Tuesday, August 29. 2006
 I've listened to this disc a lot and it really grabbed me from the first play and hasn't let go. This band really has some serious potential. I love the drumming, which at times is as brutal as death metal, but no bones about it, these guys are very melodic.
The vocalist is really impressive. No screaming here, this guy can sing his ass off and his voice is very complementary to the music. He reminds me of a young Bruce Dickinson and the guitars seem influenced by Maiden, but a hell of a lot faster and much more technical.
The musicianship is top notch and the songs are well structured. The record flows from song to song and holds your attention. The type of CD that gets to the last track, ends and starts again and more often than not gets a second spin instead of playing another record. The opening track is my favorite and horns up to Eric Rutan (Hate Eternal/ Mana Studios) for engineering such a great sounding disc. He really did a great job of making this band burst out of your speakers and I’d bet the band themselves are stoked to have had their art captured in its finest form. Freaking awesome!
There’s a fair amount of melody and harmonies for both the guitars and vocals which make me wonder if anyone in the band sings back up for their live performances? Regardless I can not wait to see these guys. I bet they tear it up. The art work on their CD cover is impressive and the packaging is top notch. A fine power metal release from Metal Blade that is sure to bring a lot of attention to a well deserved band. This is the kind of record that older metal heads who moved onto the heavier genres, namely death and back metal, could hear and say something along the lines of “now this is something I can really appreciate.� This is just incredible, I mean traditional metal gone over the top. Harsh screaming or guttural vocals would have ruined this record. It is flawless! This is so god damned metal MANOWAR probably listens to it! It is so god damned metal you’ll shit bullets when listening to it! Cheese free power metal! It is so god damned metal you will basically be a total poser for not buying it, so get you hands on this disc and be god damned metal!
 According to a release from Rancid, they will be going back into the studio to record their seventh album in December, right after their current tour ends. "Our plan is to jump into the studio right after tour, thats when our playing and singing is the strongest," said Tim Armstrong.
Armtrong also plans to release the first track and video from his solo record called "Hold On." In the months to come I plan on dropping the rest of the record for free on the internet, one track at a time." The first track is said to have an old school sound, with everything played live.
Monday, August 28. 2006
 Former Napalm Death guitarist Jesse Pintado passed away this weekend due to complications from a diabetic coma.
Pintado, best know for his time spent with Napalm Death, recently had reunited with the band Terrorizer, of which he was one of the founding members. Known best for his grind core sound, Jesse was a phenomenal guitarist. Jesse is credited with being one of the first people to use the term "grind core."
He spent fifteen years (1989-2004) with Napalm after replacing guitarist Bill Steer. He also played with the band Lock Up for a short time as well. After leaving Napalm for personal reasons, he reunited with Terrorizer. Jesse's final recording Darker Days Ahead was released last week.
One of Jesse's last interviews can be read here
The Cramps
Astoria, Charing Cross, London
15 August 2006
The start: 1976
The Sound: Surf/Psychedelia/Garage/60s punk/rockabilly/psychobilly
“Where’s the merch?� Niki looks at me puzzled.
“Good point.� I reply. We’re upstairs at the bar, looking at the merch stall, there’s only The Priscillas shirts on sale here.
“And who are they?� Niki, sounding worried.
“Follow me mate.� I rush downstairs and head towards the other merch stall. It’s closed.
Sheer panic on Niki’s face, “Wot’s this, no bloody Cramps t-shirts? But I want one!� Mmm, not a good start I silently think to myself. I’m already depressed because I haven’t a photo pass for this gig. No photos? No good. I’m wondering if there are any other photographers here that I might recognise. None so far. We make our way back up the balcony. At least from here we’ll have a good view, this is age talking. No wish to be pushed and shoved about.
The support band is on and not off quick enough for my liking. Nothing at all original here, but talentless drivel. We’re anxious to get The Cramps on stage, after all it was nearly three years ago we saw them in this venue, two nights on the trot and what a couple of great gigs. Ones not to be forgotten. I catch sight of an old mate, Vince Ray. I summon him and his girlfriend Katey over. He’s peeved, “We’ve paid nearly £75 for two tickets.� They were promised guest list places and at the last minute were let down. He continues to say that the Cramps had 200 guests on this list, nearly all had been asked to find another way in.
 Poison Ivy trips onto the stage, closely followed by Lux Interior. She’s in a sparkly platinum 1960s style dress and matching tights with all that red hair. Poison Ivy and her guitar are as sexy as each other. How does she keep that figure of hers? And more importantly, why can’t I do the same thing? Surprise surprise, has Lux gone peroxide blonde? Is he fully dressed? Seems some things have changed. Behind Lux is Chopper Franklin, bass guitarist. He’s in red pvc! Dear God, he’ll be sweating like Gary Glitter at a Kindergartens. Bill Bateman slips behind the drum kit! They begin with “Mad Daddy.� It’s looking very tame, but I’m guessing it’s early yet. They’ll break into an energetic sweat soon enough. Fingers and toes crossed.
Suddenly I wake, had I slipped into a coma? Surely we’re now half way through the set. I’ve not heard any of my favourites or any of their classics that made them who they are today. Is this a bad dream, are The Cramps letting us all down? I refuse to believe it and force myself to concentrate on the gig. They’re working their way through the set-list like robots on auto-pilot.
Poison and Chopper seem to be standing on the spots marked “X.� When did Poison Ivy become so wooden? Are my eyes deceiving me? Even Lux isn’t prepared to attempt his usual amateur dramatics on stage. When did they become complacent? Had they finally run out of steam? Only one good thing has come out to this, Lux hasn’t indecently exposed himself, his poor microphone hasn’t suffered the usual torture it would normally have to endure.
I lean as far over the balcony as I can, Niki’s at the end of my row of friends and I want to see her reaction. I was afraid to say out loud that I might even be BORED. Me! At a Cramps gig, BORED! She’s oblivious to me and the gig. I watch her chew aggressively at a false nail in the blue lights, as if her life depended on it. Oh God, I back up quickly, so as not to put her off her life mission. Niki, the biggest Cramps fan I know is eating a fingernail. For Christ’s sake.
Lux is waffling, he’s thanking us for being evil sadistic motherfuckers, I think, how very kind of him. He’s breaking into “Primitive� and then straight into “Lonesome Town.� Phew, he’s still decently dressed, I don’t have to stare at the shrivelled old sausage again this year. “Caveman� sung almost entirely with the mic in his mouth, spraying spittle everywhere. It’s caught my attention for a few moments.
Worriedly I scan around for Julie and Jim, where the hell are they? Julie would surely never walk out of a Cramps gig, would she? It’s Jim’s birthday, this meant a lot to him. I shout over the guitars to Vince and Owain. “Guys, listen, I’m a bit fed up, tell me what you’re thinking�. They both tense up a little.
Finally Vince admits that he wasn’t impressed. “I popped to the loo, and when I got back nothing had changed, it still crap�.
Owain just stares at me for a few moments and then back at the stage. “OK,� he offers, “It’s not great is it. I was expecting more I suppose, it doesn’t help that the sound is appalling, but it is the Astoria after all.� He badly wants to defend them, but I know he’s not really into it.
 Lux is guzzling bottled red wine, the rest he’s spilling all over his clothes and the floor. Bloody good job he’s wearing wipe clean pvc black trousers. (I’m not sure where he’s going with that diamante belt, its not really his best look). Even he’s looking bored. Poison Ivy has that far away look in her eyes. She glances at Lux fleetingly as he throws himself to the floor and grabs one of her legs. She rolls her eyes in a motherly way. Pretends to be completely uninterested. They end the set with “Psychotic Reaction,� now I do love this song, but with the terrible “front of house� sound, it took me some time to recognise it. They drag it out unnecessarily and leave the stage.
My mind wonders, I’m thinking about Joey Ramone. No more Ramones and with half the original members dead, there’s no coming back now. I’m sad. But I snap out of it quickly.
They drag themselves back onto the stage for the encore. Lux makes an appropriate announcement “You know� mumble mumble, “we probably won’t be here next year! This year is our thirtieth year!� Then it hits me suddenly, this could be the last ever time we see The Cramps. Sheer panic, our last ever Cramps gig in the UK and I’m sitting here slagging it off. I should be damn well grateful to be here. I’m not, I’m still highly pissed off. They’re playing “One Way Ticket� and I go to grab Martyn, to make this very statement to him and he’s nowhere to be seen. Another person gone AWOL.
I’m getting a migraine, I notice Owain is squinting. Lux is sitting on an amp next to the drummer and is dropping his mic onto the symbol, over and over and over again. He then proceeds to break the top off his bottle of wine, keeps the broken glass in his mouth and annoyingly yells muffled noises through it. Make him stop NOW! Poison Ivy doesn’t look amused either, the amp is behind her, so it can’t be doing her already fucked hearing any good. Through all this chaos they slip into an excruciating long version of “Tear it Up,� Lux continuously banging his mic stand on the wood floor. The song is finally over, they leave the stage. The house lights are on, and folk are booing. Not for the same reason I’m booing. I feel a little like I’d been dragged through a bush backwards.
The gang head quietly towards the exit, only to find Julie and Jim sitting in a dark corner of the upstairs bar. Julie appears out of the black and grabs me. I jump. “Where ya disappear to girlfriend?�
She’s looking cross. “Bloody awful gig mate, had to leave sharpish, couldn’t take the noise, and WHAT was with that shite set list and the shitty sound?� I sigh, I knew this was going to be her reaction. Jim sat silently. He obviously had no words to describe this mess of a gig. I was actually glad I wasn’t interviewing them, I might find myself getting out of hand. I wouldn’t want to insult them after all, they are still one of my childhood bands that I will always adore. But can I wipe tonight’s gig from my memory? Not bloody likely.
Continue reading "Concert Review - The Cramps, London, UK"
Sounds of the Underground. August 4, 2006. The Rave, Milwaukee WI
Through the Eyes of the Dead
Evergreen Terrace
Chariot
Behemoth
The Black Dahlia Murder
Terror
Gwar
Cannibal Corpse
Trivium
Machine Head
In Flames
As I Lay Dying
PART TWO
This is part two of a three part segment. Imagine how HUGE this would be if bands actually played long sets!
 Behemoth, a crowd fav and a recent find of mine (thank gawd for Hard Attack). For some reason I can't read a darned thing I wrote on these guys (maybe it's because I have been waiting to board a plane for over an hour) but I must say I really love this band. I mean you may have fear when you hear the words Polish and black metal in same sentence, however, this trio has the look, the attitude, and the sound. And really, the Europeans do wonders with the black metal genre. (And I have a weakness for a European man in makeup.) They were definitely a crowd fav and show signs of being major up and comers.
One thing I really liked: My job here is to basically watch and give opinions. I tend to stand to the side now, watch the show, watch the pit, watch the crowd, and take notes. What I saw from this band was total respect for fans. While he had just finished a set and was assisting to pack their gear, a kid kept calling to Nergal. Rather than just blow the kid off, he stopped and took five minutes to talk with this kid. While they are not superstars to the level of some of the bands, they are fairly well known. I have seen local bar bands treat fans worse, and, well, the fans pay your bills. Props to Nergal for looking out for the kids.
 The Black Dahlia Murder seems almost more death lite or thrash. High screaming vocals that make the hackles rise, while deep growls add a balance. I say they are more thrash or speed than death because they seemed to lack the darkness needed with death. That isn’t a bad thing, because variety at these shows is the true beauty. Once again this was one of the bands that seemed to get lost. The vocals and drums really seemed to overpower the guitars, which is what impressed me most with the songs I had heard so far. One thing I do have to say, seriously, is the Rave can kill some bands. This would be one of the bands it did that to. That's what CDs are for. I would really like to see them at a different venue. I know their quality was affected by the Rave.
 Terror is what a hardcore band is supposed to be: angry, strong and, well, hard. This is music that reminds me so very much of old skool skater thrash it just put a smile on my face. It was also the first time of the day that I wanted nothing more than to run into the pit and throw some fists. Part of the Trustkill stable, these guys are a band I intend on spending a bit more time getting to know. We cut our time with them short to get the rubber on the camera, and that was disappointing.
 The reason for the rubber of course was GWAR! Its been many years since I last saw GWAR, and I think time has slowed them a bit. Their work at world domination is taking on a slower, almost cleaner pace, however as you can see it still involves plenty of gore. Perhaps the best set up idea this location afforded was to end the Rave shows with Gwar and start the ballroom nice and clean. However the smaller stage seemed to detract from the usual insanity of the band and made seeing them a tad harder. The Nazi Pope was great fun and I think Brian got his best photo of that. The Giant Worm will be further fueled August 29 with the new album
 On to the upstairs for the headlining bands of the evening. While I know many people were happy to see Cannibal early on, it was hard for me. Thinking about death, disembowelment and decapitation with the sun still shining takes a little bit of the fun out of it. This was my first show since Chris Barnes left the band, and if you have read my posts, you know he is one of my favorite death metal vocalists. It also is never a good thing, then again it could be, when the stretcher comes out BEFORE the band even starts. The natives were getting restless. They sounded phenomenal live. Even the shitty acoustics in the ball room could not ruin them. In fact out of the nine or so times I have seen them, this was probably the tightest sounding they've been. “Make Them Suffer� and wonderfully my fav “Hammer Smashed Face� were among the songs played. And as much as I hate to admit it, the new Cannibal is the best incarnation yet. Cannibal will always be the greatest death gore metal band ever.
 Tattoos are something that lots of herpers and musicians have in common. Some of the reptile tattoos I saw this year at Daytona were unreal and I will be snapping a few more for our gallery at Anaheim in a few weeks.
The tattoo I snapped here belongs to both a herper and a musician. This tattoo belongs to Skillet, lead singer for the the Oceanside California based old school punk band Wanted Dead. A seasoned road warrior, when he's not doing things like traveling with the band on Van's Warped Tour, he is a member of LLL Reptile's traveling road crew and can be seen working their booth all over the country selling reptile supplies and herps.
There are lots of other great tattoos, including the famous Tattoo Pete, over in our Tattoo Photo Gallery. Stop by, check them out and maybe upload a few of your own. And girls if some guy at a reptile show or concert stops you and asks to shoot your tats, before you slap the crap out of him, check the name badge, it might just be me;)
Friday, August 25. 2006
 It is now Friday Aug 25 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod. Also we welcome Metal Blade Records as a contest sponsor this month, so everyone that wins a shirt or iPod will also get a copy of Metal Blade's 2006 Summer Sampler with 18 bands including Cannibal Corpse, Unearth and more!
Here is my list... Props to the club.kingsnake buddy who set me up with all sorts of old school punk live bootlegs and outtakes in Dayona.
1. Reverand Horton Heat - Folsom Prison Blues
2. The Exploited - I Beleive in Anarchy
3. Rancid - I Wanna Riot
4. Dead Kennedys - Night of the Living Rednecks
5. The Clash - White Man in Hammersmith Palais
6. The Ramones - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
7. Alice Cooper - Muscle of Love
8. Butthole Surfers - The Shah Sleeps on Lee Harvey's Grave(live)
9. Suicidal Tendencies - War Inside My Head
10. Janes Addiction - Mountain Song
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
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Thursday, August 24. 2006
Sounds of the Underground
August 4, 2006
The Rave, Milwaukee WI
Through the Eyes of the Dead
Evergreen Terrace
Chariot
Behemoth
The Black Dalia Murder
Terror
Gwar
Cannibal Corpse
Trivium
Machine Head
In Flames
As I Lay Dying
As I sit here at 2 pm on a Friday afternoon, I am feeling damned old. Short of a small handful of diehards, I actually can watch what exactly I was 15 years ago. I see some of the old skool folks hanging in the pit, but they are a mere handful. In some cases, such as my brother Raoul who ran many a pit with me in the old days, they have flipped to the dark side, known as the Evil Security Folks. Speaking of that, this is an advantage for us attending. Security who actually likes the music is more fan friendly. Respect those guys, because you could be missing some great moments if you cross them. I also must say I enjoy seeing more girls getting into the heavier music. Back in the day, that was usually reserved for girlfriends and the rare hard core girl. Now it is a little different story.
While the sound quality of the Rave Ballroom is worse than a digested Bull Snake meal, the location is almost perfect for a show like this. The Rave itself has the ability to hold as many as five stages. The huge Ballroom has horrendous sound, but, well, hell, it used to be a basketball court. The Rave Bar, is just that, a small bar stage. The Rave, which in the old days was the President's Room doesn’t actually sound bad but seeing a damn thing from the floor sucks. The Rave Basement used to actually be a bowling alley and is my favorite room to watch a show here. There is also a space that they can put up a side stage for smaller things. At this show, along with the bar stage, local bands were playing to crowds of 20, and in between shows I caught a few songs here and there, and it sounded like I really need to see more of our smaller bands. The Basement was a metalhead's shopping mall with swag and releases from all the bands and labels represented. Free samplers and autograph sessions also were to be found here. I must say I, as well as other fans, was very disappointed when this area closed before As I Lay Dying even started. I did intend on getting a new shirt, but I spose, honestly, how many Cannibal Corpse t-shirts does one need? There are only so many places you can wear a dismembered body shirt and the office is not one of them.
Upon entering the show, everyone got a little yellow sheet of paper. I just had to save this because damn it made me laugh. Let’s just say apparently while this was not entirely enforced by security, and it was more of a guideline than a rule, NO MOSHING OR BODY PASSING IS ALLOWED AT THE RAVE ANY MORE. AND THIS MEANS YOU TOO BUB! Still gives me a chuckle, but my guess is someone felt the need to ruin yet another fun thing in life by suing someone. The exact wording was Due to recent insurance regulations, The Rave has adopted a policy of NO MOSHING OR BODY PASSING. For your safety and the safety of other Rave customers you will be ejected from the premises with no chance of reentry if you are caught moshing or being body passed.
One last thing, just in case any bands are reading this. Especially the new younger acts. People are in a place where they are getting to know your work, and some venues have worse sound than others. While it is uber cool and evil to growl to the audience, sometimes things get lost in translation. Speak and shout, but leave the growling til you hit the big time baby. Let the fans get to know you. Then go truly evil.
The first band we caught (and it was the end of the show) was Through the Eyes of the Dead. Their music was great, nice fast machine gun drums. The singer however didn’t flip my switch. It was almost as if he was trying too hard to be truly evil. For some reason even though we were on time (early in fact) the show started earlier than the schedule. Must be run on Ozz Fest time.
 Evergreen Terrace was up next. Young, bouncy and energetic, these guys were definitely fun to watch. In the beginning I would have described them as death metal lite. Their heavier stuff was kinda lost in the Rave, but some of their songs were music to commit mass murder by. Jason Voorhees would have done wonders with these songs.
 The Chariot was a mess in a good way. I am definitely going to be checking these boys out soon. They started with total chaos, transitioning into a very slow grind core sound. I really kept waiting for and craving the speed. When they started to hit some speed, there was almost an industrial feel to it (but with a banjo) that really made them stand out in my mind. I really like the cacophony of sounds and styles these guys had to offer. The singer, Josh Scogin, definitely fares better here than with previous band Norma Jean, one of the just OK bands from Ozz Fest.
Tuesday, August 22. 2006
Stupid girls.
I have seen evil, and it's in the faces of these two little girls.
When I see thir cute smiles all I see is death.
Often over the years, members of my staff and I have been referred to by users who had had disputes with us as "Nazis." My answer to them has always been, "If you use up its meaning, what word will you use when the real Nazis come back?" I have always taken real offense at anyone referring to us in that manner, and always promised myself I would belt the first guy who says it to my face. These girls would treat such an insult as a compliment.
Usually I am not hyper-critical of 14 year old musicians but since these neo-nazi versions of the Olsen twins have a platform to spew their songs of lies and hate, I figure as a music critic I have a right to respond.
When the punk explosion came back to our shores in the late 70s and 80s, it returned with some nasty surprises as well. Long erroneously associated with all skinheads, the neo-nazi movement embraced the anarchic nature of punk and nazi-skinhead violence would sometimes follow bands with no racist intentions of their own. It got so bad that the Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra penned the legendary thrash anthem "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." Since then, the problem of Nazi skinhead punks, while not abating, at least disappeared from the semi-mainstream as they launched their own white power labels and seemed content to play to their "own kind." Recently, however, the Nazis have begun to take a new tack, ditching the skinhead radicals and aiming straight for the mainstream heartland of America.
Beneath the dimples, braces, and smiley-faced Hitler shirts beat the cold hearts of Nazisim in all its worst forms. Lynx and Lamb Gaede of the band Prussian Blue first performed in 2001 at a white power fest and since then have released two CDs and a DVD. Looking more like they should be on Nickelodeon, overtly racist in their first release, their second release is horrifying in that they have turned to more traditional topics for 14 year olds, such as boys, crushes and dating in an attempt to mask their Nazi message and attract a more mainstream audience. That is frightening at so many levels it is hard to fathom.
I want so much to believe that this is all the work of their mother April, also an avowed Nazi, and that someday these girls will wake up to discover how horribly they have been exploited both by their mother and the Nazi movement. I want to take thse girls by the hand and walk them through the crematories at camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, make them wade through the ashes of the millions in the mass graves, look at the mountains of hair, eyeglasses, and shoes collected from the victims, see the horror in the eyes of a survivor, hear it in their voice, and smell the stench of death that still lingers today in the camps. Unfortunately with their claims in press interviews that their name "Prussian Blue" is a reference to the dye used in the gas Zyklon B and singing songs about Rudolf Hess, it is clear that at the very least they have been very well programmed by the movement, and are doing more than just simply parroting mother April's teachings.
Unlike other media personalities that have managed to keep their anti-semitism below the surface and out of the public eye, or denying it, while quitely dispensing their hateful messages, these girls have embraced the whole of the Nazi movement and are now trying to spread their poisonous message to today's youth covertly.
This is not some marketing ploy cooked up by a P.R. agency to create controversy like embracing Kaballa, crucifying yourself onstage, or telling the President to piss off publicly. These girls are real and their message is deadly serious.
This is a warning. Nazis still exist, they are looking for new blood, and they are looking to start young. Please keep them away from your children.
Monday, August 21. 2006
 There are few bands that really make political statements so perfectly, and Slayer has always been one that really hides it perfectly in their lyrics and makes you eventually start to listen and think.
The long-awaited release from Slayer proves that while they may have been around for a long time, they are still one of the strongest bands out there. Being an old fart (well sort of) Slayer is one of my top bands. Add to it that Kerry keeps snakes, and we have a winner. But I digress.
Some of the songs are a tad slower than in the past, however, no less powerful. It is wonderful to have the gang back together. It is also to know that thrash metal still lives in its most perfect form. This album is also one of the most protested ones they have put out in a while. I actually heard of churches planning on going out and visiting record stores in Wisconsin to save the hordes of Slayer fans from losing their souls. Thankfully I pre-ordered my CD with a new Wermacht shirt. The old shirt is in storage now as I can not longer wash it without it falling apart. But once again my brain is straying.
In my opinion, "Catalyst" is lyrically the best Slayer song ever written. Of course that is because I closely associate with the words.
Attitude is my addiction
I live life with no regrets
Unlike you it's my conviction
That sets me apart from the rest
Then again the words speak of how I live my life exactly. Never look back and never have regrets.
"Jihad" is another great song. It has the lovely slow grind that is almost a Slayer trademark. Even without Tom's vocals I could easily know it was Slayer. "Cult," the first single, is another phenomenal classic song. My only complaint with the entire CD, in fact, is the very beginning intro to "Skeleton Christ" is kinda cheesy, however, the song on a whole is fantastic.
Slayer, dark as ever, does not disappoint. Heavy on themes and lyrics that make you think, it left one person I know asking "What did God ever do to them." If nothing more than inspiring a great album, I'm not complaining.
Lastly, as in the past, Larry Carroll did a great job on the cover art.
Fav Songs:
Catalyst
Cult
Jihad
Friday, August 18. 2006
It is now Friday Aug 18 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod. I must admit, this week I am cheating and have posted this ahead of time because by the time you read this I will be in Daytona.
Here is my list...
1. Rush - Overture
2. The Clash - London Calling
3. Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
4. Radiohead - Stupid Car
5. Oasis - Supersonic
6. Miles Davis/John Coltrane - Straight, No Chaser
7. Ultravox - I Want To Be A Machine
8. Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose
9. Gerry Mulligan Quartet - Swinghouse
10. The Doors - When the Music is Over
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
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Thursday, August 17. 2006
Since everyone but me is at Daytona, it's time to write about dance music.
 Back in the 80s, in my wild youth, I loathed dance music. My friends and I called it "dance fascist music" and sneered at anyone we knew who danced to it, and rapturously adopted the Smiths' 1986 song "Panic" as our anthem:
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
It says nothing to me about my life....
Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ
Of course, we went out dancing every night (I don't believe I got a full night's sleep until sometime in the early 90s), but not even by the wildest stretch of language could anyone contemplate calling what we danced to "dance music." I was researching Johnny Marr's session work for this article, and stumbled over a review of The The's album Infected (which Johnny Marr did NOT play on, in case anyone out there is keeping track), which said something to the effect that despite the "danceability" of the music, "no one could possibly dance to anything this incredibly depressing."
Hell, I used to dance to a song called "Armagh" by a British band called the Au Pairs, that contained the memorable lines, "We don't torture, we're a civilized nation." They were talking about Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but gosh, someone oughta cover that song for today, ya think? But back to dancing. Yes, I danced to "Infected" (still the greatest anti-romance song ever written), but I never, ever danced to actual 80s dance music.
So what happened to change all that?
My friend JD told me that it wasn't me that changed, it was the music. He said that 80s dance music really was just that bad, and dance music today is really better.
Another friend speculated also that the music changed, but his reason was that the drugs changed. He says that I only like "post-ecstasy" dance music, despite the fact that I gave up all my Wicked Ways at the age of 24 and have never done ecstasy on the dance floor, or off it.
My personal theory is that both those things are true, but probably the most important change in dance music had to do not with drugs but with technology. Modern dance music is very much about technology, both in its original conception and recording, and in the endless phenomenon of remixing that characterizes it as a genre. Dance music today, whether called by its rightful name or by its marketing alternative, "electronica," is simply more interesting, more layered, more complex, and more inventive than dance music of the 80s. It's also far more diverse. And at least in this country, incredibly unpopular. Which may also be part of why I like it now. I love an underdog.
  I had to laugh at JeffB, who wrote in his post-SXSW music blogging frenzy that he did now and then like some dance music, naming the Chemical Brothers and Moby as examples. I didn't laugh because that's not dance music, but because it's dance music with street cred; hardly anyone is going to think you're disco trash because you like the Chemical Brothers or Moby - and I like them, too, but I also like honest-to-god-divas-of-the-dancefloor dance music, like Kristine W and Suzanne Palmer and Deborah Cox, who between them are responsible for three, count 'em THREE, of the most played songs on my iPod, Kristine W's "Fly Again," Suzanne Palmer's "Show Me," and the Hex Hector remix of Deborah Cox's anthem "Absolutely Not," which helps put the "fem" back in "feminism" and is thus a big hit with me.
There are some real problems with the way dance music is marketed, one of them being the fact that most dance CDs are six versions of the same song remixed six ways by six different producers and costing twelve bucks. The number of songs I like well enough to pay twelve dollars for six versions of is, let's be frank, very small. I have "In the End" and "Rapture" by Iio - two songs that are so good they make me dizzy, anything and everything Narcotic Thrust has ever done in any and every remix anyone ever made of their songs, and the remixes of "Stupid Girls" by P!nk, because as I think we've already more than established, I LOVE HER. That might be it, other than a bunch of 99 cent-dance-song-CDs I've picked up in the clearance bins.
Speaking of 99 cents, that brings us to the single thing that might well change all that: iTunes, where you can, for one penny less than a dollar, buy just one version of the song you like. At least half my purchases on iTunes are dance music, and they don't even have a very good dance music catalog (although for recent releases it's not too bad; it's just not very deep). Suddenly I can have almost every dance song I want for one-twelfth what it used to cost me. Sadly, this seems to mean I am spending ten times more overall on dance music; I have to think they had that in mind when they came up with their pricing strategy.
Budget aside, the days are over when I sneered at dance music. Now I'm a believer. And in the words of P!ink (did I mention that I love her?):
If God is a DJ life is a dance floor so
Get your ass on the dance floor now...
Before everyone comes back from Daytona and I'm in BIG TROUBLE.
Wednesday, August 16. 2006
 In a land awash in the post-industrial consumerism of the late 20th century, a land seemingly enchanted with the phrase "He who dies with the most toys wins," it's sometimes hard to remember the other phrase, "You can't take it with you." One thing you will take with you is your memories, and I have spent the last few years trying to gather more of those rather than accumulating bits of crap that have to be sorted, stored, and warehoused. School memories, snake hunting stories, expos or conventions and oh ... the concerts. Thousands of concerts.
Big bands, little bands, high schoolers, retirees, hot jazz, cool funk, or riotous punk. Of all my memories, the concerts always come to the top of my lists. The Ramones, XTC, Genesis, AC/DC, god my list is seemingly endless. My only regret is that except for my brief stint as a high school journalist I failed to document any of them and that saddens me, and is a failing I mean to correct here.
Concerts big and small have different effects and meanings to different people. Lots of times it's just seeing a band, watching them plow repetitively through their catalog, playing along as if on some automated music production line, going through the motions to make sound fill the air until their time is up. Other times concerts take on the aura of a religious experience or a historical event. While I have seen many concerts, for me only a small handful reach that level. I have had near-religious experiences both in the past and recently.
The Ramones were one from my long ago past, Hank III or The Zico Chain are some from my recent history. Some of the bands and concerts have gone on to literally change the world we live in today. I am certainly not the only person who feels this way about concerts, either. I always wanted to do a book, and failing that, I started this website instead.
This week I was buying some technical manuals at a local Barnes & Nobles and I spied something on their "new" table. I usually don't get sucked in by such obvious marketing tactics, but what I found was a book that absolutely blew me away. Called "I Was There: Gigs That Changed the World", this inexpensive softbound book is aimed straight at my soul. As I flipped through its pages and counted off the bands I saw between its covers, I found it hard not to get whisked back to those nights in smoke-filled clubs, or the huge stadiums, or reading about the shows you couldn't possibly attend in the popular music press of the time.
The book is filled with stage and behind the scene photos from the events. The people still seem so incredibly young and I feel so incredibly old. I know that Johnny Rotten grew up to be an adult, but seeing that 25+ year old photo of the Pistols at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio when he was literally a punk kid and so was I, reading the words again, it all just came flooding back. Seeing the Ramones again as twenty-somethings fresh from the stage. And the shows I didn't go to, but followed in the press or on TV or have heard legendary stories about, they are all there too. James Brown at the Apollo in '62, The Beatles at Shea Stadium in '65, Johnny Cash playing at Folsom Prison in '68 with Merle Haggard in the prison audience, the make or break for Johnny's career, Bowie's last "Spiders" show, Zeppelin's epic 5-night show at Earl's Court in London in '75, Clapton's first comeback show after nearly slipping away to smack, the infamous Ramones show in London in '76, it's all there in black and white and in color. The words, the pictures, the spirit. I got chills down my spine just glancing through it.
It's not just all the good shows either. The dark spirit over Altamont, the show that ended the "free love" of the ,60s, is in there, as is the cloud that hangs over the First Festival of Chilean Song in '69 that helped launch the cultural revolution that put Allende into power in '72, ending in a miltary coup that saw the festival's promotor, musician Victor Jara, his hands mercelessly broken, tortured, executed and buried in a mass grave in the stadium where the festival was held. These are counterbalanced by such stories as George Harrison's epic Concert for Bangla Desh and Bob Geldof's Live Aid.
I couldn't put this book down, even in the car driving home I caught myself sneaking little peaks at the traffic lights. When I got home I read it cover to cover.
Half the price of a concert ticket, this book is a must-have for any live music fan just for the memories it evokes. I know what a LOT of people are going to be getting for Christmas this year.
Tuesday, August 15. 2006
New feature at club.kingsnake: CDs, DVDs, books, and magazines in our store. Everything's hand selected by our editor, Melanie Martinez, so if you have suggestions for her, contact her here!
Monday, August 14. 2006
If you can get there in time, the first club.kingsnake T-shirts to be given out en mass will be this weekend at the National Reptile Breeders Expo in Daytona Beach Florida. We will give out roughly half on Saturday and half on Sunday. Past experience has shown them to be gone after the first hour or so, so plan on getting there early of you want one.We are slated to be in the same spot as last year, in front of the south loading doors
in front of Freedom Breeder, table 541 according to this years program.
Of course if you miss us there you can get one in Anaheim, or Chicago later in the year OR you can even win one free by partcipating in our weekly contests.
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