Gut Feeling

Hello, and Happy New Year!The latest Gut Feeling Podcast is a conversation with Mark Palm, guitarist and vocalist for Seattle power-pop institution Supercrush, and onetime vocalist and songwriter for Vancouver-to-Seattle-based heavy rock outlet Devotion.Throughout the talk, Mark hits on: new Supercrush singles and covers coming out in 2026; the band losing their HMS Studio space in the SODO district, and the grungy history of the old building; the demolition of North Vancouver’s Seylynn Hall; Devotion’s pipeline from detuned hardcore to sludging metallic groove; naming your album B*****d Son of Affluence Blues, and what your parents might think about that; obscure Canadian amps; getting someone to work your wah pedal for you; communicating solitude; neon-glow nocturnality; early work with drummer Aaron O’Neil (Lights Out, Supercrush), guitar soloist Graeme “Smokestack” Honeyman (Go It Alone, September), lead guitarist Sean Meyer (Supercrush); and more.Let’s call this one a belated Gut Feeling fifth anniversary special. You can also revisit a 2020 gear talk with Supercrush, a 2021 podcast on Mark’s time with hardcore bands Look Inside and Reserve 34, and a 2023 podcast on the beginnings of Go It Alone.The Gut Feeling Podcast is currently streaming through Apple, Spotify and more. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutfeeling.substack.com

The latest Gut Feeling Podcast is a conversation with Marc and Brent Belke, brothers and co-founding guitarists of Edmonton, Alberta-formed and later Vancouver, BC-based hardcore icons SNFU. Throughout the talk, Muc and Bunt hit on: the new Come With Me, I’m On My Way horror comic featuring four gruesome tales inspired by classic SNFU songs; Trust Records’ upcoming 40th anniversary project behind debut album ...And No One Else Wanted to Play; Edmonton’s early ‘80s punk and skateboarding scenes; the absurdist and sometimes misunderstood lyrics of late frontman Mr. Chi Pig; the making of 1995’s The One Voted Most Likely to Succeed; the ‘90s punk boom, and touring with Green Day and Bad Religion; gear and guitar solos; Strain bassist and SNFU roadie Eric "Flexyourhead" Thorkelson’s very bad day; Brent’s current film score work; and more!3Press Comics’ Come With Me comic is out now, along with an SNFU tribute 7-inch from Dad Religion; Trust Records’ Play repress out soon; and a repress of Voted is out in November via La Agonia De Vivir.You can also read a 2020 feature I’d written around some of the most poignant, poetic and occasionally profane lyrics Mr. Chi Pig brought to the mic over at Exclaim!The Gut Feeling Podcast is currently streaming through Apple, Spotify and more. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutfeeling.substack.com

The latest episode of the Gut Feeling podcast is an interview with Regional Justice Center drummer/vocalist Ian Shelton. The band’s beautifully brutal sophomore LP, Crime and Punishment, was released this week through Closed Casket Activities.Ian gets into formative experiences that impacted Crime and Punishment; discovering street punk through a library of burned CDs; whether or not the singer of the Adicts was the original juggalo; his brother Max hearing RJC’s music from inside prison; and more.The Gut Feeling podcast is also streaming through Apple and Spotify Subscribe, review, and recommend the podcast/newsletter if you can! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutfeeling.substack.com

This month’s Gut Feeling podcast is an interview with Adam Mitchell, a mainstay of the Vancouver underground who currently plays with post-punks Spectres, alt-pop quartet Tilted, and d-beat mashers Madness Cartel. The talk bounces between what it was like to be touring the U.S. with Spectres last March as COVID restrictions really started to ramp up across the world, and what some of our respective favourite releases of the year were. We also got into a bit of a gear talk, which you’ll find below!Having mostly played in hardcore bands over the years, what can you say about exploring a different tone and style through Spectres?Adam Mitchell: I started out as a bass player, and for years I was only a bass player. I’ve never really been formally trained on anything, so a lot of it was me sitting in my room, just playing guitar and doing what I wanted to do. For a couple of years I was doing a band called Circles that, while our recorded output never showed this, started veering towards Embrace/Rites of Spring territory, and I got to explore beyond power chords. Having, for a lack of a better word, a flowery, jangly guitar style was a learning curve. I’d sit around my house playing Smiths songs, or McCarthy songs, or James Dean Driving Experience songs...now, maybe, I can actually write stuff like that. Even throughout the time I’ve been in Spectres, [my style has] evolved, which is nice! As a musician, you force yourself to try new things. I’m certainly not a great guitar player— I wouldn’t even say I’m a creative guitar player—but considering the vast majority of my recording/touring life playing in hardcore bands, getting to do something melodic with arpeggios and flourishy guitar stuff is a nice change of pace. Have you had any significant gear changes since joining Spectres?A: Historically, I’ve played my Les Paul through a 50 watt JMP, a 1980 JMP. In Circles, I dabbled with pedals a bit—some delays and some chorus. Other than that, with Vacant State and Cheap Appeal it was straight through the amp, with a tuner. With Spectres, my primary guitar for the first while was my Rickenbacker 330. Shortly after I joined the band, since I didn’t think the Marshall would fit with what I wanted to play, I bought a Vox AC30. About this time last year, I bought one of those Johnny Marr signature Jaguars, being a bit of a Johnny Marr sycophant. I was impressed with it. It did away with everything that I didn’t like about Jaguars. I thought Jaguars looked cool, but they didn’t really have a sound that I thought was appropriate for me. But the Johnny Marr signature is the guitar I used predominantly on the tour that we did at the beginning of this year. We also just recorded a new single with Jesse Gander in October, and I exclusively used the Jaguar on that.As far as pedals go, I always have my Diamond Compressor and my Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus pedal on. I use a Nemesis Delay sparingly, and an Electro-Harmonix Super Pulsar trem pedal sparingly. And just little, you know, bits and pieces on top of that. I would say for the most part I can do 90 per cent of what I need to do either running the Rick or the Jaguar through my chorus pedal, into the Vox.End HitsDeaf Club “The Wait” (Bandcamp)Deaf Club made their debut last year with Contemporary Sickness, a six minute acid bath of discordant guitar shred and blast beats. The quintet are going a different route with their latest single, a relatively faithful, darkly melodic cover of post-punk icons Killing Joke’s “The Wait”.Structurally, the cover rumbles as hard as Killing Joke, with the biggest difference coming in how Justin Pearson’s (The Locust, Retox, Dead Cross) inimitable hollow point howl punctures the mix instead of Jaz Coleman’s coarse, flanger-affixed melodicism. Its video packages footage of drone strikes and citizen uprisings with factoids on the military industrial complex. Deaf Club’s cover of “The Wait” is available now as a pay-what-you-can download through vocalist Justin Pearson’s Three One G records, with all proceeds from now until January 4th going towards Fair Fight’s efforts to protect U.S. voter rights in the upcoming run-off elections in Georgia and beyond.Deaf Club are apparently finishing up a debut LP, and I’d be stoked if they explore this kind of style in addition to the grinding. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutfeeling.substack.com

Joshua Brown (left) and Sean McCabe, outside of 924 Gilman. Berkeley, CA. 1998. Photo: Travis Keller (IG)Hey! I’m doing things a little differently this week, and premiering the Gut Feeling Podcast. This first episode is with Joshua Brown, a currently Victoria, B.C.-based musician who came up through Philadelphia’s early ‘90s straight edge hardcore scene, playing bass in Flagman, Crud is a Cult, and legendary gothic hardcore outfit Ink & Dagger along the way.I’d met Josh a few years back at a friend’s book launch in Vancouver, and have been dying to ask him about the Dagger days ever since. He also recently started up an Instagram account for Crud is a Cult, where he’s been posting old photos and demo tape layouts, so it seemed like a perfect time to talk. Throughout the conversation, Josh gets into the Crud days, how he wasn’t initially sold on Ink & Dagger’s vampire-themed punk, touring Europe alongside Refused in ‘98 (when both bands were expanding into electronica-infused hardcore), and awkwardly live-scoring a brawl during a bar show in Vancouver. His wife Leanne, who herself played in Vancouver hardcore group Dissent in the ’90s, also pops by.There is so much more to cover around Ink & Dagger, and Josh and I ended up texting about more stories after the fact. Their final, self-titled LP from 2000, for instance, draws influence not so much from punk and hardcore, but rather from Irish dream pop outfit Rollerskate Skinny, the Beach Boys, and maybe even the Stone Temple Pilots. I’m going to add some of Josh’s thoughts on the record’s “Facedreamer,” written and recorded shortly before Sean McCabe’s tragic passing in the summer of 2000 at the age of 27. We should get into that last song too—the last song we we released, and how Sean isn’t on it. The lyrics totally foreshadow his death. It’s really crazy.I sang the whole song ‘cause he never showed up and we needed to finish it. We didn’t have lyrics, so I picked up a book of Charles Bukowski poems lying around on the studio, randomly opened a page to Facedreamer, and just put all the vocals together on the spot as we were recording it. I’m super proud of it, but the lyrics, man: “The best often die by their own hand….Sometimes we will only note their existence suddenly in vivid recall after they they’re gone....where have they gone to?”Somewhat on the topic of vampires, I’ve been reviewing vintage Monster Party songs all month through my Instagram stories. Definitely some great bashes along the way, with a lot of camp twists on mummies, werewolves, and zombies having a ball. I made a Spotify playlist to go along with it, which you’ll find below.I think the big surprise this year was the theme to 1967’s Spider Baby, sung by horror icon Lon Chaney Jr. There’s something especially sinister about the way he stutters and gulps his way through the track, warning us that pretty much any monster is fair game for Baby’s next snack. The grossest part about it is how he delivers this sort of inward belch on the word “tummy.” Just nasty. The original film theme isn’t streaming, but the Fantômas did a version that’s just slightly less discomforting.Happy Halloween! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutfeeling.substack.com