Ostensibly, this newsletter is about a band.
But I’ve been playing music long enough to know that nothing “about a band” is just about a band. Anyway, here we go: My name is Shel Plock. And ostensibly, I’m a musician. I live in Maryland’s Patapsco Valley and have produced music for the better part of the last 35 years. In addition to music, I have interest and experience in extraordinarily nerdy technical research; I’ve spent far too long filling far too many shelves with endless reams of poetry and pulpy fiction; and I’ve been credibly accused of being obsessed with graveyards and the ghastly side of life.
Anyhow, Grave Domain is the name of my band. A musical band. With songs. Recordings. You know: a band.
So, ostensibly, this newsletter is about a band.
But it’s about a band that’s obsessed with ghosts. Obsessed with psychopomps. Obsessed with the concept of the places that come between places.
So, maybe in the same way that the band is exploring through lyrics and riffs the nature of the ghost, the psychopomp, and the liminal places between one world and another, the band’s newsletter explores that exploration itself more deeply through poetry, essays, and photography.
This newsletter will unapologetically include delves into these and any other topics I manage to wade into. But I’ll always try to bring it back to the music, or at least hope that my postulating on this, that, or another thing might provide a window into the mind of the type of person who makes the music that is made by the band — Grave Domain.
WHAT YOU GET:
Music, lyrics, poetry, essays, and photography. Often about the space between the land of the living and the land of the dead. An invitation to the Bardo.
Everyone gets to read all of the free stuff for free. I publish often enough, so you won’t be lacking for reading material.
PAID subscribers ($5/mo or $50/yr) get full access to everything including subscriber-only articles and occasional free access to unreleased and pre-release music; special Q&A sessions and live chats and performances; and occasional peaks into what’s going on in the studio. Basically, you will end up getting inside my brain. Please wear galoshes.
WHO
Shel Plock (that’s me, your unreliable narrator) spent much of the 1990s recording and releasing obscure punk, indie, noise, and avant-folk and much of the 2000s performing free improvised music — culminating in the 2007 release of a highly collaborative freely improvised musical. (Foxy Digitalis called it a free jazz Tommy... and that's probably not a bad description.) From roughly 2008 to 2013, Shelly was a member of the Red Room Collective and helped to co-organize the annual High Zero Festival of experimental improvised music. Between 2014 and 2022, he recorded a number of pseudonymous electronic and heavy metal musical projects and starting in 2022, he again began recording new music for official release including jazz and electric guitar recordings and — most importantly — Grave Domain. In 2024, Shel Plock and the Grave Domain are releasing a new album of cosmic country-and-western songs.
WHAT
Grave Domain is a band with a penchant for ghosts, graves, and the spirits that live in the threshold between the lands of the living and the dead. This newsletter comes out whenever that guy Shel decides to click “publish”. Once he does that, all bets are off… the goods are out there in the world and (hopefully) in your inbox.
WHEN
Grave Domain is happening right now. You aren’t late. Everything that I’ve done for the last 49 years has led to this point and — lucky you — you get to witness it.
WHERE
Besides subscribing to this here newsletter, you can always keep up with what’s going on over at gravedomain.com or on Bandcamp.
WHY
Honestly? Because I could think of nothing more satisfying than using music, lyrics, poetry, and photographs to explore the space between the living and the dead. That’s the stuff that consumes me. I do this so that you don’t have to.
