Polish Gossip

Rumor has it that Nergal, front man of Polish death/black metal band Behemoth is tapping Doda,
the 24 year old pop singer and leader in the nation's poster sales for the 13 year old female demographic. It has been confirmed that without extensions, Nergal has the longer hair of the two.

I Kissed A Girl And I Liked Power Metal

I've now realized that three of my last four posts have been covers on you tube. Maybe this blog will slowly turn into a library of metal related covers. Or maybe I could spend time making music instead of teaching it to adolescent kids?

Death Grass!

So I posted their other cover of At The Gates' Blinded By Fear a while back but this one is much more entertaining with studio pictures.

Download either song at their website http://www.sotb.se/

I Know It's Closer To Dinner Time But...

I really miss fish for breakfast.

At The Gates - Blinded by Fear banjo cover

I should pick up my classical guitar again and do a Carcass cover.

Texas Can Suck It

As an Asian American Studies major I find this...boring?  It's a really long and drawn out conversation but Betty Brown's comments are painfully offensive.  My mother's maiden name is Miyao (宮尾) and she hypenates it to Miyao-Moore which causes all sorts of pronounciation problems.  I'm just glad that she didn't insist that I also take the hyphenated last name, as Tyler Tadashi Miyao-Moore just doesn't have a ring to it.  I'm hard pressed to think of a more hapa sounding name.

Interestingly enough, a google search of "Tadashi Moore" leads to google ads for Tadashi dresses and a Michigan based designer/photographer Ian Tadashi Moore.  I am awaiting the discovery of a doppelganger Tyler Tadashi Moore, so that we can have an epic knife fight concluding in lightning and me shouting, "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!"

The Shape of Things To Come

Be sure to turn captions on.

Idoru is here now.  And yes, it should be アイドル be an "A" in front.

This seriously makes me think really, really hard.  Critical, deep thinking.  The first composer is using Cubase.  Only good things come of business partnerships between ex-Axis powers (Steinberg and Yamaha).

DRUMBS

Curtis came over last weekend to track some covers for a HP2 demo that we're using to get some summer gigs.  We wanted to redo the JG tracks right this time (with double bass) but Curtis couldn't grab his pedal from Irvine.  Instead he borrowed a monster of a kick from a friend who works for OCDP.  If you look closely, you can see an owl is the head.

It would be terribly distracting to hear two bass drums of differing tambres and sizes, so it looks like I'll have to go back and sample the OCDP one on top of all of Curtis' DW kicks.  Another chance to work with Drumtracker!

Got to use my SM7 for the first time.  Next time I'm going to pull back the placement a bit.

Trusty paint can kept the bass drum mic level.  Blue ball on the rack and kick ball on the floor.  57 on the snare top.

This time around I tried a Beta 52 in the kick about 6" off the beater and a Studio Projects B1 with an Earthworks kick pad outside for some extra air.

Also miced the crown of the ride.  I'll gate it in the mix until the chorus for "Living on a Prayer" and then that's all you'll hear, haha.

JAPWNESE

I don't "get" Japanese music.

Maximum The Hormone.  Amazing name, but dance choruses...with nu-metal verses and Japanese gibberish...?

And then...

Blood Stain Child, a Japanese In Flames with heavy trance elements.  I love how the front man is wearing a toga.  He even tries to match Anders' dreadlocks.

Dir en grey would be the equivalent of a Marilyn Manson...?  If Marilyn Manson had grind influences and made videos that looked like The Ring.

When I was in Finland I met a girl who made a documentary focusing on the cultural impact between Japan and the Scandanavias.  Scandanavian metal gets exported, anime/cosplay/pocky sticks/bento/whatever gets imported.  It just surprises me when I find out from other Swedes that Dir en grey concerts are filled with 13 year old girls wearing cat ears screaming for "Kyo-sama."  This would be the complete antithesis of emasculated Asian male figures in the American media.

Alex is getting his masters in Chicago.  Maybe I should go back and get mine in Sweden.  Or, better yet, I can just sit all day in front of YouTube and hope to one day mirror Marty Friedman's career.

Canned applause and all.

ehl ohe ehl

Chinese guy
by takatosh2

I believe this was taken from a Japanese version of Cops.  The guy with the altered voice is a Chinese national and eventually gets caught with having 2 alien registration cards.  Not sure what the intro credits are, but about 3:00 in you can hear Yngwie Malmsteem shred over a chase scene.

And for some reason, I found that incredibly funny.  Deportation isn't funny.  Larger than life Swedish virtuosos are funny.  Especially when they pop up in the least expected places.

Recap

I just now realized that "Everything Counts" from In Flames' Whoracle was a Depeche Mode cover.

Duh.  Seriously.

I had four consecutive practice days and then...Friday came.  I started work at 7, got a hair cut, met (and booked) a wedding with a client in October, bought a new hard drive, started other work, got lost in Fullerton, and then did a wedding at the Nixon Library until 11.  My first dry wedding ever, but I have to give them props on having 8 kinds of soda.  No ginger ale, however.

Afterwards I headed over to Ian's house to watch a bunch of drunk Long Beach kids sing Sublime songs until 2.  Had a "Jason Takaki" moment with Ian over a cover of "Hey Joe."

Now I need to fix my G Major and work on press materials.  Maybe I'll get a chance to start mixing Steven Shafer's solo stuff.  No promises.  Skamikaze is coming back with two new songs for a split with Taco Tuesdays.  Should be fun.  We'll probably end up buying 50 tacos from Holy Mole again.

READY. SET. GOALS!

I decided that if I practice gutiar for an hour a day for a whole month I'm going to buy myself a new guitar.  Probably something pointy with a whammy bar.

Oh yeah, and as a byproduct I intend to prove it by blogging more.  That is all.

I met up with Cameron from The Pocketeers last night.  He insisted that I call him "Cammy Bear."  It was weird.  They're rapping up some stuff right now with a dude but the drums are all electronic and the guitars were recorded direct.  I'm not sure if Trent Reznor style production suits them, but we're trying to work something out for early summer.  I'm thinking an Alec Empire vibe would be a much better fit.

Steven Shafer is coming over again this Sunday, again with a horn section pilfered from Half Past Two and Nastalja.  I'm going to take pictures and yell "MOAR RIDDIMS" a lot.

After that I have The November Curse scheduled for the end of March.  Aaron the Longhaired plays bass, he's the one sticking out at HP2 shows for being too metal.  One of their guitar players is named Tickle.  How metabrutal, I know?  Anyways, I'm going to make sure they blast a lot.

Speaking of other non-ska projects, Set for Stun may be coming in sometime later this month.  Jeff from Failed To Victory plays bass and we're supposed to be doing a four or five song demo.  I don't think they play blast beats, but I do enjoy surprises.

One day I'm going to find time to finish guitar for the Jacob Greene recording.  And then we're going to find a vocalist.  Haha.

Olive Branches, Nicol Bolas and Cold Cuts

Busy weekend.  Friday I went with Dane down to Three J's Sportscards in Anaheim for Friday Night Magic.  My life pretty much revolved around Magic cards from 1998 - 2001, and I got hit by a few waves of nostalgia hanging out with a bunch of sweaty dudes getting off on flipping cardboard at eachother.  We also discovered a Taqueria next door with killer food and watered down horchata.  Dane and I realized it's much cheaper and time efficient to go on eBay, buy playsets of commons and uncommons, make decks that are fun in multiplayer and not worry about constructed.  The last Friday of every month is a draft at Three J's, so we didn't have to worry about 14 year olds beating us with our own cards.  I placed 5th going 3-2 and Dane got...8th or 9th with the same record.  We ended up playing first round.  I won.

I probably would have gone to the Conflux prerelease Saturday or Sunday but Skamikaze was coming over Saturday to finish vocals and Steven Shafer was scheduled to come by Sunday before the Super Bowl.

He manages to always look dangerous in photographic mediums.  I had an "interesting" conversation with him earlier in the week where I realized that he would need to borrow a guitar, an amp, a bass, have me program drums, and pull up piano and organ sounds.  I was expecting acoustic tracks like the old Country Rehab days recording Dave sing in a bathroom.  After slugging it out with the "It's About Time" demos, I was more than capable of helping Steven out and playing "producer" to find the right sounds for his songs.  Steven also enlisted Ian of some band called The Two Thirty and Loren of Nastalja to play tenor sax and trumpet respectively for a track.  It looks like Steven already posted the incredibly rough version of the track on his myspace so you can check that out here.  Good times, I'm looking forward to continuing to work with him although I have no idea how many more songs he has...  I also spoke with Loren briefly about having Nastalja come over for some work as well.

We finished up right before the game started and I headed over to David's (not Country) house to watch the puppy bowl.  Bruce Springsteen was "boss" and I ate three sandwiches with matching helpings of pasta salad.  I have decided that if the recording thing doesn't take off fast enough that David and I are going to entrepreneur something.  I was short on ideas yesterday but today while I was driving (and I get my best ideas while driving) I realized what we're going to do.

We are going to end the loudness war.

So all in all, quite a good weekend.  Recorded some fun music, didn't pay attention to a football game, played some Magic, ate some food.  This weekend looks busy with two shows and extra hours at work Friday coaching 5th and 6th graders through a guitar performance at a variety show.  And somewhere in between I have to mix three bands.  With a soft deadline of next week.  Yikes.

Craigslist, For the Meta Win

Fluffers Needed

Don't ask me how I found it.  Just appreciate it for what it is.

BUZZKILL

At first I was bummed to find out that this place is in Canada, but then I realized it's another bougie fusion place with an intriguing name.

Hapa Izakaya

SKAMIKAZE!

These boys (and girl) fought light drizzle, roadside embankments, and Inland Empire traffic to reach Elation Station Studios last Saturday.  We did the rhythm section live, horns, and almost made it to vocals but a case of the sniffles caused us to schedule another session for this Saturday.

I'm starting to get busy at the Station.  In addition to Saturday's session, I also have Steven Shafer coming in before a Super Bowl party on Sunday and got word from The Pocketeers that they want me to mix their live performance from December's JavaSka.  Busy.  If this keeps up I'll be able to abolish my day job.  That would be hot.