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.

As Promised

Like I said - second post.

I have some things to cover in this one that are actually important. First, an update on my jam session with emotional yet not so technically proficient guitar player, Django!

Things went quite well this time, I think a lot better than they did last time. I'm not even sure if it could be called a jam session - basically we tried to get down parts to a song for all the time he was over. We actually succeeded to a degree as well. I was convinced I didn't want to do something in normal time, and I had been working on this crazy 5/4 / 6/4 intro thing that I wanted to work with. We started on that, and didn't really get very far with it - so then we started working on an intro hook in that pattern - alternating between 5/4 and 6/4 every bar, essentially amounting to 11/8. Then we took a chorus pattern in 6/4, and then started working on a bridge in 5/4. Basically, we had to go back over some stuff, and we don't have anything solidly finished, but we have a lot of components for what promises to be a sweet song that's a hybrid of prog-metal, mathcore, and some form of death something. I'm loving the math-core influence.

I also have a jam to go with Julien, the 'Metallica' kid. I dunno how that will go - I wrote lyrics to a song of his, would like to see how that goes - and maybe we'll get something accomplished.

As for the other things I wanted to rant about - I wanted to say some things about my posting of a VSnares album. I know that I have held that I will not post albums by my essential artists - and yet in two days, I've posted two of them. I think the MSI album speaks for itself - it was an accompaniement to the review - but why the Snares? Mostly because I realize that there's not enough exposure to Aaron and his wonderful music - I fell into the world of breakcore purely by mistake, but Venetian Snares makes tracks so innovative and wonderful I can't help but want to share them. I was originally just going to post one track from that album, because I found it amazing, but then I wanted to post another, and another, and now, I have uploaded my favorite Venetian Snares album for everyone to enjoy. I've also stumbled upon something amazing... BrEaKcOrE-AdDiCts. Holy crap. This site is astounding - almost every artist there has an MP3 download section, and over the course of just today I've exposed myself to tons of new artists. Expect to see some breakcore tracks posted in the next little while.

That's all for now, I suppose. For those of you who haven't immersed yourselves in the world of odd time signatures, I suggest you check out Dream Theater, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Venetian Snares... and that's all I can think of for now. Rush is pretty good for it too. Just do a Google for "Mathcore", and you'll do fine.