WE H8 THE H8

YO. You guys miss me? All five of you? I know you did. Ugh… I’m so alone. BUT! I have news.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been delving into the wonderful world of FL Studio (Formerly known as Fruity Loops) 9 and 10, before just out of boredom, but now because I’ve discovered a wonderful passion for writing electronica. In the several months since I’ve last written a post, I’ve become obsessed with electronic music in general. Deadmau5, Daft Punk, Basshunter, all those guys. I’ve produced over 20 songs in the last three months, but I only consider about twelve of them to be legitimate. The other eight were just me experimenting as I learned the program – and one of them was for an English project.

As of today, the official WE H8 THE H8 last.fm page has launched. You can listen to my music on it, for free, on this fantabulous page, and stare at a glorious photo of me in a Guy Fawkes mask. I’d really appreciate it if you folks would head over there and give me a listen. Maybe a “Love” on a track if you really like it? Then telling EVERYONE YOU KNOW EVER about how amazing my music is?

No, no, I kid. Partially. I would really, really appreciate it if you checked out my music, though. I’m quite proud of what I’ve produced, and it would mean a lot to know people are listening to it.

Check out WE H8 THE H8 at http://www.last.fm/music/We+H8+The+H8.

Why “Give Peace A Chance” Is One Of The Greatest Songs Ever Written

The 1969 single by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band, written while the Beatles were still officially together, was one of the most simple songs ever recorded, but it is still one of the most powerful.

Opening with John singing for a few moments, followed by the chorus of “All that we’re saying, is give peace a chance,” this pattern continues on for about a minute, and then? All you hear is the chorus, for the remaining three minutes of the song. That’s it. That’s the masterpiece. The song became the anthem for the American anti-war movement during the Vietnam war, and is in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs That Shaped Rock ‘N’ Roll”.

So why is this song such a powerful thing? What makes it worthy of being one of the 500 songs that shaped rock, when all it is is John and a group of people (More than just the Plastic Ono Band) singing “All that we’re saying, is give peace a chance”? Well, that’s exactly why. Its so damned simple. The song has a feeling of unity about it. With all of the people on record singing, its hard not to join in yourself, even if you’d look like a buffoon. Like McCartney’s “Hey, Jude”, and its chorus of “Nanana naa’s”, its a song that you can get a room full of people, a school full, a stadium, or an arena full of people, to sing along. No matter their race, religion, origin, gender, sexuality, political stance, whatever. Its a song that brings people together, chanting one common message that despite what some may say, I think all humans really do desire in their lives. And in that unity, in this song, we do exactly what John wanted us to do, even if for only the duration of that song.

We give peace a chance.

Happy (Day Late) Birthday, John. You’ve given me an image of peace, and have given me hope that someday, the world truly can live as one.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. And I hope someday you will join us, and the world can live as one.

Concert Review – Adam Lambert at Madison Theater

Considering that American Idol receives more votes per year than the Presidential elections, I’m sure you all know who Adam Lambert is. He was the 2nd place winner in the 2009 competition, with 1st being taken by Kris Allen. However, despite taking 2nd, its pretty easy to tell that Lambert is the one who’s been more successful post-Idol. He’s already released a full length album, is writing a second, and his single “Whatya Want From Me” hit 10 in the US Billboard Top 100 chart. This year he’s charging around North America in his fabulous Glam Nation Tour 2010, then name being inspired by a common nickname for Adam: Glambert.

On August 30th, he crossed through Convington, Kentucky – a town right off of the Ohio River near Cincinnati – stopping at the Madison Theater for a performance. I was so there. Right there. And I have a lot to say.

First, the bad (And it has nothing to do with Glambert): Madison Theater is probably the single WORST General Admission venue ever built by man. Its small, cramped, and poorly built. The back area is slightly higher than the main pit, but there’s a roof over it that makes up the balcony, and it blocks your view if you’re back too far, then combine that with obnoxious drunk people, and you’ll only be able to see when you’re actually in the pit. But GOOD LUCK GETTING THERE! The place is so tight that there’s no way you’ll ever be able to work your way in.

But, enough about the venue, because it sucking was not Adam’s fault. Now, this guy… this guy can mother fucking SING. We already knew that through his work in Idol and his first record, For Your Entertainment, but – in my humble opinion – he sounds even better live than on record. Even when he was near the end of his set, when you could hear through his speaking voice that his voice was about to give out, he rocked that microphone. Never even in the slightest slipping off key, and those insanely high notes that he reached on record like in Strut? Yea. He hit every single one of those. Perfectly. He also performed an acoustic version of the hit single Whataya Want From Me, and that sounded absolutely spectacular. I’d comment on his dancing, but unfortunately, there were too many drunk people in front of us for me to be able to see anything until the finale. I did get a glimpse of the Mad Hatter hat from the If I Had You video, though… that was cool, I guess.

Despite the awful venue, though, we made the best of it and just enjoyed hearing this amazing performer live. It was a fun night, and there’s definitely a strong live future for Glambert. Next time he rolls around this way, we’ll definitely see him again… hopefully at a nicer place this time.

On Moshing

At metal concerts, one of the things you’re bound to see is a mosh pit. Typically taking over the front and middle areas of the crowd, mosh pits consist of people ramming into each other violently while the music is played. There’s many varieties of mosh pits, such as the circle pit: In which a large circle is opened up in the crowd and audience members go around the edge of it while being pushed. Its something that’s just natural at metal concerts, and some heavier rock concerts, anymore, and I’m about to tell you why its stupid.

I live in a small town south of Columbus, Ohio, and tonight, in Columbus, the Uproar Festival Tour is rolling through town bringing two of my favorite bands with it. Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed in one night? Sign me up! But I’m not going. In fact, I’ve never really planned on going, when the tickets first went on sale a few months back, one of my friends was eager to find out if I was going. I told him no. He’s not going either (but not for the same reasons). But why am I not going? Two of my favorite bands ever are playing and the tickets were relatively cheap, well, 1) I’m going to see Adam Lambert next Monday. But 2) (And more importantly), the mosh pit.

Moshing just doesn’t sound appealing. At all. At all. When I go to a concert, I want to listen to a band that I enjoy play live music for the audience that I’m a part of. What I don’t want is to have to get beaten up and thrown around by people I don’t even know in order to listen to and enjoy that music. Hell, I don’t think I could enjoy that music because I’m too busy being beaten up and thrown around! There’s just no sense in it, and it degrades the entire purpose of going to the concert in the first place!

When I went to the Violetta concert at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, I enjoyed the concert a lot. Because the bands were great, Violetta was great, I got to see my friend perform on stage in what was a pretty big deal of a concert, and I walked back out with all of my limbs attached. Were I to go to the Uproar show tonight, I’d most likely walk out a bit bruised, and I’d probably have some blood on me that doesn’t belong to me. I wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the music because I’d be too busy being thrown around the crowd to pay attention the whole reason I’m there. Its just stupid, and would have me leave the concert thinking that I had just wasted $45 on that ticket.

So, could someone please explain to me the appeal of moshing? Please?

Today In Music

This is essentially a filler post since I haven’t made a real post in ages.

WELL! The music industry is hopping a good bit now-a-days, with scum like Justin Bieber still polluting the airwaves. He hit his head on a glass door. It was fucking hilarious. Go find the video. Anyway: These are the biggest things happening in [good] music today!

• A cause of death for Jimmy “The Rev.” Sullivan of Avenged Sevenfold has been determined: Accidental Prescription Drug Overdose. Apparently he also suffered from an enlarged heart, which coroners don’t think helped him at all.
• A new track from Papa Roach was released in the hype for their first live album, Time For Annihilation. The track can be downloaded from their website; www.paparoach.com
• If you didn’t already know: Paul Grey of SlipKnot passed away in late May. He was found dead in a hotel room in Iowa, near a syringe and pill bottle. Suspect overdose.
• Paramore’s Haley Williams’ Twitter account was hacked a few weeks ago, and a topless image of the singer was posted on her TwitPic account. Obviously: I can’t link you to the image, so you’ll have to go Google it yourself. She regained control of the account five minutes later, and made the statement that she was hacked.
• The television show Glee! gained about twenty-bazillion more viewers after the cast did a Lady Gaga-themed episode. Their Bad Romance cover is pretty damn good, too.
• It was announced in the Green Day: Rock Band demo for XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 that the next installment of Rock Band would include a keyboard peripheral. I just wonder how they’re going to fit all of that on a screen.
• Trent Reznor’s new band How To Destroy Angels released their first EP last week for free download. You can get a high-quality physical copy of the CD for a minor fee. It sounds particularly Nine Inch Nails-esque.
• Muse forced thrash-metal gods Slayer off stage at the Rock AM Ring festival in Germany after Muse’s super-massive UFO prop blocked out the television and sound signals. A great lol was had.
• Avenged Sevenfold has been slowly revealing the cover to their new album, Nightmare, on their website: www.avengedsevenfold.com
• Speaking of A7X, the new single from Nightmare, also title Nightmare, is available on iTunes. Its pretty win.
• MORE A7X: On a disturbing note, it was revealed that three days before The Rev died, he wrote and gave a song to his fellow band-mates entitled Death. That’s not creepy at all. </sarcasm>

… well. That’s about it. Hope this fills your BURNING DESIRE to read my blog for now… except you don’t have a burning desire to read my blog. Oh well.

R.I.P. Paul Gray

Friends, class mates, juvenile delinquents, yesterday was a  sad day in the metal world. Paul Gray, bassist of heavy metal-superpower SlipKnot, has passed away at 38. Gray was found in his hotel room in Des Moines, Iowa by an employee. No evidence of foul play was discovered, and an autopsy is scheduled for today (May 25, 2010). He had a history of drug problems – including an arrest for possession in 2003, but friends and band-mates have denied that he was currently suffering from addiction. Also, no signs of drug usage were found at his death scene, and the chance of the death being drug-related has been deemed “slim”.

Obviously, I never knew the man, but from what I’ve seen of him in interviews and on-stage, he seemed like a great man who loved what he did. He had a great sense of humor, and a good personality, and somehow made that mask look a bit less intimidating. Along with the recent passing of Ronnie James Dio, the metal world has suffered great loss these past few weeks. Paul was an incredible bassist, and he will be missed. If there is a heaven, we all know that he’s up there rockin’ with Dio right now. Rest in peace.

As for SlipKnot as a band, no statements have been made from Gray’s band mates about his death, and as to whether or not SlipKnot will continue after this loss is left to speculation.

… and I swear to God, if Westboro Baptist even goes near his funeral like they plan to at Dio’s, there’s gonna be hell to pay.

BREAKING – Trent Reznor Announces New Band

After Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails completed their final tour last year, it was left unclear what would become of Reznor and his one-man industrial metal project. He announced that he would continue work under the name of Nine Inch Nails, and would compose more music for the television show Fringe (His song Discipline was featured in the show last year).

Yesterday, Kerrang! Magazine reported that Trent Reznor has announced a brand new band, How To Destroy Angels. The band will consist of Trent and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig. Little is currently know about Destroy Angels, but its reported that the husband-wife duo plan to release a debut EP this summer.

For some NIN-esque teaser trailers for the band, visit www.howtodestroyangels.com

Review – Plastic Beach

The Gorillaz are one of the industry’s more bizarre bands. They’re electronic/rap/alt. rock style captivated listeners with the 2005 classic Demon Days. Since those times, we’ve seen very little from the virtual band, both from the real band and their animated counterparts. When it was announced that we would be getting a new album from Gorillaz, fans flipped out with joy.

Unfortunately, any fan of Demon Days will be sorely disappointed. Plastic Beach took everything that made Demon Days the amazing album it is, and spat on it. The brilliant melodies, symbolic lyrics and unique, interesting style that made this band great? All gone. Replaced with generic, boring, uncreative gangsta rap. Only three songs in this entire album don’t feature some rapper talking into a microphone about trivial things or fucking a girl. The three songs that don’t feature someone? Oddly enough, they’re not that bad. They’re far from great, but definitely better than the rest of the album. If the Gorillaz learn anything from this album, its that they work best alone.

I’m honestly not sure what happened in the last five years with these guys. They put out the incredible and unique Demon Days, and then revert to such… uncreative slop? Its pathetic. Its like all they wanted was to top the charts by making something that could easily shoot into the mainstream, which it did. So they abandoned their loyal fans and went to an entirely different audience, and I do believe that is called ‘selling out’.

The Gorillaz… sellouts. How did it come to this? All that I hope is that Plastic Beach is in no way a sign of other previously great artists falling into such pathetic pools of crap.

TL;DR

The good:

• A few noteworthy songs.

The bad:

• Absolutely nothing new or unique about it.
• Generic, lame rap.
• Previously different and bizarre band reduced to boring, uncreative garbage.

An Update

Okay, firstly: I apologize for disappearing for the last month. Life hasn’t exactly been very kind to me as of late. I’ve been meaning to get you folks some reviews and features and what-not out, but I either haven’t had the time, or have just been too lazy. :3 There’s been some great albums released in the past few months, and a few not-so-great ones, and I do plan to talk about all of them eventually. Really. HERE’S A LIST OF SHIT THAT’S COMING!

• Review of The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR by ORPHANED LAND
• Review of Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice by HIM
• Review of Plastic Beach by GORILLAZ
• Feature (Short biography) on MAKESHIFT ROMEO
• A loooonnng overdue review of World Painted Blood by SLAYER
• An overdue review of Y Not by RINGO STARR

Now, I’m not guaranteeing that all of these will happen, the last two as less likely, but these could all show up soon! The first one will likely be either the Makeshift Romeo feature or the Plastic Beach review. See you all soon! I apologize again for the absence!

Top 5 Voices Of The Decade

Well, it all comes down to this. The voice of a band is typically the most unique thing about a band’s sound, and it’s what makes them recognizable, assuming it’s a good voice. Take note: I’m excluding screamers from this, no Dani Filth or Nergal in this list. This is a list of people who actually sing, and do it with copious amounts of awesome.

Note: I honestly have little to say on these folks, you’re just gonna have to take my word on their talents. I’m running out of descriptive compliments.

NUMBER 5:

Jacoby Shaddix of PAPA ROACH

Also winning the award for “Most Tattoos”, Jacoby Shaddix’s voice is one of the most recognizable of the Hard Rock genre. He gave a rapping part melody, if that says anything about how good he is.

NUMBER 4:

David Draiman of DISTURBED

If you’re a metal fan in any way, shape, or form, you know David Draiman. His voice is a much-needed break from the typical screaming and roaring of modern metal, and lives up to it’s reputation. It’s powerful, distinct, and is what makes Disturbed, Disturbed.

NUMBER 3:

Adam Young of OWL CITY

What I should say is that he is Owl City. Seriously. This insomniac-stricken genius is best known for his voice, as he does what so many pop artists anymore fail to do: Not use auto-tune. His voice is pure, new, and incredible.

NUMBER 2:

Matthew Bellamy of MUSE

Matthew Bellamy is one of the most creative minds in music today. For God’s sake, his band’s NAME is Muse! They’re so creative, creativity itself is their name! Matt’s voice has one of the most ungodly ranges ever – and that’s a compliment. He knows high notes better than anyone else today, and still can maintain a solid pitch even when he’s playing twenty spaces above the scale.

NUMBER 1:

Gerard Way of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

Gerard Way knows singing. He does it better than a lot of other people I’ve heard. Many would argue that Bellamy rightfully deserves this spot, but let’s look at the facts: Bellamy can sing high, and that’s about it. While Gerard may not match the Muse frontman, he still has an incredible range, and can keep himself there. He’s got that weird twang-like thing that’s bizarrely enjoyable, too.

Fucktarts. I’m out of things to say. Uh. Yea. That’s it. I’m gonna go play Mass Effect 2. This post sucks. You should just pretend it doesn’t exist. ME OUT.