Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy

So…. You Want A Record Deal

“Contracts are a bitch, and we’ve signed some raw ones. And we need to start trying to make some money off of our catalog, which is 10 albums deep, plus all the side stuff. We haven’t made any money from record sales, album sales. It’s all gone to the major labels. A lot of people make money off of us; we just don’t make money the way the deals are structured. We just aren’t excited to get back into any kind of contract. So if we find a new home at a new label, wherever it is, it’s gotta be a special deal where you get something for your hard work.

Vocalist/Guitarist Pete Loeffler from Chevelle

Music sells because artists create. As much as the labels would like to believe it’s about them, it isn’t. They are faceless nobodies to the majority of music consumers.

But the A&R reps and CEO’s of these labels fly private, while the artists that make them millions tour via vans. Which in the last 12 months, hasn’t been much, as all touring has ceased.

So the artists do what they normally do when they have downtime. They create more art for release.

CHEVELLE just finished their recording contract with EPIC. A deal signed in 2001, when there was no streaming, no iPhones and no YouTube.

With each label release, the advance they got for the album was bigger than the last advance, which for the label, would have been small change.

“We’ve sold six million albums for Epic Records, and they’ve made 50 million dollars. It’s lopsided.”

Vocalist/Guitarist Pete Loeffler from Chevelle

Their first album, released in 1999, was produced by Steve Albini and released on an independent label. Albini was always warning bands about signing to major labels back in the very early 90’s.

It was their second album, “Wonder What’s Next” that was the catalyst to make me a fan and many others as well. It was released on Epic.

But I got it a few years after it came out.

The first time I heard their music was when I picked up the “Music As A Weapon II” CD, a live collection from the Disturbed run of shows in which the opening bands all got a song or two featured on the CD. And that was when I heard “The Red”. It was like Tool learned how to write concise groove rock songs and I was all in.

“The fact of the matter is when you sign a record deal with a major, they own it for, like, 20-something years. We said, ‘We’d re-sign with you if you just sent some of it through the pipeline to us.’ All the profits, they’re keeping everything. And if they just send a little bit through, maybe we can talk about this, continuing on.”

Vocalist/Guitarist Pete Loeffler from Chevelle

Once upon a time, a major label deal was an opportunity to participate in the music business. 99% of the bands made zero money off the deal.

With the turn of the century, every label claimed that piracy killed the recording business. But acts still moved units.

Chevelle are not the first nor will they be the last who had been ripped off on the pay as Bon Scott would put it. Thirty Seconds To Mars and EMI went to war over a similar unfair contract after “A Beautiful Lie” blew up everywhere.

Maybe we need to look at the labels in the same we see businesses. There are laws which prevent businesses from merging because of the large market monopoly they would hold. There is a great story over at WIRED.COM called “Big Music Needs to Be Broken Up to Save the Industry”.

The article talks about how bad government policy in the U.S over a long period of time left mergers unchecked and this led to the creation of three major labels financing 70% of the music consumed. In other words the release less than other labels but because of their market power dominance it’s consumed more.

And the new recent proposed laws to rein in Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook will also affect Sony, Universal and Warner. Because as streaming gets bigger so do the labels.

The article mentions research conducted in 2019 on streaming payments and the three major labels get $1 million an hour from streaming payments combined.

Think about that $1 million per hour. And this was 2 years ago. It will be more right now as streaming grew exponentially last year.

Streams are cheap for the labels. They don’t have to ship streams or store streams and there’s no breakage of streams like physical. All of the cost of the infrastructure is on the streaming service.

Labels are making money. And the artists….

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Music, My Stories

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – March 15 to March 21

4 Years Ago (2017)

I wrote about heavy metal music.

In 2018, it was 50 years from when Steppenwolf, screamed the words, “Heavy Metal Thunder” in their iconic “Born To Be Wild” song. And while the reference to “heavy metal thunder” was the loud sound of the motorbike, it seemed to stick for a style of music that was just around the corner.

But heavy metal goes back a bit further than that. I go back to the 1930s to talk about Django Reinhardt and how a certain guitarist from Birmingham used him as a reference to deal with losing the tips of his fingers.

8 Years Ago (2013)

I was on a Jovi kick as they had just released “What About Now”, which I didn’t like, so I did a deep dive into their catalogue. It brought back a lot of memories. And I wrote a post on what made “Slippery When Wet” explode?

But it wasn’t all back catalogue songs, as I posted about how the old scorched earth marketing policy also got Jovi a Number 1 album for “What About Now” and I asked the question if it would be around for a month.

And I can tell ya, the album within 4 weeks was almost out of the Billboard 200.

Then I moved to Vito Bratta and his Guitar World, September 1989 interview.

And I came back to Bon Jovi to talk about two classic Bon Jovi songs waiting to be discovered in “BrokenPromisedLand” and “This Is Love, This Is Life” and having a few gamesmanship digs at the band.

Finally there was a two part review of the Kiss and Motley concert.

To close off this post, there was a personal post on my cousin called “Remembering Mega” during this period.

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

Australian Method Series – Birds Of Tokyo

I’m keeping within the realms of Karnivool and “Birds Of Tokyo” is a byproduct or maybe main product these days which features Karnivool vocalist Ian Kenny.

“Human Design” is the sixth studio album. It was released on 24 April 2020 and debuted at number 1 on the ARIA Charts.

The lyrics reflect on the breakdown of singer Ian Kenny’s marriage in 2017. Kenny stated in interviews he started writing to keep himself sane, and that he probably could have said things better in the lyrics, but he kept the honesty as is.

The bitter split also led to some changes for him as well. He was living in Melbourne at the time and he returned home to Perth. He shut down from people and went into healing mode. Alcohol is always a welcome friend in times like these.

Songs started appearing as single releases a few years before. “Unbreakable” came out in September, 2018. “Good Lord” came out in February, 2019. “The Greatest Mistakes” came out in August, 2019. “Two Of Us” came out in January, 2020.

The album had momentum. And sonically it was a bit different, more acoustic rock than alternative rock.

“The Greatest Mistake”

It’s also about the marriage breakdown, but with some perspective after the event, such as “It was 13 months ago / When I went through hell alone”, whereas “Good Lord” is raw and more in the moment.

“I’m done wasting all my time on perfection / All my failures are the reason I am who I am”

Relationships are a compromise, but how much does a person need to compromise before they fail to recognise who they are.

“Two Of Us”

A single note moving guitar riff plays over the chords of a piano. The vocal melody from Kenny hooks you straight away.

The massive Gospel like backing vocals in the Chorus gives the song a healing feeling.

After going through a lot of searching, Kenny moved on. He eventually found a new partner and they have a son. “Two Of Us”, “When Home Calls” and “My Darling My Son” capture these positive moments in his life.

“The two of us / we got it all / Don’t need no designer distractions
Cause in the end / I found a friend / My one and my only obsession”

Be who you are people. If you like your music loud, listen to it loud. If you like to dress simple, dress simple. If you like to hang at coffee shops, do it. Others like you, will find you, eventually.

“Good Lord”

It’s the massive break up song. Certified 2x platinum in Australia. It struck a chord with people, at the honesty and openness in the lyrics, something Kenny rarely did as a lyricist.

The video clip is unsettling. Kenny starts off the video looking normal but as it progresses, his fave starts to get bloodier and bloodier.

As Kenny has said in every interview I’ve read, he’s not the first person to go through a marriage breakdown nor will he be the last. But he never saw it coming, thinking that everything was okay. And then one day, he saw his wife with someone else.

“Drinking in Fitzroy pubs till two / Singing those Fleetwood songs with you / But it all changed when I saw you with someone else”

If you’ve been to Fitzroy, you would know Brunswick St, Fitzroy St, Gore St and George St. If there isn’t a pub on the street, there will be a cafe or a restaurant or a night club to hang and socialize in.

“I fell so hard to my knees / My eyes said no this can’t be / Who was that guy, he ain’t me / Good lord, good lord, good lord”

Falling in and out of love is common. I don’t know why people can’t get with someone after they break up.

Why cheat on your current partner?

Break up, then go and do your thing.

“Designed”

This one is raw.

Kenny writes about how his self-confidence was destroyed.

“Borrowed lines from other guys / To make me sound good / Terrified to be myself / When I know that I should“

We can’t help it. We always try to fit in and be liked. Hell, social media thrives on likes. And sometimes by “trying to be someone else”, we end up attracting the wrong people into our lives.

“I wish you could have loved me the way that I’m designed / I wish you could have seen how hard I had to try / To be somebody else in somebody else’s eyes”

I know a lot of people who said these things when relationships break down. I even said em to my wife when things weren’t going to good. And they got repeated back to me as well.

It’s important that we keep those special unique things about people in tact, instead of trying to make em fit some mold.

“When Home Calls”

From all the disaster of a break up there is always a new path waiting to be travelled.

“It’s 10.35 I’m on the last flight out of Sydney / Three thousand miles a little more wine and then you / I’m on a plane with two hundred souls / I can’t help but feel I’m alone“

I’ve caught late planes before, and it’s bizarre. Some people are just too gassed from the day to be alive and others are too buzzed, looking forward to their destination.

“I stare at my phone at pictures of you and our new born / I wonder if he knows that I missed his birthday this year / This trip away’s been the hardest by far“

Being on the road when you have a family is hard. A lot of people turn to addictions to cope with it. And you miss a lot of life, a lot of growing and you miss creating those memories with em.

And our phones are painful reminders sometimes of the things we miss. I have 13 years worth of photos available to me via my iPhone.

“Photo By The Lake”

“When you leave you have to take / That photo by the lake / In that place we were the best we’d ever been“

When relationships end, there are too many memories. Suddenly your favourite artist reminds you of them, or your favourite book.

And photos, man, they hold the most memories. These days, each photo is just a delete button away but when photos are printed, it’s an albums worth of destruction.

“Addison”

It starts off with this acoustic/banjo lick over an C to F chord progression.

“I felt a shift in the sand / As you pulled away from my hand”

Later on in the song, Kenny sings about holding on to her hand as long as he could, but she pulled away, breaking the connection.

“How could you leave me here my friend / Somewhere between alive and dead / I thought we’d make it to the end / Don’t leave me Addison”

Its weird how it’s all worked out. Kenny used music to cope with the separation, but after the success of this album and the songs as singles, he needs to relive the separation each night when he performs the songs live on stage.

And to finish off the posts on Ian Kenny, Karnivool (which is the reason why I am a fan of Birds Of Tokyo in the first place) are working on Album Number 4, due around May/June this year.

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

No Fucking Regrets Episode 77: Brian Tatler from Diamond Head

Here is the link.

Legendary New Wave Of British Heavy Metal guitarist Brian Tatler sat down with Robb Flynn from Machine Head for an in-depth chat.

The first 20 minutes, Flynn talks about his friendship with vocalist LG Petrov, the frontman for Swedish metal bands Entombed, Entombed A.D. and Firespawn who had just passed away. LG was diagnosed with bile duct cancer and doctors couldn’t remove it. They tried to treat it with “chemotherapy” to prolong his life.

Flynn mentions how he got turned on to Diamond Head by Metallica covering their songs. Before Metallica got signed, people even thought the Diamond Head covers were Metallica originals.

Their debut album in 1980 was called “Lightning To The Nations”. There are seven songs on the album and Metallica covered five of em, throughout their career.

Diamond Head re-recorded their debut album a few years ago and in a great twist, covered a Metallica track, “No Remorse” for the album as it had “DH qualities” according to Tatler.

There is an awesome cover of “Sinner” from Judas Priest as well and Tatler talks about how Priest was a band they looked up to, how Priest influenced em and how he’s “pretty sure” he nicked bits from “Sinner” and “Victims Of Changes” for Diamond Head songs.

He stole the name from a Roxy Music album called “Diamond Head”. Funny how Robb Flynn also took the name “Machine Head” from Deep Purple.

For one weeks studio time, they signed away 15 years of publishing. They were young and they had no idea what publishing was. So when Metallica covered their songs, the publishing was going elsewhere and finally in the late 80’s Tatler went all legal, to get the publishing back.

They didn’t know about the other young bands in the UK at the time like Def Lep, Saxon, Maiden, Angelwitch until Sounds started writing about em. And then so many other bands started coming out, all looking for a record deal.

Geoff Barton from Kerrang was a massive fan of the band and he did a massive write up in Kerrang. They saw that Maiden, Leppard, Saxon and Angelwitch got signed and people wondered why no one signed Diamond Head. So they went the independent route.

Sean Harris (their singer) mom managed the band, which ended up being a bad idea.

Diamond Head never toured the US in the 80s and Robb mentioned how he just presumed that Diamond Head was super huge and that they toured relentlessly in the US.

They finally got a deal with MCA, did two albums, did one tour of Europe and got dropped.

He talks about writing a pop rock song for their first MCA album “Borrowed Time” called “Call Me” because of label pressure, so they could get on to “Top Of The Pops” and they’ll sell a lot of records because of it. But they didn’t. And MCA was not the label for metal bands to be on.

They started touring the US in the 2000s and it was Dave Mustaine from Megadeth that made it happen. Mustaine offered them his crew to help em with set up, sound checks and everything else.

Because Tatler mentioned that DH doesn’t have the pulling power to get crew and buses, so they do their own set up, pack up and their own driving in a van.

He talks about how a 17 year old Lars Ulrich heard “It’s Electric” from a magazine sampler and he then wrote to the fan club, and he said he’s coming over to the UK to watch em play live. And Lars Ulrich ended up sleeping on Tatler’s floor in a sleeping bag in Tatler’s parents house. Lars slept for a week at the Tatler’s and three weeks at vocalist Sean Harris’s parents place.

And my favorite quote from Tatler is “Not everyone gets to make it.”

But he’s okay with it and where he’s at. He’s still doing what he loves. Playing guitar in a band.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Copyright This And Copyright That

Ahh yes, Copyright abuse is rife these days. The RIAA, the record labels standover organization, just keeps sending takedown notices to Google on legitimate content.

To show how silly the RIAA really is, their notices are targeting Spotify and Apple. There is a chance that your music might be taken down by a bogus takedown from an organization that keeps telling people they are the good guys and have the artists best interest at heart.

Um yeah. Sure.

Because if the labels did care for the artists they wouldn’t be fighting them when the artists try and reclaim their Copyrights, which the law allows them to, after 35 years.

Here you have a Soul icon asking her fans to not stream or buy her music while she fights for her rights and for her songs Masters to be returned to her.

But the labels won’t return anything without a fight as they want to be the ones doing deals with Investment Managers. And these kind of companies are popping up everywhere. Barometer Capital Management Inc. is launching a new investment fund called the “Barometer Global Music Royalty Fund LP.”

And the main investments will be the Copyrights to songs with a strong track record of earnings. Expect to read about more and more artists making big deals.

Remember back in the day when the biggest Copyright killer was the cassette. It allowed people to copy their vinyl records onto the format. The labels took out huge campaigns to tell the world that home taping is killing the recording business. Instead it made more money for it because it led to more innovations which led to music being more portable.

The creator of the cassette, Lou Ottens, passed away recently at the age of 94 and I would like to thank him for allowing me to create mix tapes, record jam sessions and most importantly to tape my vinyl collection onto it so I could listen anywhere. And become a pirate in the process.

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

The Record Vault: Coheed and Cambria – No World For Tomorrow

Released in 2007.

I know the album as “No World For Tomorrow” (from here on in, it will be referred as “NWFT”) but its official title is “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow”. Another serious challenge to the length of Meatloaf’s song titles.

“NWFT” is the album that brought the story of Coheed and Cambria and their son Claudio to an end. Well that is what we as fans suspect, as no official story book or comic has been released, but in May 2020, Claude Sanchez announced that a story release for “NWFT” is in the works.

From a legacy perspective, after the “NWFT” album, we got a prequel story of how Wilhelm became the Emperor, an origin story of Sirius discovering “The Keywork”, an album not tied to the story at all and a new story post “NWFT”.

Changes in personnel happened for this album as well, with the previous drummer Josh Eppard departing and replaced by Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters for the album recording.

“The Reaping”

An ominous acoustic guitar arpeggio riff with an emotive vocal kicks off the album.

Purge these days
Will we accept the things we must?
The world will now learn of change to come, or no world

From reading about the story, Claudio has accepted that he is The Crowing, and as The Writer said on the previous album, all things must burn. Sort of like the Mad King in “Game Of Thrones”, “Burn em all”.

Accept the change, or there will be no world.

After 80 seconds the song ends.

“No World For Tomorrow”

And the iconic riff of NWFT starts. It’s a leaner and heavier “Welcome Home”.

“Bye, bye world, or will our hope still hold on?”

It’s dark as it deals with the end of the main character’s world.

“The Hound (of Blood and Rank)”

It starts off with a “Baba O’Reily” meets “Pinball Wizard” synth.

“Feathers”

I know CoCa fans will hate it when I say this, but the start of this song reminds me of “Fallen Angel” from Poison.

It’s one of their most underrated and forgotten tracks.

“The Running Free”

It’s those major key pop punk songs that Coheed and Cambria do so well.

“Mother Superior”

The single note acoustic guitar riff with ringing notes kicks off this ballad like song. It was actually a piano riff to begin with.

How good is the emotional vocal melody especially in the Chorus?

“Gravemakers and Gunslingers”

This one is hard rock all the way with the guitars smacking you awake.

“Justice in Murder”

The harmony guitars to kick off the song. Stick around for the interlude/solo section from 3 minutes in.

Then begins the highlight of the album, “The End Complete”, divided into five sections with a total running time of around 24 minutes.

“The Fall of House Atlantic”

The first is a short orchestral song built on a Spanish Flamenco guitar riff and syncopated drums/vocals chants, coming across as an orchestral hit.

“Radio Bye Bye”

The second is a short pop rock song, more Queen like.

“The End Complete”

The third has it all, heavy riffs, a great hook, some mellow moments, and the whoas from “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth” come back in.

“The Road and the Damned”

The fourth is a short one. More Coldplay and The Verve like with the violin synths.

And that Guitar melody in the Chorus. Classic Rock Pentatonic perfection.

“On The Brink”

The fifth ends the album. It begins soft, with backwards music playing and a Dave Gilmour like lead.

And then it gets heavy.

The vocals are chanting “Hail” and all of this is followed by an ear piercing scream. This one is more Pink Floyd like, like a forgotten track from “The Wall”

Check it out.

P.S. In a tragedy of epic proportions, I cannot locate my CD of NWFT. Too many House moves and too many misplaced boxes. I’m hoping the book release they have planned will be packaged nicely with the album included.

I also haven’t mentioned the debut album “The Second Stage Turbine Blade” so far, because I don’t have it and have been waiting for a definitive edition to come out so I can purchase.

Onto “The Year Of The Black Rainbow” next.

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Music, Unsung Heroes

Rev Theory

I was listening to “The Rev Theory” today.

I got into em with their 2008 release “Light It Up”. I thought it was their debut album but that happened in 2005 with “Truth Is Currency” which I just heard recently.

Check out the songs “Hell Yeah” (currently at 76 million streams on Spotify), “Broken Bones”, “Wanted Man”, “Ten Years” and “Far From Over”.

Then came the “Justice” album in 2011, a couple of hit and miss EP’s/singles and an album in “The Revelation” in 2016. Some connected and some didn’t, so I sort of lost them afterwards.

It’s just how it is these days. We fall in and out of liking artists who are also competing with the history of music, plus their old hits for our attention.

For me, the 2008 album is what stands the test of time and because of it, I am interested to see what the comes next.

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

On Through The Night

“On Through The Night” has just turned 41 and it’s time for a few spins over a few drinks.

“Rock Brigade” and “Hello America” bring the standard blues hard rock vibes to the album. “Hello America” also has this Beach Boys style vibe, especially after the solo section.

It’s tracks like “Sorrow Is A Woman” (with its wonderful “Stairway To Heaven” inspired lead break and how good is that harmony solo section after it which leads to the outro), “It Could Be You” (shows their love of Mott The Hoople, Sweet and hard rock Queen) and “Satellite” (listen to that tasty palm muted arpeggio riff from Steve Clark in the verses after the first Chorus and how good is that “staring up at the sky” section) which shows the adventurous and melodic spirit of the band.

How good is the clean tone intro to “When The Walls Came Tumbling Down”?

And then it morphs into those galloping style riffs which was a big part of the NWOBHM and something Iron Maiden would use a lot, “The Trooper” comes to mind immediately.

Then the headbanging riff to kick off “Wasted” starts. For those who wanted to question the metal credentials of Def Leppard, I always pointed them to this song.

“Rocks Off” and “It Could Be You” are interchangeable, with very similar riffs being the main riffs. Then again the whole blues hard rock movement was based on the same riffs being re-used by each individual artist.

“It Don’t Matter” could have come from the fingertips of Michael Schenker as “Rock Bottom” comes to mind. And how good is that Chorus, just a simple, “It don’t matter” line repeated in a simple AC/DC style backing vocal.

How good are those harmony leads in the “Answer To The Master” Chorus? And the song has a little drum solo before it moves into a section that reminds me of U.F.O. Finally, the lead break starts, with an open string lick before it morphs into the pentatonic lines.

“Overture” is 7 plus minutes long and it doesn’t feel laboured and boring. At the 2 minute mark it starts to go into a Thin Lizzy style of song, full of energy and harmonies. And my favourite part is the stop start harmony section from the 4.20 mark and at 4.40, Joe Elliot starts singing a haunting melody, before a wah solo kicks in. And from here to the end, it’s that good, that the only thing I could do is press repeat.

For all the multi-platinum and Diamond certifications that came afterwards, there is something simple and organic about the debut.

Check it out.

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

The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – March 8 to March 14

4 Years Ago (2017)

I was writing about 1983.

“Frontiers” from Journey is the response from a band at the top of the charts as the “Don’t Stop Believin” and Jonathan Cain era was in full swing.

“Separate Ways” is the piece d resistance. How good is the opening keyboard lick?

“Faithfully” inspired “Purple Rain”. In This Moment also use this song as an influence for the outro of their song “World In Flames”.

“Troubled Child” is one of those underrated gems on an album.

“Bent Out Of Shape” from Rainbow is how far MTV changed the way bands wrote albums. Suddenly experimentation, longer guitar solos or longer songs in general went out the window. Every band was trying to make that arena rock song.

But the single here should have been “Stranded” instead of “Street of Dreams”.

“Flick Of The Switch” from AC/DC is a solid album.

The producer of their holy trinity albums, Mutt Lange was also out. Their manager Peter Mensch was also out. Angus and Malcolm stepped up to give the world a live and raw version of AC/DC.

There is a lot of groove and swagger. The slower tempo’s make it sound HEAVY. But the songs don’t get played live, and the album remains largely forgotten to the masses.

“Never Surrender” from Truimph showed a band that could write ambitious and melodic tracks along with metal and rock tracks as well.

Yngwie Malmsteen was involved with Alcatrazz and “No Parole from Rock N’ Roll” with Graham Bonnet on vocals and “Steeler” with Ron Keel on vocals.

8 Years Ago (2013)

I listened to Bon Jovi’s new album “What About Now” and had a rant over it. And then I heard “That’s What the Water Made Me”.

Cause devils in heaven
There’s angels in hell

We live in a world of fakes, a world of avatars and the lines between good and evil are blurred these days.  

1994 (27 Years Ago)

“Superunknown” from Soundgarden and “The Downward Spiral” from Nine Inch Nails are released.

1987 (34 Years Ago)

U2 started their world domination era with the release of their fifth studio album, “The Joshua Tree”.

1986 (35 Years Ago)

Rick Rubin got Steven Tyler and Joe Perry to record parts of “Walk This Way” so that he and Run DMC could transform it into a hip-hop jam.

Both acts weren’t enthusiastic about the collaboration but money talks and the track resurrected Aerosmith’s career and pushed Run DMC’s name to a whole new audience as well.

1984 (37 Years Ago)

Ian Gillan’s days in Black Sabbath came to an end, just as Mark II of Deep Purple reformed.

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

Australian Method Series – Karnivool

“Sound Awake” was released in 2009 and it peaked at Number 2 on the Australian Charts.

Karnivool is an Australian progressive band formed in Perth, Western Australia in 1997, with an interesting set list of Nirvana and Carcass songs.

The group currently consists of Ian Kenny on vocals, Drew Goddard and Mark Hosking on guitar, Jon Stockman on bass, and Steve Judd on drums.

The last album they did was “Asymmetry” released in 2013. Vocalist, Ian Kenny is also the lead singer in the highly successful pop rock act, “Birds Of Tokyo” which started off as a side project for him and I’m pretty sure it is now his main project as the Gold and Platinum and Multi-Platinum certifications mount up for em.

So, after touring in the US on the “Themata” album, Karnivool returned to Australia in 2008 and entered the studio to write their follow-up. While writing the album, they still toured around Australia, testing out some of the new songs in the live arena.

While “Themata” was written mostly by guitarist Drew Goodard, “Sound Awake” was much more of a collaborative effort from everyone.

“Simple Boy” and Goliath” show an influence from The Mars Volta and pack a one two punch to kick off the album.

“New Day” at 8 minutes long, is a must listen, with its melodic vocals and progressive structures and how it just keeps building. If you want to hear how Birds Of Tokyo sound then this is the bastard child of their sound. It even has a Live feel.

“Set Fire To The Hive” is a nod to Soundgarden’s “Badmotorfinger” days, a bit of modern “System Of A Down” and their Alternative Rock style from the first album.

“Umbra” has a catchy hook to start the song. The ending is excellent, stick around for it.

“All I Know” has an odd riff and a Tool like rhythm.

“The Caudal Lure” is the most progressive track, moving between time signatures and feels.

“Illumine” is a metal cut.

And the last two tracks are the piece d resistance with guitarists Drew Goddard and Mark Hosking shining.

“Deadman” just keeps building up and the song ends around 10 minutes, with some ambient noise and then a re-recorded version of “Change (Part 1)”, starts. But when this song was on “Themata” it built and when we expected it to blast off, it ended. Now we finally hear what comes after the build-up.

“Change (Part 2)” has all the best things of Sabbath, Tool, Radiohead and hard rock.

Musically, Tool, Porcupine Tree and early Muse come to mind. There’s some Deftones and Radiohead there. There’s an Alternative Rock vibe from the debut that’s still there. It’s catchy, has heaps of melody because Ian Kenny is one of Australia’s best singers. The rhythm section of Judd and Stockman is excellent, creative and full of ideas to change it up. And Goddard and Hosking make a wonderful twin guitar outfit.

Check em out.

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