[ Roadburn | Bottom's Cosmic Travel Guide ]

Edited by Walter Hoeijmakers
Read all about the albums that inspired Bottom in the making of their newest effort: 'Feels So Good When You're Gone'. Check the band out at [http://www.bottommusic.com/]
We here at the BOTTOM camp basically consist of three hot-headed people with strong opinions and big mouths, and the music talk in the van can get pretty damn heated. The idea of narrowing down 10 cds that we can all agree on sounds like a good brawl in the making. We go down swinging, always.
That being said, the lists of bands that follow are just small bits of the crates of records we'd end up with on a desert island. (Hey, look in the van. We're not known for travelling light). We're all pretty different musically, but we meet in cool places. Nila's got the metal blood, and also loves drum and bass, hip hop, funk. That's where she and Clementine meet. Clem loves funk and jazz, but also swampy, southern rock, classic rock. That's where she and Sina meet. Sina loves that stuff but also loves the hard shit, Pantera and Neurosis, where she and Nila meet. We all love the stoner scene, we all love testosterone-fueled badass ROCK, we all love great songwriting, great playing, real lyrical content, emotive singing, great sounds, great production, great music. There are many musical threads that bind us together, and part of what we love about this band is the way our incredibly diverse musical backgrounds all converge and work together.
The underlying string tying us to each other: we love it heavy. Heavy in sound, heavy with meaning, heavy with emotional playing and pushing the limits. Heavy is not just how it's played but how it settles in our soul, how the music stirs up those bottom-dwelling emotions and affects us forever. We may differ about who should play it and what we call it, but above all we each believe in the power of music to heal, to frighten, to inspire.
[ S I N A ]
BLACK FLAG & NIRVANA
the collections
When I hear these records, I feel like slamming my head into a cinderblock wall. They are raw, personal, and intense. It's where every other record is scaled.
FU MANCHU
"In Search Of"
Years back a friend and I found a copy of In Search of... at Venus Records on St. Marks Place in NYC. A rare score! Giddy, we ran back to our studio to crank it up. Holy God Damn, Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! I was on the floor. By track four, I was on the horn with my drummer, "dude, you gotta hear this shit! Fuck!" By the time the 'Falcon had landed', I was plotting ways to pocket my friend's new disc. Two weeks later, I had out-smarted him of his prideful possession and became a closet Fu junkie. All evidence was hidden under my mattress. He'd ask, "have you seen that Fu CD?" My coy response, "gosh, no you can't find it? That sucks." Eddie, Mark (Fu '91-94) and Ruben are Nebula now, and I'm a huge fan. Eddie flies, Mark can hold down a bass line with a broken middle finger held together by 15 stitches and Ruben plays with fire better than anyone. Together they can make a three-letter word into three syllables. Ready set, you try: RRRrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddd!!. Eddie once told me "I play simple shit, I just make sure the grooves are interesting." He's too modest. Eddie Glass, Eddie Glass, EDDIE GLASS forever!
MONSTER MAGNET
"Spine Of God"
Essentially there are three things in life, the world above, the world below, and the area being pulled in both directions and..."You don't yank on the spine of god". Yeah, but the Bull-god sure knows how to tug on his benevolence long enough to con him out of some unearthly tunes. Satanic gypsy, poet, doper, sex fiend, mythical anti-Christ, savior, high school drop-out, Wyndorf paints a picture so clearly you can reach right into your stereo and touch the frayed KISS patch on his army coat while exhaling a huge bong hit. The lyrics, melodies, riffs, and rhythms are too perfect, it makes me wonder if god, the devil and Dave Wyndorf are all the same being. It's too good, too evil, and too human all at once.
BUZZOV*EN
Anything
The more the hairs on my neck stand on end, the more I'm terrified by it, the more I find it irresistible. The songs are pained, dark, angry, and infectious. Kirk's vocals are raw and emotional. The grooves gallop like a pissed off rabid beast in a swamp: thunder-footed, hungry and irritated by the vermin under its claws. "I can feel your anger as you crawl to the front. I will never know why, I will never get hurt. (Forget it.)" We had the fortune of kidnapping Kirk 'Dirt kicker' for a four-day stint through the Carolinas. Kirk is a glorious piece of work: angel-prophet by day, white devil by night. Rumors of our K. Lloyd adventures spread, and so... we were told "what the hell are you doing with those guys? That's the worst thing you could do. Imagine 12 guys, a van, blacked out windows, smashed in lights, living like maggots, pissing, druggin'-guys hanging together just to see how gross they could be." Could you expect anything less from the creators of "To a Frown" or At a Loss"?
NICK DRAKE
"Pink Moon / Five Leaves Left"
I love wordsmiths (Lennon, Reed, Dylan) but here's one that is a guru on guitar to boot and hits me in a quite moment. Drake wrote sweet, dark, melancholy lullabies "for a troubled mind". The most mesmorizing are his acoustic ditties like 'Smoking Too Long' often recorded on his four track in his apartment. Nick was a mysterious guy who made mysterious songs and died a mysterious death in the late 70's. He made about 5 albums in his short life of 27 years but "Time has told me not to ask for more".
BLACK SABBATH
"Master Of Reality"
At the fine ripe age of 13 or 14, deep in a heavy Appetite for Destruction episode of my life, listening to the AM-jammer, I heard Sweet Leaf for the first time. I pondered the heavy guitar sounds for a moment and let out a small, short chimp-monkey noise. "ooh?!" toward the end OZZY sings, "people don't know what you're about, They put you down and shut you out ." I think I let out another monkey noise and scratch my head and turned to my older bro, "what's this?"
[ N I L A ]
SOUNDGARDEN
"Badmotorfinger"
I played to this record until my roomates hid it...
MOTORPSYCHO
"Demon Box"
...and "Trust us" and of course "Timothy's Monster" and oh I hate this band for having at least one song on every record that makes me wanna stop playing because they did it and said it and why bother and try to do it too... "Plan #1", "Vortex Surfer", these suckers, I will never see them live as they are from Norway and I would be disappointed anyway, aahh I hate them.
SYSTEM OF A DOWN
"System Of A Down"
holy shit...take Sugar: how can you play the same three bass notes over and over and the song is perfect, kicks your ass and has all the dynamics you need...damn. Simplicity at its most amazing, really fun to play to...
ELECTRIC WIZARD
"Dopethrone"
...and one of the 2 cd set that I only have a copy of ( sorry...) and don't know the name. This band was like aspirin when it got really bad on the last tour. Nicely bass heavy headphones and you will get through it. Yes, I do accept them and Motorpsycho as my saviors.
KYUSS
"Welcome to Sky Valley"
Yeah, now it's a classic, but when I got it I didn't like it, too muddy. Well, I was on the Metal trip and everything was shrill and the snares "pinged". Then one day on a long summer drive (and we didn't get a lot of sun), I got it...
[ C L E M E N T I N E ]
CCR
"Cosmo's Factory"
I remember my dad had this record in his collection and I just loved it from before I can really even remember. I used to sit on the floor and play it on my little pink stereo, the same one I played my Disney records on, and listen to it over and over. My dad taught me how to dance to it, I was I think like three years old. I thought the cover photo was a picture of a garage, and I just would stare at it... It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I saw that record again and realized it was a photo of a recording studio. The day I went to Fantasy Studios with Billy Anderson to get our record mastered was an amazing day for me. I walked in and there was Cosmo's Factory up there on the wall, looking down at me. It was definitely a moment in time when I had a feeling that my dad was hanging out for while, taking a break from rock and roll heaven or wherever the hell it is we go when we die.
It's funny, I look at the way I play now and it all seems to come back to bands like this. I want to play for the song, play simply and expressively so the vocals can come to the forefront and tell the story. To convey the story in the melody of the drums, in the rise and fall of emotion and excitement. This music sometimes sounds silly now, but when it comes down to it, many of these songs are really just perfect songs.
LED ZEPPELIN
Anything
What can I say. I'm a drummer. How could this not be my favorite band of all time? And it taught me that the sound of the recording has so much to do with what makes a band great. How many great bands and great songs get swept under the rug because the sound of the record is muddy or shrill or just not fun to listen to. "When The Levee Breaks" is the perfect example. Beautiful playing, beautiful sounds, just a basic blues song but it always just hits this amazing cord with me and I get chills every time.
THE JESUS LIZARD
"Goat"
Frightening. Sparse. Heavy Groove. Great sounds. Great drumming.
HELMET
"Aftertaste"
This record was the soundtrack to my life last year. It's perfect. I know exactly what Page is talking about and I didn't understand it till I went on the road and left everything behind. The drumming totally grew on me, and now I love it. It's not my style, but the more I take tips from it the better I get.
THE BAND
"The Band"
I feel dumb listing these old records in this list, but these are the ones that brought me to play the way I play. "Cripple Creek" says everything about the kind of drummer I aspire to be. His playing is swampy, sexy, light-hearted, serious, emotional, loose, groovy, and above all, simple even when doing something unusual or complicated.
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