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Welcome to the first Outside In(fluence). As mentioned in this week's news update, Outside In(fluence) is a series of international musick reviews published every other Saturday. The first album I'm covering is How'd I Turn So Bad? by Shanghai's Dirty Fingers. The album was released late last year, December 12th, on the label Maybe Mars, an indie label that started back in 2007 and releases exclusively Chinese alt-rock/punk/noise-rock/post-punk/garage stuff. I have been familiar with the label for a while thanks to the brilliant Carsick Cars, but I only recently rediscovered it. How'd I Turn So Bad? is a good way to come back.


The album cover for How'd I Turn So Bad? shows what looks like an astronaut navigating a crystalline landscape while a giant, pink chameleon stares on. I like the colors used, though I wish there was a slight border or something to keep the brightness contained a bit. I really like the blue of the sky, fading into grey as it does. It's a shocking cover, loud and weird, just like the musick therein.

Before I continue, I should mention that I can't seem to embed this album here. It won't show up when I place the code in the HTML unlike every other album. If you want to listen along, you can do so here.

How'd I Turn So Bad? starts with "School". It's a fast and angular guitar rocker with scratchy vocals. The breakdowns are cool, contrasting the extreme chaos of the rest of the track. "Trip to Cairo" comes in with a spec of ambient mysticism before flying downhill at extreme speed. There's a little reference to "Hotel California" with the line "cause I can check out, but I will never leave". "Thanks to me my mom, I'll always be selfish". That's also a great line. It's time to just go and do what we want. The third track, "Fake Rock Star", starts out with the ghost of Dave Alexander's throbbing bass and Funhouse-esque guitars. It quickly goes a little overboard and loses something, but the song catches back up with itself as it goes on. It's not a favorite of mine for sure. "Climb Another Mountain" is more melodic, as best as Dirty Fingers can be. I like the contrasting guitar parts and the weird wind sound. This is a track I really wish that I could understand the lyrics of. "It seems like so much fun, but I, I got scared," Guan Xiaotian announces on "Arkham Club". "Everybody’s having so much fun. I’m alone drinking beer," he continues. The Arkham Club is a real place in Shanghai, and social anxiety is a sure bummer for anyone going to out somewhere like that. The dark surf sounds and noir vocals make this a great one.

"I Like Your Girlfriend Too" starts the second half. It's the poppiest song on the album with slower tempos and cleaner lyrics (if you can understand Chinese unlike me). I really like the emotions in the vocals on this one and the guitar solo in the middle. The bass line and calmer vocals remind me of the Japanese band, the pillows. "Birthday Song" is a fast track that's over quickly. It does what you'd expect. I like the bass sound a lot. "Robot Song" starts with a blues-played-by-The Strokes riff. It changes gears during the chorus to the more usual Dirty Fingers speed. I enjoyed this one. "Wei Wan" is barely over 30 seconds. It's really fast with a small sample of dialogue at the beginning. "Dead Girl" has more Stooges riffs and lyrics about a nihilistic romance. "I like libertines too. Are we good?". "She's sick in the head. She's secondhand." The lyrics are cheesy but great. The penultimate track is "Undercover Cop", a grim, song under the brim of a rainy, grey fedora and a long coat, Bogart's cigarette lighting the way ahead. It reminds me of The Clash on Give 'em Enough Rope. "Pop" is the final track on the album. It starts with some studio banter before going into another dance-punk piece like a cleaner "Robot Song". I like the monologue in the middle accompanied by the enthusiastic backing vocals. I would guess this song comments on pop musick a bit, but I have no idea. It sounds good anyway.

Even without knowing Chinese, I really enjoyed How'd I Turn So Bad?. The breakneck speeds combined with a keen musical sensibility drive the sounds home. The few lyrics in English are especially well-written, concise and classic, that I really wish I could understand the rest. The bass is surprisingly strong when it gets the chance to peak through the slashing guitars. The production is good, though it is a bit loud and thin, the guitars and drums respectively. How'd I Turn So Bad? is a fine album regardless and it receives a Good.
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On New Year's Eve I went to a show at the (new) Shop. The original Shop was a place that I liked going to. The name and style, bare concrete and white walls, always made me think of places I had only read about like White Columns. I was excited to see the new version of the Shop and the punk show that was happening there. Mostly I just wanted to see friends though.

I got to the Shop before anything had started. The new location is very close to my house, even closer than the old one. It's located near me in Lawrenceville at a place I passed weeks before and thought, "wouldn't this be a cool, old-school punk venue?" And then it was.

I liked the gritty inside - it was dim and still industrial, a true Pittsburgh kind of place. There were a lot of people there already. I was still able to get to the front of the performance area before the first band, I think, started.


CHOIR is a band that a lot of people like here in Pittsburgh. Somehow, I had never seen them before. Similar to Silence, I routinely intend to attend events that they are playing but always miss out. CHOIR has a noise-rock/no-wave/punk sound like Flipper. The singer thrashed around with wild nihilism, but everything appeared well-rehearsed; they were not sloppy. It was an awesome noisy rock performance with a lot of energy and stage presence. I think we need more stuff like this.

For me, it all went downhill from here. I did say hello to some friends, but I really didn't enjoy the other bands. I saw Substance, who were from Texas and alright, and I think Concealed Blade. I don't really like hardcore, and I especially don't like people spitting, throwing beer cans or moshing and pits. I'm way too small and concerned with taking pictures to get anything out of that except pushed over and feeling gross. On the whole, I don't find the idea of slamming into people very interesting. I don't like it, even when I'm not carrying a camera, and I don't think it is necessarily "radical" like some people make it out to be. Essentially, it reinforces the status quo; large guys get to show their strength and be tough. There's definitely a lot more of a community thing to it than that, but it's really just not for me. I ended up leaving after some large pieces of styrofoam started getting tossed around. Everything was all covered in dirt and beer and whaever else. That was enough for me.

My friend Brian saw me on the way back, and I got a ride from him the few blocks I needed to go. It was pretty cold, so I appreciated it. We saw a really interesting fireball in the sky right above my block as we were turning the corner. We weren't sure what it was, but I think it might have just been a paper lantern. It was New Year's Eve after all. When I got home, I put my camera away and rested for a bit. I ate some food. Then I decided to go back to the Shop to catch the last band and hang out before midnight. Interestingly, the door was closed when I got there. It didn't seem like anybody was there, and I saw some posts online that made me think it really was over. I had to go back anyway to grab my bike, so it's all good. When it turned midnight, I was just riding around in the cold. I felt alright about that.


Welcome to the future of 2018! Well, yeah it's been almost two weeks in this future world, but I have some new stuff happening this year.

Now the most obvious change is the new site design. That's just gone up in the past few days. I'm pretty happy with the new template, though I will continue to update it as I see fit.

I've added a new anti-adblocker script. I know this isn't a thing people love, but it does cost money and time to keep the site up and every little bit of extra cash helps. The ad revenue is pretty small too, which is why I am also launching a new Patreon next week. Patreon is a monthly membership platform to provide creators with sustainable income. I hope that one day Skull Valley can be my full-time job, and this will be the way I can do that. When the Patreon launches, you can choose, if you so desire, to support the site with whatever you see fit each month. Certain amounts confer small rewards. Skull Valley isn't becoming a subscription-based site though, so it isn't a requirement.

Another new addition is also a new Submissions page. Last year, someone asked me where they should send something they wanted to see reviewed. I said that the email address was on here, but I think this is better. It's easy to find and insert all the necessary information. If you have any new musick that you want to see here, fill out that form, and I'll try to get a review up if I feel that I can do a fair review. Show yr friends who have bands too.

Alright, now the schedule for 2018 is to update Skull Valley on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I may publish additional posts, but these are the standard update days. Most posts should go up during the afternoon between 11am and 3pm, but some days may be delayed. Friday posts will tend towards concert reviews, while the other days will mostly be reviews of recorded musick and not always from Pittsburgh-based artists. This schedule will vary depending on the number of concerts/shows I attend. Additional special posts are detailed below.

Every other Saturday is a new piece called Outside In(fluence). These are just album/EP/singles reviews, but they all come from artists located outside the US. I probably can't understand the lyrics, so these will primarily be based on the instrumentals and the vocal sounds. I'm sure this could be funny for people that do speak the languages used. The first Outside In(fluence) goes up this Saturday with Dirty Fingers' How'd I Turn So Bad?.

I also have a new monthly series planned that will look at artists who create musick in addition to other art. The Artist Special interview series will be published on the third Sunday of each month. The first one goes up on the 21st of January.

The goals for this year are to stay consistent, expand my focus beyond just Pittsburgh, increase the number of followers/Facebook likes/readers, and to improve the quality of the website. Remember that I can't do this without my readers. Thank you!

If you are reading this post right now, on the day it was published, January 10th, sorry for the mess. I've been working on the site design for Skull Valley all of yesterday. I'm still fixing some small problems today, so it doesn't look the best right now.

Anyway, I recently heard about a new compilation of outtakes put out by THOUSANDZZ OF BEEZ called my new wall. I have enjoyed Hunter's musick live, so I figured it might be cool to check out the album. I was not disappointed.



The cover art of my new wall shows a rough and ghostly face, duplicated vertically, noses into lips and morphing into nooks of eyes and cheeks. I like it, though I still wish there was something more to it. The dark purple form fits the sound of the album well, especially the intro track.



The first track on "my new wall" is the title track. I thought it was really annoying, sort of creepy with it's frog vox drone crackling, until the latter half of the song when it springs into a Bowie-esque sound akin to something from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). "blood is blue :: sky is bound" comes in right off the first one with a small big acoustic sound from a spider's dream.
The third track, "sunshine tomb", has vivid, cold imagery. It seems directed at somebody. I don't kneo who. The end gives me chills. "blocks" is fun, a song about childhood things that turns into an educational synth sound. "hole in a skirt" has more insect lyrics and a beautiful starshine sound of echo waves. The phantom of a radio appears at the end.

The next track, "steely feet", takes a very different turn. I'm not sure how to describe it. It's hypnotic and kind of scary, like a staircase rotating, folding into itself, a hall of mirrors of musicbox dancers in black stockings. "draft letter nightmare" reminds me again of David Bowie or Syd Barrett with more insect mysticism. At first, I thought it might be like a delta blues type of thing, but it wasn't. "((in throw))" has a Devendra Banhart sound with a warbly synth, strings, and drum machine. I like the loud sound at the end. "witch sides" goes back to acoustic dreamworlds with a small rattling bell and backing vocals. Again, it's a little overwhelming for me. "You side with the witch". ""look inside me plz"" is the last track and more conventional except for the quotes around the song title which creates this quotation nightmare I'm having. The actual musick is like an upbeat downer, Harry Belafonte and Robert Johnson.

my new wall gets a Good. It's hard for me to describe all of the feelings that I got from this album. It's a short glimpse into an otherworld, pale blue and dark green and gossamer wings.

Last year, I went to see a band called Fruit & Flowers and missed them. The rest of the show was fine. Luckily, I was able to secure a copy of the band's EP, Drug Tax, on CD before heading out into the chilly night.


The cover art for Drug Tax is a fiery swirl of a flower. It's basic with excellent composition, the petals drawing the viewer into the enclosed text. The trapping, enclosing nature of this vivid flora also beckons for a listen.



Drug Tax starts with the eerie "Out of Touch". Before the chorus, the song feels like the mysterious touch of fabric that you didn't know was there, something like sitting in front of a curtain that moves suddenly. The chorus builds the song up with a perilous gloom of lost love. All the instruments sound great, especially the fuzz bass. "Subway Surfer" is a faster song, a weird fantasy exposing the disconnect of city life. It could be a Godard movie. "Dark Surf" comes in very dark indeed, a spooky riff off the side of the night. Strangely, this song seems sort of positive lyrically, though I'm not really sure what it is about.

The second side of Drug Tax opens with the hard-rockin' "Down Down Down". I like the dramatic plunge at the end of each chorus, and the guitar solo at the end of the song is awesome! Also, check out the Stooges-esque bassline. "Pick Fairy" does another hard-rock thing. This is the weakest song, but it isn't bad. It retreads the last song a bit. The solo does sound really sick, though! The title track, "Drug Tax", is the last one here. The instrumentals sound so snotty and prickly. The backing vocals remind me a lot of Vivian Girls. I love the "hey!" and the stark chorus. There's a really amazing tiny guitar section, and the noisy solos are really cool.

Drug Tax does a good job of transporting the listener into a dark under-land for a short period of time. It's enough that I want to hear more; it doesn't go overboard with excess. The songs are short and punchy, the production top-notch (not pointlessly muddy fake lo-fi) with great sounds all around. Drug Tax receives a Good.
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I agreed to play a show on December 22nd, 2017 that I didn't know much about, but my friend Ryn was putting it together and needed another band. A little after agreeing to do this, I started practicing with a very different setup than I normally use - my guitar accompanied by a drum machine and a microKorg synthesizer. It sounded cool at home, so I even recorded some songs for future use, including one for an upcoming zine release. Would it work live?

I walked to the Rock Room with all my gear in a blue milk crate and my guitar on my back. It was a long trip. I left an hour before I was supposed to be at the venue, but it took one-and-a-half hours to walk to Polish Hill. My arms and back hurt so much when I was about to cross the bridge. I stopped for a short break and was able to make it.

I said talked to my friends and then started to set up. I was a little bit nervous. Once I got everything set up, I had to figure out the sounds on the keyboard for a second. Those few seconds actually took a few minutes. After I began to play, I felt like everything was off, the drums being off from the guitars especially. However, I listened to my recording, and it sounds good! I had started off with a disco-y rock anthem and shifted into heavier, minimalist sludge tones. I'll be using the same setup for my set on January 11th at Howlers for Treasure #11 with Swampwalk, Amadea, and Futurism. I hope I will see some of my readers there.


The next band to play was the touring band, Mala Fides. They're just a two-piece of guitar and bass with a drum machine. I felt more confident in the reception of my own set after seeing their success without a human drummer. Mala Fides was amazing! They reminded me of bands like Paralisis Permanente, Nocturnal Projections, or Cult of Youth. The vocals varied between a Siouxsie Sioux shriek and a calmer Billy Idol. The drum machine worked surprisingly well, despite my standard hesitation about such things. I think it turned better than if they had had a human, reptilian, or Venusian drummer. You can listen to their musick here. I don't think any aliens were actually at the show.


The last band was Rocky Dennis Face. The drummer had a Belie My Burial shirt, which made me wonder if he knew some people I went to high school with. Rocky Dennis Face brought the majority of the crowd. The musick was a very loud and fast, Ramones pop-punk. Unfortunately, their set went on too long, and it was way too loud for me with how long it lasted. The vocals were a little rough, and something about the song composition didn't gel with me. That said, I didn't dislike this band, and I would like to see them again. I do love that Ramones-esque sound.

I bought two tapes and a shirt from Mala Fides and played House of the Dead before I left. Thankfully, I was able to get a ride. I don't know what I would have done if I had to walk. Since Howlers isn't too far from my house, I am still thinking about walking my gear there for the show next week. Again, I hope to see you there, and I'm excited for this new future setup.



"Dreamcast" is the first single from the upcoming BBGuns album, Thirst. Previously known as LAZYBLACKMAN, the duo of Lazy JP and Barz Blackman decided to ditch edgelord rhetoric after the surge in hate crimes and right-wing power last year. This single was released on October 27th, 2017. The song, accompanied by the video of two punky boys jiggin' about after "BBGUNS" angularly flashes on the screen in bright pink, caught my attention right away with it's fast hats and fusion keyboards. It recalls the early 90's OVA anime style of many Sega Saturn games, particularly the legendary NiGHTS Into Dreams, as opposed to the Saturn's stark white successor as named here. I love this night sound, like anything could happen as the city opens around you under a shining moon. "Identify you from across the bar. I recognize you from another star," JP croons like the ditched and dirty Neil Young of "Like a Hurricane". There's some awesome rapping from Barz on this track with JP supplying more of the chorus singing. My only criticism is that it's a bit long, clocking in at slightly over 5 minutes and showing everything it has to share in the first half. Also the cover for the single is a little cheap looking, but it has a weird resemblence to the early Satyr/Elfheim EP, Till Death.


The second single, "Willow", was released on December 12th, 2017. The beginning is a little bit goofy to me with a little yelp making a beat. However, the song really develops soon after with oceanic keyboard ripples, an airy JP chorus, and hard-hitting rhymes from Barz. "Willow" is about longing, hopes, and dreams, maybe a love song dedicated to a pretty girl or a battle-hymn to fame and fortune. It definitely retains their signature Britpop-meets-boom bap. The video is cool, but weird, entirely minimalist and reminding me of Pixies' "Velouria" (but not as ugly) or The Replacements' "Bastards of Young" (but not as grainy and detached). All we see is a pulsing water droplet with a fire inside surrounded by a desert, BBGuns' logo. It reminds me of the Spring of Myst from .hack/Infection along with the aesthetic of PS2 RPGs or the Sega Dreamcast again. There is some grainy, "we-don't-get-that-channel" effect at the start and finish. "Willow" is a beautiful song honestly.

Obviously both of these tracks get a Good from me. I am so pumped for the release of Thirst. If it's anything like BBGuns' live show and the two tracks already available, Thirst seems like it could be a revolutionary recording for a new era of sound and vision. The album is set to drop this February. If you want something to take home now, you can get the two singles above on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, and other digital services now. I can't wait to hear the whole album; just like these singles made my Best of 2017 list, it's looking like Thirst will be make it into the Best of 2018. I feel that strongly about it only 3 days into the year.
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