We've picked an extremely difficult song...

So I just sat through a concert video of Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, and Metallica in Bulgaria. It had its moments, but I have to say, it was kind of a snooze until this happened...



The speech, the hugs, the pointing and posturing, the love (and the fact that Tom Araya sat it out because he thought the song was lame).

Black Veil Brides Strap On And Plug In

A couple weeks back I came across a review of the Black Veil Brides that mentioned that they were equally influenced by emo, goth, and strip bands like the Crüe and LA Guns.

"Encased in makeup and black fabrics, Black Veil Brides appear like action figures crawling from post-apocalyptic wreckage abandoned on the Sunset Strip.  When they strap on and plug in, however, the focus shifts to BVB's sound: heavy on the Motley Crue and L.A. Guns metal signifiers with shattering emo breakdowns and billowing clouds of goth smoke."

Who writes these things? 

First of all, "when they strap on and plug in"!?  Yuck.

Second of all, I don't think I've ever heard a band's sound compared to another band that actually ended up sounding like said other band.  Of course I scanned the track list for a Matthew Wilder cover, in which case, BVB could actually sound EXACTLY like L.A. Guns.  Negative...at least none of the songs I know by Matthew Wilder, which is one, and arguably one too many.

Then there's the whole emo thing.  I've heard it was horrible, so I'm glad I was passed out through the 90's.  I can't imagine everyone running around all emotional screaming about feelings and shit.  In their defense, I would be pretty upset too if I had to sport a shaved bowl cut and only play in basements.

(Xshattered emo breakdownsX)

On top of all these descriptors, they throw goth in the mix for good measure.  In my experience, any band spanning more than two genres that isn't a wedding band is flirtin' with disaster.  I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by guys trying to get me to come see their bands..."Hey dude, why don't you come check out my band at Paladino's Tuesday afternoon?  We've got a really cool mix of rock, funk, groove metal, and even some smooth jazz."

"Unless you're Neil Schon, Jan Hammer, or a Schon & Hammer tribute band, no thanks."

So what do BVB sound like?  Well...

While I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, they sound a lot like Billy Idol to me...once he's strapped on and plugged in, of course.

Bass Gone Wild

Did you know that the dudes that modeled for the Carvin catalogs also put out music?  Crazy I know.  Sort of like the instruments that Carvin makes, their artists' records are pretty hard to come by.  Thankfully, You Tube has done a great job of breathing some life into the undead corpse of instrumental bass funk.

Before the first note rings out, I can always spot an incoming undead funk attack.  A couple things I have learned to keep an eye out for:

1 - Body Glove bracelets
2 - No sign of sleeves anywhere
3 - Bass trem

These undead creatures of funk may try to trick you from time to time by breaking one (or all) of these rules.  Case in point, this guy.

See how tricky these funkers can be?  I was all like "sweet, this dude's gonna kick ass on some Domino or Lick it Up."  But then he tricked me and before I knew it he funked my brains all to hell with some Randy Coven (of course Lock Nut pointed out that I wouldn't have been so funked up over it if I had actually read the disclaimer at the beginning).

While I'm not sure that Randy Coven ever appeared in a Carvin catalog, he really should have.

Then there's this whole other breed of uber aggro funker that seems to be angry at their own existence.  They not only try to funk up your brains, but they seem annoyed at the lengths they have to go to do it.

(Steve Bailey hates how much he practiced to funk so much @ 36:25)

In trying to make sense of such a funked up genre of music, I realized that it was actually pretty simple.  Instrumental funk bass is the musical equivalent of tits on a duck.  It's just weird and all wrong.

Perry's Fesitval

Perry wants to have a festival where you can go out of your mind with joy! He wants you to go off!

If It Ain't Baroque, It Might Be 2Cellos

Did you know that amplifiers can be used to amplify sound?  My Sea-Doo definitely knows this.  Same with my C-Sled.

Oh yeah...this guy knew about it too.

I only bring this up, because modern orchestral music seems to be behind the 8 ball on this.  I get that Jim Marshall wasn't around in the early 1600's to help Giovanni Gabrieli fix what has historically been referred to as being Baroque (see what I did there? HA!).  This has been one of the main reasons I can't stand most forms of orchestral music.  There's just too many people up on the stage to fit any pyrotechnics or jumbo trons.  I guess its possible that some chick has shown her boobs in the middle of the Four Seasons, but I would never know because I've always been stuck in the nosebleeds without having a jumbo tron to watch the action on.  Besides, I'm usually asleep before the first intermission anyway since everybody is just sitting there on the stage.  If I wanted to see someone just sit on the stage, I would have just pulled up 3/4 of Janetshareroxygina Unplugged.

Now, I've never been the biggest fan of instrumental music (except for Jan Hammer, of course), and I definitely celebrated seeing that Yngwie Malmsteen had finally swallowed his ego and switched to playing bass.

(Since it ain't Baroque, I guess he's fixed.)

All this said,  you KNOW I was stoked to see that these dudes had finally figured it out.  Could the lights at the end of the modern orchestral tunnel be a pair of sweet tits (presumably on a hot can)?

I got turned on to these dudes when I went down to Waxi Maxi's on Tuesday to see what hot new releases there were (sure as shit not going to Strawberries again after the compact disc debacle).  I was first intrigued by their name: "2Cellos."  Could it be that orchestral music had finally made the leap into the 1980's and benched the dead weight!?

Looking at the track listing, it appears that they have finally caught up with the times.  With just two cellos, they would definitely have enough room on stage at Guitar Center for...I don't know...maybe Steve Vai!?

(F a bunch of Violins, I got me a sick Orange!)

While its not quite pyrotechnics and jumbo trons, it is a pretty kick ass light show with some hot chicks, and that's definitely a step in the right direction.

Suck on that Giovanni Gabrieli!!

Michael W. Smith Sells Out

I know a lot of you out there hate Jesus. I can see why--he doesn't party. But I think we can all agree that the debut album by the Michael W. Smith Project was just as relevant as most Phil Collins era Genesis. Live, the band's keyboard driven sound could rival Guiffria's.



Of course, it's tough to reach across the aisle into the secular AOR world when you've got a guy playing clarinet in an Atlanta Braves hat, so as the nineties unfolded the MSP started to really fall victim to some of trends of the time.




By the '00s, he was phoning in Awesome God covers like every other non-secular band.


 I mean, if you're going to do covers, don't Tesh your way through it, do it RIGHT!




We all know how the story goes: Christian crabcore comes and goes, but we shared a moment with the original Michael W. Smith Project that won't be forgotten!

So You Think You Can Prog?

Lock Nut and I were salivating for more Schon & Hammer after the No More Lies track hit heavy rotation in the Blogmaoffice (shed).  After some digging, we were surprised to see that their two albums were out of print.  Thankfully, we were able to locate the entire catalog on Amazon.com, on some format called "compact disc" for the bargain price of $375.80.

Another place was selling Here to Stay for $349.01, but we're no fools...not that Schon & Hammer wouldn't be worth it...

When we took delivery, we couldn't wait to get a listen in.  Much to our surprise, compact discs aren't compatible with tape players.  After a quick trip over to Strawberries, they confirmed that compact discs were totally the new thing.  So after shelling out another untold amount of cash on a new compact disc player, we were finally ready to feast our ears on some more Schon & Hammer magic.

That's when we heard this...

Lock Nut and I thought we must have received a broken compact disc player, so we went back to Strawberries to get our money back.  The dude there told us that it was working fine and that what was coming out of the compact disc player was actually what was recorded on the Schon & Hammer compact disc.

Still in disbelief, we headed back to the Blogmashed to listen to Untold Passion, thinking that maybe there was a mistake when they manufactured our copy of Here to Stay.

Upon hitting play, we were assaulted with this, the aptly titled "Wasting Time"...

After wasting a bunch of our time with that track, it appeared that our compact disc player was on the fritz again.  Half the songs after that were missing the vocal tracks.  After yet another trip to Strawberries and another round of back and forths, the dude at Strawberries told us that the compact disc player was actually doing what it was supposed to, and in fact, there were no vocals on a bunch of this album's tracks.

Don't get me wrong, I am still a Jan Hammer fan.  He has written some kick ass instrumental stuff, except his kick ass instrumental stuff featured cool stuff like half naked chicks and jet powered helicopters...

So if its not a manufacturing snafu and our compact disc player is actually working properly, after pulling an all night brainstorming session, best Lock Nut and I can tell is that Jan's Tandy must have caught some virus during the recording session of these two records that also happened to infect the rest of Neil Schon's solo career.

For whatever its worth, all of us here at Blogmagogroxx are pulling for you, Neal.  Hope you get well soon!