#[guitar riff] YIKES

[moralesmilesanhour]

"I was briefly a runway model."

Summary: uhhh you go to a small concert and bump into the artist after you know how it goes 🔥🔥

genre: first meeting. again. [CROWD BOOS]

wc: ~600-700

A/N: I wanted this to be longer but eh maybe next time. You get another drabble instead 👍🏾enjoy!

The odor of sweat and cigarette smoke choked the air as your friend gripped your hand amongst the swaying cluster of bodies.

You didn’t recognize the band she had taken you to see, a rare instance now that you visited the small venue every Friday night. There’s a young white girl with half-shaved blonde hair and peachy ends playing her heart out on the drums, a big pink sweater tied around her waist.

The main guitarist and frontman managed to be an even more colorful sight; he wore plaid slacks with patches woven into them, held up by a shiny spike-studded black belt. His bright red knee-high boots should’ve clashed with his attire, but the way he propped it up on a stage speaker to play a nasty riff made them go together. He was tall and lean, but there was a bounce in his walk that told you that he was likely closer to your age.

These guys must be new, you think to yourself.

He said something crude on his electric guitar, the sound coming out jagged and crunchy. Large wicks radiated from his head, blocking out the overhead stage lights as he made his way to your section. You could hardly make out his face as he stood directly above you with the light shining in between the gaps in his wicks, resembling something like an angel.

After the concert, your friend would swear up and down that he was staring directly at you as you left the venue.

The dim lights of the pub reflected off of the wooden interior. It gave everything a golden glow, including the mahogany skin of the young man sitting next to you. 

The wicks and pants instantly gave him away as the night's frontman. The improved lighting situation allowed you to stare in awe at his sharp cheekbones and deep-set, somber eyes. You also recognized him from somewhere. Before you could gather up the courage to ask first, he addresses you with a sidelong glance.

"I got something on my face?"

You jump, and this makes him burst into breathy laughter.

"Sorry," you smile timidly, "I just thought I'd seen you somewhere before." The man’s pierced brow quirks up. 

"Lots of places where you could've seen me. You're gonna have to narrow it down."

"It was a magazine. Editorial, or something. Have you ever modeled?"

"I have, believe it or not. For a time."

"You've certainly got the face for it," you said quietly. The man heard it anyway, judging by the smirk spreading across his lips, so you quickly change the subject.

"Where you from?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, hm?"

You shrugged. "I just figured, lotta models are African."

"I think we're all African," he stuck a finger up in the air comically like a professor, making you snort.

"But...Haitian, if you've got to be specific about it."

Your eyes lit up.

“Oh shit, sak pase!”

Hobie chuckled. It was deep, and warm-sounding. Like an old friend.

“Nap boule. Can't speak much more than that, though.”

You leaned forward over the counter and started twirling the ends of your braids around your finger absentmindedly. 

“So, how’d you end up here? Having a pretty face must pay well.”

The man’s expression darkened for a moment. His tongue darted out to mess with the ring on his lip before his smile returned with less force than before. 

“Wasn’t for me,” he shrugged. “Didn’t pay too well, either. Had me scurryin’ around trying to catch a cab on an empty stomach at seventeen.”

You winced. “Yikes, sorry I asked.”

"It's all good," Hobie said. He watched you toy with your hair with a grin. 

"My face still comes in handy, though, for playing gigs."

"How so?"

"I get to meet pretty people like you."

-

Second hobie fic let's give it up for my second hobie fic whoooo

[rawrxdinaryheroes]

XDH as 3DG Songs

Gunil: Time of Dying

"I'll wait here for you"

This song is unique in that it switches meter

It goes from 4/4 to 6/4 which I feel like would be fun especially for someone who plays drums!

I also think this song is his style (especially coming from a Muse perspective)

The lyrics are also incredibly introspective and he seems like a very introspective person to me???

Jungsu: Lost In You

"Now everyday, I find myself saying I want to get lost in you"

Jungsu is a professional cutie patootie sweetie pie with frosting on top

This song is INCREDIBLY sweet

I actually cried hearing this song for the first time because of how sweet it is

This has been a comfort song for me which reminds me of Jungsu bc I feel like he has such a warm presence????

Pure fireplace during the wintertime vibe <333

This song played with acoustic guitar and piano, slower tempo, and Jungsu's vocals would be a godsend

Jiseok: Riot

"You're not the only one, so get up. Let's start a riot"

This song is very high energy and encompasses the feeling of starting a riot

Jiseok, our punk president, would ABSOLUTELY SLAY this song

He has a certain chaotic or devious charm to him that I think would totally match the vibe of this song

Especially since this song empowers those who feel weak, angry, or emotionally down

JISEOK WOULD EAT THIS SONG

Seungmin: Painkiller

"'Cause I'm the shoulder you cry on"

Okay so..

This song is preeettttyy heavy lyrics wise (I meann most 3dg songs are but yk my point)

I chose this song because I feel like it would fit Seungmin's musical style

I feel like he would add a few rap verses in the song that would go so hard omg-

This song is also oddly reassuring but in a haunting way and I feel like Seungmin would reallllly portray that super well

Hyeongjun: It's All Over

"When you're on the edge and falling off, it's all over"

THIS SONG has been my latest obsession it's bordering on unhealthy....

This song features a consistent bass and guitar riff that drive the music forward and the tempo isn't quite as fast as the other songs

It also features a very melodic guitar solo that I think Hyeongjun would really pull off super well! (MANS IS SUPER TALENTED)

Overall this song is super subtle and kind of reminds me of a fever dream??

I feel like Hyeongjun would pull off a fever dream type of concept really well????

Jooyeon: I Hate You Everything About You

"I hate everything about you. Why do I love you?"

A Three Days Grace classic~

The verses have very pretty clean vocals and instrumentals only for that to be juxtaposed by a heavier chorus full of gritty vocals and distortion

Jooyeon would actually sing this song so well

I mean we all heard his gritty vocals... Are you seeing ~the vision~

This man puts his whole soul into singing he would actually really eat this up I fear

You guys, this is my first time posting to tumblr... yikes! ANYWHO pls let me know if this was hot garbage, if you agree or disagree with the song choices. What's your favourite Three Days Grace song? How's your day going? I might make more of these little posts bc I have a lot of ideas and nowhere to put them out so pls anticipate more of my antics. Tysm <333

[bijouxcarys]

Queen's Hot Space Era: A Deep Dive

Masterlist

I’ve been thinking over this album and era more than usual lately, and decided that I’d write this up. Perhaps as a way to extricate all the Queen knowledge from my head, and the era in question takes up quite a lot of RAM.

The Hot Space album, and era, is very controversial and to this day garners a polarising set of opinions amongst fans and critics alike. So I just thought what the hell, let’s let everyone know what the hell was going on with Queen in the early 80s.

The Hot Space album was the 10th studio album by Queen and was released on the 21st May 1982. It had elements of disco, funk, R&B, dance, and pop, which was very different to what Queen had been doing throughout previous albums. The dance elements of this album was supposedly inspired by the success of Another One Bites The Dust, released in 1980.

Another One Bites The Dust was extremely successful in the US and the UK, the two largest marketing countries in the Western world, at least at the time—and Queen aimed to prolong that success.

The band started recording for Hot Space in June of 1981, and spent a gruelling 10 months on the project before wrapping up the production element in March of 1982. Upon its release, fans and critics found it disappointing. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said “the band that once proudly proclaimed not to use synthesisers on their albums now dramatically reversed course, dedicating the entire first side of the album to robotic, new wave dance pop, all driven by drum machines and coloured by keyboards with Brian May’s guitar coming in as flavour only on occasion.”

The fourth track on Hot Space, Body Language, has been dubbed the worst song in Queen’s discography by fans, and the whole album received no more than a 3-star rating overall.

Rolling Stone gave them a 3-star, whilst the Encyclopedia of Popular Music gave a 1-star… Yikes.

Hot Space is one of the more obscure Queen albums to those who are not currently, or have ever been, active within the fandom. So we’re going to break it down a little bit, and let’s just talk about the background and context of what the hell was going on with them.

So in 1981, Queen recorded Under Pressure with David Bowie, and it’s still considered one of Queen’s staple and most popular songs. It was recorded in Montreux, and was a completely separate project to Hot Space. The band had met up with Bowie and jammed together for a while, just to see if they could come up with something to lay down and master. Of course, as most people know, bassist John Deacon came up with the iconic Under Pressure bass riff, just before they all went out to get some pizza. And by the time they’d returned to the studio, he’d forgotten it! But luckily drummer Roger Taylor remembered it.

Now, this was the first time Queen weren’t working alone; they were used to working only with their producers, never having had anyone else’s input. The two artists merged as one for the song and it pointed in the direction of a potential new road for Queen—it was looking like an exciting one.

But what went wrong during the recording of Hot Space?

Brian May recalls that there was a total change of life for all of them. They travelled to Munich and according to Brian, that’s when things started to go downhill.

Let’s talk a little bit about the studio in which they recorded the album in Munich. It was situated in the basement of a hotel, and it was called Musicland Studios. It closed in the 90s due to some road issues, so it’s no longer open. But Brian remembers this place being grim and depressing.

The band’s mental health started to deteriorate after learning some unsettling details about the place. In Brian’s words:

“A lot of people used to jump off the top of the building and kill themselves off that particular building. We didn’t know that until we got there.”

The urge to finish recording grew, and they spent months at the hotel.

The aim was to create an album that focused more on the dance elements of music due to the success of Another One Bites The Dust, as I mentioned before. They seemed to be in luck, as Freddie Mercury’s entourage at the time was concentrated with dance influences in the form of Paul Prenter.

Now, who was Paul Prenter, you ask? If you’ve seen the film, you’ll kind of already know, but here’s a bit more of an in-depth look at him.

Paul Prenter was Freddie Mercury’s personal manager from 1977 to 1986. Despite their professional relationship, the two also engaged in intimate relations, and Prenter had a huge influence over Freddie’s life during the time he worked for him. He held partial responsibility for Freddie’s excessive involvement in drugs, alcohol, and his growing promiscuity. 

Freddie was known to have fired Prenter in 1986, and shortly after it was plastered all over the news. It turns out Paul Prenter had sold personal stories to the press about Freddie… What a dick.

After receiving money from multiple press outlets, he moved back to his hometown of Belfast and spent it all—smart. He then asked Freddie for more money! After all that, he went back and asked him for money! But it’s okay, he did succumb to complications from AIDS a few months before Freddie. So… Freddie got the last laugh, it seemed.

You’re probably wondering what Paul Prenter had to do with Hot Space. After all, he wasn’t part of the band, right?

Well, Freddie’s life was ruled by the New York-inspired gay lifestyle of the 80s, particularly engaging in extreme partying and extreme promiscuity. And at the time, Freddie had suggested to the band that the music on their new album should sound like that of which they’d play in a gay bar, but those words had initially come from Paul Prenter.

It’s said that Prenter despised guitars and relentlessly referred to Brian May as old-fashioned. Roger Taylor recalled that Prenter was a “very bad influence” on the band:

“He was a very, very bad influence upon Freddie, and hence on the band. He very much wanted our music to sound like you just walked in a gay club, and I didn’t.”

The strain and tension became inevitable with the four personalities—and we all know that John, Freddie, Brian, and Roger have massive personalities. Whilst they had always experienced bickering, as most bands do, they now with the added tension, the production of the album isn’t going to go as smoothly.

“Arguments would start off as creative, but slowly became personal.”

Brian recalls that less and less time was spent in the studio and more time was spent arguing.

To put it into perspective about what life was like for the 10 months they spent recording Hot Space in Munich…A regular day recording this album went a little bit like the following:

The entourage recall waking up at 3am, working for hours, having dinner, and then roadies would mix up cocktails and other things would pursue. The band got mixed up in cocaine and various other drugs. Random women, and relentless drinking, and as any sane person will tell you, that is not a good thing.

Roger described it as an exhausting cycle day after day. Imagine doing that for 9 whole months.

Brian remembers them getting into “deep trouble emotionally” in Munich, which possibly explains why their mental states deteriorated.

Now, the Hot Space era didn’t just end when the album came out. Obviously, when an album comes out, you have to do interviews to promote your album and after months and months of bad influences and arguments, the band’s relationship had kind of broken down. Things continued in quite a tense fashion. 

In fact, Freddie was left very unhappy and depressed after Hot Space wrapped up—it lasted a while, and he was completely immersed in places and habits that remained detrimental to his fate. Freddie became passive during interviews and defensive on certain questions concerning anything but current projects.

His attitude during the 1982 press conference in Europe was already standoffish and it was extremely obvious that he didn’t want to be there. The body language of the others, especially Brian, speaks volumes. The mood is low and they all seem exhausted.

Another nationwide interview the band gave in promotion for the album presented the group separated; Freddie was notably disinterested as the others spoke. There was even a moment where Freddie responds to the interviewer’s question with “let’s break up tomorrow” as a joke. But, watching it, you can’t help but feel there’s some truth to his words. Nobody laughed, even Roger looked uncomfortable by it!

One of the more well-known interviews from this era was with Brian and Roger, which displayed multiple moments of awkwardness with them both trying to make jokes and seem like they’re happy with what they’d produced, making up amateur excuses as to why they created something with a different sound. In my opinion, they just didn’t seem very happy. Do we even need to mention the “shut up” from Roger, and then the succeeding comment from Brian about Mack having the best drum sound?

Then, we have the iconic 1984 Freddie interview, where he left viewers stunned with his answers:

“I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you,” “I’m not an artist, I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.”

The long-term effects of what happened behind the scenes of Hot Space were everlasting and turned the group into four completely different people than they were prior to 1982. 

As I’ve already mentioned, Hot Space wasn’t received well upon its release, and there are still very strong opinions about it today. Brian stated in 2014 that it isn’t the band’s worst album, but the timing of its release was just wrong. As time goes on, more people begin to accept the Hot Space album as just another reason why Queen is one of the most versatile groups of all time, with them branching out into very different styles to what they’d done earlier in their career, like Sheer Heart Attack, News Of The World, etc…

80s culture looked down upon disco and funk, so reception for Hot Space was bound to be less than amazing. However, today, all styles of music are simultaneously celebrated, and people enjoy the album more now than they did 40 years ago.

So in conclusion, recording Hot Space was a difficult period for Queen. It’s horrible to think about your idols going through the kind of thing they did in the early-mid 80s, influenced by not very nice people. But focusing on the album itself, it’s truly not a bad album at all. Granted, the timing of the release wasn’t the best for Queen, but it holds up as a fan favourite today.

If you haven’t heard any of the songs from Hot Space, besides Under Pressure, I highly recommend you check it out. It’s very different to what Queen usually did and I think it’s worth a listen.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. Let me know if you liked this little… post, whatever the hell it is, and if I should do more posts like this. I enjoy throwing all my useless knowledge onto a page lol.

[malleablemusic]

i avoided listening to radiohead based on the bad vibes I received from radiohead fans in middle+high school. my friend's partner and i were recently discussing our very opposite music tastes, and how her mother raised her on radiohead. my immigrant mother does not know radiohead even exists. this is an experiment in putting myself in to my friend catie's shoes. here's my review of ok computer:

airbag: 3/5 stars

feels like the way the ending of the breakfast club felt

"in an interstellar burst / i am back to save the universe"

pro car safety song, love it

wear your seatbelts and check your airbags

love the ending of the guitar strum tapering out

paranoid android: 3.8/5

ok rangee!! he has a beautiful voice

"ambition makes you look pretty ugly / kicking squealing, gucci little piggy" obsessed

feels like this song is multiple genres and somehow punk and funky

the guitar solo crescendo then slowing it back down then back into guitar solo again... his mind

subterranean homesick alien: 3.6/5

love how mysterious and discomfiting the guitar riffs are

encapsulates what i imagine the feeling of floating alone in space is like

a little underwhelming

exit music (for a film): 4.1/5

kind of boring intro

i like the harmonizing chorus in the background

2:49 beat drop hittttt the intro didn't have to be so long and quiet but the build up was almost worth it

3:20 oh... my god.. i am ascending

he sings "we hope that you choke" so angelically

i wish i could capture how the second half of the song made me feel into a bottle

let down: 3.2/5

i also feel crushed like a bug in the ground

him hitting the high note in "you know where you are" brought tears to my eyes

karma police: 3.3/5

this sounds like it was in skins (uk)

"her hitler hairdo is making me feel ill" crazy statement

i love the harmonizing "ahhs" in the background during the outtro

fitter happier: 4/5

very scary voice wow

terrifying background sounds

this is a masterpiece

"fitter, healthier and more productive / a pig / in a cage / on antibiotics" this is the american dream

electioneering: 4.5/5

very timely yikes

"when i go forwards you go backwards" so real! speak on it kurt!

from minute three on i felt like tearing apart my room and going on a rampage this is a call to riot

climbing up the walls: 4.2/5

very creepily romantic

if haunting adeline by h.d carlton was made into a movie this song would play in the trailer

im sensing a theme of long guitar intro and outros and honestly its growing on me

him screaming at the end was impeccable, 10/10, zero notes

no surprises: 5/5

i cant lie and say ive never heard this song, it has had a grip on me for years

heart is aching at the intro and eyes welled up uncontrollably

"a heart that's full up like a landfill / a job that slowly kills you / bruises that won't heal" stabbed me in the heart.

"you look so tired, unhappy / bring down the government / they don't, they don't speak for us" if i was a teenager when this song came out i think i would have had a very unhealthy obsession with mr cobain

had to lay on the floor for this one

a quiet life and a quiet death...no surprises. im weeping

SUCH A PRETTY HOUSE. AND SUCH A PRETTY GARDEN!

lucky: 2.4/5

who is sarah. this would have crushed me to hear as the obsessed teen i likely would have been

didn't wow me, not sure if it's because it followed a perfect song and therefore was held to a higher standard, or if it was just boring

the tourist 3/5

he is so right. i should slow down. sometimes i do get overcharged

i love love love when he belts. the control he had over his voice is so impressive

honestly, without no surprises i am not a huge fan of this album, but i definitely do understand and see the appeal. i will definitely be listening to more radiohead in the future ! overall 3.7

[dustedmagazine]

Tomb Mold — The Enduring Spirit (20 Buck Spin)

Photo by Colin Medley

Brief excursus into the Biz: It may be a sign of how big Tomb Mold is getting that 20 Buck Spin had publicists hold off on widely distributing promotional materials for The Enduring Spirit until after the record had dropped into its wider markets for purchase and circulation (NB, this reviewer has no illusions about his relative significance in the Biz, thank goodness — but much juicier metal review venues like Grizzly Butts and No Clean Singing seem to be rushing text to press, having received their copies of the music relatively late in the game). Certainly it’s significant that Pitchfork has the death metal outfit on its radar, publishing a “band announces forthcoming record” notice for The Enduring Spirit and, more urgently, including it on a list of “9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now.” Yikes. Is Tomb Mold ready to be exhumed and exposed to the light?

The album art for The Enduring Spirit suggests that’s the case. A feminine, humanoid figure greets sunshine and verdant plant life, arising from vaguely mechanical and organic forms that root into a soppy, brown, slithering morass. Maybe it’s not meant to be allegorical, but check out these lyrics from album opener “The Perfect Memory (Phantasm of Aura)”: “We are given the heat and friction of light / To moult in our delirious memories / Now we dream only in familiar depths / What in the bitter night speaks to us?” That sure sounds like allegory: the “familiar depths” and “bitter night” of death metal, and a band that want “to moult” and change in “the heat and friction of light.” Sure, Max Klebanoff growls the words in death metal’s characteristically harsh fashion, but the song’s precise, musical riffage and super clean production project the tune toward brighter terrain.

There are listeners that will be drawn to and make much of the brightest moments on The Enduring Spirit: the breezy string work at the beginning and in the middle section of “Will of Whispers”; the guitar tone and most theatrical moments in “Servants of Possibility,” which may put some in the mind of Steve Howe, c. 1971; the long slide through melodic atmospherics in the second half of “The Enduring Spirit of Calamity.” This reviewer prefers the tougher stuff — like the signature riff of “Flesh as Armour” and the neck-snapping dynamics of “Angelic Fabrications.” But others will point to the clean, proggy elements of the record and comparisons to Dream Unending and Blood Incantation will surely abound.

In some ways, the comparisons are valid. Guitarist Derrick Vella is one half of Dream Unending, and that project’s experiments in “ambient death metal” (as we seem to be calling it) have no doubt influenced his contributions to Tomb Mold. And the SF concepts that Tomb Mold has worked through on previous records, like Planetary Clairvoyance (2019), resemble Blood Incantation’s space-opera sensibility. But inasmuch as all that is true, the culture industry is no doubt delighted at the prospect of death metal bands that are somehow more “musical,” or more “serious” — bands that Pitchfork can call purveyors of “Best New Music” alongside Boy Genius and Big Thief and Lana Del Rey. They can have it, and Tomb Mold can have the bright lights. I’ll stay in the dark, where things are moister and nastier, and generally more interesting.

Jonathan Shaw

[musicinsurancecompany]

Why Protect Your Instrument with A Music Insurance Company?

Picture this: you pour your heart and soul into your music. Every note and riff you play - flows through your instrument - making your gear an extension of yourself - a medium to translate your emotions into sound. Isn't it? Whether you are a seasoned pro gracing the stage or a beginner learning your first chords, that device is precious. It is your voice, your partner in musical crime. But accidents happen, life throws situations unpleasant to deal with, and the last thing you want is to worry about your beloved instrument being damaged, stolen, or lost. Right?

That's where Music Insurance Company steps in. It serves as a supportive roadie for your musical journey. A customer-centric firm offers peace of mind so you can focus on what truly matters - making music.

Understanding the Value of Your Instrument

Let's face it! Your tool is more than just a price tag. It is the countless late nights you spent practicing, the rush of nailing that solo live, and the way it just feels - right in your hands. It is a friend, a partner in your musical journey. But dear readers, even the best friends have accidents. That expensive violin you saved up for? Or your trusty old guitar? Good companies get it that these are investments. They understand the emotional connection you have with your instrument. That is why they offer flexible plans to protect your musical companion, financially and sentimentally.

Why Choose a Music Insurance Service Provider?

Here's what sets a dedicated Music Insurer apart and makes it the perfect choice for your instrument insurance needs:

Unmatched Expertise

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Tailored Coverage

Forget cookie-cutter insurance! Your gear is one-of-a-kind, and so should your protection. At a customer-oriented insurance firm, they ditch the "one size fits all" approach. They offer an array of coverage options, letting you pick and choose what fits your valuable instrument, your lifestyle, and your musical adventures. Are you a globe-trotting rockstar hitting every city on the map? Or a chill weekend warrior jamming in your basement? They have a plan that fits you perfectly, so you can focus on making music, not stressing about your gear.

All-Risk Protection

Life happens. You fumble a pick during a solo, accidentally knock over your mic stand, or (yikes!) leave your beloved and priceless guitar case out in a downpour. Standard insurance might shrug and say "Sorry, not our problem." But at a trustworthy Music Insurance Company, they get it. That's why they offer all-risk protection. It's like a superhero cape for your instrument, shielding it from accidental damage, loss, and even the wrath of Mother Nature. Comprehensive coverage means you can breathe easy, knowing you're protected against a whole lot of "what ifs.

Streamlined Claims Process

If the worst does occur and your instrument gets damaged, stolen, or lost, don't worry! Your insurance provider will be there to make the claims process painless, not add to your stress. Their dedicated team isn't just about forms and paperwork. They're empathetic music lovers who understand how important your device is. They'll work tirelessly to get you the help you need fast, so you can get back to making music as soon as possible. Think of them as your musical pit crew, ready to get you back on track.

Competitive Rates

A reliable and reputed company offers top-notch coverage without breaking the bank. They know protecting your passion should not cost a fortune, so they keep their rates competitive. You deserve peace of mind without having to choose between renting and keeping your precious tools and gears safe.

[creativenicocorner]

SUMMARY: 

"Dayman! Fighter of the Nightman! Champion of the Sun! You're a master of karate and friendship for everyone, DAYMAN! AaAHAAAH!!" - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee." - Act II Scene 1, Macbeth.

[the-girl-who-cried-wolf]

5sos song recs please? 💞

5sos song recs!!! my favourite thing to talk abt!! i'll do my best to try and give you a bit of range here, instead of just listing all their albums. i will no doubt ramble far too much so i'll put a cut in here now-

okay so i'll start off by giving you the link to my 5sos spotify playlist, which has pretty much all of their songs, in rough chronological order!! it's just super handy for listening to instead of shuffling their discovery bc they have sooo many songs, and so many double ups and extra versions of songs etc. so this playlist keeps it nice and neat and easy.

basically, i would recommend every single song on that playlist. but. that is a lot to throw at you at once, so i'll break it into the different genres and vibes of their 5 albums, and pick maybe 3-5 songs from each, so you can get a taste test from every era?? (there's so many different ways i could break this up for you but i'll do it this way. it seems simpler. also pls feel free to dm anytime if u want to talk abt music or 5sos i would actually love that sm)

( **SIDENOTE - all the links i put on each of the songs are just links to the spotify tracks/albums/eps, so i hope you use spotify ?? kjndfh sorry if u dont, u can just ignore the links then)

let's start with 5SOS5. i'm pretty sure you already know at least some of the songs (Bad Omens and Older, at least? from what i know anyway) so you've had a taste of the Amazing Vibes that this album offers!! there's a lot of different sounds packed into this long album, but i'll just throw a few songs at you, that maybe encompasses this era? hopefully ??? lets go with COMPLETE MESS, Best Friends, Red Line and Moodswings. also Emotions. and Bloodhound. (choosing only a few songs was the most painful experience of my life, i want to add so many more. i love this whole album SO MUCH. also, my personal favourite is HAZE <33. just adding that as yet another song rec here bc i literally cannot stop myself)

okay, now moving onto CALM!! this album is like, sonically a lot darker than the other albums,, i think? the vibes are very cool tho, i listen to this album so often. (im just going to assume that you have at least already heard Easier and Teeth, sorry if you haven't, but they're the great popular ones from this album <3) (i'm slowly but steadily realising as i type all this that i have no idea how many 5sos songs you actually know. yikes) OKAY SO to choose a few recs from this album, i'm gonna go with No Shame, Best Years, Lover Of Mine, Not In The Same Way, and (my personal fav!!) Kill My Time! this whole album is pretty damn awesome tho, so you really cant go wrong here.

moving on to Youngblood. i love this album so much, i listen to it literally all the fucking time bc the vibes are just so great. (Youngblood and CALM are easily in my top 5 comfort albums tbh. just some fun emma lore for you there <3.) so many songs on this album have probably the best guitar riffs ever, and the bass lines!!! ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!! so amazing !!!! im also going to assume that you've heard the song Youngblood, so excluding that masterpiece, i'll pick some other Must Listen Songs: Want You Back, Lie To Me, Talk Fast, and Ghost Of You. but bc this album is so damn amazing, im also gonna give honourable mentions to Valentine, Why Won't You Love Me, and Babylon! (there are also three target exclusive specials, which aren't on spotify, but When You Walk Away is my fav from those extra three. they are all on youtube, the other two are here and here if u want to listen <3)

now, onto Sounds Good Feels Good!! this album serves some pretty great pop punk vibes, so if that's your kind of genre then you'll totally love it! some songs recs for you: Jet Black Heart, Waste The Night, Castaway, San Francisco, and - what is arguably the best song off this album - Outer Space / Carry On! i love this album to pieces, for the lyrics and the sound of it all, it really is such a special record. i really hope you like it <3 (also quick shout out to The Space Between A Rock And A Hard Place, from the B-Sides EP. long ass title, i know, but i really love this song)

okay, time for their debut album, 5 Seconds Of Summer! i'm sure you've heard of She Looks So Perfect already, so skipping that, here's some songs for you- Never Be, Everything I Didn't Say, Long Way Home, End Up Here, and Close As Strangers. i do love so many songs from this album, (and the B-Sides EP), but tbh there are some songs that i just can't listen to. the lyrics that teenage boys write can be...interesting at best, sometimes. so anyways. those songs aren't on my playlist RIP.

now that we've been through all their studio albums, i think it's time for some other shout outs. starting from the early days and moving forward - there's their first EP that they released, Somewhere New, where you can get an earful of their strong aussie accents LOL. another shoutout goes to Disconnected, one of my all time fav 5sos songs. the biggest shoutout i have goes to the Meet You There Tour Live album, which is from their 2018 tour, and has a great mix of songs from Youngblood and earlier. (i personally love 5sos's live shows, it brings their songs to a whole other level. but it's not everyone's cup of tea so i would try out their studio albums first to get a taste for their music before diving into the live versions). my final shoutout goes to 2011, the song that they made for their 10 year anniversary! im not sure if u know it already, but it's pretty much the perfect blend of all their eras, put into one amazing song. i love it endlessly <3

anddd that just abt concludes this massive essay i wrote abt 5sos!! thank you for asking this and im so sorry it took so long to answer. i hope this unnecessarily detailed response will make up for the wait <3. have fun listening to my favourite band ever, zoya, im sure you will find some songs that you'll love!!

[success-and-corruption]

Gauze Album Review

Because some people want my thoughts on DEG albums I will be reviewing them so I figure I would start with their first full-length one. Please leave a comment on your thoughts on this album and my review.

Track 1: Gauze -mode of adam- (it's actually GARZE -mode of adam-)

This track is okay for what it is. It starts out very dark with circus music but then it becomes fast and hectic. Altogether I don't think it really sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Track 2: Schwein no Isu

Chair of the pig. This track definitely fits with Gauze in my opinion. I really like the opening guitar riff and the bass complements it very well. The German matches the track numbers on the back of the album which I appreciate. My boy Die wrote the music for this song so that's always a plus. I also always love some gang vocals. "Geist seele wille zelle, geist seele wille zelle"

Track 3: Yurameki

Now this song really cements the fact that Gauze is a VK album. Written by Shinya this one perfectly captures that early DEG sound. It's also nice to hear Kyo's clean vocals throughout the entire song. The instruments all work well together as well and I don't think there's much awkwardness with the transitions in this song. Yurameki is one of my favorite songs on the album.

Track 4: raison detre

First we had German and now we have French. Raison detre (or more properly Raison D'être which means reason to be) is a fun track and one I used to know how to play on the bass. The electronic beat and the sound of the guitars get me so pumped despite the... less than positive lyrics. A+ guitar solo.

Track 5: 304 -Goshitsu, Hakushi no Sakura

This song is good in that it's very different from the other tracks on the album. It's dark and Die plays acoustic in this one which is typically associated with a more calm style but this song is fast paced and the music video for it is beautiful visually but the way that the members portray mental illness is not really that accurate. Additionally I think that vocally this is one of Kyo's weakest work on the album.

Track 6: Cage

I actually do know how to play this on the bass and in fact it was one of the first songs I learned when I picked up the instrument. It's also I think one of the few songs that doesn't have the bass in standard tuning, instead it's in drop D. Cage starts out with a calming music box playing the melody of the chorus and then it quickly transitions to a faster tempo with a killer bassline with a bass solo throw into the mix. We all know it. We all love it. This song is very fun even though Kyo sings about a person being abused by their mother and in turn abuses their girlfriend. The transitions could have been a bit smoother in my opinion. It's still a great song to listen to and play on the bass.

Track 7: Tsumi to Batsu

I really don’t like this song very much. The guitars are boring and too repetitious and although I don’t expect anything different from Kyo lyrically (meaning I don't expect any happy lyrics) but these lyrics just don’t do it for me. It's an okay song for what it is but it's definitely one of my least favorite DEG songs in general. I much prefer the remake.

Track 8: Mazohyst of Decadence

This song is surpisingly one of my favorites on the album and another song I know on the bass (but really the bass is super simple in this one). As most people most likely know the lyrics are from the viewpoint of a fetus being aborted. I will not be getting into the abortion debate for obvious but everything in this song just works. The guitars in the beginning, the baby going from laughing to crying, Kyo’s vocals during the chorus. The ambiance and slow tempo really work to paint a very hopeless landscape and that tone setting is what I think DEG does best with their longer songs.

Track 9: Yokan

BOP ALERT. This song definitely deliberately placed after Mazohyst to cheer the listeners up. Yokan is a song in which the instrumentals don’t match the lyrics. The guitars, bass, and drums all paint a bubbly and energetic picture while Kyo sings about a guy no longer loving his girlfriend and mistreating her because he no longer loves her. The lyrics are a very stark contrast from the instrumental part of the song but that's DEG for you. Like Yurameki I think this song is a great way to showcase that VK sound. Didn’t the Yokan single get released like a week before Gauze? Weird. 

Track 10: Mask

“While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.” 

This was a snippet from Charles Lindbergh in his Des Moines speech in 1941 in which he blames the British, Jewish people, and the Roosevelt administration for leading the USA into WW II. BIG yikes. I think this song is about how people shouldn’t just follow orders for the sake of following orders which was the central theme of the Nuremberg Trials in which the Nazis were being tried as war criminals. Or maybe it's just about a corrupt government? Sorry for the history lesson but I felt that the context was important to understand the song. On to the musicality of the song: this song took awhile to grow on me because it seemed kind of messy and like I couldn't ever catch a break. It just keeps going... but eventually I learned to appreciate it for what it is. Again not really my favorite song but it's also not a song I think about very much.

Track 11: Zan

Kyo’s breathing and laughing set the stage for this song. The song itself is rather jarring and in my opinion a bit hard to listen to. I much prefer the remake but this is not a bad song. Not really much to say about this one other than it's definitely the heaviest track on the entire album.

Track 12: Akuro no Oka

What a song. I really love all of it and I also know how to play this on the bass minus the solo. This song feels like a story in music form and I love Kaoru’s hat in the music video for it. The wind sound Die's acoustic strumming opens the song and continues throughout the song as Kaoru, Toshiya, and Shinya play. When I listen to it I can feel the gloominess and sadness that this song portrays through the instruments and Kyo's vocals. This song was written in A minor I think so it makes sense that it would sound sad. Kaoru's guitar solo is melancholy and Toshiya's bass solo provokes some sort of emotioanl response from me. I think it’s a perfect way to end this album.

Track 13 (?): Gauze -mode of eve-

This is technically part of Akuro no Oka but it’s definitely different. Not much to say. It’s spooky and Kyo counts down in English. 

Bonus time!

Of course I have the limited edition

Bonus track 1: I’ll (single version)

I have this single as well and I like how it’s the same size as a Gamecube game disk. With that out of the way, I think this song really doesn’t fit with the overall mood of the album but the bassline sure is catchy. 

Bonus track 2: Jealous (single version)

This song fits the mood of the album more, but not quite. I also have this single. I haven’t listened to this song in a long time so I don’t really have much to say. Sorry. 

Overall this is a very promising first full-length album and a great introduction to early DEG and their past VK style. In general I enjoy their heavier stuff but this album is just a good time all around. I rate it 8/10 because some of the songs just don’t do it for me. 

That’s it! My first ever album review. I want to hear your thoughts because I’m sure many people will disagree with me. 

[penstrokes]

The Bad Batch Season 1 Episode 9 "Bounty Lost" Reaction

Are the kaminoans physically unable to speak at a faster pace or is it just for gravitas?

Spoilers below:

What I Loved:

-Omega being smart and badass without too much help from other people

-The guitar riff when Cad Bane comes down the ladder

-The whole foggy environment of this episode

-Cad Bane vs Fennec Shand

👀 Moments:

- Yikes Crosshair is on the warpath

- So...Omega is literally like a female Boba? (Alpha, Omega)

- FENNEC SHAND

- SNOKE CLONES????? (also ewwww though)

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

- I see why Boba Fett and Fennec Shand get along. They were both probably like "Cad Bane? That piece of shit."

- It's funny that Fennec Shand and Cad Bane are actually both hired by kaminoans, just...different kaminoans. Also, it seems we have a kaminoan civil war brewing 👀

- Poor Todo deserves better. Someone get this droid a loving family

[badlydrawnmanic]

you’ve all wanted it, and i’m not ready to go to sleep yet, so here’s the latest installment of the sonic underground rewatch!

episode 6 thoughts under the cut!

• unrelated to the episode but there was some lego ninjago commercial that showed like. non-lego versions of the main characters and it looked nice. don’t know if it was for a show or the website idk i wasn’t paying attention • [GUITAR RIFF] SONIC- • i will literally never get tired of the opening theme and you can’t change my mind, i would die for a remaster of this. it doesn’t even have to be a cover. gimme a live performance and i will cry • “tangled webs”. spider concerns already • ooh, swatbot factory. interesting • manic just slid down a little rocky hill on his ass and that’s gotta hurt • sonia stop shining that laser pointer in manic’s eyes you’re gonna kill him • “switch six, switch six...” reminded me of the fun fact that your brain can only identify numbers up to a maximum of 4 or 5 at a glance, i forget which. but like... notice how if you only look at something very briefly you wouldn’t be able to immediately know “oh there’s 27 objects there” but you can very quickly identify 1-4 • sonia stop hitting manic with the drone what is wrong with you • some of these background characters are passable and some of them are hideous, there’s no in-between

• oh it’s the lion boy!! his voice is weird but it’s him!! • god dingo’s face is all kinds of fucked up in this close up as he’s talking • why is robotnik’s cape flowing so far behind him when he’s walking at a somewhat slow pace • i find it funny when eggman’s henchmen mock him when he’s not around, but i didn’t expect sleet to do that • “intruder .8 kilograms? what?? • how does it weigh a drone that is hovering in mid-air • somehow dingo identifies the drone as being piloted by sonia despite it being a hunk of metal with cameras on it • dingo being or looking like in the case of my headcanon a grown man and slobbering over sonia is kinda freaky (it’s partially why i made the hc so it’s less yikes but it’s still uncomfortable and i’m definitely gonna tone it down because fuck) • sleet don’t hit him!! • sonia is clearly frustrated during her conversation with manic (he’s being reckless as fuck) but the animators decided to give her a dead eyed smile for the whole scene • i wonder how they made the mechanical sounds? like the electronic shweeshweeshwee of the robots walking or the whoosh of doors opening? foley stuff is fascinating to me and i wanna know if they had to do any weird shit

• sleet is monologuing about how he hears the pitter patter of manic’s little feet and oh my god his eyes • how is dingo sneaking up behind manic he’s so fucking huge and noisy • sleet says “sylvia” before whacking the drone out of the air with what looks like an entire swatbot he just sort of picked up? i don’t get the reference and since when is he so strong • okay in the next shot it’s just an arm but still • “sometimes you just have to get their attention”? • cool transition between scenes with the camera glitching and shutting down from the perspective of the drone, that’s neat • dingo picks up sonia but wasn’t he just behind manic? once again the pacing is confusing me • “oh, ick” me too sonia • manic and sonia are tied up and were but in gigantic chairs and it looks so funny • “now, sarah” okay i get the “sylvia” thing now, sleet’s just forgetting sonia’s name somehow • sonia says “twit-face” and i feel like she could be more clever than that • “whatever, sophia” • “where’s sonic!?” [NYOOM] • sonic’s voice sounds... really weird, is that what jaleel white sounds like when he isn’t trying to sound all nasally and shit? also he burps and it’s gross • god the movement in this scene is very janky in general • sonia starts lecturing sonic but gets interrupted by a laser blast and manic pipes in like “can we talk about this later?” • sonia strong • is sonic just spilling lava everywhere??? • you’d think there’d be more sounds here • “am i good or what?” feels like it was pulled from satam? • “you’re insufferable” “thank you” • sonia’s voice is so shrill jesus christ • i feel like this is a pretty good confrontation of how sonic not working as a team with the other two can cause pretty significant problems • sonia i don’t think robotnik would throw you in prison, that’s what the roboticizer is for and i don’t think he’d keep y’all separate from that • cyrus does a weird double take and i think it’s an animation error • this cyrus kid is pretty sus- who is this hippie dude- • CYRUS SUS CYRUS SUS • there was deadass just a normal animal bird with some kind of accessory on its neck as a background character • damn it cyrus • SONG TIME??? • apparently no • once again manic and sonia are tied up which lasts 2 seconds • aosth slow-mo beam, purple flavor • what are these background characters they’re so ugly • OH NO I REMEMBER WHAT SANCTUARY IS NOW • children... i’d love to see the tiny babes but they’re undoubtedly ugly as fuck • ROBOTNIK WANTS TO MURDER CHILDREN • one of the kids looks like reptar • SONG TIME NOW • why is this so. idk, whimsical? idk how to describe this but i already don’t like it • they forgot to draw manic’s head quills in a shot • why is cyrus looking so pissed at these children • sounds like a weird off brand christmas song. don’t like it very much but i guess it isn’t bad. maybe a 2/10 • sdnjksg assaulting your siblings with a cloud of flour sounds fun if not wasteful but still, manic seems to be enjoying his little tech demo • sonia says “this place is gross” and manic goes “hey, you’re talking about my childhood home” and i think it’s a good thing that the show didn’t just forget where they all came from and how this can create very minor conflict between them? like manic and sonia seem to slight each other rather frequently when it comes to sonia’s attitude towards dirty places and manic finding it comfortable there due to familiarity even if it wasn’t all that good. i can relate to that • sonic walks off the right side of the screen after refusing some goggles then. pops up and puts on the shades again? i don’t get it • oh my god sonic knocks cyrus (and manic by extension) over and they literally just. rotate the asset in place and leave them planking. there wasn’t a water splash or change of pose or anything • how does sonic zoom past a swat bot looking directly at him without triggering any alarms? why didn’t it notice him • why are there so many regretful traitors on this show • how does sonic not notice the clearly a hologram man in front of him • god the animation in this episode in general is abyssmal • ah jeez manic and sonia have been captured again • “attention sonic hedgehog” • OH NO CYRUS’ DAD but the expression he made in response to seeing him roboticized killed it

• i know he didn’t snort here but i can feel the little “snrk” sound here. it was at this moment he knew he fucked up • PULL THE LEVER, SLEET • that little drone thing is fucking insane, it melted the entire roboticizer?? • i much prefer when background characters resemble actual animals • aww hug • poor cyrus :( • GOD SONIC AND SONIA SIT DOWN TO COMFORT HIM BUT MANIC LAYS DOWN ALL DRAMATIC JUST SMILING, READ THE ROOM BUD-

[nakedpersimmon]

Samantha Juste Post #3: Been A Long Time Since the Party This week's final post honoring Samantha comes courtesy of a story shared by Chip Douglas. The parties hosted by Micky and Samantha in the '60s and early '70s are the stuff of legend, and the following anecdote proves no exception. With appearances by Ringo, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, and more, the grace and class displayed by Samantha in the midst of (and following) such chaotic madness set her head and shoulders above the rest, and remind us why we'll miss her so much. With thanks to Chip for sharing this after Samantha passed in 2014.

“In the mid 1970s, I was living in Laurel Canyon across the street from my dear friend and singing buddy Henry Diltz. Micky and Samatha Dolenz lived down the road nearby, and I spent quite a lot of time with the two of them, as well as Davy and Linda Jones. The two couples were quite close in those days,and I was frequently invited to various gatherings, parties, dinners, screenings and so forth. There was one late night party I particularly remember.

One early evening, the phone rang, and it was Micky:

“Chip…Ringo, George, and Harry Nilsson are coming over! Could you stop by and bring some pot?”

I said sure, and my then-girlfriend Suzie–who had a set of false front teeth–and I hopped in the car as quick as we could and drove down to Micky’s place. We arrived before the celebrity guests did, but soon enough a couple of limos pulled up, and a small entourage consisting of Ringo, George, Harry, Mal Evans, Jim Keltner, Ravi Shankar’s son, and a couple of ladies and other friends came up the stairs into the house.

Remembering the reason I had been invited in the first place, I quickly rolled and lit up a doobie and handed it to George Harrison.

“Oh, no thank you,” he said.

Feeling slightly embarrassed, I tried passing it to a few others with no luck until it came to Harry, who was a friend of mine, and he said “Sure.”

I myself had a hit or two, and my brain began to go into producer mode. In those days, I carried my cassette recorder with me everywhere, and I thought to myself, I’ve got to find a way to get this gang downstairs into Micky’s recording studio, and get a jam session going.

Meanwhile, Suzie was going about the living room with her little pipe, offering everyone a hit of the dreaded angel dust (PCP). At one point, she offered some to George, who again said, “No thank you,“ this time followed by, “And, if that’s elephant dust, don’t give it to anybody I like.”

Harry Nilsson was always happy to try anything intoxicating that came his way, and he had more than a few hits as the evening progressed. Mal Evans was enjoying the stuff too, and Suzie would also have a little hit herself. For a little while, she and Harry and Mal disappeared to return to my house to get more of the ‘stash.’

Finally, at about 6:00 AM, after hours of watching people wandering about from room to room looking for something to be happening, or someone of interest to hang with, I heard that Ringo had gone downstairs to the studio.

This could be it! I thought, and made straight away for the studio.

There I found Ringo sitting alone at the drum set with sticks in his hands, playing a slow rock beat. I quickly grabbed the bass, turned on the amp, and started playing an R&B like riff to what he was doing. So after about 35 seconds of semi-grooving together without anyone singing any vocal, he abruptly stopped, plopped his sticks on the snare drum, stood up and said with a kind of grunt:

“Well ya can’t really get much going with just bass and drums-” and left the room.

Crap, I thought, that may have been the only chance for a jam at this party. The sun is beginning to come up, and pretty soon people will be leaving.

Imagine my joy, however, when a few minutes later Harry came down the stairs and sat down at the piano. Everyone else soon followed, and the jam session began.

Jim Keltner took to the drums, Ringo grabbed a tambourine, George was on electric guitar, Ravi’s son began strumming away on the acoustic, while attentively watching every move and chord his mentor George would make. I pressed the record button on my cassette recorder and proceeded to ‘get into it’ on the bass.

We all began following Harry and what he was doing. He was certainly well ‘dusted’ by this time, and the things that were coming out of his brain were definitely bizarre. He began playing in unusual time signatures like 9/8 and 7/4, which wasn’t exactly easy for everyone to follow, but nevertheless, the entourage had a strange avant-garde musical unity that seemed to continue.

We played on and on, while other normal folks in Laurel Canyon were by now having coffee and getting ready for work. After a while, Suzie, who had been sitting cross-legged but with her face flat on the rug, abruptly stood up and disappeared up the stairs. I remember thinking that I hoped she was all right, but I didn’t want to deprive the gang of a bass player by running after her to check, so I just kept playing.

After a while Ringo, who had been sitting on the floor in front of one of those large, puffy pillow chair-seats,began to nod out from the monotony and the tambourine sounds grew faint. Harry stopped eventually, too, and spoke:

“Rich, you still with us?”

Ringo with eyes closed and reclining on the pillow, raised the tambourine and jangled it sleepily.

The sounds of the entourage started up again. By this time, the tempo count was something that I’m quite sure no human has ever attempted to play before, and I noticed then that Micky, who had been in the control room of the studio all the while, was nowhere to be seen.

He soon returned and seemed concerned and agitated as he rushed over to me.

“Chip, you’d better get upstairs; Suzie is freaking out up there!”

Yikes,I thought. Now what?

I bolted up the stairs from the studio and Samantha grabbed me by the arm and led me over to the living room couch, which happened to be in a darker part of the room, underneath a small overhanging part of a loft above.

There I found Suzie swinging her head violently from side to side and saying “No, no,no, no, no, no, no, no,” repeatedly. It was a constant unstoppable stream of nos at the rate of approximately two per second. I had no idea what to do except to call out to her and try to snap her out of it. I picked her up in my arms and carried her out the door.

Around 4:30 PM that same day, she was still sleeping it off at my place when the phone rang. It was Samantha.

“Chip, could you come over please? I have something here for you.”

She sounded a bit stern and humorless. I got in the car and drove back down to the Dolenz residence. I walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. Samantha opened it directly and handed me what seemed to be a wad of several Kleenex tissues.

“Here,” she said. “It’s Suzie’s teeth.”

My heart skipped a couple of beats as I said thanks, turned and walked back toward my car.”

[dustedmagazine]

Häxenzijrkell — Urgrund (Amor Fati)

The first 27 minutes of Urgrund, the new LP from German black metal band Häxenzijrkell, constitute a sustained sonic vortex. Mid-to-down-tempo riffs growl and shriek, mimicking the sounds of glaciers calving; the percussive thunder is precise, and while the strikes are spare, they reverberate with considerable force. The song’s melodic structures are simple, but they are indeed melodic, imbuing the maelstroms of “Die Entschleierung” and “Von Zeit und Form” with magnetic power. The songs draw you in and suck you down, into dark, deliberately swirling depths. As the title of “Die Entschleierung” indicates, it feels as though something is being revealed, a cryptic message that cuts through the inky pitch of those deeps. The experience is heavy, musically and in relation to a dominant sense of ponderous profundity. In a word: Yikes.

So, some other words: Urgrund, Entschleierung, Zeit, all philosophically thick, and the German makes things sound sort of Heideggerian. One envisions lots of misty, Alpine mountainsides; spiritually impenetrable thickets; long, arcane discoursing on concepts like “dwelling” and “Dasein.” All that’s needed is a night sky, a line of skiers bearing torches and Leni Riefenstahl, ruddy cheeks aglow, leading the way. Those are loaded names, signaling varying degrees of collaboration with the Third Reich’s cultural wing — and likely sensationalist, low-hanging fruit to pluck in context of black metal. This reviewer has no clue what positions the duo (identified only as P and MK, in cultish black metal style) in Häxenzijrkell take in the ongoing NSBM/RABM schisms, if any position at all. Lots of bands have declared themselves Artists (my capital A, ironizing intended) ensconced in lofty spaces above the petty fray of the political. Sorry, folks: if it’s social, and especially if money is changing hands, it’s political.  

What about the music? It’s quite good, if a little less than stylistically dynamic. The record’s third and final track, “Der Pfad der Finsternis” (for us Anglos: “The Path of Darkness”), picks up the pace to a steadily forced march, which soon breaks into a trot. Whichever of the duo, MK or P, is assigned vocal duties does a lot of groaning and yelling. The guitars intensify all the sustained menace. Perhaps the best thing about Häxenzijrkell is the tone that MK generates, which is steely and molten to equal extents. Not “molten steel”; it doesn’t flow so much as it crunches. The guitars on Urgrund sound like steel being torn asunder amid volatile volcanic activity. It’s a compelling sound that this reviewer will happily dwell with for long swaths of that slowly passing Zeit — so long as Frau Riefenstahl stays out of the frame. 

Jonathan Shaw

[randomvarious]

The Offspring - “Session” Punk-O-Rama, Volume 1 Song released in 1992. Compilation released in 1995. Punk Rock

The Offspring are one of punk rock’s longest enduring and most successful bands. They’ve been around since 1984 and have smashed both the indie and commercial realms. They were one of a handful of groups that were responsible for punk rock’s mainstream resurgence in the 90s, which was thanks in large part to their signing with Epitaph Records. But it was actually a long haul for them to even land on Epitaph, and when they did eventually sign there between ‘91 and ‘92, Epitaph wasn’t nearly the juggernaut label that it is today. 

In retrospect, The Offspring actually ended up being one of the integral bands who laid the groundwork for Epitaph’s success, because just a few short years after landing The Offspring, and for a brief period of time, Epitaph had the best top-tier of any roster in America when it came to nationally distributed punk rock. Usually labels have maybe one or two marquee bands that can sell out venues on nationwide tours, while other less successful bands on the label open for them, but Epitaph had The Offspring, NOFX, Pennywise, and Rancid (and even Bad Religion up until ‘93), all at the same time; all of them could headline a tour of their own by the mid-90s.

But with The Offspring it took a good deal of perseverance to get to where they eventually ended up going. Their debut album in 1989, which was self-titled, self-released, and only pressed on vinyl, sold about 3,000 copies. Their producer Thom Wilson was trying to get them on Epitaph, but label owner Brett Gurewitz (also Bad Religion’s guitarist) wouldn’t bite. That was until a 1991 7-inch EP called Baghdad came out. That convinced Gurewitz to sign them, and in 1992 The Offspring released their second album, Ignition. 

But, still, at that point, The Offspring weren’t really shit to anyone. Even though they were on the same label as Bad Religion and NOFX, their release party for Ignition is said to have only drawn 25 people. Yikes. 

But then they toiled on tour for 18 months, which was something they’d grown accustomed to, since all they’d really been doing since 1984 was toiling. They opened for bands that were more popular than them and supported groups like NOFX and The Lunachicks, building up their fanbase little by little with each set, and becoming more and more popular with each performance. And then a week after their Ignition tour finished on April Fools Day of 1994, they released Smash, which became an instant punk hit, and in six months’ time, after slowly climbing up the Billboard 200 chart, managed to go all the way to number fucking four. And because of Smash’s success, new fans then bought the only other widely available Offspring album, and in January of 1996, Ignition ended up being certified gold. In somewhere around two years, this once-struggling Cali foursome went from playing an empty release party to being the top-selling punk band in America. Amazing.

So here’s the song that officially kicked off their Epitaph journey, “Session”. There’s a lot of Offspring songs out there that happen to deal with weird and bad relationships, like “Self Esteem,” “She’s Got Issues,” and “Why Don’t You Get a Job?,” and “Session” predates them all. But this one’s more about a lack of a relationship, actually a “friends with benefits” situation; loveless sex. Dexter Holland says he shouldn’t complain because at least he’s getting some, but there’s no emotional attachment there, which leads him to question why he can’t stop going back for “another goddamn session” each time, since he knows that what he really wants is more than just sex. But he doesn’t wanna let go of the fling, because at least it’s something, and something is better than nothing. c o m p l i c a t e d.

“Session”‘s a burner, too; it’s fast, it’s catchy, it’s got an anthemic chorus; it’s just a great piece of energetic, early 90s punk rock. And that’s why Epitaph put it on the first installment of their famous Punk-O-Rama series. Because it rips. And it also builds. Verses open with intermittently loud and powerful chord strikes over a swift drumbeat with rustling cymbals, but then those guitar gaps get filled in on the pre-chorus with some scratchiness and a bouncy punk bassline to go alongside it. Then for the chorus, the guitar transitions to a full-on chainsawing riff and the cymbals tighten themselves up from rustles to riding dings. Rinse, repeat, put a little bridge in there, and voila, you’ve got an awesome punk song.

Some good, old-fashioned, early 90s Offspring. From before they went pop-punk and got themselves signed to a major and back when Epitaph was cool as fuck.

[legionofpotatoes]

My assorted musings/theories about Control in one post!! I am having a lot of fun dissecting the implications of all the information we’re getting tiny peeks at. This WILL be a thought torrent so I won’t make any literary-essay-level structuring promises; click through at your own risk of losing sanity over my tangents.

So the base axiom the lore stands on is that reality in Control is shaped by the collective human subconscious in unpredictable ways, causing altered world events, subsequently creating altered items imbued with archetypal properties in correspondence with their historic context, and generally having things go way out of whack. 

But, as seen with the whole slide projector hubbub, we also know that other realities/dimensions exist in their own right and can, by virtue of their agenda, and not that of our thought, attempt to invade our reality through resonance-based means. Their motives can run the gamut but we know that their involvement/influence can have far-reaching consequences on our reality.

(there is an argument to be made that both the Hedron and the Hiss could have been extremely potent creations/projections of Jesse and Dylan’s minds altogether, especially since Polaris exists within one of them inherently, and that the slidescapes could simply have been an extension of the slide projector’s astral power still fully fed on human perceptions. But this theory sort-of runs everything else to the ground and makes us the center of the universe, and I don’t like that too much).

This is where the Oldest House comes in! And I love its deeply rooted historic/theological implications just as much as its impression at face value. I believe that since time immemorial, the Oldest House was a stabilizing element, a kind of ward against dimensional rifts threatening our reality. And it did that by presenting itself as a guide for human thought; a house of worship, a monument to service, whichever concept happened to elicit inherent respect and trust in that period of time, allowing the House to then control (ha) our thought through belief systems. Today, it’s a brutalist office building with no windows, which is, like, so on point. But anyway.

The Board. We know that it controls the Oldest House to an extent. Whether it represents the gods and deities we once made up is hard to tell, but its influence over the House’s functions is clear. We know that it had chosen individuals in the past to possibly represent the House’s intentions (today – the Directors of the FBC), giving them access to the Service Weapon and a direct link to the astral plane. I believe these would be our Thors and King Arthurs and Greek heroes and what have you. We KNOW that the Service Weapon is, by definition, the archetypal concept of “weapon” as shaped by human thought, and that the BFC suspects its past forms may have included Mjolnir and Excalibur among others. Today, it’s a handgun. Again, the implications. Delicious.

And I think the Oldest House is the same way; constantly shifting form, shape, and even geographical location to best fit its own archetypal concept, which I conflated with place of respect and/or worship up there, but even that can change to best fit the agenda of, what I think, is stabilizing and warding our reality against foreign resonances. It does this by presenting itself as a guidebook for human thought, tapping into our inherent astral potency, and utilizing resulting constructs – the Service Weapon, the anointed Director, and certain altered items – to serve its own upkeep. As directed by The Board.

(I believe that is also part of the reason why the FBC ended up discovering the House when it did – The Board allowed it per the alignment of the Bureau’s motives with its own. They both wanted to identify, neutralize, and contain AWEs both external and internal in order to keep the public – and by extension their thoughts – fully under control. I believe this had happened numerous times in the past, as well)

But to circle back – why does The House need upkeep at all? My guess is, it’s an extension of the initial agenda, and we KNOW it is inherently tied to (read: contains) thresholds, or dimensional rifts, or just other worlds. Let’s call them other worlds. The Oldest House is an ever-shifting place of power that both shapes and is shaped by human thought, in order to keep that very human thought – our “resonance” – the sole dominating astral force in our dimension. It focuses all incoming “traffic” within its walls and creates the thresholds as bottlenecks – while the traffic it can’t focus on itself, it contains, and brings in anyway - and finally, it uses the Director to keep all these foreign rifts and aberrations in check.

We are the House’s assistant. Familiar word? There’s one person in Control who keeps calling us their assistant despite our formal title being a peg above that definition. It is the Janitor – another very common archetype of stabilization, maintenance, fixing things up; in this case, Ahti – The Janitor – is simply a way for the House, and not The Board, to communicate its intent. The Janitor is as much part of the place of power as are its walls and rooms. They are one and the same. And a Janitor is a role that would be chosen with very particular intent. He knows the House’s innards as intimately as he knows how to keep them functioning.

So to recap, again – The House both feeds on and forms human thought constructs in order to keep other worlds at bay and is very much willing to directly cooperate with people when that agenda is mutually expressed. What if this whole entire system then, of a dimensional hub, a place of power trying to keep our resonance separate from others, is in itself a construct, an ancient expression of a basic human need? Or rather, a basic human emotional response? To go a bit meta, as a story with thematic underpinnings, that would make a sensible endgame to Control’s ideas and messaging. 

The Oldest House exists because we needed it to exist, and by consequence, we saved OURSELVES from the Hiss. Among a lot of other things in the past, I’d reckon. And The Board is our “representative” in the astral plane. We made them, too. We cocooned ourselves in constructs that would protect us from all outside resonances – all outside worlds – all outside points of view.

So what am I saying? Is The Oldest House a staunch apotheosis of conservative thought given form? I’m not willing to bet my life on it, but again, it all oddly falls into place. Think about it.

TRENCH let the Hiss in. Why? We’re told the Director of the Oldest House grew irrationally scared of the Hedron’s (arguably benevolent) influence and opted to fight it with fire; with an otherworldy horror. My guess is the House made him do that. The Board, sorry, made him do it. As firm believers in isolating humanity’s resonance from all others, they feared the Hedron’s presence as a variable incompatible with that agenda, and brought the Hiss in AS A WAY of proving their point, of keeping the cycle of fear strong in humanity’s thought, by killing Hedron and then using a newly appointed, freshly brainwashed Director Faden to remove the Hiss from the equation, as well. 

Status quo restored, all branches clipped, everyone agrees other dimensions bad.

The emotional response I mentioned was fear. We created The Oldest House out of fear. Fear of the unknown. And it became a feedback loop that disallowed us to ever consider anything else outside of our world as anything other than a threat.

Oh and you know what’s a real swanky way to impose fear on a willing humanity? *guitar riff* religion babyyyyyy

To wit, The Board refers to the House as a Tree at one point. We can find a scribbling of a tree in the Foundation. Ahti hands us a cassette tape from “his old friends” – and the band that starts playing call themselves the Old Gods of Asgard. So a tree connecting worlds. A housekeeper who is a friend to Odin’s pantheon. A chosen hero wielding Mjolnir. Did the House parade as the Yggdrasil at one point? Followed by some other nexus of blind human faith or a system of belief? Or just as religion itself?! And since now we all worship capitalism or some other forms of financial labor/revenue funnels and shoot each other dead in the streets, our Oldest House is an office building smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, its Director carries a literal handgun, and together they keep us safe from outsiders.

It all makes sense with a big ole asterisk that spells out “Yikes” in the end. 

Except there’s a caveat here cause!!! Within Jesse lives a spark left behind by Hedron; within her lives Polaris, a remnant of the slidescape, of the outer worlds; a hope for maybe liberating human thought of the endless cycle of fear that keeps it under its own Control. Will we bring the Oldest House down in a possible sequel? Is Jesse a Trojan horse? A byproduct of the Board’s arrogance? I mean we KNOW the pyramid is a hyperfocused, almost blatantly jealous entity that downright bribed us with healthcare plans in order to steer us away from The Former, another extradimensional being that was trying to get in through altered items. So maybe the House itself can be preserved, and its agenda retrofitted, and it is the Board we will have to tear down. It still all fits.

The Board is our projection of fear, the Oldest House is the wall we built to protect ourselves, and Jesse is poised to bring it all down. That’s my theory in a nutshell!!!!

I think I’ll end here for now. I could be entirely wrong about EVERYTHING here but the JUICE in this story is too damn nourishing, dudes.

[mccoys-killer-queen]

This Week’s Playlist (2/14)

Not sure how I got hooked on this idea- but this week I’ll be focusing entirely on 70s songs (and next week I’ll do 80s). Disclaimer: I’m not saying these are my favorite songs of the 70s (believe me that would be WAYYY too hard to narrow down), I’m just filling this week’s list strictly with songs released in the 70s.

I’ve also created a spotify playlist made up of all the songs I’ve used on playlists! I’ll update it every week (before I even post the playlist, so if you check at the right time the songs will be there!)

1.) London Calling- The Clash (1979) I like to define this song as the song that started my descent into classic rock. When I was in 7th grade I had this music teacher who would always play pop music of the late 20th century for class. This song was one of the first songs she showed us, and it became a trademark of the class. We used to get this song played at dances and stuff- so there’s a lot of middle school memory there. Guess we all wanted to be punks- and this is a great boppy song just for that.

2.) All Right Now- Free (1970) Am I being typical for picking this song...? Perhaps (because honestly, at least where I’m from, this is the only Free song anyone knows... yikes. It’s overused in media sometimes imo). But that doesn’t meant it’s not great! It’s got everything! An epic guitar riff that frames the lyrics, a sick beat, funny rhymes, a killer musical interlude with bangin piano and a guitar solo- all while being undeniably CHILL. This one of those chill summer songs to me; the kind you listen to on a hot, quiet, and sunny car ride through the country with the windows down while wearing sunglasses. That’s just the aesthetic I’ve always associated with this song.

3.) Rock’n Me- Steve Miller Band (1976) Just try not to bop. I dare you. This is a real dance-a-little-in-your-seat song with a GREAT, smooth flow to it. Killer rhymes and a fast, subtle beat you can’t avoid even if you try. Steve Miller Band is one of my favorite groups of the 70s and I wish they got more appreciation in general. I could’ve picked so many of their songs already for these playlists, but this one stood out to me this week because I feel like it’s very recognizable (I always heard this song as a kid and I feel like maybe some people on here did too). It’s so damn catchy that it’ll just stick with you, so listen and get ready for an earworm. Also a great road trip song.

4.) Once Bitten, Twice Shy- Ian Hunter (1975) No, this isn’t Great White!! This is the song we all know and love but this one’s the original! I feel like I need to educate anyone who’ll listen about this! *scoff* god, now I can see why Joe Elliott’s always shoving Ian Hunter in everyone’s faces- because he’s worth it! Maybe I’m a little biased, but I personally prefer this version over Great White’s for a bunch of different reasons. For one thing, I think this version focuses more on telling the story rather than trying to make the music over the top. The instrumentals of this one ROCK, but the way it’s constructed with the lyrics makes the story more understandable- essentially, it’s just more raw, and I like the raw sound to it, but that’s just me. You all probably know how the song goes at this point, but after listening to this version you’ll see just how much of it Great White changed. You take it upon yourself to decipher the meaning of the lyrics ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I think we all know what “rock and roll” means at this point...

5.) Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’- Journey (1979) I don’t like to acknowledge Valentine’s Day, nor was I going to mention it in any way on this playlist- but let me tell you a story: last year on VD, I was driving home from school, and this song came on the radio. Then it hit me- I had completely forgotten about ANTI-Valentine’s Day songs! This is a PERFECT example of one. It tells of an unfaithful someone who gets bitten in the ass by someone else’s unfaithfulness. Talk about a SICK burn! This has gotta be my favorite Journey song as well. It’s like a flash-fiction song; telling a huge story while barely saying anything at all. My favorite part of this song by far is how each instrument has a crystal clear part, and you can very easily pick out each one. The intro of this song is just excellent. You can clearly hear the bass, drums, guitars, and piano all introduced in different ways. It’s just a gorgeous song through and through, and those 189 “na”s at the end just tie it all together (and yes, I counted). You’ll have all the words down before you know it.

6.) You’re All I’ve Got Tonight- The Cars (1978) Like I said last week, The Cars are one of the perfect combos of rock and pop. If you think about it, this one can be another anti-Valentine’s Day song. The lyrics have a sloppy and desperate feel to them- kinda like the speaker is drunk and throwing themselves at someone because they’re that desperate. “I don’t care if you hurt me some more, I don’t care if you even the score”- like oof man, you just sound desperate. This song is a banger in every way and let’s face it- the keyboard at the chorus is just the absolute best part. Strong points for these guys are always keyboards and guitars. It’s got this rock hard chill 80s vibe to it (despite it being a 70s song- new wave, you know), you’ll feel that you need to be doing something cool while listening to it.

7.) Rock and Roll- Led Zeppelin (1971) It’s so cliche of me to use this I know I know I KNOW- but can you blame me? On Sunday in a record booth at the market I found an original Zeppelin IV and I feel like this song has been following me all week because of it. This is unarguably one the most recognizable and famous rock songs of all time- because it was so expertly crafted in every way imaginable- just like everything else Zeppelin’s ever done. It’s ALWAYS the drums that do it for me in this song. l That filler at the end is- without question- the best part of the whole song. Bonzo just KILLS it. Overall, it’s a short-ish song that uses its time extremely well; it’s like all four of them went “let’s maximize every single element that goes into a bop, and make a song like that”. In some ways, this song is objectively perfect. If you want pure rock and roll in all its glory- what better song to choose than Rock and Roll itself?

8.) Keep Yourself Alive- Queen (1973) Another objectively perfect rock and roll song with a killer drum solo. I’m super biased towards Queen- but I cannot believe I never heard of this song until I was prepping my brain to see Bohemian Rhapsody! Honestly, who thinks it’s okay to keep this hidden? It’s the leading song off of their very first album- so this is almost like the song that INVENTED Queen fans! It’s a Brian May baby- and hell yeah does it show. I think everyone needs to know this song for artistic and historical reasons. It’s pure, power rock Queen through and through- despite being one of the earliest of their songs.

9.) Cum On Feel the Noize- Slade (1973) NO, it’s not Quiet Riot!! This is the song we all know and love but this one’s the original!! Again, I feel like I need to educate anyone who’ll listen about this! I get so angry sometimes that Quiet Riot gets all the credit for songs like this one and Mama Weer All Crazee now. Slade was super popular in England in the 70s- ahead of their time for sure but definitely one with the glam rock movement- but not as big in America. I never knew these guys existed until about five years ago and damn I felt like I had to be blind before learning that. Just listen to this song and then I think the sound of it’ll make a lot more sense, like “oh yeah- Quiet Riot’s version kinda DOES sound like it could be a glam rock song from the early 70s!” Just goes to show what geniuses these guys were, because their songs can be both glam rock AND heavy metal and work either way. Once you hear this version, though, I believe there’s no going back.

10.) Roll With the Changes- REO Speedwagon (1978) This was my favorite song for a few months when I was 16- it’s absolutely EPIC. The speaker is bursting at the seams with accepting a new found moral understanding of how they feel about trying to please or win over an apparent lover. They come to the conclusion that the other person just needs to keep on “rolling with the changes” and that they’ll be there for them whenever they decide to accept that perspective. The KEYBOARD is to D I E  F O R GUYS. Neal Doughty is a motherfucking SAINT- and SO IS GARY RICHRATH. This song sounds like it’s the finale of a musical or something! Possibly the biggest bop REO has ever created. It’s a groovy, extremely poetic, fast, theatrical, very slightly operatic rock and roll song and I’d highly recommend this to any person on the planet I love it that much. It’s lovable in every possible way.