Jagged Spiral Concert at Target Center – CANCELLED

I had a press release armed, locked, loaded and ready to spread fear into the hearts of music purists, music reviewers and real musicians all over the world. Josh, Colin and I were excited to announce what was sure to be the concert event of the summer at Target Center with Jagged Spiral and S.B.I.

‘Tellin ya, it woulda brought tears to your ears.

On behalf of Jagged Spiral, Inc. I regret to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our control, the concert originally scheduled for Wed August 19th at Target Center has been canceled. All tickets purchased for the show will be refunded.

Our legal department is working nonstop to declassify our music as a threat to National Security. Until such time, Josh, Colin and I will continue writing/practicing/drinking/recording until our music can be more properly classified as a threat to the security of the entire planet.

Then, we’ll be able to play anywhere and anytime we want. Or else.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Rough Demo of Horrorcloud Posted to Myspace

Hey all, been a bit. We been busy, see. You don’t rush greatness. You don’t rush us neither. We played a couple shows recently… funny, we don’t remember seeing *you* there. Maybe you forgot to go? Maybe we were drunk and forgot you went?

Anyway, *if* you actually did go to any of our shows, then you would recognize the song Horrorcloud. (Here’s a hint: It’s the song without the word “Horrorcloud” in it)

We hacked out a rough version of Horrorcloud tonight and fluffed it up with enough compression that we could easily enter it in the loudness war with Metallica. We couldn’t win mind you, but we’d be in there somewhere. Probably on the back lines ordering supplies, making waffles and complaining about all the noise.

You can check out the new Rough Demo of Horrorcloud here on the Jagged Spiral Myspace Page.

 

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Review of the Station 4 Concert

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the Station 4 Concert last night.

Riverbottom Suckerfish played first, and they were amazing in more ways than one. Their drummer Nicole is positively insane, and the Station 4 sound guy told me she reminded him of “Animal” from the Muppets. Their lead singer Christine is a great player and singer with killer taste in guitar tone. No wonder they don’t need a bass player!

Jagged Spiral played second. It was a good-but-not-great set. I’ll take the blame for our less-than-stellar performance. Or I could chalk it up to the round of Jagermeister shots SBI bought for us. Sabotage!

Deathroned had to cancel, so we got to relax a bit between songs and not setup/teardown so quickly.

S.B.I. played last and kicked ass with their best show I’ve seen so far. I tried to sabotage their show by buying them a round of Jagermeister shots, but it just made them better! Not fair. I’m glad they went last. I am jealous of Tony’s bass rig, especially the wireless. I notice Mark now has a wireless mic. They were really tight. Sounds like they’ve been practicing… curse them!

Speaking of curses,The St Paul Police Department were also there, and did a stellar job of placing a parking ticket on my car. The ticket was for parking after 2:00 AM. It was placed at 2:10 AM with all the precision craftsmanship one would expect from St. Paul’s Finest. It couldn’t have been easy to place the ticket on my car between my trips back and forth from loading gear out, (seriously, my dome light was still on!) but I have a feeling this must have been a Special Ninja Parking Ticket Officer, trained in the arts of stealth and speed.

Legal matters aside, we had a fabulous time with Riverbottom Suckerfish and S.B.I. lots of fun people and good times. Station-4 is such an awesome venue. They have a great stage and sound system, I just wish they had a parking lot.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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City Pages Picks Best Local Minnesota Rock Band

…you probably think it’s Jagged Spiral, but the City Pages doesn’t. They think it’s a band called Knife World.  Readers Choice was Vampire Hands. I love Vampire Hands myself, they put on a good live show with lots of energy.

However, neither of these bands really strike me as “Rock”. Neither does Jagged Spiral for that matter. Maybe its just me, but they sound too ‘indie’ and not enough ‘rock’. Seems there are better selections for best Rock band:

Any one of these bands would Rock the piss out of Knife World AND Vampire Hands AND Jagged Spiral, and they’d do it with two guitar strings tied behind their back.

Gay Witch Abortion would probably get my vote for best local Rock band. Two absolute madmen with savage tone, who don’t really need bass or vocals to rock the planet. Catch one of their live shows if you get a chance, before their music is banned for being “Too Rock”.

Thanks to everyone who voted for us in the City Pages annual “Best Of”.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Jagged Spiral Concert – Station 4 on 4 June 2009

It’s a full day at Station 4 on the 4th of June 2009! It all kicks off at 5PM with an all ages show featuring ‘Drop Dead, Georgeous’, ‘He Is Legend’, and ‘And Then There Were None’

After 10PM the show kicks into high gear with S.B.I., Riverbottom Suckerfish, Deathroned, and of course Jagged Spiral!

So come on out! Get strung out on Red Bull and Pop Rocks. And if you do a headfirst stage dive into the crowd you will get an all-expenses paid trip to the hospital. (Some restrictions may apply, medical insurance coverage required.)

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Jagged Spiral Music for your Zombie Movie at NationUndead

Independent Filmmakers rejoice! Because the only thing more fun than filming a short movie about your favorite subject (Zombies!) would be scoring it with music from your favorite band (Jagged Spiral!)

Thanks to NationUndead.com now you can do both! Nation Undead gives you the genre and storyline as a seed for your independent film. Get some friends, a video camera, a case of Newcastle, and a few gallons of fake blood, and make a movie that Quentin Tarrantino could only dream of making.

When you’re done, you’ll need background music to add extra punch to your production. Jagged Spiral has you covered. I’ve uploaded the entire INSTRUMENTAL VERSION of Days From Evil to the Nation Undead website, and it’s FREE for you to use in your movie, just make sure to list Jagged Spiral in the movie credits.

  • Need some spooky background music? Check out the beginning of Run.
  • Need music for a chase scene? Check out Hallowed Ground or The Last Song.
  • Having an all out Zombie Bar Fight? You can’t go wrong with Let It Out.
  • God forbid you have a moment of Zombie Emotional Interlude, then you’ll find yourself in need of the tender acoustic moments in Lament.

Even if you aren’t scoring a Zombie film, feel free to download the Instrumental tracks from Nation Undead, share and enjoy!

If you want to know more about the Nation Undead project, I recently interviewed the creator, Patrick Pierson. You can read the interview on conradzero.com.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Battle of the Bands Review (Or, How to Scare the Children)

Firstly, thanks to everyone who bought tickets and came out to support Jagged Spiral last Sunday in the 2009 Battle of the Bands. We had a great time, and hope you did too.

I just found out the winner of the battle ended up being The Company Don’t trust the songs on their myspace, they put a lot of Energy and Fun into their set.

I got to speak to them at the battle of the bands (as they were tearing down and we were setting up) .

“Thanks alot,” I said wryly. “You guys coulda sucked!”

But Xtna put it into perspective for me. I said, “How can we compete with that? Those guys were great!”

She looked at me sternly and said, “Your job is not to beat them, your job right now is to go up there and Scare the Children.”

So we did. I’d say we decimated all other bands that night on several levels. The Richter Scale would be one of them. A spiritual scale would be another one. I guarantee you some of the fans of The Company are still huddled under the stairs, shivering with fear. And Jagged Spiral drank more than the other bands and their fans combined. (…mostly because they weren’t old enough to drink.)

But we couldn’t beat them in ticket sales. Ah well, like Sun Tzu says; choose your battles.

Thanks to Mark, Tony and Justin from SBI for showing up and supporting the Spiral, and thanks to Kim, Nancy, James, Teresa, Dan, Boog, Fast Eddie, The Fox, Jess, Jenn, Xtna and anyone else who made it or bought a ticket for the show (Saveau reported that he was present at the show in spirit, and from the symptoms he described, no one would have wanted him physically present…)

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Jagged Spiral Concert – Sunday March 1 at the Dinkytowner

Some of you may remember the 2008 Battle of the Bands that Jagged Spiral participated in? Well, because of our outstanding turnout and stellar performance last year, we’ve been asked to participate again this year. So here’s your chance to see us live, along with seven other local bands competing for a chance to play the final battle at the Varsity Theatre with a $1000 grand prize!

Sunday March 1 at the Dinkytowner Cafe, the show starts at 4PM, and continues till around 9-ish. The exact start time is to be determined by pre-show ticket sales. The band that sells the most tickets gets to pick their time slot first, and thereafter in descending order of tickets sold. We’re hoping to get an early-to middling time slot, (in the 5-7PM range) but we won’t know for sure until the doors open. The more of you who purchase tickets in advance the better our chances of getting a good time slot!

Ticket sales are counted at 3PM, so please make sure to purchase your tickets in advance, from Josh, Colin or myself, or e-mail booking@jaggedspiral.com

Tickets are $8. We hope to see you there!

Dinkytowner Cafe
412 1/2 14th Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 362-0437

Google Map

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Jagged Spiral is pulled from bill, but still rocks the house!

Thanks to the blazing-fast response time of the Jagged Spiral Internet E-mail Gig Retraction Service, disaster was averted for many loyal Jagged Spiral fans, when it was announced that their Nov 29th performance at the Terminal Bar was canceled.

Not so much canceled as…well, let’s be honest: we got fucking canceled. My understanding is that because of the (former) booking agent at the Terminal Bar, the show was double-booked (technically octuple-booked), and many bands had to be dropped. SBI and Pygar performed as scheduled, but Jagged Spiral and Gedwik were pulled off the bill to make room for a cover band.

No, I’m serious.

No hard feelings towards SBI or the Terminal Bar, but we do hope that their former booking agent has a 140lb Ampeg 8×10 Bass Cabinet fall on her.

Meanwhile, the number of sound mixers for the show was strangely underbooked. In fact, there were none. Random members of the crowd were pulled out and forced to work the sound board at gunpoint. Josh bravely volunteered himself and myself to mix sound for SBI. (Colin did not make the show, choosing to stay at home instead and get laid.)

So while Jagged Spiral did not actually *play* at the Terminal Bar, we certainly did make the walls shake when Josh managed to turn SBI’s kick drum up to One-Hundred and Eleven.

Props go to my good friend James, who made it to the show because he didn’t get the notice that the show was canceled. His diligence and dedication to the Spiral has awarded James the dubious honor of being at more Jagged Spiral shows than Colin.

We’re trying to get SBI and/or the Terminal Bar to feel sorry enough for us that they offer up a sympathy gig, and we’ll keep you posted on how that works out.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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Jagged Spiral Incorporated?

We’re pleased as punch that Jagged Spiral Incorporated has been listed at Hot Frog.  Apparently, our products and services are classified as “Heavy Metals”! Isn’t that nice!

As much as I’d love to thank the brainless meatstick who put this together, its no doubt the work of a scraper site, pulled together by a computer simply to waste space on the internet.

Thankfully, a Google Search for Jagged Spiral still turns up the truth.

Meanwhile a quick search on the owner of Hot Frog turns up a piece of trash called Reed Business Information, providers of Variety Magazine, Asia Food Journal and many other periodicals that kill trees, weigh down your mail-carrier, and clog up your mailbox and recycle bin.

Sorry, Reed Business Information, but our Publicity Policy clearly states that we have to point out Weapons-Grade Fucknuttery when we see it.

Conrad Zero LogoYours Darkly,

Conrad Zero

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PS: Thanks to our good friend Saveau for the stellar classification of “Weapons-Grade Fucknuttery”, we’ll be using that one A LOT here at jaggedspiral.com