THE SLUDGE SHEET

(latest shirt design, © By Robin) NEGATIVE REACTION's first album in like... a decade(?!) is just about finished - right now it's in the mastering stage at Steer Run Studios, which is Ken-E-Bones' recording studio at his compound in West Virginia (he relocated there from Long Island!!!!).  Speaking as one of the few people to have heard a track from it, I can tell you that it's going to be good ...  I had the privilege of seeing them last summer, where Ken-E-Bones, as he put it, "channeled his inner Randy Rhodes".  That's not just an opinion he and myself share, but his band and a pioneer of the sludge community who witnessed it live.  Get ready to be shocked by these solos.  At this point, I think it's safe to say that his guitar-playing is superior to Matt Pike, Wino, and even Dave Chandler.  So be sure to check it out when it drops! Btw here's the official statement the band released about it last month: Negative Reaction February 29 a...

Negative Reaction 6 hrs  ·  Hello Sludgenaughts. We hope you are all doing well. We would like to announce our new drummer to the throne...Ryan Aliff!!!! Welcome aboard the spaceship Negative Reaction! https://www.facebook.com/NegativeReaction/posts/1943096882466189 I talk to Kenny Bones regularly over the phone and he told me that Ryan is extremely talented and very well-respected in West Virginia (which is where NR are located now).  Looking forward to where they go from here...

Something that I've been struggling with since I was a child is severe stomach pain every morning that pretty much wipes me out for an hour or two, sometimes longer.  Full-body aches, cramping, light-headedness, nausea, dizziness... my face looks completely flushed during it.  Now in my late thirties, I've gotten used to the fact that it's just a normal part of my everyday life.  I've looked around for something to distract myself with when I'm going through it, but it wasn't until earlier this year that i finally did.  What was it?  This little ditty... Sludge music, the marriage of hardcore punk and doom metal, was pioneered in the early nineties by such bands as NEGATIVE REACTION  (Long Island, NY, now Central West Virginia), EYEHATEGOD (New Orleans), and GRIEF (Massachusetts).  While the former was just as influential as the other two and started earlier than both, they never received much attention.  Most people also don't know that t...