Southern Cooking w/ Black Tusk

The van can be a confining place.  This is especially true when you are stuck in it for over 15 hours and you don't want to take off your shoes because you haven't changed your socks for days.  But Black Tusk is familiar with the wear and tear of life in the van and when they arrived at Wealth Underground Farm, yawning while spilling out of all the doors of the vehicle, they were ready to go.

One of the best aspects of the Farm to Artist project, in my opinion, is the amount of contact there is between Nigerian dwarf goats and tattooed dudes wearing leather jackets.  We toured the farm, which included a long visit with the goats who seemed to energize the guys in Black Tusk, pulling them out of their road stupor.  When we left to go to lunch, Pippie and Thelonious let out bleats of desperation, wanting to spend more time with the band.  A couple members of Black Tusk obliged them, walking back over to the fence and petting them/taking pictures.

Inside a freshly prepared meal was waiting for us.  The meal had a southern twist, consisting of braised mustard greens with bacon, garlic mashed rutabaga and potatoes, a simple egg scramble, and a bread/salami/cheese plate.  This is a good time to send a shout out to my parents who were visiting me from Indiana and who helped prepare the meal.

The conversation was quick as the band was heading into town to hang out with some of the guys in Red Fang before they had to get to the venue.  We jumped around, talking about their tour, the coming together of the band, as well as the upcoming Orion Music Festival curated by Metallica.  The climax of the meal was the conversation about southern food where, for a moment, everyone at the table was weighing in on their favorite dish/vegetable and how to prepare it.

I want to thank Black Tusk for making the epic drive up from San Francisco and joining me for a meal at the farm.  Be sure to check out their newest album Set The Dial.  You can find updates and hear music by Black Tusk at their Facebook page.

This coming week!

This is a(n) (organic) buffet week for the Farm to Artist project.  Today, Gull is going to join me at the winter wonderland that is Wealth Underground Farm.  This coming weekend, assuming the timing is right, Yellow Ostrich will be coming on out to the farm to enjoy a meal.  Then, the icing on the cake is next Wednesday when I will be in the company of Black Tusk, who are going to be driving up from San Francisco.  I'm excited to meet all these amazing people and pretty soon the blog and podcast will be brimful of content.  Stay tuned!

Megaton podcast is now available!

Check out iTunes or stream the podcast on the sidebar.  Enjoy!

Delivering the Greens w/ Megaton Leviathan

     I realize that Megaton Leviathan are from Portland (or nearby) and that, though they have toured extensively in the past, this meal coincided with a one-off, hometown performance.  That said, listening to "Water Wealth Hell on Earth" I get the feeling that they are coming from a place far away where the landscape is vast and bleak.  Within that landscape, difficult to see in the distance, is a small group of people in a lush valley who are growing their own food and carrying on without the many modern conveniences that have created consuming automatons out of human beings.  In this place, life is hard and dark but good and full of meaning.  That's why I had them out for a meal, I wanted talk about that place in the distance.

     They arrived in their yellow tour van and we did the usual; toured the farm, visited with the goats, and then sat down for the meal.  The lunch consisted of pasta with meatballs and a mustard green salad.  The meatballs were each stuffed with a whole brussel sprout, which helped to stretch out the ground beef as well as provided a thin veil to hide the decadence of the meal.  To date, it has been my favorite meal to eat and I plan to recreate it at some point in the near future since we are swimming in brussel sprouts.

     We ate and chatted and then Chris and Andrew from Megaton Leviathan took off for the show.  I met back up with them later at the Rotture as they were preparing for their set.  For two people they have incredible stage presence, creating a dynamic show.  Between the smoke from the sage smudge, the projected video in the background, and the dull roar of the music that you can feel in your bones, the whole Megaton Leviathan show has quite the array of sensory experiences.  I may have been tired, as it was past midnight when they stepped onto the stage, but their set was nearly a mystical experience, passing from meditative to explosively loud and back in aural undulations.  At the end of the set, Chris told me that he had an auditory hallucination while playing, hearing instruments that he shouldn't be hearing during the final song.  If you are a fan of drone/spiritual metal, make sure to attend a Megaton Leviathan show if and when you have the opportunity, you won't regret it.

     Thanks to Chris and Andrew for joining me at Wealth Underground Farm for lunch.  To hear more from Megaton Leviathan you can visit their website here and be sure to check out the podcast, which will be out in the next few days, to hear the lunchtime conversation.