Supernova makes me fucking sick. Promoters are supposed to be out there, doing their job. They're supposed to book gigs at venues, put up posters... Exposure, that's the promoters job. Rather than doing their fucking job properly, Supernova get a bunch of kids to run around town selling tickets, making money for them. They have to do little to no promotion of any kind. In the end, bands don't get paid, but some unnamed judge decides which one did the best job and gives them maybe a day of recording time, which might cost 300$. They claim that booking 10 bands brings in 10 bands worth of friends, except nobody sticks around for longer than an hour. Supernova shows are a good way to play a set in front of your friends, something you can do yourself at a party.
If you're going to run around town trying to get money from your friends and family, you might as well call up Vector and start selling knives door to door. Nobody wants to sell knives door to door.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Deftones - Diamond Eyes (music review)
Nu metal bands saturated the end of the 90's with all the worst parts of the 90's: angst towards some vague offender, hatred for oneself, useless dj's, unnecessary use of lame white guys rapping, blah blah blah. I could go on; this isn't anything new for anyone who remembers the 90's.
Anyways, amongst all the new shit rock, all the Limp Bizkits and Nickelbacks and Korns, there were the Deftones. And the Deftones really are a strange breed: straightforward enough to please the retards who listened to Durst (admittedly, myself included), melodic, even clever enough to get the attention of reputable critics, and catchy enough to get some decent mainstream play. But with screaming.
The most amazing part about this band, especially when you consider the scene they came up in, is that they're still going strong; the shelf life on most of those shit bands they were associated with was maybe 7 years, tops. But not only are they on their sixth release, Diamond Eyes, they wrote and set aside a whole other album in the last two years. That effort was to be called Eros.
Eros was supposed to be them experimenting with a new sound, taking the band in a new direction. Chino is quoted as saying he wanted it to sound as “weird as possible without alienating people”. Chi Cheng, their bassist, was hospitalized with a coma after his bus crashed on Novermber 8th of 2008, and a few months later they put Eros on hiatus and started working on Diamond Eyes. They say the two things are unrelated, but for an album that wasn't written because their bassist is in a coma, it sure as hell sounds like a band trying to relax because their bassist is in a fucking coma.
First of all, look at the history of bands that try experimenting with new material. Radiohead damn near broke up during the Kid A sessions because they argued over creative directions and were unsure of themselves. Likewise with Pink Floyd, arguing over creative direction in the 80's causes the band to break up. I'm not saying the Deftones were on their way to splitting up; I'm not even saying they were arguing. I'm saying that moving in a new direction often causes stress of some kind, and if your bassist is in the hospital, the last thing I'd imagine you wanting to do is something even remotely stressful.
So, my whole point is that Diamond Eyes is a through and through typical Deftones album, because that's what they needed to make right now. Nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary, no extensive long odd instrumentals with strange talking in the background about anal-sex or whatever, no really oddly placed electronic parts. Just a collection of standard Deftones style songs. The really heavy track (CMND/CTRL and Rocket Skates), the quiet or more melodic one (Beauty School and Sextape), the obvious soon-to-be-fan-favourite and live-show-closer (976-EVIL, I hope). Just your bread and butter Deftones.
And that's not so much a bad thing. It sounds like the band just wanted to get an album out. They didn't like the approach they took to Saturday Night Wrist, a process that has been described as being 'Piece by piece', which to me sounds like a focus on multi-tracking (which is not that much fun for this kind of band). It sounds like a band in the studio engaging their hobby, and committing it to recording. This might as well have been what they did before, or after, going bowling on a Wednesday night.
“Hey guys, want to get together? Wife's busy, I've got nothin to do, what say we grab some brews, bowl a couple games, maybe write a whole fucking album?”
“Yeah sure man, why not, lets just churn out a whole fucking album like we usually do.”
Thankfully, 'how they usually do' sounds pretty fucking good.
So by all means, the album isn't groundbreaking, it's just a great album. Because it's a great album, it attests to how fucking well these guys get along, and how on top of their shit they are. They don't lose a member and decide break up. They don't lose a member and then completely lose their shit. They don't use the opportunity to do some monumental tribute to their lost bassist; across the 5 listens I've put in, I can't really pick out any solid Chi references.
To sum it all up, Deftones are still that band that should have sucked but didn't, and they're still putting out good albums that are worthy of purchase. When your friends are reminiscing about how shitty their taste in music was circa 1999, you can still toss in “but Deftones are still pretty rad...”, you get some weird looks at first until everyone remembers, “oh yeah...” Or maybe you're taking some cute girl out to a Vampire Weekend show, and she's complaining about her friends going to the dive bars for metal bands, complaining about metal as a whole. You nod your head to agree, but then remember, “oh fuck, Deftones.” I don't advise telling her that.
I fucking love the Deftones, I might talk her ear off all night about how Diamond Eyes is a good album. I might be going to sleep alone... But the point still stands.
Anyways, amongst all the new shit rock, all the Limp Bizkits and Nickelbacks and Korns, there were the Deftones. And the Deftones really are a strange breed: straightforward enough to please the retards who listened to Durst (admittedly, myself included), melodic, even clever enough to get the attention of reputable critics, and catchy enough to get some decent mainstream play. But with screaming.
The most amazing part about this band, especially when you consider the scene they came up in, is that they're still going strong; the shelf life on most of those shit bands they were associated with was maybe 7 years, tops. But not only are they on their sixth release, Diamond Eyes, they wrote and set aside a whole other album in the last two years. That effort was to be called Eros.
Eros was supposed to be them experimenting with a new sound, taking the band in a new direction. Chino is quoted as saying he wanted it to sound as “weird as possible without alienating people”. Chi Cheng, their bassist, was hospitalized with a coma after his bus crashed on Novermber 8th of 2008, and a few months later they put Eros on hiatus and started working on Diamond Eyes. They say the two things are unrelated, but for an album that wasn't written because their bassist is in a coma, it sure as hell sounds like a band trying to relax because their bassist is in a fucking coma.
First of all, look at the history of bands that try experimenting with new material. Radiohead damn near broke up during the Kid A sessions because they argued over creative directions and were unsure of themselves. Likewise with Pink Floyd, arguing over creative direction in the 80's causes the band to break up. I'm not saying the Deftones were on their way to splitting up; I'm not even saying they were arguing. I'm saying that moving in a new direction often causes stress of some kind, and if your bassist is in the hospital, the last thing I'd imagine you wanting to do is something even remotely stressful.
So, my whole point is that Diamond Eyes is a through and through typical Deftones album, because that's what they needed to make right now. Nothing weird, nothing out of the ordinary, no extensive long odd instrumentals with strange talking in the background about anal-sex or whatever, no really oddly placed electronic parts. Just a collection of standard Deftones style songs. The really heavy track (CMND/CTRL and Rocket Skates), the quiet or more melodic one (Beauty School and Sextape), the obvious soon-to-be-fan-favourite and live-show-closer (976-EVIL, I hope). Just your bread and butter Deftones.
And that's not so much a bad thing. It sounds like the band just wanted to get an album out. They didn't like the approach they took to Saturday Night Wrist, a process that has been described as being 'Piece by piece', which to me sounds like a focus on multi-tracking (which is not that much fun for this kind of band). It sounds like a band in the studio engaging their hobby, and committing it to recording. This might as well have been what they did before, or after, going bowling on a Wednesday night.
“Hey guys, want to get together? Wife's busy, I've got nothin to do, what say we grab some brews, bowl a couple games, maybe write a whole fucking album?”
“Yeah sure man, why not, lets just churn out a whole fucking album like we usually do.”
Thankfully, 'how they usually do' sounds pretty fucking good.
So by all means, the album isn't groundbreaking, it's just a great album. Because it's a great album, it attests to how fucking well these guys get along, and how on top of their shit they are. They don't lose a member and decide break up. They don't lose a member and then completely lose their shit. They don't use the opportunity to do some monumental tribute to their lost bassist; across the 5 listens I've put in, I can't really pick out any solid Chi references.
To sum it all up, Deftones are still that band that should have sucked but didn't, and they're still putting out good albums that are worthy of purchase. When your friends are reminiscing about how shitty their taste in music was circa 1999, you can still toss in “but Deftones are still pretty rad...”, you get some weird looks at first until everyone remembers, “oh yeah...” Or maybe you're taking some cute girl out to a Vampire Weekend show, and she's complaining about her friends going to the dive bars for metal bands, complaining about metal as a whole. You nod your head to agree, but then remember, “oh fuck, Deftones.” I don't advise telling her that.
I fucking love the Deftones, I might talk her ear off all night about how Diamond Eyes is a good album. I might be going to sleep alone... But the point still stands.
More from CRWR 1100
These were the notes I took during a creative writing class...
_____________________________________________________
Metaphor. Saying one thing is another unlike thing. Does not use “like” or “as” as a comparison. Not a simile.
I know this!
My friend is a hippie festival. There's lots of nice art, and you feel like you're really proving something while you're stoned, but at some point you have to shower and go to work.
He's a modern day Rod Stewart. Just keeps singing other peoples music, wearing younger peoples haircuts, and nobody has the guts to tell him brunettes are in style.
_____________________________________________________
Metaphor. Saying one thing is another unlike thing. Does not use “like” or “as” as a comparison. Not a simile.
I know this!
My friend is a hippie festival. There's lots of nice art, and you feel like you're really proving something while you're stoned, but at some point you have to shower and go to work.
He's a modern day Rod Stewart. Just keeps singing other peoples music, wearing younger peoples haircuts, and nobody has the guts to tell him brunettes are in style.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Something random
I had a course in creative writing which I dropped this semester. I didn't like my teacher, essentially that was my reason, maybe it's not a great reason. Anyways, I did get some little pieces of writing done.
This is a short little piece from that class. She asked us to write about our first kiss. Rather than describe it in detail, I wrote about a conversation I had with a friend of mine two years after my first kiss, as we were talking about how I was dating that girl again.
____________________________
We were about 3 beers in each, and she wanted to kiss me. It had been built up so much, I couldn't believe it had taken this long to happen, so I moved my mouth the way I thought I was supposed to and we kissed. Then, she said those horrid words you'd hope to never hear: “um, what are you doing?”
Colby started laughing at me hysterically “You didn't know how to kiss? Are you kidding?” I really need to pick and choose my conversations with this guy, he's kind-of a dick for someone I call my best friend.
“That was our relationship round one back in grade 8 man” I blurted. “We only dated for like a week!” He was still going on and making all sorts of comments, bowling over his lanky frame from the laughter. I had to get the words out quickly to stop him.
“Now.. hey man,” I stammered to silence him. “NOW, dude shut the fuck up..” he stopped enough for me to get a word in, “I'm dating her again two years later, and I have no idea what she was talking about! Every other girl I've dated since has told me I'm a great kisser.”
Pure cheese. There was a pause, and then he burst out laughing again, blurting out something like “yeah right man...”
I continued, “it's always gone really well..” I stopped... I started to feel like I needed to assert myself. “In fact, y'know what, I don't even know why I'm dating her again.”
I felt bad about this comment because I really did like her... maybe more as a friend, but I knew the other kids would tease me for dating her.
This is a short little piece from that class. She asked us to write about our first kiss. Rather than describe it in detail, I wrote about a conversation I had with a friend of mine two years after my first kiss, as we were talking about how I was dating that girl again.
____________________________
We were about 3 beers in each, and she wanted to kiss me. It had been built up so much, I couldn't believe it had taken this long to happen, so I moved my mouth the way I thought I was supposed to and we kissed. Then, she said those horrid words you'd hope to never hear: “um, what are you doing?”
Colby started laughing at me hysterically “You didn't know how to kiss? Are you kidding?” I really need to pick and choose my conversations with this guy, he's kind-of a dick for someone I call my best friend.
“That was our relationship round one back in grade 8 man” I blurted. “We only dated for like a week!” He was still going on and making all sorts of comments, bowling over his lanky frame from the laughter. I had to get the words out quickly to stop him.
“Now.. hey man,” I stammered to silence him. “NOW, dude shut the fuck up..” he stopped enough for me to get a word in, “I'm dating her again two years later, and I have no idea what she was talking about! Every other girl I've dated since has told me I'm a great kisser.”
Pure cheese. There was a pause, and then he burst out laughing again, blurting out something like “yeah right man...”
I continued, “it's always gone really well..” I stopped... I started to feel like I needed to assert myself. “In fact, y'know what, I don't even know why I'm dating her again.”
I felt bad about this comment because I really did like her... maybe more as a friend, but I knew the other kids would tease me for dating her.
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