Archive for the ‘Rants And Writings’ Category

So as I said before, I moved to find cheaper rent and be closer to work. Last time I moved I used Uhaul and had huge problems with my reservation. This time around I used Budget ’cause I’ve never had problems with Budget truck rentals. Everything was going fine until I got to my new house and the electricity wasn’t on. Daylight was burning and the electric company said it wouldn’t be on until the next day. I figured we would get the shit unloaded, I’d take the truck back and we’d find a nice cool hotel room for the night. That didn’t happen. Read the rest of this entry »

If “The Satch” can win or at least win a settlement lawsuit against Coldplay, then I think the Stone Temple Pilots have a pretty fair chance at suing the pants, costumes and make-up off of Lordi for steeling the intro riff from Sextypething. Listen for yourself. It’s not note-for-note but it’s very similar and if Coldplay can’t get away with it, why should Lordi?

3 Inches Of Blood recently had a Facebook Status saying “Thanks Oklahoma. Bands sure love venues that take 30% of T-shirt sales, 10% of CD sales and enforce a rule that carries a $2,500 fine if anyone uses profanity on stage.”

Wow. 30% of t-shirt sales and 10% of CD sales? I think that’s kind of fucking rotten, considering that a band brings customers to a venue, where they spend plenty of cash on beverages and such. The venue in question is The Zoo Amphitheater in Oklahoma City, OK, where the band played on the Silver Star Stage of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival‘s closing date.

A venue that large with a summer festival that big already charging people an arm and a leg for food and water, making quite a profit, I’m sure, off of ticket sales and vendors. So why do they need to take any more money from working bands that probably aren’t making that much money in the first place. 30% for t-shirts and 10% for CD’s is a pretty fat chunk of change taken out of their already empty pockets. The bigger bans probably don’t have much to worry about, but the smaller ones need every cent they can get.

Do you think venues should get a cut of a bands merch sales?

After scrolling through The Deciblog on my google reader, I noticed a lot of mention of Woods Of Ypres. They were doing a tour diary of sorts and it made me curious. So I googled their name, started listening to some tunes on Woods Of Ypres Myspace and found W4: The Green Album on iTunes. It didn’t take long before I was hooked on the dark, doom melodies and the vocals, both clean and screamy.

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*This is a little something I resurrected from my Metal Martyr days*

Every list like this is going to objectionable and subject to criticism from people, but I think it’s rather well put together. It’s not a list of mediocre bass players that have a big name in a big band, but rather a list of skilled bass players that have made a name for themselves through their style and tone. Most bass guitar players in metal bands are just simply there to fill the void. To give the music the heavy bottom end. A lot of them are skilled to a point, but most could be replaced at the drop of a hat. A lot of great players are overlooked, though. Here are ten essential bass guitar players that have wowed me either recently or over the years. A few you might know and a few you may not. I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up.

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Absolute Vengeance out of  Northern Virginia was one of the first bands I made contact with when I started blogging. If you have been following my bloggings long enough, I’m sure you’ve heard me mention them at least once. Still rather unknown outside of Virginia, they have a small collection of songs that will hopefully one day circulate more widely around the metal globe. I’ve yet to see a live show, even though I only live about 4 to 6 hours away from most of the areas they play. Maybe one day this summer or fall I will make my way up there.

They have shared the stage with various well known metal acts. Currently I don’t have a clue what they are up to cause they haven’t updated their Myspace blog in about a year. I do know that they were planning a split with Age Of Ruin, but now I think that band is defunct or something. They released an EP a few years ago with 3 songs on it and have recorded a few more songs that you can hear on their Myspace, as well as listent o a few below in the reverbnation player. Some of the older songs are also available for download. Check out their Myspace page for more tracks.

In case you don’t know what a Security Threat Group (STG) is, it is a fancy name for a gang in prisons. I work at a prison and I’m currently going through some training. Yesterday’s subject was Security Threat Groups in prison. As the instructor was discussing some of the groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, MS13′s, Bloods, Crips and various other gang known to populate prisons, I read ahead a bit. I literally almost lost it in a fit of laughter when I came across Juggalos toward the very end. Read the rest of this entry »

From Holy Diver, another classic that describes Ronnie James Dio. The range the man had was and still is phenomenal for a man his size. A little man with a HUGE voice. His voice could cut through anything, like a Rainbow In The Dark.

For the longest time I have avoided power metal. Not because I thought it was bad music, but because I hadn’t heard enough of it and always kind of thought of it as cheese metal. Though lately I have been checking out just about everything I come across as Power Metal. Below are a couple handfuls of bands and the albums that have turned me on to this genre of metal. All of them are currently the latest releases by the bands. I’m slowly picking my way through each album, so I don’t have a whole lot to say about each album and band, so here is just a simple list with links to their respective Myspace or website. And yes, some of these bands have been around for a long time and these are in no particular order.

• Masterplan – Time To Be King (check out a review at TNOTB)
• Mob Rules - Radical Peace (Awesome melodies)
• Dream Evil - In The Night (You’ve heard of them or heard them and probably love them)
• Disdain – Leave This World (A little wanky with the keyboards at times)
• Heavenly – Carpe Diem (A little more keyboard driven and a bit “Inspirational”)
• InnerWish – No Turning Back (A lot of gang vocals that make it nice and heavy)
• Lonewolf – The Dark Crusade (French power metal)
• Kiuas – Lustdriven (FUCKING KILLS! My favorite out of this list)
• Sabaton – Coat Of Arms (A bit different. Folky, cheesy and heavy. War concepts = Cool albums) Have to thank SPna15 from TNOTB for the recommend.
• Black Majesty – In Your Honour (Australian Power Metal)

Going back a bit further in the Dio era, Man On The Silver Mountain was from his Rainbow Days from the first Rainbow album, better known as Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. This was the first track from the 1975 record.