuss' 'Molten Universe'. Lovers of the majesty and sheer fuckin' BIGNESS of nature will love this one. A perfect example of getting the flow of the footage to match that of the music, therefore complimenting it and making for a fuller experience.

Well that's it for this B.A.N Digs. Savour these videos now because many have already been taken down since YouTube began cracking down on copyright infringement. Love them while you can!

Edward Gerard Brophy digs Born Again Nihilist...that's why he writes for it! :)

'2007- What A Year' by Edward Brophy

Allow me to set the scene:

Me, 2007.

17 year old long-haired Black Sabbath enthusiast (the latter is even more true today.)

In 5th year in an all-boy/all-jock rugby school in Dublin (no one reading this from outside Ireland will know the term “D4”, but to those Irish readers I need say no more...)

Still an expert in all things Metallica, but at this stage my interest was waning.

Similarly I had decided that Motorhead held little appeal for me despite all the opportunities I gave them.

No girlfriend.
No car.
A recently split band and the toughest school year still looming on the horizon the following year.

All in all, while I won't be so spoiled as to say a terrible situation, I can safely say, a boring one! Yet thinking back to that time I am always faced with an almost nostalgic feeling, a voice saying contentedly; “ya know, that was a fuckin' good year.” Yet you have already read the setting-the-scene portion of the article, so where is the joy?
The fact is that I can only pin down one thing as a suspect to account for the fond memories of that year; that is discovering that most colourful spectrum of music between Rock and Metal (two ancient terms that seem to become less meaningful everyday), the part of the spectrum that I like to refer to simply as 'Heavy'. The stonery, the psychedelic, the groovy, the droney, the sludgy, the weighty, the fuzzy, the terms go on and on precisely because the music does likewise!
I believe it began with Dave Grohl's under the radar 'Probot' project. On that record I came across names I had never heard of. There were the isolated few including Sepultura's Max Cavalera and Motorhead's Lemmy, but who the hell were The Obsessed, Cathedral, Trouble, DRI, Corrosion of Conformity???
A track called 'The Emerald Law' demonstrated an approach to riffing and soloing that were alien to me at the time. I was still convinced at that age that Kirk Hammet had a decent vibrato technique! I resolved to investigate.
My YouTube based inquiry yielded a few live videos all featuring this large shouldered man with hair down to his arse, tattoos down to his hands, (before Suicide Silence and Bring Me The Horizon made it 'in vogue'!) and armed with a black Les Paul. This is of course, you guessed it, Wino.
Saint Vitus videos linked me to Spirit Caravan, Caravan to The Obsessed, Obsessed to The Hidden Hand, then it grew wider; The Hidden Hand to The Sword, The Sword to High On Fire, High On Fire to Sleep, Sleep to OM, OM to Neurosis, on and on and on..... One of the videos that stick in my memory best have to be a fan-made video for The Hidden Hand's 'The Last Tree' made up of live footage from the late 'Emissions from the Monolith' festival and stock footage of hardy men cutting down Giant Redwood trees by hand. Another would have to be a the music video for Sleep's 'Dragonaut', a strangely edited black and white affair featuring a young Matt Pike with blonde dreadlocks.
I could continue on with videos, discoveries on Myspace, etc. etc. but it I think the point has been made that the ball had begun to roll. From here the bands came into my scope one by one like and endless parade of pure quality with no end in sight. Today my personal favourites are still as strong as they ever were, Mastodon, The Hidden Hand, Baroness, Melvins, The Obsessed, High on Fire and of course Black Sabbath, all occupying the ruling tier in my subjective hierarchy.
This was my 2007. What better way to begin maturity of taste? Turning on, tuning in and dropping out just in time to catch The Hidden Hand's last release 'The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote', Baroness' 'Red Album', and not forgetting the slick monster 'Death is This Communion' from High on Fire.
Freeing themselves from the limitations imposed by the Rock or Metal categories, the musicians are free to explore whatever they fuckin' want, (an attitude much advocated but rarely practised!) therein lies the beauty of this music that in an ideal world would be true of all music. Until that ideal is realised let us privileged few sit back, stick on the Sabbath LP, engage our inner Taoist and lose ourselves in Absorption................................

For Bornagainnihilist 2011
Edward Gerard Brophy

Lost Classics-The Hidden Hand -'Mother Teacher Destroyer'

The lost art of psychedelia found a new home in 2004 when The Hidden Hand released their second full length record, the pivotal 'Mother, Teacher, Destroyer'.

This record saw the still rather young band of veterans mature a little in their writing. The previous release, 2003's 'Divine Propaganda' was about as punk-rock as modern psychedelia gets with angry anthems such as 'Screw the Naysayers' amongst the stand-out tracks. It none-the-less was clear that the proggy 'stoner' side of the record was most likely to be the direction of it's successor, and sure enough.....

'Mother, Teacher, Destroyer' is a bruiser of a record, make no mistake about it! It is an excellent blend of riffing, Melvinsesque solid drumming, intelligent production and power trio mentality. As I understand, unlike many of our good aule Uncle Wino's previous projects, he relinquished much creative control to bass player/producer Bruce Falkinburg (as evidenced by the prominent bass sound on all three records) but in doing so gave The Hidden Hand what is in my opinion the most distinctive sound of all of Wino's projects.

The record doesn't begin easy, it opens with 'The Crossing', a political stoner rock wrecking ball that ploughs it's way out of your unworthy stereo with guitar, bass, drums and vocals all blazing at once, your only warning before the onslaught being the brief inhalation from Bruce that can be heard one single second before the sky falls down! (Sound fuckin' cool or wha'?) The droning is broken just before the half-way point by a sinister riff that leads into one of Uncle Wino's trademark yet unpredictable sounding solos (something I dare any guitar player to define). Things get weirder and weirder the further we go, the third track 'Desensitized' was the first track the band ever wrote and it is simply a riff orgasm from start to finish, when played at the appropriate level one cannot move for the wall-to-wall riffs! At track five we have a fleeting chance to rest with 'Black Ribbon', a melancholy acoustic guitar passage introduces us to a sickly-sweet journey all it's own, one which feels much longer than those three and one half minutes in which it exists.

I could write a paragraph on every track on this record (and probably both other records too) however I'll limit myself to these three favourites of mine and allow you to experience things yourself. That being said this record is not easy to find. Amazon would be your best bet, or if you're like me, a trip to HMV on London's Oxford street.

This is that warm, fuzzy and hideously beautiful kind of music that just goes overlooked for all the wrong reasons. The kind of thing that fits perfectly into real life situations. Of course you should love music that you can dance in time to when stoned and pissed drunk in some sleazy Harcourt street club, but what of music that can make standing at the open end of Pearse Street DART station in your Army Bargains jacket facing high wind and light rain at half eleven at night seem magick? That is the power of this record for me.

Rest in Peace The Hidden Hand.
Edward Gerard Brophy.