Those of you that know me know that when I go to a show, I like my moshes to be straight fucking moshes. This means there should be precisely 3 things going on: pushing people, running in circles, and pushing people some more. Those of you that know me also know my opinion about hardcore kids (for those of you who don't, I hate them, as the title implies). This was solidified last year at a Between The Buried and Me concert when, while defending myself from a hardcore dancer, I got sucker punched in the face. I have an old blog on my myspace ranting about why, if people are seeing an EMT on a regular basis at your shows, the reaction should not be "YEAH, HARDCORE DUDE!!!" Rather, people should wonder what is wrong with their scene that causes so many grievous injuries.
However, risk of life and limb aside, I still enjoy the music and, while I come out of some shows with a few bruised, the incident at Between The Buried And Me was relatively isolated in my personal experience. That was why I wasn't terribly fazed when I got to the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza show last night. There was the usual run of idiots flailing around like retarded fish out of water, and because the space was limited, they were a little harder to avoid than usual. Nothing I can't handle though. You can take a punch to the face, you can survive a few hits in the arms or back (which is where I'm very sore right now). However, halfway through the second band's set (Born of Osiris: they were awesome, like As I Lay Dying but grindier) I noticed that we were dealing with a very special breed of asshole at this show.
See, at most shows, the hardcore kids maintain a moderate distance from the edge of the pit out of whatever small shred of courtesy they may have for their fellow concertgoers. This show however, had people rushing the edges with spin kicks and flailing punches. Now I cannot stress this point enough here, hardcore dancers look like fucking morons. Words can't even describe how stupid this new moshpit fad is, so I'll let video do it for me.
Look at these fucking idiots. Oh my god it makes me want to shoot myself, as if this is truly the up and coming generation, we are all fucked.
Anyway, Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, Born of Osiris, and See You Next Tuesday (aka CUNT) went off without a hitch for the most part. CUNT was too drunk though, and by the end of their set, it degraded to pure noise. Not like grind noise, but like the guitarist slamming his fretboard against the amp. At one point he pulled me onto the "stage" (which was elevated about 6 inches off the ground) and threw me into the audience. I have no idea why. Anyway, Beneath The Massacre was headlining, and Mike and I were there for TDTDE and them, so we were pretty stoked. 10 minutes into the set, a guy came up on the stage, said something to the singer, and the singer announced "OK, guys, stop fighting with each other out there. Just come up here and headbang with us, we all want a good time but people don't have to get hurt." Solid advice from a cool guy. Flash forward to 5 minutes later when the show stopped again because 10 guys were beating the living shit out of 1 person. I don't know what that guy did, but these fucking pussies were on him like balls in a hardcore kid's mouth. They were slamming him into the bar, knocking him down, and punching and kicking him in the face. There was a puddle of blood on the floor about one foot in diameter. We're not talking smears here, we're talking an actual puddle. I also saw what I believed to be a tooth, but I couldn't be sure because all of the blood on the floor was obscuring things. Have all of my italics made this clear enough?
At this point a guy from the knitting factory came out and started yelling at the crowd that "they were acting like a bunch of fucking idiots and that they needed to show some fucking respect for the bands". Then they canceled the rest of the show. That's right, hardcore kids managed to get a show fucking canceled because they wouldn't listen to the band (who they supposedly respect enough to pay money to see) when they told them to fucking cool it. The show got divided into two people: those who supported the knitting factory guy, and those who kept chanting "fuck you, asshole!" Let me make this clear. They were beating the living shit out of somebody for no good reason (I don't know what he did, but nobody deserves the beating that he took unless they are Osama Bin Laden or Peter Jackson) and they were outraged when the band told them to stop beating the shit out of people. I have gone to somewhere between 30 and 40 metal shows and have never seen a beating half this severe. Before this, my trump card of mosh pit stories was my friend Ben getting half of his front tooth kicked out.
On the way out of the show, I commented to Mike that this was why hardcore dancing is stupid. Somebody gets hurt, a fight breaks out, and it wrecks the show for people who just wanted a night of headbanging and heavy music. Some dude overheard it and started calling me a "faggot pussy motherfucking bitch" and suggested that I "go cry about it" like "a faggot". And that sums up the hardcore scene right there. A bunch of meatheads who can't resolve conflicts like a human being and instead gang up on people, because in a one on one fight they would go down like the dickless pieces of shit that they are.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Do You Dislike People?
Then come and work at NYU's dining halls and health center. That's right, if you hate talking to, interacting with, helping, or simply seeing other people, then these positions are perfect for you. Allow me to elucidate.
I'll start with the dining halls, as I have less of a bone to pick with them, but a bone nonetheless (insert appropriate sexual innuendo here). I live at the Palladium, which amongst it's numerous other features (a career center that I have not visited since fall and a gym that I never use) features a dining hall. There are 12 residential floors in the building with about 25 rooms apiece, most of which house 4 students each. Suffice to say, there are a lot of people in this building which means the dining hall is always crowded. This of course means that the employees there (with the exception of one cool guy who can knock off 10 people in about 2 minutes) prepare and serve the food one person at a time. This is in addition to barely ever paying attention to requests (because asking them to not put onions on your sandwich is an affront to them and you must be made to pay for it), maintaining a gruff and shouty demeanor, and essentially treating you like shit scraped from their boots for asking them to do their fucking job and get you your food. If food preparation is not your thing, you can be the official swipe nazi, ensuring that only people who have swiped meals are allowed to even look at the dining area (which is a completely separate room from where you acquire the food). This means that if you have a friend who doesn't have a meal plan (about half of the people in my group) it will cost you an extra meal for them to sit with you. Not even take the food. Just to sit down at a table. As if, given the choice between their own good food and the dining hall, somebody would knock over the dining hall for all it's worth. There's nothing I love more than burnt burgers, powdered eggs, and quite possibly the shittiest, driest sandwiches I have ever consumed.
Now onward for those of you so misanthropic that even sighting another human being makes your stomach turn: The NYU Health Center. If you make an appointment, it is almost guaranteed that you will not be seen for at least a week, probably two, after you call to schedule. Should you actually still be ailing from whatever your initial problem was when your appointment finally rolls around, they will make you fill out a questionnaire about every possible thing that might be even remotely pertinent (pre-existing conditions, things that run in the family, do you drink/smoke/use drugs, what kind of sex you have with how many people, do you wear a seatbelt - yes that is a real question that they ask every time you go in). This may seem like something that would be worthwhile, and it would be if the quacks that work at that fucking cesspool of incompetence actually read it. Instead, the nurse will come in, ask you the questions that you just finished filling out, and write them down. Then the "doctor" will come in and ask you the same questions that the nurse just asked you, which you just filled out on the goddamn form. Brief example: I have been taking zyrtec for my allergies since I was 14 and always say such on the form, yet when I went in this week to get the horrifying hives I have been breaking out in treated, the "doctor" had the fucking gall to recommend that I try zyrtec. When I told them I have taken it for so long that I am practically immune to antihistamines, the doctor shrugged and recommended I make an appointment with the allergist. They fit me in in March.
Now, should you manage to make it past the form/question triple barrage without dying from overexposure to pure stupid, they will chalk up whatever is ailing you to one of two things: post nasal drip or (if applicable) smoking. I could walk in there with a gunshot wound to the fucking arm and they would tell me that it is, in all likelihood, a cold. It took Allison 3 trips in two weeks to get diagnosed with mono, and on the last trip her throat was so swollen that she could barely talk and they had to intravenously hydrate her because it hurt too much to eat or drink. And they were still ambivalent as to whether or not it was post nasal drip. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. This place makes me so goddamned angry that I sometimes contemplate lighting myself on fire and running around in front of their building to warn others not to enter if they might even be slightly sick, finally leaving an ashen husk as a grim reminder of my sacrifice (until the street cleaners sweep me into a dustpan).
So if either of these posts sound like something you'd be interested in, apply today and they'll be sure not to help you just as soon as they can.
I'll start with the dining halls, as I have less of a bone to pick with them, but a bone nonetheless (insert appropriate sexual innuendo here). I live at the Palladium, which amongst it's numerous other features (a career center that I have not visited since fall and a gym that I never use) features a dining hall. There are 12 residential floors in the building with about 25 rooms apiece, most of which house 4 students each. Suffice to say, there are a lot of people in this building which means the dining hall is always crowded. This of course means that the employees there (with the exception of one cool guy who can knock off 10 people in about 2 minutes) prepare and serve the food one person at a time. This is in addition to barely ever paying attention to requests (because asking them to not put onions on your sandwich is an affront to them and you must be made to pay for it), maintaining a gruff and shouty demeanor, and essentially treating you like shit scraped from their boots for asking them to do their fucking job and get you your food. If food preparation is not your thing, you can be the official swipe nazi, ensuring that only people who have swiped meals are allowed to even look at the dining area (which is a completely separate room from where you acquire the food). This means that if you have a friend who doesn't have a meal plan (about half of the people in my group) it will cost you an extra meal for them to sit with you. Not even take the food. Just to sit down at a table. As if, given the choice between their own good food and the dining hall, somebody would knock over the dining hall for all it's worth. There's nothing I love more than burnt burgers, powdered eggs, and quite possibly the shittiest, driest sandwiches I have ever consumed.
Now onward for those of you so misanthropic that even sighting another human being makes your stomach turn: The NYU Health Center. If you make an appointment, it is almost guaranteed that you will not be seen for at least a week, probably two, after you call to schedule. Should you actually still be ailing from whatever your initial problem was when your appointment finally rolls around, they will make you fill out a questionnaire about every possible thing that might be even remotely pertinent (pre-existing conditions, things that run in the family, do you drink/smoke/use drugs, what kind of sex you have with how many people, do you wear a seatbelt - yes that is a real question that they ask every time you go in). This may seem like something that would be worthwhile, and it would be if the quacks that work at that fucking cesspool of incompetence actually read it. Instead, the nurse will come in, ask you the questions that you just finished filling out, and write them down. Then the "doctor" will come in and ask you the same questions that the nurse just asked you, which you just filled out on the goddamn form. Brief example: I have been taking zyrtec for my allergies since I was 14 and always say such on the form, yet when I went in this week to get the horrifying hives I have been breaking out in treated, the "doctor" had the fucking gall to recommend that I try zyrtec. When I told them I have taken it for so long that I am practically immune to antihistamines, the doctor shrugged and recommended I make an appointment with the allergist. They fit me in in March.
Now, should you manage to make it past the form/question triple barrage without dying from overexposure to pure stupid, they will chalk up whatever is ailing you to one of two things: post nasal drip or (if applicable) smoking. I could walk in there with a gunshot wound to the fucking arm and they would tell me that it is, in all likelihood, a cold. It took Allison 3 trips in two weeks to get diagnosed with mono, and on the last trip her throat was so swollen that she could barely talk and they had to intravenously hydrate her because it hurt too much to eat or drink. And they were still ambivalent as to whether or not it was post nasal drip. I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP. This place makes me so goddamned angry that I sometimes contemplate lighting myself on fire and running around in front of their building to warn others not to enter if they might even be slightly sick, finally leaving an ashen husk as a grim reminder of my sacrifice (until the street cleaners sweep me into a dustpan).
So if either of these posts sound like something you'd be interested in, apply today and they'll be sure not to help you just as soon as they can.
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Key to the Most Profound Sadness You Will Ever Feel
Don't worry, everything is actually a-OK in the Michael camp at present, yet right now I am seriously bummed out. Like, seriously. What may have happened, you might ask? Did Allison dump me? Have I been booted from the university? Do I have every kind of cancer at once? Has my spleen fallen out of my asshole? No my friends, this is something much more, as the title says, profound.
Over winter break, my sister got me watching the show Six Feet Under. Let me tell you, for those of you who have not seen it, it is absolutely incredible. Better than The Sopranos, 24, Lost, and The Office combined. However, with such a fantastic show comes fantastic consequences. Namely, you get heavily invested in all of the characters. When you like a character, you are enamored with them, and when you hate them, you feel such blood boiling rage that the line between reality and fiction blurs so heavily that you may vent your frustrations on your family in retribution for the actions of the characters on the show. Suffice to say, it is engrossing.
Anyway, I don't want to give away too much for anyone who may still have designs to see it, but the final season is one of the most emotionally straining things I have ever put myself through. It's been almost a day since I watched the final episode and I am still plagued by a certain ennui. Life lacks a certain vigor now that the show has concluded, specifically due to the way it concludes. Oh well, at least I've still got season 5 of The Shield to watch in order to bring me back to the world of the living.
Over winter break, my sister got me watching the show Six Feet Under. Let me tell you, for those of you who have not seen it, it is absolutely incredible. Better than The Sopranos, 24, Lost, and The Office combined. However, with such a fantastic show comes fantastic consequences. Namely, you get heavily invested in all of the characters. When you like a character, you are enamored with them, and when you hate them, you feel such blood boiling rage that the line between reality and fiction blurs so heavily that you may vent your frustrations on your family in retribution for the actions of the characters on the show. Suffice to say, it is engrossing.
Anyway, I don't want to give away too much for anyone who may still have designs to see it, but the final season is one of the most emotionally straining things I have ever put myself through. It's been almost a day since I watched the final episode and I am still plagued by a certain ennui. Life lacks a certain vigor now that the show has concluded, specifically due to the way it concludes. Oh well, at least I've still got season 5 of The Shield to watch in order to bring me back to the world of the living.
Friday, January 25, 2008
On "Controversy"
OK, before you read this post, have you read the one below it? About Microsoft discovering sex? No? Go read it now. Don't worry, it's cool, I'll wait. Kind of amusing wasn't it? Anyway, here are my actual thoughts on all of this shit that's been happening.
I was going to post the original article that inspired this rage (now kind of notorious on the internet), but it looks like the hack who wrote it has since taken the post down off of his site (probably for two reasons: 1) he realized that he could not support a single claim that he made and 2) he is a cowardly idiot. Yes I'm resorting to name calling, but whatever. I will call an idiot one if I damn well please). The thesis is essentially that Mass Effect is a sex simulator that is only a step away from breeding a generation of sexual deviants and rapists. In lieu of that riveting journalistic expose, here is the Wikipedia summary, and here is the video it mentions, which is so goddamned infuriating that in spite of the fact that I was in a public office, I could be seen, headphones on my ears, scoffing and seething throughout its duration. The best part is the host claiming to "just have gotten back into video games" when it is obvious that even duck hunt would be beyond this feeble twat's grasp.
What baffles me the most about this so-called controversy is that this information has been available since literally MONTHS before the goddamn game was even released. Haven't we been done with it for awhile anyway? Besides, it was much more terrifying when, you know, the game wasn't actually done and no one knew. Now, just go to youtube, search "mass effect alien sex" and voila! Oh god, just look at it! the horror! My fragile mind is forever shattered!
This whole scenario is really just part of a much more disturbing trend, however. Pundits are being given far too much control of what the media reports, and the thing about most pundits is that they argue, rather than report. Thusly, they aren't exactly obligated to present all sides of an argument, or in this case ANY side. What grinds my gears is that the material in question is available for public review. It comprises 1:30 seconds of a 20+ hour game, and yet people are still getting their collective panties in such a twist that Chubby Checker wouldn't even know what to do. These panels consist of nobody knowledgeable on the subject of electronic media and that is profoundly disturbing. We see the same patterns in global warming and medical issues like stem cells and abortions. Instead of knowledgeable and reputable people from the fields in question, "information" is instead disseminated to us by conservative business interests and religious nutcases.
The worst part is that people seem to buy into this painfully ignorant media hype as fact rather than question what sounds like an incredibly dubious claim to begin with. A video game filled with hours on end of nothing but sexually depraved interactive sequences just flat out would not exist, much like you would not see screenings of Anal Cumsluts 4 at your local movie theater playing alongside The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, if a game garners an Adults Only rating (which such a game, as described by these moronic hacks, would certainly receive), then the major platforms (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) would refuse to allow them to be published for their system until the content is back in check and the ESRB deems it Mature or lower. The points that some people make are fairly reasonable: parents should watch what their children play. I wasn't allowed to play any games with shooting whatsoever until I was 11 and had a firm grasp of the fact that video games weren't reality (by that time I had about 5 years of gaming under my belt). But for fuck's sake people, parents don't NEED to be on the lookout for rape simulators. In fact, if you find yourself in an establishment where you wonder whether or not electronic rape how-to kits are being sold, you should probably just cut your losses and find a different store, as I can assure you, you are not at Gamestop.
I guess the encompassing argument to this diatribe is as follows: just because the caption at the bottom of the screen says "panel of experts" it does not mean that these people are experts. Oil companies are providing global warming studies, religious figures are telling us how we should handle the field of medicine, and psychologists who wouldn't recognize a playstation if they were bludgeoned in the face with the box are "authorities" on electronic entertainment. The trend seems to be that the louder someone is, the more weight they carry in that particular field, and that is simply not true. After all, if that was the case, I would be the goddamned president.
I was going to post the original article that inspired this rage (now kind of notorious on the internet), but it looks like the hack who wrote it has since taken the post down off of his site (probably for two reasons: 1) he realized that he could not support a single claim that he made and 2) he is a cowardly idiot. Yes I'm resorting to name calling, but whatever. I will call an idiot one if I damn well please). The thesis is essentially that Mass Effect is a sex simulator that is only a step away from breeding a generation of sexual deviants and rapists. In lieu of that riveting journalistic expose, here is the Wikipedia summary, and here is the video it mentions, which is so goddamned infuriating that in spite of the fact that I was in a public office, I could be seen, headphones on my ears, scoffing and seething throughout its duration. The best part is the host claiming to "just have gotten back into video games" when it is obvious that even duck hunt would be beyond this feeble twat's grasp.
What baffles me the most about this so-called controversy is that this information has been available since literally MONTHS before the goddamn game was even released. Haven't we been done with it for awhile anyway? Besides, it was much more terrifying when, you know, the game wasn't actually done and no one knew. Now, just go to youtube, search "mass effect alien sex" and voila! Oh god, just look at it! the horror! My fragile mind is forever shattered!
This whole scenario is really just part of a much more disturbing trend, however. Pundits are being given far too much control of what the media reports, and the thing about most pundits is that they argue, rather than report. Thusly, they aren't exactly obligated to present all sides of an argument, or in this case ANY side. What grinds my gears is that the material in question is available for public review. It comprises 1:30 seconds of a 20+ hour game, and yet people are still getting their collective panties in such a twist that Chubby Checker wouldn't even know what to do. These panels consist of nobody knowledgeable on the subject of electronic media and that is profoundly disturbing. We see the same patterns in global warming and medical issues like stem cells and abortions. Instead of knowledgeable and reputable people from the fields in question, "information" is instead disseminated to us by conservative business interests and religious nutcases.
The worst part is that people seem to buy into this painfully ignorant media hype as fact rather than question what sounds like an incredibly dubious claim to begin with. A video game filled with hours on end of nothing but sexually depraved interactive sequences just flat out would not exist, much like you would not see screenings of Anal Cumsluts 4 at your local movie theater playing alongside The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, if a game garners an Adults Only rating (which such a game, as described by these moronic hacks, would certainly receive), then the major platforms (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) would refuse to allow them to be published for their system until the content is back in check and the ESRB deems it Mature or lower. The points that some people make are fairly reasonable: parents should watch what their children play. I wasn't allowed to play any games with shooting whatsoever until I was 11 and had a firm grasp of the fact that video games weren't reality (by that time I had about 5 years of gaming under my belt). But for fuck's sake people, parents don't NEED to be on the lookout for rape simulators. In fact, if you find yourself in an establishment where you wonder whether or not electronic rape how-to kits are being sold, you should probably just cut your losses and find a different store, as I can assure you, you are not at Gamestop.
I guess the encompassing argument to this diatribe is as follows: just because the caption at the bottom of the screen says "panel of experts" it does not mean that these people are experts. Oil companies are providing global warming studies, religious figures are telling us how we should handle the field of medicine, and psychologists who wouldn't recognize a playstation if they were bludgeoned in the face with the box are "authorities" on electronic entertainment. The trend seems to be that the louder someone is, the more weight they carry in that particular field, and that is simply not true. After all, if that was the case, I would be the goddamned president.
Microsoft Invented Sex
I'm not even fucking kidding here. If it was not for Microsoft, I never would have known what sex was. Oh, I was a perfectly normal guy, leading a perfectly normal life these past 20 years. You know, prayer circles, youth groups, witch burnings, the usual. This Christmas though, that all changed. My parents, in what could only be described as the worst move they could have made bought me the new popular electronic entertainment title called Mass Effect. I know their intentions were good. They never would have dreamed that a game that was rated M for Mature audiences would have inappropriate content. Even though I'm over 17 (the age specified on the box) by a good 3 years, it never hurts to be thoroughly scrutinizing in one's media consumption. I began playing this game, and my mind was BLOWN.
Every single event in this game is wrought with sex. Just all kinds of intercourse. There is a weapon called the sodomizer. There is a peripheral that you can attach to your xbox so that when you rape somebody in the game, you can rape somebody in real life, the game mapping and plotting your every thrust and violation in sickening 3-d high definition graphics (720, OR 1080p. Smut peddlers). The times when you're not perpetrating your sickest fantasies involving sodomy, curling irons, banana peels, and a large mouth bass, you are simply not playing this game. You know why that is? Every second is jam packed with more smut than Sodom itself.
I never knew what sex was until Microsoft brought it into the media for the first time ever in this video game, but now, all i do is rape people in mass effect, then when I eventually overheat the system from all of the hardcore-pornstar-fucking I'm doing, I set small animals on fire and rape little girls. Thanks a lot Microsoft, because you guys made this game, I'm a murdering sexual deviant, capable only of achieving orgasm if someone dresses up like an alien bitch and lets me hold a gun to their rectum.
Every single event in this game is wrought with sex. Just all kinds of intercourse. There is a weapon called the sodomizer. There is a peripheral that you can attach to your xbox so that when you rape somebody in the game, you can rape somebody in real life, the game mapping and plotting your every thrust and violation in sickening 3-d high definition graphics (720, OR 1080p. Smut peddlers). The times when you're not perpetrating your sickest fantasies involving sodomy, curling irons, banana peels, and a large mouth bass, you are simply not playing this game. You know why that is? Every second is jam packed with more smut than Sodom itself.
I never knew what sex was until Microsoft brought it into the media for the first time ever in this video game, but now, all i do is rape people in mass effect, then when I eventually overheat the system from all of the hardcore-pornstar-fucking I'm doing, I set small animals on fire and rape little girls. Thanks a lot Microsoft, because you guys made this game, I'm a murdering sexual deviant, capable only of achieving orgasm if someone dresses up like an alien bitch and lets me hold a gun to their rectum.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Best $15 Ever Spent
This Sunday I managed to really accomplish something that I had been unable to do for a while. No, I don't mean study for finals or prepare myself in any way or anything ludicrous like that. No, this Sunday I finally got to see The Dillinger Escape Plan in all of their math-coresque glory. Granted, there were a few other bands there. Let's discuss them, shall we?
Shat: yes, as in the past tense of "shit". These guys actually feature what I believe is a former bassist of Dillinger, but it may have been a guitarist. DEP has had so many lineup changes that only one of their guitarists has appeared on every album. Anyway, shat was shit. I think Ryan put it best in saying that they were like GWAR minus 100 IQ points and a lot more dildos. Seriously, they were strapped to like every part of the singer's body. In fact, apart from dildos and a jock strap, guy was nude. We only saw like one song of theirs, and it was funny, but I imagine an entire set from them would grow tiresome.
Genghis Tron: These guys are very respectable on their studio releases. A good combination of synth and grind. A few problems though: they had no drummer, just a drum machine, which felt a little bit like cheating to me. Also, their two keyboardists/samplers didn't really seem into the show, they just kind of wanted to do their own thing, which made their guitarist (who was into the show) seem just kind of poorly matched. Still, a decent opener.
A Life Once Lost: I've never been particularly impressed with A Life Once Lost on their studio releases. The opposite is true for their live show. Their music, while generic, was enough to get some heads banging and some pits started and they just kept up some good energy. They played just the right amount of time so that when their welcome was worn out, they were finished and we could move on to the main event...
The Dillinger Escape Plan: The more I listen to them, the more I love them. I realize that mathcore (especially DEP style) is an acquired taste, but my god, this was the SHIT. It is also worth mentioning that Greg Puciato (their singer) looks like Henry Rollins after a few doses of steroids. The man could sink a battleship using nothing but his biceps. They opened with "Panasonic Youth", and from there played a myriad of songs new and old alike including "43% burnt", "Fix Your Fucking Face", "Lurch", "Milk Lizard", "When Good Dogs Do Bad Things", and closing marvelously with "Sunshine The Werewolf". There were other songs too, but I don't remember all of them. All I know is the band never stopped moving, the playing was spot on (which, considering the energy they kept up the whole show, was a very impressive feat). Greg Puciato at one point climbed a ladder up to the ceiling and finished a song up there, he brought out a torch and breathed fire over the audience, and stage and amp diving abounded throughout. I am still on a high from that show, and it is now 3 days later. You simply have not lived until you have seen The Dillinger Escape Plan live.
I guess that's about it. I finished my finals today and am heading home early tomorrow morning. I'll be back for 10 days, then it's off to Baltimore for New Years. Get your time in while it lasts, for it is a limited commodity.
Shat: yes, as in the past tense of "shit". These guys actually feature what I believe is a former bassist of Dillinger, but it may have been a guitarist. DEP has had so many lineup changes that only one of their guitarists has appeared on every album. Anyway, shat was shit. I think Ryan put it best in saying that they were like GWAR minus 100 IQ points and a lot more dildos. Seriously, they were strapped to like every part of the singer's body. In fact, apart from dildos and a jock strap, guy was nude. We only saw like one song of theirs, and it was funny, but I imagine an entire set from them would grow tiresome.
Genghis Tron: These guys are very respectable on their studio releases. A good combination of synth and grind. A few problems though: they had no drummer, just a drum machine, which felt a little bit like cheating to me. Also, their two keyboardists/samplers didn't really seem into the show, they just kind of wanted to do their own thing, which made their guitarist (who was into the show) seem just kind of poorly matched. Still, a decent opener.
A Life Once Lost: I've never been particularly impressed with A Life Once Lost on their studio releases. The opposite is true for their live show. Their music, while generic, was enough to get some heads banging and some pits started and they just kept up some good energy. They played just the right amount of time so that when their welcome was worn out, they were finished and we could move on to the main event...
The Dillinger Escape Plan: The more I listen to them, the more I love them. I realize that mathcore (especially DEP style) is an acquired taste, but my god, this was the SHIT. It is also worth mentioning that Greg Puciato (their singer) looks like Henry Rollins after a few doses of steroids. The man could sink a battleship using nothing but his biceps. They opened with "Panasonic Youth", and from there played a myriad of songs new and old alike including "43% burnt", "Fix Your Fucking Face", "Lurch", "Milk Lizard", "When Good Dogs Do Bad Things", and closing marvelously with "Sunshine The Werewolf". There were other songs too, but I don't remember all of them. All I know is the band never stopped moving, the playing was spot on (which, considering the energy they kept up the whole show, was a very impressive feat). Greg Puciato at one point climbed a ladder up to the ceiling and finished a song up there, he brought out a torch and breathed fire over the audience, and stage and amp diving abounded throughout. I am still on a high from that show, and it is now 3 days later. You simply have not lived until you have seen The Dillinger Escape Plan live.
I guess that's about it. I finished my finals today and am heading home early tomorrow morning. I'll be back for 10 days, then it's off to Baltimore for New Years. Get your time in while it lasts, for it is a limited commodity.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Musical Superlatives (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Put Off My Term Papers Just A Little More)
So, Allison has been doing a bunch of stuff for City Paper/Idolater over the last month about her musical superlatives of 2007. This of course got me thinking, what would mine be? Well wonder no more, good readers as I take you through the magical wonderland that is my musical preferences of the year.
Top 10 Albums of 2007
10. Untitled - KoЯn: They may have lost almost half of their original lineup, but perhaps that was the kick start the band needed to finally realize a sound that could be both experimental and yet true to their roots. A solid evolution for the band. There is actually a full review featured on this blog. Just check the tags. You'll find it.
9. Colors - Between The Buried & Me: Given that Alaska was more a step backwards for the band than anything, and Anatomy Of... was quite possibly the biggest blueballing of 2006, it's about time that BTBAM came out with something that possesses both the accessibility that they were shooting for with Alaska and the ferocity of their crowning achievement The Silent Circus. Finally, a return to form after almost 4 years of teetering on the edge.
8. Lies For The Liars - The Used: Catchy, Poppy, and juuuust the right amount of wailing from Bert McCracken without it becoming trite and cliched (well, more cliched. Emo wailing is in and of itself a cliche, but if you do it right, it sounds good and raw). The band added a little bit of a swingy element to most of the songs and gives them a distinctive danceable feel.
7. Mongrel - The Number Twelve Looks Like You: Each album from these guys gets better than its predecessor. Just the right amount of spastic without getting too repetitive, clever song titles and lyrics ("All Right, I admit it: It was a whorehouse" being my favorite) and great use of both of their vocalists.
6. Zeitgeist - Smashing Pumpkins: This album could have been really bad. No James, no D'arcy, no pumpkins right? Well, given the sound of this album, apparently you kind of only need Billy Corgan to make a Smashing Pumpkins Album. While it's not Mellon Collie... to be sure, it was nice to finally have some new SP back in my life.
5. Ire Works - The Dillinger Escape Plan: This is my last tech/prog/grind album, I swear. DEP really looked like they were headed the way of the dodo given how long this album took to come out, but it was worth the wait. This runs the gamut of "ambient white noise" to "club danceable" - to "grind your fucking face off".
4. Cex Cells - Blaqk Audio: OK, I admit it, the deliberate mis-spelling in the name is really retarded, but the music more than makes up for it. The band consists of Davey Havok and Jade Puget from AFI, but the music is more like early to mid 90's Depeche Mode if Davey Havok sung for them. I'm normally not huge on electronica, but this album blew me away.
3. The Big Dirty - Every Time I Die: No one does southern style hardcore as well as these guys, which is odd since they're from Buffalo, NY. Still though, the riffs on this album are ferocious, catchy, and always keep you guessing where they'll go next, and Keith Buckley's writing is as tongue in cheek as ever. Nothing quite matches "Hey there! Girls! I'm a cunt!" from "Bored Stiff" (off of Gutter Phenomenon, their previous release) in terms of laugh out loud hilarity upon hearing, but one of my favorite gems is "you know it gets so hard, it just gets so hard going limp in your arms". Poetry come to life, ladies and gentlemen.
2. The Marrow of a Bone - Dir En Grey: A lot of J-Rockers would probably try to have me excommunicated for this, but whatever, fuck em. I goddamn LOVED this album. Kyo goes from haunting and melodic to horrifying and screamy with incredible ease, making for a great mish-mash of different elements. The guitar work is some of the most solid I've heard from the band to date, and much like they did with Withering to Death, DEG takes the heaviness up a notch.
1. New Maps of Hell - Bad Religion: I'll be the first to admit that the members of Bad Religion could probably just record themselves pooping and I would probably lap that shit up like anti-freeze at a petting zoo, but this is really a legitimately fantastic album. Hell, it even made Allison's top 10 of '07 and she doesn't even really listen to the band. Anyway, it had been way too long since I heard anything new from Greg and the gang and I had been anticipating this the better part of a year. Blending elements from their early Suffer through Stranger Than Fiction days, deftly skipping over their Mr. Brett-less lulling middle years, and continuing on through Process of Belief and Empire Strikes First, this Album quite literally has everything that makes Bad Religion awesome, and while some tracks are slightly less awesome than others, I wouldn't say there's a bad one in the bunch. I would bear its babies then get a second job to support them through college. Definitely number 1 of '07.
As an added bonus, here are the albums that almost made the cut, but due to space constrictions, I had to leave out. Still quality albums, but maybe not top 10 quality.
*The Blackening - Machine Head
*The Last Kind Words - Devildriver
*Elect The Dead - Serj Tankian (it really killed me to have to eliminate this one)
*An Ocean Between Us - As I Lay Dying
*Rise of the Tyrant - Arch Enemy
*The Black and White Album - The Hives (I will probably catch hell from Allison for eliminating this one)
*Danza II: Electric Boogaloo - The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza
Feel free to comment with what you think your top 10 albums of '07 are. I feel like it would be fun to get a few different perspectives here (note: if you're reading through facebook, please comment on my actual blog page. Gracias!)
Top 10 Albums of 2007
10. Untitled - KoЯn: They may have lost almost half of their original lineup, but perhaps that was the kick start the band needed to finally realize a sound that could be both experimental and yet true to their roots. A solid evolution for the band. There is actually a full review featured on this blog. Just check the tags. You'll find it.
9. Colors - Between The Buried & Me: Given that Alaska was more a step backwards for the band than anything, and Anatomy Of... was quite possibly the biggest blueballing of 2006, it's about time that BTBAM came out with something that possesses both the accessibility that they were shooting for with Alaska and the ferocity of their crowning achievement The Silent Circus. Finally, a return to form after almost 4 years of teetering on the edge.
8. Lies For The Liars - The Used: Catchy, Poppy, and juuuust the right amount of wailing from Bert McCracken without it becoming trite and cliched (well, more cliched. Emo wailing is in and of itself a cliche, but if you do it right, it sounds good and raw). The band added a little bit of a swingy element to most of the songs and gives them a distinctive danceable feel.
7. Mongrel - The Number Twelve Looks Like You: Each album from these guys gets better than its predecessor. Just the right amount of spastic without getting too repetitive, clever song titles and lyrics ("All Right, I admit it: It was a whorehouse" being my favorite) and great use of both of their vocalists.
6. Zeitgeist - Smashing Pumpkins: This album could have been really bad. No James, no D'arcy, no pumpkins right? Well, given the sound of this album, apparently you kind of only need Billy Corgan to make a Smashing Pumpkins Album. While it's not Mellon Collie... to be sure, it was nice to finally have some new SP back in my life.
5. Ire Works - The Dillinger Escape Plan: This is my last tech/prog/grind album, I swear. DEP really looked like they were headed the way of the dodo given how long this album took to come out, but it was worth the wait. This runs the gamut of "ambient white noise" to "club danceable" - to "grind your fucking face off".
4. Cex Cells - Blaqk Audio: OK, I admit it, the deliberate mis-spelling in the name is really retarded, but the music more than makes up for it. The band consists of Davey Havok and Jade Puget from AFI, but the music is more like early to mid 90's Depeche Mode if Davey Havok sung for them. I'm normally not huge on electronica, but this album blew me away.
3. The Big Dirty - Every Time I Die: No one does southern style hardcore as well as these guys, which is odd since they're from Buffalo, NY. Still though, the riffs on this album are ferocious, catchy, and always keep you guessing where they'll go next, and Keith Buckley's writing is as tongue in cheek as ever. Nothing quite matches "Hey there! Girls! I'm a cunt!" from "Bored Stiff" (off of Gutter Phenomenon, their previous release) in terms of laugh out loud hilarity upon hearing, but one of my favorite gems is "you know it gets so hard, it just gets so hard going limp in your arms". Poetry come to life, ladies and gentlemen.
2. The Marrow of a Bone - Dir En Grey: A lot of J-Rockers would probably try to have me excommunicated for this, but whatever, fuck em. I goddamn LOVED this album. Kyo goes from haunting and melodic to horrifying and screamy with incredible ease, making for a great mish-mash of different elements. The guitar work is some of the most solid I've heard from the band to date, and much like they did with Withering to Death, DEG takes the heaviness up a notch.
1. New Maps of Hell - Bad Religion: I'll be the first to admit that the members of Bad Religion could probably just record themselves pooping and I would probably lap that shit up like anti-freeze at a petting zoo, but this is really a legitimately fantastic album. Hell, it even made Allison's top 10 of '07 and she doesn't even really listen to the band. Anyway, it had been way too long since I heard anything new from Greg and the gang and I had been anticipating this the better part of a year. Blending elements from their early Suffer through Stranger Than Fiction days, deftly skipping over their Mr. Brett-less lulling middle years, and continuing on through Process of Belief and Empire Strikes First, this Album quite literally has everything that makes Bad Religion awesome, and while some tracks are slightly less awesome than others, I wouldn't say there's a bad one in the bunch. I would bear its babies then get a second job to support them through college. Definitely number 1 of '07.
As an added bonus, here are the albums that almost made the cut, but due to space constrictions, I had to leave out. Still quality albums, but maybe not top 10 quality.
*The Blackening - Machine Head
*The Last Kind Words - Devildriver
*Elect The Dead - Serj Tankian (it really killed me to have to eliminate this one)
*An Ocean Between Us - As I Lay Dying
*Rise of the Tyrant - Arch Enemy
*The Black and White Album - The Hives (I will probably catch hell from Allison for eliminating this one)
*Danza II: Electric Boogaloo - The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza
Feel free to comment with what you think your top 10 albums of '07 are. I feel like it would be fun to get a few different perspectives here (note: if you're reading through facebook, please comment on my actual blog page. Gracias!)
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