Happy New Year

 2011 has been an event filled year.  Many events good and many not so good.  It's likely to be remembered as the year of the natural disaster here in  New Zealand with three earthquakes in the Canterbury region.

The reason  for these sort of posts on music blogs is always to tell you about the albums you've missed out but I've missed a tonne so won't even bother.  I didn't make it to many gigs either although my highlights are Delaney Davidson and Reverend Beatman at St Peter's Hall in Paekakariki with The Clean, The Subliminals and Surf Friends running even due largely to it being the first time I'd caught those Flying Nun bands with the Subliminals being the highlight of the trio despite it being great to finally hear a number of The Clean songs live.

I made it to a few movies:  Highlights:  Rise of The Planet Apes - A decent reworking of the Planet of The Apes origin story that put the previous remake to much deserved shame.
Senna:  A documentary that made watching a car go repeatedly around a track interesting
Cold Fish - Off-beat dark Japanese movie about a pet fish store owner and a serial killer.
The Adjustment Bureau - Sci-fi time travel-type drama
Thirteen Assassins - Enthralling Japanese period action movie.



Sports Events Highlights:

Rugby World Cup - Well done to the All Blacks but let's face it, with all the injuries, The All Blacks wouldn't have won and that final away win still eludes them.
Wellington Phoenix - another team that away wins elude but enjoyed watching the games in the stadium.
NZ Breakers - Worth missing the royal wedding to watch this basketball team play in the finals
New Zealand Warriors - The teams name no longer rolls of the tongue but this team making it to the final was a highlight
Wimbledon - Tsonga - Djokovic was the highlight of the tournament for me with the commentators continually writing the French men off only to watch him continually comeback.


Things we'd like to see less of in 2012

Earthquakes
John Campbell
Newsreaders paid to have conversations
Gordon Ramsay
Importance placed on facebook links
Overpricing on mobile phone fees and SIM cards
Unfocussed protestors

Local music frauds of the year:

Flying Nun compilation Tally Ho.



What are the reasons for leaving out harder-edged bands like The Warners, The D4, and The Hasselhoff Experiment?

  Also why release songs from the In Love These Times compilation? While the Sneaky Feelings, Snapper and Look Blue Go Purple make sense  Surely Straitjacket Fits, The Bats and The Clean have fresher material worth an airing even in these days of digital downloads.

Shihad Meanest Hits compilation:  Just buy their first two albums since they've been inconsistent ever since despite the critical gushing over The General Electric and it lacks their best song, "Stations".

Straitjacket Fits - If I Were You



Shihad - Stations

Battle of the live albums Part2 (Minutemen vs The Replacements)

Minutemen “Ballot Result” vs The Replacements “The Shit Hits the Fans”

The Minutemen and The Replacements: Both bands formed with their rooted in the punk scene while it would be call difficult to either strictly a punk band as both stretched from the genre’s confines.    Bobby Stinson’s guitar and Paul Westerberg’s snotty attitude drove The Replacements rock edge.  The Minutemen blended funk, jazz and classic rock into their punk mix. The Minutemen live album was intended but was impossibility, due to singer/guitarist D.Boon’s untimely demise in a car accident.  The Replacements album is an album that really should never have happened.  An intending bootlegger, who was discovered recording in the crowd, recorded the band’s show only to have the cassette taken and offically released on cassette only by Twin/Tone Records.   Unlike The Minutemen double album where their fans picked the songs they wanted to hear, The Replacements must have pissed off their attending fans by playing a large number of covers.

 The vocals on the first few Replacements songs feature slurred vocals and the holding of the guitar sound like a battle and the band is losing by more than a country mile.  The drumming on songs like “Saturday night Special” is sloppy at best, whereas on “Ballot Result” the musicianship is stunning throughout.  Mike Watt’s bass and George Hurley’s drumming shines through radiantly on songs like “I Felt like A Gringo”. Occasionally The Replacements start covers like U2’s “I Will Follow” only to abandon them not even getting past the intro. Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” is butchered and beaten in a transformation into “Iron Man”.   There are fleeting moments on the band’s originals where a beautiful guitar sound comes through.  In contrast, all the Minutemen songs are all their originals and some of the songs are live in a radio studio. Before playing “Jesus and Tequila” D.Boon explains the preceding song live to an audience that he couldn’t see or hear.   The Replacements are expecting a reaction from their unsure audience. Heckling and clapping both mean the band is getting noticed.  The Minutemen album “Ballot Result” has a scrapbook nature with cut and pasting of mostly live clips over five years with a studio remix of “No one” while the “The Shit Hits the Fans” is a snapshot of a night out with a very drunk band.    Paul Westerberg and crew’s off night inspires cracking open a beer or preferably more to enjoy the recording in the same manner as the band. “Whem the Shit Hits the Fans” is a curiosity rather than a great live representation of The Replacements works.   From the start,The Minutemen album was about satisfying the desires of their fans and here it succeeds although it lacks the same flow as a night out with the band.

Winner: Minutemen

Battle of the live albums (part 1) Cheap Trick vs Slade

Slade “Slade Alive” vs Cheap Trick “Live at Budokan”

Slade and Cheap Trick: UK Glam rockers Slade are said to have inspired US hard rocking power poppers Cheap Trick’s choice of band name.  From the 70’s, Slade were a household name in their homeland but US success eluded them.  Cheap Trick’s success really hit in 1978 when they played in Japan and “Live at Budokan” is a documentation of the event.  Both bands had two studio releases under their belts when their first live albums saw the light of day.   Today Slade have a trio of live albums whereas Cheap Trick still has only the one.

“Slade Alive” definitely feels like the live album taken straight from the sound board without any studio trickery and Cheap Trick’s ‘Live at Budokan’ has more of a studio feel with the band’s music blasting clearly over the speakers. There’s a short tuning break on “Slade Alive” which adds to the rawness and gives a genuine live feel.  It may well be due to the year it was recorded.  A belch is left in on “Darling Be Home Soon”.  The crowd seems somewhat reserved.  During the early spoken parts on the Slade album, it sounds like there are about ten interested people at the bands show however from the intoduction of “Lookout” Cheap Trick are treated as major stars with huge applause.  SLADE frontman Noddy Holder encourages the crowd to yell out anything they like to add to the atmosphere.  The clapping on the breaks in “Need Your Love” gives “Live at Budokan” more of a convincing live feel.    Hell, I always feel like clapping along to the power pop of “Big Eyes” although the cheesiness on “I Want You to Want Me” is cringeworthy.  Eventually on the Slade, “Keep on Rocking” convinces that the crowd was bigger with a participation track.    Years of seeing bar bands covering Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” has made it a difficult song to get excited about but during the seventies Slade’s standard ending was obviously a treat as the crowd lap it up.  When Cheap Trick plays “Good Night Now”; it’s easy to place yourself in the crowd begging for an encore.    “Slade Alive” is just a night out with a band whereas “Live at Budokan” is an event.

WINNER: Cheap Trick

Tribulation interview

Photo taken from Metal Archives


An uncountable amount of metal bands want their listeners to come away feeling disturbingly shaken and stirred by their music but many are often lucky to even encounter a shrug around these parts. However Swedish death metallers Tribulation grabbed our attention with their punishing minimal amount of nonsense approach to music.  Their debut album, “The Horror”  is an intense spine-chilling nightmare soundtrack that kicks teeth in and lays waste to many inferior albums in the genre.  Guitarist Adam Zaars took some time out to answer some questions for us.

I read on another website that Tribulation went under another name previously.   What was the reason for the name change and how did you come up with the new name?

No, we have always been called Tribulation from the very beginning when we started the band back in 2004.

OK, then take us to the beginnings of Tribulation.

We just put to rest another band that we were playing in and felt that we wanted to play more with members that would want to take a band in the same direction.
We tried out a few drummers until we found Jakob, and from that day Tribulation was born. We have never since had a doubt in what we are doing.

How would you describe Tribulation's music to someone who hasn't heard your music?

I guess that depends on who the person is. If it were a person involved in hard rock I would say that we were playing death metal, influenced by darkness and death.
If it were a person not involved in hard rock I would say that we were playing music influenced by darkness and death. Chaotic,yet controlled.

 Who are some of your favorite three-piece bands?

Venom is the number one choice of course. I think I would have to put Motorhead on number two.  I just saw Grand Magus live a couple of days ago so they are worth mentioning as well. Other than that there is always Hellhammer, Angel Witch, Unpure etc.


Would we be right in guessing that all of you are fans and influenced by Slayer, Kreator and later Carcass?  What other bands/artists do Tribulation frequently listen to?

Well, not really. I wouldn't say that we sound like, say, “Swansong” at all, even though it's a good album. But Slayer  is always an inspiration!
We all have quite a wide musical taste which rages from bands like Roky Erikson  to Sadistick Execution The best has always been and always will be Iron Maiden though.
And if I was to say one death metal band I would say Morbid Angell!


As a soundwise old school band death metal band are your thoughts on recent death metal and what seems to be an inevitable split into further sub-genres like death-core?

I wouldn't even call it Death Metal, and I wouldn't call us "old school", we are the ones playing Death Metal. It is a shame really that people don't have a clue what Death Metal really is, or should I say it's a shame that people call bands Death Metal when they obviously are not.


The cover art to "The Horror" looks like a comic book artist drew it, could you tell us more about that?  Are you comic book fans?

We are comic book fans, yes. “Modesty Blaise” is a personal favourite. The album cover and layout was made by me, Adam, and Jonathan under the name Necromantic Art.
We wanted to get the whole layout as haunting as the music itself, and I think that we pulled it off.


Often people talk about Swedish death metal as though the country has its own specific sound, what are your thoughts on how people often tend to align a country such as Sweden or a city like Seattle or Detroit with a certain type of music being produced?

Well, isn't that the same thing that happens with pretty much what ever you do? People generalize everything and anything and I can't really say that I care that they do.
We have never been striving for the typical Swedish sound though, I think we sound more like some American band like Necrovore or Morbid Angel.

The short interludes with keyboards and screams add another dimension to the album and make it more intense listening. How did you come up with ideas?

I'm glad to hear you say so, as it was the intention. The ideas came from various horror movie soundtracks. We had been listening to a lot of them at the time we wrote the album and wanted to create the same atmosphere within our music.

 Could you tell us a little more about "The Horror" vinyl release?  What are your favourite things about vinyl?

It has been released through Blood Harvest. It contains a 7" 8-page booklet and it's gatefold. There is a limited edition available with an A3 coffinshaped poster.
Available soon is also the limited version with blood splatter and numbered in blood, in 25 copies.

Adam, You're involved with ENFORCER who play with more of a NWOBHM sound. Could you tell us more about that project?

I would never call it a project, it's very serious. I take both bands equally serious, even though they differ in depth and in other personal aspects.
We are touring a lot at the moment, and it's going pretty well.

What other musical projects are members of TRIBULATION involved with?

Jonathan and Johannes is playing in a band called STENCH. They just released a 7" on Soulseller Records.

What are the immediate and long-term future plans for TRIBULATION?

The immediate plan is to continue writing new material. When we are eventually done with that we're going to record a new album. Another tour might come up as well.

Anything to add for our readers?

"We take your weak resistance, throw it in your face. We need no introduction for mass-annihilation!".

Thanks for the interview.

TRIBULATION are Johannes Andersson – (Voc, Bass) ,Jonathan Hultén – (Gtr) ,Adam Zaars –(Gtr) and Jakob Johansson – (Drums).  Their album is available through Pulverised Records.  More information  can be on the band's facebook page

Aaron Poehler - You had to leave your mark

 

As any music blogger who leaves an easily readable email address on their blog, we often get overwhelmed with spam from publicists, musicians and bands wanting reviews or wanting their latest album posted for download.  Often it just gets ignored as it is easy to tell that they even looked at the blog.  I receive info about bad pop groups that rip off other bad pop groups about shows I'll never attend.  Whether this is because Rupert Murdoch broke Myspace I'll likely never know or the fact that like most of the world's population I never use that site any more and it was only really to listen to bands when I did.  Heard an interesting fact that 80 percent of the world own a cellphone.  It'd be good to know the percentage that own one but keep thinking about throwing it away or running it over because that's where I fit.

Anyway it's always great to know that an email correspondent has actually read some of the blog and San Diego resident,  Aaron Poehler clearly had and as a zine producer and reviewer has an understanding of the process from both sides.  Aaron let us know about his second album "You had to Leave Your Mark", which he describes as indie-rock music with guitar.

If Sonic Youth produced a song with Mark Lanegan on vocals it'd sound a lot like "Spray Vandalism"

There's a Tom Waits feel to "An Accident of Birth" due to both the vocals and the use of unexpected instruments coming in at unexpected times.  There's a beautiful laid-back quietness to "Maybe Great Discoveries".

There's a tale of desperation to "Last Call" 

Hear Aaron Poehler's complete album, "You had to Leave Your Mark"  here.