As legend has it, the Bee Master resides in a cave in the smoldering desert and rises every thirteen moons to feed and vanquish his enemies. "Better not to leave your homes; the Bee Master will grind your bones; dirt and dust and ash and stones; the Bee Master will grind your bones..."
And, yeah, that's not actually true. The facts as we know them:
-Bee Master are four dudes from Vegas who are ready to melt faces with their tasty riff selections.
-The eponymous album, available now from several outlets online and shipping soon to anywhere you want a copy, is a catchy burst of mathy rock action, sure to set asses shaking and toes tapping.
-The dudes are:
Brian Cantrell - vocals, guitars, some keyboards.
Brett Bolton - drums.
Michael Montoya - bass.
Brendan Scholz - guitar, vocals, new guy.
-On this album, they were joined by Brock Frabbiele and Ryan Ray for backup vocals (Ryan recorded it, too). Anywhere you hear keyboards that sound really good, they were more than likely played by Eric Zellner.
Clockwise from top left: Mike, Brendan, Brett, Brian.
The Positive Press (so far):
"It was not a pizza. I was disappointed. I expected pizza."
-Chris Gugino, esteemed journalist/man about town.
"Album of the Year, 2012-2016."
-Aaron Thomas, driver to the stars.
"Can be said that it contains 11 tracks. There are loud parts, and not-so-loud parts."
-Chris Gugino, no relation.
"Bee Master will mess up your hair and erase your fondest memories."
-Brian 'not the guy from the band you're reading about' Cantrell, corporate guy.
Influences:
My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow.
Smashing Pumpkins - Rocket.
Queen - Killer Queen.
Queens of the Stone Age - First it Giveth.
The Velvet Teen - No Star.
Fugazi - Turnover.
Nirvana - In Bloom.
Sleater-Kinney - A New Wave.
Menomena - Wet and Rusting.
At the Drive-In - Cosmonaut.
H¸sker D¸ - Makes No Sense at All.
Flaming Lips - Bad Days.
Cursive - From the Hips.
Lyrically, Brian's biggest influences include Kurt Vonnegut, Futurama, Wu-Tang Clan and things he reads on the back of cereal boxes.
Ephemera, etc.
BandCamp.
Facebook.
The Dudeist Papers podcast, episode 4 - featuring Brian Cantrell and Chris Gugino.
Live at First Sting for Bee Master, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3 Jun 2015.
Punks in Vegas Stripped Down Session, featuring performances of Television and End.
Punks in Vegas: Five Questions with Brian Cantrell.
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p.s. RIP: Ornette Coleman. If there's a greater artist and a greater loss to art's advancement, I can't think of who that could be. Today the multi-talent of local and beyond renown who goes by the local name of Rewritedept and the beyond name of Chris Gugino introduces all and sundry to the brand new album by the brand-ish new band Bee Master. Please dig into the details, background, and side trips today. Thanks, and thanks a literal bunch, Re/Chris! ** Michael_karo, Well, thank you kindly, Michael. Yeah, I read amidst my post material gathering that Phil Collins is an Alamo fan/obsessive, which makes no sense at all, but surely must. A new album by you! Been too long a while, whoa. Do come back and link us up, obviously, yes! ** Nicola, Hi. Oh, yeah, the hi was a sincere and reverberating one and not a fridge of any sort, for sure. Oh, cool, I'm excited to read your rant, and let me ... Everyone, d.l. Nicola has written a thing of no doubt great interest, and ... she'll tell you: 'In case it's of any interest to the queer theory aficionados on here, here's (my latest) epic rant about Lee Edelman's 'No Future'.' It's over on the Feminist Academic Collective blog, and it's called 'Let’s stop equating reproductive futurity with socially reproductive labour', and please partake. x, D. ** Torn porter, Torn! Buddy boy! You guys are in Europe? Where? Oh, okay, given its length, I'll have to take a little time to watch and give you my reaction to that video you linked me to, but I will. Thanks, man. Awesome to see you! ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, RIP: Christopher Lee. And Dusty Rhodes, and Ron Moody. Death was savage yesterday. I really need to retry '1941' one of these days given your high regard for it. I saw it on release and thought it was just awful. But mistakes happen. Exciting about the new Barthes bio. In English too? I'll try to find out. ** James, Hi. Epic blog post sounds epically great and giant-ly welcome. Thank you ultra-much! ** Bill, Yeah, right? My fave is the guy who's spent 15 or whatever years digging up his basement with mini-earth moving equipment. I know, Ornette Coleman, terrible. So incredibly great. And Christopher Lee too, obviously. You're in Berlin now! How is it so far? What's up? ** _Black_Acrylic, I fully agree with you that 'Unpainted Sculpture' is one of the great art works. Glad the panel thing was interesting. Yes, there's that plus -- i.e getting a bead on sussing out how to suss out panels as an applicant. ** Steevee, Hi. I don't know those people/artists. Huh. I'll go find out. Thank you! Everyone, here Steevee interviews director Laura Nix and the Yes Men about 'their' new documentary film 'The Yes Men Are Revolting'. Read it, why don't you. We just started getting those horrible high temperatures here yesterday too. In my place, and in 90% of Parisian places as well, we have to rely on cross-breeze. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. They are so-o-o-o-o long. They make for good gifs sometimes. People who love poetry love poetry more intensely than people who love fiction, essays, etc. love fiction, essays, etc. It's magic. I'm good. Masks? Yeah, not wearing them, but I like seeing and touching them for completely sure. It depends, re: 'quality'. With, say, monster masks, which I particularly like, the new sophisto ones don't interest me as much as the older analog ones from the 90s and prior. I think they're scarier and more interesting when they're a little technically imperfect or something. Why do you ask? Are you especially into masks? If so, what kind(s)? I didn't know that American Chordata was actually out! Cool, thank you! I wish Zach, wherever he is, would have alerted me so I could do a big birth shebang post. I guess I still could. D.l. Zach, are you out there? Want me to do a 'welcome to the world' post about American Chordata with you assistance? In the meantime, ... Everyone, American Chordata, a new literary magazine, one of whose editors is beloved d.l. Zach, is out publicly with its first issue, which looks great, and which has work by our own Cal Graves in it. Get it. It's totally, totally free, and it's right here. Yay! Beeline-for-the-fridge-ly, Dennis ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, so huge and horrible about Ornette Coleman. I got to see him perform live only once in the early 80s. It was just insanely great, of course. No, I haven't seen the Andersson yet, but I hope to maybe this weekend. Hm, okay, I'll prepare myself for the late tone problem. I haven't seen anything new, film-wise, of late other than 'San Andreas', just stuff online re: making posts, mostly. I just watched a bunch of Harun Farocki while making a post about his work. That was fantastic. With luck, we will be putting the very, very final touches on the film starting today and hopefully finishing over the weekend at long last! ** Misanthrope, Nutsy nature rules. Well, except in cases of fire and really bad earthquakes. But rain, thunder, lightning, ahhh. John Waters is a god. Point blank. Inarguably. Oh, shit, about the mom stuff. So, I guess getting her to sign off on LPS is not going to be easy? Shit, man, best of the best re: all of that. Ugh. I like the old way with models and miniatures and massive built sets and stuff, but I do like CGI too. I kind of like how CGI is slathered onto skeletal sets and green screens and stuff. But it's always cold. That's a drawback, although I do like the coldness. I don't know, weird. ** Keaton, Me? Nah. But thanks. Really liked your latest post. A lot. Me too, about the bend of the metro trains. There's a great one on Line 1, I think between Gare de Lyon and Bastille, which is also the train where, if you can get into the first car, you get to look down the tunnel ahead. I don't think they have dill pickles over here. Oh, wait, in American chain joints they do. Hummus is Satan's orgasm. In the good way. ** Okay. Try to add Bee Master to your favorite new bands list, if that happens to happen to you today. See you tomorrow.