Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
@ shakti. Send me an email and we'll make arrangements. And I don't drink alcohol these days, so no beer for me either.
This is such a great thread. I'm just absolutely loving all the comments.
The timing of the thread has been perfect for me as a few days before Hans' opening post I finally listened to Lobotomizer for the first time, having listened to 8 Soothing Songs for Rut once a few weeks back. For the past few days, then, I've now been listening to both those albums quite a bit and of course following through to Demon Box, which I'd only listened to maybe three or four times. It's so amazing to follow the band's progress/evolution from one album to the next, to see the leap they made from Lobotomizer to 8SSFR to DB to TM and so on.DB seemed to indicate a band refusing to be pigeonholed, possibly at that stage in their careers, afraid to be put in a (Demon) box. But when you're a young band, just getting started, it's hard to show the world you're not what they think you are. By releasing an album (nay, a double album) full of such variety, and starting with a song that bears no resemblance to what went before, that takes courage, determination, self-confidence and a general kind of 'fuck you' to whoever might want to stick a genre label on them. And I think to some degree they've managed to maintain that attitude. But it seems to me, that having made two albums (DM, TM) full of twists and turns – this sound, that style, those genres – they decided to start smoothing out the edges a bit and making albums that felt more coherent. Perhaps they felt they had achieved what they wanted, had made the statement they wanted to make – that they are not one-trick ponies, they are not a 'metal' band or whatever they were being sold as.
What they are to me is a band that has the brilliance to pull off whatever genre they like because they have the songwriting and playing skills, not to mention an apparent love of all music styles, to pull it off. They not only want to say, 'fuck you, we're doing what we want', but also 'we're doing it our way', which is an attitude that seeps into all aspects of their playing, writing, recording, perfomance, and so on.
I'm too late to the feast to be able to say I miss the heaviness and mayhem of Lobotomizer, 8SSFR and DB, or the lo-fi production of TM and Blissard, though I do appreciate the point about urgency. However, I dont think the fire has gone out, not by any stretch. Whether anybody else here felt it or not, I have to say that the Roadburn gig seemed full of fire and urgency. It was like they came to the audience saying "ok you got all these freaky metal bands here but this is what mind-blowing heavy rock sounds like when your focus is getting high on the music and not trying to put across some kind of image or specific style or concept or gimic". To me they are a band's band. They set a standard, not by trying to be amazing or by trying to set a standard, but by just following their muse and being themselves. That's invaluable. And if their style, choices and music changes in response to that, I don't care. The biggest thing I would be worried about losing would not be any one style or sound, but the sense of adventure, the desire to always be creative.
@ kjellepelle – I'm sure the atmosphere was brilliant. It looks like a good bunch of friends playing a bunch of tunes they love, everyone having a good singalong I expect. For that reason it would be fun to see.
Yesterday, as I was checking out Lars Horntveth's Instagram account (following his announcement that he's tracking horns for the new MP album
), I noticed that his previous post, from earlier this month, showed Reine Fiske recording guitar for the new Sugarfoot album. That Fiske man certainly gets around!
From a recent interview with Andrew Scheps.
QUESTION: Looking back on your career are there any, or several moments, that you thought: “This is heaven, can’t believe I’m working with this artist/project.�
ANSWER: Tons. If you look at my discography, if I hadn’t had them there would be something horribly wrong with me.
The obvious one is working with Red Hot Chili Peppers, I had been a fan of theirs since the very beginning. I saw them live in 1986 when they were playing in small clubs, so being able to work with them was absolutely amazing. Every single day in the studio with them is incredible.
Then there is a band called Motorpsycho (check them on Apple Music, or Spotify), from Norway, who I have been a fan of for years. Loved them but could never get in touch with them, tried a couple of times but it didn’t work out because I didn’t know any people who knew them. However, in the last year, I got to mix two live records for them which was absolutely incredible. When I finally met them all I wanted to do was to talk about their old records and ask how they did this and that, so just being able to have a conversation with them was amazing.
Full interview here:
@ TraktorBass – I will definitely be giving the albums more attention, but how much? I don't know
@ kjellepelle – Thanks for those two videos. I watched/listened to them this morning. I can't say they inspired me to wish for more TITS concerts. If they played in the UK I would go for the novelty value, but to be honest, there's nothing more than that to attract me. I certainly wouldn't be making any trips to mainland Europe to see them.
@Valderrama, Black-eyedJ and mybestfriend – Thanks for your sweet comments.
@Black-eyedJ – Thanks so much for translating the interview.
Disillusionment is tough to handle. It's why people say you should never meet your heroes. Sometimes just an interview can topple the cart. But we all read into music and interviews what we want.
Jon Anderson of Yes is considered one of the great spiritual hippie dudes of the 70s progressive rock scene, but I know people who know that behind the scenes he can be very egotistical, pushy, demanding, financially greedy … Yes it puts a damper on some of my feelings about his music, but the band is five guys (at any one time) and they all contribute. And the music they made in the 70s was phenomenal.
Sometimes musicians just project what they experience, but it comes in a different form. Maybe Snah never took psychedelics (only he really knows), but maybe he somehow has an open kundalini channel that gives him experiences of a psychedelic nature. Sorry to sound like a patronising lecturer, but we are all complicated people with myriad experiences. Who's to say where Snah gets his inspiration from, where and how he had his mind-blowing experiences. I never took psychedelics, but I smoked a lot of weed over the the past 40+ years and for a time did a great deal of meditation, including five years at an ashram in the Indian Himalayas and I can tell you that I had some pretty fucked up, weird, wonderful and reality-bending experiences. I also started a business years ago that at the beginning occasionally required I work three or four days with barely any sleep. Sitting on the loo one night taking a dump while watching the floor beneath me ripple and ululate like waves was pretty crazy. Maybe Snah just had some weird experiences because he had a few nights without solid sleep. I've also heard of people living in the far north having disorienting experiences because of the lack of daylight, or too much of it. I bet that can get a bit psychedelic at times.
Don't let a couple of interviews ruin your love of the man and his music. Be more curious to find out what makes him so special.
EDIT: Let me add this too… During the last several days I've been listening to the Mad Sun (acoustic) video on YouTube (the one shot in someone's living room), several times a day. I love the melodies, the interplay between the guitars, banjo and mandolin, and vibe and the lyrics. And I much prefer the lyrics on this version to those on the electric version I've heard. Indeed, Bent's lyrics are so evocative that I begin to feel like I know what he's talking about. And I wonder, was this a real experience for him? Based on his lyrics he seems to have a lot of interesting things to say about relationships, some of them seeming very specific and very personal – Vortex Surfer, for example. But are they his personal experiences? Or is he just able to tap into something more archetypal? Maybe he's just a keen observer of the way people go through relationships. The bottom line is, I don't know anything about his personal relationships, but he somehow seems to be able to articulate through evocative lyrics and music something that a lot of people can either relate to or at least, like me, find captivating because it's so beautifully human – warts 'n' all, as they say. Like Joni Mitchell, he exposes a vulnerability ("Too proud to bend, I would only crash and burn like a mad sun"), but for all I know he may not actually be that vulnerable. Great art and music seems somehow to be able to tap into our deepest feelings, it draws a reaction out of us, something inside that we may not be aware is there. Bent and Snah, with their music do that for me, and whether or not they had those direct experiences matters little, becuase whatever they've done in their lives, however they've lived their lives, whatever drugs they've taken or whatever relationships they've had, they are able to articulate something that subconsciously we can tune in to.
Don't worry about how they got there, just be thankful that they did and that somehow you found them.
I'd have to listen to those two albums a lot more before I could make a fair decision. But at the moment I'd have to say No!
This has nothing to do with quality; it's just a matter of taste. Though, to be honest, if that's what the guys want to do, and it makes them happy, and it keeps the juices flowing, why not?!
It seems to me that their creativity feeds on variety, so if making a new TITS album means we get more interesting MP albums after that, then I would have to say Yes!
@ paolinogrande – I'll be coing to Drammen, but not a few days early. Instead we're staying in Oslo for a few days afterwards – but only going to the Drammen gig.
