RUST_VISION

Hey kiddos,

Been a little bit, but I wanted to let you in on a couple things going on. 

Firstly, if you missed it, I played another Witchy Ways Market a couple weeks ago and it was a really great performance! 

A copy of the audio from the improvised performance is now up and available for Subscribers to download. Speaking of which…

Secondly, I’m restructuring/rethinking how I do my site subscriptions. All the different tiers are just going to be collapsed and simplified into one, single, cohesive, pay what you want tier for everything: ENCRYPTED+. I liked having all the cute different tier names, but the functionality to post something in one tier and have it auto-populate to all the other tiers isn’t there for some reason and posting everything 7 times feels like wasted energy. Additionally, I will no longer be pushing for the goal of putting up a new piece of audio EVERY week, because it simply isn’t feasible between my 9-5, my work as a visual artist/vendor, and what’s about to be occupying my time…

Lastly, I will be going into the studio starting this month to finish recording all the tracks on my new album, FUTURE MAGICKS: VOLUME 1, HYDRA’S RUIN. 

I’m ridiculously excited to have some intensely talented folks helping get everything sounding as excellent as possible. Kellii Scott of FAILURE has recorded some incredible live drum tracks for five of the songs, and they absolutely fucking rock! And Travis Bacon of CONTRACULT COLLECTIVE will be producing, engineering, and helping put the final polish on the record. I am hoping to get the record out by the end of the year, but I’m also willing to tap the breaks any TLC is needed. Regardless, I’m absolutely psyched about what’s coming. The future is magick.

Thank you for being here.

XOXO
Rust

Hey kiddos,

I have added a few new music downloads for Subscribers! Be sure to check those out and let me know if you're enjoying these!

Next: in case you missed the Temple broadcast, you can find the video below. 

A lot of the texturized glitchy details got lost at the hiccupy low resolution of the stream, so I definitely recommend viewing at 1080p.

Lastly: I am very excited to be performing what I am calling a MR. VISION set on 9/7 at the Witchy Ways Market at Boomtown Brewery in DTLA. 

This is gonna be super experimental, as I will not be preparing a setlist--hell, I won't even be performing any of my proper songs. This is just gonna be me jamming on and off as the event unfolds. Come check out the vendors, immerse yourself in the ritual, and grab a beer while you’re there!

That's all for now. More updates as they come!

XOXO,
Rust

Hey kiddos!

Just wanted to let you know that we got some video of The Mint performance and has been edited into something bigger than just a performance video, which is this:

Temple is a several-day-long streaming event comprised of goth/industrial musicians of all calibers. The event happens every year and is a fundraiser for a new cause/charity every year--this year we will be raising money for cancer research. RUST_VISION will be livestreaming a 30 minute video comprised of footage from our show, as well as footage from rehearsal and in-studio. Said footage has also had its audio sweetened up a little so that it doesn't just sound like audio from a phone. Looking forward to sharing that with everyone. Additionally, an extra song will be tacked on to the performance video, a version which will only be available to Subscribers.

Additionally, The Mint seemed to like us! However, we are sadly unable to get the people we need to put a band together in time for another Mint show. Hopefully, another opportunity will open up in the future, but as of right now, we are putting shows on hold until other parts of our lives level out :)

XOXOXO
Rust

Hey kiddos,

Happy June, Pride, & Wrath! Just wanted to reach out and give you a couple updates. There’s a lot going on, so I’m gonna try to keep this quick:

OUR FIRST SHOW AS A FULL BAND IS FAST APPROACHING! 

Thursday night, 6/26, at The Mint LA! Tickets are available now! and they're at least a few bucks cheaper online than at the door, so get yours now :)

We’ve been practicing our little butts off and things are sounding really badass! Check out this clip I recorded of us playing through a new song(!!!) called “Propain,” and come sing along on the 26th!

I made it glitchy and purple to keep with the aesthetic, but lmk if you want more bts stuff without the glitchiness. I know it makes some people in my family a little woozy to watch for too long, so let me know if toning that down is something you might appreciate.

New apparel is here! I designed these with some of the in-contention conceptual artwork for the upcoming album. 

They also share names with some of the new songs the band will be playing. Check out the artwork for each one, then let me know if you think they're a good match for the songs once you hear them live! 🙃

We are looking to book out MORE live performances! If you know of a venue or show that might be a good fit for us, HMU! 

I think that’s it for now. We do have another Thing we're excited to tell you about, but for now we want the focus to be on The Mint show. Have a great Pride/Wrath, and we hope to see you at our show!

Love,
Rust

P.S. Friendly reminder that Subscribers get new music every week, for as little as a cup of coffee a month!

Hey kiddos!

I have some a very exciting news! RUST_VISION is fleshing out to be a full live band! One of my goals this year was to play more live shows, as last year I didn’t play live at all. I played the LA Industrial fire benefit show in January at Slipper Clutch but was down for a few months due to my foot surgery. By the time I was ready to stand for any length of time, I had already booked a set for Queer Mercado in East LA, but was still too weak to really rehearse a full set requiring vocals and guitar-playing, so I opted for an instrumental set, which was a fun challenge and not something I’d ever done before. After that performance, I was asked by my friend Carolyn of the band Pickpocket if I wanted to play their next show at The Mint on Thursday 6/26 and I said “Hell yes!” 

Carolyn put me in touch with the booker at The Mint and he said he’d be happy to put me on bill for the night, but only if I had a band. No solo performance with a laptop and guitar and synth allowed! I thought for a second before replying, then took a gamble and said GO AHEAD AND BOOK IT. 

I had a few people who had expressed interest in joining before, but those conversations had taken place prior to my surgery. I quickly contacted those individuals and they were, very fortunately, still interested! Then, out of nowhere, a mutual on Bluesky messaged me about a video L had posted of my Queer Mercado performance and asked about getting together to “jam”. I told them I was putting together a band to play RUST_VISION material live, would they like to join? Apparently L’s post, featuring my RUST_VISION performance, was casting a net for LA musicians for a non-RUST_VISION  jam session; I had not seen the post, so I was unaware of this specific detail. This resulted in some crossed communication, but I sent them some demos to listen to and we did get to meet and jam and we got on well enough that they said yes, they’d be down to join.

So, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to announce RUST_VISION’s Live lineup!

(left to right)

Paul Morgana - drums
Rust MacCarthy - vox/synths/guitar
Eric Santiestevan - bass
Catton Arthur - guitar

We just had our first band rehearsal this past Tuesday and I’m SO excited about how fresh the sound and energy of this music feels with these amazing people on board! I can’t wait for y’all to hear what we’ve got in store for you!

Early bird tickets to our 6/26 show at The Mint are on sale now! https://dice.fm/event/bbdlqk-the-motorists-pickpocket-kings-of-karma-rustvision-26th-jun-the-mint-los-angeles-tickets?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwKGXEhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp6586Snz6dP7zdBbo_Hi1v5yTacrqpS_b7i50ZGNN8tm4Dj8AhsPxCRXe0dB_aem_NcEcIpaZ6o0bMs4J6el9lQ

Another fun thing that happened this past week is GUILLOTINE, Pt. 4 turned two years old! Hard to believe it's been that long!

This release, two years ago, marked the completion of my first Concept Album, GUILLOTINE, broken up as 4 EPs, the story climaxing with a full rebellion against the 1%. IRL, that revolt did not happen, but I still daydream that it will. Ironically, we as a band will not be playing anything from Pt. 4 of GUILLOTINE when we play at The Mint on 6/26—it will all be songs from Pt. 1-3, plus new material from the upcoming album. While this is somewhat disappointing for me (some of my favorite GUILLOTINE songs are from Part 4), this decision was made from a practical standpoint, as I really had to decide which songs could potentially benefit from a full live band versus simply being too electronic for that to make sense. But don’t worry, there will still be plenty of “burn it down” energy 😎

Looking forward to seeing you all soon in person!

All my love,
Rust

Hey kiddos,
Thank you for being here, still. It means the world to me, and I'd like you to please consider subscribing to my website. Please note I am doing this independently, not through Patreon or any other number of ways I could do this. It's important to me that I do this my way.

Your monthly support will help me create more music on an ongoing basis. No matter the tier you subscribe at, I will post one new piece of content for everyone, every week. Please support at whatever tier feels most comfortable for you--ALL subscription tiers are granted access to the same rewards:

• An exclusive blog feed with updates
• Early access to new songs and albums
• Access to exclusive/unreleased songs
• Jam sessions
• Occasional exclusive online shows
• Digital art downloads--wallpapers, pdf's, etc.

Click on any of the tiers under the SUBSCRIPTION menu of the NEWLY RELAUNCHED WEBSITE to join. 

• Dreaming Planet - $5/mo
• Servants of the Moon - $10/mo
• Wolves - $15/mo
• Waking Angels - $20/mo
• United Tribes - $30/mo
• Coventry - $50/mo
• The Dreadful - $80+/mo

Thank you so much for supporting me as an independent artist. I truly appreciate it.

All my love,
Rust

Hey kiddos,

Well, it’s finally done. My work on “Heaven’s Artifice,” my forthcoming instrumental album, is wrapped up like a holiday gift. 

About the album: 

“Heaven’s Artifice” was the result of several jam sessions with myself. Sessions 1 was just me playing around on the Moog Matriarch for about 45 minutes with a simple 4-on-the-floor beat going the whole time. Session 2 was me playing the guitar—yes, that lead sound is not a synth, it is a guitar running through a brassy synth pedal effect. From there, I took out a whole lot of the kicks to give some of the more atmospheric parts some breathing room. In Session 3, I went back over some of the lower notes I played with guitar with a bass synth to get some nicer low end in there. In Session 4, I built out drum parts using my drum machine, quickly building complimentary rhythms and moving on to next song/section. I was mostly satisfied by this point, but ultimately decided it was still missing something. With Session 5, I went through and improvised a bunch of parts on piano, most of which I ended up deleting; I found keeping the piano sparse allowed it to be more effective.

There is a loose storyline to this thing--at least, in my head--but I’m not really gonna detail that. My hope is your imagination conjures something in your mind that my explanations never could.

I am offering you all 10 tracks of “Heaven’s Artifice” for a Pay-What-You-Want sliding scale, almost a week before it’s available in streaming services or in digital music stores. Consider it my gift to you.

May your holidays be lovely. See y’all next year!

Love and cheer,

Rust

Hey kiddos,

Thank you again to everyone who came out to my show at The North End last Sunday. I know it was kindof last minute and plenty of people didn't know about it in time. I didn't even get a full confirmation until like 4 days beforehand. However, I got a pretty solid recording of the show, so hopefully you can get a decent idea of what it was like to be there.

Hope you enjoy! 

Love always,
Rust

P.S. My surgery went great, I am at home resting and recovering.

Hey kiddos,

It's finally here! Been trying to get this done this since before Guillotine, Pt. 4 was released. Some of my most anti-capitalism sentiments, and I'm really proud of how it turned out.

Hope y'all enjoy!

On another note, my performance last night at The North End of Hollywood went great! I'm so thrilled with how it went down and how my set was received by the crowd. Big thanks to AJ, Jared, and all of Ex Corpse for inviting me to the stage. I got some video of the show, and I hope to be able to share some of it here in the coming weeks.

Love and power,
Rust

Hey kiddos,

Rust here. It's been a hot minute since I had much to report. But I just turned 39, and I've got a few things I feel are worth sharing.

1. I'M PLAYING A LIVE SET TOMORROW NIGHT!
   Sunday the 17th, 7pm, I'm playing a short set at The North End of Hollywood, as part of Ex Corpse's Experimental Nite.
   I've been rehearsing for the past couple months just in case an opportunity presented itself and here it is. So that's a cool thing. I will be debuting a new song as part of my set, called “Dancing.”
    
2. THE VISIONARIES music video will also be premiering tomorrow night (Sunday), probably right after my live set, so keep your eyes on my YouTube channel for that. This was a labor of love and took a long time to wrap, but we finally overcame the location hurdle that we were running into for awhile and finished the shoot!
    
3. I am very close to finalizing mastering on my upcoming instrumental album, titled “Heaven's Artifice.”
   This is the cyberpunk soundtracky project I've been alluding to for some time. It's a concept album. I have an idea of what the story is. Maybe the story that forms in your imagination when you hear it will be similar, but maybe not. I'll talk a little bit about the project a bit more once it's released, and how it came about, but I'm gonna leave things somewhat open-ended as far as the album's narrative. I'm hoping to get the final polish on it later this week, then put it out in time to occupy some liminal space in people's minds.
   
   As for general life things: 
   -I'm back in school, and I'm trying to maintain a better work/life balance as far as my schoolwork goes (as opposed to last semester when I just felt buried beneath all the work I had to constantly do).
   -I'm going in for knee surgery soon. Hopefully this procedure will get rid of most/all of the chronic pain I've been dealing with there. Send good vibes my way this week.
   -I was finally diagnosed with autism. Not really a big surprise. Nice to feel validated by the medical system, instead of the opposite. Like I can maybe be a little more gentle with myself.
   
   And that's enough to be getting on with, I think. Hope your September has been delightful so far!
   
   Love and adoration,
   Rust