2008 Wrap-up

With the year ending we felt it was completely relevant to let you all in on what was liked in the landmine camp... these lists are obviously not the end all, be all (except Grace's list!) and I am sure there were some things we overlooked, as it was a long year.

Matt
Trap Them- Seizures in Barren Praise
Burn After Reading
Trash Talk- S/T 12” and Live
The Game- LAX
Dark Throne- Dark Thrones and Black Flags
Longmont Potion Castle- volume 6
Vegan Pho in Portland
Misery Index- Traitors
Rotten Sound- Cycles
My Sarcasm

Ryan
Trap Them - Seizures In Barren Praise
Hail Of Bullets - Of Frost and War
Doktor Sleepless - Warren Ellis
Graf Orlock - Destination Time: Today
Batman - R.I.P. - Grant Morrison
Unleashed - Hammer Batallion
Misery Index - Traitors
Carcass - Live
Watain - Live
Saviours - Into Abaddon

Grace
top 10 assholes of 2008
10- travis barker
09- the chick that shot a bear and had sex on it
08- heath ledgers drug dealer
07- the state of ohio:

06- trig palin
05- cakesfarts.com
04- good old W.
03- chinese democracy
02- jesus
01- sarah palin

Mike
10 Rotten Sound- Cycles
9 Mogwai- The Hawk is Howling
8 Moss- Subtemplum
7 Syphilitic Vaginas- LP
6 Ghostlimb- Bearing and Distance
5 Trash Talk- S/T LP
4 Leviathan- Massive Conspiracy of All Life
3 Gauze- BINBOU YUSURI NO RIZUMU NI NOTTE
2 World Burns to Death- The Graveyard of Utopia
1 Carcass Live in LA

ROCKSOUND!

check out a Landmine Marathon feature in the latest issue of ROCKSOUND

REVOLVER!!!!!

Check us out in the Profiles to Watch section....

TOURZ

Our recent west coast tour was an awesome success almost every show was awesome and we had so many good friends new and old help us out!

So here is a little rundown of some of the good people we want to thank:

First and foremost Graf Orlock and Ghostlimb, Marmot Manor and AMOLTs at Johnny’Zs… amazing times! Jake, the Che Café, Cheap Art. Waco Fuck and Alex for taking some excellent photos. Pokez for making excellent food and offering such surly service, we would have it no other way. Cattle Decapitation, All at the Pink Mailbox, Worship, Arctic Choke and specifically Ryan, brother always goes beyond the call to make sure we are taken care of! Jason Spires and all at the Quarter Century Michael Jordan house, who once again made Oakland amazing Acts of Sedition Jason etc etc. Thanks to Anna for letting us take over her couches and floor! Everyone at the Eyeball in Reno, Reno kids are some of the best. Adam in Portland, a more than gracious host, we wish you could have followed us for the entire trip. Stacy Schrag for the photos, the company and just for being a great dude throughout the years! Jozy for treating us excellent as always, Transient for killing it so good. Medford, Ischemia and Gabe for the hospitality and the great time! Gilman, Yosef, Ryan and ALL of the staff for making it an awesome place and a raging good time. Trash Talk for owning it, Never Healed and Casey! Impaled dudes! Riverside kids, Brenton for making it happen, Bad Lovers and Rambo Knife for destroying. I'm sure we missed a few people and bands... so many rad folks!!

Most importantly thanks to everyone who came to our shows, supported, bought merch, headbanged, etc etc… you kids are amazing!!! We already miss the road and cannot wait to be back out there... EAST COAST USA... you are next!!!!!!!!

landmine @che cafe by alex miranda

Some press stuff:

Matt wrote a bit about the things he loves about Arizona here:
http://www.deafsparrow.com/Landmine-Marathon-Feature.htm

We were Metal Artist of the week here:
http://www.perfspot.com/music/reviews.asp?page=4

Cosmo is a great guy and a great writer, we are more than stoked to have him on our side!!!
http://invisibleoranges.com/2008/11/landmine-marathon-to-maim-west-coast.html

Seriously good stuff:
http://teethofthedivine.com/site/reviews/landmine-marathon-rusted-eyes-awake/

An awesome review from an awesome website:
http://www.metalsucks.net/2008/11/10/reviews-in-brief-excellent-new-releases-from-landmine-marathon-misery-index-and-bloodbath/

pick up the Jan 09 issue of Revolver!
more exciting stuff coming soon!

Tour looms upon us! We're doing a west coast tour starting this Friday and I'm beyond stoked. As you may know, our new album "Rusted Eyes Awake" was released on Tuesday and is already selling well. Please pick one up as soon as you can. We had our CD release show last Friday at the Big Fish Pub, which has now been dubbed the Big Fish Flub. If you were there, you most likely witnessed that some over zealous security guards and the sound man decided to attack and remove anyone even remotely moving during our set. Needless to say, we weren't going to stand for it. We stopped the set and proceeded to fend off the security guards even though they brandished weapons. They soon realized they were very, very out numbered and let us remove our gear from their horribly ran venue. Most were unable to purchase the new album due to the premature ending of the show and we assure you that you can easily obtain it from us, Level Plane, Relapse, and record stores around the valley (and the world for that matter). You can also still order the exclusive t shirt through Relapse as well. So, tour starts this week, the new Jackson catalog is online featuring interviews with Matt and I (http://jacksonguitars.com/artists/index.php?id=328), we may do some SW dates at the beginning of January, and we should have more awesome news to announce for the New Year! Ryan/LM

Our friends in Blues have their new ep up for free download on their page, check it out before its too late.

Somewhere between the Blood Brothers, Botch, Lack, and Coliseum




www. myspace. com/lettherockfuckyou

Desert Photos

Hey! We just want to throw it out there that all of the desert photos you see on our myspace page and in print were taken by David Dell'oso. Check out his website for some of his other great work! http://www.sinewstudios.com/

STONER ROCK

This is an awesome site and they had some kind words for us...

Check it out HERE

revolver!

Check out the new issue of Revolver for an awesome review of the album and a free download of the song Heroin Swine in the Bootleg Series

Its this one:

more good stuff on the way!

BOOK OF BLACK EARTH

We just saw Book of Black Earth play with Watain in Tempe the other night... amazing blackened metal madness... they have a new cd that just came out on Prosthetic. I highly suggest you pick it up, and if they come through town check em out!!!

http://www.myspace.com/bookofblackearth



-matt

THRASHER

We are so beyond stoked on this!

Check out the new issue of Thrasher Magazine for an excellent article on the Landmine Marathon by Sam Hitz.

Thrasher is an awesome magazine that I have been reading since I was a kid, being featured in its pages is beyond imaginable for me, luckily it isn't me on a skateboard for a poser alert!!!





-matt.

Tour Dates....

WEST COAST TOUR

November, 7 2008 - CHE CAFE w/ Graf Orlock and more
9500 Gilman Dr La Jolla , California 92093

November, 8 2008 - Granada Theater Ontario CA w/ Cattle Decapitation, Graf Orlock, Ivebeenshot
303 N Euclid Ave, Ontario , California 91762


November, 9 2008 - THE PINK MAILBOX w/ Graf Orlock Arctic Choke and Worship
6668 Pasado Rd Goleta , CA 93117

November, 11 2008 - STUDIO on 4th w/ Ruler 1618 (ex Fall Silent) and Farley Overdose
432 East 4th Street Reno, Nevada 89512

November, 12 2008 - Rotture w/Elitist and Transient
315 SE 3rd Avenue, PORTLAND , Oregon 97214 - $5

November, 13 2008 - Johnny B’s w/ Ischemia
35 S Bartlett St Medford , OR 97501

November, 14 2008 - 924 GILMAN ST w/ Trash Talk, Never Healed and more!
924 Gilman St Berkeley , CA 94710

November, 15 2008 - THE GLASSHOUSE RECORD STORE w Graf Orlock, Arctic Choke, Rambo Knife
248 w. 2nd Street, Pomona , California 91766


Get your headbanger face on!

CATTLE and FRIENDS!

we are so stoked for this show. If you are in AZ you should be at this... its gonna be insanity!!!!!

Get your tickets here:

RUSTED EYES AWAKE PREORDER

order this exclusive package from relapse records!!! Click the image for link!

also!!!! WEST COAST TOUR:

Like a rock!!

so, after years of dedicated service it is time for us to part with an almost always reliable part of the band... our Dodge Ram van. It is time for us to step into luxury(to us at least!!). Our new van...



its a 1999 Chevrolet Express 15 passenger van, soon we will be building a loft and even sooner hitting the road... more on that later... if you are in AZ:

SPLATTER VINYL!!!!!!!

VINYL IS HERE... The split 12" with SCARECROW... We only have 20 copies, and will probably sell through them FAST!!! They should be available through RELAPSE shortly.....

this sunday... awesomeness

Show is a matin​ee and will proba​bly be over seven​ish.
​
So, get there​ on time or else!​

ARTWORK IN DEPTH

As the release of Rusted Eyes Awake looms, I wanted to take a moment to talk and share some of the artwork process for the album. Our awesome and talented friend Ron Koupal came up with the concept and artwork for the cover... Ron is an artist at a local tattoo shop in AZ called IMMACULATE. We highly recommend him. He also designed our "dope smoking wizard" T-shirt.

Ron came to one of our rehersals where he tossed some ideas back and forth with us. We countered with some other ideas and concepts he was off to do his thing! A few weeks later we get an email of a rough sketch he put together before he went any further:
We were stoked, knowing this was just a rough sketch and the final would just RULE! I added some quick color, just to get an idea of where this was headed:
A few weeks later Ron calls me up and asks me to swing by the shop because he as some boards complete with the final artwork... We were BEYOND STOKED with the final results:

after scanning and digitizing the artwork, the layout process began... I added color to the artwork in multiple layers, blending to create good depth. Inspiration came from the Zorlac Skateboard designs I have always loved... The goal was to get that same screenprinted look... after the color was added Ron's hand lettering was applied. Here is some of the process:

so after over 100 hours of work on my behalf and Ron's the end result is something we are very proud of!

-matt

just a quick note..

The new full length Rusted Eyes Awake is dropping on you October 28th. A west coast tour will follow in November!!!

Coming soon Split 7" with The Funeral Pyre (Prosthetic Record) and Landmine Marathon due out on Forest Moon Products.. The Funeral Pyre will be doing 1 new song and Landmine Marathon will have 2 new songs. This will be a limited release on vinyl only!!! STOKED!!!

What A Summer.

So, the sweltering Arizona Summer is finally coming to an end. It's been a rough one for me personally. The Album stressed me out a bit. My TV blew up. My refrigerator died. Found out I need glasses. I fried the Bogner. The economy has slowed business down some and even though George Bush's IRS sent me a notice saying I would get this economic "remember me as a good President" stimulus check, I finally found out I wasn't getting one etc. etc. Outdoor photo shoots in 120 degree heat staring into the sun as well as playing shows in un-air conditioned venues never helps either. But, Landmine is the thing that keeps me going in life. A new tour is looming and the album will be out in bout two months. These things make me smile after a bad day at work. I also married the girl I love this summer and that rocks as well.
We played a cool show with Dead Child last week, and despite the fact that not many showed up/stayed for us we still tried to make the best of it and have an awesome time. We actually performed really well despite the sweltering heat and the venue being a total echo chamber. We got some interesting news that we may announce eventually too that has got us all excited, but we'll see how things roll! So, keep your eyes on the Landmine camp for the new record and plenty of new news. Looking forward to the Graf Orlock show September 7th as well and bummed I'll be missing the Testament, Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell, and Motorhead show next week as well as Radiohead in LA due to going to my Brother In Laws wedding next week. It will be a nice break from Phoenix, though, and Mike and I are gonna go see Carcass in L.A. next month!

TOUR!!!!!

Hey all!

with the new record coming October 28th we are working on a WEST COAST tour sometime this fall... In an attempt to get the logistics down, we are asking for your help:
promoters
booking agents
bands
people with living rooms we can sleep in


please get in touch so we can weigh our options and plan our routing.


East Coast... working on 2009, unfortunately transportation costs are insane... the original plan was to hook up with an awesome east coast band, fly out there, rent a minivan and share gear. We are still trying to make this happen and miss the east coast dearly.


Mexico... we would love to make it out to do some select one-offs... again working on it!

you all rule...


don't forget to check out the new song Bile Towers... add it to your page and spread the word.



LM

We just played an amazing show this week with Misery Index and Origin... All of the bands were excellent, but Misery Index just killed it... the crowd was awesome too...


Our next show is in a couple of weeks and we are super stoked on this one...

Dead Child simply rule the whole NWOBHM throwback thing, and great people as well..

its been a long time...

since our last blog shit has been outta control... trying to get layout done, bought a new house and burned myself with boiling water... Here is some fun video of us in the studio with some pals singing along:


We will be playing a show at the end of the month that I am super stoked on, it is the Relapse Records Contamination Tour... If you are in AZ I highly recommend. Here is a not too metal flier that I made, it looks more Fall-esque, I was going for summer. hmmm

more news to follow... including some tour announcements.

Master of Mastering

So, today was the final step in completing the recording for Rusted Eyes Awake. I met up with Dave Shirk of Sonorous mastering (sonorousmastering.com) bright and early at ten am and we popped in the final mix and went to work. It went really well and we'll be sending it out to Level Plane this week along with the awesome artwork and layout that Ron Koupal (http://www.immaculatetattoo.com/) and Matt did. I'm very excited for this to come out and I wish it didn't take so long with a bigger label! But the time will fly by and we'll have copies in our hands before we know it. I don't know if I've ever worked this hard on a record before. So, hopefully all the hard work will pay off and people will love it! We then went and had really good Thai Food that I hope doesn't give me diarrhea. Here's some photo's of me and Dave goofing off/working.
-Ryan

technically speaking...

ok, so, the solo's are finally done and we have achieved rough mixage. The solo's were a nightmare for me. A few of them weren't written yet, and I just couldn't get a lot of my playing up to where I wanted it to be. But the rest of the band seems stoked on them. I tried several amps to get to where I wanted including blowing up my Bogner. I finally ended up using the Diezel. I used it for the solo's on the split with Scarecrow and wasn't toally happy with it, but it was the closest to happiness I came. I ran it through a mesa boogie 4x12 and as a front end all I ended up using was my wah pedal. I bypassed my eq boost pedal and noisegate and my MXR delay didn't get here on time, so I ended up using the echoboy plug in on a few tracks. I did split the signal into the line 6 with a bypassed tone in case I wanted to reamp it and I ended up using the Audix I5 into a Neve 1272 and the Royer R122 into an Avalon 737 with no EQ or compression both right on the cone. It was rough, but they're done! We go into master next friday and hopefully I can achieve a mix we're all stoked on by then! Ryan

If you havent been reading Grace's weekly blog on Revolver Magazine's website, you should be... she is awesome!!! http://www.revolvermag.com/content/guest-blog-landmine-marathon%E2%80%99s-grace-perry-1

On that note we are officially done recording, now comes the task of mixing. The recording sessions ended with some awesome guest vocals from Jonny from JFAC and Antony from Nightrage. We are soooo stoked on the outcome. Soon we will have track listing and some sneak previews of the artwork... this is gonna kill

bass nerd

okay, this is a couple weeks overdue as the bass tracks have been recorded quite a while ago. I am so happy with the tone and the overall vibe of the bass tracks. One of my favortie bass players is Bill Laswell, in my opinion he exemplifies all that is heavy, groovy and most of all not overdone, he plays where he needs to and locks in the low end... his work with John Zorn and Mick Harris in Painkiller is mindblowing, but also the first tape I can remember owning was a copy of the single for Herbie Hancock's ROCKIT on which Mr Laswell played bass on. So I think I was going for a Laswell meets Jo Bench thing. I love talking shop about gear, nothing gets me more stoked at a show when someone wants to nerd out with me about gear and tone.

okay more nerdyness:


on an unrelated side note; while on tour I was introduced to Jamaican food for the first time and I totally love it!! Found a new restaurant in downtown Phoenix and I am way stoked on it... only second to my favorite which is South Indian! Random I know.

mexican weddings

We played a show last week with Portland Oregon's best TRAGEDY, Japanese Punx Blowback and locals Think Fast and Day After Day at a cool mexican restuarant called Tio Leos (still not sure about the coolness of their food for my vegan stomach, but if it tells you anything they did run out of food and some beer brands by the end of the night). All of the bands were awesome and it was great to see old friends from Tragedy, I have known Todd and Paul for at least 13 years!!! It was also great to see one of landmine's former members, Eric. I hadnt seen him in almost two years and that was way too long... he is putting together a new band that will be sure to deliver some insane math-i-ness! The part of the restuarant where the bands played was in "real life" a reception hall for weddings, birthdays and other celebrations... apparently a few weeks earlier there was a mexican wedding there that ended with a good ol fashioned stabbing!!!

here is a pic of me that I really like... must have used the slimming photo filter

-matt

2GRACE1CUP

Check out Grace's ultra radicool blog she is doing for the awesome folks at REVOLVER MAGAZINE!!!!!!!
CLICK HERE

the sandwich blog!

One of the best things about recording at Arcane Digital(which is Ryan's studio by the way, and we have recorded everything we have ever done with him) is the food. My personal favorite in the neighborhood is LEE'S Sandwiches. AMAZING Vietnamese Sandwiches (I go the veg route). Did you know that Vietnamese cuisine has deep roots in French Cuisine (thank you French Colonialism). The results are seen in baguettes and toppings like pate (which I pass on!). Topped with cilantro and jalapenos, my sandwich contains a hearty mix of fried shredded bean curd, carrots and daikon radish.


-matt m

TALKIN' SHOP

Bass is the Place!

So, we had a marathon (hee hee) Landmine session yesterday. Matt came into the studio at 11 am and did Bass til about 7 pm. This would of gone faster but our friend Josh Select and Johnny from Job For A Cowboy stopped in for a few hours and we were having a blast goofing off with them. Grace then came in at 7 and we tracked the vocals for the title track. We then packed up all the gear and headed to rehearsal at 10 pm and we were wiped out about 12:30. We really needed the rehearsal cause we're playing a show in Phoenix with Tragedy tonight and hadn't had a full rehearsal in about three weeks. So, tonight is the first show with Jeff and hopefully all will go well!

-Ryan

VO-KILLS

Last night we tracked more vocals with Grace. We are about half way through tracking her vocals and I must say we are very pleased with the results, her voice is as strong and as brutal as ever. And the small glimpses I have gotten of her lyrics are nothing short of amazing. I am always stoked on her use of words for sure!!!

I will make this very clear, we have absolutely no interest in cleaning up anything about the band, especially the vocals. Grace's screams, shrieks and howls are what make Grace, well umm Grace, and we would have it no other way. But for the sake of argument lets see how different things would be if we incorporated some "killer clean vocals"....



I think we made the right choice!!!

-matt

Burrito Time, oh and vocals!

Grace started recording vocals for Rusted Eyes Awake tonight while the rest of us heckled her. Everything seems to be coming together really well and we're all pretty excited about it. Grace went into banshee mode, heralded the doom of the world, and after a few hours, it was time to give her voice a rest and call it a night. Matt, Ryan and I capped it off with some badass veg burrito/quesadilla action at Amado's. I generally get beans, rice, guacamole, lettuce and potatoes. The potatoes are crucial. And the rice. (I eat a lot of carbs. My meal before that was a spaghetti calzone. Which is just spaghetti stuffed into a calzone. I think Matt called it dough stuffed with dough and salt.) I'm pretty sure I need to start getting it without guacamole, because my burritos always end up shitting green diarrhea on my plate, even when I try to keep them wrapped up. Which is probably going to be similar to what happens to me later. So, this new album is about burritos, right?

-Jeff

riff it up!

So, I finished tracking with the Engl yesterday. Quadrupled the tracks just in case we wanted to keep the sound with all four just the engl. The crunch I was getting with it was outstanding, but something just seemed to be missing. It was a little to lean and clean for our recordings. Then I set up with the Bogner Uberschall. About two minutes into recording with it, I knew this would once again be the winning combination. I sent an mp3 to the rest of the guys and they agreed. I should have just done that in the first place as we've done on all the other records instead of wasting 7 or eight hours on the extra tracks. Oh well. Better safe than sorry. Grace comes in tomorrow night to start vocals and will be doing them over the next few weeks. Matt's new Schroeder bass cabinet should be here tomorrow and we'll track Sunday August 1st as soon as he gets back from his work trip. It's all coming together!




Here's some video of me tracking the title track "Rusted Eyes Awake".




Ryan

REVOLVER MAGAZINE

Pick up the latest issue of Revolver and you will find an awesome feature on Grace with an even more awesome tour story... although she forgot to add to the story that our Drummer Mike woke up in the middle of the night to a dude sitting in a chair watching him sleep, only to wake up the next morning with no sign of the dude... just his pants!!!!

THRASHER!!!

from the May 2008 issue of THRASHER (Thrasher has been one of my FAVORITE mags since I was a kid and Pushead did the Puszone, so I am extra stoked on this!):

Split (Level Plane Records)--The plowing death thrash of Phoenix-based Landmine Marathon blows away what Arch Enemy has to offer. I say this because they have a hot chic vokillist, too. San Francisco's Scarecrow brings on the '80s thrash metal renaissance featuring members of Repulsion, Exhumed, Old Grandad, Dekapitator, etc


-matt

So, we're now four days into the tracking of our new album, Rusted Eyes Awake. We spent nearly thirty hours preparing and tracking drums at my studio, Arcane Digital Recording, on the 15th and 16th of May 2008. We're very pleased and Mike worked really hard to learn to record to a click which is sometimes a rarity in this genre of death metal. I think it came out great and really solid. I spent the 17th prepping my guitar gear and setting up to get tones. I took it kinda easy as the drum sessions were exhausting and I will begin tracking today and hopefully finish over the next two or three days (between mix sessions for other bands). I'm planning on just possibly using the Engl Powerball through an oversized Mesa Boogie 2x12 and a Krank 4x12. Where as before we have mixed the Powerball and a Bogner Uberschall. I'm hoping to make some darker tones with this brighter amp through the use of the Krank cabinet and some micing techniques. I may end up doing some more tracks with the Bogner or some other amp, but I'm not sure yet. But I'm hoping to just run through with this setup and have it come out awesome. Not sure what I'm gonna use for leads yet either. Should come out great though!

Ryan/LM

.... and here is some video footage of us in the studio tracking drums

New Album

We want to "OFFICIALLY" announce our new record entitled Rusted Eyes Awake which we have begun recording this past weekend. The record will be released Fall 2008 on LEVEL PLANE RECORDS.

In the following days we will be posting both video and written blogs about the recording (process, progress etc)... stay tuned

lm

NEW SHIRT

Hey all, our friends at Hellfish have an ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Landmine Marathon shirt available now... This is exclusive from Hellfish, the band will not have any of these shirts. Therefore, order one now... click below or fuckhellfish.com

Graf Orlock

We went to the Graf Orlock show in Phoenix last night, and simply put they ruled the evening. They played some new songs that just destroyed. I only wish we were prepared to play the show. I cannot wait for their next album which should be on the horizon!

















Speaking of "on the horizon" our next show, and first show with Jeff is coming up. It is with Tragedy (ex- His Hero is Gone and Uranus) at a Mexican Restaurant called Tio Leos in Phoenix. If you are in the area, you should check it out for sure!



matt

beginnings

hey everyone.... this is the new official Landmine Marathon blog... we (the band) will be using this as an outlet to keep you informed of "going ons" with the band and other random things.

We are entering the studio on May 15th to begin recording a new FULL LENGTH ALBUM, we are very stoked on the new songs and are going to post frequent studio video blogs as soon as we start recording.

As always thanks so much to our friends and fans for your awesome support.

-matt/lm