Concert Review: Uniform, Drab Majesty, Deafheaven 8-4-18

I’ve done a bad job of keeping up with concert reviews as of late, but I wanted to definitely post a bit about the one I attended this past weekend in order to get everything back on track. I wanted to first mention that I saw this in Lawrence, Kansas at a theater called The Granada, and for small shows around this area there is literally no better venue. I’ve been to my fair share of shows at tiny bars where it’s 300 degrees and you leave the show completely deaf because you are basically laying on the monitors and there are 5 sets of back-filled gear resulting on each band having a postage stamp sized spot to stand on.

The Granada has none of this, the sound is solid, there’s plenty of room for the bands, and I’ve never left with serious issues do to my ears wanting to die nor do I usually have to wear earplugs and I’ve seen some LOUUUUD stuff there. I jumped at the chance to see this show since I am a big fan of Deafheaven, but the rest of the show was a mystery to me. This was largely due to the fact that I was unfamiliar with the supporting acts, I knew they are from three very different genres, and I wasn’t sure what sort of crowd would be in attendance. What I will say in short is that weird shows like this are awesome, and I hope to see more like this.

Uniform

Uniform, a New York Based band that mixes trappings from industrial and hardcore into a relentless sonic attack, were first up. The band recently gained a bit of notoriety for having two tracks included into an episode of the re-launched Twin Peaks show on Showtime, hot off of this, they have a new album coming out and I will likely be getting it after this show. While I’m not usually a big fan of 80’s hardcore, somehow mixing the vocal trappings of that with industrial somehow helps make that style of music, which can sometimes be very harsh, even harsher, bleaker, and more relentless. Michael Berdan’s vocals hit like some sort of angry slam poetry, ranting about the ills of society, touching on inequality, the media and even religion. If any of that seems up your alley, I’d recommend checking them out (posting a video below) and if you get to see them, Berdan is a really nice dude and took time out to talk to fans at the merch table.

Drab Majesty

Next up was a Goth / Darkwave band called Drab Majesty – I absolutely love this type of music but have never really had a chance to see any of it live since it’s relatively underground, and cool concerts always happen on days of the week where I have to work. Donned in all white with make-up and large sunglasses on, this California-based two piece is a deliberate throwback to the 80’s both in sound and look. The band seemed to have a huge following at the show which is easily to understand considering that they ooze a mysterious vibe that I can only assume gets them legions of female fans that enjoy dark mysterious alien dudes.

The highlight of their set is a song where the lead singer, Deb Demure, strapped a bright light to his chest and performed basically blinding whomever he was directly facing. While this sounds annoying, it was actually a cool effect with the fog machines going, and made them seem even more mysterious than they already are. Perhaps the one way that I knew this band had something special was that one of my good friends, that normally only likes metal, actually enjoyed the set quite a bit due to it’s quirky nature and being something different.

Once again, here is an example of the band’s music.

Deafheaven

When I got “back into music” a handful of years ago, I mostly got really into going over to Bandcamp’s “atmospheric Black Metal” subgenre section and simply scouring over endless pages of crazy bands that I haven’t heard of. Many bands from this period have become some of my favorite current bands – groups like Ghost Bath, Panopticon, Drudkh, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Deafheaven are always on my rotation. I’m drawn to many of these bands because they are usually a lot more melodic than standard black metal (which I also like) and are more willing to experiment much to the derision of gatekeepers of the metal scene.

Deafheaven, in particular, seem to always get jabbed at by metal elitests since “they aren’t metal enough”. After this concert I will say that those guys are all buffoons. I have seen a lot of shows, and I have literally never seen a crowd mosh as hard as what happened during Deafheaven. It was a weird thing since the band is known for long-form songs with trippy interludes that absolutely glow with optimism and possibly weariness. Suddenly this would break and all hell would break lose – people were doing windmills, ninja kicks, the whole gamut.

I was also VERY impressed with the stage presence of George Clarke, the band’s lead singer. In the music videos, even the one I will post below, you don’t see much of the band performing – some of the newer ones show the guys recording an album and driving classic cars around. But, good lord does this guy have it. Jumping around like some sort of black metal Mick Jagger, Clarke was absolutely crazy to watch. Much like when I was able to see Wolves in the Throne Room earlier this year, I was blown away by these guys.

Here’s a video

Nine Inch Nails – Bad Witch EP (2018)

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have returned with the third and final EP of their two year EP project, and it was well worth the wait! Hot of the heels of Not the Actual Events and Add Violence, I can see why going the EP route was preferred this time around. When artists usually create music we get an album every half-decade or so, and it very well could be full of filler that you don’t like just so it can fill a 12-16 track threshold. With EPs we get small themes that don’t overstay their welcome and allow artists to produce more music more often. being a big metal fan, I’m used to this release method, but seeing more “big-name” artists do it is surprising.

Today we will be looking at Bad Witch, the new Nine Inch Nails EP that packs about a half hour of awesomeness into your ears.

The track listing is as follows

1. “Shit Mirror” 3:06
2. “Ahead of Ourselves” 3:30
3. “Play the Goddamned Part” 4:51
4. “God Break Down the Door” 4:14
5. “I’m Not from This World” 6:41
6. “Over and Out” 7:49

One of the surprises for me are some songs echoing back to older eras in Trent’s back catalog. For example, Ahead of Ourselves and Play the Goddamned Part sound vaguely like something that could have been on The Fragile. Shit Mirror, even sounds vaguely similar to another Fragile song Starfuckers Inc. while the tail end of I’m not from this world creeps back into Downward Spiral territory. But this isn’t a case of ACDCism, where a band makes every album sound the same, these homages to the past are just superficial, sort of like when a theme song pops up in the background of a movie when the action is really getting good and the viewer is like “oh hey Captain America’s about to show up.”

The main difference with this album versus the previous two is that there is a subtle jazz vibe to the whole thing. Saxophones play a big part in most of the songs and help achieve this unsettling tone that seems like the soundscape from a dingy nightclub in an 80’s police show. One thing I’ve enjoyed about this EP trilogy is the return of the aggression that made me enjoy NIN in the first place – and yes that is still there in this third release.

While this release didn’t come with a physical ARG component (one full of black powder that initially scared me) Trent has made allusions on the website to rethinking physical media making the vinyl or the person listening to the album the physical component this time around. This is an interesting change considering Reznor was on the bleeding edge of online distribution, even employing a “pay whatever you want” model for one of his albums. This in no way detracts from the album because a gimmick is a gimmick, and what I care about most is the music itself.

In these times of nearly unlimited access to all the music in the world, we’ve come to appreciate the value and beauty of the physical object. Our store’s focus is on presenting these items to you. Vinyl has returned to being a priority for us – not just for the warmth of the sound, but the interaction it demands from the listener. The canvas of artwork, the weight of the record, the smell of the vinyl, the dropping of the needle, the difficulty of skipping tracks, the changing of sides, the secrets hidden within, and having a physical object that exists in the real world with you… all part of the experience and magic.

Digital formats and streaming are great and certainly convenient, but the ideal way i’d hope a listener experience my music is to grab a great set of headphones, sit with the vinyl, drop the needle, hold the jacket in your hands looking at the artwork (with your fucking phone turned off) and go on a journey with me.

— Trent Reznor

All-in-all this is probably the best EP in the trilogy and is a must-have for nay Nine Inch Nails fan.

The New English Beat feat: Ranking Roger: Bounce

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Not too long after I finally got to see the US version of the English Beat Live, I found out that the other iteration of the band had a new album out. It’s been a bit since I bought this, but I was finally able to give it a solid listen today. For those unaware of why I mentioned two versions of the band up there, there are currently two different English Beats with both former singers heading their own version. From what I can gather, there wasn’t any sort of bad break-up or anything (Between Dave and Roger, the band did basically implode in the 80’s with the other members) as Dave Wakeling moved to California in the early 90’s and the rest didn’t want to follow. Both artists tried to do tours with their own names, only to have everyone always call them “The Beat” so they embraced it. Here’s a more detailed answer from an interview with A.V. Club, where the question was asked to Wakeling as to why there was two bands:

Oh, that was quite simple. Whilst we were trying to get five out of the seven members for a reunion show in England, Roger was coming up against the same thing as me; he was being called The Beat over there regardless of what he tried to call himself. The same thing had happened with me. I’d just given up in the end; fine, English Beat, I liked the name anyway, I thought of it, so fine, I’ll be the English Beat.

And so I said, “If you want to use the name in England, that’s fine by me; just don’t screw the legacy, make sure that the shows are always great quality and the fans go home happy and it makes them like the records more rather than less.” And so that was quite an easy thing to sort out. It’s kind of cute, I think, that you can hear “Mirror in the Bathroom” sung live by one of the lead singers on two continents!

Ranking-Roger-with-The-Pod-in-his-back-garden — Ranking Roger at his personal recording studio

With that in mind, it’s kind of funny to find out that Ranking Roger’s The New English Beat released an album at the very tail end of 2016, with Wakeling planning his own new album sometime this year! But your question may be: How’s Roger’s Beat stack up? is it like the old stuff? well yes and no, but not in a bad way. In all honesty Bounce (the album in question) is basically what I would have expected the band to do in the 90’s if they had stayed together. It’s more polished than the previous albums, seems like it was made on a higher budget, and seems altogether “shinier”. You can feel the vibes from Both English Beat and General Public as well as a slightly more somber tone.

For those that know me, “shininess” is not always a good thing for my musical tastes as I sometimes feel that a lot of modern music, especially pop music, is empty and overproduced. While Bounce doesn’t completely stray down this path, there are a few hints of Coldplay-like guitars and such found in a few songs that really didn’t do a whole lot for me. what I did like was that some of the more mellow songs seemed to be a lot more politically charged than most Beat songs ever where. Take a track like “Walking on the Wrong Side” for instance.

What this means, is that some of the energy found in some of my favorite beat songs like “Mirror in the Bathroom” and “Ranking Full Stop” is curiously absent from this record. What we do get are a few lighthearted sentimental tracks to even out the politics, which is a trademark of the sound most bands fall into when they get older. Thankfully this wan’t a total deviation into sappy ballads or anything so that’s a plus.

All in all, this was a solid listen, and a great re-introduction to a band that has basically been doing touring for the past few decades. I’ve personally been hankering for a fourth wave ska movement to pop up, so hearing only a few hints of the rudeboy sound in this record made me a bit disappointed overall. The good news is, that the music stands on it’s own and I plan to include it in my current iPod rotation. I also need to hunt down some of the music Roger did between the original English Beat and this album to see how his sound has progressed. If you enjoy ska, reggae, or The English Beat – do yourself a favor and check this out – despite a few quibbles I have it’s a solid album.

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Concert Review: English Beat w/ Deco Auto 3/24/17

I used to have a long commute to work every day, so my chief companion quickly became my car stereo. It took about a year, but I ended up rage-quitting local radio stations completely once I realized that my local “hard rock” station was garbage and that my local “alternative” station was basically folk music garnished by seemingly mandatory Pearl Jam songs. I bought Sirius XM to alleviate all my radio woes, and immediately fell in love with a channel on there called 1st wave.

Whenever I tell folks that I’m into 80’s new wave music, I think a lot of folks assume I love bands like Hall and Oates or something, but honestly I’m only really into that late 70’s – early 80’s scene that sprang up (mostly) in the UK – great news, that’s what they play! I think one of the first times I was listening to 1st Wave Dave Wakeling (of the English Beat and General Public) was on a talk show segment hosted by Richard Blade and I immediately realized just how much I loved the band, and my love for ska was re-energized.

Readers may recall a while back I was talking about “trying to see more bands on my ‘musical bucket list'”, so when The English Beat popped up on my Jambase page I had to immediately snag some tickets. I’ve always been a fan of ska music, so getting to hear one of the pioneers of the 80’s second wave of ska/two-tone/reggae was definitely something I’ve wanted to do. Some of these bands rarely come over to the United States anymore, but the good news is that Dave Wakeling happens to live in California, so he tours here all the time.

Before I get into the show itself, I wanted to talk about the venue the show was held in, Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, MO. This was my first time at this venue, and I was really impressed. I’m not a big blues aficionado, which is the style of music most featured at this venue, but I’d love to come here again – I’ll have to keep an eye out on acts coming in from time to time. This is a promotional ad, but shows off the Place better than I could attempt to describe it.

The compound is made up of a number of venues, with our concert taking place in “The Garage”. This was a roomy music hall with standing room at the front and back, a bar, and some tables – since we arrived early we were able to score some choice table seats.

The supporting act for this show was a local band called Deco Auto which is a power pop band in the vein of a lot of those early 90’s alternative bands that used to get tons of radio play like Weezer and Superchunk. While their music isn’t really my standard listening, they were pretty good even though they had a few technical difficulties during their set. For a few of their songs, one of the vocalists was sadly muted lower than she should have been so we really couldn’t hear the full impact of their music. The highlight of their set was a cover of the Blondie Song “Hanging on the Telephone”, which is always fun to listen to.

Their Bandcamp page

Oh wait, you thought you had seen all of my crappy concert pictures in previous posts, think again – this is a snap of Deco Auto doing their thing.

Next up was the main event – finally getting to see The English Beat live! Honestly the band shows absolutely no signs of loosing any steps – the music sounds every bit as good as the original albums from 30+ years ago. The set-list was the following:

Rough Rider, The Tears of a Clown, Hands Off…She’s Mine, Twist & Crawl, Rude Boy Skank, I’ll Take You There, Save It for Later, Whine & Grine/Stand Down Margaret, Too Nice to Talk To, Can’t Get Used to Losing You, Sole Salvation, Tenderness, Ranking Full Stop, Mirror in the Bathroom

There was a LOT of music from their first album which coincidentally is my favorite album of theirs due to the heavy ska and reggae influence. later albums somewhat shifted to arena rock, which is good, but the older stuff is my preference. conspicuously absent was the song “I confess”, perhaps one of their biggest hits, but I’ll gladly trade it for “Tenderness” from General Public.

This iteration of the band is Dave Wakeling on vocals, Nucci Cantrell on drums, Matt Morrish on sax, Kevin Lum and Minh Quan on keyboards, King Schascha on vocals and MC duty, and Brad Engstrom on bass guitar. For those unaware, there are actually two touring versions of the band going around – one helmed by Wakeling and another helmed by Ranking Roger, former bandmate of Wakeling’s in The English Beat and General Public. It seems as though there is no bad blood between the two, as the band originally broke up because the rest of the band wanted to stay in the UK and joined the Fine Young Cannibals, Wakeling moved to the US at some point and it was simply too hard to be a band at that point. Both Roger and Wakeling wanted to tour as themselves, but were always labeled as “The English Beat” so they embraced it.

The cool thing is that both singers bring a bit of a different flavor to the music, so having new albums coming out from both bands this year is a blessing for fans. I recently picked up Bounce, the new album from the UK version of the band – hope to review it on here at some point.

All-in-all, I had a blast at this show, and hope to get to see the band again next year as they release their new album Here We Go Love. I was also glad to see that despite the age of the band there were fans at the show from pretty much every living generation in attendance. I keep thinking that we’re long overdue for a fourth wave of ska music to get big in the US, seeing so many people supporting a band like this makes me hope that’s true.

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In case you’ve never seen this band:

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Concert Review: Voodoo Glow Skulls w/ The Uncouth 3-5-17

Any Concert that lets me where a ridiculous Lucha Libre mask during the show (see above picture), is an A+ in my book! Thankfully, the Voodoo Glow Skulls happened to have some at their merch table, so I was all set. In fact, Lucha masks should really become the new hot fashion tend, I think it’s well past time for it to fall into popularity. All Joking aside, I was able to attend a outdoor night show at a local music venue called The Riot Room this past weekend, one of my first punk shows (I usually do metal shows). I don’t normally attend punk shows, mostly because the type of punk I like is largely not super popular anymore. I’ve never been a huge fan of hardcore, despite liking a few bands, and that pop-punk explosion in the nineties was something I think most old-school punks would have utterly hated as it was basically Hot-Topic in audio form. Thankfully, this show happened to be both types I actually like listening to conveniently in one small package.

This was a very short show for two bands (two hours and some change) so I don’t have a ton to talk about, so think of this as a punk version of one of my reviews on here – short and sweet. As usual, get ready for bad cellphone pictures galore.

Opener: The Uncouth

Here is the band’s Facebook Page

Bandcamp page

Oi! is the old-school UK punk music scene that popped up in the working class areas back in the late 1970’s and 1980’s with the direct goal of uniting all working class punks. The prevalent ideology of the original Oi! movement was a rough brand of working-class rebellion. Lyrical topics included unemployment, workers’ rights, harassment by police and other authorities, and oppression by the government. This is exactly the sort of music the Uncouth specializes in. Being a big fan of eighties music, I was amazed that a modern band could capture that sound so well as this concert.

Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, The Uncouth take the banner of all of their predecessors, and add a mid-western American flair to it – while the accent is different the sentiment is the same. One reason I don’t enjoy a lot of modern punk music is that it’s a bunch of songs about being a tough guy or losing a girlfriend, and thankfully this sort of band takes everything back to it’s roots. For instance, a song like Jonesy’s War is about a veteran of the Afghanistan war coming home to find that he can’t readjust to his old life. Resorting to drinking and other self-destructive tendencies, Jonesy is still basically at war, and as the chorus shouts, “Jonesy’s a prisoner of war!” It’s a far cry from bands like Sum 41 and Blink 182.

Headliner: The Voodoo Glow Skulls

Their website

The other kind of punk music I like is ska-punk because I’m a huge fan of old-school ska music (and I’ll be getting to see The English beat in a few weeks). When most folks think of this type of music, they tehy of the sort of stuff that always plays at the Van’s Warped Tour every year, bands like Reel Big Fish. Not being a fan of those guys, I wwas pumped to see The Voodoo Glow Skulls coming to Kansas City after a buddy of mine showed me some of their stuff a while back. And honestly, any band where the lead singer sings a few songs wearing a lucha mask is great.

Outside of California, this Mexican-American ska punk band is perhaps best known for having some of their songs pop up in movie soundtracks.The song “Shoot the Moon” from the band’s Firme album was used in the Pauly Shore movie Bio-Dome and the band’s version of “Used to Love Her” (originally written and recorded by Guns N’ Roses) is featured in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack. They mix a lot of old school ska styling (they sort of remind me a bit of Bad Manners) with their Latino heritage into something awesome. I feel like the United States is due to another ska revival after the one in the mid 90’s fizzled out – here’s hoping they sound like these guys!

This show had a small, but great crowd, and I saw my first ska version of a mosh pit. Since I’m too old to jump in there (I usually mess my back up moshing) I admired it from afar, doing my standard head-banging that I usually bust out at shows. I will have to keep tabs on the local punk scene more, because if bands like this are starting to get big in Kansas City, I may have to attend more shows.

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Concert Review: Overkill w/ Nile and Whoracle 2/19/17

These past few weeks have been super busy for me, so I have been unable to get this typed up until now – I sat there with a page open on here and saved a draft with the title and that was about it. Before my memories slip away, I figure it might be a good idea to finish this. A few weeks ago, a friend and I made the trek over the state line to see a packed show at the Granada theater in Lawrence, Kansas. The headliner was Overkill – legendary New York / New Jersey thrash band, followed up by Nile – prominent death metal pioneers, and Whoracle, a local band. So far, I’ve really enjoyed seeing acts at The Granada in the past, Behemoth was easily one of my favorite shows I’ve ever attended, and that was there last year. Overkill was easily the act I was most excited to see, while I haven’t heard their entire discography, I always enjoy what I’ve heard by them, and I’m always confused that they don’t get the same props that other contemporary thrash bands, such as Anthrax, seem to get.

NOTE: As always, get ready for terrible pictures I took with my camera, I actually just got a new one, so lets hope future posts like this will be better!

Opener: Whoracle

Here is the band’s Facebook page

Named after an In Flames song of the same name, Whoracle is a thrashy Melodic death metal band from Topeka, Kansas. The line-up is Matt Gibbs-Lead Vocals and Guitars, Alex Measmer-Drums, Toby Sanders-Bass, and Tyler Shuford-Guitars. The thing that really stood to me in regards to this band was the lead singer doing double duty as lead guitarist and singer, you really don’t see this a lot because both things are super challenging alone, much less at the same time. There are weirdos like Geddy Lee that tries to somehow sing, play the guitar, and keyboards at the same time, but that’s just showing off. Despite a few distortion pedal related incidents (neither of which were that bad), the band played a very solid set, and impressed the crowd.

The highlight for pretty much every song was Gibbs ripping out some crazy shred guitar riffs. While the band lacks stage presence that most bands end up getting after years of years of touring, they make for it with their playing. I have seen a LOT of opening acts at various concerts that were either so bad that I have blocked them out, or so bland that I don’t even remember seeing them at a show, Whoracle was not like this. This is one of those bands that I plan to keep an eye on just in case they come rolling in again as an opener for another band.

Supporting act – Nile

I will confess here that prior to this concert I wasn’t really the biggest fan of South Carolina based, Technical Death metal band, Nile. I recall buying one of their first albums back when I was in high school, and while loving the music, I was not a fan of the vocals. This may seem hypocritical of me, considering my love for black metal’s shrieking vocals, but I am not a huge fan of the style of vocals that most death metal bands employ. Another worrying fact going into this show was that the longtime lead singer of Nile, Dallas Toler-Wade, quit the band literally one week prior to the show! Replacing Toler-Wade was Brian Kingsland who was the vocalist and guitarist in a band called Enthean. How did he stack up?

Well, the vocals were pretty good – and it was interesting that it wasn’t just Kingsland singing. Karl Sanders and Brad Parris also did parts of various songs, so the new guy didn’t stand out a ton on his own. One song in particular, Sarcophogus, got an extended live version that had a crazy guitar solo and other enhancements that I wish was in the recorded song on the actual album. This was easily the highlight of the set, and I was glad they saved it for near the end. While I won’t say that I’m a Nile fan now, I will check out their next album, and at the very least I know that they are a GREAT live band – no matter how the albums sound to me.

Headliner: Overkill

Highlight of the night for me was getting to see Overkill, especially since Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth, lead singer, has not lost a step whatsoever in the past thirty some years. His age even became a joke at one point when two rowdy fans started a fight in the pit, and he exclaimed “come up here and let me kick your ass! who wants to get their ass kicked by grandpa!” best banter of the year so far. I have yet to listen to Overkill’s new album in full, but if his concert was any indication, it’s a solid release. Songs like “Mean, Green, Killing Machine” and “Goddamn Trouble” had the crowd really going. People were moshing just as hard, and if not harder, than a lot of heavier shows I’ve attended that made it a point to get folks to mosh.

This concert didn’t have any gimmicks or theatrics to get everyone excited, it was pure simple, face obliterating thrash goodness. Everyone in the band was awesome, but Derek “The Skull” Tailer and D.D. Blaze really impressed me considering, in Blaze’s case, that a lot of metal drowns the bass guitar out so much you honestly can’t tell it’s there sometimes. Instead everyone had time to really shine and you could tell the band was having a blast.

Honestly, the only quibble I had with the entire show was the merch stand. For some unknown reason, like 85% of their stuff was out of stock, leaving shirts in sizing ranging from small to small in many cases. Since about the only use a small shirt would have on my body would be a headband, I was annoyed that I couldn’t get a tour shirt. Hopefully they end up putting this on their website, or nuclear blasts website soon, so I can attempt to get one again. Instead I went for my standard patches that I have been collecting, so aat least there was that.

All in all, solid show – if you are in any town that these guys will be appearing in, Overkill is well worth ticket price alone. And while I’m not a huge Nile fan, they really impressed me live, and I’ll have to give them another chance at some point. Stay tuned for more terrible cellphone pictures and other fun oddities, as I plan to do another concert review very soon.

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A look at the Nine Inch Nails- Not The Actual Event “Physical Component”

It wasn’t that long ago that the legendary industrial rock “band” Nine Inch Nails announced a surprise release for a new EP called Not The Actual Event. People that decided to purchase the music noticed that you were jot buying a CD, Tape, Vinyl, flash drive, or anything else normal, but a confusingly named “Physical Component”. Here it is, a few months later and I received my package. Upon opening the shipping pack, a heavy black envelope fell out. It became very obvious that I was in for some kind of treat when this is the first thing I saw:

I sat there for a while wondering what it could be and how I should handle it. Assuming I was about to get glitter-bombed or something, I opened the package to find a stack of heavy printed cards, and a transparency sheet all smeared with black toner powder. I can only assume that this is the beginning of some sort of ARG, or alternate reality game, and am excited to see where this goes. Trent Reznor is no stranger to ARG projects as he did one about a decade ago for another album, Year Zero. Even if I can’t figure out any hidden messages, these prints are still very cool to have!

In case you are a fan of NIN and have yet to hear the new album, here is a sample.

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Concert Review – Kraftwerk (2015)

I know some folks see hundreds of concerts before they even graduate high school, but that was never really a part of my life growing up. At one point, I was even more into music than anything else (more than anime, sci-fi, or wrestling GASP! ) but I went through a few phases of changing musical tastes, and grew up poor, so my exposure to new bands and concerts was at the mercy of MTV and VH1. It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve had both the disposable income and friends that enjoy live music that I have been attending more concerts than I ever have in my life. I’m one of those guys that usually won’t go to the theater or see live entertainment by myself because, to me, that’s super lame.

One thing I’ve especially been trying to do is see shows from bands on my “musical bucket list”, especially ones where band members are getting old, and it might be close to time for them to be retiring….or worse. I still feel sad that I never got to see David Bowie in concert, that is assuming I would ever have had the cash sitting around to do that when he was touring on a consistent basis, but the thought is still there that I missed out.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to see the legendary German electronic quartet, Kraftwerk, when they went out on a North American tour about a year and a half ago. Apparently, they had not been to Kansas City since the mid seventies, with that sort of frequency, this was basically a once in a lifetime show! Why didn’t I post about this then? Well, this blog wasn’t as open to this sort of topic then, and I wasn’t posting as much due to personal stuff going on. Now that Arcadia Pod is open to whatever I want to write about, I plan to review some concerts I attended recently as well.

ptdc0001 — We knew we were in for a treat when we were handed 3D glasses. What IS a 3D concert anyway? we were about to find out!

When we were seated, a guy that I will characterize as an aging yuppie (as well as a gaggle of the drunkest and most-drugged out fiends he could find) looked back at my wife and I, both in our early 30’s (I’d assume they were 50-ish), and remarked at how confused he was to see folks our age at a Kraftwerk show. Indeed, Kraftwerk is ostensibly a band of the 1970’s and 1980’s, but they have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Anyone that is a fan of electronic music, new wave music, or even hip hop music should know about Kraftwerk and their contributions as they were decades ahead of their time.

I recall many days in rural Kansas where I would watch educational TV on PBS; these were the days before I had cable, as satellite was the only real way to get anything other than local channels out into my neck of the woods. I watched PBS more than anything else, and I honestly credit that with the fact that I was slightly accelerated in a few topics in elementary school. A few of my favorites were an old show called 3-2-1 Contact, and another called Newton’s Apple, the latter having an amazing theme song that I loved.

I would later find out that this theme song was in fact, a song called Ruckzuck by a band called Kraftwerk that my mom had a few records by – most notably 1974’s Autobahn. I won’t pretend that I was enamored by the full length LP of Autobahn at that age, because it was far too complex and long for me (22 minutes for the title song alone!) but the band’s name stuck with me. It wasn’t until we moved to Kansas City, and got cable, that I would sometimes see Kraftwerk Videos on Vh1. I immediately fell in love with their sound. So yes, annoying drunk guy at concert – I do know who Kraftwerk is, turn around and let me enjoy the show!

The biggest thing that caught my eye going into this concert was the promoter tagline and marketing listing this as “a 3-D concert”. “What does that even mean?” I said to myself, was this just a bit of marketing goofiness or was there really going to be a 3-D element to the show? Fast forward to us standing in line, and being handed small red envelopes with 3-D glasses in them (seen above). I knew that Kraftwerk usually employed giant media screens as a way to make concerts more exciting, as four guys standing at keyboards can be sort of boring, what I didn’t know was how much this 3-D was going to change the concert game for me.

Considering Kraftwerk also actively pretend to be robots on stage, a lot of stage charisma is sort of out of the question, they need gimmicks like this to enhance the music. Upon the opening few seconds of the song “Numbers” the awesomeness of this 3-D was made clear as the theater was filled with huge lime-green numbers floating in the air and loud cheers from everyone in attendance.

ptdc0022 — This picture really doesn’t do it justice, I’d love for a home video release with glasses.

All of the songs (over two hours worth without an opener) were arranged in album suites with some featuring full-length cuts of longer songs such as Autoban and Tour de France. They opened with five tracks from 1981’s Computer World, starting with Numbers as mentioned above. this was followed by songs from Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and more. Almost all of their major albums had some sort of representation here, minus the first two albums that were more “stoner rock” than the electronic sound they eventually settled on.

ptdc0027 — The famous song Radio-Activity, got a new line added about Fukushima

This was the full set-list, honestly do yourself a favor and see this show if it continues past this leg.

Numbers; Computer World; It’s More Fun to Compute; Computer Love; Pocket Calculator; Metropolis; The Man-Machine; Spacelab; The Model; Neon Lights; Autobahn; Airwaves; Intermission/News; Geiger Counter; Radioactivity; Electric Cafe; Tour de France: 1983, 2003 (Etape 1), 2003 (Etape 2); Trans Europa Express/Metal on Metal/Abzug. Encore: The Robots; Aero Dynamik; Planet of Visions; Boing Boom Tschak; Techno Pop; Musique Non Stop.

ptdc0028 — Perhaps my favorite Kraftwerk concert thing is where they take a break and are replaced by actual robots for one song.

One of the cooler parts of the concert, for me, were those small hints of improvisation that were sprinkled in from here or there. I know some folks try to bad-mouth acts like Kraftwerk and Daft Punk as being guys that press play on stage, but that isn’t how this works at all. you could tell that the guys were up on stage actually mixing samples and re-arranging things as they went. while it might have been tightly controlled German engineered chaos, it was still cool to hear.

The highlight of the night was probably Tour De France, there was just something about the mix of video and songs that I wasn’t really expecting. My favorite Kraftwerk album has always been Trans-Europe Express, and perhaps I have ignored Tour De France, but it really caught me off guard in a good way. Since this show, I have listened to it more because of the concert. Honestly the whole concert stood out as awesome, with no real dud anywhere in the set. The only let-down was when the lights came back on.

ptdc0023 — Metropolis had the best video presentation

I will chalk this up as, perhaps, my favorite concert that I’ve ever been to. The attention to making this an “event” that you can only experience live was exhilarating, and I wish more bands would do stuff like this. this was a great show that is suitable for all ages, as there really isn’t any vulgarity or sexual content anywhere in their repertoire. That’s not a big thing for me, as I see stuff that’s definitely not for kiddos all the time, but it’s good to know that it’s out there without it actually being “for kids”.

Glancing at Kraftwerk’s website, it looks like they are currently in the middle of a long European tour – so if I have any UK based readers that have yet to see this show, I’d recommend seeing if it’s coming to your town in May. As for US readers, fingers crossed that it isn’t another 40 years before the robots come back to town. In the meantime, check some videos out on Youtube, that’s almost as good.

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Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground (2003)

Soon to have a major motion picture coming out, figured I ought to read it!

I’ve been a fan of the largely underground strain of heavy metal known as “black metal” for around 17 years or so, but I fell in love with it for how it sounded rather than how it was created. In the late 90’s / early 2000’s black metal had, well there’s no better term, “sold out” and started to become mainstream, so it was largely distanced from the events that happened nearly a decade previous. The wall of sound, misanthropic minimalist themes, and the theatricality were all awesome to me, so I decided to do some research on some of the original black metal bands – whoops. The sort of music I enjoyed turned out to be comprised largely of extreme right-wing murderers and arsonists that had basically formed a nihilist cult and ran around committing crimes in a naïve quest to end Norwegian Christianity.

This book focuses on the culture surrounding the black metal scene in Norway between 1990 and 1993. This is a cautionary tale on how a group of impressionable kids fell into, what can only be described as, a cult and nearly brought Norway to its knees. The first few chapters give an outline of the progression of heavy metal from bands such as Black Sabbath, Coven and Black Widow to proto-black metal bands such as Bathory, Mercyful Fate and Venom, and finally to the early Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Then about half of the book follows the exploits of Black Metal’s most famous record label Deathlike Silence Records, and the events leading up to the death of its owner, Øystein Aarseth, and the imprisonment of his murderer Varg Vikernes. Finally, the book chronicles the aftermath of the murders and church burnings and the media circus that ensued.

I have known about this book, Lords of Chaos, for years now, but have not read it until now. Luckily (for the most part) the book has been out long enough that a second edition was put together a number of years ago to delve into some newer information about its “protagonists” like Vikernes. Unfortunately, this allows the book to go in weird directions such as Vikernes’s descent into conspiracy theory, as he discusses, at length, about UFOs and how they influenced heathen religion. Some additions are great, but others like Varg’s tales of Atlantean Wars break the flow of the chapters up a bit too much and make me feel as if I’ve accidentally started reading a Zecharia Sitchin book. The authors try to stand back and let the subjects say whatever they please, they do make an effort to not let this book be a soap box for their political belief and are not scared to step in and contradict any falsehoods that may have been spoken in the interview process.

One of my favorite parts of this book is a series of interviews that try to culturally place “satanism” into Norwegian society, and a conclusion seems to come up that paints this Norwegian strain of anti-Christianity as some kind of naive copy of the fictitious Satanic underground that was the boogeyman of America during its “Satanic Panic” of the 1980’s and 90’s. For those unaware, America and parts of Europe, were made into constant media zoos when people started coming out of the woodwork describing things like grave desecration, satanic ritual abuse, and ritualized murder by hooded members of a worldwide cult. This hysteria has been totally debunked at this point, and zero cases of any of this have every turned out to be true, but if you watched TV or read papers during that time – our world was a battlezone between Jesus and Satan 24/7. These kids, wanting to be Anti-Christian, may have taken this cartoonish “religion” and given it life.

I had read a few reviews of this book (on Amazon) prior to purchase and was worried because the general tone of the reviews was that this was some sort of Neo-Nazi book and that the author was somehow promoting the stuff said within. On the contrary, Moynihan’s neutrality towards the ideologies portrayed in the book means that they are not censored, but they are often directly criticized or it is often implied that they have the ideology of angsty children in editorial sections. In fact, this is written a lot like a newspaper article, most comments are left to stand on their own, and the author jumps in to tie everything together. I wonder of these reviewers have largely not read the book to be honest.

As a true crime book, I will admit that this book is not perfect. It meanders a bit, means little to those that are not in some way “into” metal music, and is written in a manner that is by no means top journalism. What this book does have is a treasure-trove of information, newspaper clippings, media reports, and images from a ten year period that has been infamous for many metal fans, and until a better book comes along this is the definitive history of this genre of music and all the baggage that comes with it. This is with Varg’s UFO tales and all.

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Update Your iPods! Check Out These Awesome Anime-inspired tracks from Peter Zimmerman

One thing that often confuses folks about my musical tastes, is that I am huge into both metal music and 80’s New Wave music. I might wear metal shirts and a patch vest to concerts, but I almost entirely listen to Sirius XM 1st Wave in the car commuting to work. These are two genres that seem to clash a lot, but I can always make it work in my head, and that’s all that matters. In the past few years, I have been blown away by a “new genre” that goes by many names – some call it Outrun, Others Retrowave, or even Synth-wave. I would consider Retrowave (my preferred term) to be the logical conclusion of 80’s synth music if acoustic guitars and grunge rock hadn’t nearly sent the electronic synthesizer to music heaven alongside the harpsichord and lute. This isn’t merely a nostalgia kick like some regressive genres can be, yeah it’s there but a lot of this never really sounded the same way in the 80’s, and thankfully that’s not what it’s going for.

I plan to cover more Retrowave stuff in the future, so if you like this keep your eyes peeled!

So, the topic at hand is one artist I have particularly fallen in love with – a German musician named Peter Zimmerman. In particular, I absolutely love his re-toolings of anime themes, some that have been so drastically altered to be entirely different songs than before, and usually it’s for the better somehow. One of my absolute favorites (which I will drop the video below) is a remix of one of the songs from Akira (Kaneda’s theme) turned into an Italo Disco song. Akira has an amazing soundtrack on it’s own, performed by a huge musical collective called Geinoh Yamashirogumi. Utilizing percussion instruments like marimbas and xylophones, there really isn’t anything else out there like it unless you get some actually tribal music of some sort. Zimmerman has taken this track and altered it ever so much into one of the best things I’ve heard all year!

Another favorite of mine is this gem, a remake of the opening them for an old school anime called City Hunter. dubbed Mikkori Chan, this new version is very energetic.

Next up is a track using a song made up of a few different samples, but I believe the majority of it is also from City Hunter Despite the Bubblegum Crisis video here.

And I could keep posting these, but I’ll do just one more. This track is comprised of one of the themes for Megazone 23 merged with another from Venus Wars.