WKNC 88.1 FM - North Carolina State University Student Radio
# Artist Record Label
1 VON PEA AND THE OTHER GUYS The Fiasco HiPNOTT
2 BLACK MILK FEVER Mass Appeal
3 BUDDY Harlan & Alondra Lil Cool Company
4 MALIBU KEN Malibu Ken Rhymesayers
5 CHOOSEY AND AMP EXILE Self-Released
6 DENZEL CURRY TA1300 Loma Vista/Concord
7 ASAP ROCKY Testing RCA
8 BONES Failure TeamSesh
9 AESOP ROCK “Klutz” [Single] Rhymesayers
10 EARL SWEATSHIRT Some Rap Songs Tan Cressida
It was back in 2017 at the Carolina Rebellion that I met Jose Mangin. Who is he you ask? Mangin is SiriusXM’s Metal Ambassador and hosts SiriusXM Liquid Metal and Octane. Like myself, Mangin has been a metalhead his entire life. He is married and has 2 daughters. He is also a businessman! Sponsored by Mexican beer maker, Modelo, and co-owner of Riazul premium tequila, and rock ‘n roll clothing company Affliction.
He attended chemistry classes at the University of Arizona and attended the University of Tennessee for graduate school, pursuing a pharmacy degree. He began his radio career in college while working at his college radio station. He won an award for his on-air skills, and soon he left graduate school and moved to New Jersey to begin his new career.
I had not come up with the idea of The Saw, yet, when I met Mangin. I was still just a fan of metal, and Mangin has always been one of my favorite DJ’s because of his love for metal. I saw him on the ferris wheel and I waited by the exit so I could meet him. He was really cool and talked to me about metal music for a couple of minutes. I met him very briefly, but I remember that day as if it was yesterday.
I look up to Jose Mangin for many reasons. I see myself in him because we both grew up metalheads and have loved metal our whole lives. How we both got started in radio is similar, too, because I am now working at my college radio station. He gets to interview, see, and hang out with bands/artists that I have been a fan of for years. He has shown me that with hard work, I can achieve my dreams and continue The Saw’s Butcher Shop even after college.
One day I hope to see Jose Mangin again and tell him about my show and possibly interview him. I would love to sit down and talk to him about all things metal.
Who is your role model? Have you ever met them?
Stay Metal,
THE SAW
# Artist Record Label
1 TRUTH CLUB Not An Exit Tiny Engines
2 MORABEZA TOBACCO Morabeza Tobacco Luminelle
3 AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS Amyl And The Sniffers ATO
4 TACOCAT This Mess Is A Place Sub Pop
5 AA BONDY Enderness Fat Possum
6 MEXICO CITY BLONDES Blush Burger
7 PIP BLOM Boat Heavenly/PIAS
8 HAYBABY They Get There Tiny Engines
9 BLESSED Salt Pirates Blend
10 CHERRY GLAZERR Stuffed & Ready Secretly Canadian
11 MINI DRESSES Heaven Sent Joy Void
12 ENTRACTE TWIST Entracte Twist Requiem Pour Un Twister
13 HELADO NEGRO This Is How You Smile RVNG Intl.
14 MOM AND THE MAILMAN Tasty Meat Burger
15 CRUMB Jinx [Advance Tracks] Self-Released
16 DUMB Club Nites Mint
17 FLASHER Constant Image Domino
18 SHARON VAN ETTEN Remind Me Tomorrow Jagjaguwar
19 KIM GRAY Plastic Memory Buzz
20 FEELS Post Earth Wichita
21 IAN SWEET Crush Crusher Hardly Art
22 EYEDRESS Sensitive G Lex Ltd
23 ROIDZ Fight Night Danger Collective
24 MIKE KROL Power Chords Merge
25 KURT VILE Bottle It In Matador
26 KERO KERO BONITO Time N’ Place Polyvinyl
27 MALLSEX Discreet Services Self-Released
28 HAND HABITS placeholder Saddle Creek
29 DEERHUNTER Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? 4AD/Beggars Group
30 JESSICA PRATT Quiet Signs Mexican Summer
Top Adds
1 MISS JUNE “Best Girl” b/w “Twitch” [Single] Frenchkiss
2 CHRISTELLE BOFALE Swim Team [EP] Father/Daughter
3 GET UP KIDS, THE Problems Polyvinyl
4 FRENCH VANILLA How Am I Not Myself? Danger Collective
5 GOTOBEDS, THE Debt Begins At 30 Sub Pop
6 HAYBABY They Get There Tiny Engines
7 PIP BLOM Boat Heavenly/PIAS
Until recently, I never went to concerts unless I knew most of the words to most of the songs. I thought if I couldn’t sing along and predict every tempo change I would feel left out or maybe even bored. But I am so glad I decided to get over that hesitation, because it led to me seeing No Vacation. I vaguely knew their most popular song, Yam Yam, but I wasn’t expecting anything crazy from their bedroom pop sound, and I definitely didn’t expect to see one of the best concerts of my life.
I’ve seen the Arctic Monkeys, the Avett Brothers, Alt- J, and many more of my favorite bands, so why did this small, unassuming band I didn’t even know blow me away? I mean, there’s definitely something to be said for low expectations, but to me, No Vacation captured something I think we all want to feel when we go to those small, intimate concerts: connection.
And this wasn’t only achieved by the headliner, but the opener as well. Okey Dokey, a psych soul band from Nashville, interacted with the audience in a very unique way. During one of their songs, the lead singer grabbed a wig they had been tossing around on stage and placed it on the end of the mic stand. He then extended it into the audience, offering the accessory to someone. After the wig was removed, he swayed with the stand as the audience held the base. Albeit it a somewhat awkward sight to see, it was refreshing and much more personal than chucking something into the crowd.
No Vacation also made several attempts to connect with the audience, something that seems to be lacking in a lot of shows nowadays. Nat (keyboardist) and Sab (lead vocalist) both on separate occasions jumped into the audience to dance with the crowd and hype everyone up. They also encouraged everyone to “bop” to several of their songs and would jump and dance as an example. After one of these enthusiastic commands, the crowd responded with such vigor the concrete floor felt like it was shaking beneath me. A lot of the show was like a spirited, musical game of Simon Says, and it made a mob of strangers feel more united and excited. This bridging of the gap between performer and audience resulted in one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve ever seen.
You might not expect it from listening to their soothing tracks, but if you ever get a chance to see them live, these energetic artists will definitely surprise you.
Throughout all of hip hop history, there are only a few artists that fans will identify as the GOAT (greatest of all time). For this generation, the most widely agreed upon of these artists are; Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Gucci Mane, Kid Cudi, and Young Thug. Of these four, Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne undoubtedly have the most influence on today’s rap culture, but who has more? Lil Wayne is notorious for his cultural impact. In fact, on his latest album, The Carter V, the song Dedicate boosts some of his most notable achievements (in terms of influence) including both his physical and lyrical impact. The most apparent impact Lil Wayne has given to the culture is his name. Though Lil Wayne was actually the second rapper to put ‘Lil’ in front of his name (proceeding Lil Troy by only a year), he is definitely the reason behind the large population of ‘Lil’ rappers today which include; Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Baby, Lil Pump, Lil Yachty, and countless others. Wayne was also one the first to make gang life cool (Behind Snoop Dogg). As bad as that sounds, before him, rappers did not often shout out gangs. Nowadays, there are thousands of rappers, underground and mainstream, who actively rep a gang whether they belong to it or not (like Young Thug for example with his constant mention of “Slime”, which is actually a gang reference). Wayne is also one of the first rappers to build a collaborative label run by artists in which all artists are successful (Young Money), which is seen now in labels like Quality Control and Bad Boy. More things that Wayne is credited for are; integrating face tats into rap culture and having merch develop into its own brand. He was notably also the first rapper to buy a Bugatti. This may seem like a lot of contributions yet when compared to those of Gucci Mane, it is hard to determine who had more. Though Lil Wayne is credited with integrating face tats into rap culture, Gucci Mane is credited with integrating face tats into pop culture. Before him, only gangster rappers would dare to tattoo their face but, after his notorious ice cream tattoo was displayed to the world, artists and icons everywhere seemed to start to get tattoos on their faces. Gucci’s largest contribution to the culture is Trap music. Gucci single-handedly created the Trap genre through rapping about trapping and making it sound cool for the first time. He also created the trap sound, emphasizing heavy beats and lyrics rather than melodies (you know what I’m talking about). Now don’t get me wrong, there was gangster rap before Gucci but, the act of trapping was never discussed and definitely never glorified. Through glorifying trap, Gucci inspired a new wave of artists to get rich through trapping and spend the money on a studio and other things to enhance their upcoming career. Gucci is also one of the first to make ad libs popular in rap culture. Through the iconic “BRR!”, we now have “SQUAD!”, “Thugger Thugger baby” and all of Migos’ various adlibs to name a few. Therefore, without Gucci, there would be no new wave of Atlanta music that hip hop is so fond of today. There would be no Young Thug, no Waka Flacka., no Young Nudy, no Migos, etc. So who had the bigger influence? Gucci or Wayne? I honestly have no clue.
-Lul Bulma
Album Review: Nots – 3
Best Tracks: Woman Alone, In Glass, Built Environment
FCC: Clean
Since 2011, this Memphis three-piece has been releasing gritty, noisy, yet somewhat experimental and trippy punk tunes while building a small following along the way. Some call them garage-punk, others say psychedelic-punk but for the sake of making things simple, Nots is a straight forward punk band at its core.
The album’s A-side kicks off with a nonchalant, laid-back ride along called ‘Low,’ fueled by a chugging bass line that serves as the song’s mover. It still gets the veins moving but does not reside in aggression and angst in the traditional sense of punk, though it still serves as a fantastic intro to the album.
‘Woman Alone’ is a song that swells with sound and emotion. The lyrics “What’s it like to be a subject analyzed” takes you into a world of unease that the singer feels comes with the territory of being female in American society. The trippy and experimental guitar tracks give this song its edge but flow inconceivably.
‘In Glass’ is another thrasher of dirty bass lines and hallucinatory noises that fit congruently with the direction of the song. Filled with chants and a stampede of a drum beat, it proves difficult to sit still, provoking the listener to move about in whatever rhythmic variation comes to mind.
3’s B-side starts off with ‘Half-Painted House,’ which comes off as a bit dry and repetitive but is still intriguing nonetheless. Maybe this was the intent with the lyrics “Take another pill to calm my mind” and “Make another drink to calm my mind,” in serving the purpose of showcasing the habitual actions one takes when relying on substances to function in an overstimulating world.
The second half of the album is not as intense as the first but still reigns in the grooves and punchy-ness while not overreaching. ‘Surveillance Veil’ still has the floor tom rumbles and dirty bass lines but with a bit more fluidity. The scorching guitar riffs that buzz and resonate with soaring bends chime with a dark resolution and carry the track on a life of its own. The album’s last track ‘Built Environment’ kind of ties things up as far as the structural theme of the record by providing a mix of everything from the release: clean pockets of organized noise, sporadic drum fills, echoing vocals, and galactic guitar effects.
3 is a great album by a phenomenal band that has just met my acquaintance. I will definitely be taking that adventurous stroll through their discography as they have made a lasting impression on me.
-Justin Capoccia
ALBUM REVIEW: INJURY RESERVE- Injury Reserve
Best Tracks: Jailbreak the Tesla, Wax On, Three Man Weave
Injury Reserve is the self-titled debut by the rap group Injury Reserve. Injury Reserve hails from Arizona and includes members Stepa J. Groggs, Ritchie with a T and Parker Corey, their producer. The trio formed in 2013 and have since released three mixtapes and two EPs, the most popular of them being Floss and Live From the Dentist Office. Injury Reserve is a group that embraces a lot of different sounds and infuses them into their music, injecting their sound in the veins of post-industrial, 90s boom bap, rock and electronic. On their self-titled album, Stepa J. Groggs and Ritchie spit clever lyrics in their distinct flows with the album’s guest features doing the same. This albums guest highlights include Rico Nasty in Jawbreaker who delivers a down to earth verse, Amine in Jailbreak the Tesla who comes in at the end with relevant and funny bars and Cakes Da Killa who crashes in hard and fast on GTFU. Injury Reserve begins with Koruna & Lime, backed with a beat reminiscent of Odd Future, introducing the rappers and the group itself by describing brand deals and the group’s avoidance of a genre label. Throughout the album you can find a sampling of very different, crunchy and melodic sounds on timely topics like Instagram, Elon Musk, Hypebeasts and depression. The last track ends off with Three Man Weave wherein Groggs and Ritchie rap on the group’s connectedness and collaboration throughout the duration of their careers featuring a sample of Phoenix’s Embuscade orchestrated by Parker Corey.
Some of the album’s best tracks are Jailbreak the Tesla, Wax On and Three Man Weave. It is evident throughout this work that Parker Corey, who curates the unorthodox rap beats and the guest appearances were the ones who carried a lot of the weight of this album’s freshness and boundary pushing aesthetics. However, this is not to take away from Groggs and Ritchie’s lyricism that is mostly consistent throughout the album, they preserve the “Injury Reserve sound” with their rapped lyrics and in tandem, Corey pushes it past the borders of what rap music sounds like. This album strikes me as a continuation and expansion of Injury Reserve’s fragmented, but original sound which takes hold through Parker Corey’s production while also keeping it accessible through the rhymes of Stepa and Ritchie. Injury Reserve is one of 2019’s most experimental, energetic and fun rap albums and is most definitely worth a listen.
-Makayla Mack
CLASSIC REVIEW: CALEB FRAID- The Old Rugged Me
BEST TRACKS: 50/50, Anxious to Live, Vertical Blind
Fine, fine, this isn’t what would regularly be denoted as a “classic”. But there’s something in this album which I haven’t found within really anything else. It isn’t clear whether this is a result of a personal absence of knowledge surrounding this genre or simply that I have stumbled upon a long forgotten masterpiece (there’s a good chance it’s the former), but The Old Rugged me contains such a distilled spirit of creativity and self reliance that it manages to make me feel wholly lacking in every creative endeavor I’ve ever attempted. While Caleb Fraid’s 8-track gem has been, to the extent of my knowledge, widely ignored, I would argue the (in)famous Velvet Underground quote is equally applicable to this album. Every person who listens to The Old Rugged Me is guaranteed to start a band.
Picture this, it’s the mid 90s, cassettes still reign supreme simply in their pragmatism. Wow, what a time! Of course, I won’t try and make the classic “I was born in the wrong generation :,(“ argument, but the music environment facilitated by mid-90s technology is still really fucking cool. Though the advent of the internet has virtually eliminated 90% of distribution costs, making everything DIY an actual possibility, the inherent magnitude of the World Wide Web makes this distribution infinitely more diffuse. With cassette tapes, the distribution wasn’t presupposed. As such, not only was the content itself DIY, but so were the means by which it was sold, advertised, and shipped. So what does all of this actually mean you ask? Super localized tape scenes where labels often simply consisted of a handful of bands recording songs on a boombox and then having their stuff advertised in a mailer and shipped out from some dude’s house. Labels like Shrimper, Amateur Anarchy, and Asswipe all existed as “companies” which refreshingly removed barriers between artists and consumers, and built an underground (hell yeah) music scene which attracted musicians whose creativity could be fostered on something as simple as something like an 8-track. And that’s where Caleb Fraid, a Houston native, comes in. While perusing BandCamp like a certified cool man, I came across FraidAid: a decent collection of lo-fi songs. Admittedly, I wasn’t blown away. But then I looked at what else Fraid had released and, to my surprise, found over 100 tapes recorded between the mid 80s and early 2000s. Most of the covers were plastered with doodles Fraid appeared to have drawn on napkins. And so I finally came upon The Old Rugged Me, a collection of tracks whose minimal production quality initially mask the startlingly good songwriting beneath it. But don’t be fooled, this album is genius.
The funniest part about The Old Rugged Me is that it doesn’t really sound that far off from the Beatles’ White Album. No, no, I’m serious. Fraid obviously isn’t concerned with clever recording techniques; rather, he spends two to three minutes using his limited resources to display his phenomenal songwriting. And it is phenomenal. 50/50 offers us a horribly thin guitar line coupled with Fraid’s double tracked vocals that occasionally diverge to weave in and out of harmony before returning to the binary drone by the chorus. I swear to God, it sounds just like the Velvet Underground. And the production here actual begins to work to Fraid’s advantage, turning a pretty standard sounding blues-rock track into a playful build which can only be described as a guy playing singing and playing guitar at himself. Similarly, “Anxious to Live” and “Vertical Blind” find their tenderness significantly boosted by its rawness. Whatever may exist within Fraid’s mind for these songs is probably impossible to decipher, but there is no mistake that it’s genuine. Honestly, it’s difficult to choose a handful of songs to highlight on this thing; every song is a rotation of impulse which sees Fraid’s sparse, yet intricate songwriting ultimately speak for itself.
This album is the pinnacle of everything classified as DIY. Devoid of pretension, The Old Rugged me exists as an entirely pure expression of an artist who is clearly fully invested in what he makes.
– Cliff Jenkins
What’s good Butcher Crew? We all known Mount Rushmore, the massive National Memorial of some of the most important presidents of the United States. What are the bands, albums, and people that are the most important to you?
In these lists below, I give my top 4 bands, albums, songs, and people, etc. that have influenced me the most; my own Mount Rushmores. Now, these may not be the most influential to readers but, here is insight into my musical tastes.
If you could create your own metal Mount Rushmore, who/what bands would you put on it?
Metalcore Bands:
As I Lay Dying
Asking Alexandria
Miss May I
Parkway Drive
Deathcore Bands:
Job For a Cowboy
Whitechapel
Suicide Silence
Carnifex
Death Metal Bands:
Death
Obituary
Cannibal Corpse
Dying Fetus
Clean Vocals:
King Diamond (Mercyful Fate)
Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour)
Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Matt Heafy (Trivium)
Guttural Vocals:
Phil Bozeman (Whitechapel)
(Old) Chris Barnes (ex-Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under)
Darius Tehrani (Spite)
CJ McMahon (Thy Art Is Murder)
Guitarist:
Tosin Abasi (Animals As Leaders)
Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath)
Dimebag Darrell (Pantera)
Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society)
Bassist:
Cliff Burton (Metallica)
Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister (Motorhead)
Reginald Arvizu “Fieldy” (Korn)
Steve Harris (Iron Maiden)
Drummer:
Joey Jordinson (Slipknot)
Lee Stanton (Thy Art Is Muder)
Chris Adler (Lamb of God)
Daniel Erlandsson (Arch Enemy)
Best Hair:
Levi Benton (Miss May I)
Lenny Bruce (Dust Bolt)
Peter Steele (Type O Negative)
Trevor Perez (Obituary)
Best Live Performance:
Wage War
Attila
Alice Cooper
Metallica
Well-known Songs (General Public):
Walk (Pantera)
Enter Sandman (Metallica)
Back In Black (AC/DC)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
Well-known Songs (For Me):
Chopped in Half (Obituary)
The Saw Is the Law (Whitechapel)
Forgive and Forget (Miss May I)
Evisceration Plague (Cannibal Corpse)
Best Album (General Public):
Reign in Blood (Slayer)
Metallica [“The Black Album"] (Metallica)
Cowboys From Hell (Pantera)
Van Halen (Van Halen)
Best Album (For Me):
Dirt (Alice in Chains)
Hartford County Misery (Boundaries)
Deathless (Miss May I)
Korn (Korn)
Stay Metal,
THE SAW
# Artist Record Label
1 KNOCKED LOOSE “…And Still I Wander South” [Single] Pure Noise
2 LORD DYING Mysterium Tremendum Entertainment One
3 NINE SHRINES Retribution Therapy Mascot
4 SLIPKNOT “Unsainted” [Single] Roadrunner
5 ORGANECTOMY “Antithetical” [Single] Unique Leader
6 OSIAH Kingdom of Lies Unique Leader
7 FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE Veleno Nuclear Blast
8 SPITE “The Root of All Evil” [Single] Stay Sick
9 EARTH EATER “Swarm” [Single] Tone Traktor Audio
10 THY ART IS MURDER “Human Target” [Single] Nuclear Blast