Prosauce

Bassekou Kouyate - african artist with an really intresting sound.

Not a fan of the vid but their new album is pretty good.

Porcupine Tree last night was phenominal, the sound was even better than last time I remember. Packed out event as well and the crowd were really into it.

Setlist was:

The Incident - all of Disc 1

[10 minute break]

The Start of Something Beautiful
Russia on Ice
Anesthetize
Lazarus
Way Out of Here
Normal (off the Nil Recurring EP)
Bonnie the Cat

[Encore]

The Sound of Muzak
Trains

Oh and Micas, I stuck around afterwards and got to meet up with Gavin Harrison, Richard Barbieri and John Wesley. Got them to sign some stuff and also got a few photos with them. I'll put them up here once my friend sends me the pics cause I had to use his camera.

That's great.. glad you had a good time.

I went to an entirely different kind of musical performance on the weekend...

The Schubert and Grieg pieces were fantastic... can't say I was all that into the Mozart or the Haydn.

How about a local Dallas band? They're rather Static-X-y.. I'm going to head over to Fort Worth and check them out later this month. The video is more than a little dumb, but the song is cool. They've got some good stuff.

They did an album of pop song covers that's pretty cool.. I like their sense of humor.

http://www.myspace.com/RIVETHEAD

Here's the pics I promised (they are a bit blurry, go iPhone):



Me and Gavin Harrison




Me and John Wesley.

Apparantly the photos I took of Richard were actually videos and they've been deleted :Z

Nice t-shirt..

Interested to hear what you think about this band Micas. It's an Aussie band called Be'lakor based out of Melbourne.



That's the first song off their latest album. I've just started listening to them and they've definitely got some talent. The rest of the album should be up on Youtube as well if you search around.

Okay.. well, here's the thing. It's not really fair, but I measure melodeath bands against Opeth. This band has some cool things going for it.. They just remind me too much of that band the obsesses on Vikings..

The vocals aren't bad at all, but a little on the generic side. The drumming is pretty precise, but has no texture to it. It sounds kinda like a drum machine, but not in the cool sort of way Messugah does it. Oh I know.. this album sounds like Orchid, but they aren't a bunch of 17 year olds in 1994 recording on 4 track analog tape.

Thinking a bit more about it.. this band isn't melodic death metal. It's compeltely riff driven.. everything sits on repetative riffing and the vocals are just a noise, not really something that adds to the music, but a contrast to the repetative riffing.

Don't really know how to explain it properly, but I've listened to like 5 songs and the band is really thin. They don't evoke anything epic or emotional. They don't surprise with a twist into unexpected passages. It doesn't even have a LOL-VIKINGS! going for it. It's predictable, and it sounds like they've been learning their instruments for a short time. Not once did I think "damn.. cool shit". I thought, "oh that's another riff that sounds quite similar to the last song just played in a different time signature".

I think Karnivool is still the only Aussie band that I dig..

... One of the songs on youtube, somebody compared the band to Opeth.. and so you know, can't let that one go.. had to comment thus..

If they were a bit faster I'd dig it a bit more. I think it's lols that you like Karnivool. It's like pop hardcore.

I think these guys are pretty similar to Insomnium, which is another band I've recently gotten into. I dunno, I guess I generally don't rate bands against each other that much. I just try and enjoy them for what they are.

Anyway at least they aren't these guys

Bowling for Soup 1985

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K38xNqZvBJI

Jonathan Coulton : Skullcrusher Mountain

"The voices that control me from inside my head say I shouldn't kill you yet"