Search Results for “round” – Page 23

Power Metal & Me, or, Why I Cannot Take Myself Too Seriously

January 26, 2010 |

Over at Invisible Oranges today, Cosmo Lee is further exploring his distaste for power metal. Personally, I like power metal. It’s cheesy and stupid and ridiculous, but it is also totally awesome. It’s like you’ve got a bunch of dudes sitting around after an epic campaign of AD&D (2nd ruleset, duh) and they’re all talking about how to make the most epic metal ever.

“Well guys, we probably need operatic vocals,” says one.

“And probably powerful sweeping guitars,” says another.

“And the guitars could have solo battles with the synthesizers,” says a third.

“Yeah, that would be rad,” says the first.

“And we probably need a constant barrage of double bass drums,” says yet another.

“And our lyrics should be about elves and unicorns and dragons and shit.”

And thus was Power Metal born into this world. If ever there was a metal genre filled with earnest as hell guys pursuing the impossible dream by making the silliest, unicorn-filled music ever, it is Power Metal.

Here is a selection of some of my favorites of the genre. Let’s start with Rhapsody, perhaps THE awesome, MOST ridiculous Power Metal band of all time. Even better, they’re Italian. This is “Power of the Dragonflame.” Is that not an awesome song title?

Next is Demons & Wizards, probably my first intro to true modern Power Metal. My friend Deegan came over one day and was all, “Dude, do you have Napster?” and I was all, “Over dial up, yeah,” and he was all, “Dude, find a song called ‘Poor Man’s Crusade’ right now,” and I was all, “Ok.” Well, I did and it was AWESOME.

This song, “Fiddler on the Green,” is from the same record. It is, I think my favorite song on the record and has a 3 and a half minute build to insanely powerful power metal magic.

Star One is a one-off side project by Anthony Arjen Lucassen of Ayreon. The record, called “Space Metal,” is a Power Metal concept record based on Science Fiction movies.

Wait. Read that again.

A POWER METAL CONCEPT RECORD BASED ON SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES. What the fucking fuck? That is so awesome. Films include Stargate, Star Wars, and fucking Dune. Honestly, I can’t think of anything that combines dork and awesome more perfectly.

Here’s a fan-made video for “Eye of Ra” from that record.

Dream Evil, who I posted one below this one, is a Swedish Power Metal band I saw for the first time live playing with Carnal Forge, Testament, Immortal, and Rob Halford—a strange line up to be sure. But they totally rock. Here’s “Fire, Battle, Metal!”

Hammerfall is another band doing epic heavy cheese as well as anyone and they totally rock. This is “Renegade.”

With this light survey of Power Metal under our belts, what do we now understand. For me, Power Metal is awesome if you are able to relax and not take yourself too seriously. While I think that there are guys in this scene who live and breathe this shit, I also think there’s a significant contingent of guys who are laughing right along with the fans. Sometimes you can make and enjoy things just because they’re fun. That, more than unicorns and dragons and elves and trolls, is what Power Metal is about for me. I love Pig Destroyer, but my music doesn’t always have to be so serious.

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Tyson (2008)

January 25, 2010 |

About Filmmaking and Film & TV

Wow.

Last night Juli and I watched Tyson, a documentary on the legendary and oft reviled boxer, Mike Tyson. It was quite an illuminating experience and really helped flesh out the character of Mike Tyson in my brain. Before the film, all I really could have told you about him could easily be summed up in the following list.

He was a boxer.
He went to prison.
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.
Don King.
Robin Givens.
Face tattoo.

Comprehensive, right?

Now, the film struck me in two distinct ways. First is that is has humanized Mike Tyson for me. Where once he was this media icon, a person I heard about on the news but about whom I knew nothing, now I feel like after hearing his nearly incomprehensible, insane rambling for 90 minutes I understand him for what he really is: a frightened man-child who was thrown into a world he had no tools for coping with where people wanted to take advantage of him because he was able to dominate guys in a boxing ring. It seems clear that this man who can barely form a coherent sentence, nearly breaks down crying when talking about his childhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and whose minds wanders wildly onto all sorts of tangents is ill equipped to deal with the world on any level, much less a high demand career surrounded by men trying to use him to fill their bank accounts. What Mike Tyson needed was a mentor and a hug, not managers and trainers and millions of dollars.

Of course, I’m not excusing his behavior. There is no doubt that he has done some terrible things in his life. He readily admits this, in fact, explaining his explosiveness after release from prison as being driven by the fear of never wanting to be back in that position of powerlessness again. Really, it is an extension of his childhood fears resulting from growing up in the ghetto and constantly having to fight physically and mentally not to get killed. You can see when he talks about it that he’s pretty messed up inside, confused, angry, uncertain. You can tell when his speech degenerates from his normal bumbling patterns of repeated phrases and half finished sentences to venom filled curses that he is, if nothing else, being honest about his feelings.

Tyson’s is a harrowing story of what can happen to people when the enter into a world of fame and riches without the grounding needed to cope. It’s really sad that this man who was indomitable in the ring was eventually brought down because, as a person, he was incapable of making sane, healthy decisions for himself. I know that sounds like a truism, but in Tyson’s case, it’s rather acute. The peaks of his successes and the valleys of his defeats are so much more extreme than what most people could ever dream of experiencing that his tale serves as almost like this abstract object lesson, this parable of how not to live your life.

Second, what struck me about the film was that it really doesn’t follow traditional documentary techniques. Based on Tyson’s clothes and the set ups, it’s like they had four or five days of one on one interview with the man and then used that interview SOLELY as the basis for the film. Where as other films might get interviews with people from his past, from his current life, director James Toback has used only Tyson’s words, along with a smattering or archival footage, to tell the story. It is incredibly effective. To enhance the sense that the inside of Tyson’s head is a jumbled mess, Toback overlaps sections of the interview both visually and temporally with bits of dialog coming in on top of each other and trailing off, a web of ideas and thoughts barely distinguishable from the next.

So, long story short, go see it. You have no excuse.

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New Old School Death Metal (NOSDM)

January 20, 2010 |

About Music and Music

Today I learned about a genre of metal called “New Old School Death Metal” or NOSDM. While I think the resurgence of old school style Death Metal is awesome, I’m a little surprised by it. Had it really gone anywhere? I was always of the opinion that since its inception, there have been dudes playing Death Metal the same way. Sure, the bands change and the members of the bands change, but hasn’t there always been a core of old school Death going on somewhere?

Did I miss out on something? Was I too busy listening to Old Old School Death Metal (OOSDM) records to notice?

Did Death Metal change so much that we’re experiencing a revival of the classic form much in the same manner as thrash suddenly became huge again about three years ago? Do we refer to Municipal Waste and Toxic Holocaust as “New Old School Thrash Metal” or NOSTM? Are all these labels really necessary? If we didn’t call these new DM bands NOSDM, but just plain called them Death Metal, would it be so hard to understand? Would it be wrong?

Let’s posit that Death Metal in its traditional form peaked about 1994, to be superseded by the Swedish style that dominated the later 90s and early 00s. (No, nü-metal doesn’t fucking count.) The earliest known uses of the term “Death Metal” were found somewhere around 1984, giving Death Metal a 10 year run. Now, if a style falls out of favor but does not disappear completely, can we really call its resurgence by a new name? Composers wrote Baroque music for 160 years. It’s not like when Baroque first showed up, went through a wave of initial popularity, decreased slightly in public opinion, and then showed up again they called it New Old School Baroque Music (NOSBM), did they?

The whole thing, and really the extreme fragmentation of metal subgenres in general, seems pretty silly to me.

And, because I am such a caring person, I won’t let you go without some examples.

Let’s do a chronological survey of some of my favorite Death Metal, shall we?

1987’s “Beyond the Unholy Grave” – Death
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/11-Beyond-The-Unholy-Grave.mp3|Artists=Death|titles=Beyond The Unholy Grave]

1987’s “Bleed for the Devil” – Morbid Angel
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/1-07 Bleed For The Devil.mp3|artists=Morbid Angel|titles=Bleed for the Devil]

1989’s “Sacrificial Suicide” – Deicide
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/02-Sacrificial-Suicide.mp3|artists=Deicide|titles=Sacrificial Suicide]

1990’s “Burden of Evil” – Monstrosity
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Burden Of Evil.mp3|artists=Monstrosity|titles=Burden of Evil]

1991’s “Jesus Wept” – Suffocation
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/09 Jesus Wept.mp3|artists=Suffocation|titles=Jesus Wept]

1992’s “Hammer Smashed Face” – Cannibal Corpse
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Hammer Smashed Face.mp3|artists=Cannibal Corpse|titles=Hammer Smashed Face]

1993’s “Preacher of Sodomy” – Broken Hope
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Preacher of Sodomy.mp3|artists=Broken Hope|titles=Preacher of Sodomy]

1994’s “Born Headless” – Cryptopsy
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Born Headless.mp3|artists=Cryptopsy|titles=Born Headless]

1995’s “Nothing But Fear” – Morbid Angel
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Nothing But Fear.mp3|artists=Morbid Angel|titles=Nothing But Fear]

1996’s “Permanently Disfigured” – Dying Fetus
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Permanently Disfigured.mp3|artists=Dying Fetus|titles=Permanently Disfigured]

1997’s “Save To The Cross” – Deicide
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Slave To The Cross.mp3|artists=Deicide|titles=Slave To The Cross]

1998’s “Flame To The Surface” – Cryptopsy
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Flame To The Surface.mp3|artists=Cryptopsy|titles=Flame To The Surface]

1999’s “Blowtorch Slaughter” – Cannibal Corpse
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Blowtorch Slaughter.mp3|artists=Cannibal Corpse|titles=Blowtorch Slaughter]

2000’s “Christians To The Lions” – Behemoth
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Christians To The Lions.mp3|artists=Behemoth|titles=Christians To The Lions]

2001’s “Blind The Vision That Shatters” – Neuraxis
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Blind The Vision That Shatters.mp3|artists=Neuraxis|titles=Blind The Vision That Shatters]

2002’s “Dead Sea Scroll Deception” – Lock Up
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Dead Sea Scroll Deception.mp3|artists=Lock Up|titles=Dead Sea Scroll Deception]

2003’s “History Is Rotten” – Misery Index
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/History Is Rotten.mp3|artists=Misery Index|titles=History Is Rotten]

2004’s “Sensual Sickness” – Decapitated
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Sensual Sickness.mp3|artists=Decapitated|titles=Sensual Sickness]

2005’s “The Victorious Reign” – Hate Eternal
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/The Victorious Reign.mp3|artists=Hate Eternal|titles=The Victorious Reign]

2006’s “The Crawl Inside Me Uninvited” – Coldworker
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/They Crawl Inside Me Uninvited.mp3|artists=Coldworker|titles=They Crawl Inside Me Uninvited]

2007’s “Rebirth In Blood” – Blood Red Throne
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Rebirth In Blood.mp3|artists=Blood Red Throne|titles=Rebirth In Blood]

2008’s “Slaughtering The Will To Live” – Bloodbath
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Slaughtering The Will To Live.mp3|artists=Bloodbath|titles=Slaughtering The Will To Live]

2009’s “Carrion Sculpted Entity” – Cannibal Corpse
[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Carrion Sculpted Entity.mp3|artists=Cannibal Corpse|titles=Carrion Sculpted Entity]

Sorry, for some reason I don’t have any Death Metal from 1988 on my iPod right now. I’ll fix that oversight when I get home tonight.

Now, listen to the bands on an article by Decibel Magazine about NOSDM. It seems to me that besides some basic evolution in the quality of the productions, that Death Metal has been alive an well since at least 1987. So, do we need this new label at all? Can we not just keep calling it Death Metal? Do we need OOSDM, MEOSDM (Mid-Era Old School Death Metal), and NOSDM? What happens when NOSDM becomes Old New Old School Death Metal (ONOSDM)?

For the initiated and uninitiated out there who take the time to read and listen to this, what do you think? Comment away.

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Redesign of The Black Laser

January 19, 2010 |

Thoughts

So, I’m growing bored with the utterly awesome design I have here on The Black Laser. It’s basically just a customized version of the freeware theme Pixel. I tweaked the colors and the fonts and whatever quickly, just to get the site up and running. If I had spent a million years fucking with the design, there would be no Black Laser for all of you to read. That would be horrible, wouldn’t it.

Well, now more than a year has passed since I made this place public and it seems to me like it’s time to really go super duper with this place.

There are a few elements I think are critical.

Lasers.
Bright pink.
Black.
Comments than differentiate me (the admin) and you (my loyal readers).
Good search engine optimization (which I know nothing about).
Unicorns.
Serif fonts.

I like my color scheme. I think that black and pink are basically the perfect colors for this place. But there are some problems, like the huge empty space at the top. Or the black bars on either side. It feels like my text is floating in space and I think it makes it a little hard to digest the sometimes quite large blocks of text I post. Yes, Tiffany, I know, TL:DR. But for everyone else, I’d like to make it easier to read on this site.

Some people have complained about how reading white (actually light grey) text on black hurts their eyes. Personally, I think it’s more tiring to look at black text on white on the computer, but different strokes, right? I could play around with that, but it probably won’t change.

Another thing, I’ve got a jumble of boxes on the side with very little delineation between them. I’m not even sure how useful that stuff on the side is to anyone. Do any of you even read it? I update that stuff fairly regularly or when appropriate. It could definitely be laid out more smartly.

Other than that, I don’t really know. I have some pictures in my head of what it should look like, but nothing definite. I should also probably finally do something with josephdillingham.com.

Anyway, thoughts? Suggestions? Fears? Concerns?

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Are you guys fucking kidding me?

January 15, 2010 |

Thoughts

See this?

Do you know what this is? If you’ve been keeping up on all the blogs, you do, but let me illuminate you in case you haven’t. This magical little turd is the new SARCASM PUNCTUATION MARK which you can buy from US-based Sarcasm Inc., whose site is down right now, for use on the Mac, Windows, the iPhone, Blackberry, whatever.

Seriously, guys? Are you kidding me? That is the stupidest fucking idea ever. I’m not even going to indulge these people by posting sarcastic remarks in this post. Do we really need to dignify sarcasm with a brand new punctuation mark? And do we really need to BUY IT? I’m pretty sure I get all my cues regarding whether or not a statement is sarcastic from context, just as people have done it since the beginning of verbal communication. No doubt sarcasm has been around that long.

What’s next? The irony mark? Maybe a schadenfreude mark? How about a mark to indicate that I’m writing something in an e-mail to someone that I don’t really care about but feel obligated to explain so that they’re not confused even though it would only take them two minutes to research it on Google? Give me a fucking break. As David Lynch said, “Get real.” How about you learn to insert the proper clues into the text to indicate that you are being sarcastic? If you can’t do that, it’s probably best to leave the fucking sarcasm out of your work e-mails. Stick to declarative statements and everything will be just fine.

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Sixpoint Craft Ales, perhaps the greatest American beer

January 13, 2010 |

Thoughts

Dear America,

New York City has been holding out on you.

I’m not talking about musical theatre or the nightlife or whatever things people come to New York from all over the country to experience. No, I’m talking about what might be the single greatest beer in the entire history of the universe, Sixpoint’s Righteous Rye. Never before has a beer so tasty, so dangerous, exerted such pressure on me to drink it. It makes most other craft beers seem like the cans of Hamm’s sitting in your trunk while you’re at summer school when you’re 16.

Brooklyn Brewery? I love you, but no.

Dogfishhead? No!

Smuttynose? How I adore your IPA, but, still, no.

Europe? Your dogged adherence to tradition is commendable, but no.

Asia? Not in a million years.

Africa? South America? Australia? No! No!! No!!!

And while I would love to recommend that you fine folks around the country go to your local purveyor of fine beers and purchase a six pack of this mighty beast of a drink, you cannot. Sixpoint does not bottle beer. You can only get it on draught. It’s even difficult to find sometimes in Manhattan, but it waits for me like a patient friend when I come home to Brooklyn. Always there. Always happy to see me.

Sixpoint, you have brightened my life with the Righteous Rye and I thank you for it.

To the rest of America, when you’re in town on vacation, take a break from the tourist crap, take the subway across the East River, find yourself a nice little bar, and get a Sixpoint. You will thank me for it.

Check out their site: Sixpoint Craft Ales

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Year of Record

January 6, 2010 |

Thoughts

My friend Charles has sworn off iTunes for 2010 in favor of the humble vinyl LP. Why would anyone do something so progressively insane you ask?! I could waste my time explaining it or I could just copy and paste his explanation. Here’s what he has to say about it.

I promise this will be the only post of philosophical musings on here, but people have asked so I think it needs to be said: Why am I doing this?

Literally as long as I can remember, I’ve been “into music”, whatever that means. My parents claim that they got me playing an instrument when they walked into the kitchen to find I had constructed a xylophone out of building blocks, playing “Camptown Races”. I’ve played in various stupid indie rock bands, full orchestras, and recorded solo, but this blog isn’t about creation. This is about consumption.

I’m a collector, and a pirate, with a maximally efficient way of acquiring new media. Literally thousands of albums, months of music sit on my hard drive, a string of 1s and 0s magnetized on discs spinning hundreds of miles per hour. I try not to discriminate when it comes to music, downloading everything from the new Lil John rap-rock-autotune debacle to Daniel Johnston, to Phoenix, to Trentemøller to La Bouche to Steely Dan to Shearwater. Which is great! I get a wide variety of music and influences, and am always hearing something interesting as I make my way through recent downloads.

The problem is that I’m always making my way through recent downloads, never able to focus on any music and give it the respect it deserves. The music I do care about has equal footing with the dreck, making it hard to zero in on what should be at the forefront.

Not only that, but when I do find something I love, something important to me, it’s still barely real, a digital representation on a storage device. That’s not to say that it’s not about the music, it most certainly is. When I moved abroad, I culled and razed, and got rid of everything physical, moving to all-digital. I showed up with a suitcase, a laptop and an iPhone, and that was enough to keep me going. But for the longest time, I’ve had what I care about be bits of data, and the physical media I own be the hilarious 1 dollar records from Half Price Books, the CDs I bought in high school and hung on to for no reason, the stuff that I never return to.

This year is about turning that around.

Starting Jan 1, 2010, through Dec 31, 2010, I’m giving up the digital, as much as is possible. I’ve moved my iTunes library to an external disk for safekeeping, bought as many of my favorite records as I could afford, and will be listening to only records, cds, and tapes to the best of my ability. If I want to listen to a record, I’ll have to go over to my pile of actual music, choose something, put it on, and listen to it.

There’s no shuffle, there’s no thousand songs in my pocket, there’s just albums. Wish me luck.

Neat. Keep en eye on his progress at his site, Year of Record.

By the way, that’s him, rocking out to Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love” with his pinky raised all genteel and shit, in the post below.

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36 – My Country for a Cookie

December 28, 2009 |

Fiction and Writing

Samantha fought a losing war against her god damn, cheap ass, piece of shit stove that burnt everything she put on or in it no matter how vigilant she was with it. Its temperature markings were wildly inaccurate, its range jumped from super high directly to medium-low with zero gradation between, its heat would be different at the same marking depending if she was raising or lowering it, its pilot light went out on a whim, and no matter how methodical she was with the nightmare it misbehaved. These cookies weren’t just going to make themselves and this motherfucking stove was standing in her way. Must it be so difficult to satisfy her craving for fucking chocolate chip cookies? She worked hard. Did she not deserve a chocolate chip cookie or fourteen once in a while? Why must this stove stand in her way? And it was new. Her mind boggled at how bad the stoves in the apartments of the people who had lived in the building for 30 years must be. Her landlord refused to do repairs on apartments people were only paying 150 dollars a month for, and she could understand that, but she paid market value and she thought it fucking sucked to be stuck with a bum stove. Fuckers. Can’t just buy a stove that isn’t a piece of trash.

Tonight, desperately needing cookies, the dough made, the first sheet dotted with mostly round balls of potential cookie, she wanted to kick the stove when it refused to heat. The pilot was on, but it decided that, tonight, it was already too warm and did not really feel like getting hot.

She opened a beer and contemplated just eating the whole bowl of dough. She decided against it, though, not because of the raw egg, whatever, but because she would probably eat the whole thing and it would make her feel sick, completely defeating the purpose of cookies in the first place. She considered putting the bowl in the fridge and trying again the next day, but she felt the urge too hard. The need was too strong. If she could not have cookies tonight, she would probably die. Her life depended on eating at least 4 cookies with the milk she had picked up on the way home from work for expressly that purpose. She hated when plans got derailed.

Then she thought of that weirdo across the hall, what was his name, Jacob or something? He would probably let her use his oven in exchange for a few cookies. Giving away some of the cookies would be smart too since Yu Lee was God knows where tonight and if she had the whole batch, she would start tomorrow with no cookies. Better to remove the temptation to gorge on delicious, buttery chocolate chip cookies up front where it can’t hurt her as much.

Samantha knocked on the door across the hall, but got no answer. Determined, she knocked again, more vigorously, after a moment.

She heard heavy footsteps and grumbling approach from within the apartment and then the little spy window open. Through it she saw a bloodshot eyeball that suddenly went wide. The window shut again and she heard a chain being fiddled with and the deadbolt being thrown. The door opened a sliver and Jacob poked his head into it.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Uh, hi, I’m Samantha, from across the hall?”

“Yeah yeah, I remember you,” he said and opened the door all the way. He was wearing paint spattered pants and a wife beater t-shirt that needed to be thrown out. “What can old Jacob do for you, young lady?”

She hated being called young lady. “My stove isn’t working and…”

“You want me to take a look at it for you?”

“No, it’s done this before. It usually fixes itself after a while. I’m over here to ask if I can use yours for a little while.”

“Oh sure, sure. No problem. Mine works just fine, I guess. I ain’t used it in who knows, but it worked fine once right?” He laughed at what she could not tell was a joke. “What’re you making?”

“Cookies. I’ll be glad to give you some. For helping me out.”

“Cookies. Wow. We got a regular Mrs. Fields over there. What kind of cookies?”

“Chocolate chip.”

“You got any milk?”

“Yup.”

“Well well, I’ll leave my door open then, and you can just come in and out as you want, ok? I’m not doing a whole lot in there, just watchin’ a movie on the TV,” he said while adjusting his pants. He needed a belt.

“Ah, yeah, ok. I’ll be right back,” Samantha said and went back into her apartment. She closed the door behind her and tried to shake off the skeeved out feeling she had. God, his teeth were bad. Then she looked at the cookie sheet waiting to be put into a 375 degree oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown at the edges. She grit her teeth and sheet in hand, crossed the hall.

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