My column this week has two subjects. One is Ian Schneller, formerly of Shrimp Boat and Falstaff, who under the name Specimen Products makes instruments and gear as innovative and idiosyncratic as his old bands’ music. The other is Emperor Cabinets, a company founded by two members of local metal outfit Raise the Red Lantern to make metal-appropriate custom speaker cabs. The band’s recent self-titled album is a sludgy, thrashy mess of “Sweet Leaf”-scented heaviness, and I highly recommend it.
