Monthly Music: Metal

With doing all the reading for Non-Horror Reader Survey’s Women in Horror Month posts–the first of which is up now and a new on on Friday–and working on Scavenger, I’ve had a hankering for metal lately. One of the things I needed to do was to clean out a some stuff in my iTunes first. I got this cd, Metal for the Masses vol. 2, and it had one disc of hundreds of mp3′s. I never went through them all. So, before the Superbowl, I went through what was on there. I found a few new bands. Though probaly not that new to those consummate  metal fans out there:

Yeah, I know, I tend to have a bias toward the Power Metal. I admit it. But I’ll ad some other things in there to show I’m at least diverse in my metal.

What I like about this song was that it had sort of a White Zombie/Powerman 5000 sound to it, with that on line that sounds like it came from an Alice In Chains song, and then into a more current sound that was enough their own to separate them out of the rest in my mind.

I think this leans a little more toward the Hard Rock edge of the genre. Great song, especially Hard Rock these days is more like heavy alternative bands and not those carrying the mantle of AC/DC, Ozzy, Alice Cooper, and the like. I think the last true Hard Rock artist I heard and liked was Andrew W. K.

These are just the recent additions to like list for metal. The rest of it includes Dark Tranquility, Sonata Arctica, Therion, Iron Maiden, Korn, Metallica, Dream Evil, and many more. On the whole, if it is melodic–not just the wall of noise and incomprehensible growls–I’ll like it. The Symphonic metal I’m addicted to. That is metal made for music majors. My only exception to the growl wall of noise is Nile, and that because of the source material of all the songs is Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Middle Eastern.

And the thing that I’m still trying to figure out why metal and horror seem to fit each other. I mean, sure a lot of lyrics either use horror conventions or themes, sure. But the sound, for me never fits. Even in the movies, get a good orchestra score and you will have a more terrifying story in your mind than a play list off of Ozzfest or Mayhem Fest. Metal for me was always “ass kicking” music. But there is something that if I read a lot of horror stories, no matter what they are, I always go back to it for a few days.

What do you think the horror/metal connection is?

Monthly Music: KISS

I spent the last few weeks watching Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels. It brought up a yearning to sit and listen to KISS albums once I finished. It’s a funny path to my love of the band, especially since there isn’t anyone in my family that likes them. I still remember the way said, “KISS!” with a mix of amusement and “WTF!” in his voice when I got my first album. From that point on he was sure I would out grow them, which I never have. I’ve had pauses, but with as much music I have, you have to rediscover artists all the time.

Anyways, I’m getting off track. My path to KISS. I like to say it was a cheery discovery, but I don’t think I would have had the same connection to the band if I did. My whole life was almost constant teasing and bullying outside of my family. Because of it I didn’t really have friends as most people do. They were acquaintances at best, except my best friend, Pat.  Now, kindergarden through sixth grade weren’t horrible and I knew kids that would get it worse than me. But something happened come seventh grade and the start of middle school. Everything felt like it got turned up just a notch above unbearable. The teasing, peoples attitude toward me, the imposed isolation. And it got to the point where it just wore down any strength of self I had. I was depressed and at times it felt like I was close to doing something…irreversible, shall we say.

One night, when I couldn’t sleep (which was becoming more common at the time and I know now is common for people with cirrhotic livers, but this was pre-A1AD diagnoses) and my mind was wondering down that road I tried to find something on TV to distract my mind. I came across the KISS Unplugged special on MTV.  I got into it fast and it was something that I hadn’t heard much of in rock music at the time.

It was happy. This is ’95-’96. Grunge and alternative were the genre of the day, punk was starting it’s come back. It was getting emo before Emo in the rock charts. So this was something I hadn’t heard in a long time in music and it wasn’t something I was interacting with. And the happiness was infectious. I had seen a number of other Unplugged specials, this was the only one that audience enjoyed it. No canned applause, no “sit and ponder” silence during the song. It was alive (pun not intended)!

And something about all that just made things click in my head. That there was more out there that would make me that happy someday. Since then, KISS has been that band that I can always go to and just be remembered and inspired to go do great things, things that make me happy. ‘Cause in the end, we can only make ourselves happy because we are the only ones that can deny ourselves happiness.

Monthly Music: Nostrildamus

This is the first of a monthly series where I talk about the music that is inspiring what I’m writing. Stories have always be connected to music since the first bards, skalds, and scops ventured out telling the epic tales to song. It also has a deeper connection for me because of my equal love of music and from my majoring in it as well as writing. For me, when I start of writing a story, it will easily succeed or fail if I find the right music for the story. They become almost reference points for me when I feel myself going astray. So I thought I would give you the music I’m using for my current work in progress, Nostrildamus.

The first musical choice I make is atmosphere. So, if you were dropped into the world of the story you would be hearing these song in your head constantly. For Nostrildamus, I’m going with The Alan Parsons Project’s Definitive Collection. This came about serendipitously. Way back when did my post describing the various characters, “Eye In The Sky” popped up on my Last.FM when I was writing up Mimir’s description. I started listening to more and more APP and found theme songs for a few characters and the over all style just fit with story.

Can't find the version I have anywhere, sorry.

The next choice I make is to define the main character. Most people can instant tell you their top three artists or bands of all time, after that they can get wishy washy with there choices. So I do that with all my main characters. I put my iTunes on and see what speaks to the character and I’m developing him. The very first on that came up was Electric Light Orchestra. Now that came about before the pick of APP, but it seems fitting that these two are involved. Both British Prog Rock bands creating and performing around the same time. But where APP being very tied to concept albums and the interconnectivity of songs and a sort of meta-music, which perfect for atmosphere, ELO is just good-old, fun rock that you can see a person turn listening and having a good time. Plus, I watched the episode of Doctor Who called, “Love & Monsters” where the main character is not the Doctor, but bit of a dweeby guy that loved ELO. As Nostrildamus evolved in my mind I realized that there were traits they both shared, and for me were connected to that love of ELO.

The next character builder is The Cranberries, specifically Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We. I have Nostrildamus as a comic artist and cartoonist and this album, of their first three, is the one that seemed most fitting to be something that he would put on as he worked. His age isn’t that far off from mine, so his “music discovery” years would be heavily influenced by alternative music of the 90′s. Plus, I think he would have had a crush on Dolores O’Riordan.

Finally, we have the final piece, Wasting Light by the Foo Fighters. Partly I picked it because it is the most recent of the albums, but also, for me, it reminds me of the very first first album, only very matured and skilled. And the band also just fit with both the idea of Nostrildamus as a concept. The Foo Fighters always have songs with meaning behind them, with humorous videos that draw the audience in. That is the same thing that a humorous story does, like this one.