There are few songs I can listen to and immediately hit the back button so I can listen to them again. Recently though I've added two more tracks to that list. Ra's The Only One is the first. I really like it when a band/artist makes a good or popular song and then later on borrows a line or two for that song for their next good/popular track. Machine Head did it with A Nation on Fire's "Take my hand across this land" and Ra do it with "So you just sit there stuck, afraid to risk reality", pulled from their biggest hit Do You Call My Name. That's all well and good, but the song itself has a very cool groove to it on top of that. It's the kind of song that if it doesn't get your feet moving at least once or twice the fault is yours, not the song's. That groove combines with Sahaj Ticotin's vocal wizardry and range to really pull you into it. Or at least it pulls me into it. Twice in a row and now I'm up to the third time today. Good song, end of story.
The second song to get added to the list is Lamb of God's King Me, the final track off their new album Resolution. It starts out rather mellow and slowly builds upon itself it's almost at the point of a typical intro then slams in with a heavy orchestral string section. Every time I hear that I always picture the band in concert, lights low then as the strings kick in the lights flood the pit. Rather than a mosh pit exploding as one would expect it's filled with an actual orchestra, which yeah, belongs in a pit just as well. After the orchestral it mellows right back out till the next blast of strings. Following the second coming of the viomolins and cellos though the metal section of the song starts properly. It doesn't disappoint. I've always felt that violins,cellos and double basses fit in with metal just as well as any other instrument considering the technical complexity of both classical music and most metal. I'm one of the few people who enjoyed Metallica's S&M, but I knew it could be done better and King Me definitely proves that. Give it a shot if you'd like.
In other news I should be leaping off of cliffs in about 8-10 hours. There will be pics and video to follow at a later date.
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Moshing 101
I'm going to be seeing American Head Charge this weekend so I thought I'd revive my blog by making a post about it. I haven't seen AHC live since Ozzfest 2001 so I'm rather stoked about it. I though I'd have a little fun here by making a post about the methods of moshing. I'm going to break it down into two parts because I feel it works best this way. Those parts are, for lack of better terms, offense and defense. I'll start with offense because it's the most fun.
The basics of offensive moshing are that you want to be as effective as possible while lowering your own likelihood of injury. So I guess the first rule is don't be stupid. If you see a hardcore dancer being lame and fighting invisible ninjas don't get in the way of the spikey bracelets he's wearing on his wrists and try not to get kicked in the junk. Instead try either throwing yourself at him from a different angle or throw someone else at him because he's a hardcore dancer so he needs to be taken out.
As for basic styles of moshing, it's best to use a visual aid, so here's Sick of it all's music video for Step Down.
That's not everything, but of all of those my favorites are the windmill and the pickin' up change.
Sometimes you're at a show with friends so while on offense it's fun to team up. The most basic of these it to whip your friend out into the pit by hand. Stand at the edge of the pit with you in back and your friend directly in front of you with a few inches between the two of you. hold one hand to the center of his back at slightly below shoulder height and put your other hand on the back of that hand. Then just launch him forward by straightening out your arms. If you put your legs and back into it it's a lot more effective.
Another fun one to do with a friend is the spin up. You should each face each other then hold arms by clasping your hands around his wrists and he does the same to you. You should be holding his left wrist with your left hand and ditto for right to right. If done properly your arms should cross in the middle. Now spin yourselves trying to orbit around a point between the two of you. If you're both of similar weight this should be easy. The fun really starts if you're not of equal weight. If there is a small difference in weights the lighter person will orbit farther from the center than the heavy person giving the heavier person an object (the lighter person) to aim at people as you two move about the pit. If there is a significant difference in weight there's a chance that the heavier person will be able to use the centrifugal force to lift the lighter person right off of the ground. Once this happens the heavier person has the opportunity to use the lighter person as a sort of buzz saw and cut through other moshers as well as the crowd around the pit. This one is a blast and one of my favorite things to do at a show.
Ok, enough about offense, let's talk defense. The most important thing to remember here is to be aware of your surroundings. If you're at bigger shows and festivals you might be at the edge of the pit facing in and be completely oblivious to another mosh pit directly behind you. I can't tell you how many times I've been nailed in the back by someone coming from another pit, but it's enough to remember it and pass along that info. When you're at the edge of a pit you may want to put both arms out with fists forward to protect yourself, but this is actually a bad way to do it. What you should do is similar to what you would do to launch a friend onto the pit. Make a fist. I'm right handed so I make that fist with my left hand. Then put your other hand on the back of that fist. your thumb and forefinger should be at your other wrist. Then put your arms out to an almost straight position. This is important. If someone runs into your arms while they're fully straight out there's a chance your elbow will bend backwards instead of the way it's supposed to bend. Keeping your elbows bent will prevent this. If a person comes towards you at speed use your legs and back to cushion his landing on your outstretched fist. Then if you feel like it, after leaning back a bit go ahead and launch him just the way you would launch a friend. Try to aim for some hardcore dancers or emofags.
I'm going to share a secret with you here. The best method for breaking up a spin up. Some people when they spin up will just stay in the same place and spin for a good while. This makes them an easy target. Stand facing them, but slightly off center to them in such a way that the people spinning spin towards you instead of away. That is, stand to the right if they're spinning clockwise and to the left if they're spinning counterclockwise. If you get the timing just right you can launch yourself at a tangent to their circle and strike one of them directly. If you do this correctly they'll just sort of explode and go flying. It's great fun.
Well, alrighty. I've had fun writing this, but it's gone on for a long while so I'm going to wrap it up. Happy moshing.
The basics of offensive moshing are that you want to be as effective as possible while lowering your own likelihood of injury. So I guess the first rule is don't be stupid. If you see a hardcore dancer being lame and fighting invisible ninjas don't get in the way of the spikey bracelets he's wearing on his wrists and try not to get kicked in the junk. Instead try either throwing yourself at him from a different angle or throw someone else at him because he's a hardcore dancer so he needs to be taken out.
As for basic styles of moshing, it's best to use a visual aid, so here's Sick of it all's music video for Step Down.
That's not everything, but of all of those my favorites are the windmill and the pickin' up change.
Sometimes you're at a show with friends so while on offense it's fun to team up. The most basic of these it to whip your friend out into the pit by hand. Stand at the edge of the pit with you in back and your friend directly in front of you with a few inches between the two of you. hold one hand to the center of his back at slightly below shoulder height and put your other hand on the back of that hand. Then just launch him forward by straightening out your arms. If you put your legs and back into it it's a lot more effective.
Another fun one to do with a friend is the spin up. You should each face each other then hold arms by clasping your hands around his wrists and he does the same to you. You should be holding his left wrist with your left hand and ditto for right to right. If done properly your arms should cross in the middle. Now spin yourselves trying to orbit around a point between the two of you. If you're both of similar weight this should be easy. The fun really starts if you're not of equal weight. If there is a small difference in weights the lighter person will orbit farther from the center than the heavy person giving the heavier person an object (the lighter person) to aim at people as you two move about the pit. If there is a significant difference in weight there's a chance that the heavier person will be able to use the centrifugal force to lift the lighter person right off of the ground. Once this happens the heavier person has the opportunity to use the lighter person as a sort of buzz saw and cut through other moshers as well as the crowd around the pit. This one is a blast and one of my favorite things to do at a show.
Ok, enough about offense, let's talk defense. The most important thing to remember here is to be aware of your surroundings. If you're at bigger shows and festivals you might be at the edge of the pit facing in and be completely oblivious to another mosh pit directly behind you. I can't tell you how many times I've been nailed in the back by someone coming from another pit, but it's enough to remember it and pass along that info. When you're at the edge of a pit you may want to put both arms out with fists forward to protect yourself, but this is actually a bad way to do it. What you should do is similar to what you would do to launch a friend onto the pit. Make a fist. I'm right handed so I make that fist with my left hand. Then put your other hand on the back of that fist. your thumb and forefinger should be at your other wrist. Then put your arms out to an almost straight position. This is important. If someone runs into your arms while they're fully straight out there's a chance your elbow will bend backwards instead of the way it's supposed to bend. Keeping your elbows bent will prevent this. If a person comes towards you at speed use your legs and back to cushion his landing on your outstretched fist. Then if you feel like it, after leaning back a bit go ahead and launch him just the way you would launch a friend. Try to aim for some hardcore dancers or emofags.
I'm going to share a secret with you here. The best method for breaking up a spin up. Some people when they spin up will just stay in the same place and spin for a good while. This makes them an easy target. Stand facing them, but slightly off center to them in such a way that the people spinning spin towards you instead of away. That is, stand to the right if they're spinning clockwise and to the left if they're spinning counterclockwise. If you get the timing just right you can launch yourself at a tangent to their circle and strike one of them directly. If you do this correctly they'll just sort of explode and go flying. It's great fun.
Well, alrighty. I've had fun writing this, but it's gone on for a long while so I'm going to wrap it up. Happy moshing.
Friday, October 29, 2010
That post about cover bands
Well, sorry my post here is late. I was freakin dead tired last night so I went to bed pretty early.
So, cover bands. What the hell is going on here? If I want to see "The ultimate Metallica experience" or whatever am I going to grab myself some tickets for a band called The Harvesters of Sorrow or am I gonna find myself some tickets to, ohh I don't know, a Metallica show? Something tells me that the ultimate Metallica experience isn't going to take place on a ten foot wide stage at the local dive bar, so I'll go with the actual band. The only way a band who's not the original can really claim to be the ultimate experience of any band is if said original band no longer exists. And even then I still think there should be a disclaimer of some sort. Ohh and I guess cover bands for bands that still exist could use disclaimers, too. The ultimate Metallica experience for under $15 sounds more likely than the actual ultimate experience.
I suppose there are some good points to cover bands though. If it weren't for cover bands Ripper Owens may have never gotten to front Judas Priest for the time he did. How cool must that have been for him? Going from a cover band of Judas Priest to fronting the real thing and touring the world. Then there's the one cover band CD I actually own. I was wandering the aisles of Best Buy one day and a funny looking version of Metallica's black album caught my eye. I looked at it closer and saw that instead of a snake coiled on the cover it was a banjo. And the CD was called Fade To Bluegrass. How could I not buy that? As it turns out it was actually pretty cool and the band covered songs from all over Metallica's timeline.. I didn't like the song Unforgiven, but the version by Iron Horse (that's the band that made Fade To Bluegrass) was actually pretty good. It was upbeat sounding with a faster tempo.
So, final word. Sure some good things can happen with cover bands, but for every time it does you'll get ten bands that are mediocre, outright suck or just shouldn't exist and another that REALLY sucks. That's why for the most part cover bands should go suck a dick. Except for The Iron Maidens (an all girl Iron Maiden cover band, who by the way are pretty decent). They should suck MY dick. Especially the bassist!
So, cover bands. What the hell is going on here? If I want to see "The ultimate Metallica experience" or whatever am I going to grab myself some tickets for a band called The Harvesters of Sorrow or am I gonna find myself some tickets to, ohh I don't know, a Metallica show? Something tells me that the ultimate Metallica experience isn't going to take place on a ten foot wide stage at the local dive bar, so I'll go with the actual band. The only way a band who's not the original can really claim to be the ultimate experience of any band is if said original band no longer exists. And even then I still think there should be a disclaimer of some sort. Ohh and I guess cover bands for bands that still exist could use disclaimers, too. The ultimate Metallica experience for under $15 sounds more likely than the actual ultimate experience.
I suppose there are some good points to cover bands though. If it weren't for cover bands Ripper Owens may have never gotten to front Judas Priest for the time he did. How cool must that have been for him? Going from a cover band of Judas Priest to fronting the real thing and touring the world. Then there's the one cover band CD I actually own. I was wandering the aisles of Best Buy one day and a funny looking version of Metallica's black album caught my eye. I looked at it closer and saw that instead of a snake coiled on the cover it was a banjo. And the CD was called Fade To Bluegrass. How could I not buy that? As it turns out it was actually pretty cool and the band covered songs from all over Metallica's timeline.. I didn't like the song Unforgiven, but the version by Iron Horse (that's the band that made Fade To Bluegrass) was actually pretty good. It was upbeat sounding with a faster tempo.
So, final word. Sure some good things can happen with cover bands, but for every time it does you'll get ten bands that are mediocre, outright suck or just shouldn't exist and another that REALLY sucks. That's why for the most part cover bands should go suck a dick. Except for The Iron Maidens (an all girl Iron Maiden cover band, who by the way are pretty decent). They should suck MY dick. Especially the bassist!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Post about music they said (also, sweet, I found it)
(So, I found it, yay.)
Ok, maybe "they" was an overstatement, but one of you guys yesterday said I should post about music, so here it is.
This isn't your typical post about OMG I love such and such a band or such and such a singer, this is about a particular subject in music. The cover song. Pros, cons and the reason(s) to do it of cover songs include: attempting to be as close to the original as possible, (occasionally difficult, but nice when successful) trying to give your own spin on a song (can be good, can be bad) trying to get your name out there (cheap) and trying to fix a possible flaw you see in a song (noble, but probably futile). I'll give a rundown here and an example or two of each.
Attempting to mimic the original is probably the most often done sort of cover song and is probably also the most commonly failed variety. The problem of course with this sort of cover is that if you're trying to be the original song so badly why even bother? That's why we have THE ORIGINAL SONG. Shinedown's version of Simple Man is an excellent example of a colossal failure of a cover song attempting to be the original. The instrumentals aren't too bad, but they lack the third guitarist, so it'll never be perfect and the singer tries WAYYYY too hard. You guys aren't southern rock boys, don't try to be. As for some successes in this genre I give you Trivium's version of Master of puppets and Therion's version of Iron Maiden's Children of the Damned. Both songs stay true to the source without either overdoing it or being too bland. It's very hard to find a singer who can possibly do what Bruce Dickinson does, but Therion manages it. And as for Trivium, they've just got the timing and tone of Master of Puppets down to perfection.
The putting your own spin on a song style of cover is where you're going to find your worst covers without a doubt. No one is going to listen to a Zydeco Swing Disco version of Stairway to Heaven, but you can bet your ass someone will write (or possibly already has written) one. A good example of this type of song though, oddly enough, is Frank Zappa's Stairway to Heaven. I'm not a Led Zeppelin fan by any stretch, but I'll admit that Stairway is a decent song and Zappa turns it on its head while still making the song perfectly listenable and enjoyable. As Zappa is wont to do he doesn't so much sing the song as he talks it, but with his style and perfection on guitar it works well. He does something similar with his Purple Haze cover (going so far as to actually say "Excuse me while I kiss this guy") The fact that he even breaks out the brass section towards the end and actually does start to sing is pretty nice, too. Another good (in my opinion anyway, my nephew hated it) cover that strays from the original is the cover of Run to the Hills by Sign on the Kerrang compilation Maiden Heaven. The original song has a somewhat frantic pace to it as if the events are still happening and you can almost feel the panic in the natives' hearts as the song goes on. The version by Sign is played at about half tempo and the way it sounds it's almost as if they natives have already accepted their inevitable defeat and have already given up the fight, but they go on running just to attempt survival for however long they can. It's almost haunting.
Ahh yes, trying to get your name out there. The least noble of all the cover songs. Kelly Osbourne tried this tactic with Madonna's Papa Don't Preach. Why she felt she needed to is beyond me. She's already got THE metal god for a father and at the time it was released she was still on TV with The Osbournes. Maybe she knew more than I did though, because even with an already well known song as her first single and already mentioned advantages her music career went nowhere. A second example of this song is Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal cover which I didn't even know at the time was a Michael Jackson song. They may have ridden this song to their one (already) hit wonder status, but you could see from the way they made their video that they really did this song out of respect for MJ as a musician. For this I forgive them of the attempting to ride another artist to fame deal.
I don't really know why I even included the trying to fix a flaw in a song category. There's only one song I can thing of that would fit it and I don't even know if that was part of their original motivation or not. The song I am thinking of it The Kovenant's cover of Metallica's The Memory Remains. The Memory Remains was in my opinion a song that just didn't belong in the Load/Reload era because it was too good. I think Metallica knew this too, so they went and fucked it up by sticking in an old bag whining towards the end. It's like they were listening to it during final mix down and were like "WhoawhoaWHOA! This song's... good. We gotta do something about it. Ohh, I know, let's stick a moaning old bag in at the end. that'll ruin it. YEAH!" Then a few months later when they were shooting a video for it they ran into the same problem. They were like, "Hey, people might like this video! What should we do? I got it, we'll call up that old bag and stick her in there. And and AND... we'll give her a fucking parasol!" There's nothing quite as UNmetal as an old bag with a parasol. And those fuckers damn well knew it.
ANYway, about the song. The Kovenant take that whining old bag part and they replace it with what sounds like a chorus of female opera singers and it improves the overall song by leaps and bounds. They've also got a really cool synthy sound to their guitar distortion that I think helps bring the song up to date.
Ohh, I just realized I forgot a type of cover song. The Genre hop. Both Children of Bodom and Dweezil Zappa cover Britney Spears's Baby One More Time, both to hilarious effect. check em out. Oddly (and sadly) though you never seem to see the genre hop go in the other direction. Wouldn't you love to see Miley Cyrus cover Symphony of Destruction? I know I would. I mean, there's Richard Cheese's lounge versions of EVERYTHING, but that's really it.
Well, that covers (ha) my bit on cover songs, but I can't end this without mentioning a few more simply awesome cover songs:
Machine Head do the most amazing cover of Iron Maiden's Hallowed Be Thy Name.
Sepultura's Symptom of the Universe is pretty incredible as well.
Acid Bath have nice covers of Inna Gadda Da Vida and Lord of This World
Speaking of Lord of This World, Corrosion of Conformity do that song some justice.
Primus show the Charlie Daniels Band some love with a cool cover of Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you look around on YouTube or some such you might find their computer animated music video of it.
And if you like metal covers of Gary Numan songs look no further than Fear Factory's cover of Cars.
I've run out of desire to type about it and I feel this post is going on too long so tomorrow I'll post a little rant about cover bands.
Ok, maybe "they" was an overstatement, but one of you guys yesterday said I should post about music, so here it is.
This isn't your typical post about OMG I love such and such a band or such and such a singer, this is about a particular subject in music. The cover song. Pros, cons and the reason(s) to do it of cover songs include: attempting to be as close to the original as possible, (occasionally difficult, but nice when successful) trying to give your own spin on a song (can be good, can be bad) trying to get your name out there (cheap) and trying to fix a possible flaw you see in a song (noble, but probably futile). I'll give a rundown here and an example or two of each.
Attempting to mimic the original is probably the most often done sort of cover song and is probably also the most commonly failed variety. The problem of course with this sort of cover is that if you're trying to be the original song so badly why even bother? That's why we have THE ORIGINAL SONG. Shinedown's version of Simple Man is an excellent example of a colossal failure of a cover song attempting to be the original. The instrumentals aren't too bad, but they lack the third guitarist, so it'll never be perfect and the singer tries WAYYYY too hard. You guys aren't southern rock boys, don't try to be. As for some successes in this genre I give you Trivium's version of Master of puppets and Therion's version of Iron Maiden's Children of the Damned. Both songs stay true to the source without either overdoing it or being too bland. It's very hard to find a singer who can possibly do what Bruce Dickinson does, but Therion manages it. And as for Trivium, they've just got the timing and tone of Master of Puppets down to perfection.
The putting your own spin on a song style of cover is where you're going to find your worst covers without a doubt. No one is going to listen to a Zydeco Swing Disco version of Stairway to Heaven, but you can bet your ass someone will write (or possibly already has written) one. A good example of this type of song though, oddly enough, is Frank Zappa's Stairway to Heaven. I'm not a Led Zeppelin fan by any stretch, but I'll admit that Stairway is a decent song and Zappa turns it on its head while still making the song perfectly listenable and enjoyable. As Zappa is wont to do he doesn't so much sing the song as he talks it, but with his style and perfection on guitar it works well. He does something similar with his Purple Haze cover (going so far as to actually say "Excuse me while I kiss this guy") The fact that he even breaks out the brass section towards the end and actually does start to sing is pretty nice, too. Another good (in my opinion anyway, my nephew hated it) cover that strays from the original is the cover of Run to the Hills by Sign on the Kerrang compilation Maiden Heaven. The original song has a somewhat frantic pace to it as if the events are still happening and you can almost feel the panic in the natives' hearts as the song goes on. The version by Sign is played at about half tempo and the way it sounds it's almost as if they natives have already accepted their inevitable defeat and have already given up the fight, but they go on running just to attempt survival for however long they can. It's almost haunting.
Ahh yes, trying to get your name out there. The least noble of all the cover songs. Kelly Osbourne tried this tactic with Madonna's Papa Don't Preach. Why she felt she needed to is beyond me. She's already got THE metal god for a father and at the time it was released she was still on TV with The Osbournes. Maybe she knew more than I did though, because even with an already well known song as her first single and already mentioned advantages her music career went nowhere. A second example of this song is Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal cover which I didn't even know at the time was a Michael Jackson song. They may have ridden this song to their one (already) hit wonder status, but you could see from the way they made their video that they really did this song out of respect for MJ as a musician. For this I forgive them of the attempting to ride another artist to fame deal.
I don't really know why I even included the trying to fix a flaw in a song category. There's only one song I can thing of that would fit it and I don't even know if that was part of their original motivation or not. The song I am thinking of it The Kovenant's cover of Metallica's The Memory Remains. The Memory Remains was in my opinion a song that just didn't belong in the Load/Reload era because it was too good. I think Metallica knew this too, so they went and fucked it up by sticking in an old bag whining towards the end. It's like they were listening to it during final mix down and were like "WhoawhoaWHOA! This song's... good. We gotta do something about it. Ohh, I know, let's stick a moaning old bag in at the end. that'll ruin it. YEAH!" Then a few months later when they were shooting a video for it they ran into the same problem. They were like, "Hey, people might like this video! What should we do? I got it, we'll call up that old bag and stick her in there. And and AND... we'll give her a fucking parasol!" There's nothing quite as UNmetal as an old bag with a parasol. And those fuckers damn well knew it.
ANYway, about the song. The Kovenant take that whining old bag part and they replace it with what sounds like a chorus of female opera singers and it improves the overall song by leaps and bounds. They've also got a really cool synthy sound to their guitar distortion that I think helps bring the song up to date.
Ohh, I just realized I forgot a type of cover song. The Genre hop. Both Children of Bodom and Dweezil Zappa cover Britney Spears's Baby One More Time, both to hilarious effect. check em out. Oddly (and sadly) though you never seem to see the genre hop go in the other direction. Wouldn't you love to see Miley Cyrus cover Symphony of Destruction? I know I would. I mean, there's Richard Cheese's lounge versions of EVERYTHING, but that's really it.
Well, that covers (ha) my bit on cover songs, but I can't end this without mentioning a few more simply awesome cover songs:
Machine Head do the most amazing cover of Iron Maiden's Hallowed Be Thy Name.
Sepultura's Symptom of the Universe is pretty incredible as well.
Acid Bath have nice covers of Inna Gadda Da Vida and Lord of This World
Speaking of Lord of This World, Corrosion of Conformity do that song some justice.
Primus show the Charlie Daniels Band some love with a cool cover of Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you look around on YouTube or some such you might find their computer animated music video of it.
And if you like metal covers of Gary Numan songs look no further than Fear Factory's cover of Cars.
I've run out of desire to type about it and I feel this post is going on too long so tomorrow I'll post a little rant about cover bands.
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