Category: music

Music: Greetings from Johannesburg

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

My brother Adrian and his friend David are in a band and they're getting ready to release an EP which they're tentatively calling Greetings from Johannesburg. Adrian has always been into music and I know that he and Dave have been working on some tracks for a couple years now but, I hadn’t heard any of it until this today.

Adrian has released the tracks as mp3s and I downloaded them earlier this evening. I wasn’t really sure what to expect — well I kinda had an idea since Adrian loves indie music (you know, Elephant Six and all that). I piled them into a playlist in Quintessential Player and took a listen. And, I really enjoyed it — I think it’s the kind of music I might buy in a store, if it was for sale.

The part that’s troubling me, as I write this, is that I’m not sure what genre it would fall into. I’m guessing “indie”, somehow, but I would suppose that there’re sub-genres within “indie” much like there’re sub-genres within (say) metal (such as melodic death metal, power metal, and black metal, if you’re curious). But, after some brain wracking, I can see some resemblances to The Postal Service and maybe Barcelona in some ways.

I would have hosted some of the tracks here in order to save Adrian some bandwidth but I didn't see a license specified and I didn’t want to guess wrongly. Perhaps he’d be open to one of the Creative Commons audio licenses; then again, though I could hazard a guess that Adrian might be open to that, I’m not sure how Dave would feel.

Nickeback vs Nickleback Mashup

Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

Preface: Mashups are an art form where someone superimposes one song on top of another to form a brand new song. Wired has a good article on the phenomenon.

I recently ran across the darndest thing: a mashup of Nickleback + Nickleback. The original MetaFilter thread was back in April, so maybe I’m a bit behind the curve on this one ;). But, there was a recent follow-up thread when NPR covered the mashup.

And, unlike most mashups, this one wasn't done as a tribute to the bands involved. Rather, a fellow named Mikey Smith wanted to show his girlfriend that all of Nickleback's songs sound just about the same. And, in particular “How You Remind Me” and “Someday” could be combined almost eerily (with one song in each channel).

And, while the original threads don’t have an MP3 handy of the now-christened “How You Remind Me Of Someday”, this guy at Nintendorks has the MP3 on his server (yeah, I could link to the MP3 directly, but I figure that I could at least link to his entry about it if he’s donating the bandwidth for it).

Really, this mashup just weirds me out [and trying to figure out how to un-end that sentence with a preposition almost made my head explode]. The songs plod along at the same pace, the drum solos come in almost one-after-the-other and the choruses are almost in sync as well. I didn't like Nickleback before — though I couldn’t put my finger on it — and now I think I've figured out at least of my reasons ;).

Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Well, it looks like this MonkeyFilter thing is working out already :). A thread yesterday points to RuthlessReviews’ Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics of All Time. Being a metal fan myself, I can laugh along with some of these pictures. It’s not uncommon for metal artists to attempt to appear ghoulish or macabre — which sometimes comes across well — but sometimes just looks silly ;).

Really, I think the commentary accompanying the photos may be the best part:

  • “This is some serioulsy shoddy corpse-paint on everybody…”
  • “What exactly is going on here? Is this the new WWF tag-team? […]”
  • And, my personal favorite, “Wait, are those suspenders? […]”

And, while the commentary is often on-point, I would have preferred that the author didn’t use “gay” to mean “bad” or “stupid” (as one of the comments put it). That aside, I think the metal world sometimes takes itself too seriously and some self-deprecating humor can be just the antidote needed.

MTV2’s Best Metal Videos of the New Millennium

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Now that it’s back on the air, I often try to catch Headbanger’s Ball on MTV2 (which airs each Saturday at 10/9c). Though I’ve never seen the original (circa ten years ago), my understanding is that it used to have a good amount of hair-metal & pop-metal (neither of which are really metal at all). But, the show these days — while not perfect — is far from posturing about metal.

The current iteration is hosted by Jamey Jasta, frontman for Hatebreed. And, while I don’t particularly care for Hatebreed, I can’t deny that it’s not metal (I generally prefer more melodic metal). And, to MTV2’s credit, they feature plenty of legitimate metal bands on the show: In Flames, Children of Bodom, Meshuggah, Lacuna Coil and others.

In any case, on next week’s show, they’re airing Headbanger’s Ball and Revolver Magazine’s Best Metal Videos of the New Millennium. Granted, it’s a a bit premature to start declaring a best-anything of the new millennium, but I think it’s partly tongue-in-check (even their website includes the sheepish postfix “so far”).

Looking over the apparent candidates (from a concurrent online poll), I was discouraged at first since I didn’t recognize many of the band names. But, as I read further, I gained faith in the list — sure, some blowhards like Korn are on there, but so are Arch Enemy and In Flames (two of the more talented metal bands out there, in my opinion).

However, until Headbanger’s Ball’s teaser for this Best Metal Videos list, I hadn’t even heard of Revolver magazine. So, I’m curious how the list will end up. Not that I’ll take it personally if some of my favorite bands don’t make the list, but it would renew my faith in the American Music Scene to see some of Scandinavia’s top metal acts make the cut. (And, yes, all the best metal seems to come from Scandinavia, for reasons which elude me.)

(Some) Metal Bends Sell Out for Radio

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

Reuters is carrying a story on decision by several metal bands to soften their own sound in an attempt to get more radio play. I just can’t understand why someone would sacrifice her or her craft for monetary gain alone. I guess some people will do anything for a buck.

Hard rockers Flaw from Louisville, who blend sensitive melodies with aggressive guitars and anguished screams, are hoping to break through on radio with “Recognize,” a song featuring clean guitars and vocal harmonies from their second album, “Endangered Species.”

“We thought that if we came out with one of our heavier songs first it might not be grabbed onto by daytime radio,” said singer Chris Voltz of the band's new strategy. “This time the first song that we gave to radio was one of the softer, more daytime-acceptable songs.” […]

If I were in the same position, I’d just make the best music I could and make my money from CD sales and concerts. And, if that didn't work out, I may try to improve the band’s sound, but I wouldn’t want to dumb it down. Oh, and do I even need to mention that Metallica is also featured in the article?