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Mardell’s America

Friday, March 12th, 2010

  • 299. At 12:44pm on 11 Mar 2010, charlieatlantic wrote:

    @AndyPostOur gun laws are looser now than they were in the old West.

    As they should be. I presume by the ‘Old West’ you mean California. California has never had a state-level constitutional right to bear arms, and unlike much of the Bill of Rights the Second Amendment has never been fully or properly incorporated. as such, the state of California had the right to restrict gun ownership. whereas Wisconsin’s constitution says this: “The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security, defense, hunting, recreation or any other lawful purpose.” the only states which can legally restrict the ownership of weapons, or at least could with impunity before DC vs Heller, are California, Iowa, Minnesota, Maryland, new Jersey and new York.

    @DavidHI’m as libertarian as anybody when it comes to an individual’s choice of life-style but carrying a killing machine does not fit in that category for me…

    Then you’re not a libertarian. I am sick of ‘I’m a libertarian, BUT..’ comments. Frankly, guns are of paramount importance in any debate over the role of government. they fundamentally define the relationship between the citizen and the state. If the government which you employ don’t ‘trust’ you with weapons, then they have inverted the system. the government is created by people, not the other way around. further, I can’t imagine looking at the history of the twentieth century and concluding that the citizens, not the state, needs to be disarmed/emasculated.

    @KY_RedI’m English and live in the US and guns are an integral part of the culture here I’m afraid. they aren’t needed and they are dangerous but the right to bear arms apparently trumps everything else…

    Yes. God forbid that a constitutional republic should obey its constitution.

    @squirrelist[re: the Second Amendment] very careless drafting, seems to me.

    Nothing of the sort. the Second Amendment was drafted very carefully by James Madison to ensure that the federal government respected a pre-existing and accepted right, one which was already entrenched either explicity in the state constitutions of the signatories or by existing British laws (i.e. the 1689 Bill of Rights) maintained in the new world, as new Jersey’s constitution stated: ‘the common law of England, as well as so much of the statute law, as have been heretofore practiced in this Colony, shall still remain in force’..

    @Zed1207“The right to Bear Arms” is a phrase used in the Second Ammendment, which was written over 200 years ago. at that time the phrase did not mean the right to literally carry a weapon. in all contexts, and it’s been used in other documents, this “Right” means the right to join a local militia/enroll in the army. Words and phrases commonly shift in meaning over time.

    No. You may fool the majority of people on here who desperately want to believe that, but not those who have studied this in detail.

    Try reading Tench Coxe’s ‘Remarks on the first Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution’ which was such an accurate explanation of James Madison’s intent that he wrote him a letter thanking him and endorsing the work. it supported the Second Amendment as protecting from interference the people’s “right to keep and bear their private arms against civil rulers and military forces which might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens”, and built on his earlier article in the Federal Gazette, again endorsed and used by Madison when drafting the amendment: “swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American…the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of the Federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.’ These words prompted Madison to write Coxe a letter, commenting that the amendment process would ‘be greatly favored by explanatory strictures of a healing tendency, and is therefore already indebted to the co-operation of your pen.’ it seems unlikely that Madison would have, prior to its ratification, endorsed an opinion which misinterpreted an amendment he had written himself.

    Wiggle out of that one.

    mitty_wYou are more likely to be safe if you AND the criminal are unarmed.

    Not that this is relevant because the Second Amendment does not rely on utilitarian fact – it’s a right – but at no point in the history of human civilisation has taking away weapons from law-abiding people effected a situation where both they, and the criminals, were unarmed.

    Complain about this comment

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    Heavy Metal Icon's Son Accused of Plagiarizing Famous Manga

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    If you’re going to think about tracing panels and character designs from a wildly popular manga series like Bleach, you might want to do it where the Internet won’t notice.

    Let’s do a fun little mental-imaging exercise, everybody: Imagine that you’re the son of KISS frontman Gene Simmons, a man whose painted face is one of the most instantly recognizable symbols of geek metal culture. Whether due to your father’s fame or due to your own talent (or a mix of both), you get the chance to write and draw your own comic book. That’d be pretty awesome, yeah?

    Unfortunately, when it comes out, the Internet notices that the comic in question has character designs that seem to be very heavily inspired by a famous long-running Japanese action series – as well as some panels that seem to be traced line-from-line from their manga counterparts. That’d be slightly less awesome.

    That seems to be the case, though, as Nick Simmons’ Incarnate has been accused of plagiarism by fans of Tite Kubo’s Bleach – you know, one of those interminable “shounen” action series that goes on forever, shows no sign of ending, and still remains perplexingly popular (a la One Piece or Naruto). There are some image comparisons posted on the Bleachness LiveJournal community, and while a good few of them can be handwaved as “Bah, that’s just a generic shot,” there are a few images and designs that seem more than a little similar.

    While nothing has been proven as of yet, there are admittedly enough of these suspiciously-identical pieces to make me think that the accusations of plagiarism might have some truth to them. The similarities are at their most egregiously obvious when the images are overlaid atop each other (for instance, Bleach + Incarnate = ????).

    As it turns out, the Bleach fans aren’t the only ones who find this suspicious: Production and distribution of Incarnate has been halted while the matter is investigated.

    The lesson here, folks? If you’re going to plagiarize something, don’t rip off of something that has a massive and scarily-devoted online fanbase. They’re going to notice.

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    why are Heavy/ death-metal groups looked down on more than others?

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    I ask this because if i play death-clock or Metallica in the house my parents freak, but if my sister turns on her favorite radio station they are totally cool with it. there are much worse things on her favorite stations, but once my parents here the singer of deathclock, or the double bass they think its garbage thats poisoning me. could you give an article that exposes this issue, or just give your opinion? BTW the metal i listen to is very clean.

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    Tritones: The Devil's musical interval

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    The Devil is said to have the best tunes, but what do they sound like? A new film about the history of heavy metal highlights the so-called Devil’s Interval, a musical phenomenon suppressed by the Church in the Middle Ages.

    On the surface there might appear to be no link between Black Sabbath, Wagner’s Gotterdammerung, West side Story and the theme tune to the Simpsons.

    But all of them rely heavily on tritones, a musical interval that spans three whole tones, like the diminished fifth or augmented fourth. this interval, the gap between two notes played in succession or simultaneously, was branded Diabolus in Musica or the Devil’s Interval by medieval musicians.

    A rich mythology has grown up around it. many believe that the Church wanted to eradicate the sounds from its music because it invoked sexual feelings, or that it was genuinely the work of the Devil.

    It is a mythology much beloved of long-haired guitar wizards.

    In the newly-released documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, bassist Alex Webster of death metal act Cannibal Corpse pays tribute to the effect of the forbidden “Devil’s note” on heavy metal.

    And rock producer Bob Ezrin pronounces: “It apparently was the sound used to call up the beast. There is something very sexual about the tritone.

    “In the Middle Ages when people were ignorant and scared, when they heard something like that and felt that reaction in their body they thought ‘uh oh, here come the Devil’.”

    It all sounds a little like the plot of a far-fetched Da Vinci Code sequel.

    But Professor John Deathridge, King Edward professor of music at King’s College London, says the tritone had been consistently linked to evil.

    “In medieval theology you have to have some way of presenting the devil. Or if someone in the Roman Catholic Church wanted to portray the crucifixion, it is sometimes used there.”

    But there were musical treatises and sets of rules produced that did come to forbid the use of the interval, which was seen as wrong when it came up in choruses of monks.

    “There are strict musical rules. you aren’t allowed to use this particular dissonance. it simply won’t work technically, you are taught not to write that interval. But you can read into that a theological ban in the guise of a technical ban.”

    Wagner a fan

    The Devil’s Interval enjoyed great popularity among composers in the 19th Century, when “you have got lots of presentations of evil built around the tritone”.

    “It can sound very spooky. it depends on how you orchestrate. it is also quite exciting,” says Professor Deathridge. “[Wagner's] Gotterdammerung has one of the most exciting scenes – a ‘pagan’, evil scene, the drums and the timpani. it is absolutely terrifying, it is like a black mass.

    “There is a big connection between heavy rock music and Wagner. They have cribbed quite a lot from 19th Century music.”

    A more modern advocate of the tritone is Black Sabbath – the rock outfit led by Ozzy Osbourne – particularly in their signature song, Black Sabbath, a milestone in the genesis of heavy metal.

    But this link between heavy metal and musical conjuring of the Devil in the Middle Ages comes as a bit of a surprise to the band’s guitarist, Tony Iommi.

    “When I started writing Sabbath stuff it was just something that sounded right. I didn’t think I was going to make it Devil music,” Iommi tells the Magazine.

    ‘False music’

    He says he was aiming for “something that sounded really evil and very doomy” but admits he may have been unconsciously influenced by other music and was certainly not aiming to summon the Devil.

    “Beforehand [we were doing] jazzy blues. it certainly wasn’t something I thought about – I didn’t read music. I had no terms for anything

    “I like all sorts of classical stuff – various sorts of music, jazz, blues, to classical played a big part in my writing.”

    There are, however, plenty of bands who consciously use tritones, including the notorious metal act Slayer, who offered their tribute in an album simply entitled Diabolus in Musica.

    But Anthony Pryer, who runs a postgraduate course in historical musicology, believes heavy metal bands have got the wrong end of the stick “firmly with both hands”.

    “It was recognised to be a problem in music right back to the 9th Century. it is a natural consequence, and so they banned it. They had rules for getting around it.

    “It was called Diabolus in Musica by two or three writers in the medieval or renaissance [period]. it was ‘false music’, the intervals weren’t natural.

    “They may have thought it was devilishly hard to teach the singers not to sing it. I don’t think they ever thought of it as the Devil dwelling in music.

    Now the Devil’s Interval has a natural home in many genres, particularly film music, jazz and blues, where, says Mr Pryer, it is “quite common because of its association with tension and sinister things”.

    “A lot of films have what musicians call Captain Tritone in them. As soon as there is a [baddie such as a] foreign officer out comes the Tritone. It’s a sort of badge – here’s Mr Nasty. What’s going to happen?”

    Spooky feel

    Dissonance does provoke a strange feeling, Mr Pryer says, but it is nothing to do with Satan.

    “[Dissonance] is something that yearns to be resolved. A very good example would be the opening of West side Story, Maria. it wants to resolve into the next note. it is a special kind of tension. it gives that angular, edgy, spooky feel. Film music is often extremely sophisticated at signalling to a listener here is a particular kind of character. it is a leitmotif, first used by Wagner.”

    Whatever the real story of the Devil’s Interval, the romantic linkage between Lucifer and popular music will continue, and stretches back from heavy metal through the Rolling Stones to Robert Johnson and beyond.

    Mr Pryer cites Giuseppe Tartini, an 18th Century violin virtuoso who composed the Devil’s Trill Sonata, a piece so complicated many modern players struggle to master it.

    “He did this incredibly difficult [piece] and claimed in a dream he had heard the devil giving him instructions how to do it.

    “Two centuries later, he would probably have been in a heavy metal band.”

    Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey is in cinemas from Friday, 28 April.

    Below is a selection of your comments:

    When I was having voice lessons I learned the augmented 4th by remembering “Maria” from West side Story, so I am glad this was mentioned. Incidentally, West side Story is also useful for other intervals, notably min.7th (“There’s A place for us…”).Lucy Jones, Manchester

    The church, in the days when sacred music was the only tolerated kind even before troubadours ’secularised’ it, was very strict on all parts of music. much of this, as in this case, was based on the premise that certain intervals, chord progressions etc were not compatabile with holiness. The article doesn’t mention the fact that this interval, when used in Wagner’s case, was known as the Tristan Chord (since it was used in his Tristan und Isolde). Its inability to defined in conventional, diatonic harmony meant it was dubbed ‘the breakdown of tonality’, eventually leading to serialism and other forms of music not centred in a key.Andy, Nottingham

    My heavy metal heritage reminds me that “Black Sabbath” the song starts with (after the rain & the doom-laden church bells, naturally) a dirge-like riff that goes from G to G an octave above to C#. G & C# are the diabolic three whole tones apart and thus playing these notes at extreme amplification on an electric guitar can result one or all of the following;1/ The appearance of Lucifer2/ Be-denimed and patchoulied hordes raising their hands and making the “devil’s horns” in the general direction of the artist3/ an ASBO; and most amusingly (I witnessed this myself at a Black Sabbath gig in the early 80’s)4/ The explosive malfunction of a dry ice machine resulting in a lump of dry ice being deposited down the back of the drummer’s shortsDavid Birch, London

    There certainly is comething very unhealthy about some tritone use eg Gotterdammerung – it had an addictive and negative effect on me at a bad stage of my life and I changed for the better and felt much less anguished when I discovered “Lohengrin” and Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontius”. having said all this I think all Devil music and rap is basically spiritual evil without quibbling about exact musical style – we have enough evidence of evil in our society and need a Christian musical influence as in our “Manchester Passion” event on good Friday. K Watson, Stockport, UK

    I never realised that this interval had a name, but in Black Sabbath, it sounds fabulous.It’s particularly briliant in this piece of music, because the long slow start to Sabbath is followed by an extremely fast second part and what a contrast! If you’ve never listened to it, try it, but give it a chance…Steve Karlsen, Reading, Berkshire, UK

    The expresion in full is “mi contra fa, diabolus est in musica”. In modern terms this a major 3rd against an 4th. They certainly discouraged this! The “Sound of Music” gets it almost right, but the mediaeval scale “ut” re, mi, fa, so, la (no seventh) and this sacle explains our word “Gammut”, from the Gamma (lowest note you could sing) to the “ut”, the highest ie – the whole lot. False Music “musica ficta” is nothing to do with the augmented 4th – it is a mediaeval way of describing what we would call “accidentals” that were so obvious to contemporaries, it was a waste of time marking them Result – much mediaeval English music is not performed as it was intended when put into musical notation that people understand today!Mark, London

    Music has a powerful subconscious effect, and certain notes can invoke certain internal reactions within the listener they may not be aware of. I wonder how many other ‘Devil’s Internals’ there are, and what effects they have.Elaine O’Neill, Surrey, England

    I’m glad Mr Pryer took care to point out that the interval has nothing to do with Satan, I was beginning to worry that watching the Simpsons may lead to visitor calling from the Underworld.Andy, Southampton, England

    Never mind the tritone, some music scholars even thought the major scale was the devils work! Belive it or not, but the notes behind such diabolic tunes as ‘doh a deer’ and ‘row row row your boat’ was once considered satanic. Aparrently it made you want to do naughty things, and so was dubbed ‘the lustful scale’. Funny thing is, it’s now been the basis of western music for at least five hundred years, and what once was ‘pagan’ and degenerate was soon used to compose many religious songs/masses, nursery rymes and folk songs. it kind of reminds me of how ragtime and jazz were viewed not so long ago…..Shane, London

    How apt that you asked for “Professor Deathridge” to comment.John Turner, Oxford, UK

    It can also sound very sweet and distinctly non-evil when used in a lydian scale. Witness Ben Folds 5 “Smoke” for a good example or “Holiday” by Madonna.Stephen Grainger, Notts

    You can also hear this quite clearly in Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain. Worth a listen, purposely used as music for the Black Mass sections.

    Anyone who says Heavy Metal is devil worship really doesn’t know what they are talking about. At worst, it’s hard, heavy and fast. In it’s purest form it demands the highest skill from guitarists and is therefore a natural progression for a lot of budding musicisns. Ask anyone who plays Guitar who Eric Clapton is, then ask them who Angus Young, Jimmy Page and Joe Satriani are. They will know them all.Doug, Ayr

    The tritone is a great musical motif and can work brilliantly, but when I was taking my music O level 30 years ago we were banned from using it because it was ‘wrong’. I never did understand why something in music could be wrong, but obviously we were just being passed the same instructions as everyone else had. Long live rock and roll for freeing us from such daft rules lee, london

    It seems much more likely that the use of the tritone in Heavy Rock comes from it’s origins in blues music. The ubiquitous blues scale derives much of its tonal character from the tritone at its center.Noel, Nottingham

    Tritones don’t have to sound evil or demonic. When used in jazz they can sound very beautiful. For example the standard (and sometimes boring) II-V-I cadence G7 – C7 – F gets transformed into something wonderful if the C7 chord is replaced with a chord based on its Tritone – such as F#13. Ask any jazz pianist for an aural demonstration and you’ll see what I mean. Tony Jackson, London, UK

    This is an amazing article. It’s incredible how much history can be behind any song, even heavy metal ones. I’m sure musicians like me will enjoy this film.Maria Valencia, Liverpool, UK

    I don’t think most people believe that the best tunes are the Devil’s, the best music has always belonged to God. It’ll be forever playing second fiddle to Worship music. The whole basis of modern popular music has been built up from church hymns, Music was made for worshipping God and I feel the only proper way to experience music to the full is to be singing God’s praises. Hamish Jordan, London, UK

    Does the use of tritones from Classical Music in heavy rock music, make it Classic Rock?Peter Dobson, Earls Barton

    The “death metal scale” is something I’ve been analysing in heavy metal music, similar to this concept of the “devil’s interval”. it involves particular movements of powerchords built around what is now known as the Spanish scale. There’s an audio example on http://audio-guitar-lessons.com/how-to-play-death-metal-guitar.html and how to play it on guitar.Mike Beatham, Sheffield, UK

    The tritone is much more flexible than its diabolic label would suggest. it has an important place in the musical Lydian and Lydian Dominant modes (scales) and contributes to the modes ethereal qualities. Similarly, the tritone’s place in Blues helps convey emotion as a melody note or in a Guitar solo. The flattened-second interval, however, is evil incarnate!Jonathan S, Edinburgh, Scotland

    Interesting! I had no idea one of my favourite sounds in music is ‘devilish’. it makes it seem all the more sinister listening to heavy metal music. But if the best music is in hell, that’s where I want to go.Vicky, Sheffield

    Actually the tritone is prevalent in Western music of all ages. But this makes good reading I suppose for people who aren’t musically aware enough to know it’s bunkum.Neil Sands, Chichester UK

    At the risk of being labelled a music anorak, there’s one thing far more common in a lot of popular music (and almost everything written by Wagner and co), and that’s the diminished seventh (C – E flat – F# – A). The odd thing is that this is composed of two tritones. Spooky eh?Peter, Newbury, UK

    It’s a classic blues sound – at first hidden in the dominant 7th chord used in most blues turn-arounds. Players like Hendrix (e.g. intro to Red House), BB King (e.g. Live at the Regal), etc. brought it out into the open. I like using it because it gets me out of sounding too melodic. I admit that it’s not that easy to fit into the worship music that I play at church. perhaps there’s a reason I hadn’t thought of before…Andy Harris, Washington, DC

    There is a tritone present in every dominant chord in music – and dominant chords crop up in all musical genres, from nursery rhymes to grand opera.So the tritone is everywhere in music harmony – proving that the devil has all the best tunes!David Mead, Bath

    With all this talk of Wagner’s choice of chords invoking the devil, I’m surprised your article didn’t mention one of the composer’s most famous and ardent fans – one Adolf Hitler.Fi, Voventry

    As creationism is bizarrely making a comeback perhaps certain religious groups will start trying to outlaw the Diabolus in Musica again! I’ll have to hide about 80% of my CDs!Richard, Kingston upon Thames

    Well, the Devil may have the best tunes, but heavy metal certainly can’t claim the Devil’s Interval for its own. Its use in the first few bars of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” predates heavy metal by several years and its use in blues by several decades. It’s just more marketing hype and can only serve to inflame the opinion of those people who seem to think that a taste for metal is the first step to a life in Satanism. Steve Cobham, Milton Keynes

    This is not a coincidence. The esoteric school of Pythagoras taught that certain sounds can trigger different states of mind. In later centuries, the church knew this (scripts still locked in the Vatican) and tried to make illegal all the sounds that could bring sexual, joyful, sensual or other feelings. Elias Kostopoulos, Athens, Greece

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    R&P: Do Heavy Metal Fans That Hate Glam Ever Even Notice That…..?

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    One of the gods of metal, Ozzy Osbourne totally went glam with Jake E. Lee as a guitarist?

    I get this from a guy I knew in school who is huge metal fan and hates glam but idolizes Ozzy, yet he totally disallows the fact that Ozzy was glam for around 5-8 years.

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    Head South By Southwest, young rockers

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    The dream lives on at South by Southwest.

    That’s what will draw hundreds of bands from around the world to the festival, which runs Wednesday through March 21 at dozens of clubs in Austin, Texas. Despite the upheaval in the music business, the annual confab, which also brings in record company execs and journalists and bloggers, is still seen as a place where an act can make a name and a future for itself.

    Of course, the reality is that most bands will struggle for recognition amid the clutter of showcasing acts, with the only consolation being that they get a chance to hear some great music, enjoy some tremendous barbecue and knock back a few Shiner Bocks.

    The Bay Area will be well represented at this year’s SXSW, with more than two dozen acts spending the week in Austin. We’ve decided to profile three of these local acts — Bird by Bird, Judgement Day and Sleepy Sun — in part because we like their chances of turning the fabled SXSW dream into reality. We also picked them because they’re important local bands that hometown readers should know about — before the rest of the world catches on.

    Sleepy Sun isn’t getting much sleep. The psychedelic-indie-rock group, which formed in Santa Cruz in 2007, has been far too busy touring. in fact, the sextet, now based in San Francisco, is on the road when vocalist-harmonica player Bret Constantino answers his cell phone for

    an interview. He’s riding in the back of the band’s van, up Interstate 5 toward gigs in Portland and Seattle, while nursing a recent wound incurred while trying to operate a blender — and, no, margaritas weren’t involved.

    “I just had a milkshake injury the other day up in Tahoe,” says Constantino. “It’s a huge bummer. if someone makes the milkshake for me, I think it’s a lot safer — a lot more enjoyable.”

    The milkshake incident is about the only bit of recent bad news for this group. although still relatively new to the music scene, Sleepy Sun has quickly risen to become one of the Bay Area’s most popular acts. The band’s debut CD, 2009’s “Embrace,” has received rave reviews and generated high expectations for the follow-up, dubbed “Fever,” due out in June.

    Sleepy Sun has also managed to cultivate a healthy overseas fan base (through three tours of Europe in 2009 alone) and land some primo bookings, including a stint as the opening act on the Arctic Monkeys’ upcoming U.S. tour.

    Before climbing onboard the bus with the Monkeys, the Sleepy Sun six — Constantino, guitarist Matt Holliman, drummer Brian Tice, bassist Jack Allen, vocalist Rachael Williams and guitarist Evan Reiss, all of whom are either 22 or 23 — will perform three shows in four days at South by Southwest. That’s actually a lighter load than what Sleepy Sun pulled off at last year’s SXSW.

    “We played like eight shows, which was an average of like two a day,” Constantino recalls. “We were pretty exhausted by the end.”

    Yet, exhaustion isn’t enough to dissuade Sleepy Sun from its plan to tour as much as possible.

    “One of the best things about touring as much as we do is all the great opportunities we get to meet these really great musicians that have been able to tour and play music for a living for their entire lives,” says Constantino, a Placer County native. “And almost every one of those people that you meet will tell you, ‘Never stop touring. You’ve got to tour as much as you can. It’s the best way that you can promote your band.’”

    The group, which Constantino helped form while a student at UC Santa Cruz, has definitely evolved through the live show. what began as a basic garage rock band is now an eclectic hybrid of musical styles, built on a retro blues-rock foundation that would appeal to fans of the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead. The group’s sound is most strongly influenced by classic rock — or, as Constantino put it, “stuff that came far before we were even born.”

    “It is, a lot of times, overwhelming — the diversity of our music — for some people. It’s like an onslaught of many genres,” he says. “Some people just want to hear a pop-punk song or they want to watch a person sit on a chair and play acoustic folk songs. We try to do all that, which is very ambitious, we understand — but we’re willing to admit it.”

    Judgement Day surprises a lot of people. Concertgoers see a band with a cellist and violinist and probably expect to hear some type of classical music. what they get is shockingly assured metal music.

    “I’ll tell you one story about Little Rock, Ark.,” says Anton Patzner, the violinist of the Oakland band. “There were a lot of metal heads in the audience and they were saying, ‘What are you guys doing? Get out of here.’ Within one minute of us playing, these metal heads were loving it, and they were moshing.”

    The group, which uses the old English spelling of “Judgement” to underscore the dark nature of its sound, hopes to inspire similar reactions in Austin. Judgement Day doesn’t have an officially sanctioned SXSW gig lined up, but, like hundreds of other so-called “uninvited” acts, it still plans to take advantage of the media frenzy surrounding the event.

    “We’ve got one show booked,” says Patzner, a 28-year-old Oakland native who now lives in San Francisco. “But we are going to play on the streets and sell our merchandise. We are kind of crashing the party, so to speak.”

    Judgement Day — which also features Anton’s 24-year-old brother, Lewis Patzner, on cello and 28-year-old Jon Bush on drums — shouldn’t have much problem drawing attention. After all, how many other violin-cello-drum metal groups will be in Austin?

    The Patzner brothers’ journey to Judgement Day began at a very early age, as their parents signed them up for classical music lessons.

    “We grew up in a family of musicians — my mother is a violin player and my dad is a trombone player,” Anton Patzner says. “It’s kind of in the bloodline.”

    Lewis Patzner attended the Peabody music conservatory at Johns Hopkins University after graduating from high school. His brother took a different path, abandoning the violin and classical music and picking up the guitar.

    “I think I was just totally burnt on classical music — just really sick of it,” says Anton Patzner, who took up the guitar for a while in high school. “But when it came time for me to be in bands, I just realized that I was a much better violinist than a guitar player.”

    In 2002, he started a duo with his brother and began playing improvisational rock music for basically anyone who would listen.

    “It started out just as a two-piece, my brother and I, just busking on the streets of Berkeley,” Anton Patzner recalls. “When we started out, we didn’t have songs — we’d just play music that was loud and fast and hard.”

    Reaction from listeners was strong enough to persuade the Patzners to start a real band. in 2003, they added Bush — a drummer Anton met at UC Santa Cruz — and Judgement Day was born.

    “He was the loudest, hardest hitting and most aggressive drummer I’d ever seen,” Anton Patzner remarks of Bush, who now lives in Marin.

    The group’s main challenge was that the Patzners wanted to use acoustic instruments, which don’t translate easily to the metal realm.

    “One of the key elements of metal is distortion,” Patzner says. “I think it’s almost an essential element. but when you put distortion on acoustic instruments, there’s feedback.”

    The violinist now believes that the group has jumped that hurdle. The proof can be seen at the band’s concerts, which draw ever-increasing turnouts, and can be heard on Judgement Day’s second full-length CD, “Peacocks/Pink Monsters,” due out in April.

    “I really feel like now we have it to the point where we don’t have to worry about the sound anymore and can just concentrate on our performances,” Patzner says.

    Bird by Bird

    The Matches were seemingly on fire.

    The adventurous Oakland-based pop-punk band had released three well-received albums and reached a level of popularity where it could headline San Francisco’s famed Fillmore. so it came as a bit of a shocker when the Matches announced they were disbanding last summer. yet, the timing was right, says ex-Match man Jonathan Devoto.

    “We started being a real band about 2001 — a real band being one that releases albums and tours,” says Devoto, who played lead guitar and added backup vocals in the Matches. “We toured constantly for, probably eight years, and had an awesome time doing it. We built up a pretty great fan base, but we reached a point where nothing changed for like 2½ years. “… We all started getting curious about what things would be like if we started playing with other people.”

    That curiosity led to Bird by Bird, a Berkeley-based quartet that features Devoto on lead vocals and guitar. The group has only been around for a few months, yet it’s already managed to cultivate a sizable following, thanks to headlining concerts at such local venues as Blake’s on Telegraph in Berkeley and the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.

    The band’s maiden voyage — a three-week tour through California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada — will reach its apex at South by Southwest. The group plans to play at least five concerts, including an official SXSW showcase, during its stay in Austin.

    Though his Matches background will add draw interest to Devoto’s new project, the bands do not sound alike, he says.

    “The Matches’ music style was very eclectic, very artsy and very experimental,” says Devoto, a Richmond resident who grew up in El Cerrito. “The new stuff, from what I’m hearing from other people, is less artsy and more rock. “… We’re a little quirky, but we’re not ‘Look how (expletive) quirky we are!’”

    There are some similarities — mainly Devoto’s heroic guitar work — but Bird by Bird delivers more straightforward radio-friendly melodies and driving rhythms.

    “I really wanted to play organic rock-pop music that has a lot of energy, is a little clever — not too clever — and is catchy, but not dismissible,” he says.

    Devoto seems uncertain of the Matches future. in conversation, he frequently flips between using “breakup” and “hiatus” in reference to the band.

    “At the point of it happening, we referred to it as hiatus to make it less harsh — less harsh, not only for the fans, but for us,” he says. “We are definitely leaving it open that maybe we’ll come back to it. but we aren’t planning on it anytime soon. it definitely took me some time to get comfortable with calling it a breakup — and I still hop around it.”

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    Happy 40th Birthday, Heavy Metal

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    On Friday the 13th of February, 1970, a band from Birmingham, UK named Black Sabbath released their self titled debut album. it began with a thick and ominous tritone, a pitch-dark riff that reverberated with a wash of shivering fear…and the world of music would never be the same.

    Happy 40th, Birthday, Heavy Metal! We raise our horns to the members of Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Blue Cheer, Sir Lord Baltimore, and ahost of others for casting the spell, for turning their backs on flower power, and for plunging into a loud nightmarish curtain of sound.We thank them for turning it up and tuning it down simultaneously, for mesmerizing the misfits and miscreants, weaning them off of their faux hippie teets, and turning them on to the bloody bosoms of the shrouded figures in black that now appeared in their dreams.

    Here’s to the people who may or may not have coined the term “Heavy Metal.” John Kay of Steppenwolf with his lyric “heavy metal thunder” or rock journalist and Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman who used it in an interview in Crawdaddy Magazine in 1968…or maybe Herman Hesse or William Burroughs who eluded to “heavy metal” within a passage from his novel The Soft Machine in 1964.

    Here’s to the blackened Brits from the stellar second wave of metal…especially Rob Halford who, through his own self exploration of his sexuality, and the costumes of its appropriate underground scene….brought the leather to the metal show by accident and forever. it was he and his band Judas Priest who brought the soaring melodic screams to the genre, and buffered by bands like Budgie, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Deep Purple, and Motorhead, sent metal into the stratosphere.

    Metal has branched off into more sub-genres than any other category of music,some embarrassing (hair metal, rap metal, crab core??) and some unintelligible (grindcore, funeral doom). it has made many men millionaires who blossomed in black from their perspective genres and bands that became cornerstones like Slayer, Metallica, and Motley Crue. but when we venture back and peruse the roots, the fans can count on the blanketing themes of aggression, anger, fear, and alienation that percolate in its core and present a purpose, maybe even a solution for the struggle, whatever it may be. Metal gave many millions of cast out kids who wandered into parking lots clad in denim, bumming smokes and clutching “Bad Wizards” a place to be, not just a place to go. and the horns remain up forty years on.

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    HOWL'S COVER ART FOR FULL OF HELL IS FULL OF AWESOME | Heavy Metal …

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    The mighty Howl have a new album, Full of Hell, coming out Relapse in the spring, and while we haven’t gotten to hear any of it yet, the cover art bodes incredibly well for the music it will contain:

    So three cheers for Ryan Begley, who designed this. I want it on a hoodie now, motherfucker.
    Howl’s [...]


    Click here for Original Link

    source: Metal Sucks

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    Acrassicauda: Iraqi heavy-metal band finds new home in NJ and NY

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    By Jay Lustig/The Star-LedgerMarch 06, 2010, 7:43PM

    John Munson/The Star-LedgerAcrassicauda (L-R, Firas Abdul Razaq, Tony Yaqoo, Faisal Talal Mustafa and Marwan Hussein) huddle before performing at the Europa nightclub in Brooklyn, Feb. 23

    Not long after the United States-led invasion of Iraq, the Baghdad heavy metal band Acrassicauda received a death threat. “You are Americanized, playing Western music,” it read. “You either quit or you will be dead.”

    Band members Faisal Talal Mustafa, Marwan Hussein, Firas Abdul Razaq and Tany Yaqoo didn’t quit, but did start scheduling band practices randomly, rather than at regular times.

    They didn’t quit when mortar shells battered the area around the hotel where they were presenting a concert: they just turned the volume up. And they didn’t quit when their practice space was turned into rubble by a Scud missile.

    It’s hard for a Westerner to comprehend the sacrifices they have made, and how much their music means to them.

    “It’s our life,” says bassist Razaq, who now lives in Elizabeth.

    In 2008 and 2009, the four bandmates came to the United States, one by one, after spending several years living as refugees in Syria in Turkey. With the help of the International Rescue Committee, an organization devoted to resettling refugees, they were able to obtain legal-refugee status here.

    Having achieved a small amount of fame via the 2007 documentary “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” they have been able to meet some of their musical role models, and hang out backstage with Metallica at Newark’s Prudential Center. Last month, they presented their first American shows, at the Brooklyn nightclubs Europa and Public Assembly. Tuesday, their first album, a four-song EP called “Only the Dead see the End of the War,” will be released.

    Their band name (pronounced ah-crass-ih-KOW-dah) is adapted from Androctonus crassicauda, the Latin name for a dangerous scorpion that lives in the Iraqi desert. Their songs are a portrait of a country torn apart by war.

    “Is it God’s will, or just a lie?/People live, and others die/Never had a chance and never will/Forever doomed as I wonder why,” sings Mustafa in English — in a fearsome growl, over pounding drums — on the song “Message From Baghdad.”

    “‘Entertainment’ doesn’t really apply to what we’re doing,” says drummer Hussein. “It’s more like a mission. We’re here, away from our country, not to entertain you. we want to tell you something.”

    In the United States, they have continued to struggle: decent day jobs have been hard to find. but they have scraped by, taking jobs teaching, translating, and waiting on tables. Razaq currently works in food services at Montclair State University.
    “We came in a rough time, where the economy is struggling,” he says. “But everything, other than that, is good. at least we got to be who we wanted to be.”

    Shock and awe

    At the Europa show on Feb. 23 — a rainy Tuesday night — Acrassicauda was sandwiched between two other bands, and played for about 100 people. Selling T-shirts at a merchandise table, and struggling with sound problems, they could have passed for just another up-and-coming thrash-metal band. Mustafa goaded the crowd to make noise, and form a mosh pit. the only exotic element to the music was the Middle Eastern-flavored guitar solo during one song, “Garden of Stones.”

    “We love being onstage,” says Hussein. “For once, you get to forget about everything. we worry about bills, and green cards, and our families back in Iraq. we worry about what the next songs will sound like. but onstage, that’s when you take that coat of burdens and problems and issues, and drop it, and go free. Go crazy and be happy, and feel like a human. whatever that means.”

    Now in their late 20s and early 30s, they discovered heavy metal as middle-class teenagers, listening to black-market albums by Metallica, Sepultura, Slayer, the Scorpions, and any others they could get their hands on.

    “We were like, ‘It sounds crazy, but why don’t we do a band?’,” says Hussein. “For a lot of people back in Iraq, our age or even older, it wasn’t really a comprehensible idea to do a band, ‘cause you think about all the obstacles that the Middle Eastern environment puts you in.”

    They weren’t able to present many shows — according to Hussein, they mounted just six in five years. but they did catch the attention of MTV News correspondent Gideon Yago, who filmed a report on them and also wrote an article for Brooklyn-based Vice magazine. Vice co-founder Suroosh Alvi became interested in the story, and co-directed the “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” documentary, which was followed by a 2009 book of the same name.

    In one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Alvi asks, “How did you guys decide to start a band, a metal band?”

    “Look around,” Mustafa says. “We are living in a heavy metal world.”

    The next shot shows a bomb hitting downtown Baghdad at night. a huge ball of fire lights up the sky.

    Keeping the faith

    Vice helped arrange for Acrassicauda to relocate to the United States, and is releasing “Only the Dead see the End of the War” on its own record label. the band has a Web site now, MySpace.com/acrassicauda, and has made a music video.

    “I’m really happy for them,” said Alvi, before the Europa show. “They are excited, and seem happier than they’ve seemed in a long time. the show is a big deal, but for me, it’s not as big a deal as when I got an advance copy of the record last week. I remember interviewing them in Syria and Marwan said, ‘I just want to make a record. That’s all I really want to do.’”

    When they first came to the U.S., Mustafa, Razaq and Hussein all settled in Elizabeth, though Mustafa and Hussein later moved to Brooklyn.

    “Jersey is a cool place, but it has the problem of transportation,” says Mustafa. “You need a car to go wherever you like, and the idea of a car is a heavy responsibility on your shoulders, if you’re a refugee.”

    Razaq, who has a wife and a young son, stayed.

    “We’ve been moving a lot in the last five years or so,” he says. “Basically, I just want to feel settled.”

    Hussein was the last to come to America, and just a few days after he arrived, early last year, Vice arranged for the band to see Metallica at the Prudential Center.

    They met the metal icons before the show, and moments after walking offstage, Metallica’s James Hetfield presented Mustafa with a guitar that he had just played. Mustafa’s jaw dropped in astonishment, and stayed there as Hetfield signed it.
    “Welcome to America,” Hetfield said. “Thanks for keeping the faith.”

    They all hugged, exchanged fist bumps, and took photos.

    “There are still some good riffs in there,” said Hetfield, referring to the guitar. “Bring ‘em out.”

    In the studio

    “Only the Dead see the End of the War” was produced by another one of the band’s heroes: Alex Skolnick of the band Testament. After seeing “Heavy Metal in Baghdad,” Skolnick arranged to meet members of the band, then living in Turkey, at Testament’s Istanbul tour stop.

    It was essential that someone with a lot of experience produce the EP. the musicians in Acrassicauda had no prior experience in a modern recording studio. They’d have to work quickly, since they could afford to rent space there for just a few days.

    “I heard moments of brilliance in their music,” says Skolnick. “Being in Iraq, it was very difficult to rehearse, and they didn’t get to woodshed and gig the way a normal band would. but they had the determination, and the individual talent, and they had a sound. I knew if they had a chance, being in a safe environment and being coached a little bit, they’d do a great job.”

    “It was a heavy task to do an EP that’s well-presented, and Alex Skolnick helped us a lot,” says Hussein. “He became a good friend. we hang out and drink, and joke together, and talk about music. He’s been such an influence.”

    The bond is obviously strong. Skolnick attended the Europa show, and when the band had problems with one of its amplifiers, he jumped onstage to fix it.

    On their own feet

    The musicians all have family back in Iraq, and are in touch. “But as far as seeing them … it’s been almost four years now,” says Mustafa. “But we can’t go back yet, because the story won’t make any sense. why did we leave in the first place?”

    In other words, they aren’t far enough along as musicians to contemplate going home.
    “But what we’re hoping is, someday, we’re going to go back — maybe with a bonus of having a reputation or a name, because of what we’ve accomplished,” says Mustafa.

    The group will perform with Cannibal Corpse, Voivoid and other metal bands at the Scion Rock Fest in Columbus, Ohio, on March 13, but no other shows are currently booked. they would love to go out on a big tour, maybe opening for another band, but haven’t received the right offer yet.

    During the days when Vice was trying to get the band to America, it set up a PayPal account online so that metal fans throughout the world could make donations. An invaluable $40,000 was raised. but now that the most urgent part of the mission has been accomplished, the account has been closed.

    “They’re able to stand on their own two feet,” says Alvi. “They’re a working metal band now, which is exactly what they should be.”
    Jay Lustig may be reached at jlustig@starledger.com or (973) 392-5850.

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    Bridesmaided Bands: What it Took for 5 Hall of Famers to Actually Get In

    Thursday, March 11th, 2010

    By Robert Kett | MOG Writer

    The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has five criteria for induction: success, contribution, development, influence and sophistication. In more recent years, it has become painfully obvious that one of these has trumped all others… success. 2010 may serve the purpose of appeasing those who claim that the Hall has overlooked far too many. still, the remedy is a bit half-assed: soon-to-be inductees Genesis, the Hollies, and Jimmy Cliff have each been eligible for at least a decade and a half, but 2010 is the first time they’ve been nominated. ABBA, previously nominated in 2003, is only getting in on their second try. The Stooges, meanwhile, have been continuously nominated and rejected.

    As the Hall inducts its twenty-fifth class next week, we think it’s important to take some time to look at those that the Hall of Fame has nominated, but only let in only after shutting them out time and time again. on closer inspection, one can’t help but wonder: what took so long?

    ACT ONE: THE STOOGES (TO BE INDUCTED 2010)
    Nominated in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009 without success.

    It’s fashionable to believe that punk is a New York creation, driven by the dual impetuses of the dinosaur rocker indulging in excess and the progressive rocker taking rock ‘n roll into unfamiliar territory. Without groups like the Stooges, however, who’s to say how (or if) the genre would have developed? Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, Dave Alexander, and Jim Osterberg (who quickly dubbed himself “Iggy Pop”) formed the Psychedelic Stooges in 1967 with a determination to create an entirely new form of blues music. while early performances featured an avant-garde take on the blues, the group quickly became the first band to fully embrace a punk mentality.

    As with the first rock ‘n roll song, the first punk song can be disputed, but the Stooges are surely among the first to have recorded one. Pop was also among the first to stage dive. The biggest obstacle to the group’s induction was obvious: the Stooges never had even the semblance of a chart hit, and their records were only appreciated by the masses after Pop gained fame in the late ’70s. but, based on influence and development, this band deserved induction before the start of the third millennium.

    Of course, since their first time up, they’ve lost Ron Asheton, who died in January 2009. At least Ron was there when the Stooges performed in Madonna’s stead in 2008. looking at the list of performers this time around, it looks like Madonna won’t be performing in The Stooges’ place, but who knows?

    ACT TWO: PATTI SMITH (INDUCTED 2007)
    Nominated in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 without success.

    “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”

    When it comes to opening lines on debut albums, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than the twenty-eight-year old Patti Smith had on her unorthodox reading of Van Morrison’s “Gloria”. Poet laureate of the punk-rock movement, the one-time performance artist emerged in a blaze of controversy, one that she kept up over her initial four-album run in the late ’70s and has continued since her return to recording.

    Punk music is generally thought of as a very basic, primal movement where complexity is eschewed in favor of simplicity. Adding free-form poetry to a punk aesthetics, Smith single-handedly put that assumption into question. that said, it could be that meshing of the simple and complex that kept Smith out time and time again. though Smith’s hits have numbered relatively few, her influence on the development of rock ‘n roll in the ’80s and ’90s simply can’t be understated. Being hailed by acts ranging from R. E. M. and the Smiths to Sonic Youth and U2 should have garnered her an induction years before it actually happened. As it turned out, U2 would beat Patti Smith in by two years and R.E.M. would join her in the class of 2007.

    ACT THREE: BLACK SABBATH (INDUCTED 2006)
    Nominated in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 without success.

    After losing the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident, Tony Iommi invested in banjo strings for his guitar and fashioned plastic and leather tips to fit over the nubs. Teaming up with John “Ozzy” Osbourne on vocals, Terry “Geezer” Butler on bass, and Bill Ward on skins, Iommi and Black Sabbath plowed through the ’70s like an advancing Mongol horde. Then, when Iommi and Butler tuned their instruments down between the group’s second and third albums, the real heaviness set in.

    With Osbourne writing vocal melodies, Butler as primary lyricist, and Iommi as musical arranger, the group hit pay dirt with their first five albums, all of which were huge successes in spite of limited radio play. The group even recorded the first power ballad, “Changes” on Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Among the most influential of heavy metal acts, the band has inspired generations of aspiring musicians and laid the foundation for any number of metal subgenres.

    Whereas others may have been too arty or outsider, it makes no sense that this group would sit out for so long, especially considering the sales. I can understand leaving a sales giant like Neil Diamond out (I’m personally thankful that he’s never been nominated), but Sabbath?

    ACT FOUR: LYNYRD SKYNYRD (INDUCTED 2006)
    Nominated in 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 without success.

    Clad in a Tonight’s The Night-era Neil Young t-shirt, Lynyrd Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant often sang “a Southern man didn’t need him (Young) around anyhow”. few got the joke. In only five years, Van Zant’s often clever, poignant, and hard-hitting lyrics coupled with an onslaught of southern-fried rock ‘n roll (with nearly every player getting a credit for the music) helped Lynyrd Skynyrd grow from a band playing the worst of dive bars to chartering planes to tour.

    With “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Free Bird” and “Saturday Night Special”, the band racked up three back-to-back hit singles in 1974 and 1975 (a fourth, “What’s your name?”, would chart in 1978), and the group’s five studio albums released between 1973 and 1977 were all top thirty albums. If there could be a reason for their belated induction, it would probably be the controversial Confederate imagery that MCA dreamed up to promote mid-70s albums. The fact that the group had retired this imagery by 1977 was unfortunately negated when the reunited group (with Johnny Van Zant in place of his brother) has resumed unfurling the rebel flag night after night.

    I get it. They’re from the South. but how many acts are there that previously dragged out Confederate imagery and have given it up? more than a few…

    ACT FIVE: SOLOMON BURKE (INDUCTED 2001)
    Nominated in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 without success.

    An archbishop in The House of God For all People, mortician, and gospel radio host, Solomon Burke had one of the stranger curriculum vitae for a Rock Hall inductee. though his sales were good in the ’60s, the self-styled “King of Rock ‘n Soul” plugged away for decades in obscurity thereafter, as at home with country as he was with soul or gospel. He often blurred the lines between the genres, developing his own unique style of music, a one-man template for sweet southern soul. Influencing acts like Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Bonnie Raitt, he was a critical favorite lost among the bigger names time and time again.

    Others may have had to wait longer (the Hollies, little Anthony and the Imperials, the Dave Clark five, the Ventures), but with nine unsuccessful nominations, Burke has the distinction of being the artist with the most rejections. still, on occasion, good things come to those who wait, and for Burke, his belated induction was the first of many late-period successes. 2002’s Don’t give Up on Me was widely heralded as a comeback to trump all comebacks, and the albums that have followed have all been critical successes that have introduced Burke to an entirely new audience. At 70, he’s still riding high, though he sings perched on his throne. 30 stone worth of weight will do that.

    SPECIAL MENTION: BO DIDDLEY (INDUCTED 1987)

    Sure, Bo Diddley got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s second class (for whatever reason, he didn’t make the cut for nominees in 1986), but I’ve always felt that Bo was the first real rocker, as opposed to a white man singing with blues inflections or a African-American man singing with country inflections. Bo’s contribution to rock and roll cannot be understated. The “Bo Diddley beat” is among the most copied in the genre.

    Bo should have been the first artist in. Then again, it always seemed that he was a day late and a dollar short when it came to recognition.

    WHAT IT ALL MEANS
    There are numerous problems with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The US-centered institution frequently shunts international acts, often failing to consider them at all. its archaic rules currently dictate that no more than five acts get in as performers. Harp giant little Walter got in as a sideman and rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson as an early influence. Tom Dowd, the father of the multi-track and producer to a who’s who of giants, isn’t in at all. Regardless of how you feel about the four groups and one solo artist to be inducted as performers, the class of 2010 remedies a lot of wrongs of the last ten years worth of nominees. Hey, at the very least, they occasionally get it right.

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