hmmm… not really sure what to think about THAT now… seems like a rave in Utah was broken up by military force. There is a lot about this I don’t understand - part of which is:
- Why would a SWAT team be called in for a permitted party on mostly private grounds?
- Why would they beat at teens - guys and girls?
- Why is this friggin rave crap so hip with (former?) HC-kids?
I wasn’t there and also don’t find anything appealing about either the music, the scene, the drugs or anything else associated with events like this; however - viewing the footage at music-versus-guns.org you might just wonder about wtf is going on.
Superheros in da house! Finally the feel-good vibe I have been waiting for the whole summer long! Nitro Rec. throws a whole charge of (despite the downscaled horn-section) partly ska-ish, synth-filled new-wave punk tunes, straight in our faces. The ‘bats have been around for a decade now and it has been 6 long years since their last nerd-core attack, yet they sound fresher than anything I got to hear in quite a while. MC Bat Commander and his superhero-posse (a little trivia piece: Travis Barker used to be one of them!) came back from Aquabania - supposedly they reside somewhere near Huntington Beach during their terrestrial stays - to take us on a fun-filled journey of many guitar-music-genres. And none of that OC/SoCal coolness whatsoever. Still the album is produced by a big wig - Cameron Webb, who used to work with other West Coast artists like Social Distortion and Motorhead before; All around the sound is still raw enough to keep it interesting.
Lyrically… well - they after all ARE crime-fighting superheros - so give them a break… My favorite here is “Demolition Rickshaw” - in terms of music I recommend giving “Look at me, I’m a Winner” a listen. It sounds almost radio compatible; makes my feet tap.
4 out of 5
If you are into comic books/adult swim, you will also like the artwork. There isn’t anything all that special to it - simple and spartanic - and reminiscent of the 60s Adam West-Batman style….
2.5 out of 5
total 4 out of 5
The 5 Canadians are on the road in the States with the Warped Tour this summer and will hit Europe this fall to promote their new album “Discovering the Waterfront”. The longplayer was produced by Cameron Webb (Motorhead, Ben Folds Five, SD) and recorded at Capitol Studios right next to Bon Jovi. Yellowcards Sean Mackin also makes a guest appearance on the record.
Remember the times when most of the Screamo and Emo releases came from Hardcore combos with too much time and emotions at their hands? These times are obviously long gone. Eventually they were precursors for a huge number of bands that brought Screamo into everybodies lives - along with the help of “zines” of the new millennium aka. Purevolume, Myspace, etc. There is nothing wrong with that, except that the audience faces a virtual overkill of bands that really don’t sound all that different. Maybe Silverstein actually are different, better. After all they were voted into AP’s “100 bands you need to know in the Spring of 2005″, sold over 200.000 copies of their Victory debut album and are currently #2 of Purevolume.com’s Signed Artists list. Still - I beg to differ with the public. The main problem is simply that neither the song writing nor the lyrics are outstanding. Not bad, but not really great.
The guys from Ontario deliver an album that sounds very clean, mixes sappy emo vocals with desperate screams, metal riffs and almost acoustic guitar sounds. In fact - by randomly listening into this album you could easily think you’re just about to check out a new Saves the Day record - or Shai Hulud for that matter. Depending on the part you selected. Silverstein does a considerably better job with the softer tunes.
2.5 out of 5
The artwork is pretty pretty. I could imagine hanging some of artist Martin Wittfiith’s works in my own 4 walls. The bands take on it is that “we wanted the art to tell the story of someone struggling to decide which direction to take his life in, staying in a place that is known, [...] or he can go into the water, where his fate is unknown. [...]” Yadda, yadda - to me it simply is gorgeous artwork.
4 out of 5
total 3 out of 5
sorry - german today…
article… bwahahaha: “Es war ersichtlich, dass es sich zumindest um links motivierte Fälscher handelt, weil Werbung für Drogen gemacht wurde.”
Those damn Canucks. Well - almost. VicRex tells us that the new Perfect Murder shouter - Kevin Randel - is US-American. Since the rest of the band is from Montreal and the Nashville pu… ermm… native Randel only comes to meet the band for production purposes this pretty much is a “long-distance band”. Out of all the records i have heard in recent months, this one reminded me the most of my visits at various Nuclear Blast & Co shows. That was a decade ago. Blended this in with a hint ob System of a Downiness and you get the right idea. Ergo - his band just seems to be a few years too late to still be considered innovative. One can’t deny that for some glorious verses the 5 tuffies crank out the mosh- and metal-axes to kick some serious ass - unfortunately they cannot keep the level up thoroughout the entire album. Especially the non-shouting vocals are rather embarrassing. Some of the musical shortcomings might be due to the limited time the band actually spends together, some of them simply due to the fact that they sound so similar to a certain metal myth - you might have heard of that band named Pantera - which they simply can’t seriously compete with. So - if you are brand new to this style - go and give it a try. If not: you might want to use this with caution.
1.5 out of 5
I am having a hard time telling whether the artwork is an hommage to Thrash albums of past ages. Alternatively it could be silly and superficial. Apparently biblical-style paintings with lots of blood, chains, whips and chainwhips. Mucho dark, mucho red. And of course: the “5 scary guys staring at a camera on the floor” band shot. All in all it goes along nicely with the tunes.
2 out of 5
total 1.5 out of 5
Here we have a 5-piece from Illinois with thir major label debut called “Wide Eyes”. Yet another Indie-/Emo-/…release which is good, but doesn’t blow me away. All in all, throughout the 11 songs, the feel stays within a - guesstimated - 10-20bpm midtempo range - which is great for emo-days. For my taste this simply makes a bit of a boring compilation of songs with an all too similar sentiment. Supposedly during the recording phase of the album the band was robbed a number of times; furthermore their bio talks about their bad luck with customs, sucky jobs, tours and what not. Up to 2005 I only knew these $stories referred to as “life on the road”.
Lyric-wise the band tries to keep it abstract and metaphorical. But don’t worry they don’t make it all too hard to decypher the texts and get the picture. My personal favorite on this 41-minute long player is the Jimmy Eat World-esque “What it meant to be clean”.
Victory Records doesn’t really surprise anymore by putting out artists that one would much rather expect on labels like Vagrant - and thus The Junior Varsity are another act in their wide range of opium for the EmTeeV-Emo generation (yes, they even have a Livejournal account) and will get the word out to the ones who are into what the band does. Still, I consider it unlikely for them to pull new faces into the Indie-Wave.
2.5 out of 5
The booklet-artwork is somewhat astronomy inspiread and kept very dark. I like the nebula-backgrounds. But then again - I am a sucker for any Hubble-shot as it is. The space pictures are combined with monochromatic city images and backlit persons. While this provides a “being alone”-notion I don’t get the nebula connection. Nevertheless the album is visually felicitous.
4 out of 5
total 3 out of 5
currently i am still watching the gorilla biscuits reunion show at cbgb’s via live stream. i really thought this would be yet another execution of a hc legend. i have always loved gb and they were the first old school combo i really got into - and meg brought up that they really seem to do a good job there on stage. she was absolutely right. however - there are 2 things that - of course - piss me off again - one minor, and one that i really think is stupid. the security seems to be a real pain in the ass. even though i suppose they took some scene-familiar dudes for bouncers (you would think this is a given at a venue like this), they really overreacted and showed their tough-guy attitude throughout the show in a really annoying manner. the second thing that i thought was even more stupid, was the announcement after “cats and dogs” - which was dedicated to vegetarians and especially all straight edgers. so far so good - but then the following announcement… civ: “i’m not gonna promote drinking, but for this show we made up a new drink at the bar. it’s blue gatorade and [till here i still thought of a joke] jaegermeister with a splash of red bull [the astrian contribution for this show i guess]. they are free all night at the bar. they are called ‘gorillameisters’.” i am not intending on being a sxe hardass here, but wtf? reminds me of one of those “i am no racist, but…” statements. well - posi things to report: good music, free shirts for the audience and audience requests played. also a few - sometimes a bit patronizing sounding - statements in between the songs. so far so good. i wish i had been there, yet - seems like just another not so necessary hc-move.
[edit]recorded live-stream available here thanks a bunch![/edit]
- currently: 5 weeks off duty in crawford, tx (longest vacation of a us president in 36 years)
- total: 319 days within 4,5 years - that’s about 20%
- number of vacations in 4,5 years: 49
- bush had a “very busy couple of weeks” because he had to quick-pass some more bills and bypass democratic instances to get various candidates of his put into some important positions.
how much in vacation time do you get again?
toronto plane crash: it’s nice that no one was killed, however… i do not need to hear of it 3 times per hour. isn’t a report on the evening news enough? no! we have footage! so we need to put all kinds of extra snippets in each dinky news bit we can squeeze them in: how to behave in a plane crash scenario, what to do to prevent it. oh fuck off. how likely is it that this will happen to any given person and how likely is a certain behavior of a passenger going to prevent harm? it’s the old game: keep fear at people’s front porches. that makes it so much easier to manipulate them. aruba, hurricanes: tv off - going places you’ve never imagined.
hahaha - well - since i am project leader right now for the development of this somewhat secret job-portal, i do actually have a couple of people working underneath me - a programmer-guy and a graphics-girl. well - i just got such a funny nasty email from the programmer that almost cracked me up. he called me all kinds of names and forwarded the mail to my boss too. which is funny, as my boss seems to really like me and he also seems to be getting sick of this dudes attitude. in the past month he has not engaged in any project communication, nor delivered a single character of code, while i have written some 15.000 code lines. oh well… anyways - i got my boss’s email just minutes after that of mr. important, so i received them at the same time when synching my mailbox. my boss apologized right away and told me he would sort this out. man - how deep can you shovel youself in the dirt? i really think i am the most lenient and understanding project leader you can imagine - and then i get nasty feedback like that? well - if i hadn’t rcvd my boss’ intervention message, i finally coulda played “tough boss” - but so i get to sit back and enjoy the show. get the popcorn ready. however… this probably means more work for me - with better pay too i assume.