The Blister Exists

It's been awhile since I've seen these on my fingers
it must be like 1 year since I last had blisters on my fingers
that's what you get for not practicing properly and then all of a sudden playing long sets
oh well

blisters always remind of me the Slipknot song
The Blister Exists

This is one awesome song.
So today, in honour of blisters, Slipknot is my featured artist.

There's a lot to say about Slipknot. Lots of dimensions that go beyond just the teenage kid who's angry with the work. but it's late, and i'm sleepy. The inner workings and why they're important will have to be discussed at some other point.

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

Let the music be his legacy

Let it stand for itself

American Idol?

So yesterday, I watched a good chunk of the American Idol Finale. And in some respects I think it's a bigger night for music than the grammys have been for the past thousand years. Yes yes, American Idol doesn't have The Police Re-uniting for the first time in 30 years. Nor does it have Sir Elton John and Eminem doing a duet. But what it does have is music..... yes.... music (very loosly used). The night is about performance, good or not. The night is about performing. Top whatever females doing a Beyonce medley then a surprise performance by Beyonce. Beautiful. It's a vocal show, so you can't base merit on instrumentation. Fat Bottom Girls with Jack Black, the sense of ironical humour is uncanny. Sure there are a lot of problem with the concept of American Idol, but the finale is a statement about music today, while still throwing it back to the early days. Judas Priest seems like an odd choice but then again there are 2 Judas Priests, there's the old rock n' roll Judas Priest with Living after Midnight and Breaking the Law; and then there is Painkiller Judas
Priest. (We'll just ignore that Turbo Lover ever existed). The Grammys are useless, they fill the pockets of the suits. A self pat on the back for all the hard work they've done. The only merit the Grammys has
is the music education charity program they have. But that isn't syndicated with the Grammys, a group of famous, rich musicians can start that on their own. Yes yes, American Idol is waste of air and life, but that doesn't mean
it's not entertaining. And it also means it doesn't put on a good show.

BTW Judas Priest without K. K.  a BIG THUMBS DOWN
they're still metal gods, but Judas Priest is on it's final legs without K. K.

Also, I really don't think it's worth mentioning the Spiderman musical with The Edge and Bono. Good luck to them is all I'm gonna say, and that they should stick with U2.

Also again, TLC? uhhhh, I love Chilli, but without Left Eye it's not gonna be special like it used to

Why I Do What I Do

As my drummer recently said to me (referring to a song idea), "Listen to
what you're saying, who wants to listen to that?"
No one has spoken anything truer.
With that said, I question myself, if that's what I'm doing then why even
bother.
I understand the argument of entertainment, but you shouldn't try and guess
what will entertain the audience.
Dylan has a great quote on this one, (paraphrasing) no one comes to a show
to get whipped, they come to get entertained. And even if they're coming to
the show to get whipped aren't they coming to be entertained?
So why bother trying to guess what the audience wants to hear, people will
come if you believe in it.
Because at some point, that audience will go home and you'll be left
standing alone.
What do you have then?

This is a good point to bring up a new case study: The Foo Fighters and
Dave Grohl.
Without a doubt Dave Grohl is a class A guy; you'll find it hard to find
anyone say anything otherwise.
But at some point you have to look at the big picture of his career, and
you just have to ask what happened?
What happened:

• He went from being the drummer for the biggest band of a generation to the guitarist/vocalist of the biggest band of a generation.... ok not much of a differenece
• He went from being part of the most gripping, heartfelt, raw-emotion, stab yourself in the heart band to a band that writes random words on paper so that the lyrics match the meter of the song

This is where I have contention, Nirvana > The Foo Fighters.
There will never be another Kurt Kobain.
Of course there are Kurt Kobains walking around all around us, but one that
can go through all that, stay alive, and emote all that on such a large
stage... no, it won't happenn
The reason why Dave Grohl has been able to find his own place on the world
stage is because he distanced himself so far away from Nirvana.
If Dave Grohl took on the persona of Kurt Kobain 2.0 we would have all
laughed at him.
But at the same time, what are The Foo Fighters.
They represents everything that is wrong with pop music.
Sure they play "rock".
But at the core of it, they play pop music.
Fluffy, meaningless garbage.
But with all pop music, you can't fault them for sounding good and catchy.
To all those people (and this includes the great Lemmy) who think The Foos
are bringing rock 'n roll back to the masses, you're an idiot.
If there's 12-13 year old kids out there that want to be rock stars because
of The Foos will not interest me one bit.
That's because these kids will come out with no soul.
If you take influence from The Foos, what you'll get is boring ass rock
with 4 chords, verse, chorse, verse, chorse.
ZZZzzzZZzzZzzZzz
Yes, The Foos undoubtedly have causes thousands of kids to pick a guitar.
But to go from a guitar player to an artist, that kid needs to go back to
the Nirvana catelogue and see what real music is.
At the end of the day, The Foo Fighters are a good band, terrible artists.
All good artists (and this surprisingly includes Kiss) can teach you a
lesson in music.
For example, Bowie: the survive, you need to adapt; also don't fuck up your
money.
What can we learn from The Foo Fighters?
Play generic rock music, loud, and hard. It doesn't matter what your songs
mean, it just needs to sound good.
With that said, Dave Grohl did a hell of a job rebranding himself.

So why do I do what I do?
I don't write music to entertain the audience, nor do I play music for the
audience.
I'm not a pop artist.
I play music for myself.
Whether it be in my room with a 10 watt amp, or whether it be at Madison
Square Garden.
I will always play music for myself, I don't show up for the audience, the
audience shows up for me (even if that sounds pompous).
Back to the original question, "Who wants to listen to that?"
The answer is, I do.
And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

Holy Shit (The Poo Testament)

.... nuff said

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAH

Hip-Hop

THE REAL HIP-HOP IS OVER HERE!!!

There's a saying that goes, if you think it's too loud, you're too old. If you think Hip-hop isn't music, you're too odd. I'm not saying that you're too physically old, your head-space is old. You can't accept the new and mode of communication which is Hip-Hop. It's because you don't understand what Hip-Hop is. I am Hip-hop.

As a metalhead (and as all metalheads can relate too), I can understand the struggle of being accepted as a form of music. Not until recently has metal been really recognized as a form of music, although with that said it still has a long ways to go (this can be debated as a direction to go in [see hair metal and kiss as an example] but that's for another time).

Anyways, Hip-Hop is the street preacher. It's what punk music did for the disenchanted youth. In the regards they are exactly the same.

The music you hear on the radio today is not Hip-Hop. It's some derivative that's bastardized into pop music. And people think it's just entertainment but no it's a much more important issue than that. It's a bastardization of the struggle African-Americans had to go through in the pre-civil rights movement era. It's a total disregard and quite honestly disrespectful to all the elders of our time. Hip-Hop is for the people and by the people and not meant to be used to rap about bitches and hoes. It's a tool, it's a lifestyle for bring people together, not smacking asses. It's a celebration of black history and it's a celebration of equality. Not about whips and rims. It's a rebellion against oppression and hate. It's not for degradation of women and quite frankly self. Rappers that come out today, who rhyme about their big rims or how much cash they supposedly have should be ashamed of themselves. They're a blasphemy to what Dr. King and Malcolm X did for society... for the world. Every time someone uses Hip-Hop for some vain, superficial way, it is a de-evolution of the fight for equal rights. As the great Chuck D once said, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything". At the end of the day, you just have to realize that this so called pop music is a detriment to society. It's worse than any black metal band could ever be. Pop music is the reason why society is so fucked up. It teaches the kids to be vain. It teaches them to be superficial. Because pop music by definition is music that just sounds good without regard to meaning or soul.

On another day, I'll discuss gangsta rappers, but not today. That discussion is in a totally different direction.

Nothing new here, just classics

The Gig from Hell Pt.2

So the original gig from hell was Dovetails' very first gig (back when we were called Dovetail, without the S) in high school. Grade 12, Live Aid, in our high school cafetorium (cafeteria + auditorium). That was the show where we:

• got yelled at for playing too long
• we played so fast that my arm was sore for the next 2 days
• Eric's patch cord blew a fuse
• during Cappello's drum solo, the double kicks fell off the drumset
• at the end of that solo, one of those drumsticks blewup into little shards
• and my fingers were so tired that I couldn't play Master of Puppet's properly

That was that, but this past Saturday was The Gig from Hell Pt. 2.
So collectively I think all of us have decided never to work with or for Supernova ever again. They are a shit company ultimately and don't know what the heck they're doing. They're good for the little kids, because they can be pushed around and they're happy just to play. But when really work needs to be done Supernova is definitely not the place you want to be. Regardless, so the past Saturday we played at the El Mocambo for the first time. We played upstairs because (obviously) we aren't that popular enough to play downstairs). Anyways, the venue is pretty shit, but the place has history. The first part is the heat. Holy crap it was freaking hot there, they really should have installed windows or kept the door open and vented the place out. But regardless spotlights make all stages pretty hot. The thing that makes this the gig from hell is a combination of an untalented soundguy and lack of organization on the part of Supernova.

I think a lot of our fans were dumbfounded by the short setlist of the night, so I will explain here what happened. The night of we planned on 6 songs, with an addition by Cappello and I to sing Eric Happy Birthday that night. However we got shafted to only 5 songs and no birthday song. After we finished Balsam Lake (our 4th song), Cappello and I were supposed to get everyone to sing Happy Birthday and then go into the cover song, YYZ (yes!!! I know -___-). Regardless when Balsam Lake ended, the sound guy told us we had one song left. Now, I totally lost track of time but for fuck sakes, there's no way that was our full set time. They just cut us short and told us to leave. So that's the fault of Supernova. They did because they were behind schedule. We got on stage 30 mins late due to previous bands pilling up on stage time. So it's not our fault that their organization sucks (double meaning). We should not have our set cut short due to their incompetence. 

Now for the soundguy. I don't know if this guy is experienced or he's just new. but there is one thing I can tell you, he is untalented in every way. (this first part is a little music geeky), I know that my XLR output is hot, but the solution to that is not to turn the bass on my bass all the way down. He should have fucking told me I was blowing out his speakers and clipping. What I really needed to do was turn down the gain and cut some volume on the preamp. He's a moron for that, a much more experienced and talented guy would know that the musician has much more familiarity with his equipment and would know what to do. He's lucky that I had my orange nickel plated strings, if I had my monel flatwounds, he would have gotten his face melted off. The second this is that he doesn't understand line 6 amps. Now, after this gig, I've decided to return my spider IV because I'm not happy with it, but it is a very important part of eric's setup. But if u've done enough amateur shows you've worked with enough line 6 amps. And therefore you should know that volume channels are all preset on line 6 amps. Working and playing around on the amp will not do anything. In this case the sound guy kept trying to turn down the volume on eric's amp because it was blowing back feedback all night. He should know better that line 6 amps can't be changed like that. I don't know how much experience this soundguy had, but i can say that he was definitely the worst one I've had so far.

Anyways that's enough of complaining about that gig.
what we've learned after this gig was: never to work with Supernova ever again
what I've learned: have control.
I took on a lot more than I could chew that gig.

1. too many new effects/toys to handle (not enough experience to truly control it in a live setting)
2. too uncontrolled energy, so much so that it was throwing my tempo
3. i almost beatup a guy in the crowd by accident, I thought he was trying to high-five me, but then he turned around; and in my moment of sheer highness, i shook the shit out of him and forced him to give me a high-five. I keep forgetting this is not a mosh-pit.... sorry dude if ur reading this, didn't mean to ruff u up like that (I'm pretty sure he was like a foot taller than me) 

At the end of the day, it's another piece of wisdom/experience under our belts. No regrets.

Let's see today's featured artist, i'm gonna have to go and find one right now. How about Selena.... what's her name? lol ya that's not happening. ok it's really late, so not gonna spend time to feature a band. So instead of that I list a bunch of random music things that happened recently.

• Bob Marley's death anniversary (30 years), wow 30 years with Marley, I saw a guy wearing a Marley shirt on the day, it made me smile
• this seems sorta out of place but whatever, Limp Bizkit actually released a new single called Shotgun. It's ok, in my opinion. It's sorta retarded actually, the Wes on the guitar is really good and DJ Lethal does a really good job on it, but Fred is just retarded. I don't hate Fred, actually I don't even dislike him. I used to be the biggest Bizkit fan, but I liked the stuff the "fans didn't like" I love Results May Vary, the one album everyone hated. I didn't really care for the other stuff. I swear give that album a chance, listen to the closing track Drown, one of the best songs ever from a very unlikely source.
• Limewire has been forced to pay like 100 million dollars for distributing music illegally.... lololololol, I really don't care much actually
• The Darkness are coming back!!!!! CHEESE METAL!!!!! but I like them but not enough to be a fan
• Something important happened on American Idol... that's what they always say
• There's no Ozzfest this year!!!! not that I go, but still, that sucks for metal in North America
• Noel Gallagher's fake twitter account announced tracklistings I believe. I don't remember, I didn't believe it when I saw the headline. Why? because Noel doesn't own a computer that's why. He would have steal his girlfriend's laptop to first make a twitter account and then he would have to figure out how to type... actually no, he would first have to figure out how to turn the laptop on. No no, I can just imagine Noel going "this is bollocks, fook this, this is a student's job, fook this"

Good Night

If I Could Work With One Person

So the question for today is (which also alludes to today's featured artist), if there was one person that I could work with on a musical level, who would it be?
The surprising thing is that for a metalhead like me the answer is nothing short of odd. No it wouldn't be my heroes in Metallica, Hetfield and Ulrich. It wouldn't be Alice Cooper or Bob Dylan. It wouldn't be Trent, nor Noel Gallagher. Neil Young, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Marley, Eminem, Dre, Clapton, Lauryn, Bruce and Steve, Gaye, Jaco, Stanley, Wooten, Nas, the boys in PTH, Thom, Morello, Tuomas, Bono and The Edge, Wu-Tang, just to name a few. When I think of who out of all my travels through the sonicwaves of life. One person comes to mind.
That one person is a Korean Pop Singer known as Younha. Go Younha (고윤하) is everything a pop singer should be. Intelligent, talented, driven, and most of all a defined sense of self. Pop musicians are a different breed from regular musicians. Musicians and artist are called on by music to find themselves, to delve in their own misfortunes and their own shortcomings and embrace all of that in the music that pours out of their heart. Pop musicians have no such luxury. No such luxury to bask in their own absurdness and no room for error. Pop Musicians are stuck in their own perfection or at the very least perceived perfection. No person who listens to pop music is looking for a poor sod dribble in their own annoyances and ponderings. No, pop music is for those who are there to be entertained through superficial means and through artificial perfection.
In such a sterile environment a pop musician must be much stronger than any other musician. Not only must they be talented and driven. But they must also be intelligent and above all they must know oneself.
Younha is a singer/pianist. Hugely popular and famous in Korea and Japan. She made her debut in Japan at the age of 16. As time went by she has become one of the most famous pop musicians in Korea and Japan. Now that's all fine and dandy but you might ask why her? why a pop singer?
Ultimately, the music is sub-par and dismissive. However, if you look beyond that and look at the soul of the human being singing the song you'll see a far more impressive portrait.
It's not so much that I think that working with Noel Gallagher wouldn't be cool, quite the opposite, it would be awesome. However, what would I bring to the table. I can't think of anything. Noel Gallagher is already a master of his craft, I don't see what I could bring to his music. That goes for everyone else.
However, when I look at Younha I see incredible talent but more importantly a real human being. All of that trapped under the weights of pop music.
With all that said (as I always tell people), be wary of the pop "artists" for things aren't as they appear. If my characterization of Younha isn't true to reality, well then that illusion will be shattered. But it's hard to fool a skeptic like me.
All in all, if there was one person I could work with, that would be Younha and that makes her my featured artist today.

maybe not the best video to showcase her talent, however it does show a human element to her performance

At the end of the day, she got through the song. But more importantly it showcases her attachment and belief in the music she sings. She actually BELIEVES in her music... what a thing of beauty.

A cover of an American song
of all the songs to pick, I don't know why this is picked except that it's in the piano rock genre, but a showcase of her rhythm and coordination

Probably the song that most people know her by (this is the Korean version)

Karmin

Karmin
............omg
this girl has swagga
Karmin is composed of Amy Heidermann and Nick Noonan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od6sUNTHiHs

originals? I really don't have much of an opinion on them... partly because I'm not that interested but omg just check out the Lil' Wayne and Cory Gunz cover. This girl has got mad swagga. Just incredible flow.

Sometimes, you just have to have fun. You shouldn't have your head in your ass and your nose held high because then you'll just smell shit. There is nothing original or incredibly enlightening about Karmin or for that matter Lil' Wayne (and without saying Cory Gunz) but there is a certain level of entertainment value that you get when you aren't too stuffy.