This Friday (August 27, 5 to 7 p.m. eastern) on Kill the Head I'm having a special in-studio guest: Soft Opening's Jamie Hepler. In addition to spotlighting his band's jams, as well as fielding a few questions tossed from yours truly, Hepler will spin some of his favorite hard-psych hypnotism. I'm following suit with my own selections; thus, the two of us are shifting, oh so subtly, K.t.H.'s normal focus from eletronic music to rock-based drone and flat-out heavy music. Though Hepler and I haven't mapped-out the specifics, expect anything and everything from Parson Sound to Budgie to Drunks With Guns to Loop. It will be a swell show for sure.
Soft Opening, for the uninitiated, is the best underground-rock band in Asheville (in my humble opinion, obviously). I suppose one can say they fall somewhere between vintage stoner-rock/doom and all this post-rock metal that's so popular these days. At the same time, it's a description that doesn't address what makes the group vital and distinctive. Soft Opening have an authentically cracked, wasted-at-dawn vibe that reminds me of early 1990s indie-rock and lo-fi, the harder-edged stuff like Bitch Magnet and even some of Eric Gaffney's total freak-outs on Sebadoh's early records. For my pal Greg, Soft Opening recalls the Country Teasers -- had Ben Wallers grown up listening to Sabbath, not The Fall.
To my knowledge, they have just a single CD out right now. If you like what you hear come Friday, I'm sure you can contact Hepler via Soft Opening's fan page on Facebook and snag a copy. That page will also keep you abreast of all the latest gig information.
So yeah, tune in. It's going to be a heavy fuckin' blast.
Your host.