AlSymerz

Hey, I promised nothing, I just said it was done! And you didn't use your manners

Schizophrenia - Recollections Of The Insane

The last thing I drank in 2022 was water. I had a double shot of whisky around 9-10pm and then water until after midnight, I'm so hardcore!! (or maybe that should be metalcore!)

I like music that sucks!

In some ways I'd rather a wife that occasionally questioned what I bought, how much I bought, or why I bought it, but we've never done that to each other.

When I 'semi-retired' and moved onto the farm I used to spend a lot of sleepless nights on the internet in chat rooms and forums and it really did become a case of keeping up with the Jones', long before FOMO was a thing. It used to be a challenge to see who could find the latest 'great' release, we all knew when the bigger, more known bands were releasing stuff but it was a rush to the bottom of the heap to find that gem that no one else found. Too often it wasn't gems we were finding but it didn't stop the hunt. There was times were we'd have several hundred people all competing and trying to claim their lucky find was the best thing ever. Despite that it was, at it's core, a game of one-upmanship I believe most people just did it for fun and entertainment, although I'm sure there was more than one person secretly keeping scores looking to see if they'd found more gems than others, or they'd bought more than others, or other such scores. At that time I didn't have any anxieties around what I was doing, I thought it was a fun past time, but I did, without realising it, have sensory overload. One album after another. Listening to songs but not really hearing them. One band after another. The shit just all blended together and it was about the game, a game I didn't care whether I won or lost, not about listening to music. "Not I", he says staring at the wall of shiny battery tools slowly replacing all the corded tools that still work fine.

Yeah go for it, dates are arbitrary anyway, just go by the date you bought it

Elm Street - Knock 'Em Out With a Metal Fist

Using the name Pantera and referring to it as a reunion makes financial sense and although I don't think it's the right way to go maybe Phil and Rex are running out of easy money and need the cash grab. But the connection I made between Zakk Sabbath not being any different had nothing to do with naming rights rather that he is a fill-in in Pantera and for me that role is no different to his many other roles where he is simply the guitarist playing music that is not necessarily his. I don't know anything about harmonics, the most harmonic thing I hear is two feral cats fucking down by the creek when the morning sun is warm and the dew is settling on the river bed. I also don't read with any great interest the latest round of insults Zakk gets for being himself, so whether they are accusing him of pitch, pinch, punch or crunch I wouldn't have a fucking clue I just know it happens.

I used to have my new release lists that came out every week and I'd go through them and listen to every band I could. Those lists were obviously tailored to my liking so I wasn't listening to 500 albums a week and albums that I just weren't interested in, but often there as still 15-20 albums a week. I certainly wouldn't buy them all I have my rules about what constitutes a purchase and what constitutes a listen and I stick to that, but I would end up buying a lot and making time to listen to it. These days not so much, because the more I looked at what I was buying the more I realised I was buying for the sake of it. Some of the stuff I bought I thought was the best shit ever at the time didn't even make my end of year list, some of it I didn't even listen to beyond those first few spins at purchase time. Even worse some of the stuff I was buying I had to force myself to listen to 12-18 months later when the band released something new because I couldn't remember what they sounded like. I still scan some new release lists but I don't listen to every album and I subsequently don't buy as much but there are times where I'll go a week or two without listening to anything but new releases because it's been a good release week, or I just haven't caught up for a few weeks.

Get fucked! It's already done.

I'm fine with Zakk and BLS, I don't give a shit that he thinks he's some kind of viking and loves to wear a skirt, I don't even care that everyone claims he's only good at something called pitch harmonics, but he's not Pantera. As a fill in, as a band paying tribute to an old band fair enough but I see this as no different to him doing Zakk Sabbath, or his Jimi Hendrix stuff. When it comes to Charlie I've pretty much given up on Anthrax. I did have hope for them 10 years ago but Charlie and Scott have pretty much proven they have nothing left for the band and are struggling drastically to find it. Good luck to Charlie if he wants to keep playing with Pantera, Anthrax aren't going anywhere but 40 min festival sets any time soon and with each other member of Anthrax doing every thing but Anthrax I see Pantera as Charlie actually doing something other than playing with his g/f's band. You're right though any album they make will sell millions simply because of the name, not because of how good or bad it might be.

Only one KG album made my list and it's in the bottom half of the top 10. I've always done lists as a challenge rather than just picking good albums, it's why I re-listen to most albums before ranking them, (even in the other yearly polls from 1980-20whatever I re-listened to all the albums listed). For me listing the albums I bought and changing the order isn't really much of a challenge, but selecting 10 from those that stand out is. There will always be albums that make it close and make the top 10 hard but that's the way I've always done it.

Just as well no one is interested in the stuff I listen to or has already judged it because I couldn't ever see myself putting in that much effort. 1-10 is all you get from me.

Charlie thinks it is. He's spoken several times before Christmas about how right it would feel to write new music under the Pantera name. Of course he could just be trying to put his name to anything other than a new Anthrax record right now, but he's definitely spoken about it.

Well of course there is the slug, forgetting the slug would be criminal. But for me Ice Nine Kills are Asking Alexandria are offensive, however I couldn't say anything until you 60 yr old elitists drove KiDPoWeR away yesterday.

Rigor Mortis - S/T

I've been ready for weeks, but now I refuse to participate.

Helloween - Treasure Chest

If my catch-alls caught those I'd definitely go and see a doctor.

Catch-alls, that's what GG was watching go around in the washing machine.

6 months (or whatever) after the new album was released Dave releases a video showing himself playing a 5 string bass, (which he once condemned Jnr for), playing one of the new songs and claiming he wrote it. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmwrmyBjoO3/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=f958b458-3037-42b8-a329-ab7926511b38 The thing is he could be 100% correct and maybe he didn't just re-write it after he sacked Jnr, but he still looks like a dick for doing such things. It is however funny watching the two of them on FB, I have no idea if it's deliberate or not but it's almost tit for tat posting. Jnr posts a story about one of his new bands and Dave posts something about Megadeth. The problem is Jnr seems to post about 400 things a day sometimes however none of his new bands are really worth listening too.

It's one of the many topics you shouldn't research on the internet

I value every second I spend on the internet. It's the most amazing research tool known to man. The amount of information at ones fingertips is simply astonishing and one should never take that for granted therefore I don't waste a single moment when I'm online. Black does hide the skid marks, even if there is no one to hide them from. My Life In The General, sounds like a movie about a solider whose found his lot in life.

So you've just been wasting my time to amuse yourself? While you've been watching your tightie whities tumble around a wet drum I've been sitting here stressing out about choosing the wrong side of an argument I wasn't interested in to begin with. Now I'm the one who is shocked and offended.