The Music Industry -- Hey Pig, Yeah You.

The music industry is dying. I know most of the people I know won't give a fuck about this, but the death of the site OiNk earlier this week is such a huge fucking deal. Remember when Napster got shut down how big of a deal that was? This is a bigger deal, not because this was as popular/famous, because honestly it isn't.

The only way to explain OiNk is as follows; imagine having access to every album, single, EP and everything else music related available to you. Imagine it in high quality, with the option to get lossless FLAC files or 320kbps mp3s, usually with the album artwork included and imagine being able to get it within 5 minutes, tops. That was OiNk. People have been telling me that its not so bad, that SoulSeek still exists, that there are other torrent sites. Well yeah, there are other torrent sites, and there is still the outdated P2P programs. But the fact is, they aren't regulated. If, and rarely if I find something I want on SoulSeek, its going to take at least an hour to get, and most of the time if you try to grab more than one album from a person, they'll be a prick and cancel your downloads. P2P is outdated because you have to interact with a person and hope to holy fuck their connection holds out, or that they don't feel like signing off.

Other torrent sites are alright, but when it comes down to it, it won't have enough seeders and will take a while to download, the quality is going to be a crapshoot, you'll most likely end up with a compressed 128kbps mp3, and you are really going to have to look for it. The other day Candlebox popped into my head. I haven't heard them in ages, and thought 'Fuck, I wanna listen to that album.. Too bad I left it back in RI.' So, logically I think, I'll just grab it really quick on the net. Christ, easier said than done. After about 30 minutes of searching and attempting to download a few torrents, it was just taking too long, why am I waiting 30 minutes for a 50 mb download? If OiNk were still around I'd type in Candlebox, click a few links and I'd fucking HAVE IT.

This was baffling to me, a person who had been using OiNk for a while. Candlebox isn't even an obscure band. Its a band that was popular in the 90's and can still be heard on the radio today once in a while. I'm stuck right now, as I heard a few tracks from this band Byla, and they are just incredible, incredible, and I want to hear more. But I'll be fucking damned if I can find the album I want from them anywhere. Part of the fun was finding new bands that other people that liked bands that I like would link a band to on OiNk. I wouldn't be obsessing over Wolves in the Throne Room if whilst downloading a Cobalt album that I was drooling over, a user didn't link them to WITTR. I don't read music news sites constantly, and I wouldn't have known that Jesu had a new EP and a new album already, I wouldn't be listening to them right now.

The only way I can explain this loss is that I lost an awesome community of music lovers which had its own set of rules that seemed strict, but it was all for the good of everybody else. It seemed like a bitch to have to keep your ratio up in the beginning, and then the more you get, the more you understand that you keep shit open so people can get stuff quickly and easily just like you like to. It seemed like a bitch to want to upload something but the quality wasn't up to par, but then you realize that you wouldn't want to be downloading a low quality version. You wouldn't want to be fucking Radiohead and 'suggesting' people get a really shitty quality version of something and be happy with it. Hell, any of the pay-per-song services fucking suck. The quality is not there, the selection is dull and ITS EXPENSIVE.

CDs don't make sense anymore. Right now I have like 7 CDs in my apartment that aren't blanks/burned copies. I just have no use for them. Most of the music I listen to is on my mp3 player or on my computer. I have a nice set of speakers now for it, which helps, and it serves as my hub for all things music. I stopped buying CDs because all I was doing was buying them just so I could put the CD into my computer and rip it to a 320kbps mp3 to put on my mp3 player and listen to whenever I want. I've bought CDs and merch from smaller labels and directly from bands, but other than that, I've felt such little need to go to Best Buy and pay fucking 19 dollars for a CD that I'm going to end up leaving out, getting scratched, busting the shitty jewel case for and eventually losing.

Labels need to understand that the traditional methods of marketing are completely dead. Music Television had to in a major way repackage itself; MTV started airing reality shows and shows aimed for their usual intended audience anyway who just aren't interested in straight up music videos anymore, MTV2, the 'pure music' station had to do the same. VH1 went the same route as well. Who the fuck listens to the radio anymore? The radio is just decrepit and retarded. Nobody is going to sit by the radio for hours waiting to hear a new song, nobody cares about your DJ and their witty banter or your small corporate playlists. Clearly people want more than this. Radio is what THEY want you to listen to, what THEY think you should like. Pop music sells to kids because kids don't know any fucking better and will have their parents buy them stuff. If I want to hear a new song from a band, I have options. I can go to their myspace page and 98% of the time, their latest track/single/whatever will be up. If I dig that, I'm going to download it. Why should I waste my time being inundated with advertisements and crap I don't want to watch/hear, when I can just go right to the source and get instant gratification?

Music has always been about sharing, and somewhere along the line sharing became a filthy, illegal thing. Somewhere along the line the consumer evolved and the supplier rejected this notion and decided they were right and everybody else was wrong. Now its out of control, and its hilarious.

Radio, the Music Video and CDs are all defunct. Its time for music to move on and mean it. No more of this Radiohead marketing ploy shit, no more of this 99 cent download, DRM shit.

Further reading:

Death of OiNk -- Great Read

The Revolution

Radiohead insults its fans

Trent Reznor, OiNker

Cobalt -- Eater of Birds

Fuck yes.

Sometimes I get bored with metal music as a whole. I just can't get into it, it just doesn't engage me. Lately I've gone through a major postrock/postmetal phase where I just listen to lots of stuff that is ambient and has tons of atmosphere. The only real 'heavy' stuff I've been lapsing into has been Pig Destroyer for my ADD 'I NEED SOMETHING HEAVY AND I NEED IT NOW' fixes while at work.

Funny enough, I found out about Cobalt by seeing "Invincible Sun" on Paper Thin Walls. PTW is a site that is either really hit or miss with the singles they post, but for some reason on this day I pulled the plug from my mp3 player and plugged it back into my PC. I was kinda bored with everything I had and needed something new. I listened to a bunch of indie stuff, some good, some shitty, some just there, when I decided to take a crack at something metal.

This seemed like a way too obviously choice, as it looks like its Jarboe's latest "I feel like doing vocals with some metal band" project. I've always had a soft spot for the Swans, and of course Jarboe's album she did with Neurosis will always be near and dear to my heart. Needless to say, this is leaps and bounds different than what she did with Neurosis, she only appears on a few tracks, and her voice can barely be heard through the screaming guitars, pounding drums and crazy vocals.

Black Metal can wear thin on me I find, and I don't even know if its fair to call this straight up black metal. The album starts off pounding the shit out of the listener with "When Serpents Return" and "Ulcer" but then brings it down to a really mellow 5 minutes with "Ritual Use of Fire." This mellow doesn't last long, as it bleeds right into the next two tracks. "Ritual Use of Fire" is a title used for 3 tracks, creating a leitmotif of epic proportions.

Jarboe's most distinct track on this album is "Androids, Automatons and Nihilists" which only lasts briefly, but is just about as perfect of a 4-minute segue as you are going to get. The album rounds out with a 10+ minute epic title-track, which shows just how much potential to kick ass this band has. I know I'm being rather brief, but I'm just trying to collect my thoughts quickly on this album. I'm sure I'll be able to add to this later on, but for now I want to give this a few more listens.

You should too.

A Wednesday Night Playlist.

Right now I feel like I'm trifling through my own little addictions. It is really a curious thing to live like this, and in a way rather sad. So here is an exercise. I just made a playlist, and here I will write about said playlist.

Guns N' Roses - Dust N' Bones
Joy Division - Day of the Lords
Travis Meeks - Empty Pocket
Ghost - Snuffbox Immenence
Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Steve Von Till - Running Dry
Alice In Chains - Right Turn
Isis - Weight
SunnO))) & Boris - The Sinking Belle

(Tracks will be furnished upon request)

Guns N' Roses is a band that a lot of people have attributed to the duo of Slash and Axl. The reality behind the situation was that they were the public faces that everybody knew and thought were really cool. While apart, Axl has done better than Slash (just an opinion, Velvet Revolver sucks), but both have just kind of floundered. Slash's solo stuff with Snakepit was just disgraceful, and Axl's stuff sounds pretty cool, but its all either live recordings from cell phones or leaks on the internet of demos from baseball players. Then again, Axl has pretty much had the past 15 years to make these songs not suck. What the driving force was behind Guns N' Roses was Izzy. Songs like this are just so great, and neither Slash nor Axl can come close to duplicating a straight up rock n' roll song like this. Axl is too busy trying to create epics with samples, and Slash is too busy trying to stay hip and relevant.

This song always provided such an amazing texture, and was a great song to have placed near the beginning of this album (UYI I). If anything, this was one of the main contributors to the overwhelming tone set for this first album; while UYI II had more of a 'cool' and vast feeling like an ocean (set by Estranged, much, much later), this album had this warm, blistering desert feeling to it. Awesome. I don't think either Slash or Axl have the ability to create a musical texture like Izzy has done on his own and did here.

I'm in no way an expert on Joy Division, and honestly I don't listen to them that much. That being said, I could listen to this song over and over again without getting sick of it. In part, what makes this work so well is the production of this track. It is difficult not to get the feeling of doom from this track when it sounds like it was recorded in a basement while the apocalypse plays out on the streets, only getting a peak from the basement window.

I've already written about Travis Meeks, but this track is in no way the cleanest or best track. Actually, this was the only track that got left off of his 'live bootleg' that he shills on his website and myspace page. I can understand why, as it really feels like a work in progress and still has a few quirks. It in no way is up to snuff for guitar work when compared to a lot of his songs. But I don't know if he has done anything this honest or compelling in a long time. The lyrics are at times awkward, but the intentions are always clear. It moves from regret and confusion to him just tearing himself apart.

"Why don't you give it up?
Let the love -- let the love lift you.
You've got to answer for every mistake--
every mistake.
Money won't buy you what you don't have
But you wanted to use my heart as a stone
Step down an' go back home.
Go back home.
I'm hurtin' inside --
But you like to pay to watch me die.

So don't fill me in on your secrets, no.
Cause I'm doing fine with my own.
I've got an empty pocket, so go back home.
Go back home."

There is something about a dude baring his soul that will never grow old to me. The delivery of most of this song is just vicious in nature. It isn't a heavy or complicated song, but his conviction to every word can turn anybody into a believer that he means everything he is saying. One of the cool points is his guitar-work is Kazuki Tomokawa-like at times in his delivery and complete abandon. He really doesn't give a fuck if that note doesn't ring through, the muffled, flat note says more than a clean one would have anyway.

My mind sort of melts and meanders here. I've found the best way to unwind is to just listen to something that can serve as a background, or easily take you on a trip. Ghost is a band that caught my ear when their album, 'Hypnotic Underworld' came out. It was beautiful, fun, energizing and really delicate all at the same time. Exploring deeper into their library is by no means a bad idea. The album which this is the title track for is if possible more of a traditional album than the latter, without starting off with one giant jam track. They still jam, there is still the same soft vocals and twangy guitar that can in an instant turn into a menacingly hazy drill. The title track does not in any way disappoint, as it has everything Ghost is good at; Jamming, switching between soft and gentle to crazy and everything in between.

I didn't even know Muse had an album that came out last year. Hell, I didn't even get into Muse until I saw the trailer for 28 Weeks Later. I thought 'shit, this sounds like Radiohead with balls.' Now I can't go a few days without putting on some Muse. That speaks volumes for them, I think. This song will go back to my previous point about texture. This song has texture and a really awesome atmosphere to it. What is even more shocking is that the video for it fits so extremely well into the mood and atmosphere that this song creates. This song sums up some neuvo-pulp western to a T. That being said, it could also be seen as almost a Queenish tribute, as the vocals are just fantastic and infectious. The amount of times I've had this on at work and felt the need to sing along with it is rather embarrassing. Music can totally be fun, and should really be fun and make you want to just sing along and get caught up in the moment with it.

"You and I must fight to survive."

Neurosis is a band that will always be near and dear to me, but it is a band that more or less has branded themselves on destruction and subtlety. That is why Steve Von Till's solo stuff is so refreshing. Neurosis are the kings of making music that takes you somewhere. Every album has its own distinct feeling to it, and is something that no other band is able to recreate. I remember when one of my friends hipped me to them. It was under the pretense of; "You like Tool, right? You should like Neurosis. Neurosis is Tool if Tool did Tool right."

Von Till's solo album(s) will take you somewhere. Unlike most Neurosis albums, Von Till's albums are just so basic and vulnerable. I can't think of a more vulnerable track than 'Running Dry.' Whenever I hear this, I want to be sitting out in the woods with an acoustic strumming away about how sorry I am that I can't relate to the world anymore.

Man, I just fucking like Alice In Chains. Leave it at that.

'Oceanic' is seen by many as ISIS' crowning achievement. I think they have done a great job of living up to that album, but Panopticon didn't have the same sort of unity that this album did. The latest one did, but that is another story for another day. Oceanic creates a clear and easy picture, and Isis does a fantastic job of making an album that is as serene and vengeful as an ocean. 'Weight' goes through many transformations, and in doing so creates the same sort of awe and respect that an ocean should yield.

I feel like the last month is sort of defined by 'The Sinking Belle' by SunnO))) and Boris. Somber, slow and restrained. There is just something so surreal about SunnO)))'s music that is hard to explain. I can listen to SunnO))) while at work, while unwinding or deep in thought. It is always inspiring and always makes me want to just start slamming my fist onto my guitar and let the sustain do the rest.

This song is really not like any other SunnO))), which is what I think really draws me to it. It is out of the ordinary for them, yet it is completely something they would do. Even the apocalypse needs to have an eye to the storm. That is what this is; the eye of the storm. It is the calm, eerie in between point that lets you rest and urges you to push forward. If you give up now, you've only gotten part of the way there.

That is the kind of song I need right now, and completely where I am.

Junkhead Meeks

Sometimes it can be so frustrating being a fan of certain bands of musicians. Since the first Days of the New album came out, I've been a fan. I first saw Travis Meeks in '98 when Days was opening for Metallica and Jerry Cantrell. What was really astonishing about that show was that both opening acts blew away Metallica by a mile. Metallica put on the same show that you could see on their home videos, live CDs or any other performance you've seen of them. While to some people that is great, there was a whole lot of nothing going on when Metallica was performing. When Days was performing there was energy, there was emotion, and it helped to win over an ambivalently drunk, middle-aged crowd (which is 90% of Metallica fans now, and has been for years).

What is hard to understand is where Days went wrong. A lot of people just didn't give them the time of day and wrote them off as grunge hangers-on because their radio songs were somewhat grungey. Whats funny is, when you move past "Touch, Peel and Stand," "Shelf in the Room" and "Down Town" you get a lot of really different music. The guitar-work demonstrated by Meeks throughout the album is just completely masterful, complex and incredible, but a lot of people wrote the guitar work off as the work of Todd Whitener. Because honestly, when the lead singer is playing guitar and there is another guitar player, the non-singer is always considered the lead guitar player. Meeks was easily the driving guitar force behind the band, but that won't be seen until much later.

When it came time to record the second album, it became increasingly clear the rest of the band just wanted to make the same album again, make more money, play arenas and that evolving musically wasn't an issue. Travis wanted to evolve and wanted the music to be different, more mature. This caused a huge rift between the band, and by the end of the Metallica tour Travis was traveling in his own bus recording his own music while the rest of the band was bitter and acting like Travis was taking over the band and destroying their 'vision.' Granted, he wrote almost the entirety of the first album on his own and all, then when the band got kicked out and formed Tantric they essentially released the same old shit, little bit more distortion, hell, they even got a singer that sounded a lot like Travis. Of course they got a little bit of chart success, but were critically a joke and its 2007 and I have no clue if they are even still a band, nor would I care.

Meeks went on to make 'Green' which in my eyes at least was his best effort and most complete album. 'Enemy' got a bit of chart success and people liked it to a degree, but it still really didn't sell albums. People thought he went in a more electronic direction now due to some samples and the electronic drum kit used for the track. Once again, just like on the first album, the single misled to the content of the album. Now, my love for concept albums might blind me to this, but I love the idea of an album with a beginning, middle, end and a fucking point as well as common themes musically and lyrically. 'Green' is an album about evolving as a person and the hardships along the way. From distrust, insanity, longing and love it is all there, 'Last One' alluding to moving on, changing colors, which segues into 'Red.' 'Red' wasn't exactly the best thing to ever happen to Meeks. Meeks had begun to dabble with meth, and his music became more muddled, he was using more distorted electric guitars and the great guitar work he was known for seemed to dwindle on some tracks, while on others it was astonishing.

Then nothing. Addiction. The next few things heard of Meeks was that he was working on 'Purple,' hell, that it was done. Then he lost his label, and reports of what was going on with him were few and fare between -- until he showed up on the A&E show 'Intervention' in a horrible state. He was living in his mother's basement, a junkie, driving around a beaten up van to score meth and keep rotting away. His wife refused to be near him, and things just looked horrible for him. But the show led to his rehab and apparently he is finally starting to pull things together.

Supposedly he is recording 'Purple' right now and looking around for record labels, and I was thrilled when some videos from a concert last week popped up on YouTube and that he looks to be as awesome as ever.

http://www.myspace.com/treecolors

Wes Sims is awesome.

Most MMA n00z is kind of boring, kind of about lots of financial stuff, or the yakuza. Once in a while, the gods of MMA will bestow upon us Wes Sims, the Human Genome Project himself, and something completely inane. I bring forth, from MMA on Tap, Wes Sims, Vigalante.

--

“Thursday night I was laying in bed and I heard some banging so I went outside and took a look but I didn’t see anything so I went back in and I thought it might just be the neighbours, domestic issues. But the people who live next door, they lay flooring so they have a couple of trucks they keep out by the road that are full of tools so I thought, “hey, someone might be breaking into their truck.” but that wasn’t the case.

So I went back in and layed down and I heard a big bang and glass break so I went out, looked out across the road and guys were down at the gas station breaking in. They were gonna rob the place until their plans were foiled by Wes Sims that is.

I called the police and told the police that there was some guys breaking in and they told me they had already received a call and they were on their way. I told the dispatch that these guys were on their way out of there so you know I don’t know what posessed me to take off but I hung my phone up and took off running after them.

I chased them down an alley and all of a sudden cops started coming up the alleys and they were all everywhere. I ran one guy down, caught one of them and the cop came running up to cuff him and well when the cop went to cuff him the guy was fighting and the cop said if he didn’t calm down he was going to mace him. Well Wes Sims wanted to see a good macing so he said, “Mace him! Mace him!” which turned out to be bad for all of us because I got mace, the guy got maced and the wind blew it back into the cops face too.

The guy took off running and had glasses on and the cop started chasing him but I had to clean my eyes out for a minute there because that was some nasty, nasty stuff. I saw the cop was chasing him so I took off running and was chasing behind then the officer had to stop because the mace was in his eyes real bad so the guy jumps over a fence and was running. He had nothing but socks and boxers on at this point because I had ripped his clothes off. I chased him down, got him in the dirt, slammed him off a fence, needless to say I’m not going to go into detail but let’s just say when the cops came up to cuff him, he needed service, not Wes Sims.”

--

Speechless

Media and Teaching.. I have no clue how they relate.

Oh, the media, how I loathe you. I'm drained, that is simply it. I am drained. I feel like I should keep dilligent and write my little heart away, but the media is just so draining. By now we've gotten to the point where we can turn on one of the seemingly ever-multiplying cable news networks and not see VT's Cho mugging with his pistols pointed at the screen, or when I can read the news online without having to worry about reading more analysis of said killer, or how he planned this, how it should have been prevented and who is holding a candlelight vigil while CNN cameras slink around in the underbrush trying to capture the right amount of tears that make for great television.

It is just so draining that this stuff won't go away, and that the media creates its own icons. Cho knew he'd go down in history for doing this, and knew he'd prolong his importance by reaching out to the media, and they bit. They always do. I get this way when it comes to politics too. I feel so strongly about them, and then just sort of pitter out after getting bombarded with it. I haven't read the news in about a week now, and the thing is -- I care.

But people are just stone cold stupid. iPods should be banned from the class rooms because they can be a tool for cheating. WOW. Welcome to the 21st century. Did you know just about any cell phone, media player, or even, get this, calculator can be used for cheating? Maybe, just maybe this is just a telling sign that conventional teaching methods are dated. Quizzes and tests will always be cheated on. You know why? Students don't find them important as a part of their growing process.

Its an antiquated way of teaching most things, and outside of say math and science I can't really see the need for constant quizzing and testing. If a student learns better that way, they should have that option, but most of the time... Yeah. If a student feels the need to go to elaborate lengths to cheat, maybe said method of teaching is just not working.

People suck.

People are so completely dense, it isn't even funny. Having read the plays by Cho Seung-Hui, I can say that I was not disturbed in the very least by them. I remember when Columbine happened however many years ago, Harris's aol website was still up, and it contained some maps for the PC game Doom. Upon loading them, it became clear they were of a school. This was disturbing, and the message it gave was clear. On the other hand, Cho's plays were not disturbing or any signs of what was to come.

When I popped the first play open, I was honestly expecting to feel that cold, dark feeling inside like when I saw that Doom map from Harris. Nada, nothing. It wasn't there. There was no cold feeling, instead what I was reading was obviously over-sensationalized stuff that people were going to exploit and try to use to come up with a reason for why 32 people had to die at Cho's hand the other day. I think that is the problem; that people are looking for answers so hard, so intently that they are doing it in the most maddening ways possible.

I sat through many a writing class in college, and honestly, the amount of violent, sexual and disturbing pieces that teachers see is mind-numbing. Do you know why? Death, sexuality and frustration are things that cross the mind of every person at some point in their life. You don't have to embody what you write; writing is expressing one's self, and using their creative mind to do so. I've written a lot of things that would apparently set off "red flags" to many people that I'm going to shoot the world up and am in need of some serious mental coaching.

The reality is, writing, especially fictional writing cannot be used to profile a person or their intentions. Some truly happy, kind people I've known have written some macabre things. You know why? It was interesting, fascinating and it was a way to express their creativity. You don't have to be frustrated with the world, ready to weild two pistols and shoot everybody in sight to write about it -- you can be a normal guy, living a healthy, happy life.

If anything, Cho's plays read like parodies of the world around him than they do insight into the mind of a killer. The commentary by those who are reading this seem to be the real insight into the mind of the killer. It just seems that society has such a hard time, as well as a fixation with assigning blame everywhere possible. First thing we heard was an outcry about gun laws, which is true in some cases, and in others not. The kid apparently did this all the law-abiding way to obtain these guns. While stricter laws could put a cap on violent incidents involving guns, if people really wanted them, they'd be able to obtain them (much like drugs), or they'd just find another way to hurt people. Now we are getting bombarded with the school and its responsibilities.

Teachers, counselors, other students and everybody else, including the lunch lady should have been on top of this situation. A teacher, teaching a writing class, who has seen tons of student work, some of which was probably rather disturbing or expressed frustration is supposed to say 'hey, this kid is going to go postal' and prevent all of this. It seems that this kid WAS seeing a counselor on the recommendation of a teacher, and it still didn't change a thing towards the positive. I'm sure the parents will be next, along with somebody else, as somebody has to be at fault for this, so some sort of meaningless action can take place so that the next time this happens, we can say 'Oh, well, it wasn't due to THAT. We had THAT covered.'

It is really endearing to read something from a classmate that thought Cho was going to be a school shooter, but when you paint the picture of reality, I have a hard time seeing a group of students in the classroom huddled around in fear of some meager asian boy who doesn't like to speak much. I mean, fuck.. When I read these plays, I laughed. I laughed and laughed and laughed, as they were just so ridiculously bad, that I'm hoping they were intended as parodies or comedy. But they probably weren't, and the true picture in the classroom probably involved more people laughing and joking about these plays than fearing for their lives over them. I'm not saying this is the exact scene, but it seems more than likely that was the case throughout this kid's life.

But what really gets me are the hordes of people talking about how sick and disgusting the stuff that kid wrote, and how it was a dead giveaway that he was a killer. You know, I wonder.. When you profile somebody, and set a norm for what a person should be, and it comes to be, is it your fault for making that profile?