It is with much pride and celestial fanfare that we can finally announce the release of our long-overdue cassette split with fellow Middletown negaholics Sea Legs. Under the arcane title "GOREKRAKEN BONGDIRGE," this tape represents the culmination of both projects, and will likely remain as the sole entry in either bands discography owing primarily to differences of a geographical variety.

Our half was recorded in the catacombal studios of Wesleyan's music department, while AJ at Priority Studio held things down for Sea Legs. The tape is being released and distributed by the bands, you can contact either through myspace or send an email to kentuckyfrieddoom@gmail.com if you'd like to grab one, the tapes are $3 + s/h which should be around a buck in the continental us. there is a single run of 100 tapes in case anyone gives a shit (you shouldn't). You can also get the split for free at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?kmzioluuakz


and now, because everyone loves pictures:

This time from the Hartford Advocate (?!)

If ever there was a band that represented the off-the-wall vibe that is Wesleyan's hallmark, it's Kentucky Fried Doom. While most sludge bands are happy to simply write songs about witchcraft, KFD anchors their sound on an actual bubbling cauldron. Only in this case, it's a deep fryer. Oh yes: the Doomsters take contact microphones, stab them through pieces of tofu and potatoes, and dip them in a vat of bubbling, burning oil. The sound is then modified with a number of effects and pedals, and unleashed at the audience, covering songs like "Captain Canola" in a layer of hissing, frothing, ambient distortion. Judging from their set at a campus venue called The Grotto on Saturday, the riffs themselves are pretty mediocre, often repeating too long even by stoner standards. But watching a gang of folks in wizard robes, chicken masks, and American flag bandanas make a heavy-metal ritual out of a vegan fry-up — how could you not fall in love?

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=12388

The mainstream press is DOOMED

"Heavy Rocks!!" involves punk, metal and deep fryer
By Liz Tung, Contributing Writer

It's a quiet Saturday night heavy with cold, and the suburban Connecticut landscape is crusted over with half a foot of frozen snow. Pellets of freezing rain hit the ice and glaze over the windshields of cars with the sound of static on a radio. On Foss Hill, a few lone sledders careen into the darkness, the scraping of their sleds swallowed into the night. Despite the mess of slush there is something clean and lonely about the night, like a supermarket after closing time.

Inside the WestCo Café, though, it smells like a war zone; oil and smoke fumes fill the dimly lit basement. In the corner, a boy nurses his bloody nose, while a sweaty and enthusiastic crowd chants: "Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom!" At the center of the circle, five figures, three of whom are wearing capes, deliberate inaudibly. Behind them, a series of projected images flash across a draped screen, while a deep fryer bubbles precariously close to the sound equipment. The whole thing feels like a weird twist on "Macbeth," complete with sorcerers, cauldrons, and ominous lighting. Within moments, the figures, who are not, disappointingly, sorcerers, but the members of a band called Kentucky Fried Doom, launch into movement, saturating the room with dense, crushing waves of sound.

This was the scene of the aptly named: "Heavy Rocks!!" show, a night devoted to doom metal, punk, and deep-fried potatoes. The show kicked off with the Fusty Nuts, a University band featuring Keenan Mitchell '09 on drums, Sam Ottinger '08 on guitar and vocals, and Luke Woollard '09 on bass. The Fusty Nuts got the evening off to an energetic start, setting the tone with their precisely rendered brand of dirty, destructive rock. The short set veered mostly between galloping metal riffs and seventies-era guitar solos (complete with squealing high notes and swinging mops of hair). Although they classify themselves as: "Punk/Ska/Crunk," the Fusty Nuts paid their proper respects to the theme of the evening with a heavy guitar sound that rolled over the crowd like a wailing marriage between Black Sabbath and Soundgarden. True to the Myspace description above, the Fusty Nuts eased off the heavy with fast punk breakdowns and slow growling vocals.

Next up was Red vs. Black, a rollicking punk trio that hails from Ithaca, N.Y., with Sam Tallent on drums, Clay Dehaan on bass, and Willie Oscheweiler on vocals. With this lean but powerful lineup, RvB tore through their forty-five minute set, whipping the crowd into a frenzy of slam-dancing which ended, coincidentally or not, soon after the aforementioned bloody nose. This raucously good set featured a fast-as-hell sound that was ecstatically reminiscent of '80s hardcore bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag. RvB's vocalist swaggered with a little more irreverence than we might have imagined from a young Ian Mackaye (of Fugazi fame), but the band still managed to channel the D.C. hardcore lineage in an organic and creative way. This was evidenced in RvB's more forgiving songs, whose softer edges touched on post-hardcore reference points like Fugazi and Slint. RvB finished off with two Misfits covers ("because everybody loves the Misfits!"): "Skulls" and "Hybrid Moments."

From here on out, it was all Doom. Time slowed and gravity seemed to increase as Bright, a three-person doom-metal band from Higganham, Conn., sucked WestCo into a pit of (as the show description correctly predicted) "crushing doom-sludge." Bright proved to be epically loud and epically heavy, as many of us discovered later while trying to shake the telltale ringing from our ears. Bright matched Red vs. Black in intensity, channeling the crowd's slam-dancing energy into heroic feats of headbanging. This, of course, set the stage for the evening's main course, as it were: Kentucky Fried Doom.

Although KFD's official lineup includes eight members, the six present on Saturday were Will Blomquist '08 on bass, Max Lavine '10 on drums, Destin Douglas '09 and Max Gardner '10 on guitar, Mary Longley '10 on synth, and Dana Matthiessen '09 on fryer" that's right, fryer. This is where we return to the mystical scene of smoke, wizardry, and canola oil. As Longley would later explain, KFD is "doom-metal plus." Plus what? "Plus eleven flavors and spices," she answered. The "flavor" she was referencing is provided by a homemade contact mic, which is shoved into a piece of food (available on Saturday were tofu dogs and potatoes) and tossed into a deep fryer. The sound of frying is then manipulated by four or five distortion pedals (operated by one Matthiessen), and then filtered through speakers. The question is, can a fryer really act as an instrument?

"Different foods make different sounds," Longley explained. "Maybe."

She deferred to Lavine.

"It's about faith," he agreed.

This was good enough for the WestCo crowd, which seemed energized by the combination of doom and French fries. KFD's appeal was not merely limited to novelty, however; thanks, in part, to its many members, KFD delivered a sound that was densely layered and even nuanced, rather than simply grinding. On Saturday, this experimental take on metal was elevated to almost psychedelic proportions, as their musical performance merged with ghostly film projections and repeated, almost tribal demands for more doom.

http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/6092

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Mute With Stupefaction's Rejected Journgasms

"Shitting in the Dark: The Bowel Rupturing Sounds of Doom"

Okay, so by the "end" of the show, Max H. is wandering around in some sort of parachuting jumpsuit with one of those miner's lights strapped to his forehead looking for the eclectic circuit breaker while wizards with musical instruments tangle and untangle various cables. My ears ring, the audience is sort of milling around in circles, and I make my way to the bathroom to see if I can somehow put my face back onto my skull, it being so melty and all (think about the pizza that the Ninja Turtles ate). There, I encounter someone shitting in the dark, the fluorescent lights rendered useless by the sheer force of Kentucky Fried Doom.

It's easy to talk about volume, as I'm sure most people relating this story to their parents the next day probably did ("yeah I was at this doom metal show last night...no no, d-o-o-m...wait, what? sorry, what? I can't hear you"). I mean, after all, the last band said goodnight after the fuse went out by asserting, "something blew up, so the show has to end" and Sea Legs apparently had a noise complaint registered all the way down at Traverse square. But, come on! It was so much more than that. The lead singer of Ripshit had a patch that read "Book Punk" sewed on the right leg of 'er jeans and politely spilled root beer all over the sound equipment (they're edge), while Motionless were so undeniably ferocious that at the close of the song they played "for people who liked the other bands better," one of the guitarists started playing a second drum set, literally doubling the power of the already no-surrender gatling burst beat. (Plus, Adam did a really nice rendition of Third Eye Blind during sound check). Awesome!! No, what? Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you.

So yeah, there were some muggings last week or whatever. People carry knives, don't walk alone, anyone without a Wesleyan ID is a threat, blah blah blah. Fuck it. Brian, the vocalist from Sea Legs made a really nice point between basically breathing fire while singing which I'd like to paraphrase. Something along the lines of, "I've been going shows here at Wesleyan, at this house and others, for a really long time and I think other people have been, too, and it's really nice to be on the other side over here so thanks for having us." How's that for improving the, er, "town/gown relations?" Plus, KFD, RS, and SL all played together in New Haven on Sunday (I couldn't go). Outreach, Wesleyan! Mention that in the Fiske guide or something. "Breeding sympathetic community interactions through loud music" (instead of fear tactics, etc) mmm yeah that is the FUCKING POWER of LOUD, DOOM HARBINGER MUSIC.

And by the way, at least one person in the audience became vegan again.

So Doom Metal might not be your thing...you prefer, like, uh, Natalie Imbruglia? Well, you can't really escape the sort of aural tractor beam that bands like the ones that played on Saturday create, so you might as well chew on some tasty fried morsels, be around people that don't have to eat at Usdan, and get yer damn mind blowed. Or help us look for the fusebox, because, well, I think the lights in the bathroom might still be off.

http://mutewith.blogspot.com/2008/04/rejected-journgasms-kfd-and-friends.html