"It's kind of a blast that comes out of nowhere," is how Jeff Conaway, drums- pulverizing overlord for New York City's brutally loud instro-mental skuzz beasts the Psychic Paramount describes the chaotic scene when the trio erupts into ear-bleeding crusher "Intro/Sp" live in concert. But being rip-face loud is only one piece of the PPs' M.O.

Guitarist Drew St. Ivany, bassist Ben Armstrong and Conaway converge to form a Branca-esque symphonic wall of cutthroat noise chime with a bludgeoning, coiled heaviosity of ear-bleeding magnitude as plumes of smoke billow from within and beaming lights pierce the eyeballs making it a hellish task to see the fuckin' hand in front of your face.

The threesome—who notoriously work at a snail's pace (these dudes managed not to release an album for six friggin' years)—is ready to inflict more damage to your eardrums, working on a follow-up to 2011's epic riff-fest II.

Sound of the City met with Conaway at his Astoria local to talk loudness, smoke machines and his love for The Dustdevils.

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Charlie Looker—schoolteacher, classical music composer, guitar improviser, ex-ZS member, Antony and Morrissey enthusiast and visionary behind Brooklyn's niche-less trio Extra Life—is celebrating the release of Dream Seeds (Northern Spy) in his typical, adverse fashion: on a bill with black-metal terrorizers Liturgy. The just-released and revelatory conceptual sprawl opens creepily, with a child whispering "No dreams tonight," and veers into meticulously crafted, sublime avant-folk and orchestral art-rock damage articulated by Looker's singular voice and deliciously fucked wordplay.

Sound of the City caught up with Looker via email to talk Dream Seeds, his musical endeavors and his day job.

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For the past three decades, the flannel-flyin' and econo-jamming godhead Mike Watt has staunchly adhered to his and late, great best friend and fellow Minuteman D Boon's credo "punk is whatever we made it to be while projecting an air of sincerity that is just plain righteous. And in all of Watt's projects—the Stooges, the recently reformed fIREHOSE, his outfit with Richard Meltzer spielgusher, dOS, Missingmen—the San Pedro bass king is always first to defer credit to his bandmates and collaborators.

The cover ofThe Secondman's Middle Stand, Watt's gut-wrenching opera from 2004, provided a glimpse into Watt's knack for snapping pics. But with the release of his photographic memoir on and off bass (Three Rooms Press), Watt may have to swallow his punk rock pride and accept the cred for being a damn good photographer. The dude who revolutionized bass playing in the Minutemen pops at the crack of dawn and heads out on his bike or kayak with econo digital camera in tow, taking shots of his beloved hometown as the sun rises over the glistening harbor, pelicans whoosh overhead and sea lions gather. on and off bass not only collects a stellar shitload of Watt's pictures, it plugs in sage snippets from his tour diaries. (The LA Weekly has photos from the book on its music blog.)

Sound of the City caught Watt at home in San Pedro to talk Pedro, his pics, fIREHOSE and how playing Stooges covers in Hellride made him well enough to play the bass again after an illness.

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Jessi Rose

Iconic avant-metal-punk royalty Melvins are fast approaching their third decade of meting out its uber-prolific anthemic maelstrom of sonic heaviosity with uncompromising, valiant experimentalism, and things aren't slowing down for these influential and ageless Cali riff kings. Despite the onslaught of rising black, doom and tech-metal pulverizers, founding members Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover continue to rise above the fray.

Arguably, the quintessential Melvins reinvention commenced back in 2006. The freakazoid-haired, pudgy guitar god Osborne and heavier-than-hell drummer Crover drafted the Melvins-idolizing dudes in Big Business, converging to transform into a two-drummer tandem of ginormous proportions. A four-LP, face-crushing roll—(A) Senile Animal ('06), Nude with Boots ('08), The Bride Screamed Murder ('10) and last year's live Sugar Daddy—ensued.

Now, the Melvins have joined forces with their buddies in NYC's legendary noisemaking metallic-blues face-scorchers Unsane for an old school AmRep reunion styled tour. They have a new EP and Freak Puke, Melvins Lite's debut with Brooklyn's Trevor Dunn on stand-up bass, is set for a June release.

Sound of the City caught Buzz on a drive break, but while the chat was full of shenanigans, Osborne's mind was clearly on the health of Unsane drummer Vinnie Signorelli, who has recently fallen ill.

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Peter Gannushkin

If ever there was a dude who exudes the air of spiritual illumination while being a total badass, saxophonist figurehead Darius Jones is it. In conversation, the burly alto overlord fuses his devout Southern rearing with New York City crud and attitude, as well as impassioned and bleeding respect for his myriad collaborators and for AUM Fidelity label boss Steven Joerg. Meanwhile, he's cussin' up a total shit-storm while citing Charlie Parker and Madvillain as influences.

Jones instantly made his presence felt in this city's jazz and avant-garde scene when he relocated here from Virginia in 2005, making himself ubiquitous at places like The Stone, Zebulon and Death by Audio and serving as a member of mind-blowing punk-jazz quartet Little Women and teaming with pianist jazz royalty Matthew Shipp. But the composer's Man'ish Boy epic is arguably his and painter/collaborator/friend Randal Wilcox's most significant achievement.

Beginning with 2009's Man'ish Boy (A Raw and Beautiful Thing), the duo banded, Jones composing blusteringly intense and melodic pieces dripping with his Southern blues and soul while Wilcox, inspired by Jones' music, painted characters to accompany the theme. The epic continued in 2011 with Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), and the imminent release of Book of Mæ'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) adds another chapter to the Man'ish Boy story. Sound of the City sat down with Jones.

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Calvin Johnson is one forward-looking dude. He brought strict punk rock ethos and DIY aesthetics—supporting community, contributing to 'zines, booking shows—to underground rock, and played an integral role in revolutionizing it. Johnson's K Records (which he launched in the early '80s) was one-third of the trifecta of Amerindie godhead labels (along with SST and Dischord) that set forth the principles and expression of independent punk rock—playing only all-ages shows, putting out cheap records and cassettes, doing whatever the fuck they want.

And Johnson didn't stop there. With Olympia buddies Heather Lewis and Bret Lunsford, he formed Beat Happening, which put forth a blueprint for '80s punk—the band didn't use aggression and rage, but instead played playful candy pop that helped define the lo-fi movement.

But instead of looking back, Johnson would prefer to talk about his newish band The Hive Dwellers and the artists currently releasing records on K. Sound of the City caught up with him on the phone from the K Records office.

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As Grant Hart bravely dealt with a godawful fire that nearly gutted his boyhood home in his native South St. Paul last year, the drummer/guitarist and visual artist—formerly of American noise-pop legends Hüsker Dü—found an emotional outlet, positing his brilliant pop songsmithery towards arguably his most immense effort to date, the double-concept-LP sprawl of The Argument.

Not many artists besides the intrepid Hart—who already has struck concept-album gold with the monumental opuses Zen Arcade (with the Hüskers) and Last Days of Pompeii (in his post-Hüsker outfit, Nova Mob)—would tackle 17th-century poet John Milton's epoch Paradise Lost (which was originally published in ten books) and transform it into a galvanizing, theatrical 90-minute set. The Argument, rich with Hart's trademark masterfully crafted '60s Spector-isian pop song glory, does just that.

Sound of the City spoke to Hart in length about The Argument, his hardships as of late, his recollections of the Hüsker Dü memories put forth in his ex-bandmate Bob Mould's recent memoir See A Little Light, and the possibility of getting back together with his former band.

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When Herculean experi-metal prog trio Dysrhythmia traded in their Killadelphia digs for New York City's clusterfuck of a music scene in the mid-naughts, metal and its myriad subgenres barely registered as a blip on this town's radar.

Equipped with a sonic blueprint of meticulously constructed all-instrumental metallic-cum-classikill obliteration, its three members—guitarist Kevin Hufnagel, bassist Colin Marston and drummer Jeff Eber—not only helped revive Brooklyn metal in its Dysrhythmia guise but also with the multitudes of bands and solo projects each are engulfed in and constantly scouring clubs and DIY spaces including, Krallice, Zevious, Gorguts, Behold the Arctopus and Vaura.

Sound of the City caught up with Hufnagel and Marston via email.

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Peter Gannushkin

Chicago Underground Duo's defection from their longtime label Thrill Jockey to the fledgling New York-based Northern Spy imprint—after fifteen years and some seven albums of visionary experimentalism gleaned from Windy City improv and post-jazz sonics—is actually a reunion of sorts.

In the naughts, Chicago Underground drummer Chad Taylor and Northern Spy co-chief Tom Abbs, along with pianist Cooper-Moore, performed and released a 2005 album under the moniker Tryptich Myth. This month, Taylor and his partner, cornet/multi-instrumentalist mastermind Rob Mazurek, released Age of Energy—an intrepid set of electronics-drenched manipulations, drone fuckery and ambient avant-jazz textures and skronkiness—on Abbs' label.

Sound of the City spoke to Taylor via email.

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Bryan Leitgeb

Dave Shuford has been ingrained in the New York City soundscape for decades as part of the experimentalist collective mutants No Neck Blues Band, which ruled both downtown's now-departed avant-garde roost The Cooler and their Harlem practice pad the Hint House.

In recent years, less activity on the NNCK front resulted in members splintering to form or join likeminded improv shape-shifters such as Excepter, Test and White Out. But Shuford has arguably been the eclectic dynamo of the lot, exploring Greek music (in his D. Charles Speer guise) and folksy twang-heavy outlaw country (in D. Charles Speer and the Helix). Now he's emerged from a smoky haze to form Rhyton, his epically trippy, all-instrumental psychedelia-heavy jamz group with bassist Jimy SeiTang (formerly of Psychic Ills) and drummer Spencer Herbst. Rhyton's slinky low end repetition, majestic guitar soloisms and noisy avant-noodling gives cred to the much maligned jam-band term and the five massive space-jazz improv tunes on the band's eponymous LP are angelic, yet damaged freak outs.

Sound of the City spoke to Shuford to talk NNCK, the Speer and Rhyton.

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