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Blog - August 2005 |
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This page stores my blog entries from August 2005. The entries are dated August 8, August 23, and August 31.
Censorship at Tower? / Concert Review: TV, Razorblade Monalisa, Nilshiphter / Drumming Fire Re-Lit / Real-Life "Operation" Monday, August 8, 2005 Although I don't have nearly the free time I did when in high school, I still find the time to spend a little "quality time" in CD shops. Back then, I think I knew around 8 to 11 different places where I could find CDs. Most of these places were small CD shops tucked in little corners. Most of them are gone now. Outside of Tower, we have Best Buy, Esoteric Records, the Beat, Circuit City, Dynasty Music, Armadillo Records, and maybe one or two smaller places liks Pugz. I won't count Virgin, since it's packing up shop and running home. My fond memories of high school CD shopping included a small shop called Hot Rocks. I went to it a few times, saddened to see it gone on a chance visit in the area a couple of years ago. I liked that store because of the cool and friendly owner, and they had every CD available for listening. It was just like Armadillo Records, but I wouldn't have to travel some 20 miles to get to it. I went to a couple of Tower locations recently. One of the locations had the old listening stations with store-picked albums available for listening. Frequently, I would be annoyed with the selection, wondering why a release I felt was more deserving (though not necessarily a better album) or of greater interest to me wasn't on there. On occasion, though, they would include a complete unknown band (to me) that would pique my interest (my eventual interest in Bolt Thrower occurred from listening to "...For Victory" on a Tower CD station). A second location utilized what could end up being the best answer to that dilemma: a station that scans CDs and brings them up for listening. I don't remember Tower's set up allowing full tracks to be heard, but at least they gave us sound clips. With some albums, the system gave a general listenership warning as to content, and I thought that this was a good and fair way to handle such a difficult realm. I took the opportunity to listen to a few albums, checking out different tracks and seeing what I recognized from bands I have heard about but knew nothing from them. Then, I saw that they had Slayer's "Haunting the Chapel" E.P., which includes a version of "Aggressive Perfector". Once upon a time, I had a fast version of "Aggressive Perfector" as an MP3, but, at the time, it was not available on anything (it's now on the re-release of "Reign in Blood"). I wanted this track, but I knew a version was on this E.P. So, I scanned the E.P. to see if I could tell if it really was a slower version. It scanned correctly, but it would not let me get to that track. This seemed odd to me. So, on a whim, I found a copy of "South of Heaven", wanting to hear a bit of their cover of Judas Priest's "Dissident Aggressor". The listening station would only let me listen to tracks 1, 3, and 7. Neither of those tracks were the one I wanted, and there was no way to bypass it. Leaving Tower, I felt immensely annoyed and a little uncertain. Had they prevented those tracks from being playable as some sort of censorship? Did they leave them off due to storage space conservation, leaving more room for new releases? Or was there some sort of other answer? With the listener disclaimer played before having a chance to listen to the CD, leaving the tracks off as censorship seemed completely unnecessary. It would be strange, but I wouldn't necessarily label it as censorship. The storage issue really shouldn't be a problem, since hard disk space is very cheap these days. It's still possible, though, that they felt that including too many tracks from a not-very-heralded album wouldn't make much sense. Frankly, if you truly loved Slayer, you probably wouldn't need to hear much to get that album. Despite how I rationalize Tower's treatment of that Slayer album, the issue of censorship sits in my brain. I should be happy that I could go into a store and actually see whatever albums I want. I should be happy that I can bound around and listen to bands like Slayer, shout "Slayer" at non-metal shows, and wear Slayer gear whenever I want. I should be ecstatic that I didn't end up in the situation of the West Memphis Three boys in Arkansas. By staying in liberated areas and staying around open-minded individuals, I can be safe, free, and perfectly happy to pursue what I want. Despite all the "could-be"s, I'm happy. Last Friday, I did something I hadn't done in two or three years: I went to a concert featuring all local or small bands. This wasn't just any old concert but a concert featuring an old high school friend as the frontman for the band Razorblade Monalisa. The band found themselves sandwiched between the acts TV and Nilshiphter. They show didn't start until almost 10pm, but it was worth the wait and proved to be memorable. Before I get into any sort of review, I should mention that an industrial/goth-type show is a bit out of my league of metal and punk. I'm used to a lot of energy and action. To me, the music rolls the energy through the individual, flinging them about in tune and meter to the music. I tend to feed off this energy. And now, back to the review... TV started off the set. I wish I could say something about their music. TV consisted of a three-piece band with a vocalist/guitarist, a keyboardist and programmer, and a drummer. They keyboardist dressed in an ode to Al Jourgensen, sporting a cowboy hat and fatigue shorts. The drummer stood up above his two drums and a pair of cymbals. His floor tom was the usual tom, but his snare was electric. They seemed to play well with some good beats, but, easily, all my attention focused on, aptly put, the TV screen. Through their equipment, they displayed a continuous feed of various video clips. This video feed showed people getting ganged up on and beaten, burned, and shot. One feed showed a person getting shot in the face and focusing in on his head, seeing that he was still alive. Another shot ran through him before switching to a different video segment. Other elements included planes being shot down, people burning in a burning soccer stadium, and kangaroos being hunted and slaughtered. I might be interested in seeing this band again, given that I only remember a few good beats and would enjoy hearing them without the video, which proved to be more of a distraction than an accompaniment and garnish. In between bands, we discussed the video. To some of us, there seemed to be no point to having such a video feed. With further discussion, one possibility would be to exhibit the atrocities and extremes of TV and what has been shown in our or other countries. It's entirely possible that their purpose was to just shock and disgust. Frankly, today's television can have that effect on people as-is. Just before Razorblade Monalisa started playing, Bino tried to get the crowd warmed up. Given that I have been to this particular bar before and know that the owner is a serious metalhead and drummer for a now-dead band, I had to do my yell-out to Slayer. That got some laughs and enjoyment, with cries for "Winger" and "Freebird" following from other people in the bar. Once the crowd got settled down, the set began. Razorblade Monalisa laid down a solid set. Bino's energy and enthusiasm behind the mike provided great entertainment and motivation to follow his lead in a sort of industrial pogo follow-the-leader (or a "bang-against-the-leader"?). The desire to dance, mosh, or just run around in manic excitement gripped me at times, but my lack of understanding of what would be kosher in this subculture left me standing still and brooding with the lyrics. Bino's vocals, alongside Jules' and Josh's guitarwork and synth drumming, worked wonderfully, with the former's vocals evoking the emotions of Robert Smith and Jello Biafra as appropriate. The crowd warmed greatly to the group, and, hopefully, the more familiar I become with their style and music, the more of a fan I'll become. The last band to play this night would be Nilshiphter. A two-piece band, Nilshiphter featured one person on synthesizers with various samples and one person on another set of keyboards and a guitar. Through their set, I had the hardest time understanding or, at times, even detecting their vocals. I'm not sure if they just had the echo or amplification too high or if their synthesizers were too loud in the mix. I also had a hard time figuring out their mix and style. It seemed to come together for me by their last full song, which kicked things into a floor-stomping romp through the electric atmosphere. Unfortunately, in the middle of their next song, the band called it quits. I guess they had some technical problems or something, and it didn't help that about 30% of the original, small crowd remained (one member who decided to yell at them, proclaiming that they suck). Maybe a future show will prove to be a better experience for them. Although I found myself in quite the different league and crowd than normal, I rather enjoyed the evening. All bands put out rather nice sets. Even Pam enjoyed some of it to some degree or another. ***** With an old high school friend in his own band, I find myself suddenly invigorated to jump back on the drums. The only problems are that I haven't had a lesson since maybe 5th grade and have barely played at all in the last 20 years. So, with my old 20+ year-old snare drum and not-very-complete bass drum, I'm highly considering getting some lessons and, most definitely, resuscitating my drum hardware. I have no idea how much lessons cost or how long it'd take before I'd be competent, but I feel I'm at a point in my life when I have the patience to work through this and finally achieve what I probably always wanted to achieve. ***** When I was younger, my parents gave me the game "Operation." As you may know, the goal of Operation is to remove the small plastic body parts from small crevices in the patient's body. You must do this without touching either metal side of the orifice with the metal tweezers, or you will receive a light jolt and buzz. I think I played this a few times on my own, but the threat of being buzzed and zapped by the game scared me too much to want to play it ever again. This past weekend, I fixed some breakfast for myself. I had some leftover sausage, some cantaloupe, and some toast. I wanted four pieces (to also finish up an old loaf of bread), but the heels stuck themselves in the toaster after popping up. Naturally, I unplugged the toaster and used a fork to try to carefully lift the toast out without hitting the metal sides. In a moment of clarity (?), I felt like I was playing a game of real-life "Operation." Fortunately, I had no buzzes or zaps.
West Nile Virus spraying / Education Reform: more thoughts / Revving up the RPMs for Pam's Dad's new Job / Now Reading: My Life Among the Serial Killers Tuesday, August 23, 2005
I've heard numerous things concerning the spraying. Many people around here fear it, warning their loved ones to stay inside during the spraying times (usually from 8pm to midnight). Allegedly, people in the east think we're being silly, proclaiming that their areas get sprayed once a week (or something rather frequently). The spraying sessions got held up numerous times, being postponed for over a week for the second and third sprayings. Apparently, they postponed it whenever the winds reached 10mph or faster. With lots of open plains in the south area, the winds don't have much of anything to stop them. They finally finished spraying a day or two ago. I feel rather irresponsible for myself. Actually, I should say that I feel rather uneducated. I really don't know much of anything about the spraying or what the particular compounds contain. All of this I will have to research when things get a little less hectic for me. ***** Speaking of education, I realized that, before I could really attempt to create a reformed school system, I would have to analyze the merits of the current system in order to identify its shortfalls. One cannot reasonably cover all of this in such a short realm, so I'll try to narrow it down into small pieces. Obviously, any system will have its strengths, so, maybe I should start with that. I think the schools have it right with the sectioning of subjects. English, mathematics, social studies/history, science, and the other subjects all have their importances towards shaping the individual into someone fit for the world. English works on one's reading comprehension, leading towards finding commonalities between authors in a similar era or in studying how that author's time shaped his writing. Science and mathematics allow a student to discover things about the physical world in its natural or, in the case of man-made creations, unnatural states. Social studies and history allow a person to study people: how they think, operate, and differ from others in different parts of the world. I'm sure they all do much more than that. A reformed school would have to retain some of those aspects. Given that we seem to need high school to, once again, prepare students for the real world, we need to make these subjects relevant to the students. Better yet, we need to make these subjects relevant to what they would be doing in a work environment. English could translate to understanding proposals, writing letters to other companies, or speaking clearly. Science and mathematics could be translated towards understanding the physics involved in construction or, even simpler, making change. I know that there's a push for teachers to make the subjects relevant to the students with concrete and interesting examples, but these won't do much good if they do not reflect real life. An option exists for there to be two "tracks" of students: those interested in going off to college/university, and those wanting to graduate from high school and get working in the real world. Having this kind of segregation proves to be too restrictive. If students change their minds, they need to have the flexibility to do what they may want. ***** The burning rubber wafts through your nostrils as you bank around the following curve. You thrust your foot against the accelerator, realizing that it's already against the floor. That adrenaline rush pushes you to swing faster around the next corner. Pam's dad invited a bunch of us along to race go-carts at a place called Race Place Motorsports. I love computer racing games, so this sounded like it'd be a blast. Once we got our head sock (a knit thing that we wore over our heads and under our helmets) and racing suit, we headed into the training room to watch a 5-minute video about their rules and racing regulations. From there, we moved to the track, picking out a helmet that'll fit snugly (the plastic visor lifts up, allowing one to then put on glasses) and be assigned a car. After about a lap, they waved the green flag. It took me a while to really get a feel of the car, the positioning of my feet for the brake and accelerator, and for how fast I could go around the curves without losing speed by skidding. I didn't cause any accidents, and I got t-boned once. After our ten minutes, we sprinted out of our racing garb and ran to the print-outs on the table outside. I finished sixth out of ten, but it wasn't scored like I thought it'd be. We weren't scored on our actual place in the race but by our fastest lap. Still, I found myself in a rather nice spot in the race. There will be other times for better scores. Now that we all have memberships there, we can go race at any time. We'll see when we go next and how I do. ***** Now Reading: My Life Among the Serial Killers by Helen Morrison, M.D. Pam's dad tried reading this, only to get to the middle-end and having to stop. Ever since I was in middle school, I had a fascination with stories and biographies on notorious serial killers and other unusual murders. I think I found it fascinating to see and hear about these people and how they viewed the world. The fact that they were so strikingly different from "normal" people made me want to learn more about what they had done and why. I'm loving the book so far. She covers her talks with John Wayne Gacy along with many other serial killers. Her challenges and freaky situations truly illustrate how, now matter how careful you are, these people could get you if they know who you are.
Review: Dropkick Murphy's "The Warrior's Code" / An Extreme Morning Experience Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Like "Irish" Micky Ward's vicious punch delivered on the cover, DKM delivers a serious blow with the first track, "Your Spirit's Alive." With the following song as the title track, a song about Ward himself, the Murphys' uppercut bridges the flow of the album rather nicely. The songs "The Walking Dead", about rehashed song topics, and "W.S.C." (for "Wicked Sensitive Crew"), about the preference of being soft if some lame people in society are tough, provide notes of sarcasm and criticism. The real gems appear on three tracks: "Captain Kelly's Kitchen", "The Green Fields of France", and "Last Letter Home". "Captain Kelly's Kitchen" is a song about the funny misfortunes befalling a young lad caught fooling around with a deceiving woman. "The Green Fields of France" (a cover of a song entitled, "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle) presents the monologue of a visitor to the WWI gravesites in France, asking a dead 19-year-old questions about the great War to End All Wars. The combined emotions of dismay and sorrow expressed in this song balances to create a powerful song that is both anti-war but sensitive to the people involved in the war. "Last Letter Home" provides the last serious emotion in this great release. The band received contact from the brother of a big fan of theirs to not only let them know that his brother, Sgt. Andrew Farrar, died in Iraq, but he also had asked if the band could play at his funeral, as per Sgt. Farrar's off-hand request in a letter. The Murphys obliged full-heartedly, playing "Fields of Athenry" for the funeral. With permission, the band used excerpts of letters from soldiers to create this song, including the bits Sgt. Farrar wrote and the letter the family got from the military regarding his death. This touching ode and salute to the soldiers who lived, fought, and died in Iraq could not be much better. Overall, this would definitely be a must-get album for any Dropkick Murphy fan. If you are not a fan or haven't heard much, this album would be a good start (most people would say to start from the Mike McColgan-era material, but I don't think that'd be necessary). ***** When getting dressed in the morning, I turn on the radio to have something to listen to and to which I can gather my senses. I turned on 103.5, a local hip-hop and R & B station, and a song started playing. As it played, I heard the piece as a whole, but my hearing focused on the acoustic guitar segment. Early on, I thought, "it sounds like Extreme's 'More Than Words', but why would anyone, including an R & B act, cover that?" As the artist, Frankie J, started singing, I knew for absolute certainty that I was right. For whatever reason, I rather liked the version, and I found myself singing a bit with it (more in mode of the original version). The funny thing is that I don't recall liking the original version all that much when it first came out. The lyrics are a bit dopey and lame, but it just sounds like a cool song. A part of me wondered, "do I really like this song because of the song, or do I like it because it reminds me of high school and times of similar freedom with fewer responsibilities?" Certainly, I'm not a big fan of that era of my life, but it wasn't all that bad in retrospect. Frankly, I think either explanation is equally plausible. I did kind of like that song when it first came out, and it reminds me of a decent time in my life. A time when popular music and I were on the same page with hard rock being the prominent music industry money hog. In general, I'm starting to notice songs like this being covered or used in commercials. I feel like I've finally come into the primary advertising demographic. Does that mean that I'm old? |
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