Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I Wrestled A Bear at The Human Abstract Show

Holy Hell, I don't even know where to start with this show. Prepare for what will probably be one of the longest posts ever to be on this site.

My friends Taylor, Kasey, and I all drove for 2 hours up to Charlotte to see To Speak Of Wolves, Vanna, IWRESTLEDABEARONCE, and Oh, Sleeper all open for one of my favorite bands of all time, The Human Abstract. Now, upon entering the first thing we notice is that Steven from IWRESTLEDABEARONCE is just kinda standing there by The Human Abstract's merch table. When I pointed out the fact that he is in IWRESTLEDABEARONCE Mr. Steven just gave me a big ol hug. I tried to take a picture with him but I was laughing and it turned out stupid. Oh well. I was asking about The Human Abstract's merch and Steven was like "All the good merch is over here." and directed me towards the IWABO merch table. Where I bought a shirt and a their self-titled CD, which I later got signed by all the members of the band. Taylor got his jacket signed by the members of IWABO and Nathan Ells (from The Human Abstract).

To make it easier on the reader, I shall condense To Speak Of Wolves' and Vanna's sets into one paragraph. They each had very short sets. Maybe 4 songs. Still pretty fun. Apparently the keyboardist of To Speak Of Wolves, who I was talking to before the show, is the guy who designed my Chimaira shirt, which I happened to be wearing on that night. Small world. Their set was pretty cool. I didn't really know much by them because I didn't think to check them out before hand. I think the whole 2 singer dynamic is always fun. Kinda like Vanna. Except, Vanna has the whole, lead singer does screams and guitarist does the clean-sung chorus... Dynamic. I got a video of them performing the song "Safe To Say" and put it on YouTube. The only anoying part about their sets is the annoying "hXc Dancing" kids.

Nothing really interesting happened in between Vanna's set and IWRESTLEDABONCE's set so...

Up next is the fabled IWRESTLEDABEARONCE. Everybody was talking about this band. And rightfully so. If you haven't seen this band live yet, you have to. I wanna see them again when they release their album and eventually go on a headlining tour. They played all the songs I wanted to hear from them, plus some new ones. All I can really say about this band is that they are just as awesome and funny and fun to watch as everybody says they are. Plus, the hXc kids were kept to a minimum, which is always good. Plus, I got a video of them playing "You Ain't No Family" which is also on YouTube.

After IWABO's set we snuck backstage in hopes to get a picture with the band. We hung out for a little while until security kicked us out. Tear. But, luckily I was still able to get a picture with Krista from IWABO, so I was happy.

After the fun of that, we walked to the stage because is was about time for Oh, Sleeper to start playing. Now, I don't know much about this band except the fact that they're a christian band and once did a tour with The Showdown. They were better than I expected. Well, heavier than I expected. Some really classic metal concidering I just sat through 2 bands that at times sound kinda emo and, ya know, IWABO. Another band that didn't have a lot of hXc dancing. Just some good ole fashioned metal energy. Good band worth checking out.

After their set, the only interesting thing that happened was catching Nathan Ells, the singer from The Human Abstract, for a second to remind him about the interview. He was kinda busy so he was like, rushing thru.

So, we quickly went to the stage because it was practically time for the main attraction, The Human Abstract, to finally take the stage. The band opened with "Self Portraits of The Instincts" off their first album. A song which, I didn't even think they were gonna play live. The band played a lot more songs off the first album than I thought they were gonna. The only songs they played off of the new album, Midheaven, were "A Violent Strike" and "Breathing Life Into Machines." Now, don't get me wrong, those are two songs I love. I think they decided not to play a lot of songs from the new album because those songs are softer and maybe they thought that because it was a heavy show, they had to play their heavy songs. Ah well. Amazing show nonetheless. All the rest of the bands that were on the tour got up on stage and rocked out during the ends of "Nocturne" and "Vela, Together We Await The Storm."

After that show, I was pretty wiped out but, wasn't about to forget about the interview. So, I waited and Nathan came out with Krista from IWABO on his arm talking about the best girlfriend ever. Maybe they're dating? I don't know. Let's start the rumor, shall we? Anyway, he said he'd be right back and was quikly ambushed by fans and dissapeared. So we hung out for a while. I got my Human Abstract poster signed by a few members. We went outside to wait for my sister who informed us that it would be about an hour or so. I was completely ok with this. This meant that I got to spend more time hanging out with the bands. Taylor and Kasey were less enthused. Oh well. We were waiting outside, talking to the dudes from To Speak Of Wolves, and Vanna. Really cool guys. Then, Nathan came out with a highly intoxicated Krista. I hung out with them for a while. Just laughing at the random things that came out of Krista's mouth. Talking about things like the Barnical Dino Christ. Fun stuff. Then, Krista and Nathan went back inside and I was waiting for my interview and the nice dude from Oh, Sleeper saw this and set it up with the guitarist, Dean. But, I believe I told you this story. So, we did the interview, in a nutshell, waited for my sister and went home. It was so amazing hanging out with all the bands.

View my interview with Dean Herrera from The Human Abstract HERE. And, below check out a video I took from the show of The Human Abstract performing "Nocturne."


Saturday, May 16, 2009

My Exclusive Video Interview With Dean Herrera of The Human Abstract

Not only is this the first interview I'm posting on this site. It's my first ever video interview. This is exciting. I'm glad all four of my readers get to join in this moment with me.

After their show in Charlotte, NC, I got to meet up with the lead guitarist of The Human Abstract, Dean Herrera. Now, the original interview was supposed to be with vocalist Nathan Ells but, he appeared to be busy. The singer for Oh, Sleeper noticed me waiting on Nathan and started alerting people and asking where he was an all that. After about 10 minutes he walks up to me and says "Is it ok if Dean does the interview instead? We can't seem to find Nathan." I was like Hell yeah. Even though I was slightly less prepared for this interview than I would have been with Nathan. But, I think it turned out fine. Some of my questions may seem a tad random. Like, how I go from talking about touring to talking about the album to talking about writing processes etc. But, Dean seemed cool with it. I warned him before hand how unprofessional I am.

Now, I would like to say you may have noticed that this is not a YouTube video. This is due to a copywrite claim by the stupid WMG... What exactly is WMG, anyway? Oh well, good thing this blog has it's own video player.

I would like to thank Dean for agreeing to the interview on literally no notice. And, of course the guy from Oh, Sleeper for setting this up for me. All background noise is provided to us by the nice people in IWRESTLEDABEARONCE. I will be writing a show review within the next week. I spent all last week editing this video. Enjoy.


Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Chimaira Will "Destroy and Dominate" You With This New Video

Now, it's now secret that Chimaira is one of my favorite bands. I've seen them live twice and they were amazing both times. Now, I haven't picked up the new Chimaira album just yet but, I hear it's amazing. A little slower but, still heavy as shit. And, if this new video is any indication of the album, I wasn't lied to.

I got in the pit when Chimaira played this song at the Music As A Weapon IV tour (with Disturbed), and, I tell you, that was the most violent mosh pits I've ever had the pleasure of being in. So brutal. Which is suprising because I've seen the likes of Dethklok and Kataklysm live before.

Anyway, this is easily the best video the band has made. It's dark as well as trippy. As I understand it, the video concept is based off of Danny Boyle’s sci-fi opus Sunshine. Now, I've never heard of this movie but, I'm deffinately gonna look it up. Everyone knows Chimaira has good taste in... Everything.

On a side note, it's nice to know that Chris Spicuzza is a Mac user much like myself. He knows Macs are more metal than PCs.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Coheed and Cambria to Tour With... Black Sabbath?

And you thought it was weird when Coheed toured with Slipknot. Anyway, technically it's Heaven And Hell they're touring with but, we all know it's just Black Sabbath, Dio version. I figured it would have been Coheed that's banging on Iommi's door begging for a spot on the tour. But, nope, The boys in Heaven And Hell were the ones who saught out Coheed. I guess Dio is as big a Coheed fan as I am.

But, it's not like Coheed didn't jump at the chance. Apparently Dio Sabbath was Claudio Sanchez's very first concert (poster above). Personally, I'd LOVE to go to this show. But, sadly, there's no showings near me. Well, lets see if it's near you. Check out the dates below, after the newest video from Heaven And Hell, "Bible Black."



AUGUST
7 Vancouver, BC Thunderbird Arena On Sale 5/9
10 San Jose, CA Event Center Arena On Sale 5/8
11 Los Angeles, CA Greek Theater On Sale 5/9
12 Phoenix, AZ Dodge Theater On Sale 5/11
14 Albuquerque, NM Journal Pavilion On Sale 5/9
15 Denver, CO Red Rocks On Sale 5/9
18 Cincinnati, OH PNC Pavilion On Sale 5/8
19 Chicago, IL Charter One Pavilion On Sale 5/15
21 Detroit, MI Meadow Brook Pavilion On Sale 5/8
22 Cleveland, OH Nautica Pavilion On Sale 5/8
23 Baltimore, MD Merriweather Post Pavilion On Sale 6/5
25 New York, NY WaMu Theater @ MSG On Sale 5/8
27 Wallingford, CT Chevrolet Theatre On Sale 5/9
28 Boston, MA Bank Of America Pavilion On Sale 5/8

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Local News: X-Mas


Ok, welcome to my first "Local News" segment. Every week, I will report on a local/unsigned band that caught my attention. To get the ball rolling, I've decided to do this on a band in my area that I've been a fan of for a while, X-Mas. X-Mas is an experimental hardcore metal band that takes influence from the Nu-Metal movement of the late 90's/early 00's. I've had the pleasure seeing this band twise. Once opening for the Death By Decibels tour with Kataklysm, and the other time was is a little shitty club behind a tattoo parlor. Both times were amazing. Personally, I had more fun the second time, mainly because I knew a good bit of the songs they played that time. The first time I saw them I was so blown away that I bought their 5-song demo right on the spot for $3. The demo is entitled Poetry Of A Dead Society. Seems fitting.

It's no secret that I like to do Photoshop work. I've done a few designs for this band. Mainly a couple of flyers and, I've done some un-official artwork for their demo. I did that mainly because it bugs the Hell out of me if I have music on my iPod with no artwork.

I've listen to their demo a lot and, I must say, my favorite song off of it is "Forget The Stitches." You can also hear this song on the band's MySpace page. Something about that song just caught my attention. Maybe it's the catchy guitar riff at the beginning. Or maybe the working combination of clean vocals and growls. But, it's just a great song.

There's a chance that I might be seeing this band for the third time May 25th when they play Club Distortion. The only problem is they fall somewhere amongst 14 other bands and, I don't know how good they are. I might be sitting through a couple hours of crap to see a good band play for 30 minutes. Oh well.

Check out X-Mas on MySpace.