Our new record is coming out Tuesday, April 13th on itunes, Rhapsody, and every other possible digital music service that we can think of. It will also be coming out as a very special Collectors Book / CD, which will be available at our shows.  We are extremely proud of the record and very excited to share it with you guys. It’s called Peacocks / Pink Monsters.

We’re releasing it 100% independently, which means we’re counting on all of you guys; our friends and our fans to help spread the word! There are a bunch of cool things that doing to prepare for the release:

Posting Day! First Single and Music Video!

On February 1st, we are releasing the first single from the record entitled “Cobra Strike” as a digital download and YouTube music video. The video is AWESOME. I think it might be one of the coolest things we’ve ever done and I think people are really going to like it, and really like the song.

HERE’S WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU:
On the day that the video comes out we need everyone to POST THE SHIT OUT OF IT!  Post it on your Facebook feed! Post it on your Twitter! Post it to everyone in your office and everyone at your school and everyone in your family! Post it on every blog and every forum you can think of!

HERE’S WHAT YOU GET:
In exchange for your help we’re going to make Cobra Strike a FREE DOWNLOAD for the whole day on posting day, and for a couple of days afterward. We’ll post the download link on this Facebook Event and update everyone who has RSVP’d as “Attending” with the URL. This way all of our real fans and friends can get the song for free with some bonus material and anyone who discovers Judgement Day later from the video will just have to buy the regular download from our music page http://stringmetal.com/judgementday/music .

WHAT’S THIS VIDEO ABOUT ANYWAY?
It’s CRAZY! It’s RIDICULOUS! I’m not going to tell you everything about it right away because I want you to guess. (If you already know please don’t spill the beans!) Instead, I’m going to give you hints. You should all recruit people to the Facebook Event, and for every 25 new Attendees that we get there, I will post one new picture and/or hint about the video or the new record.

US TOUR!

We just started booking a record release tour, which begins on March 11th. Booking is going pretty well so far but we could definitely use some tips about cool bands to play with and cool clubs to play at, especially on the east coast. Check out the tour routing at http://stringmetal.com/judgementday/tour and if you have any ideas, please email us at judgmentdayband@yahoo.com

SHOWS THIS MONTH:
LA and San Francisco

Sun. 1/24
Los Angeles
Cinespace
Cobra Strike video release party. Free admission and free vodka until 10:30.
9:30 pm / 21+ / FREE until 10:30

Sat. 1/30
San Francisco
Bottom of the Hill (Winter Music Festival)
Presented by SF Indiefest and Talking House Records with BATTLEHOOCH and the Hot Moon
9pm / All Ages / $8

Alright! This is going to be fun!

-anton

I have been having a hard time writing on this trip. Every time I start writing something I decide it’s not worth posting, but we are now already halfway through our first European tour so I finally forced myself to finish something.

This is what I wrote a few days ago: “Well here we are, in Rome, Italy. The sun is out and the weather is warm. We woke up early today to go explore the city and saw all kinds of amazing ancient ruins and Renaissance architecture. Yesterday we had a whole day off in Venice, riding around in boats exploring narrow alleyways and eating delicious pasta. Obviously, this has not been our typical starving-and-sleeping-on-dirty-floors DIY tour.  This is as posh as it gets.”

It is true. This tour has been quite luxurious. The main reason is that we are splitting a tour bus with Dredg. Riding on a bus makes everything so much easier. We party, watch movies and sleep during the drives, and then wake up every morning exactly where we need to be. Riding with Dredg has been incredibly fun. There are eleven of us total riding on the bus and everyone hangs out and has a good time. It’s much easier to be traveling with a larger group of people because you don’t get sick of everyone. It also helps that everyone on our bus is chill and fun.

Bunks on the bus: our home for the month.

When we first got to the bus in Barcelona, there was nobody there. This is us waiting for someone to show up and let us in.

In addition to the luxury of the bus, the hospitality in Europe is absolutely amazing. Almost every day we find our dressing room stocked with gourmet cheese, meats, vegetables and sweets. Almost every night we have an amazing catered dinner with wine. They sure know how to treat musicians over here.

It hasn’t been all fun and games though. To help offset the enormous bill that we are going to get at the end of the tour we have been hustling extra hard to sell cds. We have been playing on street corners in the day and sometimes outside of the clubs when the shows get out:

We made a special European tour cd that we are only selling on this trip called Excerpts. It includes three songs off of our upcoming record Peacocks /Pink Monsters as well as all of Opus 3: Acoustic. It has been selling pretty well and it seems like people like it:

Last night for Halloween we were in Dortmund, Germany. They don’t really celebrate Halloween here like we do in the US but we had a night off and we got into a show where The Hives were playing so that was pretty cool. Most of the rest of the shows on the tour are in Germany, which is where Dredg is hugely popular, so hopefully they will be good for us. I will try my best to publish reports of all interesting occurrences.

-anton

NEWS BACK HOME:

The super-awesome music blog Kata Rokkar is doing a ticket giveaway for the Dark Opus 5th Anniversary show. They are having a fun contest. All you have to do is describe what our music sounds like (and there is a song posted there) and the best description wins two tickets to the show. Details here: http://katarokkar.cribble.net/2009/11/kata-rokkars-judgement-day-ticket-giveaway/

Slash – Former Guns n’ Roses guitarist and true guitar hero.

A couple of weeks ago Lewis and I went down to LA for a recording gig with Eric Valentine, a producer who we work with often. Sessions for Eric are always great, so we didn’t even ask who the artist would be this time. When I got to the studio Lewis was already set up in the live room and Eric was hard at work getting tones. He started playing the song that we were working on. It was a pretty pop ballad and the singer kind of sounded like of Maroon 5. Was this a Maroon 5 session? As the song smoothly progressed, my eyes began to scan of the room for clues. I noticed a handful of unusual black guitar picks strewn across the desk and couch. I leaned over to pick one up. Just then, the song hit the bridge and the tone totally changed. A ripping, monster guitar entered, shredding like a demon out of hell. The logo inscribed on the guitar pick was of crossed bones and a skull wearing a top hat. This could mean only one thing…

Shaking slightly, I finally asked Eric who the session was for.  “Oh, Slash will be here in about an hour”. My heart skipped a beat. “This session is for a Slash solo record”.

Well this was pretty friggin exciting for me. Back when I was in college, when we first started Judgement Day, I had a mission to teach my self to truely rock. Having studied classical violin my whole life, I had always looked up to great violinists like Jascha Heifetz, but now I was in dabbling in a genre in which I felt I had to find new heroes. Slash was a huge influence on me. During my descent into rock n’ roll depravity, I learned his solo for “Sweet Child o’ Mine” almost note for note, as well as the opening riff, which is probably my favorite guitar riff of all time.

Waiting around, I was pretty nervous.  Having heard all of the crazy legends about this dude, I really didn’t know what he would be like. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to do a good job on this session, so I went to go warm up in the B-room. When I came out, Slash was standing in the hallway with his hair in a pony tail. “Hi, I’m Anton”, I said offering a handshake.

“Hi. Slash.”

As it turned out, I really had nothing to be nervous about. Slash, in addition to being a legendary rock guitarist, is also a cool-ass dude. Within moments of meeting him I felt totally comfortable hanging out with him. While Lewis was recording his parts in the live room Slash and I were just chilling in the control room and he was telling stories about playing shows and having crazy parties in San Francisco in his pre-Guns n’ Roses days. He seemed stoked that we were from San Francisco and even more stoked that we had a metal band.

The record sounds like it’s going to be pretty cool. It’s like a god damn Grammy party. Each song is co-written by Slash and a guest vocalist. The vocalist on our song was, in fact, Adam Levine of Maroon 5. Some of the other guests include Ozzy Osbourne, Flea, Chris Cornell, Iggy Pop, Fergie and now, Judgement Day.

Not bad for a day’s work.

-Anton

We’re very excited to announce that we will be releasing our very first vinyl 7″ record “Out of the Abyss: Live on Tape” on Third Culture Records on July 21st!

Track List
SIDE A: Out of the Abyss
SIDE B: Etude

BONUS TRACK: Genosha (Reep-Meister Jam)

EXTRAS:

• Free digital downloads of both songs on the record as well as a 10-minute bonus track.
• Sheet music for Etude.
• Sweet artwork of a dragon with it’s skin melting off by CJ Dunn

Credits:
Produced by David Reep and Judgement Day
Engineered by David Reep at Calrec Studios
Mixed by Roger Pruett at Calrec Studios
Mastered by Mike Wells and Hyde Street Studios
Illustration and Design by CJ Dunn

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Why Live on Tape?

We’ve always been a big fan of vinyl but what makes this release very special for us is that we recorded it in a fully analog studio on tape. These days it’s very rare for bands to record on tape, the reason being that you have to actually be able to play the song all the way through. You can’t cheat with 100’s of takes and punch-ins and you definitely can’t auto-tune. Part of the appeal of recording on tape is the warm analog sound that you get but I believe that the true benefit of tape-recording is that it captures real, uncut musical performances. Back in the days of Miles Davis and The Beatles, this was just how records were made and today’s world of robotic perfection, where digital recordings are often made literally one note at a time, those classic analog jazz and rock records seem to have more life to them than ever.

When Dave Reep of Third Culture Records approached us with the idea of recording a 7″ on tape in a classic analog studio we thought that it sounded like a great challenge. We had just finished our fall tour and were tighter than ever. We decided to record Out of the Abyss for the A-side because it was a song that we had been playing almost every night and because the original studio version, with huge orchestral string arrangements, was so different from the live version. We thought it would be cool to capture that song as we had been doing it live so we did it in one take. It’s definitely not as perfect and polished as the original recording but it is 100% real and captures that live energy you can’t get any other way.

The B-Side Etude is essentially Lewis doing  a shredding cello solo for 2 minutes straight. Etude (a french word meaning study) is a classical term for a piece of music designed to improve a certain technique.  This piece explores diminished tonalities and thumb positions on the lower strings. It is also an exercise in rationing the cellist’s energy and developing endurance for extended periods of loud, fast playing. Any cellists who wants to learn it will have their chance because the sheet music will be included with the 7″.

The bonus track Genosha (Reep-Meister Jam) is a 10-minute version of another song that we were playing almost every night on tour. It’s a song that is vastly different every time we play it. The reel of tape that we used for this record was about 16 minutes long and we used every inch of it. After we finished Out of the Abyss and Etude we figured the best thing to do would be to would be to have a 15 minute jam. It was super sweet! Too bad you don’t get to hear the last 3 minutes. The tape ran out.

The artwork is by our longtime friend and collaborator CJ Dunn who has done the layout for The Acoustic EP, Dark Opus, Opus 3: Acoustic and all of our t-shirts, including the infamous Squid Puzzle shirt.

So there it is. Our very first 7″. Now we can all say “do you want to see my 7?” You can mail order it starting July 21st at Stringmetal.com or you can pick it up at any of our shows.

-anton

It’s been a while since I’ve done a blog entry. I’m sorry I never did a big post about the spring tour about dredg. We were just having so much fun that I didn’t have time to write much. I think dredg might have some of the best fans out there. Every night was great for us and all three of us, Jon, Lewis ad I came off of the tour with a new found sense of excitement about the future of Judgement Day.

We have mostly been taking June off. Jon has been working and playing with his other band VS Them. Lewis has been practicing cello, working around the house and will be playing some concerts with Berkeley Opera soon. I have just been hanging out in San Francisco, doing a few recording gigs and playing with my new band Devotionals. I had a great birthday party  a couple of nights ago. A bunch of cool bands played at it.

In July Judgement Day will be back in business! We’ll be appearing on the Chasing the Moon podcast on July 7th, which is going to be really sweet. It’s basically going to be a really high-quality video of a live set. Shortly following that we’ll be releasing our very first vinyl record titled “Out of the Abyss: Live on Tape” on Third Culture Records. To celebrate the release we’ll be doing a one week California tour. We’ll do a whole blog post about that release very soon.

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There is a very exciting new record that was released last week and that is the new dredg record The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion. If you are a fan of dredg’s previous records you’re definitely going to like it. If you’ve never heard dredg before I’d say this new record might be just the place to start. In addition to the healthy handful of polished, catchy prog-pop songs, it also has some of the craziest interludes that I have ever heard. We’re talking backwords children’s choir through vintage ring modulator type of shit. Actually, I honestly have no idea how they came up with most of these crazy sounds but I’m definitely feeling it.

The other added bonus for on The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion is…. us! Judgement Day is featured on 4 tracks:

Track 5: Lightswitch -- We don’t do much on this one but we’re on it and it’s one of the better songs on the record.

Track  12: Mouring This Morning - We put some sweet disco string hooks on this uber-catchy prog-soul number.

Track 14: Long Days and Vague Clues - A crazy evil circus song on which we get to totally shred (see video below).

Track 18: Stamp of Origins (Horizon) -- The sorrowful album closer.

_____________________

Although we only worked on that record for a few days it was truely a great experience. The members of dredg as well as the record’s producer, our friend and colleague Matt Radosevich are all great artists and collaborators, continually excited by prospects of musical exploration. Whether it was late-night percussion jam sessions or ultra-precise string overdubs the process was always fun and fulfilling.  That spirit is present throughout the record.

Check it out on itunes.

-Anton

Artwork by Phillip Ginn - www.legendhouse.com

HUGE BLACK MAN / HUGH JACKMAN EP
01. Side A
02. Side B

Recorded in Sacramento in September of 2006, Huge Black Man’s “Hugh Jackman EP”  was in many ways a musical experiment. The rules: 4 musicians from very different bands would meet in a practice space for one day, without any prior rehearsal, and record an entire album.

Those musicians were:
Anton Patzner of Judgement Day - Violin
Nick Reinhart of Tera Melos – Guitar, Knobs
Sam Phelps of 4 Guys from Reno – Bass
Noah Clark of Brilliant Red Lights – Drums and Producer

The result is a highly unique blend of musical styles and an intriguing study of spontaneity and creativity under the pressure of time constraint.

It’s also pretty fun to listen to. Check it out:

DOWNLOAD HUGE BLACK MAN / HUGH JACKMAN EP

When I’m not writing music with Judgement Day I write music for films. I’ve always loved film scores. My favorite growing up was The Empire Strikes Back by John Williams. It’s super epic and has tons of great themes that interact with each other in cool, interesting ways. It’s dope. Check it out.

The first score I wrote myself was for “Black Scar III”, a movie I made with my friends in 4th grade. My uncle Joe said that it sounded like music from a porno. Since then the scores have gotten a little bit better and a lot more ambitious. In high school I worked with director Hoku Uchiyama on a film called “The Killer Chihuahua”. Although it was all synthesizers and kind of sounded like an 80’s horror movie that was kind of like my first real score and my first of many collaborations with Hoku. In college I started using real instruments in my scores, adding more and more each time until they started sounding like real film scores. That’s how I got started and I’m still doing it to this day.

I released two of my scores on cd: “Undercut” in 2005 and “Rose” in 2006. “Undercut” is now out of print and “Rose” has stopped selling so they are both free downloads now. I hope you enjoy them.

-Anton

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Undercut
This was a no-budget martial arts film directed by Stephen Reedy that ended up getting nominated for an MTV Movie Award (best student film). The music is somewhere in between Shaft and Mortal Kombat. Then there are some parts that sound like smooth jazz. Ya. It’s a pretty weird movie. In a good way.

DOWNLOAD THE UNDERCUT SOUNDTRACK

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Rose
This  film is a 30-minute ghost story directed by Hoku Uchiyama. It’s scary, sad, sweet and pretty awesome. It it did really well on the festival circuit and it will hopefully be out on the internet soon. The music is mostly orchestral but has some folk instruments as well. The melody for one of the main themes was written by the singer-songwriter Amanda Mehl. She also does all of the ghostly vocals. Lewis has a nice cello solo on one of the other main themes. A bunch of other great musicians are on it as well.

DOWNLOAD THE ROSE SOUNDTRACK HERE

www.rosethemovie.com

This is the happiest song that Judgement Day ever wrote. If you have heard Opus 3: Acoustic then you know the acoustic version of Noae Kaedae but we also have an electric version. We originally recorded it during the Dark Opus sessions but we decided it was just a little bit too sunny (and sloppy…) to fit on that disc. It ended up on the 2005 Norcal Compilation which was put out by Agent Records and featured other bands like Tera Melos, Desa, Audrye Sessions and Overview. We still have a few copies of it lying around. We might be able to sell you one if you want but you could also just

download Noae Kaedae, Electric for free HERE

The ORIGINAL Acoustic EP (2003)

OPUS 1: Acoustic EP

Before we had drums or FX pedals, before we tried to get every note perfect, before we had enough songs to make a full length record, we released our first EP- The Acoustic EP. The songs on it are basically the songs we used to play for spare change on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley along with a couple of quieter avant garde intros. I just listened to it again for the first time in a couple of years. It’s interesting. It’s definitely raw. We recorded it really quickly in our parent’s and uncle’s garage without computers so there’s no editing or cheating. Some of the violin parts are improvised and sometimes doubled by another violin that is improvising. The intro and interlude were completely improvised. We didn’t do very many takes so some of the songs have blatant mistakes. Overall, though I think that the rawness gives it a pretty cool energy. If nothing else its cool to hear how it all got started.

BONUS TRACK
The bonus track, “Carol of the Bells (orchestral)” is the same as the original ep version except with 4 or 5 extra violins and a couple of extra cellos doubling what is already there. We decided to use the version with just one violin and one cello because it sounds more real but I always liked the “Orchestral” version too so we’re putting it on here as an extra holiday bonus.

FREE DOWNLOAD
The original release of the Acoustic EP was a CDR in a plastic sleeve with a black and white booklet. It’s been out of print for a few years now so we are excited to be able to share it with you all again now as a free download. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

Download the Acoustic EP HERE

The new acoustic ep is here.