Tag Archives: Queensryche

Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Prophetic Writings of Dave Mustaine

Throughout my life, bands like Megadeth, Metallica and Queensryche, have commented a fair bit on governments, democracy and the corruption that happens.

In the last 10 years, the Entertainment Industries have shown to the world, how corrupt they really are, and how they would do anything to protect obsolete business models. When I started writing this post, the themes that started to appear, reminded me of Megadeth songs.

Dave Mustaine is renowned for his mouth and his witty/snarly lyrical writing. Remember a time when musicians used to lead. Dave Mustaine is one of those musicians.

Seeking Asylum

There is a current role reversal happening in our lives today. Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, political dissidents would actually SEEK asylum in Democratic Free countries like the US, UK, Australia and Canada. Now people are looking for asylum in other countries to get AWAY from the Democratic Free countries. How the times have changed?

It reminds me of the lyrics to The World Needs A Hero (from the album The World Needs A Hero, released in 2001).

An Iron Fist quietly sits inside the Velvet Glove
Take control, untouchable just like God above
I can’t escape, wrapped in red tape, what will become of me?
If I object, then I defect my country tis of thee

Bradley Manning, detained in red tape and military courts. What will become of him? He didn’t kill anyone? He didn’t terrorise anyone? He didn’t bomb any public infrastructure? So why is he imprisoned? All he did was to embarrass a government.

Ed Snowden, leaked information about the NSA spying on US Citizens and now he is treated as a criminal, seeking asylum in countries that will not hand him over to the US. Remember the time when Communist defectors seeked asylum in the US. This is what corrupted democracy leads too? All Snowden did was to embarrass a government.

Copyright Levy

Most of Europe has a Copyright Levy imposed on the purchase of storage media, smartphones, tablets and any other connected devices.  In my view, since there is such a levy on digital products, whether devices or storage media, then non-commercial infringement should be permitted. The copyright monopolies shouldn’t get to have it both ways – either they need to go after alleged “pirates”, or they can tax the items “pirates” use. Makes you wonder why organisations like HADOPI (in France) were formed, since the public had already paid for the content without even wanting to?

Sort of like the song Dread and The Fugitive Mind (from the album The World Needs A Hero, released in 2001).

What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine too
If you shake my hand better count your fingers

Nothing else can sum up the Entertainment lobby groups and the Copyright Cartels better than the above two lines from Dave Mustaine.

ENFORCEMENT

Speaking of enforcement, Hadopi in France, has been a total waste of time and money. It was created as a gradual response system to piracy. Basically three warnings and then no internet. The aim of Hadopi was to push people to legal paid services.

“While illicit file sharing has dropped, legal paid services have not benefited as was hoped.”

The entertainment industry focus should be trying to figure out ways to make more money however the entertainment industries believe that getting rid of piracy will lead to more money. All it will do is push piracy further into a darknet.

Sort of like the lyrics in Symphony Of Destruction (from the album Countdown To Extinction, released in 1992).

You take a mortal man
And put him in control
Watch him become a god
Watch people’s heads a roll

Let’s change them up to suit;

You take the RIAA
And put them in control
Watch them become gods
Watch people’s heads a roll

BLOCKADES

All over the world, blockades of websites is becoming common. The site they are all after is The Pirate Bay. The labels claim that the infamous torrent site facilitates copyright infringement. In countries like the UK and Ireland the courts agreed and ISP’s are forced to implement the block. Of course, users can easily bypass any blockade by using one of the many available Pirate Bay proxy sites. It’s that old whac-a-mole game. The Recording Associations around the world are spending monies in costly legal avenues and lobbying/bribery, instead of innovating.

Reminds me of the song New World Order  (originally recorded for the Youthanasia album of 1994 and released on the Th1rt3en album in 2011).

Monitoring all wages
New world order comes in stages
Your currency is obsolete
Feel the agony of defeat

Power resides in the ones that can purchase legal solutions to assist in their bad business models. The currency of fairness and justice is obsolete, against the power of money. We are all slaves to it. The whole blockade of websites is due to money, not piracy.

THE ART OF WAR VIA THE ARM OF THE LAW

The Entertainment industries like the RIAA seem to think that by using the arm of the law to extract money by force or to threaten people by force is a satisfactory response for copyright infringements. Remember people, copyright infringement is a civil matter not a criminal matter. However when power resides with the ones that control government, anything is possible.

Reminds me of the song Endgame (from the album Endgame, released in 2009).

The Ex-President signed a secret bill that can land a legal US Citizen in jail
And the Patriot Act stripped away our Constitutional Rights

All rights removed, you’re punished, captured and enslaved
Believe me when I say, This is the Endgame

Admins of websites have been found guilty for facilitating copyright infringement, have been given sentences harsher then murderers and drug dealers. These admins didn’t kill anyone, however if you take a penny from the wealthy, you have committed a grievous crime that needs to be punished severely.

INNOVATION STIFLING

Spotify has been far more successful in tackling piracy than any law. So what does the RIAA do? They want to charge more for the licensing fees. I am waiting for the punch line to come from the RIAA that this increase is needed to protect the artists that create the content. When it comes to money people just become dumb and those people are in charge of companies that make dumb decisions.

Sort of like the song, Millennium Of The Blind (from the album Th1rt3en, released in 2011)

All your money’s ours to bankroll corrupt wars
You can’t see what you’re fighting for
Trust your leaders as they send you out to die
The true face of evil can’t be seen without eyes

You can tweak the above to read;

All the money’s ours to bankroll shakedown wars
You can’t see what we are legislating for
Trust in the RIAA as they protect what you create
Through bribery and corruption so that politicians legislate

JUDGES SET MARKET PRICES

A 3 judge panel has set prices on the rates that internet services like Pandora need to pay, so that they can play music on line and the RIAA claims it is a free market.

Reminds me of the song Bite The Hand That Feeds (from the album Endgame, released in 2009).

They ball-gagged Lady Justice
And blindfolded her so she can’t see

They took everything and anything
As long as it once belonged to me

When the Courts have Judges that used to work for the Copyright Monopolies, the verdict is always the same. Good for business, bad for the people.

POLITICIANS PUSH CORPORATE PROPAGANDA

When are politicians going to stand for the people again. Instead we have the people that we voted in, pushing the agendas of corporations. A good example is the new RIAA stooge Marsha Blackburn. Enough said.

All of this reminds me of Peace Sells (from the album Peace Sells But Who’s Buying, released in 1986) and We The People (from the album Th1rt3en, released in 2011).

What do you mean “I couldn’t be President of the United States of America?”
Tell me something, it’s still “We The People” right

Nope, it is not we the people anymore and it hasn’t been for a long time. It is We With The Money.

Violate your rights, no more equality
Surrender freedom, your social security

When our politicians started to want to earn the same as Wall Street bankers, the writing was on the wall for equality and justice. Looking at all of the headings in this post, it makes me feel like I am living in a dictatorship. All of this is happening in Democracy. Peace Sells people, and the Copyright Cartels have purchased it all up.

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Metal Music and Piracy

Dave Mustaine from Megadeth was asked the question “What do you think about the state of the music industry right now with all of the changes that have been made?” when he appeared on That Metal Show (S12:Ep5)

“This generation has grown up to believe that music should be free. We focus on the live shows now. People are very song-focused now.”

While I disagree with David’s assessment that this generation has grown up to believe that music should be free, I do agree with his other comment that people are song focused and that the bands focus should always be on the live show.

This generation is a product of their times. The medium of the times is the Internet. This generation has grown up with the internet. This generation has grown up on quality. Dave Mustaine in the same interview was asked to rate his top 5 Megadeth albums. Guess which albums made his top 5.

1. Countdown To Extinction
2. Rust In Peace
3. Peace Sells
4. Killing Is My Business
5. So Far, So Good, So What

This is Dave Mustaine saying that his best work is in the first five Megadeth albums.

Scott Rockenfield (from Queensryche) was also asked the same question.

“Records are different these days, they are good calling cards for us to continue our legacy. Bands can’t earn a lot of money in record sales anymore. We started out as a live band. A lot of new bands don’t have that.”

No one wants to wait two years for a 14 song record with three or four good songs. We want more songs on a regular basis and we want quality.
The internet allows the bands to do this as the distribution costs are zero.

Record song, upload and share.

If the song is great, the fans will market it for free. That is the way the game is played today. Instead you still have artists thinking that they should record many songs, hype up their release, spend money on a scorched earth marketing policy and then release the product so that people can buy it. It’s all wrong.

As an artist you want your creations to live forever. For that to happen, people need to share the songs, talk about them, do derivative versions and make a connection.

This brings me to artists who just have it all wrong, when it comes to their views on the current state of the music business.

Scott Ian said that people should lose their connection because they share his recorded music. I listened to Worship Music on YouTube. I didn’t download it and I didn’t pay a cent for it. You can say that I unofficially streamed it, since YouTube is the first streaming platform that the entertainment business tried to shut down unsuccessfully.

As far as I’m concerned I went onto a legal site and listened to the music. So based on Ian’s interpretation of the law, the internet connection of the people that went on to YouTube to listen to the album has to be suspended (as we stole it) along with the Anthrax fan who put it up.

The Recording Business is just an arm of the Music Business, that is trying in vain to hold on to its old business models. No one wakes up in the morning, thinking they need to buy a CD. We wake up in the morning, thinking we need to hear this song.

Doc Coyle from God Forbid summed it up in a post on the Metal Sucks website;

“We seem to think people want CDs or books or DVDs as individual items to own and keep, but the truth is, what we really want is the content contained on these capsules of information. The CD, DVD and book are just messengers for the experience contained therein.”

I am going through an issue of Hot Metal from May 1993. As soon as I open the magazine, there is a two page advertisement for the release of Anthrax – Sound of White Noise. One page has the album cover art and the second page has the heading, RESERVE YOUR COPY OF ANTHRAX’S NEW ALBUM “SOUND OF WHITE NOISE” AT THE FOLLOWING IDN STORES.

Back then we needed to buy CD’s so that we could hear the music. If they said we needed to buy a stereo that plays unlimited music, we would have.

Speaking of buying:
Black Sabbath had week three sales of 25,300 and week four sales of 16,942. (U.S. sales)

It is doing the same decline as other rock/metal artists like Skillet.

Metal bands need to take a leaf from the Imagine Dragons playbook. This band has entered the Top 10 again with sales of 33,223 for its Night Visions album.

Think about that. Imagine Dragons has been selling for 44 weeks. It has sold more in its 44th week than a Black Sabbath album in its 4th week. The last couple of weeks has seen a resurgence for the band. Why? The band is touring.

People are talking about the shows and they are buying the music. Some people might see it as strange that people went to a rock show without owning a physical copy of the music.

These are the times we live in. These are the times that artists need to live in.

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Why Chris DeGarmo walked away from it all?

Chris DeGarmo didn’t just leave Queensryche, he left the whole music business back in 1997. Just like another favourite of mine, Vito Bratta, they spent their whole lives making it only to walk away from it all.

Recently, Geoff Tate stated the following on jammagazineonline.com;

“It never was a brotherhood. It was a bunch of kids that got together and achieved success at an early age. We got used to that success and continued doing the things we did to get that success. We found comfort in our way of working. It’s just that simple. We were never close. We never hung out doing stuff and sharing life. It was always just, “Hey, we have another record to make. Anyone have any ideas? Let’s try to make a record. Here we go.”

Between the years of 1981 and 1992, Queensryche had been on a cycle of album and tour. After the Empire tour ended, Chris DeGarmo just unplugged himself from the music industry. He stated the same in a Guitar World interview from January 1995. When you detach yourself like this, it puts a lot of other events into perspectives.

Geoff Tate commented in a Kerrang magazine interview on the break after the Empire tour;

“It wasn’t planned, it just kind of happened. After the ‘Empire’ tour we all went our separate ways for a while. Before we knew it eight months had gone by. ‘Empire’ bought us a lot of time, really. Before that album it had been just a hectic schedule of recording and touring. ‘Empire’s success allowed us to have a nice break, something we hadn’t known until then. It was strange taking time off. I think it was at that point it dawned on us that we’d achieved all the goals we’d set. It was actually kind of difficult to know which move to make next.”

The achievement of their goals is an important point to make. When you feel like you have done all you set out to do, the hunger and the desire starts to die down. It becomes harder to focus again. It becomes harder to detach yourself from your family. So coming into the Promised Land album writing process, it was more or less done from their homes. It took about 8 months to get the material together, and then it was off to a secluded log cabin for another six months to piece together and record the album.

In the same Kerrang interview, Michael Wilton didn’t share the same enthusiasm for the finished product, however he did admit that the album is special in its own way.

“The way we set it all up was real innovative and allowed us to be more inspired, but a lot of the songs I came up with didn’t get finished because the album kind of went in a different direction. It was actually a bit more left-field to the way I think.”

This is another important point to make. Guitarists play a musical instrument, so it is normal that a guitarist will write music. So when a guitarist writes music and it is rejected for whatever reason, it is not a good feeling. I have been in situations just like this. I was coming up with metal riffs, and the band was moving into a Nu Metal phase, that just didn’t suit what I was writing. I had two options, leave the band and start a new one, or just put up with it. In this case, Wilton put up with it and in the end only had two song writing credits for the Promised Land album. He even had less of an input into the Hear Of The Now Frontier album. He only had one song writing credit on the Frontier album. I am pretty sure, he would have been the first person to let Chris DeGarmo now that it was his fault when the album didn’t set the sales charts on fire.

Furthermore, when the band was asked the question, if success has changed them, DeGarmo answered in the following way;

“I’ve probably become a hermit! I don’t really socialise that much. I don’t think I ever really did anyway. I somehow thought that it might change me as a person. I don’t think of myself as an unhappy person, but you think that money might limit the struggle. The thing is, I was so passionate about what we were doing that I never noticed we were struggling anyway! If anything. I think I’m more appreciative of the personal time I get to spend with my wife and daughter.”

So the Promised Land album comes out and the real fans flock to it. The tour is a success and the band members go their separate ways again. Then the bands label EMI America goes bankrupt. The rest of the band members don’t appear to be interested or concerned by this, and it was left to Chris DeGarmo to negotiate a new deal, not just for himself but for the others as well. During this time, the band had the songs written for the album, however they had to wait for Peter Collins schedule to free up, so they can record it. Again, more time away from each other as they wait for a producer.

Hear In The Now Frontier comes out and it doesn’t do well in a commercial sense. By 1997, recorded sales is the definition of success. DeGarmo is blamed for the commercial failure by the other band members, as he was the main songwriter/leader on the album.

Let’s look at how the song writing dynamic changed from Operation Mindcrime to Hear In The Now Frontier.

Operation Mindcrime had 15 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 12 song. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 7 songs. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 1 song and Jackson didn’t write anything.

Empire had 11 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 8 songs. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 5 songs. Rockenfield and Jackson both wrote/co-wrote 1 song.

Promised Land had 11 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 9. Tate wrote/co-wrote 7. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 2. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 3 and Jackson wrote/co-wrote 1.

Hear In The Now Frontier had 14 songs on it. DeGarmo wrote/co-wrote 13 songs. Tate wrote/co-wrote 7. Wilton wrote/co-wrote 1 song. Rockenfield wrote/co-wrote 2 songs and Jackson didn’t write anything.

The main thing to take out of the above stats is the increasing song writing role of Chris DeGarmo and the diminishing role of Michael Wilton. Tate was always consistent, however his piece d resistance was Mindcrime, whereas Empire was DeGarmo’s piece d resistance.

So when you feel like you have put your heart and soul into managing the affairs of a band and then still get blamed when events don’t pan out well, you ask yourself, what is the point in doing this. Just as so many of us walk away from a job that started off great, Chris DeGarmo did the same with Queensryche.

If the Hear In The Now Frontier album outsold Empire, it would be a different Queensryche world.

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Angeline

I like hard rock. It is the eighties child in me that I cannot escape. So I come across a band called Angeline. It is the Life: Volume 1 – EP. 4 songs to impress me. Impress me they did. So I dig a little deeper. There is an album called Disconnected that was released in 2011 and another album Confessions released in 2010.

So I want to know a bit about the band. They are from Sweden. Formed in 1987. Yep, you read that write. 26 years ago.

Initially the band was influenced by Bon Jovi, Europe, Iron Maiden and Queensryche. All bands that I like, hence the reason why the music from the band connected with me.

When the music scene changed, they reverted to a cover band. You need to do what you need to do. It’s not all about the glamour and the fame. There are highs and lows.

Promising line-up changes started to turn sour. You don’t get these kind of stories in the mainstream media. The band is still battling for recognition, 10 years after they formed. The sound also evolved to incorporate more blues. You see it takes time to find your true voice. It takes life and experiences to find that unique light of creation.

Death then came to a founding member. With inspiration lost, they reverted back to the cover band. Most bands break up. Most artists would have thrown in the towel by now. These guys are in it for the long haul. Music is their life. It is their companion. It is the air they breathe.

Then in 2004, friends of the dearly loved founding member, Sigge, who died due to heart complications made a short film about him called Sigge Stardust. This film started to get some traction at film festivals. This was the trigger that got the band to re-unite again.

You see, it was something totally different that started to bring some light to the band. It was a short movie. It was the bi-annual Sigge festival. It was the scholarship offered at the festival. It is not all about writing a song and making millions of dollars. Music is much more than that. Music is life. As Robb Flynn screams in Darkness Within,

Music My Saviour. Save Me.

The opening track Life has that AC/DC vibe in the verse that hooks me. Coming from Australia, AC/DC are gods here.

Time isn’t on our side. And Life, always seem to bring us down

How true is that statement? Time is never on our side. We are always saying, we have no time or if we had time. Life is not meant to be easy. If we could buy more time we would. It goes so quickly and then you realise you don’t have much time left.

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Create Something That Is Forever

There is an article doing the rounds on TorrentFreak about Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto.

The part that interests me is the below quote;

“In fact, from our perspective you want to create a game that people will want to keep and keep playing for a long time. That’s the approach that we always take and that’s the best way to avoid used games.”

As an artist/creator that is what you need to do. Metallica created Master of Puppets, Mötley Crüe created Shout At The Devil, Dream Theater created Images and Words, Queensryche created Empire.

What will you create?

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Music, Treating Fans Like Shit

Predictions

A lot of changes have taken place in bands that we all love over the last 18 months.  Some good, some bad and some sad.

Slayer
Dave Lombardo found out online that he has officially been replaced by Paul Bostaph.  Main songwriter Jeff Hanneman sadly passed away. For the touring cycle, Hanneman has been replaced by Gary Holt from Exodus.

Prediction: Slayer will just tour from now on, playing the summer festival scene, without any new music being released.  The estate of Jeff Hanneman would fire off a legal letter to Slayer over unpaid royalties.

Stone Temple Pilots
Scott Weiland is fired and then he claims he can’t be fired from the band.  Chester Bennington from Linkin Park is in as the new singer, and on top of that there is a lawsuit, where the STP guys are alleging that Weiland has broken the terms of a band agreement, which stipulates what each member can do outside of STP.

Prediction: This will just stay in the social media pages, with pot shots thrown at each party.  STP will do the Twentieth Anniversary tour for Core, and so will Scott Weiland.  Expect another Queensryche saga.

Bon Jovi
This is all about Richie Sambora.

First he didn’t turn up to a show.  Jon Bon Jovi then grabbed Phil X to fill in for Sambora and the PR machine issued a statement saying that Sambora had to leave the tour for personal reasons.  Fans are still purchasing tickets, only to see the band without him. Sambora remained quiet for some time and now the feuding is going public, with Sambora saying that Bon Jovi is making his return “very difficult”.  Bon Jovi then mentioned that Sambora is replaceable, whereas The Edge from U2 is not. Bon Jovi further stated, that Sambora wasn’t committed enough, and that his clothing business had taken up more of his time.  Sambora tweeted that is not the case, as his clothing business has been happening for 5 years, and music is and always is his first priority.

Prediction: This will get sorted. Jon and Richie will make up, record another album and then the same thing will happen again.

Queensryche

Geoff Tate is building a resume, that includes spitting at Scott Rockenfield, telling festival crowds they suck, pulls a knife at his band members, tell’s fans to record themselves telling him how bad his new album is (he actually thinks it’s funny) and now he takes a fans cell phone and throws it away.  This guy is all class.

The lawsuit over the name is in limbo land and the Todd LaTorre fronted Queensryche are about to release their album.

Prediction: Geoff Tate will be classified insane and then he will blame all the fans again, telling them they suck.  The Todd LaTorre fronted Queensryche version will also fail.

Machine Head 

Adam Duce was fired from the band because his heart wasn’t in it anymore.  No official replacement has been announced, however on-line bassist auditions have taken place and the list was whittled down to 8.

Prediction: Robb Flynn will ensure that Adam Duce is taken care off in relation to royalties payments post his departure.

Black Sabbath 

Prediction: The Bill Ward saga is over.  The band has moved on.  Black Sabbath will sell out their shows, however the new music will be hit and miss.

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Eyes Of A Stranger – Queensryche

Eyes of a Stranger is another Chris DeGarmo special, that he co-wrote with Geoff Tate. In the Operation Mindcrime story, it is an introspective on Nikki’s character. Throughout the story he was surrounded by death and depression. He was brainwashed into becoming a sleeper political assassin. He was triggered into action by the words Mindcrime. He was a drug addict and he was a lover. In Eyes Of A Stranger Nikki is looking into the mirror, and realizing that he doesn’t recognize the person he’s become. He is broken and alone, trying to find some form of redemption. The beauty of this song to me is that even though it is a song in a greater story, it also stands alone on a song on its own and it gets me thinking.

And I raise my head and stare
Into the eyes of a stranger
I’ve always known that the mirror never lies

There is a saying that there is no more honour left in life. Looking at the meaning of honour, I came up with the following words; personal integrity; allegiance to moral principles.

When we do something regrettable, like talk to people we don’t really care for, about a person that we know very well and care for behind their backs or betray someone so that we can get ahead in life or in the work place or take credit for someone else’s work, can we then look into our eyes and see the same person there.

I have experienced all of this. I was first the betrayed and then I was the betrayer, because I started to form the viewpoint that is how I need to play the game in order to survive in this world. I have broken a lot of my moral principles, that left me questioning my integrity and my self-worth. That is why the scene/chapter in Game of Thrones, when Eddard gets his head chopped off, is such a big moment in literary and visual circles, because everyone is led to believe that the honourable man would win and become King and everyone lives happily ever after.

Is this all that’s left
Of my life before me
Straight jacket memories, sedative highs
No happy ending like they’ve always promised
There’s got to be something left for me

They don’t teach you this kind of stuff at school. They don’t teach you that life has it’s twist and turns, ups and downs, wins and losses, success and failures and most importantly happiness and sadness. Even our school teachers are damaged, but they always turned up to school, smiles on their faces, ready to mould little children, while at home their marriages are crumbling and their kids are doing drugs.

From the outside looking in, people are led to believe that our lives are just wonderful. We surround ourselves with pictures of fun times, good times and full of laughter. We film ourselves doing things that we love. Where are the photographic memories of the bad times, the times that we cried, the times that we raged and broke stuff. We don’t record these memories on some form of media, we keep them inside, as mental scars.

How many times must I live this tragedy
How many more lies will they tell me
All I want is the same as everyone
Why am I here, and for how long

Isn’t that what we all want in life. Why are we here and for how long? We all want the same as everyone, and all those everyone’s want the same as us. There is never a perfect life. Whoever tells you so, is a liar. To use a cliché, life is a rollercoaster. It pushes and shoves you in many different directions. All of these thoughts and emotions, the song Eyes of A Stranger put there in me.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Silent Lucidity – Chris DeGarmo – Queensryche

Silent Lucidity is another Chris DeGarmo classic.  When Queensryche released the Empire album in 1991, the musical landscapes they explored on that album where exactly the same landscapes my head was in at the time.

I was starting to get tired of the hard rock / glam rock albums that the bands started to release.  A lot of hard rock journalists and artists blame Grunge for killing off the glam/hard rock scene, however, that is not the case.  The hard rock scene killed itself off, due to over saturation.  So when Grunge came in, it was different, it was raw and most importantly it dealt with what is real.  Of course, when Grunge came into the mainstream, every label wanted a Grunge band and by doing that, history repeated itself.

Silent Lucidity is about lucid dreaming. Chris DeGarmo has stated the same, in magazine interviews he was doing at the time of the release.  At the start of the song, it seems like a parent is consoling a child who just had a bad dream, and then they start telling them that they can control the things that happen in dreams.

Silent Lucidity was never meant to be a hit song.  It was never written to be a hit song.  The beauty of music is evident here in the way that a song connects with people from out of the blue.  The current pop charts these days, have songs written by a committee of writers.  Those songs are written so that they chart.  There is no soul in them, no life.  History will repeat itself here as well.

Silent Lucidity was written because Chris DeGarmo wanted to write it.  It was a topic that was special to him.

It’s a place where you will learn
To face your fears, retrace the years
And ride the whims of your mind

Commanding in another world
Suddenly, you’ll hear and see
This magic new dimension

Didn’t we all want that kind of place as children growing up.  When we played fantasy sports outside and we are always the winners.

I
Will be watching over you
I am gonna help you see it through
I
Will protect you in the night
I am smiling next to you
In silent lucidity…

Relax child, be safe, the guardian angel will always be there, next to you, to lead the way, to protect you, in silent lucidity.

Geoff Tate is the ring master in the way that he delivers the vocal line, with all the authority of a guardian protecting their child.  Listening to the song today, it sounds fresh and current.  It’s not dated.  It was a natural progression for Queensryche to move into.  If YouTube was around back in the day, this clip would have had a billion views.

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Bridge – Queensryche

Chris DeGarmo really went to town on the 1994 Promised Land album.  His name is all over the song writing credits?

Bridge is a song written by DeGarmo and he is referencing his relationship with his father for inspiration.  Growing up he didn’t have the relationship with his father and now that he’s all grown up, his father wants to be in his life, however the only problem, is that the bridge was never built.

Time has made you finally realize
your loneliness and your guilt inside.
You’re reaching for something you never had,
turning around now you’re looking back,
and you know… I’m not there.

You say, “Son, let’s forget the past.
I want another chance, gonna make it last.”
You’re begging me for a brand new start,
trying to mend a bridge that’s been blown apart,
but you know… you never built it dad.

You can feel the anger, the disappointment.  DeGarmo is telling his dad, that he is not going to be there for him, in the same way his dad wasn’t there for him.  Stop trying to have a relationship, it was never there to begin with.  Geoff Tate nails the vocal for it.  This is the Queensryche that exists, not the poor imitations that they are now.

DeGarmo’s dad died during the recording of the Promised Land.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

I Don’t Believe In Love – Queensryche

Queensryche were opening up for Metallica when Operation Mindcrime exploded.  It was a ballsy move to do a concept album as they weren’t really established yet.  In the history of concept albums (Coheed and Cambria and Madina Lake are exceptions here), the bands normally make the concept album once they become established and see a certain amount of success.

I Don’t Believe in Love was written by Chris DeGarmo and Geoff Tate.  It was on the Operation Mindcrime album that was released in 1988.  The album was produced by Peter Collins.  Although the song is part of a larger story, on its own this song tells its own story.

The female character in the story, Mary, has just died. Nikky the male character believes it was him that did it, due to his drug habit, he has black outs and struggles to remember. He was even given the mission to kill Mary by the villain of the story Dr X.  When Nikky refused to do it, Mary was brainwashed by Dr. X to kill herself.

Every open hand’s there to push and shove
No time for love it doesn’t matter

What a line.  That is life in a nutshell.  From the day we are born, people are pushing and shoving us into what they want us to be.  No wonder we are all damaged a little bit.  How can we love, when we don’t even know who we are.  The person we see in the mirror is the molded one, the imposter.

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