Gut Feeling Podcast Rewind: Joshua Brown (Ink & Dagger)
Hello, folks!
No fresh Halloween interview this year, but it feels like a ripe time to revisit the first-ever Gut Feeling Podcast [https://gutfeeling.substack.com/p/gut-feeling-podcast-1-joshua-brown], which is an interview with Ink & Dagger [https://www.instagram.com/inkanddaggerofficial/] bassist Joshua Brown.
Amazingly, Ink & Dagger are playing a series of four shows around Philadelphia this Halloween season (starting tonight), marking the horror-locked, psychedelic-hardcore band’s first performances since 2011.
Throughout our conversation from 2020, Josh gets into: his teenage Straight Edge hardcore band Flagman, and playing with future I&D frontman Sean McCabe in Crud is a Cult [https://www.instagram.com/crudisacult/]; how Josh wasn’t initially sure about Ink & Dagger’s vampiric themes; touring Europe alongside Refused in ‘98 ; awkwardly live-scoring a brawl during Dagger’s 1999 bar show in Vancouver; and more. His wife Leanne, who had played in Vancouver hardcore group Dissent in the ’90s, also pops by.
Reissue hub Trust Records have also kicked off a vinyl reissue campaign behind the full Dagger discography, from bloodlusting singles compendium Drive This Seven Inch Wooden Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart, to boundary-pushing 1998 full-length debut The Fine Art of Original Sin and onto their posthumous self-titled head-trip. Essential listens, all.
You can find out about the represses over here [https://trustrecords.com/collections/ink-dagger], while they all hit streamers in-full on Halloween.
You can stream this episode and the full Gut Feeling Podcast archive now via Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/gut-feeling-podcast-1-joshua-brown-crud-is-a-cult-ink-dagger/id1537424512?i=1000496128391], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/episode/69hiYUnTD3Zg4sacM4BeMv] and more.
End Hits
The Ghouls “Weird Wolf”
On the topic of reissues and revisiting old Gut Feeling Halloween editions [https://gutfeeling.substack.com/p/draculas-deuce-revving-through-gary-ushers-horror], studio monster rock project the Ghouls just had their Dracula’s Deuce album put back into print for the first time since its initial release in 1964.
To recap, the Ghouls were the brainchild of producer Gary Usher, a onetime Beach Boys collaborator who ended up putting together a few fake bands in the Sixties (the Kickstands being another favourite). The Ghouls, in particular, specialized in rip-roaring, horror-and-hot-rod-themed vocal tracks and bone-chilling surf-strumentals.
Gut Feeling went through a lot of the history in 2023, but let’s close things out by looking at one instrumental jam we didn’t get to sink our teeth into the last time around.
The gentle-tremor guitar tremolo and breezy island-sway behind “Weird Wolf” make this tune one of the more low-key creatures found on Dracula’s Deuce. But set against bat-s**t bonkers vamps about Dracula drag racing around the graveyard, it also makes for a necessary breather — the pack of hounds howling off in the distance on “Weird Wolf” would seem to agree.
A perfect mood-setter for those nights when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.
You can pick up a copy of Dracula’s Deuce via Real Gone Music over here [https://realgonemusic.com/products/the-ghouls-draculas-deuce-vinyl].
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