Iron Butterfly is an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1966. They are best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", providing a dramatic sound that led the way towards the development of hard rock and heavy metal music. Although their heyday was the late 1960s, the band has been reincarnated with various members with varying levels of success with no new recordings since 1975. Their second album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968), remains a best-seller, and Iron Butterfly was the first group to receive an In-House platinum album award from Atlantic Records. Their music has found a significant impact on the international rock scenes, influencing numerous acts such as Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Rush, Alice Cooper, Mountain, Uriah Heep, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Queens of the Stone Age.
Amphetamine Reptile Records is a record label founded in 1986 by Tom Hazelmyer in Washington state. The label specializes in noise rock and also released Strap It On, the debut album by alternative metal band Helmet which sold more than 40,000 records. According to Hazelmyer, the success of the album was vital to keeping AmRep going throughout the 1990s, as it "helped support the other things that sold less." The label was the subject of the 2015 documentary The Color of Noise.
Lubricated Goat are an Australian noise rock band which originally formed in 1986 by multi-instrumentalist Stu Spasm. They achieved brief notoriety in November 1988 for appearing nude on the ABC TV program Blah Blah Blah, wearing only their instruments and shoes. Mainly influenced by the Stooges and the Birthday Party, they are credited for playing a grimy, confrontational style of rock, which preceded grunge. They have issued five studio albums, Plays the Devil's Music (1987), Paddock of Love (1988), Psychedelicatessen (1990), Forces You Don't Understand (1994) and The Great Old Ones (2003).
Unsane is an American noise rock trio that was formed in New York City in 1988. Its music touches on elements of hardcore punk and metal. The writer Patrick Kennedy wrote, "While developing the blueprint for noise-metal bands to follow, Unsane cut a remarkable swath through underground music, inspiring a devoted, cult-like following around the world."
Cows were a noise rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota who formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1998. The band’s music mixed punk rock with surreal humour and copious amounts of noise played through distorted amplifiers and trumpet bleats, codifying them as a noise rock band. Throughout their career Cows released nine studio albums, all but one on the Minneapolis-based label Amphetamine Reptile Records. A star in honor of the Cows is on the outside mural of First Avenue.
Montrose was an American hard rock band formed in 1973 and named after guitarist and founder Ronnie Montrose. The band's original lineup featured lead vocalist and frontman Sammy Hagar, who later found greater success as a solo artist and as a member of Van Halen. Rounding out the original foursome were bassist Bill Church and drummer Denny Carmassi. The band experienced moderate success before disbanding in early 1977.
Negative Approach is an American hardcore punk band, formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1981. The band is considered among the pioneers of hardcore punk, particularly in the Midwest region. Like most hardcore bands, Negative Approach was little known in its day outside of its hometown. It is now idolized in the Detroit rock underground and the punk subculture, considered to be one of the elite bands of the "old school" era, and continues to be influential. Negative Approach initially broke up in 1984 with singer John Brannon moving on to the Laughing Hyenas, and later Easy Action, but the band has reformed as of 2006 and continues to tour sporadically.
Norman Westberg is a guitarist from Detroit best known for his work with Swans. Present through almost the entirety of the band's existence, Westberg was brought on for Swans' debut album Filth (1983) and appeared on every album through 1991's White Light from the Mouth of Infinity. Westberg became a full-time Swans member once again when Michael Gira reactivated the group in 2010.
Mike Dillard is an American drummer and one of the founding members of rock band Melvins. His only known recordings with the original lineup eventually saw release in 2005 as Mangled Demos from 1983. He left the band in 1984 and was replaced by Dale Crover. In 1986 he briefly played in Kurt Cobain's first band, Fecal Matter, before they disbanded.
Boss Hog is an American punk blues band including the husband and wife duo of Jon Spencer (guitar) and Cristina Martinez (vocals) along with Jens Jurgensen (bass), Hollis Queens (drums) and Mickey Finn (keyboard). The band achieved some notoriety, not only due to their abrasive sound, but more to Martinez's confrontational use of nudity on the band's record sleeves. In their 27-year history, the band's releases have been relatively sporadic, but comprised four full-length albums, a mini-album, three EP's and several singles. Between 2008 and 2010, the band played live and toured Europe and the US.
Keep of Kalessin is an extreme metal band from Trondheim, Norway, formed in 1993. The group's early lineup consisted of Ghash on vocals, Obsidian C. on guitars and keyboards, Warach on bass, and Vyl on drums. They released two albums under this lineup: Through Times of War in 1997, and Agnen: A Journey Through the Dark in 1999, before splitting up. Obsidian C. then toured with Satyricon, but revived the Keep of Kalessin name for a 2003 EP, Reclaim. In 2006, he reconstituted the group with a new lineup and released a third full-length, Armada. They toured with Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir early in 2008. Their fourth album Kolossus was released on June 6, 2008. They take their name from Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series of books, where Kalessin is the name of the arch-dragon who is the bearer of the Earthsea world. Keep of Kalessin was nominated for a Spellemannprisen in the metal category in 2008.
Shannon Scott Selberg is a noise/punk rock musician known for his unusual antics on stage. Formerly the frontman for the Minneapolis-based group The Cows, Selberg provided lead vocals, trumpet, bugle and hardcore guitar. After the dissolution of The Cows in 1998, Selberg, described by Pitchfork Media as "the Crispin Glover of the noise rock community", moved on to New York City noise-rock band, The Heroine Sheiks, where he has added keyboards to his repertoire.
Today Is the Day is an American noise rock and experimental metal band that originally formed in Nashville, Tennessee. The band's diverse sound combines influences from areas such as noise music, avant-garde metal, grindcore, post-hardcore, and alternative rock among other genres. Most of the band's recordings make extensive use of dissonance and sampling, as well as unusual production techniques and psychedelic overtones. Lyrical themes include depression, warfare, violence, altered states of consciousness, and mental disorders.
Supernova is an American punk rock band formed in Costa Mesa, California, United States, in 1989. The band has released three full-length albums, numerous singles and EPs and were part of the original 1995 Vans Warped Tour line-up. They are perhaps best known by wider audiences for their song "Chewbacca", which was featured on the soundtrack to Kevin Smith's 1994 independent film Clerks. They are also known for the song "Up & Down", which was performed in 2007 on the Nick Jr. Channel children's show Yo Gabba Gabba!
Janitor Joe was an American noise rock band formed in Minneapolis in 1992. The band's founding members were vocalist and guitarist Joachim Breuer, former member of the Minneapolis-based rock band Bastards, bassist and vocalist Kristen Pfaff and drummer Matt Entsminger. Pfaff was replaced by Wayne Davis following her departure in 1993 to join Hole.
John Fell is an American drummer. Born in New York City in 1961 to academic parents, he came into prominence in the early 1980s playing with rock/reggae/Latin band from Miami named "Watchdog". He is the co-owner of Main Drag Music located in Williamsburg. There, he creates custom snares, and repairs and sells drums. He has been listed on a number of lists of great drummers.
Rape on the Installment Plan is the first album by The Heroine Sheiks. It was released on September 20, 2000, by Reptilian Records.
Siamese Pipe is the second album by The Heroine Sheiks. It was released on October 1, 2002, by Rubric Records.
God Bullies were an American noise rock band from Kalamazoo, Michigan. They were active from 1986–1995, briefly reunited in the early 2000s and most recently in the summer of 2010 to coincide with the Amphetamine Reptile Records' 25th Anniversary concert. This 2010 tour was known as the "War On Peace" tour and featured core members David B. Livingstone, Mike Hard (vocals), Mike Corso (bass) & Adam Berg (drums). This lineup also featured longtime friend of the band & Mike Hard collaborator, Johnnie Johnson on additional guitar. Johnson also played bass on select dates in which Corso was unavailable. Performances during this tour were dubbed "Vintage God Bullies". The setlists sprawled across the band's entire catalog and averaged 25–30 songs a night. Yourfleshmag.com's review of God Bullies performance at the AmRep 25th Anniversary Bash said : "There were two or three bands that day who generated plenty of talk and God Bullies were easily one of the three. Well deserved praise for a band that hasn’t really been functioning full-time for a while."
Peacetika is the fourth studio album by the Minneapolis-based noise rock band Cows. It was released on March 25, 1991, by Amphetamine Reptile Records. The band supported the album with a North American tour.
