Unfortunately, I, cameraless, was unable to snap photos all day long of fun things that we did. So I had to wait until I got home and I could snap them with my laptop’s camera.

Behold.

That’s right, I bought a cowboy hat. In Manhattan.

Now, I understand that it’s not a real cowboy, and actually looks exactly like a cowboy hat that one would buy in Manhattan, but still, I’m really freaking pleased with it. Everyone tells me it’s extremely “me,” whatever the hell that means. And it was $20. So whatever.

Alright, I went kind of crazy with the pictures. You can tell I miss having a camera, no?

One final note: I know y’all are teetering on the brink of sanity right now, so maddened are you by the furious jealousy pounding in your skulls (which are most certainly not housed under cowboy hats, I think it’s safe to say), but I hope that this cowboy hat does not come between us.

Without even an acoustic, I almost went mad, so bereft shredding was I.

Now I’m back in the States in a small apartment, and I’ve so far only brought an acoustic guitar with me. It’s not at all how I envisioned my homecoming, which was way more like the duel from Crossroads.

Not having guitars doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about them, though. In fact, quite the opposite: I’ve been chatting with metal friends constantly about jamming, and an interesting fellow I’ve had the good fortune of getting to know via the wonders of the internet recently proposed that we work on a musical collaboration. He lives in Greece, but will be moving to Sweden in a few months, at which point I’m sure I’ll lose him to the babes and shredding for which that nation is so rightly famous. So I’d best make the most of it now!

Check out Hermes’s piece called “Time Dissection” available on the MySpace for his project Mandrache. He describes the music as “Metal / Minimalist / Progressive.” I like.

During our conversations today, we started talking about stagnation as a result of too much opportunity. My deprivation period, if you will, in Germany, has very much motivated me to write again, something I’ve always wanted to do but never really bothered with. I had to starve myself to make myself hungry, essentially. We talked about how hardcore sucks, and about experimenting with different tunings, just for the sake of making everything fresh again. After all, Mikael did it.

So today I scooped up my acoustic, tuned it to open D minor, and tried to find chord shapes. Here’s what I came up with, three layers of improvisation.

[audio:opendmjam.mp3]

My favorite part? At the end you can hear police sirens in the background, even though the windows of my apartment were shut when I recorded it. Ahh, Philadelphia. It’s good to be back!

Personally I’m not at all impressed with what came out during this improvisation, but the experience of playing was wonderful for me. I’ve always had a disease where I see music instead of hear it, which means that when I get a great riff idea, I usually experience it visually as a geometric pattern on the fretboard. Everything is shapes, not tone colors at all.

Playing in a new tuning, however, none of the shapes I knew and was familiar with made sense. For the first time since I can remember, I had to play based on how the chords sounded rather than how they felt in my hand. Groping my way awkwardly through oblique motion, I had to piece together melodic sense and rediscover tonality. It took about 40 seconds. I will never forget it.

The intervals between the higher strings, however, where the melody is played, were no different than standard tuning. Thus that melody was plodding and piecemeal, because I wasn’t trying anything new.

I am going to do more of this in the future.

A quick note about the title of this post: Hermes mentioned to me that in the outro to his “Time Dissection” (starts at 5:19, voiced by piano), he bases his phrasing on the Fibonacci sequence. Hopelessly nerdy, no? That’s why I love the guy. He also told me that Tool did something similar in Lateralus, which was completely believable to me, but certainly something I didn’t know. Unfortunately, I believe the guitarist from Tool used drop-D throughout that CD, and not open D or open D minor. So it’s not the best title. But it had a nice story to go along with it!

Update:

It should be noted that I was inspired to try this new tuning by my wonderful friend Sascha, whom I sorely miss. I was tired when I wrote this and never properly credited him for his influence in this. Wasn’t sure how to phrase it, then got distracted by tangents in my writing.

I miss you, man.

First I had to read my feeds. Since I was gone all weekend, this was quite a lot of reading, all utterly inconsequential to my existence. I speak of lolcats and BBC News alike.

Then some friends who have guests from abroad wanted to go to Hofbräuhaus, which I absolutely was not in the mood for. After declining, I reconsidered, reasoning that I only have another week or two left in this country, and I should be spending every conceivable moment of consciousness with my bros. Picture sorting can wait, no?

But instead of beerhall ribaldry, a cake was baked, so the evening was spent unwinding in the kitchen. My metal friend Sascha dropped by, after hearing my persistent cackling from the balcony beneath his room, and we started talking. Opened a few beers. Kept talking. We drank all the beer we could find, so moseyed upstairs quick to scout for more.

We brought a guitar back, and had another beer together. It grew late, and the kitchen gradually disgorged its occupants, leaving Sascha and me out on the balcony, thumbing chords and mumbling about oblique motion.

We played songs to each other long into the night. The guy knows Omerta like the back of his hand, although he doesn’t like the range of the vocalist—which is actually quite comfortable for me. He can play Road Trippin’ immaculately. (His technique on acoustic guitar is far beyond what I can hope to achieve in even the next six months.) We of course played many renditions of Fiddler On The Green, which neither of us can sing, even after tuning down the halfstep that the song demands.

Windows all across the courtyard slammed shut as we sang into the night, and clanked bottles together, and laughed. After several hours, the guitar was set down, and we began to talk faster, yet more slowly. “What are you five favorite things?” I asked. Then he asked me. We argued about whether civilization is fighting against, serving, or merely operating within the grand structure of, biological evolution. We disagreed about the voicing of the G chord in the bridge to Omerta, and whether there’s a resolution for the minor second during that calculatedly laidback solo. Tits or ass? C++ or Java? Clapton or Iommi?

All the same shit as any night, but tonight with someone I deeply, truly respect. I’m not yet tired, but I really should get to bed.

The wisest person I’ve ever personally known, an ex-girlfriend named Julia, used to tell me that I am a “people pleaser.” I concern myself far too much with the happiness of others about whom I care little, and this can interfere with the happiness of those whom I love, perhaps myself included.

The slamming of those windows tonight was the heaviest riff I’ve ever heard. The windows that opened and stayed open were like the smile that creeps across one’s face while listening to the opening chords of Road Trippin’.

Baudolino answered: “Concern with pleasing humans causes the loss of all spiritual growth.”

Is it then too much to wish that the entire world sleeps tonight as smoothly and thickly as I already do?

Story to tell

James Malone is the mastermind behind Arsis. He attended Berklee College of Music for a degree classical composition, specializing in violin performance. During his stay at Berklee, he met Michael VanDyne, “a drum performance major and rumored octopus.” (Sorry, that quote was too good not to link to.)

Previous entries in Arsis’s discography have always floored me because they were recorded by these two men. James handled the lyrics, vocals, guitars, bass (in most cases), and overall songwriting, and Michael hammered away on his kit.

The first album, A Celebration Of Guilt, was met with raving success absolutely everywhere. Ask your grandma, I bet even she’s heard of it by now. Here’s a snippet from what I consider to be the greatest review of anything, ever.

Arsis is amazing. This CD should be called ‘Celebration of AWESOME’.

[...]

Full of skull shattering drum parts and more guitar intricacies than you could ever think was possible, A Celebration of Guilt rises above the rest of most metal albums out there today. In the death metal market which is almost completely capitalized on by the northern Europeans, Arsis stands its ground not moving for anyone and bringing melodic death metal one huge step closer to the U.S.

The CD was so badass, a clique of freaks in New York City who like to perform ballet to heavy music, Ballet Deviare, contacted James and asked whether he’d compose a piece just for them. Which he did. I still don’t understand all of the title track “A Diamond For Disease,” but it’s one of my favorite pieces by the band.

After A Diamond For Disease, James and Michael went on to record United In Regret, a darker and more brooding album, although still furnished with a technical virtuosity that makes my eyes glaze over whenever I listen to it. In my opinion, this downshift in mood could only lead to a more furiously technical next album, but that change was facilitated by other factors, too.

The master’s apprentices

Sadly, Michael did not stay on with James to record the newest album, We Are The Nightmare. When Michael stated his decision to leave the band, James started looking for a replacement—as if any such beast has ever existed, or will ever exist. This led to the induction of several new members, so that Arsis at long last had a full lineup. The timing of the additions was such that the newcomers were able to contribute to the composition of the album, undeniably changing the chemistry of what constitutes Arsis.

The new bandmates are Noah Martin on bass, who served as a session player on United In Regret, Ryan Knight on guitar, and Darren Cesca on drums

Now, Noah seems like a great guy all around, and his playing on United In Regret was fantastic. Sadly, the new album has the bass buried deep in the mix, and his playing is all but inaudible, save for the smooth bass melody line that opens the disc.

Ryan has played with The Knife Trade, a rather uninspired metalcore act. I don’t believe his technical fury was at all utilized by that band, but recording with Arsis definitely allowed—or, with respect to Arsis’s past albums, forced—him to step up the fretwork many notches.

Then there’s Darren. Darren is also a grad of Berklee, majoring in drum performance, and already has a pretty impressive catalogue under his belt. Knowing his drumming only through this new album with Arsis, I cannot question his skill as a drummer. I do, however, take issue with his style. It’s a drastic departure from VanDyne’s drumming, and is for me the stain on We Are The Nightmare.

The empty throne

photo by williamhartz on flickr

Filling VanDyne’s shoes is impossible. While Cesca is a fantastically talented drummer, I don’t think his technique fits in well with the Arsis formula. Here’s why.

In metal, the drums should serve as the chassis of the machine, with all other instrumentation balustraded out from it. To use trite war imagery when describing metal, drums are the treads and the hulk of the tank, rhythm guitars are the main cannon, blasting away at the front, lead guitars the machine guns exploring the four dimensions around the tank, and bass is the sound of the engine grinding away, giving early tell of downshifts or turret rotation.

Drums are the mana in the casting of the spell. If your mana flow is sputtering or chunky, in any way inconsistent or irregular, then the spell will fizzle.

Take this example of VanDyne’s sense of thunder.

[audio:maddeningdisdainintro.mp3]

Now compare with Cesca’s stylings on the new CD.

[audio:servantstothenightintro.mp3]

Cesca’s performance is comparatively meek, reticent to pull out the stops. Now, this could be seen as crediting his confidence and skill. Perhaps Cesca believes he doesn’t need dish out blastbeats for several minutes at a time in order to prove himself; perhaps he’s trying to tone back the drums a bit in order to showcase the guitarwork.

In fact, it might be that Malone specifically requested that he chill the balls, in order to make the guitar intricacy the focus of this album. Maybe that was a bone of contention with VanDyne, that his drumming was almost as arresting as James’s riffing. To be sure, We Are The Nightmare definitely drops the ball on the rhythm riffing, in favor of pretentiously technical lead passages, and thus thunderous drum parts aren’t particularly well suited to the new songs.

Either way, losing the drum thunder was a mistake for the sound of Arsis. But why blame the drummer? The new guitarist’s technique gave Cesca little room to work with.

A new level: quo vadis?

We Are The Nightmare offers almost no churning rhythm riffs throughout the entire CD. Instead, lead riffs are strewn about the halls of the aural gallery, leaving the listener dizzied but never battered. (I have actually gotten nauesous while listening the counter rhythms in “A Diamond For Disease.” This is something even Meshuggah have never managed to pull off for me!) The change in riff styling should definitely be viewed as a progression, but I hope that Malone gets his sense of “heavy” back on Arsis’s next release. A combination of the two is what United In Regret strove to be, and in my opinion, that album came much closer to the vision.

Take a listen at how the calm composure in Malone’s riffing has gone completely out the window. From United In Regret:

[audio:andtheblindonecameintro.mp3]

This track, entitled “…And The Blind One Came,” was long my least favorite on the CD. After having let it digest for a long time, I now think that I disliked it because it was so damn good at what it did. That intro riff is perfectly ugly. I picture a carcass trying to dance, or being animated to dance. The song is sightless and horrifying. A sense of doom pervades the riff, in no small part due to VanDyne’s “maddening beat of vile drums.”

Now compare with the furiousness of this riff, obviously from the new album.

[audio:failingwindsofhopelessgreedintro.mp3]

Technically impressive, to be sure, but perhaps a mite bit uninspired? Maybe because it’s a textbook example of the Necrophagist (technical death metal gods to this day) formula. Listen, and pay special attention not only to the flourishing leads that open each song, but also to the snare-heavy pedal tone riffing that follows. The songs differ only slightly in their third riffs (up until the chorus in the Arsis piece, with is anthemic and catchy in a way Necrophagist would never attempt).

[audio:onlyashremainsintro.mp3]

C’mon, James, you can do better!

Epilogue/Metalogue

This review itself was pretentiously technical, which should at least partly discredit its scorn and criticism. I’ve spun the album only about 10 times so far, and am still within the first week of ownership. I’m certain that int he weeks to come, I’ll soften on it, and I’ll love it.

All in all, We Are The Nightmare is a solid album. The problem is, it’s not their old material. But I admit that’s more a problem in me as a fan than it is in them as songwriters.

I’ve already bought this CD twice, by the way, because I love this band so much.

But I do.

I miss my guitars very, very dearly. I do have an acoustic on loan from a friend here, but that’s only making me miss my sweethearts back in the States all the more. Recently I went digging through my video directory to try to see if there was any concert footage I could upload to YouTube and show some friends online. (Another story entirely, but I still haven’t been able to get the full version of “Treacherous Gods” at Paganfest up on YouTube. Worst 2.0 site ever.)

Anyway, while scaling the heights of the furthermost branches of that directory tree, I found some old videos of me playing guitar. This one I made two years ago, or almost. It was definitely August 2006, although I am not sure when in that month.

I absolutely love the riffs in this song. Heavy as hell, and no dicking around whatsoever. This CD was utter devastation. Make sure to check out the lyrics, too, as the whole CD was a concept album on the Iraq War, and has some real gem lines.

Try not to headbang yourself down to a lower IQ during the bridge. (“See who gives a FUCK!”)

And man, I have to say it: my guitar tone in this recording is fucking killer. I mean, it’s so heavy, it has its own goddamn event horizon. I am a Line6 fan for life.

One last thing to note: I remember so clearly that this was August 2006 because that’s the last time I cut my hair. You can’t really see my head in the video, but you also don’t see any long curly locks. I had a buzz cut.

Never again.

I decided to practice the song I’ve been listening to constantly since last night, “Omerta” by Katatonia. It’s haunting, and stuck in my head even as I slept last night.

Excuse the gray distortion for the first few seconds of the video. It’s a problem with Quicktime encoding and YouTube’s compression that I still haven’t worked out. Besides, it makes my eyes look even more striking.

Now, I should mention I know I’m not spot-on in a lot of this. It was done in a single take, as I didn’t feel like messing around with it all day, and just wanted to capture the essence of my wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Regarding the chord changes, I’m pretty confident that the main passage (verse, chorus, and bridge) is Dsus2-Am-Am-Fmaj7, Em-Em-G-Am. At least that sounds pretty fine. The bridge riff tosses some kind of Am7sus4 junk in there, and then some chord based around E that I couldn’t figure out. In the outro, I just alternate between Fmaj7 and Em, ignoring that mystery chord.

Regarding my singing, you can go to hell.

Lyrics to the song here.

Their new album, which I’ve been psyched about for a long time, is now officially out, and I can’t find it anywhere. I don’t have a credit card in Germany, so I’m going to bum one from a friend tonight and order the CD right from the label. Fortunately enough, Arsis just got signed to the biggest and best label in the metal world, Nuclear Blast, which is based in Germany. Plus, if I pay $5 extra on the CD, I get an Arsis t-shirt. Yes, please.

In celebration of the album’s release, the band (or their label, I don’t care whom you credit for it) have posted the video for the title track from the album. The video is third-rate and the song is second-rate, and yet I’m still tossing my popcorn around in excitement.

I of course have a few initial reactions to the song played in the video (please keep in mind I’ve done everything in my power to avoid hearing leaked tracks from this album, because I want the store-bought version to be my first experience of it), and while I know that I should wait to hear the album in its entirety before judging, especially harshly, here are some off the cuff gripes.

• This sounds more like a blending of the styles of many musicians than the work of one man. I mean this in a bad way.
• The solos are wankier than I’ve come to expect from Arsis, and it sounds like there are two solos, one right after the other. This technique should only be used when the guitarist playing the second solo has something to build upon, or can somehow complement what the first guitarist just got done expressing. In this case, the second guitarist, whoever the hell it was, just shambled after, copping the tapping runs and overplaying the bends, because that’s what you do when you don’t have anything to say musically in a metal band (although the argument could be made that the same is true in blues and country).
• The drumming is thoroughly uninspired. The drummer doesn’t even give us a decent blastbeat throughout the entire piece, which I guess is acceptable given that this song is supposed to have an anthemic “ballad” feel. Still, the syncopated metalcore-influenced staccato hits don’t fight the rhythm of the guitars enough, and so are boring. This drummer has a lot to live up to in the Arsis pantheon, and this song was not a nice debut in my opinion.
• I do think the that the line “We are the nightmare, we are the chosen silence” is pretty spiffy, given the band’s name, but then, I’ve never had reason to complain about James in any respect. All the gripes here have to do with less James and more of these other buffoons. (Yes, “buffoons.)

That’s about it for now. I’ll order the CD tonight, remain sleepless for days on end until it arrives, then listen to it many times in a row and write a several-page-long blog post about it.

At least you know it’s coming.

]]> http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2008/04/17/dont-you-let-me-down-arsis/feed/ 5 http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2007/12/22/all-metalheads-are-assholes/ http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2007/12/22/all-metalheads-are-assholes/#comments Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:43:03 +0000 Conor http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/index.php/2007/12/22/all-metalheads-are-assholes/ I should know. Metalheads are just pricks through and through, and there’s no reason anyone would ever want to hang out with one. I just hate them so much. Look at this loser, for example.

Not only does the kid show himself to be an utter toolbag and a poser by flipping off the camera, he then proceeds to play a solo on his way-too-expensive guitar, which I know he didn’t buy himself, while his mom walks by in the background carrying his laundry. Sigh. Why can’t he be more like the guy in this next vid, who just oozes panache as he smokes a more technically impressive solo and then simply shuts off the camera?

In all actuality, I find that most metalheads are like the latter examples in this post, but it can be quite fun to indulge in negative stereotypes from time to time. Here’s a drummer playing the entire song “An Autopy” by The Faceless, the same song the kid in the first video lifted the solo from. I should note that the video is tagged with “fastest kid 5th grade,” which kind of scares the hell out of me, seeing as the dude has a beard. But I guess maybe he was held back because he wasn’t doing his chemistry homework for some reason.

One more. Here’s a vid of a guy blowing through “An Autopsy” on guitar and having some real fun while doing it. He’s not serious about it, though he obviously loves it, and jokes around by poorly pantomiming the keyboard fills.

Here’s to classy metalheads.

Check out this particular former pet, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, exhorting his fans to download his new album illegally.

Has anyone seen the price come down? OK, well, you know what that means: Steal it! Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing. Because one way or another these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right.

Powerful words from such a well established musician. But it gets better.

Very recently 50 Cent gave an interview and offered a very sensible, realist perspective on the current situation of digital piracy.

“The advances in technology impacts everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music.”“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”

[...]

“A young fan may be just as devout and dedicated no matter if he bought it or stole it.”

[...]

“The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.”

This guy gets it. Now, before I go too crazy, I should mention that the interview was originally conducted in Norwegian, and was then translated for the write-up on TorrentFreak. The validity of the translation should be questioned, as a site like TorrentFreak would have a lot of reason for putting words in 50 Cent’s mouth. Although I’ve seen the TF article linked all over Technorati, I haven’t yet seen a separate translation done.

I have two stories about my experience with such sentiments by artists, if you’ll bear with me.

Anecdote The First

In March of 2007, I saw Dark Tranquillity live in Philadelphia. It was a damn good show, and they were touring for their newest album, Fiction. They came out on stage and the keyboardist opened up with a slick synth riff that has characterized the latter half of the band’s discography. The crowd erupted in cheers even before the heavy guitars came in. We all knew the song, Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive), even though the CD hadn’t been released yet.

After the band finished the song, the vocalist, Mike Stanne asked, “Seems like you guys have heard that one before. How many of you knew it?” The whole venue went nuts. “Ahhhh, you damn pirates!” Stanne said, then laughed and introduced the next track.

When Stanne started to sing Terminus, and the crowd was with him on every word, he honestly looked surprised on stage. But there was not a hint of anger or resentment. I honestly believe that amazement gave way to feeling flattered, although I unfortunately didn’t have a chance to meet the band and ask him personally whether I understood his reaction correctly. But the obvious fact is that the majority of the fans there that night had downloaded illegal advanced copies of the album from torrent sites, in anticipation of the band playing new material at the show.

Like 80% of the fans there that night, I bought a Dark Tranquillity t-shirt for $20 to prove I’d seen them live. I wear it way more often than is healthy.

Now, Dark Tranquillity are in a somewhat unique position in the industry, given that their rhythm guitarist (and former lyricist for both Dark Tranquillity and early In Flames) Niklas Sundin is a graphic artist, and thus designs the band’s merchandise himself. This means the label doesn’t appropriate money from the band’s revenue to pay for merch. It’s self-funded and the profit margin for them is huge. Sundin has designed almost 150 album covers for various metal bands, and has released a book of his sketches that sound incredibly well among fans of Dark Tranquillity.

It’s entirely possible that onstage, Stanne was just biting the bullet and smiling at his executioners. Maybe he hates his fans for downloading that album early. But maybe, just maybe, he loves them for it. And Dark Tranquillity seems to be doing just fine, seeing as they’re still on tour for the Fiction album.

Anecdote The Second

At that same show in Philadelphia, March 24, 2007, I also had the chance to see Into Eternity live for the third time. Fortunately, I was even able to catch some of the band up in the venue’s bar later that night, and I tried my best not to giggle with joy.

I told the band’s lead guitarist and songwriter, Tim Roth, how awesome I thought it was that he was posting step-by-step instruction videos on YouTube for how to play his songs. His riffs are extremely intricate, and most of the time blazing fast, so slowing them down and piecing them together is really necessary for most people trying to learn the play along with the CD. Here’s an example of what I mean.

“That’s just stupid. Why would you go after your best fans? The last people I would want to alienate are the guys listening to my songs again and again, trying to piece together how I played a riff. Those are the guys that love the music, you know? Everybody wishes they could play this stuff, and you see them at the shows, hypnotized by the fretboard, they don’t even headbang most of the time.

“People writing out tabs to our music doesn’t hurt the band. It sure as hell isn’t stealing. It helps everybody, like the labels should support it, because it keeps the music alive.”

That resonated with me. More than anything, I came away from my conversation with Roth believing that was a passionate musician. He didn’t seem to care too much about the legal issues or want to talk about band income. He just wanted to get up on stage and shred, then cross state lines, hop an ocean or two, and do it some more. Yes, Into Eternity are a young band.

The Point

Now we come to the point of this whole post. Amazon has recently partnered with a new and wonderfully bizarre record label called Sellaband. Sellaband is different in that it tries to eschew a lot of the presence of a middleman and empowers the fans of the music to more directly influence the fate of the band.

Unsigned bands upload their music, and if fans like it, they can buy a stake in the profits of any future album sales for $10 (£4.90).

Once a $50,000 (£24,500) threshold is reached, Sellaband helps the band produce an album. A fan can buy any number of $10 investments, each of which equates to a one five thousandth stake.

When the album is made, the backers each receive a copy, which they can either keep or sell at a 10 per cent profit on their personal Sellaband page. They also receive a cut of future sales on the Sellaband or other sites, as well as of any advertising revenue when the song is streamed.

This is quite a novel idea, but I have concerns with how well it’ll manage quality. I think there will be a lot of people who don’t give a damn about the artists, and just invest in those they think will sell well. That doesn’t sound like it’s going to solve the problem of most pop music in the country being utter dreck.

Also, the focus on “making a profit” seems a bit inappropriate, especially for fans of music that can only be considered marginally popular. It’s thoroughly unrealistic that many people will ever see income from this plan. What I do like about this is that the system permits and even encourages fans to pay more money than the standard cost of a CD. This is appropriate, especially for niche music. If the band Arsis would put a PayPal link on their site, I would give them $100 easily. I’ve already bought every CD they’ve made and attended several concerts just to see them. I’ll probably rebuy their discography, because I can’t help it. They’re that good.

I think it’s time this industry stopped focusing on forcing people to pay and started concentrating on making them want to pay. I think this Amazon and Sellaband deal is a step in that direction.

The part that bothers me is the lack of phenomenal drumming that is recorded in the studio version, usually drummers will take this opportunity to showcase their drumming abilities, pierre.. is still good but doesn’t even come close to the original recording!

I’ll agree that the drumming could be better, but compare with this utterly lame drum solo by the extremely technically proficient Marco Minnemann of Necrophagist.

But seriously, the Winter Madness solo is god.

He wasn’t joking about that breakfast. It was phenomenal! Schnitzel, egg noodles (I don’t know how else to translate what they are), a kind of omelette, some toast, and a 1.5L bottle of Mezzo Mix, which is a very popular drink here, a mix of orange soda and cola. Nice.

So we talk about music, concerts—we’ve both decided not to go to the überexpensive Dream Theater and Symphony X concert, despite the throngs of girls that’d surely be there—and what we had planned for the day. I’m working on my laptop in the kitchen, with music playing softly while we breakfast and converse. An acoustic Opeth song comes on, and he immediately interrupts me, says, “You played that. You played that song on my guitar, didn’t you?” He was right, I did, several weeks ago when we were drunk and hanging out in his room. I couldn’t believe he recognized the song so quickly, especially given that he didn’t know it when I played it in his room the first time.

He compliments my acoustic prowess, saying most metalheads are all about heavy distortion and compression and can’t do shit without an amp. I agree that most are that way, at least the n00bz. We begin talking about how we should play more together, and how I need to pick up a guitar and all that, and how badly we each want to get good at drums.

Sascha offered to spend the day guitar shopping, so I can scope out how much it might cost to pick up an axe and amp. He said we could sometime soon pick up his drumset from his friend’s house and install it in the basement of our dorm building, so we could play with each other.

This is shaping up to be the greatest year in history.

The party was 7€ admission, which is a bit ridiculous, and the beers were 2€. Well, I’m pretty sure the Augustiners in my room cost me 50 cents each, so that doesn’t really work. And plus I saw an awesome RPG at the electronics store the other day for only 5€, and it promised 9 hours of spoken German. The C&C3 game I bought? Tons of spoken German in HD video. It’s awesome.

But really the story is that the DAAD/SIP crew cooked chili for dinner and pigged out, had a couple beers, and I have an 8am lecture tomorrow morning, which I really shouldn’t miss. So 11pm raves on the other side of town are not a wise move at the moment.

Oh, and tomorrow is a late night out for me, the Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Sonic Syndicate, Caliban show! After that I have to rush home to catch what I can of DJ Nite madness.

At the moment I’m out on my balcony, enjoying what has proven to be an unusually warm night. It’s raining softly, the huge trees are swaying lazily in hope of a storm, their silhouettes impressive against the dull orange overcast city sky.

Even without an acoustic guitar, this is pretty perfect.

02:54:56 Jordan: didn’t you use to be able tos weep
02:54:58 I: buried.
02:55:15 I: sure man, I’m sure I still could if I were warmed up
02:55:27 Jordan: like that?
02:55:35 I: but the WM solo isn’t about the sweeps like the TGE one, it’s all horizontal runs
02:55:42 Jordan: i dont even know how to practice taht shit
02:55:42 I: I DEFINITELY never played Loomis
02:56:18 Jordan: loling
02:56:18 Jordan: this is retarded
02:56:26 Jordan: teach me how to do sweeps
02:56:33 Jordan: and i’ll teach you how to make a melody.
02:56:36 I: burn.
02:56:47 Jordan:

Ouch. The videos we were watching were of the solos from “Winter Madness” (WM) and “This Godless Endeavor” (TGE). Behold:

Wintersun – Winter Madness (solo), performed by Rasite

Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor (solo portion), performed by Rasite

I highly recommend any interested parties check out all videos by Rasite, the beast who recorded both of those. He’s got some killer performances up. (His rendition of Mourning Heart by Ensiferum is particularly choice.) If I can get ahold of a guitar over here, I’ll post videos of me playing those.

If I ever learn to sweep like that, of course.