Jump to content

What's on your mind?


Apoc

Recommended Posts

Nothing much to report just yet as I'm not driving down until tomorrow. Navy flew into town Wednesday for the pre-fest gig at Ottobar, said other than the first band everyone else was good. Said Immolation killed as usual. We're staying in the same hotel so I'm sure I'll see him tomorrow. Josh checked into our room this evening around 6:30 then went right down and got his wristband. Haven't heard from him since then so I'll assume he's been enjoying himself.  Surge was busy picking dudes up from the airport earlier this afternoon as he's a local Baltimore guy, but he has a pickup truck with no real back seat so he couldn't get more than 2 at a time unless he had them riding in the bed. Seems from all the texts flying back and forth that the highlights this evening were Rottrevore and Mortician. Final band of the night Pyrexia goes on in about 10 - 15 minutes. I would skip them if I was there to save my energy for the rest of the weekend, but the point is moot because I'm not there, I'm home listening to black metal tonight. I'll have more to report tomorrow when I'm actually there at the fest. First band Scorched goes on at 3:30, I have a 4 hour ride so I shouldn't have any problem making it down to Baltimore by then. GG over and out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

Half you're luck! I haven't had a long weekend since I stopped working!

The joys of farm life.  My wife's uncle and auntie as well as a friend both had dairy farms.  No holidays, no weekends, no getting up later than like 5 in the morning.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah dairy farming is not a life I could handle. Dairy cows are pretty good usually and can bring themselves in for milking which saves the effort of herding them but it's still a long and hard day getting up and milking before the sun comes up and doing it all again as the sun goes down. I'm still up and on the bike most mornings at 4am but I'm not chasing cows, well not unless some of them have escaped the paddocks.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I asked him if he also believed in Aliens anal probing him when no one else was around and he got shitty with me. :)

Funny that...

But it served him right. 

Also funny that anal probing aliens never got that much traction here and the whole scare seems to have fallen out of the public consciousness and has just become a joke. I guess there are other conspiracies that have taken over, or more likely it's alive and kicking on the web and I just haven't been looking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There’s all kinds of conspiracies on the Internet, and the trouble is that people believe them. My way of approaching the subject when anyone I know brings it up is to ask firstly who would benefit from this elaborate conspiracy of yours, and secondly how? It’s funny how often people can’t even manage to answer the first of those two questions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eric Cartman ruined alien anal probing for everyone. It was no longer a mystery once he revealed what happened to him.

 

I spent the best part of 30 years driving Australian roads at night, many of my kilometres were done in areas where I couldn't even see a tree let alone another person, but not once did I ever see little green men and I'm a total believer. Yet these strange people get on shows like A Current Affair after heading out to the outback once and seeing UFO's, aliens and even anal probes. I really wanted to meet aliens, I wanted to take a ride on their ship, I even called out to them but they never came. :(

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well the best laid plans...

Bags were all packed and I was primed and ready to make my escape Friday morning, but then the kid woke me up at 6am with a cough and a fever asking for medicine. Couldn't just put him on the bus and send him off to school with a fever like that, or expect my sister to take my sick kid for the weekend so I just stayed home with him. She said she'd let me drop him off today if his fever had broken so I could still get down to Baltimore for the last 2 days at least, but he woke up early again this morning just before 6am burning up with fever so there went that idea. Gave him some ibuprofen and he crawled into bed beside me and slept from 6 til 11. Now at 4:45 he seems to be feeling a little bit better and the fever seems to have subsided, but it's been pouring rain all day here and at this point I've already abandoned my dream of attending the last MDF with Surge and the guys. The pics they've been sending are killing me though, I'm supposed to be there with them! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well the best laid plans...

Bags were all packed and I was primed and ready to make my escape Friday morning, but then the kid woke me up at 6am with a cough and a fever asking for medicine. Couldn't just put him on the bus and send him off to school with a fever like that, or expect my sister to take my sick kid for the weekend so I just stayed home with him. She said she'd let me drop him off today if his fever had broken so I could still get down to Baltimore for the last 2 days at least, but he woke up early again this morning just before 6am burning up with fever so there went that idea. Gave him some ibuprofen and he crawled into bed beside me and slept from 6 til 11. Now at 4:45 he seems to be feeling a little bit better and the fever seems to have subsided, but it's been pouring rain all day here and at this point I've already abandoned my dream of attending the last MDF with Surge and the guys. The pics they've been sending are killing me though, I'm supposed to be there with them! 

Ah damn. That sucks all around. Poor kiddo. Tomorrow AM not gonna work? I got a group pic from Jayke earlier, and definitely felt a bit jealous... wish I could make it there myself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I've always really liked Jayke and his pleasantly soothing deep baritone voice. He has always seemed more at home hanging with the older guys in our group than the younger guys closer to his age. He brought his little brother Kyle along with him this year whom I've never actually met before. I tend to think of him as a 'kid' because he was only about 20 or 21 when we started forumming together back in 2008 or '09, and because he's only 3 years older than my daughter. But he's gonna be 35 this year, hardly a kid anymore he has 3 kids of his own now as does my daughter. I ask you where does the time go?

Cancer's set should be ending here in just a sec and they'll be gearing up for Coroner next, immediately followed by Triptykon, and then the Cavalera brothers playing Beneath the Remains. I wanted to see Cadaveric Incubator very badly tonight but they're playing cross town at Soundstage at the exact same time as Coroner, which is understandably a must-see band for most of them so I won't even get any pics of my Finnish deathgrind heroes. Fuck I wish I was there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Word on the street is the MDF is going on hiatus after tomorrow. There will be no festival in 2023 and for all they know this could potentially be the last ever MDF. I started attending in 2010 and there were one or two years when I only managed to make it down for 2 of the 4 days but I haven't outright missed a year since 2012, until now.

We will just have to find another concert or festival to all meet up at. A bunch of us (8 maybe?) flew to Chicago for the Metal Threat fest in July 2019 where they had a ton of great bands over two days: Dead Congrgation, The Chasm, Convulse, Pisschrist, Cruciamentum, Ossuary, Deceased... I can't even remember them all it was great. Jayke likes to hit all the Las Vegas ones because he can drive there from SLC in under 6 hours and his dad has a condo there he can use to crash. But those Psycho Vegas festivals have such completely lame lineups, I'm not flying cross country for that shit no matter who says they're going. There's always Mass Destruction in Atlanta every November which would be cool because I know Navy always goes to that one. I wouldn't say the lineup is atrocious, but with the 2 biggest headliners being Venom Inc and Benediction this year, followed by Tsjuder, Bulldozer, and Mystifier it's certainly not on the same level with MDF. But unfortunately it is probably the closest we're gonna get to the kind of music we're into. I'll have to start talking everyone into this on Monday while they're all still high on the death metal vibes from the weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well the best laid plans...

Bags were all packed and I was primed and ready to make my escape Friday morning, but then the kid woke me up at 6am with a cough and a fever asking for medicine. Couldn't just put him on the bus and send him off to school with a fever like that, or expect my sister to take my sick kid for the weekend so I just stayed home with him. She said she'd let me drop him off today if his fever had broken so I could still get down to Baltimore for the last 2 days at least, but he woke up early again this morning just before 6am burning up with fever so there went that idea. Gave him some ibuprofen and he crawled into bed beside me and slept from 6 til 11. Now at 4:45 he seems to be feeling a little bit better and the fever seems to have subsided, but it's been pouring rain all day here and at this point I've already abandoned my dream of attending the last MDF with Surge and the guys. The pics they've been sending are killing me though, I'm supposed to be there with them! 

Bummer. That sucks man. I know  how much you look forward to MDF. Why exactly are they not going to continue?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, markm said:

Bummer. That sucks man. I know  how much you look forward to MDF. Why exactly are they not going to continue?

They start selling tickets each year by July for the next year's festival. So they collected a ton of money in 2019 for the 2020 festival and then were forced to cancel 2 years in a row due to Covid. They were finally ready to honor all the 2020 tickets this year (I had to eat my $250 when I didn't go) but then they had all kinds of problems with some of the European bands having issues with their visas not being approved in time and some of them were not meeting the airlines' vax requirements so couldn't come over. It's gotta be a fucking nightmare running a festival of that size with 80+ bands every year, it's a full time job for those 2 guys and then having Covid throw a monkey wrench in everything must have been the last straw, they probably just really needed a break.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

They start selling tickets each year by July for the next year's festival. So they collected a ton of money in 2019 for the 2020 festival and then were forced to cancel 2 years in a row due to Covid. They were finally ready to honor all the 2020 tickets this year (I had to eat my $250 when I didn't go) but then they had all kinds of problems with some of the European bands having issues with their visas not being approved in time and some of them were not meeting the airlines' vax requirements so couldn't come over. It's gotta be a fucking nightmare running a festival of that size with 80+ bands every year, it's a full time job for those 2 guys and then having Covid throw a monkey wrench in everything must have been the last straw, they probably just really needed a break.

...WhiteNoise....you should consider going to ROADBURN next year....I know you're going to say that a lot of the bands are not of interest to you but I think if you were to see them in the venues in Tilburg, you might change your mind....I missed it this year, which sucked hard, because of unforseen circumstances, but I very much intend on being back there next year....it will once again be one of only two fests I'll go to next year....the other being FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS...which is the best US festival as far as I'm concerned.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fire in the Mountains isn't quite my speed, I looked it up and saw WITTR, Enslaved, Visigoth and Eternal Champion and was like no, even as much as I like the Tetons I couldn't possibly sit through that.

Roadburn has been discussed among the group, but it's hard enough to get some of these guys to get permission from their wives and/or scrape up the cash to get to Baltimore much less an overseas trip. I'd be up for it but my passport expired in 2021 I'll need to update it. It's not that those bands aren't of interest to me Marko, I'm just not familiar with most of them. Looking over the 2022 lineup I do see several names of bands I like and a few that I know I don't like but 90% are complete unknowns to me. Personally I'd love to catch Turku Saatanalle one year but I'd never get them to Finland.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hehe Whoops. I just blew up one of my multimeters while I was stuffing around with the new solar panel. Was a shitty cheap meter and it was out by about 9% on the voltage scale anyway, but apparently I shouldn't have tried to smack 25A down shitty cheap leads. It's probably only a fuse but given it's inaccuracy I'll probably bin it and buy a better one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Join Metal Forum

    joinus-home.jpg

  • Our picks

    • Whichever tier of thrash metal you consigned Sacred Reich back in the 80's/90's they still had their moments.  "Ignorance" & "Surf Nicaragura" did a great job of establishing the band, whereas "The American Way" just got a little to comfortable and accessible (the title track grates nowadays) for my ears.  A couple more records better left forgotten about and then nothing for twenty three years.  2019 alone has now seen three releases from Phil Rind and co.  A live EP, a split EP with Iron Reagan and now a full length.

      Notable addition to the ranks for the current throng of releases is former Machine Head sticksman, Dave McClean.  Love or hate Machine Head, McClean is a more than capable drummer and his presence here is felt from the off with the opening and title track kicking things off with some real gusto.  'Divide & Conquer' and 'Salvation' muddle along nicely, never quite reaching any quality that would make my balls tingle but comfortable enough.  The looming build to 'Manifest Reality' delivers a real punch when the song starts proper.  Frenzied riffs and drums with shots of lead work to hold the interest.


      There's a problem already though (I know, I am such a fucking mood hoover).  I don't like Phil's vocals.  I never had if I am being honest.  The aggression to them seems a little forced even when they are at their best on tracks like 'Manifest Reality'.  When he tries to sing it just feels weak though ('Salvation') and tracks lose real punch.  Give him a riffy number such as 'Killing Machine' and he is fine with the Reich engine (probably a poor choice of phrase) up in sixth gear.  For every thrashy riff there's a fair share of rock edged, local bar act rhythm aplenty too.

      Let's not poo-poo proceedings though, because overall I actually enjoy "Awakening".  It is stacked full of catchy riffs that are sticky on the old ears.  Whilst not as raw as perhaps the - brilliant - artwork suggests with its black and white, tattoo flash sheet style design it is enjoyable enough.  Yes, 'Death Valley' & 'Something to Believe' have no place here, saved only by Arnett and Radziwill's lead work but 'Revolution' is a fucking 80's thrash heyday throwback to the extent that if you turn the TV on during it you might catch a new episode of Cheers!

      3/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 10 replies
    • I
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/52-vltimas-something-wicked-marches-in/
      • Reputation Points

      • 3 replies

    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/48-candlemass-the-door-to-doom/
      • Reputation Points

      • 2 replies
    • Full length number 19 from overkill certainly makes a splash in the energy stakes, I mean there's some modern thrash bands that are a good two decades younger than Overkill who can only hope to achieve the levels of spunk that New Jersey's finest produce here.  That in itself is an achievement, for a band of Overkill's stature and reputation to be able to still sound relevant four decades into their career is no mean feat.  Even in the albums weaker moments it never gets redundant and the energy levels remain high.  There's a real sense of a band in a state of some renewed vigour, helped in no small part by the addition of Jason Bittner on drums.  The former Flotsam & Jetsam skinsman is nothing short of superb throughout "The Wings of War" and seems to have squeezed a little extra out of the rest of his peers.

      The album kicks of with a great build to opening track "Last Man Standing" and for the first 4 tracks of the album the Overkill crew stomp, bash and groove their way to a solid level of consistency.  The lead work is of particular note and Blitz sounds as sneery and scathing as ever.  The album is well produced and mixed too with all parts of the thrash machine audible as the five piece hammer away at your skull with the usual blend of chugging riffs and infectious anthems.  


      There are weak moments as mentioned but they are more a victim of how good the strong tracks are.  In it's own right "Distortion" is a solid enough - if not slightly varied a journey from the last offering - but it just doesn't stand up well against a "Bat Shit Crazy" or a "Head of a Pin".  As the album draws to a close you get the increasing impression that the last few tracks are rescued really by some great solos and stomping skin work which is a shame because trimming of a couple of tracks may have made this less obvious. 

      4/5
      • Reputation Points

      • 4 replies
×
×
  • Create New...