Hello me...meet the real me!

Welcome back me! =<) haha The title of this post is a line from the song "Sweating Bullets" from Megadeth's 1992 album Countdown to Extinction. I'm currently reading Mustaine: A Life in Metal, Dave Mustaine's autobiography. I will post some thoughts when I finish, but...boy, let me tell you. The stereotype of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll does not even begin to describe these guys. It's more like, extravagantly insane, diverse and frequent drug use and scurrilous (read: Protest The Hero's new album) sex. And oh yeah, I think these guys play something called heavy metal? I think it's their day job. Or something.

Dave Mustaine composed one of my all-time favorite songs though: Holy Wars...The Punishment Due off of the landmark, genre-defining 1990 album Rust in Peace, which celebrated its 20th! anniversary last year. I will probably devote a future post to professing my undying love for this album...

Rando thought section:

The Social Network won Best Original Score at the Oscars?!
If the Academy were to award a composer for an ambient, electronic score, IT SHOULD HAVE AWARDED IT TO JAMES NEWTON HOWARD FOR MICHAEL CLAYTON A FEW YEARS BACK. Far superior. Plus, James' collaborator on Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer, composed a spectacular score for Inception. A further post coming about both scores.

Alice in Chains bassist found dead
Even though I know drugs and drug addiction pervade musical culture, I want to explore (if there is) historical inception for this phenomenon and talk about certain groups or genres that eschew the practice (Christian metalcore in mind).

Second-guessing yourself as an arbiter taste
More to come

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Visited Cleveland today and went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Impressions forthcoming.

NEW: The Humand Abstract's Digital Veil
I think this is the most sweep-picked arpeggios I have heard in an hour.

Some thoughts on religion

April Show Schedule

I will be going to see two shows this month. After each show, I will post my review and impressions, as well as photos and videos. Excited.

4/25

Job For A Cowboy
White Chapel
Cattle Decapitation
Gaza

4/30

Attack Attack!

My next blog post will be a review of Slash's solo album.

The Music Business and Creativity

While on youtube, I found a channel with a lot of Metallica videos, and I watched Metallica’s Hall of Fame Induction speeches in 2009. Speeches were made by James, Kirk, Lars, Rob, Jason Newsted, and Ray Burton, the late Cliff Burton’s father. Something that struck me while watching the videos was that most of the speech thank you’s were directed at the business side of Metallica. Members made sure to thank each other, their families and children, but they also expressed gratitude for their management team at Q Prime, their crew, and the fans, “without whom none of this would be possible”.

I realize that a band like Metallica (“the biggest heavy metal band in the world”) is a monstrous commercial entity, and that in many ways Metallica has grown larger than the music that is their product and art. However, I think that music is art, and regardless of the fact that most of the art we see is commercialized, the impetus for its selling is that it has an intrinsic and appealing value to some, if not all, in large part or small. At its core, Metallica is nine albums and a live show. Even more fundamentally, Metallica is the original music that they have recorded over the past 25 years.

The success of Metallica can definitely be attributed to, as the members say, hooking up with the right people at the right time, and forging business connections that assured their personal wealth, as well as made money for their record company. And in my opinion, the acceptance of Metallica into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in large part due to their massive commercial and popular success. Would Metallica make it into the Hall of Fame if Cliff Burton had lived and they hadn’t “sold out” in 1991 with the Black Album, and become as household a name as The Beatles, as American as baseball and Mom’s apple pie? I would like to think so, but unfortunately the answer is probably no. It seems to me that what was overshadowed, paradoxically, in Metallica’s Hall of Fame acceptance, was an acknowledgement and celebration of what has made Metallica truly great—their music.

Kirk, James, and Lars all had inspirational things to say about the power of music to make “impossible” dreams possible, to not be afraid to “dream a big dream, and dare to fail”. They are “living proof that dreams come true”. Kirk thanked his brother’s support in picking up a guitar as an “angry, young teen”, Lars thanked his father for the constant exposure to music while growing up, and its salience in his home life, and James thanked his brother for access to his drums and record collection. Emotions were running high in these reflections, and understandably so.

However, I would have liked to see more reflection on the music of Metallica and how that played a role in their personal achievement. I would have like Kirk to acknowledge his tireless work in mastering the guitar, and how he went from marathon recording sessions when he couldn’t even bend a note at the end of the day during …And Justice For All, to a smooth solo process on the Black Album. How they composed an excellent debut album, drove across the country to Rochester to record it, and invented a new musical genre in the process: thrash metal. How after each album, the pressure to compose something new and better got greater. And how Metallica, and specifically James Hetfield, time and again, rose to the challenge and took heavy metal composition to new heights, from the landmark, genre-defining Master of Puppets, to the progressive extremes of And Justice for All, to the monumental classic record, the Black Album. How they hit a creative writing block on St. Anger, and returned in thrash glory and fury with Death Magnetic.

As a musician, I appreciate the musical logistics and creativity of Metallica more than their commercial image. I practice guitar so I can play James’ rhythms and Kirk’s solos. I compose music so I can express myself and create satisfying music. To compose a record like Master of Puppets on guitar is groundbreaking, and I would have liked the ceremony to focus on more on that aspect, rather than how “big” Metallica has gotten in the public eye. I’m glad that they are so popular, but even if I was their only fan, their stamp on music is indelible, undeniable, and immortal. Long live Metallica.

Music

Pretty much all of my concert plans fell through for some reason or other, but many more are coming to Buffalo as the busy summer concert season approaches.

I love discovering music that I haven't heard before, as well as discovering bands that have recently formed. I just read a NY Times Music article about Surfer Blood, a West Palm Beach, Florida surf-rock band that is performing this weekend at South by Southwest Music Festival, or SXSW, in Austin, Texas. They formed in the past year, and hope to bring back melodic guitar lines in their songs. I took a quick listen on their myspace and was interested, soo, luckily they are coming to Soundlab in the next few weeks, and I hope to check them out.

Another new band that I discovered, Sleeping with Sirens, is coming out with their debut album this Tuesday, and is streaming it on their myspace, a very common thing to do these days. I listened to almost all of their songs, and absolutely loved their sound. Their vocalist, while male, sounds female (like Jag from A Skylit Drive), but has a youthful, "scene-y" voice, which I am fond of. The guitars are very interesting, playing everything from chords and melodies to sweep picked arpeggios over rhythmic breakdowns. The drums add double-bass at the appropriate times, and the overall sound and production is very modern, and sounds fantastic. I found this band randomly while on smnnews.com, a metal news site. They are a new favorite of mine.

Bullet For My Valentine released a music video for their song "The Last Fight" which includes a melodic pre-chorus that I am obsessed with right now. Their new album, Fever, is coming out in April.

As I Lay Dying's The Powerless Rise is coming out in May. It is produced by superstar producer and KSE guitarist, Adam Dutkiewicz, who is amazing. I look forward to both of these albums and to reviewing them on this blog.


Escape the Fate are going into the studio to record their as-of-yet untitled third album, and Attack Attack! probably already recorded Shazam!, since they are going out on tour.

Finally, here is a list of shows I hope to go to in the next month or so. I will try to take pictures and post some either here, or on facebook.

April 13--Surfer Blood @ Soundlab
April 14--The Fall of Troy FINAL SHOW EVER @ Mohawk Place
April 23 or 24--Cute Is What We Aim For @ Mohawk Place
April 25--Job For A Cowboy and White Chapel @ Mohawk Place
May 4--Sleeping With Sirens @ Mohawk Place

Pretty exciting month, concert-wise. Surf-rock, spazcore, power pop, extreme metal, and screamo.

Ski day!

I had a great time skiing today, and even though it's only the second day of skiing for me this winter season, I feel like I have improved a lot this year! I fixed the drag of one of my feet while turning by guiding that ski into the turn and tilting my foot in the direction of the turn, which has made my turns a lot smoother. That was on Saturday. Today I (serendipitously) became more comfortable with speed by taking wider turns and speeding up more while making my turning arc. I like skiing a lot.


I wanted to write about two new tracks that were released, but I'm not sure if I am going to cover them in detail, at least in this post. BFMV released a song from their upcoming third-album, called Fever. The song is called Begging for Your Mercy. I read in some interviews that Bullet were going for a more hard-rock sound on this album rather than the thrash metal/metalcore sound they had on Scream Aim Fire. However they characterize this album's sound, the new song sounds great (and it sounds like thrash metal to me). Matt Tuck starts the song with a cool riff in drop c (possibly d standard) and Michael Paget contributes great lead guitar, playing his parts with a wah pedal set in a certain position to act like an eq filter (personal note: I am finding it difficult to write compellingly about music because the adjectives that I am drawn to lack descriptive quality, such as "great" or "cool"--I will work on developing my descriptive skills). I liked the song and thought it was very good. I'm excited for Fever! Coming out in April.

Trivium's new song is a real treat, for many reasons. Though not apparent at first listen, it is in drop D, marking a return to the tuning for Trivium, and the return of lots of guitar covers on youtube. People found it difficult to play Shogun because a lot of it was on 7-string guitar, so a Trivium song in drop D on a 6-string is awesome. I am working on their song "Entrance of the Conflagration" and maybe I'll switch to drop dizzle for some time and learn this song on the way.

This song marks the recording debut of their new drummer, who laid down a great drum track, following in the technical tradition of his predecessor. The guitar bend that starts off the song and the intro riff as a whole rock really hard. Matt Heafy's vocals are as harsh and aggressive as ever, and Corey Beaulieu recorded a fast solo, while Matt, has a slower, more melodic guitar solo. I really like this track and am excited for the direction of Trivium's new album that will probably be recorded later this year and released in 2011.

I feel like expanding what I talk about in my blog to possibly include some work-intensive projects such as a review or essay, and maybe something related to what I am interested in professionally. So I am going to be using this blog as my writing outlet for whatever I am working on to fill my time productively, and enjoyably. Peace, love, hardcore.

What is burn notice?

Still don't know :] Dave Grohl was spectacular on drums last night playing with Them Crooked Vultures on SNL. It was the first time that I heard this band, but I did not like their songs. This supergroup, which consists of members from Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age, and Foo Fighters has fantastic musicianship, but I found the guitar riffs to be bland, and the songs to be uninteresting. The highlight of the performance was Dave Grohl's epic drumming. He was really into the songs, and he exuded enthusiasm and energy in his performance. He also had a funny bit in the last skit. Dave Grohl is a musician that I very much look up to. He is a fantastic drummer, and a great songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist. I mean, what can't this guy do? Props to SNL for having a solid live rock n' roll band on, but aside from the instrumental performances, I have to say I did not particularly like Them Crooked Vultures.

Slash had a very random but sweet performance at the Grammys. He played the outro solo to November Rain during Jaime Foxx and T-Pain's "Blame It On The Alcohol". I'm looking forward to his solo album that is coming out this spring. Speaking of upcoming music releases, I am really looking forward to the following new albums:

As I Lay Dying - The Powerless Rise (early 2010)
Attack Attack! - Shazam (spring 2010)
Bullet For My Valentine - Untitled (spring 2010)
Escape the Fate - Untitled (spring 2010?)

Excited for the Super Bowlz, and shows coming up.

Sexual Man Chocolate

I wrote about a band called Attack Attack! in one of my first blog entries, and I wanted to review and give my impressions of a new song they just released on their myspace, called "Sexual Man Chocolate". My estimation is that this is Attack Attack's best song, and one of the best songs in the screamo/technocore genre (though I hesitate to validate technocore as a genre given that not that many bands fit its mold of hardcore and electronic--the main ones being Attack Attack! and Asking Alexandria). If I have one gripe about the song is that it is too short--it goes by too quickly. This band is known for writing short songs, however: their first album barely clocks in at 30 minutes.

I discovered this band, as I seem to discover most bands these days--they were a supporting act for an Escape the Fate headliner in NYC in early 2009 that I went to. I checked them out on myspace, and really dug their mix of screamo and techno music, particularly the song "Stick Stickly", with its infamous rave/party ending sequence. I caught the ending of their performance and bought their debut, called Someday Came Suddenly. These guys quickly became one of my favorite bands, writing simple (not a bad thing!) and extremely catchy music.

It turns out these guys became scene darlings almost overnight, gaining in popularity so much lately that they are arguably the biggest band going to Warped in 2010. They've had some personnel changes along the way, parting ways with two vocalists, and making their keyboardist the lead vocalist (therefore playing back the synth parts). After all of the changes, the "new" Attack Attack! is very different from even the Someday Came Suddenly band in 2008. If "Sexual Man Chocolate" is any indication of the direction this band is going in with their second album, Shazam (to be released in May 2010), Attack Attack! might very well become one of the biggest screamo bands in the world.

The song starts off with piano arpeggios fading in that sound very interesting and cool. Drums and guitars come in next. Right away this band sounds heavier, tuning down to drop b (or even drop a#) from their debut album guitar tuning of drop c#, at least a whole stop difference. The guitars play a rhythm that descends a half-step (many guitar covers already up on youtube just play the same pitch).

Caleb Shomo's aggressive, almost As-I-Lay-Dying-esque (but very fitting), vocals tear into the listener with energy. Next comes an interesting clean vocal melody pre-chorus, with some nice harmonies thrown in. The chorus is extremely melodic and hooky, with obligatory strummed octaves on the guitar, and an aggressive tail to this section sung by Caleb. A really cool-sounding riff-based breakdown plays next, which not only sounds great, but adds variety to the rhythmically based breakdowns that are predominantly used by screamo bands. The song then switches back to a double rendition of the chorus, and is followed by an aggressive tail and a repeat of the intro piano licks and guitar riffs for the outro.

This is already one of my favorite songs of 2010 and is, in all seriousness, a screamo masterpiece. I am SO stoked for Shazam, and seeing these guys on tour. CHECK 'EM OUT!! peace