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The Black Laser

A posting of old photos

November 18, 2008 |

Galleries and Photography

I’ve gone through some old photos in my archive and posted the selects from some of my better sets. Here’s a smattering of the best of the best. I was going to try and do something fancy here with the WordPress plug-ins and whatever, but no matter what I do, I cannot get it to do what I think it should be doing. Nothing is perfect. Instead, here are some links.

> Continue reading...A posting of old photos

3 new music videos.

November 17, 2008 |

Music, Music Videos and Thoughts

I was watching my recorded Headbangers Ball yesterday—which has mysteriously moved to the wonderful 2 to 3am time slot on MTV2, double ewe tea ephraim?—and I saw three new videos worth commenting on.

The first is the new Motorhead video for “Rock Out”.

I’m not a Motorhead fan. I can appreciate the band for what they are, but their music has never really done it for me, whatever “it” is. That’s not to say I have no respect for a band that has made a career out of writing essentially the same two and a half minute song over and over and over and over. How can you not respect that? It takes a special kind of balls to pull that shit. Their new video, however, is amazing. I’m not sure what about it I like so much. It’s not the song. It might be the cinematography, which is quite nice for a metal video. It might be the de-emphasis on the band’s performance. It might be how personal it all feels. In all likelihood, it’s all of these and something else. Just watch it and you’ll see what I mean.

> Continue reading...3 new music videos.

My friend Chris

November 16, 2008 |

Thoughts

Let me introduce you to my friend Chris. Chris is a wildly talented cinematographer and maker of images. He’s also a wonderfully goofy son of a bitch and a good, old friend of mine. Coming from a social group of Luddites, neither of us knew we had Flickr accounts until he saw my (awesome) site and link to my Flickr account.

There are samples of his photography and his reel after the jump.

> Continue reading...My friend Chris

On singing in metal 2 – Intronaut’s “Australopithecus”

November 15, 2008 |

About Music, Music and Thoughts

This morning while avoiding sitting down to do actual real work, I was cruising the Deciblog and stumbled upon this new video by Intronaut. It’s stupidly awesome. The video echoes Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, but with a distinctly modern feel. The cut is sharp and punchy, and the cinematography conveys a palpable sense of dread. What more could you ask for from a metal video? That the song is appropriately killer? Taken care of. Harmonized growls, double bass, breakdowns, gnarly chorus; this song has it all.

So why is it in On singing in metal? I filed it there because of the musical shift at 2:14. I fully anticipated some truly awful singing destroying my initial impression of this song as pure slaughter. How delighted I was to make it through the calmer section to be greeted at the other end by the brutal crunch of the chorus! This is a perfect example of how to integrate melodic sections into your metal song without succumbing to the misguided need to throw in some contemptible “singing”. Intronaut, I salute you and your restraint and show of good taste. Well done.

The rest of you, pick up their record from Century Media here—Intronaut – Prehistoricisms. Only 10 bucks! That’s two beers WITHOUT tip. Do it.

> Continue reading...On singing in metal 2 – Intronaut’s “Australopithecus”

Some interesting facts about Barry

November 13, 2008 |

Thoughts

I was cruising Boing Boing today as I am prone to do during a bustling workday, and I read an article they’d posted from The Telegraph. It’s a list of facts about our next President that I, for one, had no clue about. There were some excellent tidbits in there. Here are a few of my favorite.

  • He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
  • As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
  • He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal

Pretty awesome. Go Barry! Check out the rest of the article here: Barack Obama-The 50 facts you might not know

> Continue reading...Some interesting facts about Barry