Gator's Forum Replies

I think you're 100% right about the divide between corporate and underground. I guess that distinction was staring me right in the face and always has been there. I just keep finding corporate/casual spaces (because like you said there are 10 of those for every 1 underground space). I long for that underground deep connection. I just have to figure out how to look for it better, or maybe figure out how to start one around me. I just don't know how to find the crowd for it-if there is one. Hmmm... How does one build such a community? What if I started hosting and advertising listening parties. Something like that? 
I think my inspiration is returning.

That brings me great relief and peace to my soul, and to an extent I do still feel that at live shows. Though sometimes people just don't interact, people are afraid of the pits and such. 

It seams to me this is what's missing right now. Like in Beato video early, and questions like "is metal dead?"... The art form is alive but the community is dead, or at least on life support. We need people going out to shows and PARTICIPATING WITH EACH OTHER. That's the social push we need and are currently missing. I'm no spring chicken myself-almost 40.

I checked into the above bands (some I was familiar with prior), but nothing took off for me. Weirdly enough I found myself super into Yngwie Malmsteen out of nowhere-I had been aware of him of course. I been playing Tokyo Xtreme Racer '25 and it pairs really nice with Malmsteen's flamboyant guitar. I listened my way through his a good chunk of his discography. Parabellum is killer, and I might write something out for that one. I also got my music room set up in my house, been chipping away at my lessons and having good ol time.

I always appreciate hearing from you Sonny. Hope all is well out your way as well. I actually had the time so I went back through all of my reviews, and tweaked em to a place where I'm happy with them. 

I'm struggling a little bit with what to do as far as reviews. I'm not really latching onto any recent releases. Anything you would recommend or just want to see my take on?

Alright it's been a crazy ride. Some good and some bad.

Upon arriving in Florida I was staying with in-laws awaiting my house in Detroit to be sold so that I could purchase one in Florida. This took several months and that's why I kinda disappeared for a minute. 
It finally sold and I am now writing to you all from my new home in Florida. I love the house and the land it sits on. I also purchased a 6-string electric guitar, a Jet JK-350-BL (Its similar to a fender modern players telecaster). Great bang for buck guitar.

So life is mostly good but there were some trials and tribulations.

Since I couldn't do much else I tried out some metal discords and OH BOY did I find out why ya'll are so hesitant to get into that. I'm not gonna get boring with all the details but long story short, moderation didn't like me for whatever reason and resorted to a slam campaign and a bunch of juvenile BS to basically run me off the server. Absolutely insanely toxic experience. I was actually depressed about it for a little while because I'd never been treated so rotten by a community that I've considered a second family for much of my life. Looking back I can chalk it up to stupid kids on the stupid internet doing stupid things, but I was really down about it for a while. 

Then my wife was involved in a car accident, the result of which was that she broke the radius and ulna in her right arm-the two big bones in the forearm. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and probably a trip to the hardware store for some nuts and bolts-she is going to be alright in a few months. She expected to regain 95% of her usual functions. Still a very scary sequence of events.

Other bright points: I set the Tetris high score at Arcade Time which is Orlando's 24-hr arcade, I've begun taking formal guitar lessons finally, from an excellent teacher (a former student of Paul Gilberts among other notorieties), and I am much much happier with the people and places that I work now. Detroit is an aggressive and sometimes hostile place, with a lot of harsh weather, and I think it made me a hostile and harsh person at times. I am definitely much better suited to the American South. I feel at home for the first time in my life-no longer that feeling of wanting to run away. I feel settled, and relaxed. 

I plan to go back through my reviews with a fresher and friendlier lens-though don't expect 180's of opinions or anything like that-it's still me, but I think I can articulate myself better being in a better place physically and emotionally. Anyways, that's what's been going on in my world. I have a lot of unpacking to do but I will eventually meander my way back over here. I just can't say when yet.

Finally-I've been keeping a sort of Metal Hot 100 on spotify,  each month I go back through the list and decided what songs get to stay, who gets to be added, and what get's dropped. There are charts, graphs, and whole system of criteria involved, but I've been doing it since October and I feel like it's quite stable right now.

Please enjoy and share your thoughts on the selections if you feel moved to do so: 

Yes it is, and send whatever you want that I haven’t got. 

Alright so I even tried this:

1. Delete the whole review.
2. Past as Plain Text to Notepad
3. Put nonsense text in the review
4. Submit the nonsense.
5. Reopen the review, and resubmmit the original review as plain text.

Still in tiny ville. Not sure what's up. Gonna see if I can figure it out after work this afternoon. 

Nope still small. I tried it. I even tried deleting it and re-copying it in different ways.

I'm a country guy. I was born and raised on a farm on the Kansas-Nebraska Border. This is the music of my people and I love it almost as much as my metal. 

I find this to be an excellent piece of music:


A blend of contemporary country with a lot of bluegrass. Great song writing. 

Selected listening: "Gin, Smoke, and Lies", "Before the Devil Knows We're Dead", "Good Lord Lorie", and "Wrecked"

Sonny if there is anything I can do big or small holler. Good to know things are on the mend. 

As for me, just grinding out the end of the school year. A bit "stuck" until I get down to Florida, but the cool thing about that is that Crowbar and Eyehategod are kicking off a summer tour starting down there, so I plan to be there for that.

I did another reorganizing of my spotify catalogue, so if anybody cares to see that, search up the same username and image I use here, and then you can make fun of how many important bands I'm missing and my classification system lol. 

Far as here, I plan to polish off another challenge list soon, and then I'll have done 6 and try to reapply for a 4th clan tag. 

I dunno man. Disassociating a lot these days.

God Luck and Good Speed Ya'll.

Sometimes gentlemen, we let the music speak for itself: 

We will be fine. We are actually going to be closer now, in proximity and in spirit. The good lord puts you where you need to be. 

I got the MRI reports back a little while ago, sorry I didn't post sooner. Anyways they were clear so no brain cancer for me... yet. At the same time I was also going to a chiropractor, and the working theory is that my spine was so badly out of alignment that it was interfering with the central nervous system and inducing the headaches. I seam to be ok for now. 

In other news, my employer very recently disrespected me massively, I'll elaborate if anybody cares, but in the interest of saving us all from a one man bitching session I'll just say that it was massively upsetting what was done, and I am seeking property in the Orlando Florida area in response as my in-laws live there and it provides some nice opportunity for my family. In the meantime I keep working out and trying to learn new things. 

The move also caused the disbanding of TrencH, my most recent band which I am sad about, but my wife and I have decided to just work on our chops together until we move to Florida and can assemble a new project. We will persevere!

Met with Gen Prac. Nothing conclusive, so we get to navigate the American Healthcare system. I have to schedule a catscan/mri. I have been feeling quite a bit better the last few days and I'm really hoping it's something small like my glass being out of focus (got new ones) or something trivial like that.

Meeting with my general practitioner tomorrow. He may tell I'm fine or tell me to schedule an MRI. 

“Information is not knowledge.

Knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom is not truth.

Truth is not beauty.

Beauty is not love.

Love is not music.

Music is THE BEST.”

― Frank Zappa

I've started having absolutely nasty Ocular Migraines out of nowhere, which can be indicative of a brain tumor. I really don't think it's THAT serious, but the fact that it could be is fuckin' with my head a bit. 

^"Tempted" has about 60million more listens than everything else on this album.. there is a reason for that. It sucks.

1. The Sound of Perseverance

2. Symbolic

3. Scream Bloody Gore

4. Leprosy

5. Human

6. Individual Thought Patterns

7. Spiritual Healing

So I listened to Love, Sonic Temple, and Electric. Electric is my favorite because in my opinion it has more hard rock swagger, but "Edie" is an unfuckwithable song. 

I bought "Sonic Temple" on cassette shortly after it was released & played the shit out of it. I haven't heard it in more than half a lifetime now but will always have a soft spot for it. I don't think I've heard anything from The Cult that I regard as highly to be honest, even "Love" which I revisited only a year or so ago.

I had just finished up the Modern Gothic Metal Clan list, and realized I'd never listened to The Cult past the big radio hits, so I took a look at it. I like it quite a bit and Ian Astbury can really belt it. I'm going to try the debut album out too because debuts tend to be a little heavier and I'd really like to hear this band in a little bit more raw context.

Fuck Yes! Cheers!

The music fuckin' kills it too:

This is in my opinion the greatest album art I have ever seen, and yes I immediately bought the T-Shirt.

Personally, I'd be down to play there knowing what I know now, but my vocalist is a much less forgiving about these kinds of things. We are going to compare notes at practice, explain points of view and make a team decision.

Today the Detroit Metro TImes picked up the story, and you can read the article here: https://www.metrotimes.com/music/harpos-owners-apologize-for-hosting-neo-nazi-metal-show-38430887

Key takeaways: The show was stopped during the 2nd band's set, and the owner claims they did not know ahead of time. That they were mislead about the nature of the bands.

r/detroit takes are here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Detroit/comments/1ibco4o/so_uh_what_happened_at_harpos_over_the_weekend/?captcha=1

Note: The original post was made before the metro times article came out, so if you are visiting here from reddit. Let me frame how I came to know about the show:

My vocalist called me the morning of yesterday and told me "Harpos hosted a NSBM show, and therefore he did not want our band to play the venue". I asked him what he knew about it, and he just said that several people at his workplace had been talking about it. He explained to me that the show was not publicly advertised on Harpos website or on their social media, and he showed me a flyer for the show that stated "Venue to be Announced Day of Show".-It looked really shady.

I feel better knowing that they pulled the plug, but it still shouldn't have happened, and would not have happened had the owners done research into the bands. They said as much themselves, but I also understand that shit happens. Whether I will personally play there or go to shows there will be a band decision after we talk about everything at practice. 

Got around to the Sargeist tune today. That is fucking great and fits right in. Good Swap IMO!

Cool tune and I like Album cover too. Delightfully goofy! Quiet Riot 2 Was only released in Japan, so I always associated "Slick Black Cadillac" with Metal Health Album-they re-recorded it for that. 

So I went back to investigate, and yes the Quiet Riot II version is balls. It's not worlds different but it's weaker than the Metal Health version by a significant amount.

Well the big bosses said no, so it ain't gonna happen, but I was thinking it would be a good idea specifically because of the polarizing opinions. It would give the fans of that stuff a place to go, and it would also filter that stuff away from the more pure traditional stuff.

This type of metal is not my cup of tea, and yet I enjoyed this set list Andi, so I'm not gonna do anything to it.  My reptile brain says there should be a Killswitch Engage song somewhere, but I wouldn't know where to put it.

My wife (Kosie) will be here later with a more expert opinion than mine. 

For me I'm going to swap "Face Deletion" with "Edge Crusher" from Fear Factory's Obsolete album. It seams like a straight across upgrade to me. 

1. The Kovenant - "The Human Abstract"

2. Skrew - "Cold Angel Press"

3. Health, Lamb of God - "Cold Blood"

4. Fear Factory-"Edge Crusher"

5. Mechina - "Tartarus"

6. Godflesh - "Don't Bring Me Flowers"

7. Turmion Katilot - "Verta Sataa"

8. Ministry - "No W Redux"

Oh man I don't know if I'm doing it right or not (I lack familiarity outside of the big names here), but I will try.

Wife and I listened to the full set and felt that Memphis May Fire had the weakest track in the set. So I am going to push that one out, and replace with some In This Moment and hope they fit the genre. It sounds good to my ears.

1. Evanescence – "Lithium"

2. New Years Day – "Relentless"

3. Mushroomhead – "Fall In Line"

4. In This Moment-"Adrenalize"

5. Spiderbait - "Shashavaglava"

6. Disturbed – "Torn"

7. Godsmack – "1000hp"

8. Linkin Park – "Two Faced"

Aight.

I liked Storm the Gates from 2018!

Venom INC kicked ass, sadly Jeff Mantas couldn't be there, but the gentleman they got to fill in was great, and Tony Dolan is an absolute treasure.

Ritchie Blackmore is a notorious douchebag.

Welcome David. My name is Zachary. Hit me up anytime about anything. Cheers!

That's pretty fuckin' cool Shadow.

Daniel, I love you brother, but we look at the genre in very different ways. The good news is there is room for both points of view.

Yeah man, that song just never did it for me, and I've listend to Diamond Head many times over and over. Just not my flavor.

If I said there is something vaguely metal about this definitely not metal song, would ya'll feel me?

I am also a "War" enjoyer, but the Holy Moses song does fuckin hit!

OK Sonny explain it to me, what is the thing with "Am I Evil"? I've never really gotten on with that tune or with Diamond Head.

^Yup that's going  on a future playlist.

I fuck with that^