General Incompetence (and his commanding officer, Major Dumbass)

I originally had a jam scheduled for today that I was going to write about, but in lieu of that, since it didn't really pan out - have a semi-rant like piece!

This isn't a blog about myself, it's about music, but I just have one thing to say - why are human beings so mind-numbingly, frustratingly incompetent and worthless when it comes to band practices? Never have I experienced so much anger and disappointment as I do when dealing with band members. If I didn't love music so much I would swear off playing it all together, just because of the sheer apparent idiocy of everyone involved. Ugh.

On to the actual music. In discussions with various musicians about my school, I've realized that I have something of a fetish for time signatures - apparently something unusual. Thusly, it's amazing that I don't like mathcore more - but that's mostly because the guitars all sound the same, and it's hard to even identify the time-signature beneath the squealing and yelling most of the time. Sometimes you get lucky though... In this interest, I'm going to take to listening to The Dillinger Escape Plan more. I've heard they're the best live show on the planet (in those exact words), so I'd love to see them... I got my hands on a Gigantour DVD last night (the Dave Mustaine (of Megadeth) organized heavy metal alternative to Ozzfest), and they were originally set to play for it - but since they had to drop out early due to an injured guitarist, they weren't on the DVD, which I was peeved about - though one of the drummers on the DVD was wearing a DEP t-shirt, which I found nice. I also meant to go over that DVD a bit... I'd reccommend it as long as it could be secured for less than fourty dollars - though the Dream Theater set was worth almost that. They only did two songs, but they were lovely. John Myung, the bass player, got a lot of screen time, which is nice, because he almost never gets any - but the acclaimed keyboard player, Jordan Rudess, got almost none, which kind of annoyed me. He would be busting a mad solo, and for some reason the camera would close up on Mike Portnoy, not really doing anything. I find stuff like that just ridiculous, as much as I like to look at Portnoy. When Symphony X was playing, if you relied entirely on the camera, you could barely even tell they had a keyboardist. Ugh.

Song of the day today is The Dillinger Escape Plan's cover of Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy - this is off their EP of 2004, Irony Is A Dead Scene, which is a sweet title. Even if you don't like Aphex Twin, or IDM at all, this song is still pretty sweet - and if you don't like mathcore either, it's still okay. If you don't like it... well, that's your call. Covering something like that is not straightforward, and I respect DEP heavily for it - it rocks.
Megaupload link is here. I'd like to note - these links only last 90 days from their last link, so there's a good chance a lot of the older one's will stop working in a month or two, unless I get an influx of traffic - so, highly, unlikely.

Going back to my thing on time signatures - I can understand how they wouldn't be for everyone. Most people just like to listen to their music, and for it to sound 'normal', but I think there's a whole other level to appreciate music on. Noticing all the different things going on in music makes it a lot more noticeable - which is why musicians, in general, appreciate music more. I'm not saying you have to be an elitist ass-hole, or be like "Oh man this piece is sweet 3/4 then 5/4 then 7/8 lolz!", but if you want to listen to a nice piece of music that doesn't follow a conventional song structure, it can be a bit refreshing. Just to hear "Oh I thought that was going to end there but it didn't!" Plus, the more I listen to them, DEP just sounds better and better - give them a chance, they're the artist of the week, or something. >> With Dev/Null being a close second.

I'll try to give some more listenable music later - though I highly reccomend checking out the EP today's song is off - so far it's pretty amazing. Is it cool to like The Dillinger Escape Plan anymore? Hmm.