Sunday, September 26 2004, 8:14 AM

Ok, so I suppose it's later. So here I sit, about 1 hour from the end of this tour of midnight duty. I can't be more pleased. This is the first time I've done the two week stint of midnights, and let me tell you.... it sucks! Working 7 days straight is bad enough when you consider the things that go into it - screwed up sleep schedule, limited solar exposure, limited human exposure... you get the picture. Well, when you work 14 days straight, the same things apply times two, but everything seems to accumulate more. Phil mentioined quite a few times that he just felt himself turning almost antisocial, just wanting to snap at people all the time, especially at work. Well, I definitely got that too. Combine that with the nifty DoS event of last weekend and other things I won't mention, and it would be pretty safe to say that I was a grumpy asshole for most of the week. But, thankfully, it's almost over. My psyche and body will be happy to return to the realm of the living, but my wallet will be sorry to see the midnight shifts go. They are good for one thing - putting a good chunk of cash into the bank account.

Since things are slow (knock on wood) and there's nothing for me to do really except twiddle my fingers at this point, I suppose I can mention some things I've been meaning to mention. I've bought a few pretty sweet CDs over the past few weeks that I would definitely recommend. The first two were Evergrey CDs - 'In Search of Truth' and 'Solitude Dominance Tragedy'. I'd probably recommend ISoT more, but they're both sweet. ISoT is a concept album, which always seems to generate more interest on my part. The other disc I picked up was 'Comalies' by Lacuna Coil. This was a pretty sweet album as well, but all the songs were kinda slow. When they opened for Anthrax, I could have sworn they had some headbanging thrash songs in their repitore, but alas, they're not on this album. It's still sweet. Cristina Scabbia (their female vocalist) has a great voice, and it's kind of eerily haunting at times. And she's hot too. Does that affect her voice and the talent of the band? Probably not, but it never hurts to say it.

I might try to update some of the old stale pages on the site in my upcoming days off, and then again, I may not. I think I mentioned doing the same thing about 6 months ago, and I never touched them. We'll see I guess.

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Wednesday, November 26 2003, 1:09 AM

Got a few disjoint musical notes here. Most people won't give two shits about this stuff, but its my site, live with it. First, I went out and bought the single for the new Iced Earth album tonight. It's pretty cool, but nothing extraordinary. I do believe they're holding out the extraordinary stuff for the release of the real album - "The Glorious Burden" - so I'm not all that disappointed. There are four songs on the disc, with two typical Iced Earth metal-fests, and two slower songs, one of which is completely unplugged. I really wouldn't think of IE making an unplugged tune, but this is more of a ballad-y tune, so it's cool. This is the first material I've heard with the new vocalist Tim "Ripper" Owens, formerly of Judas Priest. He's not the same vocalist that Matt Barlow was, but he does add a lot of flavor to the songs. Speaking of Matt, he hasn't completely severed his ties with the band - he sings backing vocals on some of the songs on the single. Even though he's off doing his part for our country, it would be cool for him to get back in the studio with IE and have both vocalists rip on a few tracks.

I also picked up an Iron Maiden disc tonight when I got the IE single. I picked up their official greatest hits disc - "Edward The Great". After seeing them in concert this summer and enjoying it, I figured I should pick up some of their stuff. This seemed like a good place to start. I recognize a bunch of the tunes from the concert this summer. Great stuff. They aren't total metal like I'm used to hearing in bands like Metallica, Anthrax, or Slayer, but it's very easy to see how they paved the way for the next generation of metal bands. I'll be picking up more Maiden albums soon.

I read something today that kinda suprised me, and I was pretty pumped about it. About two years ago, one of my favorite bands at the time, Fear Factory, broke up. I was bummed. Well, I just read that they're back together sans guitarist Dino Cazares. I'm hopeful that it will be cool, but Dino was the princpal songwriter for all of their past stuff, so who knows.

I also read a blurb quoting Dimebag Darrel as saying that Pantera was officially done as a band. I guess it really isn't current news, but I hadn't heard it. For better or for worse, Pantera wrote some pretty sweet songs, and I own all of their albums except the last one, and they're all good. They got a little too "GRRR I'M TOUGHER THAN YOU!" in the last couple discs, but the music was still badass. I gues s Dime and Vinny Paul are going on with another band, so perhaps the sweet musical end of Pantera will live on without the raw testosterone that Phil brought to to the band.

Wow, just read another article about Anthrax... apparently they're going to record an in-studio live album consisting of 12 of their old Belladonna era tunes, and they're letting the fans vote for which tunes to use! That is totally cool, because John Bush is like 6.02e23 times better than Joey Belladonna. Vote here.

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Wednesday, August 20 2003, 10:12 PM

Saturday Jon and I got to check out Anthrax for the second time in three months. It was pretty sweet. We did the 'skip out on the opening bands' thing, but our plan backfired since Harpos doesn't have the gay 11:00 cutoff that Pine Knob does. We got there in time to see two of the opening bands.

I don't even know what the first band's name was, since they never said it. They were all right. They had a nu-metal type sound, but with a little more pizazz... They used some off-beat rhythms and some cool leads, which tend to be absent in the musical doldrums of the nu-metal sound. The singer had some serious pipes, but was too 'GRRRR' for my liking. You could never really understand anything he was singing. Overall they were pretty solid. Too bad I can't give them a plug since I don't know their names. Grade: B-.

The second band we saw was Lacuna Coil. They're a six-piece band from italy wielding lots of low end. The sported two singers, one being a way-hot italian chick, and the other being a not-hot italian dude. Their mix seemed a bit too loud all the way around, which is kinda weird since they sound checked for like 20 minutes. Everything just seemed too loud, and it all droned together and made the vocals inaudible. They had a keyboard track playing behind them for most of the songs, and that may have been the main culprit for the sonic overload. From what I heard though, they were pretty sweet. I'm guessing they had kind of a Type-O Negative kind of feel... Slow tempos with the keyboard parts laying a lot of texture. The girl singer sounded like she had some good pipes, and the guy had more of the standard metal shout/bark/growl thing going on. Guitars were all right, but they seemed to have the Korn-esque "one guy play low powerchords while the other guy plays annoying dissonant chords that hurt your ears" kind of sound. Grade: B.

Anthrax came on at about 10:30, and they were ready to rumble as always. They opened up with "Contact/What Doesn't Die" from the new album like they did last time. I don't know how, but they somehow manage to play it faster in concert than on the CD. Crazy. Like last time, they played a real good mix of new and old songs... I'll try to remember all the songs they played, old to new... Oldest was Metal Thrashing Mad, Madhouse, Caught in a Mosh, N.F.L., Be All End All, Antisocial, Only, Black Lodge, Inside Out, the before mentioned Contact/What Doesn't Die, Black Dahlia, and Refuse to be Denied. [Edit: They played Got The Time too.] They had kind of a suprise in the encore - they covered Whole Lotta Rosie by AC/DC, and it sounded damn sweet. They finished the show off with Bring The Noise, with John Bush going crazy on the Public Enemy parts. That song is so fun in concert... Charlie goes nuts on the drums, and the whole crowd just jumping around. Lots of energy. The Anthrax portion of the show seemed kinda short to Jon and I, but after naming off all the songs they played, I'm thinking we might have been on something. I also got a cool little souvenir... A used guitar pick fell right at my feet as we were turning to walk out and I nabbed it. I'm guessing it's one of Scott Ian's, since it came from his side of the stage. Maybe if I touch it I'll gain some of his guitar powers. Then again, maybe I won't. Grade: A.

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Wednesday, May 14 2003, 9:36 PM

Jon and I went and checked out Anthrax last night. I would say we went to check out Anthrax and Motorhead, but Motorhead wasn't all that impressive. More on that later. The first band that played was Erase The Grey... We both thought they were pretty good. They had kind of a nu-metal sound, but they used a lead guitarist + solos, which is normally absent from the nu-metal sound. The next band was Havochate. We both thought they were decent as well. They were total metal, complete with a lot of double bass, hard-chunkin' riffs, and harmonized solos. The only thing that was kind of out of place was the singer... it wasn't his singing, which was fine... he just looked like he should be behind a desk somewhere with a suit and tie.

Now on to Anthax... They rocked the house, no two ways about it. They opened up with some new stuff (What Doesn't Die), and it set the stage for a heavy night. They had a great selection of songs, with lots of new and old songs. The only thing that made it a drag is that we were right on the edge of the pit, and we had to fend off these two drunken assholes the whole time... the guys were completely trashed, but kept buying more beer. Not normally a bad thing, but they kept taking it into the pit with them and giving everyone beer showers. I must have got doused at least 4 times. I was ready to punch the guys out, but instead I took my liberties in launching them into the pit.

We stepped out of the fray for Motorhead, and we were glad that we did. In short, Motorhead's sound was horrible. They have a really droning sound to begin with, but they had the volume cranked up waay to loud, and it was just painful. We couldn't take it, and we left after 4 songs. Overall, it was good, because Anthrax just rocked.

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Wednesday, May 14 2003, 2:26 PM

Jon and I went to see Anthrax last night. and my ears are still ringing from it... not necessarily a good thing, but it was a great show... I'll post a bigger review later on when I'm not at work...

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