New Years Resolutions

#1 Cook. A lot. Not just for me, but for Kristin and my friends. Make use of all the fancy new tools at my disposal including the awesome Mandoline I received from Kristin for Xmas. Stop letting hardware or unfamiliar ingredients (hello son, yogurt is meant to be curried bitch) stop this. Goal- a new dish a week. I won't be Harry any time soon (incidentally, click that link. His blog "The View From Here" is awesome.) but baby steps, ya know?

#2 Become a better lead guitar player. I have really fast fingers, and a great knowledge of the fret board but somehow I have not put the work in to develop a real lead style. This will change. Especially now that I have the means to boost my volume for solos and can really showcase myself, if there is something to showcase.

#3 Pick a concrete direction for Scream Bloody Virgin and finish a record. Pardon me I am going to give myself a quick pep talk: You want to go heavier darker and weirder right? Do it. And also, "Exposed" is a great song. I know your heart isn't in the words any more but who cares? Finish fucking writing them. This could be "the one" so just fucking FINISH it asshole!

#4 Re-kindle some old friendships. There are a lot of people who used to be very close in my life who are now acquaintances. This is the cycle of life, and maybe some of these people will just not be my BFFs anymore and that is ok. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't be more aggressive about trying to hang out and putting myself out there. I may not be getting some invitations but there are people out there who may feel the same about me.

#5 Buy an HDTV. Just fucking do it. Seriously. As long as this tooth thing doesn't put me out thousands of dollars just get it. And a PS3. And the Blu Ray version of Blade Runner.

#6 Pick a work out routine. Am I the dude who does cardio at home? Do I need to re-join the rec center? A proper gym? Figure it the fuck out and do something on a regular basis. Seriously.

#7 Lighten the fuck up. Life is pretty awesome right now. Like more awesome than it has been in a long time. While it seemed for a while that 2007 was going be the year of "teh suck" it hasn't been at all. Spend less time worrying about shit, and more appreciating the good. There is a lot of good. Deal with it. And accept you have control over your own destiny? Alright asshole?

PS- Learn Sonar. For reals. Invest in a DVD tutorial. Become a Sonar Jedi.
PPS- What fucking tense is this in? Is this first, second or third person? Learn some fucking grammar, aight?

Vacation part 1 - the roomate is gone

So my vacation is starting to take shape. For the first leg of complete freedom my roomate is away in California. I wanted to create some activities that would take advantage of the silence.

Activity #1: "A food borne illness grows in Brooklyn." Kristin received a frozen turkey as a Thanksgiving gift and a black truffle as an Xmas gift from her work. So we are going to have a full on Xmas dinner this weekend. Turkey is defrosting and by tomorrow night it is getting a brine. Neither of us have cooked a turkey so this is going to be pretty interesting. Definitely going to make a truffled mashed potatoes, and may even baste the turkey in truffle butter. Any other suggestions for truffle oriented sides? I imagine by the time the truffle has run its course I'm going to drop it in olive oil and have an awesome truffle oil for a while.

Activity #2: Demolish what is left of my hearing. I will be recording. A lot. LOUDLY. I want to experiment with both recording live guitars in the studio and using some new mic techniques. Expect some noise up soon.

Twenty Favorite Albums of 2007 (Metal Edition)

In alphabetical order:

Three Inches of Blood - Fire up the Blades
Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant
Austerity Program - Black Madonna
Behemoth - The Apostasy
Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks
Destruction - Thrash Anthems
Devildriver - The Last Kind Words
Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli
Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
Entombed - Serpent Saints: the Ten Amendments
Helloween - Gambling with the Devil
Iced Earth - Framing Armageddon
King Diamond - Give me your Soul...Please
Megadeth - United Abominations
Nile - Ithyphallic
Sebastian Bach - Angel Down
Symphony X - Paradise Lost
Turisas - Varangian Way
Ulver - Shadows of the Sun

Ten Favorite Albums of 2007 (Non-Metal Edition)

In alphabetical order:

Grinderman - S/T
Jay Z - American Gangster
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Monster Magnet - 4 Way Diablo
Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?
Public Enemy- How do you Sell Soul...
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy

Best of 2007 - live shows

I went to a lot of shows this year, and thought it would be fun to acknowledge, in no particular order, some memorable moments...

Best show seen from the "front row":
3 way tie between Mudhoney@Music Hall of Williamsburg, Melvins/Big Business@Irving Plaza, Dream Theater@PNC Bank Arts Center

Best show seen from the top row:
Heaven and Hell (first time)@Radio City Music Hall

Best band seen three times in 2007: Heaven and Hell

Biggest disappointment: 2 way tie between Boredoms with 77 Drummers and Jesus & Mary Chain@Webster Hall

Biggest regret of the two tickets I had to eat in 2007: Testament@The Chance in Poughkeepsie

Band I most expected to suck but were totally awesome: Art Brut@Bowery Ballroom

Over-hyped show that did not live up to expectation but was still pretty good: 2 way tie between Sonic Youth playing Daydream Nation@McCarren Park Pool and Daft Punk@Keyspan Park

Best example of a band being better as an opening act than a headliner: Two way tie between Megadeth@PNC and Celtic Frost@Irving Plaza

Best band I never expected to have the opportunity to see: Hawkwind@Europa

Steve Vai@Irving Plaza or Joe Satriani@Gramercy ? Both were much better and more enjoyable than expected, but Joe Satriani edges into the lead for being so damn personable and keeping the show fast paced and rocking. Minimal wanking FTW.

Megadeth@PNC or Megadeth@Irving Plaza? Megadeth at PNC for sure.

Dream Theater@PNC or Dream Theater@Jones Beach: Dead even draw. The set list was much better at Jones Beach but lining my beers up on stage next to John Petrucci at PNC was a unique thrill.

Best sounding show: Placebo@Roseland

Best example of old people "getting it": Rush@PNC

Best example of old people not "getting it": UNCLE TED!

Best show where I felt really bad for the performer on stage: Qui (David Yow)@Mercury Lounge

Best show of 2007: Sebadoh@Webster Hall for being so awful that I decided to go to Vince's party to blow off some steam. And ended up meeting Kristin.

Even more updated concert schedule

12/9 Air Supply
12/16 Dillinger Escape Plan
12/18 Gods of Fire at Club Midway (with Punk Metal Karaoke)
12/21 Twisted Sister
2/1 Supersuckers
2/17 School of Rock with Gibby Haynes performing an evening of Butthole Surfers!!
3/14 IRON MAIDEN!!!!!!
3/17 Van Halen
5/1 Ministry w/Meshuggah
6/20 The Cure

RIP Karlheinz Stockhausen

True tales of the Steve

Steve Albini facts can be found here

They all sound reasonable so I believe each and every one is true.

Death in Vegas

So with Kevin Dubrow's death Jon and I got talking. He was found dead in his home in Vegas. You don't move to Vegas to settle down. You either work there or party there. I imagine he did a lot of both. The conversation moved to what other rock stars died in Vegas?

So far we've got:

Kevin Dubrow
John Entwistle
Tupac

Who else?

Behringer Pedal Copies

J&R are discounting all of the Behringer pedal copies. For the uninitiated Behringer, a very inexpensive German pro audio company, recently started making reversed engineered knockoffs of very popular and expensive pedals for rock bottom prices.

I had been rather intrigued by these but never bit. Right now at J&R all their stock is selling for about $25. These include sansamp copies, Electro-Harmonix copies, Boss copies and a line 6 guitar pod copy.

I bought a Boss EQ copy and the EHX Big Muff. The picture of the "Behringer Vintage Distortion," aka the Big Muff, is on the left.
So I broke it open this weekend. Notice the silver color. Unlike the EHX original this is not metal, but silver colored plastic. Also take note of the small metal stomp in the middle. This is in fact real metal, but not a real selector switch. You know the satisfying click of putting your foot down on one of those stomps and getting the tactile response of a connection being made? No click. It is all for show. It triggers a silent and loose a/b switch. It gets the job done, but I would never use this live. I suspect these pedals are all digital and just fancy plastic houses for a programmed ROM chip.

How does it sound? Like a fucking Big Muff! I've already recorded with it. The thing is cheap, morally suspect and not durable enough to be part of a live rig, but it sounds like it is supposed to. I imagine it could be A/B'ed against the original and someone would have great difficulty telling them apart. I am intrigued to pick up the Small Stone copy, and the MXR Phaser 90 copy. The EQ is still in its packaging but I will be testing and reviewing soon. If I was a small studio owner, and I guess in some ways I am, I would pick all of these up to have a dirt cheap way to add a lot of pedals to my arsenal for clients.

Upcoming Shows

11/30 Ween
12/1 Mudhoney
12/9 Air Supply
12/18 Dillinger Escape Plan
12/21 Twisted Sister
2/17 School of Rock with Gibby Haynes performing an evening of Butthole Surfers!!
3/14 IRON MAIDEN!!!!!!
6/20 The Cure

Feud Live at Sin-e July 2003

As most people who read this blog know, I played in a pretty decent instrumental band called the Feud for about 8 years. We were loud, young, occasionally pretentious, and often straddled the line between indie and progressive. In the summer of 2003 we played a brief tour to support our second album Language is Technology. We ended at Sine-e in NYC. As the band broke up shortly after this may be our last show, or very close to it. Update: Lee confirmed this was in fact the last Feud show ever.

At this point we were a four piece band, having been at 7 members at our most bloated. The core of the band was Larry, Bone and myself. Our drummer was a talented but ludicrously insane guy named Jay. He bailed on the tour less than a week before we were supposed to get in the van. Our friend, and a much better drummer than Jay, Lee Diamond joined up at the last minute to learn the set and save our asses. He learned the entire set in less than 72 hours and hit the road with us. Lee is a diligent archivist and records just about everything he is involved in. Shows, rehearsals, everything. He had a small cassette recorder with him he used for recording our shows.

Tonight Lee sent me mp3s of the Sin-e show. While listening to it I am remembering how much I loved this lineup of the band. This is the tightest the Feud ever was, period. At best we were an inconsistent live act. We improvised a lot, we were very temperamental, and we all got way too drunk for our own good. Sometimes you would get a world class show, sometimes you would get awesome chaotic noise, and sometimes you would get amateur hour. For the two weeks we were on the road in 2003 we were a sick well oiled machine.

The sound is incredibly raw as it is from a cassette but I made an attempt to improve it. Briefly for the nerds I did an analysis of the tape noise/distortion and ran a noise reduction program to kill most of it. I then used some EQ to bring out more guitars and kill some of the muddy tape frequencies. Lastly I used a touch of compression to bring back some of the energy that was lost by the noise reduction.

Download the zip file of the remastered show here via a yousendit link.

The Feud Live at Sin-e July 27th 2003

1 Intro
2 Citizen Beautiful Alien (Larry Bass, Bone and Seth Guitar, Lee Drums)
3 XYR Fingers for the Young Ghost Allegiance (Larry Bass, Bone and Seth Guitar, Lee Drums)
4 N'finite Rug (Larry Bass, Bone Guitar, Seth Keys, Lee Drums)
5 Don't Be Such a Fucking Harness Joyce (Larry Bass, Bone and Seth Guitar, Lee Drums)
6 Le Passion de Noam Jamski (Seth Bass, Larry and Bone Guitars, Lee Drums)
7 Desized (Larry Bass, Seth Guitars, Bone Keys and Guitars, Lee Drums)

Yes, I'm back

Have been for a while. Why no Texas stories? Mostly, sadly enough, I've been too lazy to transfer pictures off of my camera. It is easy as shit to email myself something off the blackberry, but the old Sony camera is a real pain in the ass. I will post stuff, I promise. For my own personal memory glass as much as anything else. Short answer is, it was great, it was really needed, it was way too short.

So long, suckers!

I'm out of here. At about 5:30 am tomorrow I will wake up, shower, get picked up on the way to JFK and I'm done. I'm going off the grid until next week.

Goodbye crappy day job, goodbye MySpace, goodbye band, goodbye drama, goodbye Flickr, goodbye OiNK, goodbye IM and the new virtual punch card, goodbye everything.

Yes I will have continued email access, but I am straight up off the web. If you want me, call or text me. If you don't know me or talk to me regularly, goodbye for now. I'll probably start re-posting around Wed or Thursday.

Lord knows I need a break from everything. I am coming Austin. I will be eating all of your smoked pigs, buying your cowboy hats, and as a New Yorker who has worked around Times Square for many years will photograph everything with impunity.

Stay classy, Brooklyn. I'll see you next week. For now, I'm a ghost floating through walls. I am one load of laundry away from sleeping away the wretched excess of the last week and shedding my responsibilities like a reptile. Find a way to stay Metal in my absence. Go see Sonata Arctica on Saturday at BB King's. Me? I couldn't possibly give less of a fuck. I'm out of here.

Concert schedule - Q4 2007

9/25 Steve Vai
9/26 Megadeth
10/5 Melvins/Big Business
10/9 Qui
10/15 Bad Religion
10/28 Dillinger Escape Plan
11/2 Manorexia (Jim Thirlwell) at the Whitney Museum
11/30 Ween
12/1 Mudhoney
4/1/2008 King Diamond/Kreator
6/20/2008 The Cure (I know, WTF? It was supposed to be yesterday)

Word, er...phrase of the day: Wank Mining

Best thing to come out of the Meg White fake sex tape scandal was the quote from the guy who originally posted it as a joke.

The dude itsmecraig, who is enjoying quite a bit of internet celebrity today said:

"oh shit dudes,

i found this video through random wank mining efforts and put it up here cause i figured you guys would have a laugh. it had nothing to do with meg white when i found it."

WANK MINING. Awesome. And today, a company purchased wankmining.com.

The next time your girlfriend catches you with your dick in your hand remember, you aren't "looking for porn," you are "wank mining."

Once again, awesome.

Fuck. I gotta get out of here. Is it time to go to Texas yet?

Dear leakers of music

We're having trouble again. On this day of atonement I wish to thank you for your recent new releases. Holy crap, everyone who is/has put out a high profile album really knocked it out of the park.

Helloween, Iced Earth, Arch Enemy, Monster Magnet and Down have all made amazing new records. However, letting them all drop at the same time due to internet leaks is making it very hard to concentrate on any one. Iced Earth is so two weeks ago? Helloween is so last week? Damn our accelerated culture. I should *still* be grooving on the new King Diamond but it seems positively ancient, having dropped in June.

Please internet leakers, control the valve of new music more judiciously so I can enjoy and savor these new records.

PS- Holy crap the new Arch Enemy is freaking amazing! Do you actually listen to the music, or do you just leak it? Big props for dropping the Japanese retail version which has them covering "The Oath" from KISS. I know! A Music From "The Elder" track!!! Who the hell covers Elder era KISS? But also this is the best Iced Earth album since Something Wicked and the new Helloween is quite a grower! I need to find time to let it grow!

If this embarrassment of riches has done anything, I'm back on the album! Who has time to fast forward through Deicide and TMBG tracks while on random with this many full albums to enjoy?

Genital Neon

This is what happens when you let my band rehearse on Int'l Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The drawing was a bit of a group effort with Doug drawing Jason, Keith drawing everyone else, and Jason working to make Keith's mic look more like a penis.

Click the pic for full size stupidity, suitable for framing.

We are from France

I saw this advert up on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. I imagine since they posted it publicly, and since no one actually reads this blog anyway, I don't have to blur out the numbers. There are many funny things about this posting that made me want to capture it. The spelling errors are obviously the first you will notice. Then there is the country of origin. Who would list their nationality on a posting? Also, what Italian have you ever met who was named "Solomun?"

Who are they really? I'm guessing, terrorists, zombies or coneheads.

Your New Home

New song can be downloaded in high quality mp3 here.

To be fair this is actually something that I worked on and had up on the Myspace in a different form a few months ago.

The song has gotten a remix and a 100% brand new vocal track. This time I replaced the dopey vocal effects with proper enunciation so you can hear the whole story.

What hasn't changed is the song is still a silly stream of consciousness homage to late 80s Touch and Go records bands.

Enjoy. The picture is unrelated. It is from a goat farm I was on last week before seeing Alice Cooper and Heaven & Hell. I threw the goats at the goat and it just kept staring back at me, trying to suck my soul out through my mouth as I breathed. Goats are freaking Metal. I see why people associate them with the devil. Weird freaky gorgeous lovable creatures. Click on the picture for the full size version where you can really see the F'ed up eyes. There was also a newfie on the farm which is the most ginormous puppy I have ever crossed paths with. Although still technically a puppy the dog weighed over 130 pounds. And was wet and stinky. My friend Vince in order to try to not get dog slobber all over him raised his hand up when the dog came running. Apparently this is the command for "hug" so he got a lot more than he bargained for with a face full of newfie. Pretty rad dog anyway, even with the stinkiness and all.

Yes, this was the third time I saw H&H in the last six months. What can I say? I never thought I would ever get the chance to see Sabbath with Dio so I took every opportunity that presented itself. No, there were no surprises, in fact they cut four songs from the set. But who cares? Alice and Dio in the same night? Freaking awesome.

Also unrelated- went to the LI Roller Derby championships yesterday. It was a fun night because of the company but the game wasn't particularly notable except they kept the music going the whole time, not just in between periods. Watching girls beat the crap out of each other to "The Trooper" was freakin' sick. Even though the announcer tried to ruin it by singing along to the guitar harmonies. Actually no, that just made it all the more Metal. We were also coincidentally super close to where my parents live. We passed their house a couple of times and I took everyone in the car to the old diner hang out Shyer and I used to go in high school, On Parade Diner. It is all fancy now. WTF? It was also empty on a Saturday at Midnight. Where do the kids hang out now? Are they all at Syosset House?

Save the Gorillas

I can't live in a world where Gorillas go extinct.

Well, we'll still have Chimpanzees.......

Transmissions from Uncle Ted

It speaks! It speaks! Listen you must.

New Song- "Under the Wires"

Also up on the Myspace.

High quality mp3 HERE

Right click to download or left click to stream. If you are on a Mac, God willing you know what to do with a link.

While wrestling with a very ambitious song "Exposed" that is far from ready for public consumption, I kinda crapped this out very quickly. That is not to say that there wasn't any sweat or tears over the arrangement or the mix, but the basic structure and lyrics came in a flash. As people who have worked with me know, I love simple arrangements with dense sound layers. This song started as just acoustic guitar and vocals, and I added all the orchestral parts one by one. There are high strings, brass, stringed bass, and some synth pads. The "tropical" guitar is electric, although in context it sounds almost like a very bright acoustic guitar.

Should I add percussion? I am inclined to say no, but I was experimenting with a few hits that I thought sounded pretty good, but also made the song sound a bit Flaming Lips-y. Anyways, give it a spin. New Scream Bloody Virgin on a lazy Sunday.

In case you didn't know tonight is the season premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm!!! I am so psyched. Hopefully divorce has given him some great material.

Also if you live in the UK you are probably already watching the IT crowd. If you live in America you probably don't know what it is. Find a way to watch it. Season two is already three episodes in and they are the funniest things I have seen all year. Find them as torrents, or if you know how to spoof your IP, they stream on the BBC website for UK IPs.

I hung out with some goats yesterday, and the most ginormous puppy I have ever personally had the pleasure of petting. Stories forthcoming..........

Live Human Target

On Friday, I went to Graham's apartment to record the guitar solo for "Spray it On," a musical piece in the middle of his film. This completed all my obligations towards the movie, and just in the knick of time too, as the mix is next week. So before we got started Graham was showing me some absolutely amazing animation from a DVD box set of Soviet propaganda videos. He specifically wanted me to see a short film called "Shooting Range." The first thing that you notice is the absolutely amazing artistry and production quality. The animation, set to an amazing free jazz/freak out soundtrack, is very reminiscent of that great creepy 70's psychedelic animation. Think some of the famous Sesame Street shorts like the pinball song or Fantastic Planet.

The video centers around a young middle-class worker who is down on his luck walking around Times Square with a cardboard sign around his neck saying "job wanted." A capitalist fat-cat, who I thought didn't look nearly semitic enough, lures him into his shooting range. First he is working happily as the guy who resets the targets, but those capitalists. They will find any way they can to exploit the good workers. So he starts shooting at our middle-class hero, and the capitalist gets the idea to promote a LIVE HUMAN TARGET for double admission. I won't go any further, I have embedded the video below. Graham and I were joking about the setting and tone of the cartoon as it seemed more Russian than American in its spirit, and the themes eventually feel pro capitalist. Also, I said, if only we really had shooting ranges where you can hit a LIVE HUMAN TARGET. Well, little did I know I was less than 48 hours from fulfilling my new life's goal.

Was I the only person unaware of Shoot the Freak? I didn't understand Kristin's message that she may show up to Coney Island early to "shoot freak," but didn't think to press the issue. After shredfest (it was fine, as unpopulated as we expected during labor day with no promotion and no headliner, but a bummer that more of our friends who were in town didn't come out) a whole crew of us went out to the boardwalk to enjoy the last weekend of an un-gentrified Coney Island. Sure enough, right there on the boardwalk was Shoot the Freak, where you can shoot a live human target, albeit with paintballs and not bullets. The ten bucks I spent on 35 paintballs (and a two dollar tip so the "freak can eat") was the best I spent all day. The sight on my paintball gun worked, and I unloaded my clip into him. I probably peaked a bit too quickly, but the adrenaline was flowing as every shot landed right on the freak. Unfortunately this meant I was just standing there as he taunted everyone with pelvic thrusts and I couldn't shoot the freak in the balls. But very awesome. Capitalism rules!

Real Album Title

Has been selected. I'll reveal it soon along with the new SBV logo.

I need to finish up two songs and record 3 or 4 more. I wrote two of them today after house cleaning.

Scream Bloody Virgin in 2007, yo!

Potential Album Title

Scream Bloody Virgin- Permanent Failure

Nope, hold the phone. Here we go.

Scream Bloody Virgin- Meaningful Hangovers

Hmmmm looks a bit hokey in print. Might be better as a lyric in some Jeff Tweedy-ish kinda song. Must chew on it a bit.....

Space

I haven't done a good music philosophy post in a while, so here goes.

Walking around the city today my iPod switched over from Clipse ("Chinese New Year) to Dream Theater ("The Silent Man"). Now I was really enjoying the Clipse song. Ben turned me onto him a little while ago, and I think it is one of the more interesting commercial hip hop albums I have heard in a very long time. Granted I am not an expert on the subject, but I like the blend between the abstract and the booty shaking. The Dream Theater song starts as simple as can be, with a strummed acoustic guitar. Which sounded beautiful. Absolute beauty. Hot puppy sleeping in the grass on a lazy summer afternoon kinda of beautiful. You could hear the care that went into the room and mic placements. Then the voice comes in on top and everything is in a beautiful space. It sounded like Petrucci and LeBrie were sitting on 14th street performing for me in a cavernous yet acoustically precise theater.

Clipse had no space. Clipse has no instruments. Everything is completely virtual and compressed up the wazoo. Clipse doesn't want to be the quietest mp3 on the iPod. Listen to any recent metal album from the last 2 years. Hell, listen to a lot of recent indie releases like that Arcade Fire abomination. Can you envision where it was recorded? Can you see the room? The downside of freely available high quality recording solutions is we have lost our sense of space. I am 100% as guilty of it as anyone else. Listen to my music. It sounds like it was recorded somewhere in the Matrix. You can't envision my environment. There isn't an environment. My music is made somewhere between lines of code in emulation software. The most my music breathes is when I use drum samples that were blatantly recorded in a real drum room.

No wonder a higher quality music format was never accepted by the public and we all collectively took a step back with mp3s. What would you even want to listen to in high definition audio? All my favorite DVD Audio discs are 20-30 year old albums. People have started working very hard to make albums sound louder and bigger and heavier and more epic. But who is striving to make music sound *better*? Who is the next George Martin? Glyn Johns? Tom Dowd?

Shit the Gods of Fire aren't even using real DRUMS on the next album. And we were seen as relics for using a real kit on the first record. There are a lot of problems with Wrath of the Gods, but you can hear where it was recorded. You hear imperfections in my amp. You can hear the natural inconsistencies in the drumming. Unfortunately it is a losing war. I have shamefully stepped back from all of my analog ideals in favor of louder bigger and heavier.

How are you supposed to get kids to go to rock concerts if they don't even know what a rock room is supposed to sound like? I was pretty shocked the first time I saw a band called Death by Stereo use severe vocal and full mix compression during their set opening for Mastodon. The Bowery Ballroom no longer sounded like a concert venue. There were just pretty dudes sounding like the iPod. I'm sure I wouldn't survive a Linkin Park or Good Charlotte show, or any of those people. Trying to make your music "sound like the records" now means to do as much as possible to remove the live environment as possible. So when you are in a space, you are still in a virtual world.

As I plunge deeper and deeper into the matrix and forget everything I originally loved about recorded sound I hear a beautifully played acoustic guitar reminding me that we all feel relaxed with a little bit of space.

Austin is go!

Plane tickets and hotel have been reserved! Now we all just gotta hope Ms. Bollocks makes the roster!

She already warned me that I will be referred to by everyone as "Mr. Bollocks" since no one knows me. I'm pretty fine with that. Since I play the rock and roll and always try to get involved in cool or offbeat things usually a girl is tagging along with me. I think it is pretty rad that the roles are being reversed and I'm the person supporting, not being supported. This time I'll be the person tagging along. I will make new friends among the "derby widows" as they are apparently called.

Not that it sounds like there will be any shortage of things to do. Aside from checking out the games and the official burlesque show after-party, I am grilling Graham for a list of awesome shit and BBQ. Apparently I need to see a movie at the Alamo Movie House. Any one got any other suggestions of fun things to do?

Unfortunately we are going to be there right after the Austin City Limits festival so rock shows are rather limited. The only thing that even hits the radar is Interpol/Liars at Stubb's. Shitty bands from Brooklyn that I do not want to see when I am here are going to be in Texas the same time as me! Woo?

Shows!

Well now that the Cure have fagged out what am I seeing?

Funny you ask.....

9/8 Heaven and Hell/Alice Cooper/Queensryche
9/25 Steve Vai
9/26 Megadeth
10/5 Melvins/Big Business
10/9 Qui (David Yow from Jesus Lizard)
10/15 Bad Religion
11/30 Ween

Schedule is looking a bit weak. Gotta find more love to fill it with. What should I be seeing?

F- the Cure

So the Cure canceled their US tour to work on their new album. I guess looking at that recent photo of them on the left it is a mixed blessing. It is like someone spliced a Pride parade with LARPers. Ehhhh fuck 'em. That last album really sucked anyway. If Jon can't get behind them anymore how am I supposed to? No but seriously I wanted to sing "Why Can't I Be You" at karaoke yesterday but there wasn't any in the book. Looks like the Japanese are done with the Cure also.

The least worst of "Latency Issues"

Yes, a "clip show!" Chris remarked yesterday that he finally decided to see what the whole big deal of this blog was only to find the whiny depressing post. Well, for the uninitiated, here are what I consider some of the more interesting or funny posts I have done. This kids, is an exercise in self-indulgence that even takes me aback a bit, but that seems to be the theme of the week......

#1 The Ted Nugent post
#2 Please be as awesome as Rush
#3 What the hell do I do in the shower for 25 minutes?
#4 The Absinthe party
#5 The joy of sedatives
#6 How random is your iPod?

Dere you go. Happy Friday! What am I doing this weekend? First I'm going to see Dream Theater, then I'm going to see Dream Theater, and then Sunday night is BLOOD CITY SHACK UP with free beer! They are playing Trash in WillyB. Everyone should come out. Steve is a great friend of mine and one hell of an antagonistic frontman. They are on at 9, free beers start at 8. Yay!

BINGO!

This happened probably about a month ago now, but to counter the POD (post of depression) below, and since I saw this photo on my desktop with the intent to blog about it, here goes.

A few of us met up at Pete's Candy Store before heading over to McCarren Park Pool for a free screening of Repo Man. While drinking our beers a very organized game of bingo started up. So we all grabbed cards. When Graham's girlfriend Kat found out you can play up to THREE CARDS AT ONCE she went to town. The prizes changed every round. I won a juicer. My other option was corn on the cob holders which Kat was fiercely fighting for. I imagine I know what their housewarming gift will be when they find a new place............

OK Moratorium lifted on Bioshock

Bioshock is really hard. REALLY hard. And not nearly as fun as the hype. This is really the highest rated game in teh history of teh internets? Lawls?

Fuck. Either I suck at games really bad or I am missing something or I just need to give this some time.

Here is Bioshock: Ooooooh beautiful art deco room. Wow, the pictures on the wall smeared in blood are super creepy. Oh, I hear a woman on the left who probably wants to kill me. Let me sneak up..............................BOOM! The motion detecting turret that didn't see the bitch sees me and I'm laid out. Now I am re-spawned in a "Vita-chamber." Oh great. No more supplies and no money to buy more. I should go search this corpse..........BOOM! Motion detecting turret. Dead me. Game asks me if I would like a hint. OK, shoot. Game: Disable the turret. Me: I wonder what is taped on the DVR right now.

God I hope I'm missing something. I knew Ayn Rand adapted as FPS was too good to be true.......

State of the Union aka "It's my blog and I'll be emo if I want to"

2007 has been a hell of a year. 30 has been a hell of a year. There has been a lot of changes. Sad endings, new beginnings, new responsibilities both personal and professional.

I've been hitting a bit of a wall lately. I have been pretty bummed out and distracted in the past couple of weeks. Anyone who has noticed me not being myself or got caught in the cross-fire I am sorry. Certain things in my head that I should have sorted out months ago are now bubbling up in a major way. My biggest worry is not that I won't see them through, I certainly will, but that a lot of the good things in my life right now could become casualties in the process. That would of course be worse than anything I'm actually bumming over.

Yeah I was all happy about my doctor visit and the absurd amount of Valium I was prescribed but I have also been thinking about and listening to the Firewater record Psychopharmacology. This time the link will work, I promise, they are an active band again. But back to the point. "The thing you can't accept/is this is all you get/you want a second chance/but all you get are pills." I am happy I received what I did, and I am sort of in a place when I need it, but I am quickly finding out pills are not the solution to the world's problems. Music, however, may be.

Onto some positives. My studio. One of the greatest things I have done for myself. It has been a great source of comfort and creativity and I am very proud of everything I have learned. Gods of Fire will make a great record there. I am also surprised at how my music has come along. All those Scream Bloody Virgin tracks really are an audio diary of those inner emotions I don't really let anyone see. It is very fitting that the first song I wrote was "Edge of the Galaxy, " which was written right after an emotionally complicated break-up, two dates that ended very poorly, and the beginnings of a new job that I started to really regret taking (which I no longer do). There was so much catharsis in writing a song reminding myself that there are no life paths. Every moment of every day you have the option to completely change your life. And although I am the worst creature of habit I have spent much of the last six months since writing that song challenging myself, forcing new experiences, and becoming the proverbial "Master of my Domain." I've been listening back to a lot of this music (not all of which I have let people hear) and it is very positive to see how far I have come. Which is also why this minor step back is all the more striking and painful.

But anyway these are the positives.......

I *may* go to Austin at the end of September for the Roller Derby finals (which the GGRD qualified for with a vengeance that is almost reminiscent of the classic victories of the Harlem Globetrotters). I need out of this city for a few days. I need to leave my beloved Brooklyn for a few days. I just need OUT. No Blackberry, no internets, no checking my work website every night at midnight. Just a complete exit off the grid. It may be good for me and everyone around me.

Bioshock makes me happy. It is like the New Yorker gone totally nuclear. The Art Deco look of the game is gorgeous. Tonight being my only day without plans I am going to really allow myself into Rapture for a good look-see. Also I'm putting a moratorium on discussing Bioshock. I know all three of you don't give a SHIT and I'll keep it to the message boards. But oh, Kotaku has never seen me post so much ever........

Anyway, that's about it. Just a quick check in from my part of the world that is not going out to rock shows and watching Judd Apatow productions. An intercepted ghost transmission from the part of me that everyone knows is there, but I never let anyone see. This weekend is not one but two Dream Theater concerts, one from the 4th row and one from the VIP section. So the normal witty banter will return ASAP. Promise.

Too much metal for one hand,
scd

Bioshock has arrived

That's right. The box comes with a toy. How is that for knowing your target audience? I am not sure if I should take the "Big Daddy" out of the wrapping, or leave it in the box for the "portal effect" while I display it. God damn how busy I am today. I feel that "seizure" kicking in!

I'm Seth, now lets have another drink to ME

Of COURSE I loved Superbad. It was sort of like my auto-biography, but that would have been me in college, not high school.

McLovin is the next-gen Shermanator.

Now lets move on to more important things..............

This aggression will not stand, man.

Seeing "usually ships in 24 hours" is far superior to the words *BACK ORDERED* that were displaying a few hours ago, but with $10 expedited shipping I wanted to see a gosh danged tracking number already.

I have crafted an ingenious plan to fake a seizure at the office tomorrow and run home as soon as the UPS guy shows up.

A vision of hell

I have seen a vision of what hell awaits for me at the end of the road and it is an escalator in thin air 39 stories above ground. Click on the link for more pictures.

Yikes.

Healthy Body, Sick Mind

A few random life thoughts.

#1- There are two kinds of hypochondriacs in the world. Those who spend their lives at the doctor, and those who fear the doctor. Both kinds constantly diagnose themselves over the internet. I am of the latter. Which is why most people who go to a doctor's visit and get a clean bill of health just go on with their day, but for me has been a week long celebration. In fact some of you reading this may have already gotten IMs or texts with the news. Everything is tip top, good cholesterol is high, bad cholesterol is low, just need to shed a few more pounds. Rock!

#2- It is mostly Lee, but there has been chatter in my ear about starting a Scream Bloody Virgin band. I imagine I would call it Scream Bloody Virgin. I don't think I would try to do it full time, the last thing the world needs is another failed local band. However I could see doing the random one-off show. What do people think? Anyone want to be in a theoretical/hypothetical band?

#3- I am trying to step up my social life a bit in anticipation and fear of video game season. The addition of the Wii to my life has brought me a lot of time playing Paper Mario and Resident Evil 4 when I should be making music or being out of the house. When guests are over Mario Strikers Charged gets broken out. Now on Tuesday Bioshock comes out, a first person shooter based on the writings of Ayn Rand. No, really. I pre-ordered the special edition that comes with a figurine and a soundtrack CD. No, really. Also in the next couple of months we are being cursed with Halo 3, Metroid Prime 3, Stranglehold and Eternal Sonata (an RPG based on the life of Chopin). What the hell am I going to do? I may need to take a week off of work just to play games.

After Effects- one last show, Joe Satriani

So last night there was one last show from the series of insanity. I went to the Blender Theater at Gramercy- a Live Nation venue (isn't that a mouthful???) to see Joe Satriani's 20th anniversary presentation of Surfing with the Alien.

First, Turcotte and I had an amazing dinner at Curry Leaf in that Indian section of Lexington. I HIGHLY recommend this restaurant. They are owned by my favorite spice merchants Kalustyans. Everything was so spiced out it, it was almost like curry pornography (tm). Even the samosas were oozing with delicious flavor.

So we get to the venue, and I have to say it is AWESOME. It is rather small. I would say the floor holds about 400 with another 100 or so in the small mezzanine. It is bigger than the Knit, but smaller than Bowery. And the sound was pretty amazing. I don't know if the credit goes to Satch's team or the venue, but everything was amazingly pristine.

The show? WOW! I was completely blown away! I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was. The first hour was Satch playing through the entire Surfing record with a band, stopping in between every song to tell little anecdotes. This was actually a lot more interesting than my expectation. I was nervous it was going to devolve into a guitar clinic, but he is very personable and kept a good balance between guitar nerdery, and some genuinely interesting stories about the making of the record.

He is such a tasteful player. He kind of kicked off the whole instrumental guitar thing, but he really isn't a shredder in that classic sense. Although true he may have invented the genre, he does not wank like everyone else in his wake. There is such a musicality to his playing, and he phrases and sings on the instrument like no one I have ever heard. His music is genuinely catchy and hum-able and have verses and choruses. The second half of the show kicked off with "Flying in a Blue Dream" and then the band played for a full extra hour without any more talking. Although I didn't remember the names of anything, I recognized all these songs I hadn't heard in ten years. How many instrumental artists have made music that is instantly recognizable and singable? What a great night.

The band mentioned they were heading over to the bar area to hang out, but we had a birthday party to go to on Bleecker so off we went, and a little trouble began. Much of the time spent at the Red Lion is very hazy, but I do remember the mediocre cover band's drummer was none other than our buddy Johnny Mac. I gotta hand it to that guy, he definitely makes a living playing drums. He is working seven days a week, playing with anyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to a Bleecker street cover band.

A long week of shows Pt. 3- Symphony X

Saturday night Jason Heidi and I went to my favorite out of town venue the Starland Ballroom to see New Jersey's hometown heroes, Symphony X. Their bassist Mike Lepond played in the Ross the Boss Manowar show with Keith and I have sang his praises on this blog before.

If you are unfamiliar with the band, they are the more hard rocking, down to earth foil for Dream Theater in the prog rock scene. The analogy I always make is they are the Rolling Stones to Dream Theater's Beatles. They are fulfilling a LOT of fantasies by touring together in Europe later this year. As DT are arguably the leaders in terms of pushing forward progressive music and being better artists, there is something amazingly earthbound about SymphX. They are drunks. They are accessible. They will talk to you. Heidi thought Russell waved at us as they left the stage before the encore. I wouldn't be surprised if Russell did remember us from Dingbatz. They are that kind of band. Drink whiskey with them and you have friends for life.

The set was almost identical to the one they did at BB King's a few months earlier. Most of the new record, and some great old favorites like "Smoke and Mirrors." I'm sorry to say but for the second time now, I was bored out of my skull during the encore of all 20 minutes of "The Odyssey" in its entirety. Jason nailed it. It is not a cohesive epic like Dream Theater's "A Change of Seasons." It feels like they wanted to write a 20 minute song and sewed a lot of incongruous parts together. It sounds stilted and forced. But anyways.....

Russell Allen is a frontman and a half. He must be about 6'4 and 300 pounds. A gargantuan of a man with a very powerful and commanding presence. Michael Romeo is now getting into "faster than Yngwie" territory with his chops. As the BB King's show was very loose and casual, the Starland set was tight and polished and sharp. Good stuff, a great end to a very long week of rock shows.

A long week of shows Pt. 2- Daft Punk

Will do this random thoughts style, like my review of the Nuge.

Best celebrity sighting- Dennis Miller with two teenage boys
Most Obvious celebrity sighting- James Murphy

The visuals were out of control. It felt like I was rocking out at an alien invasion, where they truly do come in peace. To bring you funk. Their intro music was the Close Encounters theme, to really bring it all home.

On the horribly inefficient beer line a girl wearing pajamas started flirting with me. It was mostly uneventful (and all just in good fun Bollocks) but things went painfully south when I told her I was "spinning" the Girl Talk album a lot. This led to a quick conversation about how I am "old school" and still use the term spinning even if I mean listening to something on my iPod. When this led to her finding out I'm 30, she turned to the guy behind me who she said "looks like Zack Braff" (he didn't) and stopped talking to me. Yikes. Although, can't we take the word "spinning" back? Hard drives spin, right? But apparently I'm hitting the age where if I talk to a hipster girl in pajamas I am a pedophile.

As beautiful as the pyramid and the outside light structures were, the music was only OK. I thought the album versions of all of the Human After All songs are far superior. My favorite song, "The Prime Time of your Life" seemed like a perfect drugged out live show no-brainer. As it is on the record that song is perfect. The weird cutesy droned out remix took away a lot of the power and sentiment. On the flip side, the perfect synergy between sound and visuals on "Steam Machine" was one of my concert going highlights of the year.

Keyspan park is an awesome show venue and they do not oversell it. I will find an excuse to go back there next year.

Kraftwerk is still the best presentation of live electronic music I have ever seen, but Daft Punk was completely insane. I think those pics say much more than my words.

A long week of shows Pt. 1- Zappa and Deep Purple

So last week was pretty crazy in terms of the rock and roll.

Monday- Zappa Plays Zappa at Westbury Music Fair. Decent setlist. The addition of the video screens where daddy Zappa was projected and shown playing and singing was a nice touch. I don't think Dweezil would be able to sing low enough to hit Cosmik Debris without the assistance. The rotating stage at Westbury is a trip. The band was a bit freaked out as well. It was frustrating that the whole experience was very all or nothing. Either you saw the whole band or you saw the whole bands' backs. Ray White was a great guest but I missed Bozzio and Vai.

Tuesday- Deep Purple at Radio City Music Hall. Great set, mediocre show. That band is *old* and although Ian Paice is still a drumming whiz, this was an oldies show for an oldies crowd. Ian Gillian's voice is pretty blah at this point and there is not nearly as much of the biting rock energy that made me fall in love with this band in the first place. Your best bet is to stick with the records and archival dvds. Deep Purple in 2007 is just not a great show.

Wednesday- Kristin had to cancel plans, the subways stopped running, so I stayed in Brooklyn and spent my first good chunk of quality time with the Wii. I recommend everyone who owns one to pick up Paper Mario. It has some of the best art direction I have ever seen in a video game. It is like Dali and The Residents tried to put together a surrealist mash-up of classic 80's Nintendo platformers. I have never seen characters or locations look quite like this. Absolutely amazing. Beautiful and breathtaking.

Current concert schedule

8/15 Joe Satriani
8/24-8/25 Dream Theater
8/26 Blood City Shack Up
9/8 Heaven and Hell
9/23 The Cure
9/25 Steve Vai
9/26 Megadeth
10/9 Qui
11/30 Ween

Cooler Christians than you.......

They were hip enough to incorporate King Diamond and Chidren of Bodom into this. BEWARE BLUE OYSTER CULT! BEWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE!

How to head bang without injury

Credit for this goes to Steve from back in his football days.

I am posting his suggestion like this as I discovered there are virtually no places on line to learn how to safely head bang. Lord knows I tried.

Lie on your bed facing up. Hang your head off the edge of the bed. Do reps of lifting your head up and down like sit ups. Lie on your left and right side. Rinse, repeat daily.

I will be starting tonight.

Rock!

Let's Reconsider- EMF

Hey kids! Welcome to a new feature on this humble blog. I'll never forget that day in the early mid 90's while bored and high in Larry's car and he could not believe I had never *really* listened to Devo. He put on a cassette of Hardcore Devo Volume 1, a now long out of print collection of their 4 track demos which was a pivotal moment in my musical development. Really? The guys who did "Whip It" and "Through Being Cool," the inspiration for Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid" were actually analog synth geniuses and punk pioneers? Well, yes they are. And if we never had that bored evening driving around Syosset I would have never gotten it.

Well, we don't have cars and suburbs and pot anymore. We have blogs. So this is a new feature that will occur with no regularity. I will pick a band that I love that, unlike other blogs which try to feed you obscure music, you *have* heard of but would never think to really listen to.

Today's inaugural band is EMF. We ALL know "Unbelievable" and the renaissance that song has experienced with Stephen Colbert obsessing over their re-recording of the song for Kraft Cheese's "Crumbelievable" campaign.

But have you ever really listened to the band? They were a great punk band with lots of synths and a decent hard edge. Schubert Dip, that fateful breakthrough album had some great songs, notably "Girl of an Age" and "Travelling not Running," but for me the recording that blew me out of the water in High School was The Unexplained EP, so startlingly out of print that Amazon doesn't even have a listing for people to sell it used. But it was AWESOME. Only four songs, EMF used it to showcase that they were a much different band than one runaway hit single, and they WERE.

Submitted for your approval are the two bookends of this 4 song masterpiece. First up is "Getting Through." For fans of modern day synth-punk ranging from Kasabian to Primal Scream to the Chemical Brothers, you should feel right at home. Listen to how wonderfully the hard panned synth on the left blends with the big guitars hard panned to the right. Then we move right into their cover of "Search and Destroy." Yes, the Stooges song. As it is below I'm not even going to try to explain or sell this to you. If you are reading this, you most likely know me and know how much I love the Stooges. How much I love Raw Power. How much I love SEARCH AND DESTROY. This is the best of the untold covers of this song by virtually every band ever. Yeah that's right. The BEST. Fire up the best headphones you have and enjoy the exceptional production in this 320k encoded Mp3. Go on. Enjoy. Treat yourself.

Let's reconsider EMF.

Direct download links. Right click and save!
Getting Through
Search And Destroy

In League with Satan

There are better Bratz subway defacements at my home stop (Carroll Street F) but this is definitely my favorite. Along with the recent Die Hard defacement I saw at 14th Street I imagine we can now proclaim an actual trend of Glen Benton-ifcation to our beloved public transportation system.

Satan spawn the service disruptions this week on the G.

Unrelated: How awesome is it that both Brandi M. and Brandi C. on Rock of Love are confirmed porn stars? How even MORE awesome that neither of their real names are Brandi but neither of them used Brandi as their porn name?

Practicing what I Preach

So recently I wrote a call to arms for anyone in a band to be 12.5% as awesome as Rush. What I really meant, of course, was to reflect upon what you provide to a potential audience, especially in light of what the venue charges them to go see you. Well I wrote that as much for me as anyone else. I do enjoy maximum entertainment when I go out, even if the music is "important" or whatever.

So I spent a lovely day with Jason today that quickly evolved from corned beef hash at the Waverly and playing with pedals at Matt Umanov to spending quality time at the Home Depot and Abracadabra. Fun fact- Abracadabra is where I bought my battle axe.

We have some great things to show for our day. Gaze upon the new shit. More new shit to come. These are the baby steps. I reckon by the end of the summer, when tomato season has passed its prime, people will leave our shows saying "damn, that band was at least 20.1% as awesome as Rush!"

Randomness

Everyone talks about how their iPod has a psychic connection to them, knows exactly the right song to play at the right moment, etc. We all know these great moments of serendipity on a pure scientific level are just coincidences, no more a matter of the spirit than Mother Nature giving you a sunny day on your wedding.

However, does anyone know about the algorithms used to generate playlists when you hit shuffle?

I am not going to make a generalization right now. This is fact. Out of the 8,619 songs, 739 albums and 300 artists in my iPod, Fear Factory ALWAYS comes up in the first 15 songs. Always. Without fail. Looking at my stats via iTunes, I have 87 Fear Factory songs. How come I don't get the same success rate out of my 261 They Might Be Giants songs, 297 Rush songs, 116 Slayer songs, 132 Hawkwind songs, 225 Frank Zappa songs or the 142 Pink Floyd songs?

What is so special about Fear Factory that they ALWAYS come up in the first 15?

Does *my* iPod have feelings and is a huge Fear Factory fan or has science completely run amok?

High Quality Scream Bloody Virgin mp3s

Ok, thanks to Ben Lebo, I have a simple working solution to distribute high quality music.

Find the new songs not destroyed by the cruel algorithms of myspace HERE

Or individually:

Cast off your Virgin Thorns

Basements of Xanadu

There are a couple more track on the main page.

Even more music up on the MySpace

I gotta look on forums and see if there is any way to "master" music to sound better after the MySpace conversion process. The results can be somewhat depressing.

Anyways, there are now two new songs up. In addition to "Cast off your Virgin Thorns" I have put up something that has been germinating the last few months, "Basements of Xanadu." The tune is the sort of mish-mash of influences you should expect from me at this point. I'm getting closer to the Eno ideal of voice doubling. I am definitely better at it now than when I started and put up that first song "Edge of the Galaxy."

Anyways, I will be happy to send out higher quality Mp3s to anyone who asks. I am pretty bummed by how Xanadu converted over.

Latest Concert Schedule

Because everyone loves the list! Am I missing anything?

7/28 Sonic Youth
8/2 Metal Meltdown III (Gods of Fire)
8/6 Zappa Plays Zappa
8/7 Deep Purple
8/9 Daft Punk
8/11 Symphony X
8/24 Dream Theater (4th row on John Petrucci's side!!!!!!)
8/25 Dream Theater
9/8 Heaven and Hell/Alice Cooper/Queensryche
9/23 The Cure
9/26 Megadeth
10/9 Qui (David Yow's new band)
4/1/08 King Diamond/Kreator

Sad Panda

I'm sick. I have a fever. I have an unexplained pain in my neck.

I am missing Testament at the Chance tonight, eating my ticket. This is the second time I have missed Testament at the Chance, although last time it was them that canceled. I have not seen them since the 2003 Gods of Metal tour, and never since the reunion with Alex Skolnick.

I am really bummed out. Blah......

New song up on the MySpace

It is called "Cast off your Virgin Thorns" and can be heard here.

Lyrically, and you can probably hear this in the performance, the song was very cathartic. It is about someone I know, but not someone confirmed to read this blog, whom I care for very much who can't seem to get their life together. In the never ending quest to find the easy path this person makes their life much more difficult than it needs to be, and often this affects my life adversely. At a certain point if you can't find the angle, you need to stop making excuses and just get out there and do what you need to do. No one likes to work. No one likes to feel like a sheep. But we do what we have to do in order to support ourselves and keep our lives moving forward. Life is all about trade offs. Do I love performing advertising operations all day? Hells no. But I found something I am good at that pays me enough to do all the things I love and doesn't erode away at my soul. What more can you ask for? Well, some people don't want to put in their time........

It is not reasonable for me to be this judgmental or to be confrontational about how someone lives their life. This is why despite the recommendations of people around us I do not. How can I say to someone "I have trouble looking you in the eye because the way you live infuriates me and causes me undue stress and frustration?" But as a song? Gold, Jerry! Gold! An open letter written in bile.......

Rush will school your face!

Look at the above pictures. If you are in a rock band that is what your show absolutely must look like from the upper decks. Adjust to scale and budget. Club bands, there is no excuse! For whatever room you are rocking, you have a responsibility to give maximum entertainment value for your ticket price. Your local band charges $10? Rush charged me $80. You MUST provide exactly 1/8th of that awesomeness! Trust me, that is still quite a lot to live up to! In fact, laugh at Rush all you want, you should be so lucky to be considered 12.5% as awesome as they were up on stage!

Do they still genuinely care? Are they just doing it for the money? I don't give a SHIT. Just go up on stage and do your fucking job. Punch the clock, put on the happy face and ROCK. Then I'm happy. I don't care if you suffer for your art. Jesus and Mary Chain couldn't do it for 70 minutes and a $50 ticket. Rush did it for THREE HOURS. And not only did they play hits like Tom Sawyer and Spirit of Radio as energetically as if they were just written, they played some album cuts so deep you needed a mining helmet and a set of permits to excavate them off the grooves.

Everything was in perfect synergy. The band was super tight, Geddy Lee's voice has never been stronger, and they played an incredible mix of hits and the aforementioned deep cuts. The light show was perfectly complemented with the hi def video screens and there were beautiful color palettes drenching the stage in swirls of lights and future-kill fantasies. The spacier more futuristic songs would be awash in blues and purples, as the earthier rock songs were complemented with reds and oranges. And yes, there were lasers. Tons of lasers. It was like laser PORN. And God knows I love a good laser show!

So now young chaps, go forth and figure out how to be 12.5% as awesome as Rush. Me, I think I gotta talk to the band and hit up Halloween Adventure. We're going to have to hasten a few of our new ideas..................

77 Drummers are better than one?

Last Saturday, 7/7/07, was a fun day in the park. I went to go see a band I enjoy very much called The Boredoms. As everyone knows by now they did a one time performance of a piece called 77 Boa Drums, which I have been looking forward to for months.

I know there has been one hell of a debate on how the event was handled, and it was indeed amateur hour, but they did send emails the night before saying your RSVP was worthless and you needed to get down there at 2:30 if you wanted a shot at admission. As most people who know me are aware, I balk at the slightest hint of aggravation. But I was determined to make it into the show, so I got there early, around 2:15, watched some sound check, got on line and had no issue getting in.

What did it sound like? Sometimes it sounded AMAZING. Beautiful bursts of energy and noise and electronics and cymbals resonating into the East River. Cascades of sound would move through the drum circle and slowly envelop you. This was about 40% of the show.

The rest was watching 77 drummers play rudiments. It is not that I dislike ambient music. If anything the show could have been MORE ambient. But this was a weird game of drumming telephone that had happy accidents, rather than a beautiful movement and flow. Also to prove all of those psychoacoustic experts right, 77 drummers are not necessarily louder than 3 or 4.

I don't mean to sound cynical or hard to please. I came in with a completely open head ready to witness something unique and beautiful. Maybe I was too sober. I don't know. It was good, it was fun. It was not......well it was not Rush.

About that show............stay tuned.

Rush South Park intro

Tomorrow the full Rush review will be up. There is much to talk about.

For now, enjoy this. The show was already brilliant when this little tease happened before Tom Sawyer!

The Shower

I take notoriously long showers. Upwards of 30 minutes long. Those who are witness often wonder (or complain if I make them run late) how the hell anyone can be in the shower that long. What can I possibly be doing in there?

Walking home from the train today it hit me. I think. Well, I always knew I think in the shower but the revelation I had was the shower is the ONLY time in my life when I don't have any distractions at all. The, uh, other thing we all do in the bathroom? I'm reading.

Walking around? iPod. Subway? You better believe iPod! When I'm home? TV, computer, a book or I'm making music.

I never have any time when I am completely alone with my thoughts. Hell I like to keep the TV on when I'm falling asleep to suppress all the things I think about in the shower!

What am I thinking about in the shower? It doesn't matter. Sometimes I am writing a song (I do my best writing "hearing" music in my head and transcribing it on a guitar), sometimes I am writing an email in my head or figuring out a solution to a problem. I may be thinking of ways to improve my curry recipe. It doesn't matter. I realized I have 15-30 minutes per day with nothing to distract me but hot running water and a bar of soap.

Scary, huh?

Quiltsryche

Make no doubt about what I want for my birthday this year!

http://www.quiltsryche.com/

I probably would enjoy either "Primer" or "Instrumental" with its genius Motley Crue reference.

Start saving up now......

Top 100 video games

Edge magazine has apparently gone through the thankless task of compiling what they think are the Top 100 greatest video games of all time.

Here is the top ten:

1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina

2. Resident Evil 4

3. Super Mario 64

4. Half Life 2

5. Super Mario World

6. Zelda: A Link to the Past

7. Halo: Combat Evolved

8. Final Fantasy XII

9. Tetris

10. Super Metroid

I can vouch for RE4, HL2, Super Metroid and Tetris being pretty great.

For fanboy conspiracy theorists, five games in the top 10 are first party Nintendo titles, and one game (RE4) started out as a Nintendo exclusive and has now shown up on two of their consoles.

I have a Gamecube compatible copy of Ocarina of Time I have never played. Since I don't own a Wii yet the Gamecube is still in the closet. Maybe it deserves one last spin. FF XII is also dirt cheap right now in an EBGames special. Hmmmmmm.......after The Darkness turned out to be a pitifully short, although very satisfying experience, I'm ready to get back on the video game horse...It has been far too long.

Any other recommendations of recent awesome games?

Super ultra mega updated concert schedule

7/2 Adam Franklin from Swervedriver
7/7 Boredoms with 77 drummers!
7/8 Rush
7/13 Testament
7/28 Sonic Youth
8/2 Metal Meltdown III (Gods of Fire)
8/6 Zappa Plays Zappa
8/7 Deep Purple
8/9 Daft Punk
8/11 Symphony X
8/24 Dream Theater (4th row on John Petrucci's side!!!!!!)
8.25 Dream Theater (probably, no tickets yet)
9/8 Heaven and Hell/Alice Cooper/Queensryche
9/23 The Cure
10/9 Qui (David Yow's new band)
4/1/08 King Diamond/Kreator

Sonic Attack! aka "Hawkwind played! Hawkwind played!"

Resembling a lower tech underground version of Pink Floyd in almost every respect, I finally got to see my heroes Hawkwind live at Europa on Monday. Yes, the very day after Nuge. Turcotte came along for the ride, always up for hearing something new, and Lee who loves the records as well.

Hawkwind has had a very long, complex and storied history that involves very distinct periods and exceedingly tumultuous lineup changes. I am by no means a Hawkwind historian, but from what I gather, David Brock makes Dave Mustaine look like a positively benevolent saint.

The band that performed in Brooklyn was a very stripped down four piece of Brock on Guitar/Synth/Vox, a bassist, a drummer, and a Keyboard player who rocked two Korg Tritons.

Opening up with the titular track from the "Warrior on the Edge of Time" record, the performance started off a bit rocky. The band wasn't really gelling and the vocal harmonies were way off. Whether the issues were performance related or technical is not really known, but as the show went on the playing improved dramatically. Most of the set concentrated around the Space Ritual era and the 1977 masterpiece Quark Strangeness and Charm.

There were video screens, as evidenced by the photos I posted, which were pretty low resolution and were showing computer animation dvds that had very little to do with the music. Some of the graphics were laughably low tech and looked like graphics from an old PlayStation one game. How do I know they were sourced from a DVD? Someone was physically switching the tracks back and forth as they played and you can see the commands "Previous" "Next" "Play" etc. on the screen as the appropriate buttons were pushed. But this only added to the overall charm of seeing ambition pulled off with limited resources.

What do they sound like? The only way I can really describe Hawkwind's sound is that the band found a whole bunch of shared connections between Pink Floyd and Public Image Limited and devoted their career to exploiting that middle ground. Punk and Psychedelia on paper should have no common ground but it is simply not true. Hawkwind is amazing proof to the contrary.

Opening the show was The Phantom Family Halo. They were a pretty great pseudo Kraut Rock/Glam band. The singer played drums standing up, but used a semi-conventional kit. It was more unique and less cheesy than lets say, Phil Collins rocking Su-su-dio. Stylistically the singer was a dead ringer for Jello Biafra, but the music was much more droney and psychedelic.