Wasted Years

I arrived in Denver on 29th of July 2005. Turned out, I missed Iron Maiden in concert by 2 days. My host for the first few weeks had been to the show. I asked for pictures, and there was just 1 - him outside the venue. "The show was so mind blowing I couldn't take any more pictures", he said. I cursed my luck, travel agent and Thai Airlines. Iron Maiden had some old geezers who hadn't been young since the 80s, so what was the chance I'd see them again?

Years have passed, and I've gotten to see nearly everyone on my checklist, but on Monday the 14th it finally happened. Iron Maiden played in "Comfort Dental Amphitheater" to a 12,000 strong crowd. Incidentally, Comfort Dental Amphitheater has to be the worst venue name ever since Staples Center (screw you Lakers!!), so the locals call it Fiddler's Green. Me and a few friends got some drinks going. As always, in spite of being the DD I drank way more than anyone else - 6 shots of whiskey and so was in a good mood by 7 pm. Mostly. My stupid camera refused to switch on and I was pissed that I would do worse than my host from 5 years ago.

Dream Theater opened, and since I don't care about pansy ass "progressive metal" bands, I walked around the venue drinking and buying merchandise. Soon we were ejected from the seats we were squatting on and thrown all the way at the back where we really belonged. No matter, the view was still great, and had midgets in front of us. The curtains came down and after the first note I knew why it's so hard to take pictures in an Iron Maiden concert. Bruce Dickinson is a fuckin' legend. Not sure why he needs a mike, his voice is brutal. And if I'm a tenth as fit at 50, I'll go run a triathlon.

I knew most of the songs, and sang/screamed/head-banged for an exhilarating 2.5 hours. Set list

The Wicker Man
Ghost Of The Navigator
Wrathchild
El Dorado
Dance Of Death
The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg
These Colours Don't Run (notice the spelling?)
Blood Brothers
Wildest Dreams
No More Lies
Brave New World
Fear Of The Dark
Iron Maiden

Encore:
The Number of the Beast
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Running Free

My neighbor was a fan putting on a Chewbacca impression. He was quite wasted, and was going "Aaaauughhh" non-stop. My voice was dead for 2 days after the concert, wonder how bad his week was. El Dorado is a new song, and sounds pretty heavy and good. He introduced the song as being "relevant" and having rap in it, to appeal to the masses. Ah never mind, fuck you record execs, he said and started yelling again.

There were jokes about the England-US worldcup game, barbs to google and apple/iphone for being the big brother, and disapproval that we weren't loud enough. After the first 3 songs, Bruce welcomed everyone to the show. It was clear that we were in his backyard. That made the difference. When I saw Metallica, they were genuinely happy to be in Denver and under the lights. Iron Maiden, on the other hand, said "you're welcome".

The debates on whether they should have played Trooper, Run to the hills, Powerslave and other oldies will go on long after the concert (and hopefully till the next one). While I don't like anything from Maiden post-Dance of the dead (and that too grew on me), this was as good as it gets. The lads at Maiden are looking ahead. They want the 20 year olds to cheer for No More Lies, sing along with Blood Brothers as their 50 year old parents stay at home to balance their checkbooks. They're talented musicians, and while Trooper would have blown my mind, I ain't complaining - that encore had my ears ringing.

Dead throat, broken neck and a grin I couldn't wipe off for the next week. Up the irons!

Here we are now, entertain us...

If you've been keeping track (why would you?), most of my blogpost titles are songs. Music is important, some bands more than the other. My older brother is 8 years my senior and he was in high school/college in the early 90s. That was when GNR, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Metallica, Megadeth were setting the world on fire, one tape at a time. Contrast that with me in the late 90s - we had Backstreet Boys, NSync and Britney Spears. Thank god my brother was too busy dating to notice I was stealing his tapes.

While I have been angsty (at times) as a teen, I've never truly felt my life sucked or that the world deserved to burn. Chaos is never self sustaining, and being jaded and disorderly gets old really fast. Watching bands careers unfold as they spend year after year expressing discontent is a surreal experience. Case in point - Nirvana and Cobain. They were hailed as the creative geniuses of their times, the true voice of a troubled youth, and friends in misery for the MTV generation. Their tunes were angry, incoherent, garbled and messed up - reflecting the truly troubled times. All this no doubt makes for a great wikipedia entry, but really - it's all utter bullshit. I'm sure the African Americans in the 60s knew something about pain, and they found the Blues. I see BB King has no songs that go "Albino, mosquito".

It must be really hard to feel the anger when your records are fetching millions, and so follows the inevitable "self destruction". I'll never know what it is like growing up in a broken home, with divorced parents, gun running neighbors, drug peddlers on the street corners and all that. But somehow I find it hard to believe incomprehensible lyrics represent the struggles of suburbanite white youth.

How much did it amount to anyway? What happened to the angry young kids of the 90s who thought they'd change the world with their anger? Why don't you ask the guy in the cube next to you?

Hold On! I'm Comin!

Left on the list of concerts

- Iron Maiden
- B.B King.

The latter, I'd willingly part with a year's savings. Even half an arm...

You shook me... all night long.

Or for the best part of 2 hours anyway.

Some bands like Pink Floyd are unique because they fuck with your mind like no one else can (honorable mention : Porcupine Tree). Bands like The Doors are immortal because their themes of darkness and mysticism. Bands like Slayer are fuled plain old aggression. Bands like System of a Down are a steaming pile of shit. But I digress.

There is one band that seems to have only 1 message with every single song they write - "let's have beer mate, let's have some fun". That band, ladies and gentlemen, is AC/DC. I can write pages about how much I love every song on every album, and why. But I'll stop after two, both from the same album. After their lead singer, the inimitable Bon Scott died, you might have thought their next album would be full of sorrowful tunes wallowing in self-pity, drug and alcohol abuse. What they did instead, was to release Back in Black, the 2nd most successfull album of all-fuckin-time. The 2 songs I love are "Back in Black" - what a song to say "we're back assholes, and we're stronger than ever". The other one is "Have a drink on me" - a subtle nod to their fallen friend - "there were some good times mate, let's share a drink in the next life". That's spirit, that's spunk.

I'd been waiting nearly 6 years for this, and it finally happened. Saw them live in Denver yesterday. The show opened with a crazy cartoon of Angus Young driving/crashing a train onstage. The band entered and played for the next 2 hours straight. My ears are still ringing, throat and neck are dead, my head feels like someone shot me. Yep, 'twas a great concert. Set list :

Rock 'N Roll Train
Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be
Back In Black
Big Jack
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Thunderstruck
Black Ice
The Jack
Hells Bells
War Machine
Shoot to Thrill
Anything Goes
You Shook Me All Night Long
TNT
Whole Lotta Rosie
Let There Be Rock

Encore:

Highway To Hell
For Those About To Rock

Opening band was The Answer, they sounded superb - a lot like Led Zep. Highlights from the concert included

1) Angus Young stripping slowly to Big Jack and flashing his AC/DC boxers (yikes)
2) Plenty of explosions for TNT
3) Phil Rudd smoking what appeared to be a hand rolled "something"
4) A gigantic blow up doll - big breasts, tattoos, frayed stockings and dollar bills in the thong for "Whole lotta Rosie"
5) Angus playing a 10 minute wowza for Let there be rock while running around the whole stage, rolling around and more.
6) Onstage cannons sounding off the end to For those about to rock... we salute you.

I'll be smiling all by myself  like a jackass for a long time now. Worth the 6 year wait.

As a side, there were 4 jerkwads (2 couples) that made me retch in my ridiculously priced JD and Pepsi (Pepsi Center, Denver - no "c-word" there). The two guys were bent upon falling backwards on us. Fuck you behemoths, if you can't handle the alcohol stay sober the next time. One of them had the gall to smirk and ask me if I had "real" tickets. Of course bitch, it's not just your bud-light drinking white trash ass that can afford them. The two girls, henceforth called the sluts (you'll agree soon), were equally drunk and more clueless. They spent a third of the concert faux-making out (yes, with each other), a third absent from their seats, and the rest taking one handed self shots of themselves, their boyfriends and other such combinations. Not even 1 fucking picture of the legends on stage. Look, if you want to be such a big skank, go do tequila shots in a cheap bar. You'll save money and get a lot more attention. And you won't fall backwards on an exasperated Indian dude trying to fulfill his 6 year old dream. Of course things ended spectacularly, since alcohol and idiots don't mix. They were aisle seats, so 1 of the sluts was standing in the aisle trying to move her leg up and down the other slut's leg. She'd just about reached as far as her fat legs would let her, when she went tumbling down. It took 4 stairs and some really amused old chaps to break her fall. Pity she didn't crack her skull, the gene pool is diluted as it is. The sluts were a lot more subdued after that, and even left before the concert ended. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Random Review : Death Magnetic

There were a lot of good signs before this album came out. The live songs , Robert Trujillo, Bob Rock's departure for starters. Forget the new live songs, they actually played Orion and other "old Metallica" songs. Something big was coming. Now, my opinion on this changes depending on my mood, but I largely like thrash-metallica better. I still love all their post-Black songs, but nothing like some Ride the lightening to charge the ol' Battery eh? (see what I did there?). Of course, I hated St. Anger, and I think we're all allowed that.

I saw Some kind of monster. Boy was that embarrassing. Group therapy? Seriously? Get drunk and sleep with 100 groupies like the other guys do. Jeez. I still remember Hammet's expression when that little $%#$^#$^ Ulrich decided that solos were "dated" and would be scrapped. And what the hell was up with the drums? Did he decide that trash cans were the new percussion instruments for the 21st century? And lyrics? You can never take Metallica's lyrics seriously, but "Tick tick Frantic, tick tock tick tick"???

Anyway, had to get that out of me. Now, on the new one. I picked up the album on 12th from Wal-mart. Just 9 bucks! The album art is neat. So far so good. These are my first impressions, track by track.

That was just your life.
Starts off slowly with heart beats, makes you wonder if there's any synthetic music on this album. Not to worry. The guitars are winding up, starting to unleash first strikes. Talk about insane riffs! Reminds me of Seek and destroy, ride the lightning. It has shades of St. Anger, especially @ drums and arrangement. That's ok. Treat it as the band's catharisis. All the crap from the last album has to go someplace.

End of line
Another awesome riff. What pace! They push they prod, they don't let you go. Hammet uses the Wah wah a lot but meh, he still kills a dozen hazlenut brown kittens. The song slows down in the middle, but hits you right back, no mercy here. The vocals are so so, but oh well. Still a very strong song. Why isn't this a single?

Broken Beat and scattered
Drums drums drums. Welcome back Ulrich, you megalomaniac shit. Awesome power. Guitars work is clean and strong, but the drumming never lets up. at first drums are exploding. Shades of Ride the... and Blitzkrieg. Very good jam song.

Day that never comes
Grew on me. Sounds a bit like Unforgiven and there have been several opions of it being like One. I don't like it much, looses steam in the middle but makes up big time at end. I may have found a typo in the lyrics sleeve. It says "The son shine never comes". Really? Is this a potential collector's item? :D

All nightmare long
Given the name of the song, it's not surprising it sounds a bit like Enter Sandman. But only by a bit. This baby is all Thrash metal. Oh boy, all thrash. Hammet's back, making up for all that he missed out on, in St. Anger. Vocals are not great, and the song changes style midway, winds down quite a bit.

Cyanide
This was played live at first. There's crap loads of Wah-wah here. And Hetfield croons his "oooh"s and "aah"s. Bah. Drifts into load days. But hark, what was that? Bass. I hear bass.

Unforgiven III
Slick piano opening. The last third has opulence, same "feel" as the other two Unforgiven songs but doesn't mention the word itself. Hammet sometimes does a blues-y guitar sound and this song is a good example.

Judas Kiss
Too many words man. Sounds like guitars are waiting to take off but voice is holding them back. Sounds like 2-3 songs mixed together. Tries too much.

Suicide and Redemption
Kind of annoying main riff. Bad ass all the same. Has shades of Orion. An Instrumental? When was the last time they did something like this? Clocks in close to 10 mins.

My Apocalypse
Strong finish to what has been an ass kicking session. Strong riff, Justice for All shades. And at 5 mins, smallest song. No 3:30 min radio songs on this album.

There you have it. If you haven't realized it by now, this is a must buy. Whether you think Metallica are "sell-outs" or you've liked them all. This album forms a good bridge between MOP and Metallica (the album). I'm seeing them live in concert on Nov. 4th. I expect a broken neck and sore throat.

Welcome back Metallica. Thanks for showing the world of Metal why new bands still aspire to be you.

Open letter to Hip-hop "artists"

Given that the word artists is in quotes, you may guess where I'm heading. Standard disclaimers apply : I'm not an artist (yes, I don't have a platinum record but I still have an opinon), I'm not a music elitist (can anyone be called that?), musical opinion is subjective (and these are my opinions - deal with 'em).

Dear Mega gajillionaire rapper,

A emotionally-high-on-life (bleh) Julie Andrews once sang about a few of her favorite things. I'd like to list a few of my not-too favorite things, just to clear all this bad air we have between us. Here we go...

1) I know you have so much money you're tempted to throw it off yatchs, from the moon-roof of hummer limos, off the 10th floor of your "crib", in da clubs and what not, do you mind changing the subject once in, say, 5 albums? I understand the first 30 tracks had to about your "struggles" to get to the point of releasing 30 singles about your struggles, then the next 45 about the struggles to make people understand how you don't give a crap about people who don't understand your struggles, can we now have 1, just 1 single about uh, I don't know, unicorns and rainbows?

2) Speaking of struggles, when you claim you're from the "ghetto", is it of any significance that you haven't been there for the last 10 years what with your 2000 carat bling and all?

3)While on the subject of angst, I have a special one for Mr. Marshall Mathers. I'm told you suffered many abuses at the hands of your biological female parenting unit, but does the sale of a million or so records mitigate the "pain"? Will the real slim shady please shut the fuck up?

4) Now I know you love your "hos", your "mamas", your "honies" and your "biznitches". Would you like to hear those songs again when you're pitching for a reality show about you, your beautiful wife and your 3 crazy kids?

5) I'm sure you're proud of your African heritage, but is using the racial epithet given to the said ancestors the best way to celebrate your identity? How about a song about Rosa Parks then? She's a lady (qualifies for #4) and uh, your race (qualifies for #5). I'm sure this is what MLK Jr. envisioned when he campaigned for equality, civil rights and decent treatment for your people. Congrats, you da P.I.M.P.

6) Will you please stop saying "shorty", "shawty" and the like in your lyrics(?!)? Most of you are shorter than my 12 year old niece and its just plain embarrassing watching you trying to look cool with a gaggle of high heeled "honies".

7) This is just a pet peeve. Since when was rotten english cool?


To the listners,

1) It must have been super orgasmic downloading those "hawt" tracks from teh intrawebs, but do you mind not cranking up your stupid crappy steroes? Songs about Escalades with 22 inch rims sound hillarious in your broken down beat up banged up worn out Honda Civic.

2) Stop talking like that, stop making gang signs. Please. Stop calling each other Gs. You're not, Gs. You are 19, and you live in your parents' basement.

3) The ladies - you're being accused(?) of professions your dad worked hard to keep you out of (see #3 of earlier sub section). So stop shakin' yo booty/doin yo thang to the guy calling out to yo(ur) mama. And no, he's not talking about someone else. If you dance when that song is played, you're not just the target demographic, you're also the subject of his songs.

4) To the ladies, again, if you grind a random guy in the club "just fo fun" while screaming "whoo" and getting wasted on cheap tequila, you're not acting, but actually being slutty. Don't give me the finger when I retch in your company.

5) White people - stop acting black. Stop.

I do have a choice of not listening to your (yo) music, and I do exercise that glorious option - while driving, when at home. But I can't escape this drivel in some of the places I'm forced into. I'd like to stay in a club for more than 3 minutes to see what the fuss is all about, and you guys just won't let me be. I know we have our differences, but if we work together, we can lay the foundation for improving our relations. Hopefully in the next few years or so, I'll be able to listen to half a hip-hop song without feeling an uncontrollable urge to throw up. A man can dream.


Many thanks,
Me.

Like a Kiss from Mr. Jesus

No, that's not me being heretic. Just a title from the David Gilmour Girls album. No, not those girls. These.

Anyway, why sacrifice brevity for humo(u)r?

PS : the red phone still loves you Dr. Dre!