The Metal Show! Part 2...

Holy sweaty sweet Jesus tap-dancing monkey balls!! Last week I had the privilege of going to another metal show! I know right!? It’s been a good couple weeks. Needless to say, right around the time my ears healed from the onslaught brought by the Canadian beard aficionados in Protest the Hero and the Milwaukee metal monsters in Misery Signals, I got my head pushed back in by the Australian group Parkway Drive (www.myspace.com/parkwaydrive).

So…given I missed the first couple bands, I was told by my very capable metal buddy that they all blew ass…it’s a technical term in the biz for “terrible.” I’m getting really sick of bands getting on their soap box and preaching at the crowd. We go to shows to see music. Not get a damn sermon about religion or politics or whatever. Play your songs damnit! Alas, I digress. The point I’m making is that the opening bands were terrible. They’re not even really worth mentioning much beyond that. It’d be wasted text…and then the terrorists would win.

Eventually Parkway Drive came on and we’ll just put it this way…I thought my days of being “that sweaty dude walking out of the metal show” were over…apparently not. Usually, when I’m at a show, I’ll hang out at the back and take in the whole scene, show, and performance. I watch the band, listen for what’s going on, take note of particular expressions of technical prowess, watch how the crowd reacts and how the band reacts to the crowd’s reactions…you know, this kinda thing. Not that night!

If you’re bored (and have a free moment where people aren’t walking by long enough for you to listen to a loud crazy metal song for a sec) you should/could check out their myspace page and listen to the song Boneyards. It’s probably one of their more brutal and fast songs. This was their opener. Well…they took the stage aaaaand pretty much turned Chain Reaction upside down, inside out, and backwards. People lost their ever loving minds. It was sweet. Bodies were flying, stage was rushed, massive pitting all over the place. It was literally all out mayhem for those first 3 minutes and 15 seconds…and it continued pretty much uninterrupted through the end of their set. What always makes this level of chaos WAY cooler is when the crowd and the band feed off each other. The dudes on stage were all smiley, bouncy, and fun to watch which in turn made the crowd that much more active as well. I love love LOVE when bands look like they’re having a good time on stage. Anyway, after Boneyards, the singer was totally floored. He was looking at the rest of the band members saying things like “Oh my GOD!…wwwwwwwwwHAT just happened?! You guys [the crowd] went NUTS. That was just the first song…! How are we going to top that?” It was like the first song of the set brought the energy that usually the last song brings…that final, last hurrah, leave it all on the floor type energy. UGH! So sickies!

By the end of the set I had gotten all wrapped up in it and had pushed myself up to the front. At hardcore/metal shows the singers like to do this thing where they’ll shove the mic down at someone’s face so they can scream a line or two or whatever…it’s kinda awesome…connects the band to the crowd. Anyway, I got to scream “dead by first light” with the singer (at the end of the song “The Sirens’ Song” that they ended their set on). That was fun. Oh ya, I also did a flipping stage dive. I think I landed on some little kids…possibly girls. My bad. Sorry. Life kinda happened for a second. Buy your ticket, take your ride. Right?

Soooo that was very atypical Matt behavior at concerts. But what can I say? It happened.

By the by, I can’t emphasize enough how awesome it is that these dudes look like they’re having a blast on stage. They’re all smiles. They look like 5 total surfer dudes with lots of tattoos going out of their way to play the most brutal music they can muster. Oh ya…and on top of the showmanship, they’re kinda stupidly solid. Other than one guitar losing signal for part of a song (which is more dumb luck than anything else) I didn’t see/hear many, if any, flaws in their playing. It was superawesomesweet.

A Photo Essay Of Sorts

Looking back at my posts here on Wolfbiker, I’ve realized I’ve been lacking something… Color! Flare! Panache! Of course I mean pictures! I talk about all this whacky, zany stuff but what does funny metal stuff really look like? Well…let me show you. I’ve scoured the internet (a little more than half-assedly) looking for photos of what I see as the goofy things that happen in metal. Given that I’m at the whim of what’s already out there, the following pictures characterize some of the more humorous aspects of a musical genre that is sometimes mislabeled as serious.

My first example is probably one of the most outlandish minds in metal, Adam Dutkiewicz (known lovingly as Adam D). Whereas he’s one of the most influential, talented, and anal retentive producer/engineer/mixers out there, on stage with his own band Killswitch Engage he is the biggest caricature of the metal genre there is. Everything he does is so outlandish and overstated that it can’t possibly be taken seriously…no matter how you spin it. Don’t be fooled though, this guy is a fantastically talented musician with a stranglehold on songwriting, music theory, and ultimate shrediness. For seriously.

Scrawny white guy wearing a cape flexing non-existent muscles? Sounds familiar… Note the neon green taped arrow pointing at his hand so you’re sure not to miss how awesome his shredology-ism is.

Viking helmet? Short shorts shorter than the boxers he’s wearing underneath? Licking the guitar he so shamelessly shreds proving not only his technical prowess but also his ability to do so while emulating the 80s hair metal that inspired him? Stupid stuff written on his guitar in tape? Check. Check. Check. Check.

Oh the denim rock god strikes. Taking the image of the “heavy metal guy who has rips in his jeans but doesn’t care because he’s so metal” image to the next level. Left the cape in the tour bus? A problem for mortals! Make do with what you have! …in this case, apparently a blow-up doll.

Metal and fire go together like koalas and cuteness. Greg Puciato from The Dillinger Escape Plan demonstrates this at some outdoor festival. Note the guitar player’s neon pink guitar…I’m pretty confident color totally effects the sound of the guitar. Probably has a bright tone. Punny.

This is Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour. Metal’s ultimate “dude.” The guy is a total gear head and can and will talk anyone’s ear off about tone, pedals, guitars, amps, or ANYthing really. Anyway, the guitar company Washburn made him a custom guitar named the Dude. They eventually made him a second one…called the Dude II. Note the headstock truss-rod cover.

I saw the Bled once at the House of Blues where the stage has a drop down curtain. When the first song started RIGHT as the curtain pulled open, this is what the crowd saw. Aside from having a full frontal assault of raucous hardcore to the face, there seemed to be something horribly wrong with the singer. Soon everyone caught on. You could literally hear the laughter over the music…which was saying something…cuz boy howdy it was loud.

Ken Susi plays guitar for Unearth…really well. Apparently, he also plays the air horn. I like that at a loud metal show, the air horn still makes him wince like a baby.

The Unearth guitar players are just lil’ guys…which makes them perfect for stage antics…like mid-song push-ups, mid-song beer chugging, mid-riff high-fives, and mid-song 100% fun-time acrobatics…like this! Buz McGrath rides John Maggard around like a metal totem pole. Gross. Awesome. Gross.

I’d like to finish this little photo journal with the consistently wittiest and goofiest band I’ve seen. Every Time I Die is a silly band…specifically their guitar players. Andy Williams is a massive loaf of dude with the ability to sneeze facial hair out of his face. To top it off, he’s probably one of the nicest, most genuine dudes ever. For example, he went through an entire US tour advertising the fact that he’d be outside at every show offering hugs. What a teddy bear. Last time I saw them (I think…or maybe 2 times ago?) they took the stage to play their southern rock inspired metal wielding these guitars. Andy played the pink zebra striped one and Jordan played the light blue guitar that has a painted-on caricature of Andy’s face.

Andy also went the entire length of Warped Tour one year making a shirt for each show…here’s one sporting the Queen song/lyrics “Fat bottom girls make the rocking world go ‘round”.

So that’s pretty much that...hopefully you enjoyed the visual hilarity that this music can inspire! Now imagine all this in motion. How can you not laugh?

The Handicap of Knowledge

Without getting too philosophical about things, because God knows there’s already WAY too many people being WAY too serious with their blogs, I think there could be something to the statement that (I’ve made up) knowledge can confine the mind. Of course I’m limiting my bs-thesis (thes-bs? Pronounced thees-bee-iss) to the realm of music knowledge.

We all know that there are countless trained musicians, or at least people who study music and music theory, who go on to logically make really incredible music. I mean, of course there are in turn trained musicians who boggle the mind in their ability to make really crappy music as well, but these people aren’t worth the breath, or typing-energy, to talk about. That would make for boring reading… “Hey, you know that one guy with the degree in music theory from the Berklee School of Music? Ya? Aren’t his songs good? Ya. They are aren’t they.” Booooring.

What baffles the mind, and makes for more interesting reading, are those who with NO musical training or anything defy the odds and make some pretty cool music. Crazy stuff. There are even some out there that have SOMEhow seemingly redefined the art of their instrument. The best example of this would have to be Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers who is arguably (as in I’m sure there’s an argument for it…but I don’t know what it is) one of the best alternative-rock/funk bass players ever. And the guy has taken like, zero lessons. THAT is pretty damn impressive.

Metal has its own heroes as well. The guitar players in Norma Jean, one of the founding hardcore staples, are probably one of the bigger hardcore bands to have come from absolutely nil musical background. The two founding guitar players picked up the guitar and basically tried making the instrument make sounds like those of their influences in the hardcore-punk scene of the 80s and 90s. The style of play was abrasive, heavily rhythmic, and not strong on melody. Even though I feel that over the years they’ve been a band they’ve strayed from where they started more towards the mainstream-middle ground of music, their roots lie in the discordant, off-beat, and heavily rhythmic roots of early hardcore. One band that, despite meager musical forethought, has turned my mind inside out has been August Burns Red. These Pennsylvanian kids have all but blown the doors off of conventional metal and metalcore. Picking up where bands like Norma Jean left off with their heavily rhythmic guitars and experimental time signatures and such, ABR has generated a style of their own by infusing more “metal” elements like breakdowns, a very slight movement towards song structure, and more breakdowns.

I think it’s important to point out what this lack of musical background has given these guys. Both bands I’ve mentioned approached their song writing process from a place of making their instruments make sounds and progressions that sound “neat.” Without having to operate under the confines of knowing that the notes they’re putting together don’t fall into the same scale or don’t technically belong together, they’re able to assemble a song or riff that for no explicable reason (at least until you drink a pot of coffee and stay up to tomorrow listening to the same passage over and over trying to understand what exactly just happened…not that I speak from experience in this or anything…I need a hobby…and to leave this aside behind and get back to whatever I was talking about) sounds freaking SWEET! They don’t have to worry about counting out a time signature or mapping how the tempos ebb and flow because without knowing the exact framework of how music “works” they just play what they feel. That is a powerful powerful thing that can often be hindered by the knowledge that what you’re making shouldn’t, by any good reason, work.

Obviously the number of bands that can function beyond these confines with any level of success are FAR outnumbered by those who can probably write a successful dissertation on the ability and technique of failing miserably. However, it’s worthy to mention and recognize those that beat these odds. And I salute you with this keg of coffee and pounding headache…as I try to decipher this beautiful chaos that is the music I love.