From the Archive: Parkway Drive - Winston McCall Interview

Originally appeared in Buzz Magazine, December 2008.

Kicking back in his native Byron Bay on the tail end of a massive international tour, Winston McCall, lead vocalist of the immensely popular Parkway Drive pauses for reflection. How does a hardcore/metalcore band such as theirs react to writing and record a chart-topping album? (Horizons managed to debut at #6 on the ARIA Album charts.)

“It’s been pretty good. It’s been better than we ever could have hoped.” Having that said, it wasn’t completely out of left field.

“When Killing the Smile came out it got such a good reception it was better than anything we could have hoped to have achieved with that. We were put in the position where we thought nothing could ever do better than it.”

Horizons wasn’t destined for any sort of greatness – Winston describes it as the “backup” album to merely ride on the coattails of Killing.

“Funnily enough, Horizons seems to have gone really well; the songs we play live seem to go down just as well if not better than the old songs, I like the songs more and kids seem to be stoked on it.”

Being as popular as a metalcore album could ever have dreamed to have been, was this the signal for a headlong drive into the mainstream, albeit the fringes thereof? According to Winston, underground core lovers need not be frightened by the neon lights and MTV cameras just yet.

“I don’t think so. Simply because you still don’t hear any of it played on the radio and [metalcore isn’t] definitely breaking any kind of mainstream barrier in terms of acceptance, you never see film clips or anything like that, it never has any support like that…you could hear it on Triple J or on independent radio stations. The volume of kids listening to it is testament to how big the actual following is. Other than that, it’s still definitely under the radar from the mainstream.”

Parkway Drive have built themselves from the ground up, playing in Europe to mere handfuls of people all the way up to headlining shows.

“When we went to Europe, it was like starting up again, as if you were a brand new band,” he recalls. “We’d be playing in the smallest venues you’ve ever seen without stages and holes in the roof, but now we’ve got thousands of kids rocking up and it’s just ridiculous.”

Has Winston ever considered playing something else for the band?

“No,” he insists, “I’m so, so bad. I cannot play an instrument.”

Even despite being revered for his vocals, Winston doesn’t think they’re anything praiseworthy.

“I can’t sing either. I found that I could scream at kids and I lost my voice like hell when I first started out but it was the first thing I could actually do that gave me an outlet for the passion that I had. I wanted to start a band but I had no ability to do it because I couldn’t play anything, I guess that was the only thing left for me to do. (laughs) I still can’t play anything for shit.”

He did, however, try to learn the harmonica, but to no avail. How would it fit into the Parkway Drive sound?

“Well, I don’t think it would. But it seems pretty simple. I’m finding that it’s more complicated than it looks. I find myself going ‘hee’, ‘haww’ over and over again and I’m like,‘shit, how do you actually play this thing?’”

Metalcore has long been considered the orphaned lovechild of heavy metal and hardcore music, which many fans on either side relish in deriding instead of accepting.

“Europe has the most unified scene when it comes to that. But when you go to the States, it’s broken down even beyond that. You’ll go to a show and kids won’t come out unless it’s a specific genre of music,” he reveals.

“There’ll only be a handful of bands that fit their criteria and will actually go out of their way to support. To me, I don’t really care what the label is. If it’s heavy and there’s a punk ethic, I’ll call it punk. If hardcore kids like I’ll call it hardcore and if metal kids like something I’ll call it metal. To me, the music being played is a lot more important than the label being placed on it. I don’t think pigeonholing a band will make it sound any different or any better. I don’t think that’s going to change, though.”

Parkway Drive recently re-mixed and re-mastered their first album, Killing with a Smile after only two years of recording it. Why would a band resort to re-mastering after only two years? Winston explains that it wasn’t a business decision, but as a thank you to their new fans that couldn’t find their earlier work.

“Well, our first album went out of print, so kids couldn’t find it. So we got our first album and all of our other out of print stuff before Killing and whacked it all together and put it on one release. We tried to make it available to kids if they wanted it. It wasn’t so much of a marketing ploy, it was doing something that kids asked of us, I guess.”

And Parkway Drive are always accommodating to their fans.

“We try to hang out with as many kids as we can after shows and stuff and we try to make kids as happy as they can. For example, I signed some guy’s nuts in New Mexico.”

You read right. He signed a fan’s nutsack.

“He got them out and they were swollen, and I signed them. I even took a photo with him afterwards. It was crazy.” All part of the Parkway Drive service.

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Never Surrender

"An honest politician is a national calamity." - Robert Anton Wilson

Writing a piece on the Australian Government's proposed Internet Clean Feed for Onya Magazine, I quickly realized some things about governance in the 21st century. Governance is an annoyance at its best, a hindrance to personal and in some cases, small-collective satisfaction at its worst. There's a role for collective action in our civil society and in the cases where Governments overlegislate and create more problems for more people ala the Clean Feed, its time for many leaders both political, economic and civil to sit down and ponder the end of a "space-binding" method of governance replaced by "time-binding" governance, instituted and regulated by information technology mechanisms.

The mindset that space and the matter that resides in it should be the basis for its government has reached a halting limit. The Clean Feed is a blaring example. The old Magniot Line mentality has prevailed even now, in the 21st Century though one can still send a malicious payload wirelessly. Now we must explore other frontiers to govern ourselves both with a public service and without. Will we? Perhaps in a technologically backward-ass country such as my own, only time will tell, and for us time may come too late.

Christmas Straight Up Sucks

I figure that the most irritating holiday of the year requires input from yours truly, because we seem to be the generation that has perverted it to such a degree no one knows why we sit around a table, eat a damn bird that no one eats during regular times and other shit that we only care to think of during December. Surely, this process could all be mediated instead over Facebook, somehow?

If it were up to me, I'd probably order Chinese food with hell of egg rolls and chicken wings instead. (Provided I was somewhere that did that kind of order.) I'd sit around, download more episodes of The Wire and watch them on a big screen TV, oblivious that my local bar, CD store and Discount Tyre outlet were all closed. I lead an interesting life, dammit - I exist as an eternal mixture of intrigue and backwater sass. (Hah, who am I kidding.)

Talking about The Wire, its cerebral television; it has this uncanny ability to draw you to its narrative, even though the bulk of it is ego-driven political dialog the likes of which Aaron Sorkin loves to masturbate over, losing his jive whenever the characters say "fuck." (And they say "fuck" quite a lot!)

If you can imagine your best friend - as complicated and imperfect as they are, you can get a handle on how compelling and brilliant The Wire is. You probably met at some time in your lives where you both had the same interests and conversation flowed so freely you didn't even notice the sun rising after spending all night on the phone, greeting their brothers and sisters and tagging along to strange as hell events like their Dutch migrant piano recital or application for tags at the DMV. (Er, VicRoads? Screw it, y'all know I want to be seppo)

The Wire is the televisual equivalent of your best friend - the tension between their own self-interest and your need for attention - exists like allegory on the screen. You see cops beating on their own, drug dealers aspiring for the average life and the corrupt, perverse nature of institutionalizing humans at their worst, at their most demonized. As it plays out, you understand and feel everything it offers in and of itself and beyond - much like your best friend does - without even realizing.

Next year, we should all watch The Wire instead of having Christmas.

In Heavy Consternation

There's no internship to work as a freelance journalist. You don't go to a "somewhere", train yourself and go do it. (Perhaps there is; I'd sure like to know about it.) Sure, you can do a university degree in journalism but that doesn't 'qualify' you, so to speak. Like any profession, you learn on the job. The job for me as a freelance copywriter/journo/PR dude is the job (or jobs) you push yourself to get. I've been writing since I was in high school. It didn't dawn on me that writing as a job was a viable option until about the fourth year of my three year university degree. I never thought doing something I enjoyed could actually earn some money. Well, it doesn't. The economy's rooted and so am I. To a certain extent.

But just like riding bicycles and sexy time, things get easier with practice. The more you venture out from your comfort zone, the more hardships you will find and the more rewarding the pay off. The vocation I have chosen for myself will not make me any significant amount of money for a while. I know that. I won't be driving Beemers or drinking G&Ts in penthouse apartments. (Because that's gay.) I'm still in my "internship" - writing for free until I gain a name for myself. I have contacts, I have drive, I have ambition and I have knowhow but not enough clout for subs to rush to their editors and exclaim, "I have Tom Valcanis on the phone! He wants to another piece about how much Facebook sucks!" Close friends and my partner will attest; I'm an egotistical son of a bitch and I hate being rejected. I even get childish about it at times. But as Korzybski, Watzlawick and Ellis have taught me, failure is feedback - try and try again, improving each time.

In my isolation since my return to Australia, I've actually found myself. Being in the US showed me what was important in my life and the lives of a significant other and now I know where I want to be. I have moved past my "grass is greener" mentality; I want to work, I want to improve and I want to be proactive. Getting my arse-kicked the day I took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport has left an indeliable indentation on my bum and it will always remind me that there are things bigger than myself that I want to be a part of and have to work towards to be included in again. I've done wrong but I am working to make things right. I believe in second chances and gradual transformation. As one of my favorite authors and philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson says; "I'm not a noun - I'm a verb. I'm always changing, never staying the same from one moment to the next."

Anti-Flag - Pat Thetic Interview

Had a pleasant conversation with Pat Thetic of Anti-Flag - Be sure to read Buzz Magazine next month for more Anti-Flag news!

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Anger. Violence. Revolution. All adjectives that could invariably be applied to punk rock legends Anti-Flag. Not words that can describe their reasonably chipper and easy-going drummer, Pat Thetic, however.

“Hi,” he greets me cheerily. “How are you today?” I reply that I’m very well. Cool and calm, Pat tells me where he is. “I’m sitting on my back porch in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I just got home from Sweden yesterday. I slept all day and now I’m ready to chat.” At this point, I was fired up for a great conversation too.

The People or the Gun, the title of Anti-Flag’s ninth studio record will, as Pat says, “rock your ass off.” Recording in their home state of Pennsylvania was a figurative and literal return to their beginnings, as Pat explains.

“Well, we hadn’t recorded in Pittsburgh for a long time,” he continues. “We set up a studio in our practice room and it was good because we haven’t recorded that way since the first four or five records that we’ve done without a producer; just us and some rented recording equipment. There wasn’t any other band in the house or a warehouse…it was very refreshing having the four of us writing music and recording music dirtily and aggressively and just making it happen.”

“I think we captured something really special on this record that we haven’t been capturing on some of the other records.”

As a punk band, they are one of the few bands that steadfastly rock out against the establishment, consistently speaking out against injustice, misuse of power and highlighting, sometimes controversially, issues they feel go unaddressed by others – they even pledged to donate a portion of the record sales of The People or the Gun to Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy group. With the U.S. Presidential Election looming and a world economy in turmoil, the band resolved to, as Pat tells us, to “record quickly.”

“There was a lot going on in our world and we wanted to comment on it. The world was sort of collapsing and we wanted to say something about it.

“We bring up issues in our music and we want people to be aware of them; but it doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to stay angry about them. I want people to think about these issues. I want there to be other points of view [besides the mainstream media] and that’s why we create this music; so we can have another point of view – another set of ideas that are being thrown out there when people are hearing about militarism and the government bailing out bankers.”

Anti-Flag’s activism is built on the same straightforward premise; that giving people ideas about what is happening around them through music can bring change to the world, although their first goal is simply to “be a rock band” as Pat breaks it down for us.

“If you’re not doing something creative or interesting musically, no-one’s going to care. Now that we’re a rock band, what can we do that’s more interesting than just play rock shows. How can [Anti-Flag] get our ideas into the world where we feel these ideas aren’t present? Our activism and being a rock band isn’t a separate thing.

"I mean, for example when we went to Canada this year – a lot of kids in Canada don’t have coats. The kids that come to our rock shows have extra coats. Then let’s try to get the kids who have extra coats to give them to the kids who don’t have any. Then it’s not a rock show, it’s a rock show that’s building a community and building something better than just a rock show; that’s sort of how the process goes.”

Pat says they had a lot of challenges with being signed to a major label before moving on to independent punk label SideOneDummy which also includes Flogging Molly and the Casualties on their roster. However the switch was more to do with the perception others had more than their desire to shy away from the mainstream music industry.

“Being signed to a major label made us more resilient and even angrier,” Pat explains to us simply. “If we had mainstream success from the outside, it would probably be detrimental.”

“If you gave the four of us as an entity a bullhorn that big? You wouldn’t be able to get us to go to sleep because we’d be trying to figure out ways to push people’s buttons and make them uncomfortable. It would just make us unsuccessful again and put us back into the world we know.”

Jokingly, I liken their hypothetical situation to that of the late author and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson when asked what the first thing he would do if he was elected President – “Resign!”

Pat laughs it off. “Yeah, sort of like that. But we wouldn’t intentionally resign. Through our actions, we would make ourselves resign…because we’d have to. (laughs)”

Anti-Flag are eager to return to Australian shores, but it just a matter of finding time in their busy schedule.

“We have a tour schedule set up until January 2010,” Pat laments with a strain in his voice, “It would probably be soon after that. It would be the spring of … ‘Ten.’ What are we going to call that? 2010.”

I tell Pat he could call it the ‘Tour in Ten.’

“That’s a great name for it! ‘Tour in Ten!’ (laughs) “Now when we call it that you can point at us and say, ‘That was my idea! Damn them, damn them to hell!’”

Joking aside, Pat and the band can’t wait to return.

“We love to play Australia. We love the Australian people and playing shows there are always a lot of fun. It’s definitely on our list to get there soon.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Crushtor: Brand Entrepreneur Marketing Guru Ichiban?

There's about fifty billion websites and twenty hundred trillion people on Twitter that "tweet" about internet marketing, branding, social media and whatever. Some of these arseholes expect you to pay for their "expertise" in generating leads, followers and whatever. Of course most of it appears to be spam, but a curious experiment I conducted today yielded some intriguing and disturbing results.

First off, it was supposed to be a parody of said "social media" marketers who think they can make exorbitant amounts of money from their tweeting. Who knows; bloggers with plenty of traffic probably can live off their advertising revenue once they hit a certain level of clout and credibility. Chris Onstad, creator of the hell of incisive and darkly funny Achewood comics says his advertising and merchandise sales allow him and his young family to live "comfortably" as a full-time comic writer.

Once I posted this:

After about two weeks on twitter, I think my two most hated words are currently "network" and "marketing."

I got 2 followers. After getting some tips from other friends:

@lindsayevans Oh yeah! Good call! Welcome to Crushtor: social media affiliate marketing entrepreneur and SEO guru for hire and pizza parties

What High Priestess @goatlady says about #hailsatan: "Before #hailsatan my brand marketing ROI was 2%. Now it's like 66.6%!"

I was up to about 17. Within 4 hours I got 73 new followers. At the start of the day I was on about 220, now I'm up to 310 as I write this. Completely ludicrous. Most websites scamming you out of your cash promise you that amount of rapid "growth" - I just threw up some buzzwords and got the same effect. Its hard to tell if its marketers looking for genuine signal amongst torrents of noise or if they're trying to validate their own scam; "Hey boys, looks like someone's bought into the program, better make it look nice!" so I can invariably sign up more chumps. Because seriously; these people are just repeating one another without even pointing to anything that actually exists.

Sure; advertising products or services with empty abstractions isn't anything we haven't seen before. But they have to refer back to something at the end of the day. If someone re-tweets "Top 5 tips for Brand Marketing on Social Media" and can't point to a real world, extensional definition they might as well be saying "Top 5 tips for blab blab on blab blab." (With apologies to Stuart Chase.)

Consider The Engagement

Just a quick muse on the new Killswitch Engage track offered via Roadrunner Records yesterday; people might crucify me for doing this, but it sounds like something Iron Maiden would do. I'm not saying they'd use screamed vocals and tremolo picking to the extent in the track, but it only clocks in at 2 minutes and 42 seconds. Remember "Different World" from A Matter of Life and Death? Probably not. But it was just a great single that summed up the album in one track. Dark Tranquillity did it too prior to the release of Character, in the form of "Derivation TNB." I would expect this single serve the same purpose, considering the track an "official leak" ahead of the album's release on June 26th (Australia)

Not being the biggest fan of KSE, I did admire the succinct and direct songwriting that they displayed on this track, their trending toward the 80s sound almost now a given. Its noteworthy that they use the same motive in all their riffs, building upon it and repeating for maximum effect. Even when it deviates for a heavy, chugging bridge, it just rams home the motive again, repeating that catchy, huge chorus. The economy of style definitely will win many fans. Good stuff.

--Hat tip to Bob at Roadrunner AU.

Yeah, Well, Cool.

I don't know about some people, but Twitter, the social media platform that I used to think was "Facebook without the Faces...or the books, for that matter" is just suited for my mind. In my schoolyard days, I would make quips and one-liners that would merely evaporate into the ether, never to be heard again. Then as time went on, writing for the satirical school magazines, I'd make up headlines without copy to go underneath - why should I? The headline was amusing enough, why sully it with even more words? If the joke delivers itself a laugh, why keep going and risk falling flat by adding more bullshit to it?

Trending topics like "failed TV pilots" allow for people to flex their creative muscle in a discrete format. I enjoy seeing some of the wonderful creations people come up with. Even better when others give me a "ReTweet" for something I've contributed.

Sure, some people (read: Elyse) think I'm a complete wanker, but for "media professionals" such as myself ("yeah, you're still retarded though" I can hear her say) that have something to say, no matter how condensed, it can be a very useful tool to connect to other people with. Doesn't that make you feel all special?

In actual news: I'm going to review about a million discs this month and I have an interview with Amorphis in the can. Sounds like...fun

In Error

Well, what exactly have I been doing? Looking up websites. It's what I do. Oh, and try to transmit myself across the internet to the girl I'm totally in love with. So far it hasn't been working. I'll have to buy that plane ticket after all. Damn it all to hell!

Which is kind of daunting, to say the least. Arriving in Seppoland and getting all my necessary paperwork in order might just drive me batty. I'll be set up there in no time at all, I just don't have much fundamentals here, scarcely less than over there (but still more, damn you!). I'm sort of stuck, scrambling for ideas on how to pass myself off as a journalist when next to no-one believes that's what I (have been) do(ing) since I was in high school, essentially. Except for those 20 readers a day. I love YOU guys heaps.

I've got interviews set up with all kinds of interesting people; but I can't for the life of me figure out who wants to read about them. In a world that thrives on hearsay, uninterested as hapless facts look on in disillusion, what exactly do I do?

Trivium - Corey Beaulieu Interview

An interview with my good friend (well, I have met him a few times - does that count?) Corey Beaulieu, guitarist for global metal giants Trivium. Be sure to read Buzz Magazine for more Trivium news this month!!!

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Floridian metallers Trivium have a hectic tour schedule. As of publication, they would have already embarked on a trek through Canada with Slipknot then hopping over to Japan before touching down in Australia. Although the norm for places such as the United States and Europe, Trivium’s headlining tour comes with two other overseas bands, namely Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn and thrash metal neophytes Black Tide – a band with an average age of only seventeen. Talking with Corey Beaulieu, guitarist for the heavy metal hegemons, insists that he won’t do anything to corrupt their innocent minds while in Australia; he’s already done it for them.

“Well, we had them open a few shows for us back home a couple of years ago”, Corey reflects. “That was their first kind of mini-tour; we popped their ‘tour cherry’ in a way.

“We’ve seen them at various music awards but we haven’t toured with them since then, so they’ve come a long way since we played with them. It’ll be fun to play with them again. They’re Florida boys so it’ll be like ‘Florida reunites in Australia.’”

Despite a legion of vehement armchair-bound, Facebook toting detractors, Trivium have won over many metalheads in Australia with their latest record, Shogun, finishing with a peak ranking of #4 on the ARIA album charts; a feat that many metal bands could only dream of accomplishing. Corey says that he’s “really excited” by all the press and fan reaction to such a stellar result and their first ever Australian headlining tour.

“We’re really pumped to do a headlining tour for the record for the first time and Australia is one of the places where we’ve never done this sort of stuff before, so our fans haven’t seen the full, super-long Trivium set so its going to be fun to be able to do that because we’ve got a really killer set going too. Hopefully everyone has a chance to make it out to the show.”

Even though the set may be lengthy, Corey insists that fans may never get to hear the “sheer volume of material” in their vaults as Trivium’s well of inspiration seldom runs dry. Corey believes that the state of the music industry is changing and Trivium needs to lead the charge.

“Instead of recording 12 songs per record, we could easily go in and record something like 20 songs and then put out the record,” Corey muses. “Every three months or something or throughout the tour cycle we could put out a new song online. We could constantly feed people with new music, keep people involved.”

“We might write a record with a bunch of songs that don’t typically fit the tone of the [album]; we could put out a song that’s a little different from the record – you know, just to put out music that’s cool. We don’t [necessarily] have to put it on a record.”

“With the industry sort of suffering, you have to have a fresh approach on music and keeping people’s attention spans up.”

Will Corey weep for the decline of the humble compact disc? As a fan, yes. As a guitarist in a constantly touring metal band, seemingly not, as he revealed to me.

“When I was a kid I fuckin’ loved going down to the record store and buying new music – you know saying ‘that has a cool album cover, I’m going to buy it.’ But now out of the necessity of what I do and my traveling around, I started using iTunes. I got hooked on it; its just so easy, I click a button and I buy an album that I want. Sometimes some of the stuff I want to buy, record stores won’t even have because shelf space is declining. People can’t get the record they want unless they special order it or some shit.”

iTunes may have killed the CD star, but Beaulieu thinks that artists will get their just reward if they choose the digital route.

“It doesn’t cost a lot – well, any money to put a record up on iTunes. There are a lot of benefits to it but what you miss is the actual, physical product. But truth be told, the CD is kind of dying out. People just aren’t buying music any more and its hurting the whole business.”

Even though music is essentially being stolen via the internet, Corey doesn’t believe that Trivium will have to make their music “louder” as people move away from listening to music on their stereos with powerful speakers to iPods with the now ubiquitous tiny white earphones.

“Well, I’ve got the little earbuds that came with my iPhone, and they sound fuckin’ killer for their size.” He says, surprisingly.

“The technology that goes into what you’re listening to and to keep it at a really high quality is really advanced. It depends on what you’ve got. If you’re listening to a record via shitty equipment it’s still going to sound shitty no matter how good the production of the album was. I don’t think we should ‘dumb down’ or change ourselves sonically during recording to match what people are listening to us through.

“People should want to listen to music on high quality sound systems. It’ll just kick ass more.”

Those with the cash to splash on high-end sound kit should take note of the guitar tone on Shogun; the production into creating such an inimitable sound was meticulous to say the least.

“The reason it sounds so different is because there’s just so many angles of sound going into it,” Corey explains. “our producer [Nick Rasculinecz, also currently producing the new Alice in Chains album] knew a lot of old school tricks and would mix and match between ProTools and stuff used before then.”

“We might have been sitting there going ‘what the hell is he doing?’ when he was setting up an old studio trick from back in the day instead of using a plug-in tool or something like that. He’d actually go out and do something in the room to create the sound we wanted. He brought some different approaches to the record that we had never seen before.”

Was the band happy with the result?

“Oh yeah. We would never have been able to get some of the sounds we got without someone with the kind of experience he had. It was a lot of fun seeing him do some of the stuff he did.”
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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

My Dying Bride - Andrew Craighan Interview

The grandfather of gloom; Andrew Craighan of My Dying Bride chats candidly with me about his new album, For Lies I Sire, tours, the happy side of doom metal, the past, the present and of course, the future.

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Crushtor.net: Hey Andrew, how are you? Where are you based at the moment?

Andrew Craighan: I’m quite well thank you. I’m in South Leeds in Yorkshire.

C: Touring? Or just relaxing?

Andrew: Well, there’s no shows planned until the end of May. Well, I’m just relaxing as I might do on, well, this is a Wednesday evening here in England. Just having a quick beer and talking to you lovely people.

C: Well, let’s get started. My Dying Bride (MDB) are one of the first doom bands that emerged on the scene that are still committed to the style. As the “father” of the style, what has kept you together with the “baby” that you’ve now raised from infancy and into maturity while others have shunned the style such as Paradise Lost or Anathema as time went on?

Andrew: The major difference as to why we’ve stayed as we were boils down just after the release of 34.788% Complete. I know we don’t have a lot of time so I’ll try to condense this as best as possible and try and have it make sense.

C: (Laughs) Okay. No worries.

Andrew: Calvin (Robertshaw, former guitarist) left the band. Just prior to that we lost Rick (Miah, former drummer) and Martin (Powell, former keyboardist and violinist) so we were down to fifty percent of the original band in a flash; within 18 months or something like that. The remaining three was myself, Aaron (Stainthorpe, vocalist) and Adrian (Jackson, former bassist) and we said ‘What do we do, this is a catastrophe.’ From a line-up point of view, well, I thought anyway. I wasn’t keen on the idea, but they said ‘we’ll keep going; we’ll keep the name and just continue.’

From this decision making episode, we resolved ourselves to remain doom metal or death metal or whatever you want to call it. It’s going to be bleak, it’s going to be dark, we’re going to be as horrible as we can be and we’re going to be true to the name My Dying Bride from this point forward. No compromise. We’re not interested in anything else, this is who we are and this is what we will do. I think that deliberate decision making back then in 1997 or ’98 has made us who we are. Where as Paradise Lost and Anathema had never been through that; they continued on their progression through various musical styles; for their own reasons, I don’t know what they are.

Andrew continues and allows us a brief insight into the renaissance of MDB.

Andrew: I can certainly remember having the meeting. Without doubt, we sat there and put the cloaks on so to speak; it became a much darker atmosphere around the band and music from that point forward. We’ve sometimes wandered from the path musically in various songs but for the most part we’ve try to keep true to that. I think [the meeting] was without doubt the turning point towards the dark side, if you will, without sounding too cliché. But I guess that’s it.

C: Let’s talk about your new record, For Lies I Sire.

Andrew: Okay. (pause) Which bit? (laughs)

C: I haven’t heard it yet, so I wouldn’t know where to start!

Andrew: Well Okay, I’ll give you some pointers. We reintroduced the violin, which we haven’t used since Like Gods of the Sun, for over ten years. It was a pretty tricky decision because in the beginning, we felt that the violin was an instrument that was very difficult to replace. So if you can imagine when Martin left, we didn’t have one for so long. On this record, it seemed like the right time to bring it back. It was mainly because no one asked us if we were going to. Well, if no one’s asking us to then it makes it our idea again. It just felt like the right time, truth be told. The LP, is kind of – without making it sound obvious and boring – it’s the epitome of what MDB is; it’s brutal in places and massively heavy; almost aggressive, almost horrible in places.

But it’s like that all for the right reasons. It’s as bleak as MDB have ever been, it’s not just boring music either like, ‘Oh my god here comes another riff change after twenty minutes of the same note.’ Its still very musical. It’s typically MDB but without going ‘oh, we don’t need to hear it then, because we already know what they sound like.’ There’s something to this one that I can’t quite put my finger on. To be fair, its probably the most complete record we’ve done musically; everything is in the right places and it all seems to make sense. It’s still very miserable. It’s sort of…sickeningly morose in places. Also it’s overly aggressive for the sake of it in some places.

C: MDB have always had a rich, romanticist, literary tradition. Does the band still draw inspiration from literature? Or other types of art? What’s your creative process like?

Andrew: Well, it’s pretty straightforward really. For me, from the musical sense, I don’t get involved with the lyrics apart from minor stuff here and there; everything influences you, there’s no sort of mystery to it. I don’t just sit in a dark corner and think morbid thoughts and come up with riffs all day. Your life is just one continual collection of influences. I was mentioning earlier to another chap, I guess in MDB its sort of like practicing for real misery. Like, what will I really do when it happens to me? So I was always kind of playing the part, and that’s where the inspiration for me used to come from. Its sort of like we said ‘let’s write something miserable and pretend we understand.’ Then when real tragedy came, and you felt really miserable, genuinely miserable, genuinely upset, there was no inspiration at all. The spark was gone for music and the spark was gone for creating music. When you regain your senses again, I found that writing and playing this music was a great joy.

The influence to do it is because it pleases me. Greatly. I love this style of music. It’s morose and, I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know what that says about me and I don’t understand why, but I draw great pleasure from playing and recording with this outfit. Sounding like this…nothing makes me smile wider. The more miserable we sound, the better I feel.

C: So it’s not a cathartic thing for you, it’s a genuine pleasure.

Andrew: Yeah, I love it. No question about that. If we get something and we go ‘fuck me, that is morose’ or ‘that is heavy’ because we’re primarily a heavy metal band which is something I love, and if we think we’ve come up with something that we would consider ‘uber-doom’ which is ‘beyond doom’…it’s just misery itself and just breaks you in half immediately…we’re over the moon! You know, because this is going to piss everybody off and make them upset. I mean, it seems to work. We’re not the only ones who seem to like this stuff.

C: Well doom metal certainly has a following, there’s no doubt about that. Even for myself, I own a few of your records, and as ‘depressing’ as they sound, I still enjoy them quite a bit.

Andrew: Well, fair enough; every time you put the CD player on, MDB isn’t the band you always go to. I’m the same; I don’t do this twenty-four hours a day. If you’re in that particular zone and you’re in that particular mood, and make sure it’s a good one. Just don’t put one on when you’ve fallen out with your girlfriend. (laughs)

C: Yeah, well...I sort of actually did that once. But let’s move on.

Andrew: (laughs) Yeah kids, don’t try that at home.

C: (laughs) You should put a warning sticker on your albums; do not play during a break up, etc., etc.

Andrew: To be fair, it would probably cause such controversy and double the sales on them and ruin everything.

C: How so?

Andrew: If we ever got into the mainstream limelight it would kill the band. Its due to the fact we’re still very much an unknown quantity; people have heard the name but not everybody knows about us and I think that’s part of the attraction.

C: Talking about that, being an underground band and having stuck with your label, Peaceville, right from the beginning, they seem to be a musician’s label and a music fans’ label, treating them both with the same level of respect. Would that be an accurate assessment?

Andrew: It’s not far away to be honest. They understand what MDB and the other bands on the roster are all about. They don’t ask their bands what they don’t want to do. They don’t take us aside and ask us ‘can you please shorten that song to a three-minute hit, please?’ That would be ridiculous, clearly we’re not the band for you if that’s what you want. They don’t hassle us about artwork or titles or lyrics. They know that they’ve got MDB and that it has its own appeal and it has its own little market somewhere and they’re happy with that. Its the same with the other bands on the roster. So that’s perfect for us.

We haven’t stuck with Peaceville just because of that. Our contract has come up maybe two or three times through the course of our career and we’ve had offers from various other labels. They’ve always been the best one. It’s just that simple, for many many different reasons. They’ve always offered the band; as far as we’re concerned, the best deal and they pretty much leave us to just get on with it. I mean, who wants to be hassled by a record label? They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but as a record label they’re probably the right one for us. We have no intention of changing in the near future.

C: Have you ever wanted to tour Australia?

Andrew: Yeah. Well, its getting to the point where we can’t avoid it. We’ve been asked a number of times and as I’ve mentioned, it’s not financial, it’s not the money that stops us – we get good offers, even as an underground band, we get offers that certainly make it financially viable, to get there and back without spending any of our own money, at least. Its time. That’s the killer. There’s six members in the band plus certain members of the crew we can’t leave behind. Its getting them all together at one point and saying ‘right, we have so many shows to do, and we have to get there and back’ But yes, we’re on our way and without doubt its going to happen. I just can’t tell you when.

C: This year, next year?

Andrew: Please don’t hold me to this, but we’re hoping to be there in the next eighteen months to two years, which is still a massive amount of time. But, considering how long we’ve been going it’s only a minute away.

C: Well, maybe one more question, if the operator doesn’t scold us.

Andrew: She’s pretty cool, actually.

Operator: It’s okay.

C: (laughs) You’re still there! I’d thought you’d left!

Andrew: We’re on first name terms.

C: Well, how have you reacted personally to the term “doom metal” being claimed by the post-hardcore / progressive movement [like bands such as] Electric Wizard or The Sword or what have you? Do you still call that “doom?”

Andrew: I have no idea who the fuck those two bands are.

C: (laughs) They call themselves “doom” but, at least when I think of “doom” I think of the crushing, heavy, oppressive sound. They’re also calling themselves “doom” bands.

Andrew: They certainly don’t register on my doom radar if you know what I mean. Before I make any stupid comments about them I need to listen to them. Doom has so many different faces right now. They may genuinely be a form of doom, it might not be quite how I understand it. I heard about one of these bands supporting someone recently and they seemed to be quite high up the bill and I thought ‘well, I’ve never heard of this outfit.’ But you mentioned their name again. What I’ve always expected is for an American band to turn up and be doom metal and go straight to the charts in mainstream music as “doom.” But some doom bands that have been plodding along for twenty-five years, thirty years get nothing. Then they get classed as “old school doom.” As opposed to the “new wave of doom.” For me, that would be a travesty and a tragedy for the word “doom” to be used in that way. As “pop.”

C: It’s been great talking with you Andrew, I hope to see you in Australia soon.

Andrew: It’s been a pleasure. And I’m not just saying we’re going to tour for the sake of it. It’s something on the cards, its going to happen.

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Selling Out

Well, I need to make extra money if I want to travel and set up my media empire over in the States. Rupert Murdoch did it, why can't I?

Got a few more interviews to put up here, including the full, unedited transcript with Andrew Craighan of My Dying Bride that chronicles the decline, a brief interregnum and rise again of one of doom metal's most prolific pioneers.

Of course, I'll be releasing older material from the archives as well as updates on my many other projects. Oh, and Easter? What's that? I saw Steve Coogan yesterday at the Forum; why they don't give him some sort of award for just being himself is beyond me.

Edguy - Jens Ludwig Interview

Here’s me thinking that a rock star never got out of bed until the clock was at least into the double digits.

“It’s 9:40 in the morning over here,” confesses Jens Ludwig, lead guitarist for Germany’s power metal darlings (or goofballs; it really depends on your point of view) Edguy. I heartily apologized for awaking him so early, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“I usually get up at eight o’clock.” Really? Is that the waking time for a rock star of such a caliber?

“It really depends, but I have a dog that really needs to go out.” Well, you can’t ignore the thunderous yelps of a caged canine for too long, can you?

Pet maintenance aside, Jens presumably beamed with pride while talking about Edguy’s new album, Tinnitus Sanctus while relaxing at home in Germany. Jens, Tobi (Tobias Sammet, lead vocalist) and co. also had a great time thrashing out the jams for this disc, with a lenient tour schedule affording them a more relaxed and comfortable experience than ever before.

“The recording went pretty smooth,” he says. “We had a big time window to record it so we didn’t record everything in, let’s say, three weeks, but over a period of two months. For example, Dirk (Sauer, guitarist) and I laid down our guitar parts in three sessions, which only took three days. But we had enough time to lay down vocal parts and additional arrangements and try out different things too [in that time]. It was all pretty relaxed, but we also focused on the more important things.”

Nevertheless, two months, let alone three weeks seem to be a pretty tight turnaround for the creation of a sterling metal album with symphonics and other flashy sonic nuggets that a discerning ear may pick up.

“Well, it depends on how much material we have,” Jens says as he gets down to explaining the finer aspects of an Edguy album recording.

“For the previous albums, Rocket Ride and Hellfire Club, we also had two EPs to produce for each album (one each), so we had sixteen to eighteen songs to record. This time we only had eleven
songs, so it was much less work. (laughs)

“But it was better to focus on these eleven songs instead of trying to get fifteen or sixteen songs done in the same amount of time, since we had so much belief in the album.”

They also hope fans to believe in the album more so than the singles since the radio and TV coverage of metal is lamentable at best, even so in the seemingly metal-mad continent of Europe as Jens explains.

“If you’re producing a single and you want to get it to the radio, it has to be played in some underground radio station or on some stations that, lets say, have the ‘metal hour’ maybe, once a month? It’s just a waste of promotion money.

“Sometimes there might be a couple of hours a week [dedicated to metal] and only the metal fans listen to it anyway, and they already know that the album’s going to be released because they are reading the magazines and all that stuff as well. You don’t reach anybody new with radio.”

It’s always been hard for metal to crack a new market in the face of such stiff competition, but Jens’ attitude gives it a positive spin; that metal fans are more appreciative of their genre due to its scarcity of mainstream attention.

“I think it’s good the way it is; it’s never been different with this kind of music. Its good for the fans of metal, since they don’t get any new material from radio or television they have to look out and they have to really pay attention for what’s going to be released, and they really look for material that they like.

“That means they’re going to be fans of your band for the future as well, not [treating your music] as just some throwaway article.”

With new albums come new tours; Jens sounded pumped to begin his eight week European tour (that just might encompass the land down under, if all goes well) that started in January.

“After we finish that European tour we’re going to start a world tour,” Jens excitedly tells me.

“We’re going to start in Russia, then take in Asia, then, hopefully go to Australia, because I would really love to come back there once again. I’ve been there twice already, and every time was so great there, so I hope that it’s going to happen this time.”

“After that we cross the date line and go to South America, and then after that we’re just going to see what’s going to happen.”

“There’s nothing confirmed yet,” he says confidently, “but be sure we’re working on that.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Chimaira - Rob Arnold Interview

Here's a chat I had with Rob Arnold of Chimaira just prior to departing on their two month US tour; be sure to read Buzz Magazine next month for more Chimaira news!

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A phage is spreading across the metal realm and it about to be released by metalcore pioneers Chimaira. Their latest album, The Infection and its accompanying sensory onslaught seeks to instill a sense of dread from every direction, taking on a dirge-like quality that invokes the bleak and inevitable. However Rob Arnold, founding lead guitarist didn’t have plans for such a grandiose, conceptual piece; he tells us it “sorta just happened.”

“We go into every record saying ‘let’s see what happens when we get together and start writing,’” he straight-forwardly confesses. “That sludgier, sort of doomy more brutal sound was just what was swirling [around our heads] at the time.”

The record’s genesis began rather unceremoniously in the back of a tour bus with Mark and Rob setting up a makeshift studio during the latter stages of their Resurrection world tour.

“We set up a studio in the back lounge of the tour bus at the end of the Resurrection cycle [of tours] and we said ‘Hey, its about time we wrote a new record.’ So, on the first day we got it all together, got my guitar plugged in and the first riff played was the opening riff to the song Try to Survive. Its just got this cool groove. (starts to sing song) It’s got this cool heavy vibe to it.

“We liked it and we finished up that song that night. The other guys were popping their heads in there and saying ‘Hey, that sounds cool.’ We just knew we were on to something. It just really set the tone for the rest of the tunes.”

And they were written similarly quickly; the “first seven songs were written over the course of a month, on the rest of that tour,” Rob reveals. “The whole process probably took around three months or so.”

Even though the buzz around the record has been momentous for the band in their eleven year career, the no-nonsense Rob doesn’t seem to see it. He insists that the recording took place under routine circumstances, even enlisting former keyboardist Ben Schigel to handle the production again.

“[Ben] has been our long time friend and producer [who’s] done a bunch our stuff. We had all the songs written and we just went in and did our thing. There wasn’t anything really special about the recording.”

The Infection, when released on the 21st of April, will feature a ton of goodies and bonuses for fans; those who are lucky enough to snag the first 580 “metal briefcases” will also receive a flag, a DVD documentary and a syringe shaped USB stick with demos, pictures and other bonus tracks among other merchandise. (“We had to sign about 100 of them” Rob tells me, “we had a little assembly line going in our practice space”) Rob’s involvement was limited to playing the songs on the record and giving a final tick of approval to the finished artwork.

“Mark and Chris, our singer and keyboard play have a ton to do with that stuff. I’m the kind of guy where they make the stuff and they show it to me and then I’m like ‘Hey, that looks good.’ Those guys are heavily involved in the artwork and every concept of what goes on with each record and they work real closely with [label] Ferret Records and their team.

“They always make cool looking stuff. Its just for fans that like something a little extra special.”

Constantly on the road, Chimaira certainly aren't afraid of a little hard work with Rob describing their touring schedule as "definitely intense", especially when they've begun writing on tour.

"We're gone for the long part of the year and we don't get to spend much time at home. But that comes with the territory. We're a metal band and we have to get out there and work it. We have to rely on the word of mouth; play as many shows as you can and get as many people to see you as possible.

"In metal, you can't really rely on radio at all, so this something we know we have to do. For ten years now it's been write a record, record it, tour on it. Now, like you said, we're even writing while we're already on tour."

Despite the fatigue of the road (and sea), Rob and the crew are already psyched up to play Australia and New Zealand again.

“We had a great time last time and we’re really looking forward to coming back in [Autumn.] Our last show with Korn was in New Zealand and we’re really excited to go back.”

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© Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

Plugging Away

Yes, so. I have a few projects on the boil that are rapidly progressing; my first proper marketable article about comedy in the age of the internet (got my first interviewee on board), an article for Farrago that was funnier in its conception compared to its production, two more interviews to write (Chimaira and My Dying Bride, natch) an article with the Australian General Semantics Society for ETC., a collaboration with Shai on an article for Triple Helix regarding semiotics and cybernetics, a couple of reviews and finally, some shitty-arse uni essays. Too bad voice wreck ignition software sucks balls.

But I can bypass all the rhetorical puff that usually accompanies my reviews with relatively few: Kreator's Hordes of Chaos could quite possibly be the finest thrash metal record of the decade. I don't think a record has made me want to violently mosh while writing a critical analysis of primary historical source before, but this one fucking did.

Crushtor.net's Guide to Crap Metal Videos

I don't know about you, but ever since the rise and dominance of the Live DVD, the need and want for metal music videos - especially those with a deficit of creativity - has sharply declined. Who gets excited over a metal music video any more, unless it's completely awesome? Here's a basic guide to metal videos which will save you time; once you get 30 seconds into a video, you'll instantly recognize it as part of one the genres below. Once identified, turn off your television, put on the record it came off and figure out the rest. Alternatively, you can imagine a much cooler video in your head.

Band Playing in Disused Warehouse/Old Church/Ruins
The old standard. Helloween used it, Iron Maiden used it, Judas Priest used it; it's good enough for any metal band on a strict budget that just have to release a video. Features nifty cuts and close ups of shredding, odd panning or steadicam work and the band pulling tough faces so the director can prove that he is able to operate the equipment to an acceptable standard. Occasionally the director might throw in some weird shots of buildings, children crying, forest running or other creepy shit for shits and giggles. Also: the thrashier the band, the crazier the camerawork.

Examples: Arsis - We are the Nightmare, Children of Bodom - Trashed, Lost and Strungout; Mercenary - My World is Ending

Band Playing Gig
Did you know Motorhead faked an entire live set for their first home video? Well, taking cues from that wonderful premise, bands also save heaps of cash by sticking some cameras in amongst a wild gig. They splice together the footage, forming a perfectly releasable video. Occasionally there's some narrative thrown in; but it's getting in the way of the shredding! Isn't that why we're still watching?!

The greatest cash saver I've ever seen was the In Flames/Soilwork "rivalry" videos: It featured them both insult one another out on the snowy streets of Gothenburg and having them both show up at each other's gigs (contrived of course) to cause all sorts of mischief! In the same venue! With the same crowd! Genius. You can also have a gig in a warehouse, which fulfils both wishes simulteneously.

Examples: In Flames - Jotun, Amon Amarth - Death in Fire, Soilwork - Rejection Role

Band Playing in Fantasy Setting
If the director's pitches of "in a warehouse" and "one of your gigs" falls short, the ultimate fallback has the band playing in some weird fantasy land that sort of doesn't look like a warehouse (even though nine times out of ten, it sort of is.) Castles, clouds, Middle-Earth, snow-capped tundras; they're all not warehouses, therefore fulfilling the band and director's objective of not having the video filmed in a warehouse.

Examples: Helloween - If I Could Fly, Nightwish - Nemo, Rhapsody - Unholy Warcry

Actually Cool Videos
If you're actually up at 4am after a huge night out and you decide to turn on Rage, you may indeed win the proverbial metal video lottery by actually witnessing one with a skerrick of inventiveness. Granted it doesn't happen very often and even the better ones are merely variations on a theme (such as Sentenced's Ever-Frost which has them at a gig not actually playing the gig). The truly great ones abandon conventions and dig up ideas further afield from the obvious, such as the David Lynch inspired ThereIn by Dark Tranquillity or the slick detective story (with them playing in a warehouse; but dressed up in rather dapper duds) from Blind Guardian in Another Stranger Me. The only completely awesome video I've ever seen would probably have to be the one for Trollhammaren by Finntroll because it depicts a troll party and troll parties are awesome.

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In actual news: Interviewed Andrew Craighan from My Dying Bride. He. was. epic.

All I Ever Wanted

Tip of my non-existent hat goes to Blabbermouth.net for giving me some shameless self-promotion.

I was thinking today, after some recent conversations with friends why I've wanted to go to the States for such a long time and not put Europe (metal fans in particular wonder that) or Asia or wherever else.

Because I used to have dreams about it as a kid - I'd go to school and be searched by burly African-American guards with voices in the sub-audible range, shuffle through metal-detectors and be bumped into by jocks on the way to my locker. Then the school bully would ask for my lunch money (could've been any denomination, Seppo money all looks the same) to which I would refuse. Then he would shoot me in the kneecap and I'd wake up with a sense of accomplishment. (Why did I never bang the cheerleader though?)

That's right, I had juvenile delinquent, school going, 2nd Amendment embracing grievous injuries as wish fulfillment.

Did a fairly brisk interview with Rob from Chimaira last Thursday; got a very, VERY highly anticipated on with Andrew Craighan, the master guitarist behind My Dying Bride this Thursday. Can't wait for that one!

Alice In Chains - Sean Kinney Interview

A treat for all those AiC fans out there.

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Although considered the newly resurrected gods of alternative metal and grandfathers of the noble grunge tradition, Alice In Chains are not invincible. Talking to founding member and drummer Sean Kinney, the last time he was in our fair land many years ago, he ended up in hospital, as he reluctantly revealed to me.

“Yeah, the last time I was [in Australia] I had a great time. Unfortunately I had to go to hospital. Jimmy DeGrasso [the drummer] from Suicidal Tendencies had to fill in for me when we went over to New Zealand. I can’t remember exactly what it was; it was a long time ago.

“I’m actually looking forward to getting over there [for Soundwave] and – well, you know – to not end up in hospital.” Nevertheless, it didn’t deter him from staying on, staying in Cairns for two weeks after his eventual recuperation.

Having been on hiatus for so long, Kinney remains cognizant of the weight of the expectation that he and the band must bear; he laments that Alice almost disappeared completely, never to be seen again.

“Well, we sort of shut down when, back in the day, when things were really starting to blow up around us,” he caustically explains.

“We made the wise career choice of never performing after releasing two number one albums back to back. So we stuck with that plan by not doing anything for ten years. Then of course Layne [Staley, singer], had passed away. This was something I didn’t foresee happening and it just naturally had taken its course.

“As long as it feels good and it’s cool and it’s genuine with us and we like it, it just kind of evolved to this point. Things are going along pretty great. It’ll be interesting too. It’s such a different world out there.”

The world he refers to is that of the music industry, which has undergone almost cataclysmic shifts since their time in the late 1990s – the age of the internet crept in and eventually exploded towards the dying years of their decade with the advent of Napster and more recently iTunes and Bit Torrents, a world Kinney keeps a critical eye on.

“It’s a world where people steal music and record companies can’t sell music,” he says, with a mix of excitement and disapproval.

“They sort of screwed up. It’s such a different time and place; there are so many real unknowns now. It’s going to be really cool.”

When Alice in Chains were around the internet was no where near as powerful a medium as it is today and the record companies who ignored its potential, according to Kinney, have paid the price.

“They fucked up, man. They just didn’t pay attention.”

“The great thing is that you can get your music out to a lot of people. But on the flipside, people want it for free. Studio time isn’t free; we put a lot of money and effort into what we do. They expect us to be talking to them twenty-four hours a day on blogs and things. It takes the mystery away, I think.

“We’re not from that ‘era.’ That was never really our ‘thing.’ It’ll be interesting to see how we fit in, if we fit in.”

Talking from the famous Studio 606 in Los Angeles, Kinney and the band settled on Grammy-award winner Nick Rasculinecz (pronounced Rask-yoo-len-icks) as producer, having an impressive CV having been behind the desk for Rush, the Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. The genesis of the new Alice record was humble, Kinney says.

“Well, we had a few tunes happening and it got up to the point where we said ‘Hey, let’s make a record.’

“So we started thinking about producers, and Nick’s the kind of guy like us; we don’t use a lot of the stuff that people use nowadays, we’re not doing song inspections and we’re not doing autotunes and shit like that. We’re really old school. We actually play everything you hear. (laughs) Sonically, he does some really great stuff. [He makes] what you hear is what’s really going on, and we really liked that.”

According to Kinney, Nick is one of the more laid back producers in the rock scene, content with having fun and making friends rather than pushing the band to their absolute limits. Would Nick ever wave a gun in their faces a la Phil Spector and The Ramones during their turbulent sessions?

“It wouldn’t surprise me though,” Kinney muses, “If he did something weird…but I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time and it’ll take a lot to throw me. So far it’s been really cool.

“A few years ago Rolling Stone said that we’d never do it. Now here we are, making music again and I’m honestly really excited about it. It’s amazing how life plays out like that. If it feels right, and it’s for the right reasons then it happens. But you never know where shit is going to lead you.”

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Originally published in Buzz Magazine, February 2009 © Tom Valcanis / Crushtor Media Services, All Rights Reserved. Posted with permission.

A Guide to Grabbing Cash while Impoverishing Science

After flipping through a magazine to pass the time, I noticed an article on the worldwide phenomenon of "self-healing" - "The Power of Now", the name of a self help book authored by "spiritualist" Eckhart Tolle. While I have no claim to refute or confirm his methods validity or usefulness since I have no basis for a scientific, rational study, I do however take offense to his writings as since they are almost direct reproductions of Gestalt Therapy, a method of psychotherapy and individuation formulated by Dr. Fritz Perls in the early 1970s.

After some even very preliminary readings, it seems that Mr. Tolle has merely taken most of the Dr. Perls' Gestalt therapeutic teachings, cloaking them in Christian mysticism so as to appeal to a new "spiritualist" market.

For example, an extract from Mr. Tolle's book reads:

In your everyday life, you can practise [this exercise] by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention. For example, every time you walk up anti, down the stairs in your house or place of work; pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. The moment you realise you are not present, you are present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap. Or when you get into the car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath.

Similarities can easily be found with Dr. Perls' work, bolded sections that correspond to Mr. Tolle's writings:

(1) Maintain the sense of actuality—the sense that your awareness exists now and here. (2) Try to realize that you are living the experience; acting it, observing it, suffering it, resisting it. (3 ) Attend to and follow up all experiences, the "internal" as well as the "external," the abstract as well as the concrete, those that tend toward the past as well as those that tend toward the future, those that you "wish," those that you "ought," those that simply "are," those that you deliberately produce and those that seem to occur spontaneously. (4) With regard to every experience without exception, verbalize: "Now I am aware that ..."

...walk, talk, or sit down; be aware of the proprioceptive details without in any way interfering with them.

Also, the resemblance becomes starkly apparent in the following tracts:

Tolle:

If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will stay in the Now. [...] When you are unoccupied for a few minutes and especially last thing at night and first thing in the morning, "flood" your body with consciousness. Lie flat on your back. Close your eyes. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head ... Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for about 15 seconds. Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again.

Perls:

As you sit or lie comfortably, aware of different body-sensations and motions (breathing, clutching, contracting the stomach, etc.), see if you can notice any combinations or structures—things that seem to go together and form a pattern-among the various tensions, aches, and sensations. Notice that frequently you stop breathing and hold your breath. Do any tensions in the arms or fingers or contractions of the stomach and genitals seem to go with this? Or is there a relationship between holding your breath and straining your ears? Or between holding your breath and certain skin sensations? What combinations can you discover?

While Dr. Perls uses the language of science and Mr. Tolle uses non-sensical abstracts such as "life energy", it seems that "The Power of Now" is a religious rehash of field tested, empirical science.

Mr. Tolle even ransacks one of the many psychotheraputic techniques from Dr. Albert Ellis, father of Cognitive Behavior Therapy to comprise one of his many "life-lessons." While Mr. Tolle can refute the claims and brush them off as coincidence (although I doubt that he could do so successfully) its disheartening that so many people would flock towards his spiritualist re-interpretation of already established therapies grounded in science - and let Mr. Tolle get away with it.

A Future of News

If you're an obsessive consumer of news and how its reported, the earth tremor that shook most of residential Melbourne and surrounds last night almost undoubtedly proved the growing irrelevancy of the printed media. Within 10 minutes of it occurring, 12 of my friends on my Facebook had reported it in their status. (Some with accompanying "It's the end of the world" comment, which had me lamenting that Carl Sagan might actually be right and that these people never paid attention during their Geography classes) With a turnaround of 12 hours as opposed to a propagation speed of minutes or even seconds, major events reporting will soon be the domain of internet-enabled citizens with newspapers taking a more supporting role such as analysis or criticism of the event rather than direct reporting. A compiler of citizen-originated event reporting could even be achieved using some sort of rudimentary tagging system. Even then its hard to figure that anyone will bother to read that, either.