Bottomless Pit - Lottery (2005-2012)

While I was over at the Comedy Minus One web presence grabbing the new Karl Hendricks Trio record, I was also greeted with the exciting news that CMO were re-releasing some of the Joel R.L. Phelps catalog and a Japanese label was releasing all of the Bottomless Pit releases to date as a limited two-disc set called Lottery 2005-2012. Even better, there were three unreleased tracks.

Small progress was made in the JS-OCD in that I didn't get Lottery 2005-2012 for nerd completist cred, but I think we both know that the three new tracks were not not going to be coming down the pike to JS-NYC HQ. They did, and I suspect that there might actually be a small insurrection in my building if they have to hear me play them any more. I'll give the nod to the amped-up version of Winterwind as the best of the three, but the other two only serve to assert that Bottomless Pit are a band with few peers in the rock landscape of today.

Buy the Bottomless Pit catalog as Lottery 2005-2012 or separately here.

R

Bottomless Pit review at Skyscraper

Hey All:

Review of the Bottomless Pit record Blood Under The Bridge is up currently at the newly relaunched Skyscraper web presence.

Here's a link.

R

Bottomless Pit - Congress EP

Ok, kids:

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday and the half-posting earlier. Wedding yesterday took me out of the game and I screwed up the scheduled post for today. Here's my real two cents on the whole thing:

Bottomless Pit hail from Chicago and are a band I really wish were not around. Not that they aren't absolutely great, but were it not for the tragic death of drummer Mike Dahlquist a couple years ago, we would still have Silkworm to enjoy (as well Mike's grins). Both are missed greatly by many. Look out for the upcoming documentary Couldn't You Wait coming out (hopefully) by the end of the year.

Of course, the demise of Silkworm fostered the rise of Bottomless Pit, featuring Andy and Tim from Silkworm with Chicago luminaries from .22 and Seam. Ex-Seam drummer Chris Manfrin really shines on the tracks here. His push and pull combined with the frequency range covered by the triple threat of bass, baritone and electric guitars makes for a big sound and four great songs on Congress. Andy and Tim will never be accused of being Sam and Dave, but the stark driving sonority of their tracks fits the vocals perfectly. I believe that it was recorded at Electrical by Heather Whinna, but that's just a guess. (and a wrong one!, Jon Solomon points out that it is Greg Norman, and adds that Mr. Norman's contact info is etched into the vinyl)

If you're a sucker for tangibility, Congress is available here on 12" vinyl (45rpm) that comes with a CD of the tracks for convenience sake. You new-school kids can digital download through Comedy Minus One here or check the links below.

R

Bottomless Pit web presence

Bottomless Pit social networking interface

Comedy Minus One

Couldn't You Wait? documentary site

Bottomless Pit and Kadane Bros at Knit 7.11.8

Can I get a 'what the fuck'? Not that I'm not old and/or cranky but I hate, hate, hate the fact that you can never find out the actual time that a band is going to play in this day and age. Maybe it's just a NYC thing, but I regularly go to a venue hours before a show to find out a start time and arrive to find that the set time has changed two hours when it hasn't even been that long since I asked. That was an awesome way to miss most of the xlimp wristx show last year, I'll tell you. This night I got there at 8:45 to find that the Kadane Bros. were no longer headlining and that the twice confirmed 9pm start time for the Pit was now 11. Good times.

After a rare set from Kahoots, the Kadane Brothers ambled on to the stage. The Bros, of course, used to be half of Bedhead and currently helm Texas titans The New Year. Both bands ply their trade in hushed vocals and reverb-dappled clean guitar wash. Bubba also played fourth man in Silkworm prior to the bands demise, fleshing out the sound nicely with keys and strings. The Bros. played mostly as a duo with both brothers on electric, sometimes supplemented with Chris Brokaw (ex-Codeine, Come and a million other bands you should know). They went over well, and featured a seamless set that incorporated Bottomless Pit into their last number. More bands should work that angle, but then again most bands can barely play with themselves, much less another band.

Bottomless Pit features Tim and Andy from Silkworm, with a rhythm section comprised of Chris Manfrin from Seam and Brian Orchard. Not too fucking shabby, I'd say. Live and on record, it's all about clean low end with the Pit. Tim is playing baritone guitar and that combined with an actual bass player and down-tuned guitar will fill a room with some frequencies. Tim and Andy are both singing, although not together. Oddly enough though, their voices are getting more and more similar. Neither of them are going to give The Irish Tenors any sleepless nights, but it's no less beautiful. There are only maybe a dozen songs in the Bottomless Pit canon, which doesn't make for the longest set, but we still managed to cajole the boys back for an encore.

Between Tim's electrical engineering job at Shure and Andy's law career, we don't see a lot of road dates for The Bottomless Pit. Hopefully there will be more dates behind the new Congress EP. Look out for road dates. In the meantime, order it (or a gang of other Silkworm related material) from them via the website or get the digital downloads from Jon Solomon at Comedy Minus One. Links are below.

See you at the rock show!

R

www.bottomlesspit.us
www.comedyminusone.com
www.thenewyear.net