April 5, 2007

How Does Music Influence You?

rmiles7721April 5, 2007Entertainment, Uncategorized

This is something that used to be very relevant in my life when I was in my teens and early twenties. As I get older it isn’t quite as much of an influence as it used to be with one exception. Driving. I have read that reports have been done that show people tend to get more speeding tickets when they are listening to loud music. I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket since 1994 but I tend to drive much faster when listening to certain bands. If I am listening to something such as AC/DC, Megadeth, or Metallica I generally crank it up and drive faster. I suppose at least that part of the report is true but who really cares except for people that think they need to be in control of every little facet of my life and want laws passed that won’t let me listen to music over a certain volume in my car. Asshats.

Yeah.

Anyhow I was thinking specifically about this one show I went to with my friends. Back in my teens a bunch of us lived together and hung out together. Occasionally we would actually work but more often than not we just fucked around hunting for “strange” and getting in trouble. One of our favorite things to do next to going to shows was camping out for them. We would spend literally days camping out at the Omni and occasionally at the Turtles in Peachtree Battle or at the one by the Majestic. I think that was a Turtles anyway. If you are from Atlanta back in the seventies and eighties you know what turtles was.

Back in the eighties Heavy Metal was at it’s peak in the south. Nowadays if a Metal band tours you are lucky to get them to come to Atlanta and if they do they usually play a club rather than a big venue. Not that clubs are a bad thing. Some of the best concerts I have been to have been in clubs. I’ve seen Megadeth, Queensryche, Joe Satriani, SOD, Motorhead, Savatage, and countless other bands in clubs and it is so much better being right there rather than stuck up in the nosebleeds or in the middle of a mosh pit with a bunch of dumbasses, particularly now that I am 40.

Anyway, I don’t remember what show it was that got me to remembering. I think it was Iron Maiden on the Piece of Mind tour, or perhaps Powerslave. Anyway they headlined at the Omni and about twenty of us had seats within the first five rows. We were doing the headbanging thing and just really getting into it when some dumb redneck shoved one of my friends. As a matter of fact it was the guy that I wrote about recently that got busted for running the gambling place up in Flowery Branch earlier this year. The guy that got shoved, not the shover. I lost my shit. I must have jumped over about five people, grabbed the guy off his seat and started bashing his freaking head into the floor. About the time I realized what the hell I was doing I also realized that security was making their way toward me. Man, I ran like a bat out of hell.

I did manage to work my way back around the floor and got back into the front row, but what has always stuck with me was the fact that I lost it so easily. I don’t normally go around bashing people’s heads in, at least not unless it is truly warranted. Before you make the assumption that I was toasted or anything I was completely sober. I don’t drink much anyway and at that point I had quit doing all forms of drugs about two years prior to that. Now, I certainly won’t say that the music “influenced” me to beat the crap out of that guy, that is like the fools that say Judas Priest caused kids to commit suicide. It does however have an effect of facilitation. I figure that I was already pre-disposed to serve out an ass whipping and the music just helped get me in the mood.

Lacuna Coil

rmiles7721April 5, 2007Entertainment

When my brother came down this past weekend he left several albums for me to listen to, all by Lacuna Coil. To me they seem to be a cross between Evanescence and Queensryche, which is a good thing. The have two EPs and two full albums out, about 29 songs total. I have been listening pretty much non-stop for the last two days, at least when I am here at home. Here’s their biography from the Karmacode home page. The Karmacode is their latest album, released in 2006.

LACUNA COIL Biography

There is no better indication that greatness can be achieved through a resilient work ethic than Lacuna Coil, whose aggressive touring and extensive critical praise have now poised them for mainstream domination. The group initially left their mark on the hard rock scene in 2004 with their acclaimed album, Comalies, which opened several opportunities for them that were previously thought unattainable for an Italian band, such as two highly successful commercial radio campaigns alongside a breakthrough Ozzfest appearance resulting in over 500,000 copies sold worldwide with a quarter of a million in the U.S. alone. Now, Lacuna Coil returns with their highly anticipated new album, Karmacode, which is another huge step forward in the band’s continuous evolution. It has been years since an artist came along that could redefine a genre, but this group has the potential to do just that. This is the next big thing.
Upholding the emotive yin-yang tradition of vocal interplay between the dulcet tones of Cristina Scabbia and the scorching vocals of her male singing partner Andrea Ferro, Karmacode sees Lacuna Coil realize the potential at which Comalies hinted, but their evolution is both sonic and spiritual. “If there were an actual translation of Karmacode,” says Ferro, “it would be something like, ‘Spiritual DNA and the message behind it.’ The title attempts to balance our modern, overwhelming, self-centered, fast-paced lifestyles and the desire we all have to lead a more spiritual, compassionate and fulfilling life.”
The American breakthrough for Lacuna Coil — whose moniker translates to “empty spiral” in English, betraying the rich versatility of their music — began with 2001’s Unleashed Memories, an album that merited a special mention in Billboard magazine’s Hard Music Spotlight. That same year, their first U.S. tour left audiences mesmerized by what Metal Maniacs described as “intoxicating” live performances.
Still, the runaway success of 2002’s Comalies was the foundation of which the band’s success was built. The album was praised by the likes of Entertainment Weekly, Revolver, Rolling Stone, Stuff and virtually every hard rock/metal publication of note. Soon after the album’s release, the group’s profile grew tenfold thanks to aggressive touring with the likes of P.O.D., Opeth, Anthrax, Type O Negative and Danzig. With the success of the album’s first single, “Heaven’s A Lie,” Billboard called the band “one of the larger success stories in metal,” as MTV2 and Fuse put the track’s video into heavy rotation and the song itself graced commercial radio airwaves across the country and planted itself within the R&R Active Rock Top 30 Chart. Prominent Boston station WAAF led the charge, inviting Lacuna Coil to appear at its annual Locobazooka festival (alongside such major acts as Staind and Sevendust) in addition to performing acoustically on the air.
In early 2004, Lacuna Coil’s successes were validated with an invitation to participate in that year’s Ozzfest, supporting such metal stalwarts as Judas Priest, Slayer and Ozzy himself. Lacuna Coil offered something unique to the package that ultimately struck a chord with fans, resulting in their being hailed as the year’s breakthrough artist. Over the course of the massive two-month trek, the group also SoundScanned more units per week than any other band on the bill second only to the platinum-selling artist Slipknot. The radio success of “Heaven’s A Lie” waned only as the popularity of the second single, “Swamped” increased at Active Rock and even found its way on to more than a dozen Alternative stations as well.
Lacuna Coil spent the summer of 2005 performing at some of Europe’s premier festivals alongside such household names as Green Day, Incubus and System Of A Down while completing the songwriting process for Karmacode. The highly anticipated new effort was produced by Sorychta and Lacuna Coil in Germany and Italy, while the album was both mixed by Ronald Prent (Rammstein, H.I.M., Iron Maiden) and mastered by Darcy Proper (Steely Dan, Porcupine Tree, R.E.M.) at Galaxy Studios in Belgium. Asterik Studio (Trapt, Funeral For A Friend, The Used), the Grammy-nominated design firm, handled the package design. This offering begins where Comalies left off, and it will further solidify their spot as one of the genre’s most dynamic and exhilarating artists.
The album’s lead track, “Our Truth,” received its worldwide debut on the Underworld: Evolution soundtrack, where it appeared alongside such acclaimed artists as Puscifer (Maynard Kennan’s [Tool, A Perfect Circle] new project), Chester Bennington (Linkin Park), Slipknot, My Chemical Romance, Atreyu and more. A video for the track was shot in Los Angeles by Fort Awesome, a brand-new directorial duo whose individual credits include Queens of the Stone Age, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Chevelle and more. Lacuna Coil kicked off the album’s extensive touring cycle with a high profile six-week U.S. trek with to Rob Zombie. This year the group were also featured on the covers of such esteemed publications as Revolver, Metal Edge, Outburn and Decibel, among others.
With four full-length albums and two EPs now to their credit, Lacuna Coil have ensured that each offering further enunciates the subtle, solemn beauty they create. Karmacode takes that a step further, seeing them further mature as musicians and songwriters to deliver their most cohesive, career-defining album. If karma has anything to do with it, Italy’s most successful rock export will not have to wait long for the entire mainstream world to take notice

Hopefully they won’t mind my pulling that off the page, if they do I will be more than happy to take it down. They are playing the Tabernacle in Atlanta on Monday. I would love to go to the show but as that is my only day off next week I probably won’t make it.


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