I don't know why I picked that number, it just felt right.
Anyway, today I popped next door to the Hard Rock Hotel and picked up a ticket to see Slayer next month. Then, as I strolled back home, I thought about how different my concert-going situation is now that I'm once again in a major city with a booming tourism industry. In the last 5 years in Ohio, I was only able to go to maybe 2 or 3 metal shows a year, and for most of those I had to drive over an hour each way. The sole exception to that long-distance issue was Skeletonwitch, who as I've stated before were from the town where I lived and therefore played locally.
Well after that extensive drought, I'm now back in a situation where bands are regularly coming through my city. I saw Black Sabbath not long ago, Slayer and Gojira are on my plate for next month, Nine Inch Nails the month after, and I've already bought tickets for January when Las Vegas is the first stop on the Amon Amarth tour with Enslaved and (ironically) Skeletonwitch.
I can't express how good it feels to again be able to go to metal shows on a regular basis. The fact that half of these shows are less than a 5-minute walk from my front door is just icing on the cake.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Moss - Horrible Night
British doomsters Moss released their 3rd full-length album "Horrible Night" in March of this year. It took me a while to get around to it, but I finally listened to the record.
The band's previous record, "Sub Templum", is often my go-to album when illustrating the line between funeral doom and drone. It hovers right on the edge, with just enough structure and bite to still feel like doom, while sporting the kind of run-times and ultra-slow tempos that just feel excessive for anything that isn't purely background music.
Well this record is a significant change of pace for the band. Gone (for the most part) are the earlier snarling sludge vocals. Gone are the half-hour tracks. Gone is the feeling that the music is some unseen Lovecraftian horror inhabiting the blackened depths of a subterranean chasm. In place of these features we have much more straightforward British doom band. The vocals now fall into that vaguely Ozzy-esque sound that so many traditional doom bands emulate. The songs now mostly clock in at around 10 minutes (so they're still not "short", they're just not as long). And the feel of the music, while still essentially funeral doom, has moved closer to the fuzzy heaviness of surface-dwelling stoner doom bands.
Now first off, the good: this album reminds me of Electric Wizard. That statement alone should tell you all you need to know. Somehow, without the use of a bass guitar, the band has managed to achieve that crushing low end, while maintaining the fuzzy wall of feedback.
There is, however, also some bad. For one thing, the Wizard have some of the most memorable, monolithic riffs ever set down on tape. Riffs that carry you away as they grind your bones into dust. While Moss have certainly captured the right feel, they are unable to equal the riffing quality for the most part. Some songs, like the title track, definitely grab hold of you, but some songs instead just feel like filler. And when every song is the same length and tempo, those unmemorable tracks really fade into the background. The other downside is that, while I really do enjoy this record, it kind of moves into a niche that is already filled while vacating one that Moss had all to itself. They are currently left fighting with Dopethrone in the Electric Wizard Clone Wars, when before they were my go-to band for a specific sound.
While the negatives section was clearly longer than the positives, you should not take that to mean that I disliked this record. It was a very good, very enjoyable album, and I expect that I'll find myself coming back to it in the future. I do have some mixed emotions about it, as is often the case when a band you like goes through a radical style change. They haven't abandoned their funeral doom roots, they haven't sold out, and they haven't really even taken a step down. They have shifted in a more accessible direction, though, in what I would call a surprising lateral move.
In terms of recommendations, if you are a Moss fan it's worth checking out, but be warned that it's not quite what you'd normally expect. If you're an Electric Wizard fan, you'll probably enjoy this. If you just like funeral doom in general, it's a good record and you'll probably like it. And if you are new to the sub-genre and want to explore funeral doom, it's no masterpiece but it's an acceptable place to start.
Grade: B+
The band's previous record, "Sub Templum", is often my go-to album when illustrating the line between funeral doom and drone. It hovers right on the edge, with just enough structure and bite to still feel like doom, while sporting the kind of run-times and ultra-slow tempos that just feel excessive for anything that isn't purely background music.
Well this record is a significant change of pace for the band. Gone (for the most part) are the earlier snarling sludge vocals. Gone are the half-hour tracks. Gone is the feeling that the music is some unseen Lovecraftian horror inhabiting the blackened depths of a subterranean chasm. In place of these features we have much more straightforward British doom band. The vocals now fall into that vaguely Ozzy-esque sound that so many traditional doom bands emulate. The songs now mostly clock in at around 10 minutes (so they're still not "short", they're just not as long). And the feel of the music, while still essentially funeral doom, has moved closer to the fuzzy heaviness of surface-dwelling stoner doom bands.
Now first off, the good: this album reminds me of Electric Wizard. That statement alone should tell you all you need to know. Somehow, without the use of a bass guitar, the band has managed to achieve that crushing low end, while maintaining the fuzzy wall of feedback.
There is, however, also some bad. For one thing, the Wizard have some of the most memorable, monolithic riffs ever set down on tape. Riffs that carry you away as they grind your bones into dust. While Moss have certainly captured the right feel, they are unable to equal the riffing quality for the most part. Some songs, like the title track, definitely grab hold of you, but some songs instead just feel like filler. And when every song is the same length and tempo, those unmemorable tracks really fade into the background. The other downside is that, while I really do enjoy this record, it kind of moves into a niche that is already filled while vacating one that Moss had all to itself. They are currently left fighting with Dopethrone in the Electric Wizard Clone Wars, when before they were my go-to band for a specific sound.
While the negatives section was clearly longer than the positives, you should not take that to mean that I disliked this record. It was a very good, very enjoyable album, and I expect that I'll find myself coming back to it in the future. I do have some mixed emotions about it, as is often the case when a band you like goes through a radical style change. They haven't abandoned their funeral doom roots, they haven't sold out, and they haven't really even taken a step down. They have shifted in a more accessible direction, though, in what I would call a surprising lateral move.
In terms of recommendations, if you are a Moss fan it's worth checking out, but be warned that it's not quite what you'd normally expect. If you're an Electric Wizard fan, you'll probably enjoy this. If you just like funeral doom in general, it's a good record and you'll probably like it. And if you are new to the sub-genre and want to explore funeral doom, it's no masterpiece but it's an acceptable place to start.
Grade: B+
Work Footage
The other day on Good Morning America, there was a massive card stunt on a dry lake bed south of Las Vegas, where Britney Spears came down for an interview discussing her upcoming extended-engagement of shows at Planet Hollywood. I was on the crew for the live broadcast. This video is some footage my boss shot with a remote-controlled camera drone, and that sexy beast you see operating the jib (camera crane) is yours truly.
This was actually a pretty exciting occasion for me, since I've typically just done tech work, but on this occasion I actually did a little backup camera work during a live show.
Video is here.
This was actually a pretty exciting occasion for me, since I've typically just done tech work, but on this occasion I actually did a little backup camera work during a live show.
Video is here.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Our Full Beard Champions
After writing what was essentially a rant when all I started out wanting to do was talk about the national bearding championships, I wandered off and started looking through photo galleries of this year's contestants. There were a lot of new faces, and many of the regulars appeared to be absent. Still, there were a lot of really good beards, and that's the important thing.
Anyway, it got me thinking about how, in the first four years of this competition, a different man has won the main event every year. The categories have expanded from 4 to 18, so in many of the smaller groups it's a different situation, but the main category is full beard natural and that has been there since the first year of the event. So I decided it might be interesting, for your viewing pleasure, to present to you the four big winners so far. You'll likely notice, as I have, that there appears to have been a shift in the type of beard that wins. I'm not sure why that is, but it does appear on the surface to be the case.
So here they are:
1st Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Bend, Oregon. 2010.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: Aarne Bielefeldt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 2011.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: John Burgess
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada. 2012.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: Neil Moherman
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship
Winner of Full Beard Natural:Jeff Langum
Anyway, it got me thinking about how, in the first four years of this competition, a different man has won the main event every year. The categories have expanded from 4 to 18, so in many of the smaller groups it's a different situation, but the main category is full beard natural and that has been there since the first year of the event. So I decided it might be interesting, for your viewing pleasure, to present to you the four big winners so far. You'll likely notice, as I have, that there appears to have been a shift in the type of beard that wins. I'm not sure why that is, but it does appear on the surface to be the case.
So here they are:
1st Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Bend, Oregon. 2010.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: Aarne Bielefeldt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 2011.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: John Burgess
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada. 2012.
Winner of Full Beard Natural: Neil Moherman
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th Annual National Beard and Moustache Championship
Winner of Full Beard Natural:Jeff Langum
Friday, September 13, 2013
2013 NBMC and 2014 WBMC
Just this past weekend, the 3rd annual NBMC was held in New Orleans. A new face took top honors in the main event, Jeff Langum. You can see footage of the final here.
This article also features a small gallery of photos from the event.
Now on to the main point of my article.
In related (and somewhat more troubling) news, it was recently announced that the United States will host next year's world championships. This is an extremely controversial claim within the bearding community. Normally the World Beard and Moustache Championships are held every other year, with the 2013 event in Germany rapidly approaching, and the 2015 event already scheduled for Austria. However, in a surprising move which I have not yet seen much information about, another championship has been announced on the WBMC website for 2014 in Portland, Oregon.
This may be the sign of a final, fatal split within the competitive bearding community. The American Phil Olsen who runs the WBMC website, Beard Team USA, and the national championships is not part of the governing body that organizes the world championships. He has in fact had numerous run-ins with that organization (the World Beard and Moustache Association) over the years, and has made thinly-veiled threats in the past to basically dictate the future of the event via his control of the WMBC's online presence. It would appear at first glance that he has now made his move, as it were, by trying to establish and legitimize a world championship of his own based out of the United States rather than the event's historical base in Germany.
The way this manipulation of information plays out could prove to be really interesting from an Orwellian perspective, but mostly I hope it doesn't prove too damaging to the burgeoning beard competition community. It's possible new information will arise that shows these concerns to be unfounded. Maybe the WBMA simply decided to increase the frequency of the events, making them annual in response to the growing popularity of the "sport". As I already stated, a minimal amount of information is readily available at this time. My inclination at this point in time, however, is to believe that Olsen is attempting to use his position to take control over the world championships by spreading misinformation. The troubling thing is that when the press reports on this (and the mainstream media actually does briefly touch on these events) it will be doing so from a position of ignorance and simply spread the erroneous information most easily available. That will, in turn, create a kind of retroactive 3rd-party validation and cause the public at large to adopt the falsely created event as the "real" one.
Of course, one might pose the question of whether or not any of this matters to the health of the community itself. After all, if there are 1000 potential participants and 900 attend the "fake" event while only 100 attend the "real" event, hasn't the fake one now established legitimacy since it's the bigger event with more competition? Well, yes and no. "Yes" because, quite simply, the more competitors an event has, typically the better and more valid it becomes as a measure of individual accomplishment for the winners. "No" because, if an organizing body representing many nations holds an impartial contest in an agreed-upon location, the results are going to be far more fair than when an event is run by a single self-appointed individual with his own agenda and a demonstrable willingness to play dirty. At this point, Phil Olsen has shown himself to be just that kind of person. I've been following the competitive bearding scene since the last WBMC held on US soil, the Anchorage event in 2009, and in that time I've seen enough interviews, articles, and independent documentaries to convince me that the man is a power-hungry egomaniac who has a clear agenda and who wants to reshape the community around his own goals. Admittedly he's done more than anybody to grow and promote facial hair competitions in the USA, but he seems to think that that means the entire sport belongs to him.
Competitive bearding is in the early stages of a huge surge in popularity. While it will never be on the level of major sports, it is establishing an increasingly visible niche for itself. At this pivotal time in bearding's growth, this kind of selfish power struggle is one of the last things the community needs. I sincerely hope that I am overreacting, but I fear that the next few years could set competitive bearding on a crash course toward manipulated results and corrupted leadership that would be absolutely crippling.
This article also features a small gallery of photos from the event.
Now on to the main point of my article.
In related (and somewhat more troubling) news, it was recently announced that the United States will host next year's world championships. This is an extremely controversial claim within the bearding community. Normally the World Beard and Moustache Championships are held every other year, with the 2013 event in Germany rapidly approaching, and the 2015 event already scheduled for Austria. However, in a surprising move which I have not yet seen much information about, another championship has been announced on the WBMC website for 2014 in Portland, Oregon.
This may be the sign of a final, fatal split within the competitive bearding community. The American Phil Olsen who runs the WBMC website, Beard Team USA, and the national championships is not part of the governing body that organizes the world championships. He has in fact had numerous run-ins with that organization (the World Beard and Moustache Association) over the years, and has made thinly-veiled threats in the past to basically dictate the future of the event via his control of the WMBC's online presence. It would appear at first glance that he has now made his move, as it were, by trying to establish and legitimize a world championship of his own based out of the United States rather than the event's historical base in Germany.
The way this manipulation of information plays out could prove to be really interesting from an Orwellian perspective, but mostly I hope it doesn't prove too damaging to the burgeoning beard competition community. It's possible new information will arise that shows these concerns to be unfounded. Maybe the WBMA simply decided to increase the frequency of the events, making them annual in response to the growing popularity of the "sport". As I already stated, a minimal amount of information is readily available at this time. My inclination at this point in time, however, is to believe that Olsen is attempting to use his position to take control over the world championships by spreading misinformation. The troubling thing is that when the press reports on this (and the mainstream media actually does briefly touch on these events) it will be doing so from a position of ignorance and simply spread the erroneous information most easily available. That will, in turn, create a kind of retroactive 3rd-party validation and cause the public at large to adopt the falsely created event as the "real" one.
Of course, one might pose the question of whether or not any of this matters to the health of the community itself. After all, if there are 1000 potential participants and 900 attend the "fake" event while only 100 attend the "real" event, hasn't the fake one now established legitimacy since it's the bigger event with more competition? Well, yes and no. "Yes" because, quite simply, the more competitors an event has, typically the better and more valid it becomes as a measure of individual accomplishment for the winners. "No" because, if an organizing body representing many nations holds an impartial contest in an agreed-upon location, the results are going to be far more fair than when an event is run by a single self-appointed individual with his own agenda and a demonstrable willingness to play dirty. At this point, Phil Olsen has shown himself to be just that kind of person. I've been following the competitive bearding scene since the last WBMC held on US soil, the Anchorage event in 2009, and in that time I've seen enough interviews, articles, and independent documentaries to convince me that the man is a power-hungry egomaniac who has a clear agenda and who wants to reshape the community around his own goals. Admittedly he's done more than anybody to grow and promote facial hair competitions in the USA, but he seems to think that that means the entire sport belongs to him.
Competitive bearding is in the early stages of a huge surge in popularity. While it will never be on the level of major sports, it is establishing an increasingly visible niche for itself. At this pivotal time in bearding's growth, this kind of selfish power struggle is one of the last things the community needs. I sincerely hope that I am overreacting, but I fear that the next few years could set competitive bearding on a crash course toward manipulated results and corrupted leadership that would be absolutely crippling.
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