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Thursday, December 7, 2006

Primus @ The San Jose Civic Center (Concert Review)

BANJIE BOYEE!

As you can see I snagged Ler's set list from the show at the San Jose Civic Center Primus show on Dec 5th. It's cool not only to remember the tunes Primus played that night...but you can see which songs run into one another with the brackets as well as the guitars Ler LaLonde plays on each tune.

PRS - Paul Reed Smith
LP - Gibson Les Paul
L.P. JR - Gibson Les Paul JR.
Strat - Fender Strat
Banjo - No explanation needed (I hope...jeez)

The show was, of course, nothing short of incredible. I don't think we saw Les's face all night except to catch a breath from underneath his Pig, Elvis, and Circus Freak costumes...not to mention his stellar bass playing and stage antics.

Ler was in standard form teetering on the edge of brilliance and floundering while Herb the Ginseng Drummer looked a lot like Neil Peart up there with his skull cap, huge kit, and flawless playing.

Also, as you can see above the night went something like this:

To Defy the Laws of Tradition
Mr. Know it All
Sargent Baker
Damn Blue Collar Tweekers
South Bound Pachyderm
Sailing the Seas of Cheese
Mr. Krinkle
De Anza Jig
Over the Electric Grapevine
My Name is Mud
Harold of the Rocks

Now you are probably saying to yourself...No Jerry? Are you kidding me? Nope. NO Jerry. Which is quite alright considering all the great tunes we heard. I've seen Primus many times and can do with out Jerry was a Race Car Driver at this point in my life. It's all good in da hood.

The crowd was killer and as you can imagine the standard bouncing and mild to moderate moshing was about. And there's always that one drunk dumb shit (besides me) wobbling around in the center of the pit getting pummeled from every angle only to be knocked down viciously and then helped up by a few helping hands. It was kind of fun to watch this happen over and over again, but dammit if it didn't detract me from watching the stage instead of this human tackeling dummy.

So all in all, Les, Ler, and Herb still got it. Great show. Oh, many thanks to Ler's guitar tech for the set list and a large apology goes out to the bartender at the Mission Ale House I so un-intentionally offended. Really.

Son of Topple - His home

is here: Son of Topple

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Big Business + The Melvins (and an open apology for redundant posting)

First and foremost, apoloiges to YLTWatcher... for not seeing his earlier post on the latest YLT release prefer hamming it up with an open letter to Henry Rollins.

The Melvins + Big Business @ Emo's, Austin, TX
Friday, November 17th, 2006

Anyone ever hear that a lot of serial killers come from the northwest? I think i heard that somewhere.

Anybody know of or remember the heavy driving more-metal-than-sludge topped of with shrieking razor-sharp-vocal tearings of KARP? I recall first hearing it stoned out of mind and realizing that everything else in the world was bullshit. EVERYTHING!

Alas, KARP is gone with the passing of one of their former members. But Big Business carries the energy forward.

Anybody remember the grunge-ploitation of the early nineties? No? Didn't think so. How about when King Buzzo from the Melvins dragged the MTV cameras around to look for a new house, since being a fore-runner of that flannel-clad sound, he figured his name alone could get him a mortgage (or the melvins interviewed by the french).

I do not remember too much from the show personally except that it was fucking insane. The force of thick and heavy head-smashing waves of guitar grinding were only amplified by the insane peaks of dual drummers... one of the melvins... the other formerly of the murder city devils... now of big business. just wanted to give a shout in case any yall find your way to some of their stuff... unfortunately it looks like i missed posting before the SF gig.

klogging,
topple

Friday, December 1, 2006

Iron Maiden - Tribute to 80's Metal - Blog 3 of 3

"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...

Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and
sixty six."

Doesn't that just make you want to start humming Adrian Smith's opening riff to "Number of the Beast" right away and then sing the opening lyrics only to end in Bruce Dickenson's blood curdling scream....YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH HA HA HA HA! of which I can only think of one heavy metal scream that might of been better (Geoff Tate on Queen of the Ryche?) Holy crap if Iron Maiden isn't one of the best Heavy Metal (if not one of the originators of Metal) bands in the world!

Iron Maiden was first formed in 1976 by galloping master bassist Steve Harris, who would soon join up with rhythm guitarist Tony Parsons, drummer Doug Sampson, and drunkard vocalist Paul Di'Anno who was the vocalist for only the first 2 albums, Iron Maiden(1980) and the 1981 follow-up, Killers.

This is a time when a very fortunate thing happened for Iron maiden... Adrian Smith took over on lead guitar and Bruce Dickinson took over on vox (Di'Anno was booted for having the incredible ability to put away mass amounts of alcohol and royally screw the pooch) for the Metal breaking album Number of the Beast. This album is now known as one of the greatest Heavy Metal recordings of all time.

The song list included:

Invaders (Harris)
Children Of The Damned (Harris)
The Prisoner (Harris/Smith)
22 Acacia Avenue (Harris/Smith)
The Number Of The Beast (Harris)
Run To The Hills (Harris)
Gangland (Smith/Burr)
Total Eclipse (Harris/Murray/Burr)
Hallowed Be Thy Name (Harris)

Next came Piece of Mind and 1983's Powerslave (my personal Fav!). Iron Maiden has gone through many more line up changes with Bruce Dickenson going on to record Tattooed Millionaire (blah), but they will forever be somewhere in time as their music will live on forever. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. DUNT.....YEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

SWEET OLD SCHOOL VIDEOS!

Run to the Hills Video

Number of the Beast Video

Check out these kids rock The Trooper - Amazing!

Layout Change

So, what do you think!?

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ozzy Osborne - Tribute to 80's Metal - Blog 2 of 3

Well, in thinking long and hard about another Metal band of the 80's that deserves recognition for rip roaring, in your face, drunken, piss your parents off Heavy Metal it turns out coincidentally that it's a band started from another front man from the War Pigs themselves, Black Sabbath. That's right; I'm talking about the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osborne.

Again, I'm not talking about Ozzy himself as the sole bringer of the Heaviest Metal, but the band he put together right after he left (or was kicked out of pre Dio) Sabbath that included the legendary guitarist Randy Rhoads, bassist Bob Daisley, and drummer Lee Kerslake.

Blizzard of Ozz, The group's first album was released in 1980 in the U.K. and then in early 1981 in the U.S. The lyrics talked about spooky stuff like the devil the occult (pretty standard Metal stuff, really). But Ozzy had an Ace in his pocket, Randy Rhodes! Randy Rhodes guitar playing was second to none (maybe to Eddie Van Halen at the time- but that's another blog entry all on its own) and the band was technically proficient enough to create great heavy music outside of the normal Metal formula. I think to this day "Crazy Train" is still played in every football stadium in America before a big series of downs or when the home team gets possession of the ball (no pun intended).

I'm not exactly sure why anyone would leave at this point unless they mistook Ozzy's drunken blubbering for "your fired" instead of "I'm wired" or something to that effect. But Kerslake and Daisley would be replaced with Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo shortly before the next release of Diary of a Madman. This is when the most legendary of Metal mishaps occurs that makes Spinal Tap look like regular scholars! A drunken Ozzy picks up what he thinks is a fake bat that a fan throws on stage and proceeds to bite the head off of it...not thinking "Hmmmm? Boy this thing feels kinda warm. And man it's sorta twitching? Anyway, A bunch of rabies shots to the stomach later and Ozzy is back in rare form.

Not long afterwards, Randy Rhoads was killed in a bizarre plane accident, bringing the band's bat eating days to a screeching halt. Ozzy fell into a massive depression and was soon let go from Jet Records. Now! all of you musicians out there looking to get the attention of a record label executive... this is how you do it. Show up drunk at an Epic Records meeting with two doves, free one, and then bite the head off the other in the same manner as Ozzy did with the bat.

Osborne got the deal and was signed to the label. Jake E. Lee became Osborne’s new guitarist (another Ace in the hole) for the 1984 studio effort Bark at the Moon. While it didn't match the consistency of Blizzard of Ozz or Diary of a Madman, the record was damn good and scared the crap outta me when I was a kid.

So there it is...3 brilliant albums during the Heavy Metal days of the early 80's. This concludes Metal blog 2 of 3. Next up...6!66!...can anyone finish this line?