It's a couple of minutes past midnight and I'm just settling down from four nerve wracking days of my daughter's Roseola (she's okay now, thank god). Tomorrow, after three days of being absent, I return to work. For tonight I relax to the sound of Ghost, the new album by the Devin Townsend Project. The cover art alone speaks volumes about how perfect the music is for this moment.
When I started blogging on Typepad last summer, I didn't intend it to be a music blog. However, a review of my posts tells me it's shaping up to be that kind of shit. I guess it can't be helped since music — particularly heavy music — occupies most of my waking hours. It is a topic I love discussing with anyone until that poor miserable jerk's brain collapses from boredom. No wonder dates steered clear off me in high school. Well, fuck 'em.
To continue spreading the boredom: Korn is said to be performing at the Araneta Coliseum on August 10. Although local music sites like At the Womb have already carried the news, I'm only half-believing this gig and am waiting for the band to confirm it on their website. I've my reasons: 1) tickets have yet to be sold, and 2) Korn, a mosh pit kind of band, in a covered and intimate venue as the Araneta Coliseum sounds like a sick joke to me. I doubt the average Korn fan appreciates moshing at bleachers.
What's confirmed, however, is Incubus will be playing at the same venue on July 28. No reason to doubt this one. Aside from the fact that tickets are already on sale, it is going to be the third time this California-based hardrockin' sweethearts will be setting foot in Manila (first in 2004, then in 2008).
So there you go. Korn and Incubus. Pioneers of the (much maligned) nu metal scene that made big waves in the late Nineties until the first years of this millenium. Time to put on that jersey and oversized pants. This year is really rawkin'.
After getting drunk on thrash metal last Pulp Summer Slam XI, it's now time to nurse the inevitable hangover and mellow things down by listening to some good 'ol blues-based textbook rock n' roll courtesy of Mr.Big, another recently reunited Nineties group to visit Manila. (Before them: Gin Blossoms and Stone Temple Pilots.)
Ah yes, Mr. Big. Who would've thought? Back in the band's heydays I was too preoccupied with grunge to actually pay atttention to them, and up until around five years ago I wouldn't even consider forking over hard cash to see them live. But times have changed. Musical tastes expand and evolve and we learn to be more, dare I say, open-minded. At least that's what happened in my case.
Such existential-type shit was banging in my head when I, together with my wife and brother, checked out the band last May 10 at the Araneta Coliseum. Great show, if one didn't mind the masturbatory display of musical prowess of bassist Billy Sheehan and guitarist Paul Gilbert. The thing with these prolonged onstage wankerings is that you either find them infinitely awesome or gratuitously self-glorifying. But considering the crowd's reaction every time Billy Sheehan or Paul Gilbert would sweep into an extended jam (sometimes doing it together), I can say that it's more of the former than the latter.
They, however, did not do "Promise Her the Moon." Which sucked big-time.
One of the highlights of the gig for me was when the band members exchanged roles and played Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" during encore #2. The fact that there was an encore #2 was in itself another highlight. It's really the song selection that kind of bothered me. Aside from "Promise Her the Moon," they also skipped "CDEF-Lucky This Time", "Ain't Seen a Love Like That" and "Nothing But Love." I was in a mood for some sappy ear candies that night, but unfortunately Mr. Big chose to rock it. Ironically, I once considered them "too soft" for my taste.
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Images from the giant screen at the venue. We were too far from the stage — Upper Box B — to snap good photos.
On June 16, 2010, the Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland made heavy metal history when the so-called Big 4 of thrash metal – Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax – shared the same stage for the first time in their decades of existence as part of the annual Sonisphere Festival.
The event created quite a noise (pun intended) among fans of the genre worldwide, much more so when, in the festival’s run in Sofia, Bulgaria seven days later, Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine jammed onstage with his former band mates in Metallica for the first time since their bitter and highly publicized separation in 1983. It was a goosebumps moment, even for those who saw it only on YouTube. The significance of the event did not escape anybody who was aware of the two groups’ respective histories.
But that was last year. This year, history repeated itself on April 23 when the four crashed the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It was supposed to be a one-off show designed to give US-based fans the same experience as their European counterparts in the previous year. Strong clamor prevailed, however, and the cabal is set to do a second round on September 14 at the famous 56,000-capacity Yankee Stadium in New York.
The ringing in the ears of those who attended last Saturday's Pulp Summer Slam XI hasn't died down yet, and here comes Pulp already announcing the next bunch of motherfuckers who'll be causing more auditory damages in these shores this year.
By now the word is out that Every Time I Die and the Acacia Strain will be performing on October 8 at A-Venue in Makati City, the same place where Shadows Fall raised hell in March 2008. Without a doubt, the show is going to be brutal. Think: Circle pits. Think: Elbows hitting faces. Think: Summer Slam X when Lamb of God performed last year. Sick, sick, sick...
Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of metalcore/deathcore, so I can't say the news excited me as much as when I heard that Anthrax, Hellyeah and Death Angel were to headline this year's 'Slam. But a lot of kids seem to dig this relatively new scene, and they've nothing but good words about ETID and the Acacia Strain, so I'm still glad somebody's bringing them here. If anything, their upcoming gig makes me wonder who the boys and girls of Pulp will drag here next year. Why do I have this nagging feeling that Machine Head will be one of them?
As I type this my head is whoozy, my throat feels like sandpaper, and my muscles — particularly those in the neck and legs — are screaming for Ponstan 500. Nothing looks more promising than jumping to bed and passing out for 10 hours. And then waking up to eat and piss and then passing out again for another 10 hours. That's how shot I am. All that because of last night's Pulp Summer Slam XI.
Anthrax, Death Angel, Hellyeah — two veteran thrash metal bands plus a heavyweight newcomer. Throw in Dubai's Nervecell for some Middle Eastern death metal flavor. How can the night not be full of merry mayhem? Too bad the clunky Kodak camera we brought couldn't decently capture the madness onstage from our vantage point.
And there was the press conference a day before the event at the Discovery Suites in Ortigas Center where I had the chance to see the headliners (except Nervecell) up close in an intimate setup. (Had a very brief chat with Anthrax's Joey Belladonna when I approached him after the presscon to have my copy of Spreading the Disease signed. Which he did. Cool guy.) The guys and gals of Pulp Live Productions had no idea how happy they made me for inviting me to that press briefing. I went there trying to be a journalist, but ended up a fanboy.
Such is the big part music plays in my life.
This early, I can't help but wonder what's next year's 'Slam is going to be. Seems like this gig is getting bigger and bigger every year, and if I were to believe the Pulp insider I talked to during the presscon, a full festival of all-foreign metal acts is in the horizon. For now, baby steps.
It all started with Alice in Chains.
It was December 2000. I was at the now defunct Music One in Megamall with my college buddies, who were then also my co-workers, figuring out how to squander our first 13th month cash. Gawking at the record shelves, my eyes glanced upon a particular release that made my heart skip a beat.
A live Alice in Chains album.
Although there had been no announcement yet of a formal breakup, the band was then on a prolonged period of inactivity due to vocalist Layne Staley's poor health condition resulting from his drug addiction (which killed him two years later). And although I yearned for them to get their acts together and come up with a brilliant album similar to 1992's Dirt, deep inside I knew that it was already the end of the line for them, and that 1996's MTV Unplugged was to be their swan song.
The release of a live album, in short, was something I was not expecting, but there it was. I simply had to tell someone the good news.
The geeks who were with me that time were out of the question. They only had a fleeting appreciation of the whole Seattle scene and could only name two or three AinC songs. My excitement would be wasted on them.
So I texted this girl at the office who, at that time, was the only big AinC fan I knew. We were not really close (she worked in a different department), but I thought, hey, what the hell.
Thankfully, she replied. She said it was good news indeed.
I married that girl six years later.
Alice in Chains are still kicking ass, with a new vocalist.
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Written on the 10th anniversary of our relationship.
And so Stone Temple Pilots went to town last March 9, played a 17-song set that featured hits from their six albums (and a Led Zeppelin cover that appeared on Encomium), and I watched it at the Araneta Coliseum, and it was a terrific show, so fine that five days later I'm still coming down from that particular high, STP songs playing in my head, and could not write a decent blog about it.
Here's my good friend Carmela Lapeña's sober take on the gig.
And some interesting front row photos from blogger Azrael Coladilla.
After STP, SMB at Oyster Boy with my partner in crime that night, Reese Belarmino.
Magnificent evening despite the rain.
Next stop: SummerSlam in April with Anthrax, Death Angel, and Hellyeah. Now, this one will definitely separate the men from the boys.
And then, hopefully, Mr. Big in May to romance bleeding ears.
My credit card is complaining, but so what?
Knowing his history, it's easy to assume that his death was drug-related, although that doesn't make it any less unfortunate. It's just plain sad and tragic. And he'll not be the last.
To quote Neal Pollack in the book Never Mind the Pollacks: "In the rock world, our friends and heroes are always dying, and we are always eulogizing."
A thirty-something father who wants his daughter to grow up liking books and heavy metal.
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