A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Metal Journey

I grew up in a time when AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden were classified as metal acts. Black Sabbath was seen as a bit more extreme and darker. Venom even more so. But as the years went on, the way people viewed metal music had changed.

Suddenly it’s faster or groovier or math like or whatever else you like and depending on the act, you wouldn’t be able to understand a word they are saying, without referring to the lyrics. So on occasions I cannot resonate with all the acts today classed as metal.

But one thing I do know is that music labelled as “metal” is made for loyalists.

You hook in a fan, they would be along for the ride, dedicating their lives because they believe. And hearing a song just once, is never enough. To become a fan of an artist, it meant you had to invest time and be prepared to take the journey.

Recently the Evergrey album became a journey, exploring the depths of darkness, depression and hope. Every 13 years, the Tool Comet comes past Earth and a new album drops and when it does, that in itself is a journey. Rival Sons took me on a journey deep into the Delta and Volbeat showed there is still life in streets of the 60s.

Take us on a journey and we are fans for life.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Charts

I’m sure you have read or heard or skimmed the reporting of how Tool beat Taylor Swift for the Number 1 spot. High fives all round for the perfect execution of the album release.

Tool is in Week 1 and Taylor is in Week 2 of their respective release cycles.

My thoughts on the charts, is an industry holding on to the past. Combining physical sales with a certain number of streams which count like a sale. Come on, that by no means indicates what is hot or not.

Still selling CD’s and mp3’s, even though CD players don’t even come in computers or cars anymore. And mp3 players are obsolete. The iPod is dead. And the way my kids don’t even know what a Blackberry is, there will be kids in 10 years time who won’t even know what an iPod is.

Seen the article about how vinyl will outsell CDs for the first time since the 80s.

Does the majority care?

Of course not. The amount of people streaming is greater than the amount of people buying.

Streams are facts, harder to scam, but people still try. Streams give an indication of what people are listening to as there is no way for an artist to know how many times a CD or vinyl sale has been listened to.

And streaming pays forever, whereas a sale pays you once. You might feel rich now but you will be complaining in the future.

And the record labels have manipulated the charts from the start, because they know the media reports on it, like it means something. Maybe it showed how many records got sold once Soundscan came into force in the early 90’s, but before that it was based on how many albums got ordered by record stores.

And the last 15 years have shown us how the first week of sales are high and the stories are reported everywhere, but by the fourth week, it’s down to a trickle and by week eight, its underwater. And people move on. Music in general is more important than any particular album. It’s a sign of the times, the era we live in.

Sure, bands in the metal and rock genre create albums which sustain and reach some status, but it’s all because of a mathematical formula combining streams with physical.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Genre Labels

When you upload music to Spotify as an artist, the service via the digital distributor an artist uses, asks what kind of genre you are in, because for an algorithm to work it needs a label to refer to. And the genres an independent artist has to pick from are Metal or Rock or Alternative Rock and a host of other ones that are not relevant if you play music with distorted guitars.

But what genre would you be, if you see yourself as progressive, with a little bit of metal, a little bit or rock, a little bit of blues, a little bit of country, a little bit of soul, a little bit of classical, a little bit of folk and a little bit of pop.

 And why wouldn’t the lyrics play a part. You could sing about death and depression or you could sing about censorship and oppression or you could sing about dungeons and dragons or you could sing about history.

Seriously, look at the genre names that the labels and music writers of the past have come up with.

Metal, rock, blues, country, soul, classical, folk and pop.

If “Thrash” was a genre to select from, I would add that to the list as well.

So how would people promote all of this different music if it was just labelled “music” without any word before it like metal or pop?

Well marketeers knew that genre labels work for people. In life we more or less label everything. Our ethnicity, first name and our surname is a label we get from the start. Because if a sheet of paper doesn’t exist stating our name or birth, we obviously don’t exist according to official records.

And we keep building on labelling?

We develop labels for suburbs like that is a “good place to live vs bad place to live”, people like fat people vs skinny people to nice people vs rude people, races, schools (public vs private vs religious school), workplaces (government vs private), sporting teams and family/friends. So it’s pretty obvious that labels in music work for pushing the product. And it makes it easier for people because they don’t feel overwhelmed.

But as the article states, labels are for cans, not people. Always be curious and don’t fall into the label/categorisation trap. Keep exploring.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

A Bit More Tool

I realised in the last week, I haven’t written anything about Tool since this blog started in 2013. And the reasons I could come up with is because their music didn’t exist digitally in any legal way for me to access and I really hate using YouTube, putting up with their ads and how I could come across a song with the audio quality being hit and miss. Plus since I pay for Spotify, I’m not interested to pay for YouTube. And even though I own a lot of vinyl and CD’s, I don’t play em anymore. And Tool, up until a few weeks ago, were a band that existed in the physical world.

So out of sight, out of mind.

And then Tool is suddenly back in.

And for a lot of people Tool is known as an “acquired taste”. Tool writes music that is progressive, but not a thousand notes style progressive. It’s elements are more about exploring and building grooves, some of them in 4/4 and others in 7/8, 6/8 and so forth. They have elements of styles known as rock and metal in there. Vocally, it is a bit harder to categorize. On the “Aenima” album, just check out “Stinkfist” and the lyric, “Elbow deep beyond the borderline”. I don’t recall too many bands who sell out arenas singing about fisting.

And people talk about the band and people come back for more and people pay more for their product. Because Tool is a unique artist. Most of the other artists in the major music markets are lumped into a few genres, while Tool lives without category, regardless of what the marketeers want from them.

Go left when everyone wants you to go right. Be the “none of the above” answer when everyone wants you to be part of the above.

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Music, My Stories

Music Addiction

It was a religion going to the record store and seeing all that I couldn’t buy. And a purchase was not an easy decision. Because if i didn’t like it, I was stuck with it. On a lot of occasions, the record shop wouldn’t have the album I went there for. So I would buy something else because there was always a back up buy list.

And i played those records until i knew every lick by heart. When I had equipment that could slow the music down or speed it up, I would use it. And I got lazy afterwards, so I was happy to hand over money for guitar transcriptions books. I even purchased the transcriptions for albums I had already learned, so I could have em. You can get all kind of fan transcriptions online today and for free.

And I would write down the lyrics on an A4 page and then I would write the chords above the lyrics. I had a folder of transcribed songs like that.

And then life gets in the way and decisions are made. Band members leave because they discovered they weren’t quite good enough or decided they didn’t want to put in the same commitment as the others.

During breaks my gear gathered dust. But the music is still there, i am still addicted.

And others I knew would do everything they could to get closer to the music life. They would work as a roadie, work in a record store, do some work for a label or promoter. And it wasn’t because they wanted to get rich, but because everyone wanted to be closer to the party and the lifestyle.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Building Small Communities

Music is spread from person to person. Someone would come across an artist they liked and they would put the effort in to spread the word.

And once we got exposed from someone, we made it our mission to find another artist and talk about them and insist that people pay attention. It’s why music magazines became popular.

The true fans. They are the ones who will go ahead and spread an artists music and it’s not because an artist wants them to, it’s because they want to.

Algorithms try to do music discovery but they are nowhere near close to the human emotion of music. And the programmers have no idea how to write code that connects with the human curation.

And the labels are all about short-term profits which is a terrible way to build a proper and sustainable industry. There’s always a shortcut like scalping tickets or cooking the charts, a rule to be bent by being creative on the accounting and by not paying the artists their share. And when they don’t get their way, they pay politicians enough money to pass laws to give them their way.

So artists are on their own, building their small sustainable communities.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Who Should Watch Over The Royalties?

Last year, the Music Modernization Act became law, in an attempt to fix some aspects of Copyright. While it had a nice clause about moving some very old music into the public domain, the issue that got all the artists excited was the changes required to the mechanical licensing process for songwriters, making it easier for songwriters to get the royalties they are owed.

But.

In all the excitement no one thought to read the details. The law gives birth to a new collection society for these mechanical royalties. So companies/organizations had to submit their proposals to The Copyright Office. And the one that looks like it could win the “bid” (the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA)) is one of the organizations which caused part of the current mess with royalties.

In other words, it’s another system created to move money to the big music publishers and away from independent artists.

The publishers have the PR down, telling people how they represent all songwriters which is not quite true.

And independent songwriters make up 99% of the music business, but they are all confused about what is going on and what they need to do to collect their royalties. Trusting in organizations to do the right thing is not really a good business model. And in times of confusion, the one that benefits most, is the one in power, which is the NMPA.

As the Techdirt article explains:

There is a pot of unclaimed royalties that have already been paid by music services that is estimated to be between $1.5 and $2.5 billion.

With so much money at play, the new organization will need to create some fancy algorithms to match the monies to the songwriters. However, the new law also gives the new organization a POWER to distribute any unclaimed royalties to themselves after a three year period.

So how proactive do you think this new organization would be to find these independent songwriters?

And this kind of conflict of interest isn’t new. SoundExchange is a good example. In 2005, this new body was formed, a spin off from the labels to collect online royalties and by 2009 it had a lot billions of unclaimed royalties to couldn’t match, even to well known artists.

If the NMPA gets the green light from the Copyright Office they will control billions of dollars in royalties. It’s more power to the old legacy players.

As the are Techdirt article states, the biggest challenge to being a successful independent musician is not piracy, but rather the legacy industry getting in the way and keeping money it owes independent musicians.

The Techdirt article.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

A Tool Conversation on Fear Inoculum

Here is a conversation that took place on the 30/8/2019 when Tool released “Fear Inoculum” their first album in 13 years.

Tom: 

So have you been cranking the new TOOL yet?

Pete: 

Yep and you.

Tom: 

Kids had a fathers day thing at the school this morning.

Anyway, I’ve just started cranking it.

Onto “Descending” now. Song 6 of 7 and 66 minutes in. Lol.

Tool don’t really edit their songs to fit a radio playlist or whatever. And their progressive style of rock is very different to say Dream Theaters prog Rock as Tool sits on a groove for a long time before they change.

Pete: 

What did you think of “Invincible”?

Or what did you think of certain sections in “Invincible”?

Tom:

Was gonna say that was tough. Man, they didnt like editing this time ay.

Pete: 

Not really…(my response to the editing statement)

I listened to two songs coming into work this morning. All up 24 minutes worth.

Tom: 

So far they have had mad grooves and build ups but there has been an absence of climaxes.

Some cool solos though.

The solos in Tool are like riffs played in the higher register.

Pete: 

In “Descending”, I like how they end it with the drums doing the off beat that the guitar did earlier.

There is a section in “Invincible” when the guitarist just plays this open string groove and the drummer actually plays a stock beat.

Tom: 

So far “Descending” has been the one that kicks the most.

Before I heard “Descending”, I would say “Invincible” would have been it.

The songs sit on a groove for a long time.

Pete:

Did you hear the riff in “Invincible” that was from “H”?

Tom: 

The “H” riff didn’t pop out on this listening. I will keep an ear out for it next time round

“Descending” is dragging on, but its a lot more exciting.

Pete: 

What?? Its the main riff of “H”.

I felt like rippping the steering wheel off when I heard it.

It’s like a nice little throwback and it was one of the first riffs i learnt from em.

Tom: 

lol

“H” is still my favourite song, its the first song I remember hearing from them on JJJ.

Pete: 

“Culling Voices”

Whats your thoughts on it?

Actually just fast forward to the 6 minute mark.

The first six minutes dragged on for a bit too much for me.

Tom: 

“7empest” seems a little old school like the “Opiate” and “Undertow” era.

I guess this is the one with the 5 minute solo.

Pete: 

I don’t recall a 5 min guitar solo at all on the album.

Well not a guitar solo like how I call a guitar solo.

Tom: 

“7empest” is the one with the guitar solo.

Pete: 

Ignoring Tom’s review of the last song, I was back listening to the album from start to finish.

So “Fear Inoclum” is a pretty cool song.

“Pneuma” continues the tone set and the way they jam that bass riff from about the 1.20 minute mark is pretty cool

That riff from about 9.20 in “Pneuma”. As if it doesnt make you want to break the desk. And it just keeps building until the end.

Tom: 

There isn’t a song with Maynard in the climax, coming in screaming “VICARIOUSLY I, LIVE WHILE THE WHOLE WORLD DIES, MUCH BETTER YOU THAN I.

Pete comment: Tom is right here that Maynard’s absence in the endings is missing.

Pete: 

Well he is a WARR-I-OR.

STRUGG – I – LING.

The above is a lyric from “Invincible”.

Tom: 

I have to admit, its definitely a TOOL album.

They didn’t go all weird or anything like that.

Pete: 

That open string riff from the 8 minute mark in the song “INVINCIBLE”. First its just the riff, then some keys, then Maynard starts with “tears in your eye” then the drums come in mimicking the guitar.

Tom: 

Yeah man, the only criticism I have is the lack of Maynard power vocals in the climaxes of the songs that are traditionally there.

It’s missing in all the songs otherwise everything else is pretty epic.

Tom is still on about the lack of the vocal climaxes. And if you remember our “Justice For All” conversation, the bass was a big issue for him as well. Lol.

Pete: 

Then at 9.40 in “Invincible”, the drummer plays a stock beat.

This will be head banging section of the concert and the last 2 minutes.. Those riffs

Actually those last 4 minutes of “Invincible”…. x 13 years wait = ??

Tom: 

For me its “Descending” from 5:54 to 6:50, the vocals are epic. They just needed to be repeated at around 10:53 over the new riff, I have to find a way to do it.

And Tom over that weekend downloaded some editing software and did it. And it sounded better.

Pete: 

“Invincible” over “Descending” for me…

I always saw the vocals as an extension of the instruments. Maynard sang like he was a lead guitarist instead of a lead vocalist. His melodies are like guitar melodies. And as a lead vocalist he normally hid behind screens live, so it was more about the sound than the look and words.

So lets talk about “7empest”.

Tom: 

Like I said it has an early Tool feel for me.

I don’t mind it, more rocky and the solo isn’t bad either

 Pete: 

What solo?

I always poke fun at the term solo mixed in with Tool. To me they are cool melodic riffs.

Tom: 

The 5 minute one.

Pete: 

Lol

Tom: 

It’s a solo man, the closest we will ever get from Tool

Pete: 

Petrucci – Live at Budokan for “Hollow Years”.

Now that is a solo.

Tom: 

If emotion is what you are after then “Lines In The Sand”.

Pete: 

I’m still listening to the 5 minute guitar solo. I forgot it was a guitar solo.

It feels like a riff played on the higher strings.

Tom: 

Thats the trick.

Pete: 

Take a riff and play it on the G, B and E strings and call it a guitar solo, that goes for 5 minutes.

Tom: 

Your right about the last bit of “Invincible”.

It kicks but still missing Maynard going top gear.

Maynard’s vocals is one of the reasons why I love Tool.

And him not being in the climax’s makes it feel like it is missing something.

Pete: 

Nah for me it was the grooves. The jams.

And obviously the lack of editing.

I felt like with the first APC album, Maynard’s vocals are brilliant.

I saw some comments online about how the long songs will only pay for one stream when they could have done three 4 minute songs and gotten paid for three streams.

These people don’t get it.

Tool don’t care about the per stream payment.

Why do you think it’s taken em this long to come onto digital services?

They got the upfront payment and the rates they want.

Final Note:

It’s good to have Tool on streaming services and back in the music scene with a new album.

They held off long enough to get a deal with Spotify on their terms and their rate.

They’ve always done things their way and even in this era of social connections, Tool is still the outsider. And outsiders win.

And the album is long which will be ignored by a lot of people, but there will be enough old and new people tuning in.

I enjoyed listening to their jams and how Tool seems to be the only big act who doesn’t care about what’s happening in music, how it’s become a hit game and how streaming monies saved the record labels. They live in their own world.

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Derivative Works, Music, My Stories

The Record Vault – Britny Fox

I purchased this 7 inch single with loose change, before the record labels decided to drop the high production costs of vinyl for the low production costs of CD’s and triple the selling price in the process.

And vocally, I wasn’t sure if I was listening to Tom Keifer, however it was “Dizzy” Dean Davidson who would go on to state many years later how he hated the Britny Fox material because he was controlled by management and the label to write songs like other popular songs.

Case in point, “Girlschool”.

Musically, it is so generic, it’s actually addictive and I like the way the music rolls and the vocal melody ties it all together.

But at this point in time circa 1988/89, I was over listening to songs that had uninspired rhymes, like rules/ school, school/cool, boys/toys and day/play/hallway.

And the B-side song “Don’t Hide” didn’t connect, so my Britny Fox purchases are down to just one single purchase and a bass tab book I picked up for 1 dollar which has the bass playing an open string for most of the songs.  

And the self-titled Britny Fox album went Gold, like many other generic albums around the same time due to the power of MTV and a film clip doing the rounds.

Then Dizzy left and someone else came in on vocals and that was it for all of em.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, movies, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

The Record Vault – Bonfire

From Germany.

My older brothers had a friend called Greeny. He had funds and he liked metal and rock music. It was from his car stereo I heard bands like Cinderella, Great White, Leatherwolf and Bonfire for the first time. 

I really got into this band. I thought they would be the next big thing. But they didn’t get there. Not for a lack of trying.

And it pisses me off that these two albums are not on Spotify Australia.

Fireworks

Released in 1987.

There isn’t a bad track on this album. Maybe when it came to the charts and the hearts and minds of consumers, its many years too late in sound and style, as the public by 1987 was hooked on Jovi, Van Halen, U2, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, GNR and soon, Metallica.

And then you get the Bonfire sound, which is rooted in melodic heavy metal circa 1982 to 1985.

The album tracks are written by vocalist Claus Lessmann, guitarists Hans Ziller and Horst Maier and bassist Jörg Deisinger.

“Ready 4 Reaction” is the opening track and it blasts out of the speakers. “Never Mind” continues the melodic rock. “Sleeping All Alone” is an attempt to hit the charts as Jack Ponti and Joe Lynn Turner have a co-write. It didn’t chart, however it’s a good song.

“Sweet Obsession” also has Joe Lynn Turner and Jack Ponti as co-writers. I got the single and then I couldn’t find the album for years. So I dubbed it.The current version of the band doing the rounds these days always reference this album in the live arena and they totally ignore the follow up.

Point Blank

Released in 1989.

A big shift in personnel happened on this album with founder Hans Ziller being fired even though the album features his music. And before Ziller was fired, guitarist Horst Maier-Thorn was also let go.

Desmond Child was brought in. Bob Halligan Jnr was brought in and Jack Ponti was brought back. Desmond Child even recovered the song “The Price Of Loving You” for his own solo album, that’s how high he held it.

Even Michael Wagener was hired to produce. It was an all assault to get the music buying public into the band.

And the album did nothing.

There was no promo in Australia for it and a little paragraph in the Metal Edge magazine many months after it was released tipped me off.

Like the debut, the album sound was out of date by a few years. By 1989, the tastes and sounds morphed even more. This album would have done great if it was released in 1987.

Acoustic/Unplugged was becoming a thing and the Blues had come back into the sounds of rock and metal with bands going back to their roots.

Of course, Motley Crue released a thunderous sounding album dripping with groove and GNR was still riding the wave of their punk boogie oriented debut album, furnished with an EP of acoustic songs.

And somewhere in between Bonfire sat, without one of its founding members.

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