Death Magnetic and Black Ice

Arguably the two biggest let downs of the year. Especially Death Magnetic there was so much hype about this album and the band themselves made such a fuss about going to back to basics and forgetting about the previous twenty years. It turned out to be all bullshit. Better than St.Anger definitely but that’s not saying much. The songs were longer, heavier and the solo’s were back but all in all it was a let down. It’s not that the album is bad it’s fine to get a song from every so often on shuffle but to sit down and listen to it requires great patience in my experience. It’s 74 minutes and only has 10 songs. That’s crazy having an average song of 7 minutes, especially when the lyrics aren’t really saying anything. For songs of that length they should be telling a story (see nearly all long Iron Maiden songs). But these songs just don’t. To me they come across as being just business as usual. For an album that was in production for 3+ years. It’s a let down, especially The Unforgiven III. The Unforgiven I and II are my favourite Metallica songs but the third part just plain sucks.

So in case you haven’t guessed from the above in my opinion Death Magnetic was a huge let down. All the critics and magazines that hailed it as Metallica back on form, well that’s their opinion but I’m not alone in thinking it was a big let down. Metallica are never going to be able to reproduce Master of Puppets or The Black Album, they don’t need to because they have that fan base that will buy whatever they put out and pay to go to their concerts and buy the merchandise.

AC DC’s Black Ice I wasn’t expecting anything from it to be honest mainly because AC DC aren’t a band that’s about musical innovation or producing great studio albums. They were a fun band whose live show was always the reason that they achieved the success that they did. Black Ice starts off great with Rock N Roll Train then quickly descends into mediocrity. To me the album sounds like an excuse for a worldwide tour and maybe a final pay day. Jim Breuer Describes AC DC perfectly in the clip below.


Jim Breuer >>

Published in: on January 22, 2009 at 5:18 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

Affliction Clothing

Someone asked me a while ago why I thought this was such a cool brand. It is very expensive and I can’t say one way or the other about the quality of their products. I mean it is more $70+ for a t-shirt and $700 for a leather jacket which seem to be at best an acquired taste. And to be honest I was at a loss for words and arguments as to why this brand was cool and worth the money.

But then I started thinking about it why I think this brand is so cool and I have an answer. You can tell a football fan by the clothes they wear and the team by their jersey. You can tell what sports or stereotype people fit into by the clothes they wear. That is why affliction clothing is cool to me. It’s the equivalent to a biker wearing his colours. Affliction are like rock musics and mma’s jerseys. Both rock music and mma are about attitude and excess. That’s why the clothes have to be expensive, when you buy them you have to feel you are buying a glimpse into the rock/mma lifestyle and you can’t do that in a shirt that costs $20 at WalMart. Just look at the promo vid for them

It’s a whos who of rockstars, mma stars and extreme sports stars. Affliction is building an
image as an edgy extreme brand that is running on attitude and excess and people seem to be buying in to it. Otherwise they’d have gone bust by now.

Published in: on October 23, 2008 at 10:23 am Comments (4)
Tags: , , ,

Reflections of an Idle Mind

An idle mind is a terrible thing with no distractions the strangest things come to mind. Like
for example money. Is it really as important as the majority of people would have you
think? Should the desire to have more money or a bigger car be the sole purpose of your
life?
Recently while walking somewhere I started to think about that and the answer I came up
with was no it isn’t. What really makes life fun and worth living is the people that you
spend it with and the experiences that you have over the course of your lifetime. For
anyone that doubts me on this I have a simple question to ask you, If all you had was
money, no friends and only had conversations with work colleagues at breaks and
lunches? Would you honestly be happy? Take the reverse you have very little money but a
lot of friends and some great experiences to talk about? Which would you rather be?
Someone who has lived life and ended up with great friends and memories or an old miser
with nothing but your money. I know which I’d rather be.
I think there is a point in everyone’s life where they realise what path they would have
prefered to have taken. In the “Road not Taken” Robert Frost wrote about meeting a
crossroads in a wood. One path was well traveled and the other less so and somewhat
overgrown. The poem ends with the lines

“I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

The relevancy of these lines to what was said above is that at some point in your life you
will meet a “crossroads”. Instead of taking the well traveled path. Spare a second thought
as to where the less traveled one may lead you, because depending on your age and life
stage you may have been down the well traveled one already.

Published in: on October 22, 2008 at 10:22 pm Comments (3)
Tags: , , ,

Something Wrong here?

Girl and Gun

Is there something wrong there……I find the T-shirt not disturbing but a bit odd .

Published in: on October 4, 2008 at 11:04 pm Leave a Comment

Summer Movies

In an earlier post I mentioned some of the movies I was looking forward to seeing over the summer and seeing as summer is nearly over, I’m going to give brief reviews of some of the movies I’ve seen. (These are in no particular order)

Iron Man
Loved the film it had a heavy metal sound track and Robert Downey Junior was great as the self centered and egotistical Tony Stark. The film had attitude and manged to tumble on without loads of action scenes and big explosions. One of the things that has annoyed me about this is the teasing of an avengers movie at the end with Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. The Avengers movie teaser was after the credits in Iron Man and right before the credits in Hulk.

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
It was very good I enjoyed the play on how he has gotten older. And the general goofiness that it brought about. The end of it was a little weird though. But it was enjoyable nonetheless. I’d recommend it for a Friday/Saturday night rental. Also a big plus for me was the featuring of the Hat again :P

Kung Fu Panda
For me this was the movie of the summer. It had something for all ages, the older crowd could appreciate Jack Blacks voice and character in the film and the younger crowd. I really enjoyed the film it was hilarious and Jack Blacks character and personality really came through in Po.

The Dark Knight
Definitely lived up to the hype. Heath Ledger does deliver an oscar worthy performance. Although it was only after his death that people started talking about him getting an oscar for his performance. (To my knowledge anyway)The film is long at two and a half hours and at times it feels very long especially after Maggie Gyllenhaal dies. But it is worth going too and is a great action movie. I could ramble on about all sorts of other shit but I couldn’t be arsed to be honest)

Published in: on August 27, 2008 at 5:57 pm Leave a Comment

Metallica Marlay Park 20 August 2008

It’s Wednesday and I’m going over in my head what sort of set list Metallica are going to do and if Tenacious D are actually going to be any good. My first problem was that the weather was crap, with their being frequent heavy showers and it was just generally a shitty day. But the weather stayed fine so all was right with the world.
Sweet Savage were first on and to be honest I was in the line for most of their set, but they weren’t bad one thing that was cool was that Hetfield came out and sang with them. It was pretty cool and the gave Sweet Savage the biggest cheer. One thing that did really annoy me about Sweet Savage was that they kept asking the crowd were they looking forward to seeing Metallica. I was just left thinking no i came here to see you bunch of wannabe’s.
Tenacious D were on about 7. They were very very good, in fact I’d say that they verged on near brilliance. In terms of it being a great concert it was very entertaining. Completely different then what was to come from Metallica. It was a great stage show and very comedic with Jack Black being in overdrive in terms of his character. There were dozens and dozens of classic comedic moments including an appearance by Satan and The Metal. But my favourite part was when they performed Master Exploder. It was completely obvious that they were miming but it didn’t matter. It was just a great performance and really charged the atmosphere and got the crowd in the mood for the Mighty Metallica.
Metallica had their usual blend of energy and showmanship. They were fantastic and played a great selection from their previous albums. I did notice however and mention of the disaster that was St.Anger was thankfully absent. It even included a sample from their forth coming album Death Magnetic. The song Cyanide is very good and has some very heavy bass and drums if it is the exact same on the album as it was live.
One gripe I have is people with cameras at concerts. I paid the money to see the band live on stage, not through the viewfinder of your camera.
Anyway back to the gig Metallica are one of the best live bands around and Hetfield is one of the greatest front men of all time. All great rock bands have a great rapport with the audience. It’s the mark of a band that has worked hard to get where they are that they talk to and engage the audience. How well n audience engages with the audience is a sign of them completing their apprenticeship in the back of a transit setting up their own gear and playing to half filled clubs that aren’t bothered about them. It’s things like acknowledging the crowd singing along or just the fact that they paid to see them.
Currently there are four bands that I’ve seen that do this to a great extent and really make the crowd feel appreciated (Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne). Of these it’s honestly a coin toss between Metallica and Iron Maiden for who has the best crowd interaction.

The Ecstasy Of Gold
Creeping Death
For whom the bell tolls
Ride the Lightning
The memory remains
Sanitarium
Cyanide
…And justice for all
The four horsemen
Fade to black
Master of puppets
Whiskey in the jar
Nothing else matters
Sad but true
One
Enter sandman
————-
Last caress
So what
Seek and destroy

For those interested the gig is available for download at livemetallica.com for $10

Published in: on August 24, 2008 at 6:20 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , , ,

I’ve Moved

I’ve moved to Here

Published in: on August 19, 2008 at 11:14 am Leave a Comment

Eleventh Hour

The wind rustled through the trees as the storm passed through the empty city streets. The majortiy of the city dwellers had already sought the comfort and warmth of their beds. But not yet there was work to do, a final task to complete. On through the streets, everyone and everything looking the same. All the buildings, dark, grim souless apratment blocks. The few who ventured out whores and druggies mostly, but some just had no place to go, or they’d rather face the storm then what was waiting for them at home. 

She was different though, he was unique in this motley assortment of the dregs of humanity. She walked with a purpose, with dignity, there was somewhere she had to be, something she had to do. The people on the street sensed that as well they moved out her way. As if her purpose gave her an aura of protection and authority over these people. To the casual observer this could have been viewed as respect, but I recongised it for what it was……Fear. That aura of protection was in the way she moved, she didn’t walk. She glided, loped like a hunter stalking it’s prey. She moved like she had tamed violence and destruction and kept them in her pocket. 

In truth that was true, she was an assassin one of the best. She had killed more than five hundred people in her career. But tonight was her most important kill. Tonight she was not being paid, there was no clean up team to make sure that she could get away clean and move onto the next job. This was personal, the old adage goes “Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned”. They were right, a man caught cheating,  man about to lose more than his life.

This kill will be the easiest she won’t even use a gun. Her bare hands are enough, maybe a knife if she feels like making him feel some real pain. She enters the apartment through the living  room window, using the fire escape. He sees her and starts to run, she’s quicker and breaks his leg. I sit back to watch her go to work on the guy. After an hour the guy finally dies and I need to get started. “PUFF PUFF” . She never heard not saw the bullets coming, one took her in the left shoulder the second hit a second later and took her head off. 

Why? you might ask. Why did I kill her? The old adage is true about a woman scorned but that is nothing compared to a mans quest for revenge. That woman has killed over five hundred people, but the last three she killed were a mistake. The fourth she should have made sure he was dead.

Published in: on August 5, 2008 at 9:55 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

The Birth of Rock & Roll

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congratulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were kids, there’s now a distance between them. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to relent and apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier between the two groups. The bluesman comes back after blowing the roof off the venue. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman. A new sound is being formed.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and tall hell breaks loose, hammering the 3 musical styles together. The results will shake the world for decades. The backstage door opens, smoke pours out. A small crowd of roadies and technicians has gathered around the smoking door. The silhouette in the doorway is tall, with hair that resembles a lions mane. The silhouette moves with an arrogance and swagger never seen before towards the stage door. The lights go down, the crowd grows silent,

Then the music starts like a clap of thunder, the stage lights come up like lightning and the crowd is awestruck. Never before have they heard anything like this. The building shakes and the crowd sways in time with the music. As the silhouette walks off stage, an awe struck technician asks

“Who are you?”

The silhouette responds

“You may thing I’m strange, but I ain’t never gonna change. I’m about to become millions of peoples religion and law. But no one will be able to kill me. I’m Rock & Roll and I’m here to stay”

Published in: on July 29, 2008 at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

The Jazzman

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congradulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were there’s now a distance between the. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier. The bluesman comes back after having a set that literally brought the house down. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and they start a ruckus, hammering the 3 musical styles together. When the door opens again the world will never be the same again.

Out of the door comes a musical form never heard before,

Out of the room comes the musical juggernaut that is Rock Music

Published in: on at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , ,
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »