Sun 26 Oct – Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Thrice, The Gaslight Anthem
Due to sitting home alone rather than going to a show last night, I got pissed, and removed Tim and his bandmates from my library. Along with In Flames. I really only wanted to remove the scourge of A Sense of Purpose, but apparently it's all or nuthin.
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a fit of pique
27 Oct 2008, 18:47
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Too many shows for full reviews
20 Oct 2008, 21:06
Buckshot review at archGFX.
upshot:
Avoid Monarch, although Opeth always rules. Red 7 always rules too, because it's always 2 shows, and Maker Faire is hilarious and awesome, much like Mucca Pazza.
Thu 16 Oct – Opeth, Baroness, High on Fire at Monarch
Fri 17 Oct – Wolves in the Throne Room and Nachtmystium at Red 7, with a side of Bridge And Tunnel
Sun 19 Oct – Mucca Pazza @ Maker Faire -
The glue that holds my musical taste together
15 Oct 2008, 21:39
Ok, this is really weird. I haven't really felt like there was anything gluing my musical taste together. I thought I was just kind of floating aimlessly between disconnected ideas.
Apparently, I was wrong. Pink Floyd, or more specifically, Syd Barrett is the glue that holds it all together. I found this out via dredg.com, where they noted that they'd just contributed a cover to Like Black Holes In The Sky: The Tribute To Syd Barrett. Looked it up on amazon, and here's what I see:
* Kylesa, who I just saw open for Pinback a couple weeks ago
* Intronaut, who I saw in August, and just recently picked up their album
* Stinking Lizaveta, who opened for Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's album release party last year
* Jarboe, who's been involved with Jesu and Neurosis of late.
* Yakuza, chicago sax metal band that I first tweaked to at a bar near my first apartment
* dredg, obviously, who's been my favorite band for the better part of this decade, who I'm seeing on tuesday
This shouldn't be a huge surprise, my dad raised me on Floyd, albeit from Wish You Were Here to Roger Waters' departure. Nonetheless, it's a bit disconcerting to see so many unrelated bands that I've been impressed by this year, on the same tribute album, completely out of the blue. -
Friends...
14 Oct 2008, 21:25
amusing that:
cupcakepants is still highest - something to be said for affecting each others' tastes
blueprintds, the user for my office, which pulls from the music left on my old hard drive, is outpaced by a couple random internet friends, i'm not even sure how i know.
there's a pretty damn even split between metal friends, folk/indie friends, and emo/punk friends. my trending towards metal hasn't completely taken over my tastes. -
Obligatory ACL Post
29 Sep 2008, 14:39
I say obligatory, because I've been re-reading my old festival review posts (Intonation ('05), Lollapalooza ('05), Pitchfork ('07)) to figure out if it's always been this much work to get our "money's worth" out of a festival. My conclusion is that ACL was, in fact, a mistake. Next year we'll be doing afterparties only.
Friday
Mates of State where dependably enjoyable. It's funny to see a band like them on a festival stage. They fit better in bowling alleys and tiny pubs. On a big stage, they look lonely, too far apart from each other. It's also odd to see them with other people (strings section) on stage.
We left after about 2/3 of the set, to go see Jenny Lewis at theWaMuJP Morgan/Chase stage. Unfortunately, the stage had an awkward roof and bleachers, so that if you weren't queued up early, you couldn't see or hear her. That was a lot of my issue with the fest, that for every set you had to try to beat the crowd there, or risk completely missing out (unlike Lolla, where you could at least hear/see monitors from a great distance).
Saturday
I got there early for Fleet Foxes, since they sold out last time they were in town. It was a great set for early in the morning (okay, noon-ish), very chilled and comfortable (albeit hot). By the end of the set, though, they had to compete with the leaking sound from other stages. My other main gripe with ACL is that there's much poorer coordination between the stages, so if you're not really close to the stage you want to be hearing, you're going to get a mash of sound.
cupcakepants and hhuynh512 didn't get there early enough to catch the show, so it wasn't quite as much fun by myself. Attempting to meet up with people for The Fratellis was also fail, so I gave up for the evening, since I was going to see Conor Oberst at the afterparty on sunday. After a long walk home, I was sunburnt (hah) and exhausted.
Sunday
Stars were our first set, although not as relaxing as fleet foxes. They're more of a CD band than I live band, I guess. Rather than trying to deal with fighting through the crowds to see anyone else, we stayed in place for Okkervil River (meh) and Tegan and Sara. Sara actually apologized for passing out during the Lollapalooza we saw them at, which was hilarious. Darkness had fallen before they came on, so there were no such difficulties this time.
In the end, even with only getting up for beer/food/bathroom, we were still to tired to make it to Conor's afterparty. -
Metal Vs. Indie
21 Sep 2008, 21:30
Sat 20 Sep – Pinback, Kylesa
An other show, another blaaagh post
Kylesa and Pinback were both slow burners, bur good in the end. Also with quick praise for Lazarus Bird and Prehistoricisms, easily the two best sludge albums of the year. -
Silly generators
17 Sep 2008, 22:40
It kinda weirds me out that newer album obsessions always muscle out older ones. (clayman, though old, was really only an obsession after the letdown that was ASOP)
sunburntkamel's top albums
1. Mogwai - Mr. Beast (283)
2. Circa Survive - On Letting Go (257) 
3. 65daysofstatic - One Time for All Time (256) 
4. Rush - Snakes & Arrows (224) 
5. The Forms - The Forms (200) 
6. Nahemah - The Second Philosophy (195) 
7. In Flames - Clayman (182) 
8. In Flames - A Sense of Purpose (168) 
9. Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos (161) 
10. dredg - Waterborne (159) 
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Why? were fun as always
9 Sep 2008, 05:01
Mon 8 Sep – Why?, Mount Eerie
I've never really been into The Microphones/Mount Erie, but after Phil's latest quote,
"kind of like Black Metal but made of natural materials."
in a Pitchfork Interview, I kinda needed to be really sure that I don't like his stuff. The quote is bullshit to begin with, black metal is the very definition of natural materials and paganism. But seeing Phil onstage BY HIMSELF, freaking out to music that no one else could here since he didn't BRING THE REST OF THE BAND, I realized that he's just completely full of shit. -
oops
7 Sep 2008, 14:58
Sat 6 Sep – OM, Mudhoney, The Crackpipes
Got too drunk playing minigolf beforehand, and failed to make it to the show. That, and one of my fellow golfers told me that her friends going to see Mudhoney were excited about the chocolate pudding being thrown during "Shit Sex". I'd completely forgotten about that, I knew there was something that made everyone in high school think they were awesome, but I couldn't trigger that memory. So me and my nice new Intronaut shirt stayed clean. -
memelicious
2 Sep 2008, 23:08
stolen from OneRodeToAsaBay, who i know is stalking me from my metal_community application, which has tons of further wanky posting by yours truly.
1. What is your favorite metal genre?
If I tag something as psych metal or psychadelic, that means I'm really digging it at the moment. most of the time it's progressive metal, because I get bored easily.
2. Do you like Lars Ulrich?
His biggest gift to the world was kicking Dave Mustaine out of Metallica. Everything else he's done has been to the detriment of music.
3. Last album you bought/downloaded?
I downloaded Amon Amarth and Enslaved's newest, and they're both causing me fits of childlike glee. The last album I bought was Agalloch - Demonstration Archive 1996-1998, which is nice, but it's no Ashes Against The Grain
4. <-- doesn't exist.
5. Last gig you attended?
IntrOnaut/Mouth of the Architect. IntrOnaut was swell
6. Last gig you missed?
Coheed and Russian Circles. Stupid tire.
7. Favorite American Band?
dredg
8. Favorite Norwegian Band?
Ulver (wow, not a lot of norwegian bands in my favorites. Swedes FTW)
9. Age you started listening to metal?
10? depends how glam your definition of metal is willing to be. I know by 12 I was listening to Vengeance Rising and Mortification.
10. First CD you bought?
oh god. Slaughter (not the good one) - Stick It to Ya. I'm pretty sure my first cassette was better, but I haven't the slightest clue what that was.
11. Favourite metal filmclip?
Metal... films?
I'm going to see Heavy Metal in Baghdad on thursday. Maybe that'll be it.
12. Favourite metal guy/girl?
Mikael Atkerfeldt is a) funny as hell b) brilliant c) a face (and nose hair) only a mother could love.
13. Do you know how to growl like Corpsegrinder?
Nope, never tried.
14. Do you own any metal tshirts?
dozens. I've retired plenty as well.
15. Are Vinyls releases better than CD ones?
Yes. Although I don't have a record player. I usually settle for DVD-audio
16. Name your 3 Favourite Death metal bands.
Opeth, old In Flames, Children of Bodom
17. Name your 3 Favourite Black metal bands.
Nachtmystium, Agalloch, Enslaved
18. Name your 3 Favourite Thrash metal bands.
I haven't really listened to recent thrash bands.
Anthrax, Megadeth, and Metallica pretty much do it for me.
19. Do you believe in Satan?
I don't believe in anything
20. Are Metallica Sell outs?
I don't believe in selling out, either.
21. Do you think Darkthrone sold out when they released a single?
Aren't you listening?
22. Name one song with SATAN in the title?
every time I see the word, or even the word Seitan, I can't help but think of that stupid Orbital/Kirk Hammett song from the Spawn Soundtrack
23. Do your parents like metal?
God yes, my dad raised me on Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.
24. Is MySpace intensely gay?
last I checked, they had primarily female-objectifying ads.
25. Best band you've seen live?
dredg. it's entirely different to hear something that dense and layered on an album, than to see it performed by 4 men, 10 feet away from me (in a bowling alley, no less)
26. Best metal band in your hometown?
We'll call my hometown "chicago" for this purpose, since I don't think Glendale Heights has produced any music, let alone metal. right now, I'd toss it up between Nacthmystium and Plague Bringer
27. Favourite deceased metaller?
28. Do keyboards belong in metal?
very carefully. Opeth, Nahemah, Burst, and Breach do it right (in a Deep Purple kind of a way, but COB seems to be the only band to embrace their inherent cheesiness if they don't sound like a Moog.
29. Does the idea of wearing medieval armour and fighting battles arouse you?
I'll try anything twice, but I wouldn't be the one asking for it.
30. Injuries you've suffered in the mosh?
I wouldn't say I've been injured. I've had to take Ibuprofen for neck pain the day after a show, though
31. Best Australian metal band?
wow, i don't think i know any. wait...
no. fuck no. Mortification is from there. I think that continent should be banned from metal.
32. What's better, buying a full length or buying an EP?
Depends on what it is.
33. Do you visit Metal-Archives frequently?
I generally prefer last.fm's band pages, but i should visit MA/EM more often.
34. Did you think it ruled when Varg (Burzum) killed Euronymous?
Are you fucking sick in the head?
35. Would you kill Dani Filth if given the chance?
Seriously. I think you need help.
36. Do you like short fast songs or long epic songs?
Epic. or just long.
37. Is Lemmy God?
We are all gods. Lemme is a greater god, but nobody gets the capital 'G'.
38. Do you support church burnings?
No. Seriously.
39. Do you really care about metal these days?
Yes, as much/more than ever
40. Who's better, Philip Anselmo or Tom Araya?
Tom Araya, hands down.
