Frank Lemke

Name: Saint Vitus Category: Venue Location: Brooklyn, NY Behind an unmarked black door on Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint lies America’s kvltest watering hole. “None More Black” doesn’t even begin to describe the interior of Saint Vitus; everything from the walls to the toilet seats are a bleak absence of light, the only respite being the…

Breaking Shit by Decibel Magazine It’s strange to be premiering a song off Leave Your Leather On because I’ve been blasting the album for weeks. (It pays to be a big-time journalist.) And yes, I know – I guess these guys forgot about that Limp Biscuit song. Who cares? Stuff still has to get broken…

For the love of speed trials: another dose of Dive Bombs and Dive Bars – heavy metal venue reviews from everywhere across this blasted country. In this installment, Jonah Livingston, Ramming Speed’s blastbeat stopwatch, takes us to Boston, for a review of a venue in his home town. Great Scott Venue Allston, MA I must…

Beelzebub’s Cave Miami, FL DIY Space (all ages) Having just wrapped up recording for our new record and with less then two weeks before the start of our run opening for Revocation and Cannabis Corpse (Dates here: http://www.metalsucks.net/2012/04/10/less-than-ten-days-til-the-awesome-revocationcannabis-corpseramming-speed-tour-begins/) I figured it was as good a time as any to haul out another DIVE BARS AND…

Strange Matter Venue Richmond, VA What kind of a venue could possibly serve as home base for the Monster Manual-toting, frost giant-destroying, death/thrash purveyors Battlemaster? Some sort of Gollum cave or elven hideaway? Wrong you are – the nerd rage brought on by this Richmond wrecking crew fits snugly into local watering hole Strange Matter,…

The sirens have sounded, and gears too big to comprehend are turning. In the wake of MegaUpload swallowing a massive Viral Load, it’s time to hurry up and download anything at all that you think you might need in your music catalog. It’s crunch time. Our laissez faire internet and “music is free attitude” may…

Out of all the things I’ve done in my life, the most common question I’m ever asked is: “What was it like interning at Decibel Magazine?” Well, years after the fact, I’ve finally decided to take a look back and reminisce about what it was like being “The Fucking Intern.” The first thing I did…

Another awesome show at Saint Vitus. This was a Brooklyn Vegan / Brutal Panda event, and you got to love them BP boys. Philly’s heavy rockers Javelina headlined, plus Atlanta’s latest excellent development, Whores, plus some openers. For eight bucks: not bad. Factor in a pint of Fleischmann’s whiskey and some pounders of Bud, and…

Reviewing music is good, but really, everything needs to be reviewed. Bands, albums, riffs, chicks, scenes, zines: all of it. And venues especially. In order to help us review anything that could ever possibly be construed as “heavy metal,” the dudes from Ramming Speed will be offering their critiques of bars, clubs and basements across…

My mind has been bothering me a lot lately, and I’ve been trying to erase it or dull it for weeks. I know that marijuana and shoegaze is a good way to lose long spans of time, so I contacted my contact about having sleepwalk-champions True Widow create me a top five to numb my…

This show was at Saint Vitus, a heavy metal bar in Brooklyn. The place has a separate room for the stage, which is nice, or rather, brutal. I’d like to go there when there’s no show, because it was packed. I was there to rock, not to brush my cock against a bunch of bearded…

Wow. Anyone who’s ever had a Satanic ritual knows that this is exactly what it’s like. A few dudes in a room full of spray paint fumes, with some instruments and a fire going. Depending on how drunk you get and what drugs you’re on, some pretty weird shit can go down. Lamentably, I’ve never…

Sold Out. What a killer tour, at a venue I am starting to like more and more. This was the Relapse-makes-good showcase, no filler or bullshit.

Here’s a band there’s got to be a million tattoos for. Unfortunately, 99% of them are those shitty little ninja stars, and the second most popular idea is to simply get the name in the classic font. Those are both boring ideas. The word is a little cool, just cause it usually comes out like…

Ah! It’s wonderful to get a tattoo up here that’s not on a man’s ass. Jack, from the valley of the dolls, brings us this fantastic pale slab of Black Flag ink. He clearly had the right idea when he got it. I don’t think you can fuck up with a Black Flag tat, and…

In honor of GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot, who passed away yesterday as the band was preparing to enter Canada, we offer this typically deranged Frank Lemke review of this fall’s annual GWAR-B-Q in Richmond, originally trimmed for space from the magazine. Saturday, September 17 The National, Richmond, VA The GWAR-B-Q was booked outdoors, at Hadad’s…

I know what you’re thinking. “A little late for Halloween, idiot.” Wrong, idiot. I wrote this weeks ago. Just for kicks, this Halloween I decided I’d dress up as a “metal head.” I do, of course, listen to metal. But I’d say that my actual style is a lot more casual, since I usually don’t…

It was Heath Rave who asked Decibel during an interview, “When have tattoos and rock music not gone together?” We all know the answer, but we’d be willing to wager that they’ve never gone together this well. You’re probably more familiar with Rave as the bloodfueld drummer from Wolvhammer. You can still download their first…

Remember our Black Dahlia Murder Contest? Yeah, us either, but that won’t stop us from announcing the winner! His name is Keifer, and that’s good enough. Winner. The contest was to find us the most disgusting, grueling, blasting death we’ve never heard of. Keifer won by bringing our attention to Cerekloth. Here is some dirty,…

Motha fuckin’ True Till Def. It’s a free event at Santos Party House, merging two genres that go together like bread and pudding: hardcore and hip-hop. I absolutely fucking loved it when Anthrax did that song with Run DMC. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free? (You have to RSVP, it’s like a wedding.)…

Ha! I’ve finally received a heavy metal tattoo for critical analysis! This week’s installment of Flesh Parade comes from Josh over at the LunchMeat VHS fanzine. Josh says that he got this tattoo after a night of heavy drinking. Drunk points? Check. Josh continues, “It was decided that my buddy, who was the piercer of…

09/23/2011, Terminal 5, NYC Is this exciting, or what? Seeing Queens perform their self-titled was cool, but I never, ever thought I’d get to see Kyuss…or, uh, anything like Kyuss, either. When I found out about the NY date, as Decibel’s self-appointed toke-master general, I felt it was my duty to attend. In addition, I…

There are certain Satanic rites you must preserve before previewing Glorior Belli’s latest offering, The Great Southern Darkness, in its entirety, here on the Deciblog. First shave yourself entirely, except for the hair on your head, which must be grown to maximum length. Then take two lumps of coal and rub them vigorously all over…

Finally! The moment of coagulated anticipation has arrived! The Deciblog is ready to unveil the top five Satanic souls who conquered our Ancient VVisdom Contest, presenting their Satanic treatises unedited and unabridged. Each scored themselves a fresh, hands-on copy of A Godlike Inferno! Jealllooouuusss. 5. Through a simple twist of fate, Paulee was converted from…

If you haven’t listened to Death’s Procession yet, then let this be your wake-up call: you’re fucking up, buddy. Without further bullshit, I think this video makes my point. And this tour is outrageously heavy. I will talk about the time I saw Saviours with Weedeater for years, unless I black it out.  Since I…

Almost every band has that album: the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise radical back catalog. Formerly, every other Wednesday morning (more or less), a Decibel staffer or special guest would take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud is, in fact, The Shit. Let’s get started with Frank Lemke’s vigorously deranged defense of Rebel Meets Rebel’s self-titled bow. 

What else can I say about The Black Dahlia Murder? I like them more than Carcass. There. I said it. Oh, and one more thing: this week we’re giving away an awesome fucking TBDM prize. Enter this contest and you can win the Ritual deluxe box or the limited pressing gatefold vinyl, or maybe both,…

We all have plenty of loud, noisy music to worship the goat with – never enough, in fact. But when it’s time to take it easy and still be evil, it’s not so easy, is it? Danzig has made acoustic evil in the past, Ulver did those strange soundtracks, and Burzum’s prison albums weren’t particularly…

Are you oblivious to trends in fashion and style? Are you a filthy long hair who doesn’t own a single hair product, except, understandably, Head & Shoulders? Have you ever wondered what yourself or a colleague would look like with a swoop haircut? Why not, right? Or maybe you’re trying to get your band into…

Mike Scheidt, the Black Mastermind behind YOB, gives mass and weight to sound waves. And I’m pretty sure that defies one or two of the laws of physics, which means that he’s doing something supernatural. Which makes sense, because I’ve always considered YOB to be a sort of spiritual, transcendental experience. Not that I believe…