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prettyoddfever · 3 years

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Panic! at the Disco in spring 2007

THE CABIN IN MT. CHARLESTON

here’s more about the cabin album specifically

The cabin season began around the start of March. (The guys were estimating dates by 2008, so I’m only looking at the info that we had while the actual events were happening: Brendon said at the end of January that he’d be meeting up with the band in about a month, Jon posted on February 19th that he’d be living with the other guys in a house within the next couple weeks to write music, and Ryan posted on February 27th that he would be meeting up with the band in a few days at the cabin to begin working on songs).

Ryan said they went to the cabin to avoid distractions. Some articles made it sound like the band was isolated in a tiny rustic cabin in the wilderness for 2 months straight, but that definitely wasn’t the case. The cabin was huge, the band left many times, and people visited them as well. I guess perspective matters here... Ryan said they sometimes wouldn’t leave the cabin or see anyone else for 4-5 days. Someone who experienced 2020 would probably roll their eyes like that’s nbd, but it was a drastic switch for a band that was used to being together in the midst of a very busy, long run of touring where they’d see thousands of people and several states/countries in 4-5 days. The guys talked about losing their minds in isolation at the cabin.

The band wasn’t completely cut off from the world, though. I just really want to make that clear because I think some fanfics might have given people the wrong idea haha. Shane was at the cabin to document stuff, Eric visited them, Shane filmed a music video for Eric there, Rock Sound said the guys went skiing, a few international magazines did photoshoots, random friends visited, the band left to see The Cab’s show, Brendon talked about going home to eat meals with his family sometimes, Shane filmed a music video at the cabin with P!ATD & The Cab (here’s more about that), Jon was in Chicago in mid-April, and Brendon & Ryan might have been spotted at Jet Nightclub in Vegas a few days earlier with Pete & Ashlee. Ryan later talked about how all four guys also went camping at Red Rock Canyon with some friends this spring... he said they had a bonfire and slept outside. Brendon mentioned to Kerrang this year that he loved camping and could easily live in the rough for a week.

Brendon told a journalist this spring that Spencer & Jon took turns cooking at the cabin and the band walked over to the lodge for a meal everyday. Ryan mentioned that last part in another interview too and added that there was still snow on the ground. They also had to leave their cabin for 4 days each month because someone else needed to rent it.

THE ATLANTA SHOW

On March 27th the band posted “Hey Everybody, so we really didn't expect to do anything like this until we were done writing and out of the studio, but we just decided to play a show in Atlanta this Friday March 30th. The best part is, it's a free show. It's the kick off for the NCAA Final Four Weekend in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. The event starts around 7pm, were on closer to 9, and there are gonna be fireworks as well.”

Here’s my tag for that event and then here’s a playlist with some of the videos that are left. Zack had the video of the band on the plane ride to Atlanta on his youtube, but I heard Shane filmed it. Zack also uploaded this clip of Spencer from this trip.

Brendon did a solo version of Round Here for the Atlanta show, which was all sorts of emotional... I loved that cover in spring 2006. The band also brought back their Karma Police cover. Here’s a rough idea of how the show went.

side story: the book club members were super grateful that Ryan had started that club, but they didn’t have a way to contact him or let him know. (the girl who ran the club now did have a way to contact the band, but she seemed like she wouldn’t abuse that privilege just to chat). Stephanie was super involved in the book club and shared a story from the Atlanta show about how she and a couple other girls were walking somewhere after the fireworks and saw the band. The guys kept walking as Brendon paused to explain they couldn’t stop for pictures... then Stephanie yelled to Ryan in the distance to thank him for the book club. He waved, so he totally heard her. This letter from the book club to the band briefly mentions the same moment.

Anyways, Shane filmed the Atlanta show and then some of his pictures were added to a photo album a few days later for this specific event (but that felt way different from how Jon had run monthly photo albums in summer & fall 2006 with some of his own pictures). The band mentioned during an interview in Atlanta that they’d be at the cabin for another month before leaving for Los Angeles.

THE TRANSITION FROM THE CABIN TO LOS ANGELES

The band headed to the LA / North Hollywood / Burbank area by early May to record their demos (I heard they were at Fairfax Studios but idk for sure). Jon said they lived in some run-down apartments. Pete Wentz later talked about Ryan living with him while the band worked on the second album. I don’t know for sure that he was talking about May 2007... just saying it makes sense that it would’ve been while the band was in LA instead of Vegas.

There were pictures of the band at a Cinco de Mayo party at Pete’s house, a fan ran into Brendon & Jon at Six Flags, and the guys were spotted in other parts of the LA area in early May too. It looked like Shane went with them to document more stuff. Some of his pictures from the band’s whole writing process were shared at the end of May. Fans were updated on May 29th that the band was finishing up writing and would begin recording in a few weeks. The album’s expected release was early September by this point. MTV had shared some news during the second week of May that P!ATD had written 8 songs for their untitled second album so far and were slated to begin tracking on June 1st, with no specific release date set yet.

The band considered their time in LA as an extension of the cabin season, so I’m lumping it all together too. This led to some confusion for journalists, though. (Example: sometimes the band said they were in the cabin for 2 months, but other times they said 3-5 months because they were maybe considering their individual work towards the start of the year and/or the time in LA... or they were just estimating dates ha. So all of their contradictory statements aren't as confusing as they might seem). However, idk whether or not they were still in LA throughout June. Here’s what I do know about June:

The guys said in a couple interviews that they spent a month in LA. They were definitely there in early May.

Jon was back in Chicago in early June. He joined FOB onstage at their June 11th concert (most people just talked about his drastic haircut & lack of a beard).

Brendon & Ryan did an acoustic set with Mark Hoppus for FOB’s Vegas show on June 24th. Shane filmed this too. Ryan also came out to do his solo with Fall Out Boy! Here’s a tag for that whole event.

Brendon was in LA when he got the last-minute call to fly to Vegas for that June 24th show.

Ryan said in an interview towards the start of August that the band had moved out of LA about a month earlier.

So... most of the time it sounded like they were maybe still doing stuff in LA in June but I’m not certain about anything. Thankfully events became very clear & well-documented by the second week of July when they scrapped the album and started over in Vegas.

OTHER RANDOM EVENTS FROM MARCH – JUNE

here’s a tag for misc pictures that includes January & February too.

By the end of March the band had picked Rob Mathes as their producer, but he wasn’t confirmed yet. There was also a rumor that Muse was producing the album.

Ryan got Hobo, who showed up in the band’s pictures. Some fans honestly believed the rumor that the new puppy was named “Wedding” lol (because Ryan’s previous beagle was named “Shotgun”). Ryan said that Spencer’s mom helped look after his dog when he was busy.

Brendon’s birthday happened. Pete’s journal post said “also, happy birthday brendon urie. congratulations on turning 16!” Here’s one of the fan projects for his birthday.

Fans were already doing a lot of projects for the band this year, but it really escalated once people saw that Brendon was so kind about thanking fans for his gift (and Keltie also acknowledged the Valentine’s scrapbook on behalf of Ryan). People were trying to send chocolates, drawings, videos & attempts at songs, binders of poems, a “victorian” scrapbook for Ryan (just in case the other one had grown old by now?), yet another scrapbook, cards with a random thought that you were supposed to tape a penny onto, a fan cookbook, and just a ton of stuff ok. There was even a project to celebrate the anniversary of Jon joining the band.

P!ATD’s live cover of “Tonight, Tonight” was added to their myspace around May (probably to hype the Smashing Pumpkins tribute cd they were on that summer... it was a myspace/Helio thing that was available in a Spin magazine around late June / early July).

Brendon, Ryan, Shane, and Jacob were at the opening of the Pearl Theater at the Palms on April 21st.

Brendon went with Shane to watch Ian audition for The Cab... I think that was this spring? not sure.

Brendon & Ryan got tattoos so therefore some people assumed Spencer did too. Brendon’s was in April but I think Ryan’s happened a little later. Thomas Dutton introduced Ryan to Tom Waits in spring 2006 and Ryan later said he’d been considering getting the tattoos ever since then.

Angels & Kings opened around early May. Other Decaydance bands invested in it, but the P!ATD guys weren’t old enough to legally own a bar yet. The “Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks” drink still sounded fitting, though... it had Johnnie Walker Black:

People.com listed Brendon as a single version of Pete Wentz lol.

Brendon was still talking about how much Freddie Mercury inspired him.

someone posted this as a myspace bulletin from the band in May.

there was a rumor that the band would have a song called “I Will Kill You” on the new soundtrack for The Simpsons Movie.

Fans online continued to freak out over the same few things: Ryan is still very skinny, Jon wears sandals, Keltie exists, the boys need to shave, yes everyone KNOWS Ryden is not real thanks but it’s an adorable idea so here’s 500 fanfics & bad manips, etc etc (I thought this was the funniest video). And then this video is a good example of the focus on the band’s facial hair haha.

I think Paulina’s birthday was sometime around this season... I heard she had a “P” themed party so Panic! at the Disco performed.

the P!ATD guys were in this Gym Class Heroes video and this video for The Cab too.

FBR+ became a thing and they had Live in Denver on the site (although a lot of us still just called it “the dvd”):

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alightwhendarknessfell · 4 years

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So , would you say Andy had an eating disorder or he just had body image issues ? He’s spoken about being chubby as a kid and into his teens ( you can tell he had a bit of weight on him but it was healthy weight !) I know he used to drink green tea a lot and some people drink it to help with weight loss , idk but I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I would say he suffers on and off from a full-blown eating disorder (probably anorexia). He may have never been formally diagnosed or even realize he meets the criteria but it’s pretty blatantly obvious. Since eating disorders are a topic close to my heart this is probably going to be a long post. I and some people very close to me have suffered from various eating disorders and a lot of his behaviors are exactly the same as what I did or people I knew who had eating disorders did, things that people without them probably wouldn’t do.

Andy is about 6″2, a normal weight for a man at that height would be between 150-190 lbs.

Let’s start from the beginning he has said he was overweight as a kid, and I forgot in what interview but he said that at one point he was around 200 lbs. I don’t know how tall he was at 13 but it’s also common for boys to get kind of chubby then grow and lean out throughout childhood and adolescent years. This was Andy as a kid, now he’s got a lot of gear on so it’s hard to tell his size but he doesn’t look fat to me.

He talks about in this interview and says it caused him a lot of pain to be made fun of for his weight. This type of bullying can have a pretty severe impact on someone as far as developing an eating disorder. Mine started because of people teasing me about my weight around the same age, even though I was maybe only 5 lbs overweight at the time.

There was a photo he posted of his Ohio divers license where he would have been around 16-18 and it listed his weight as 155 lbs. That’s a healthy weight for someone of his height and if you look at photos of him from that time he looks very good. That’s not saying he wasn’t engaging in disordered behaviors but at least outwardly he didn’t look ill.

Now then he moved out to LA around 18, and he started dropping weight pretty dramatically. He’s said before he didn’t have any money and couldn’t afford to eat which could explain what looks to be about a 20-30 lbs weight loss. The thing is he continued to get even thinner even when the band started making money.

In this interview from 2010, he said he weighs around 145 lbs, which would put him slightly underweight. For a bit, though he still looked okay, maybe slightly underweight but okay.

You’re right he did use to drink those diet green teas a lot, which diet drinks are very popular with people who are starving themselves because they make you feel full and have caffeine to give you energy. I’ve heard multiple stories that he would refuse to eat fat or certain things, etc. That he is weird around food, etc. It’s not my place to disclose what I have heard over the years but I do believe what I have been told for various reasons. There’s also his smoking, which suppresses the appetite. There is also a subset of anorexia where people just consume massive amounts of alcohol and that serves as their main calorie source.

The first Kerrang magazine they were in has a very telling part in it concerning how Andy stays thin according to him. Only eating once a day and smoking when you feel hungry is textbook anorexia.

I would say around late 2010-2011 he reached what was a pretty scary weight. I don’t know his weight at the time but it was probably around 120 lbs. That would give him a BMI of around 16-17. At that BMI he would meet the weight criteria for anorexia. Even if he was ‘naturally thin’ like his mom that’s way too low. I think the pressure to be thin because that’s what ‘emo band guys’ were supposed to look like really got to him. A lot of people don’t realize that a lot of guys in the alt-rock music scene have eating disorders. The ‘norm’ is to be rail thin and men are not exempt from the pressure to conform. There have been some people like Gerald Way and Sonny Moore who have come forward to talk about how they struggle with eating disorders.

This was around the time that he started posting a lot of alarming photos of himself where the main focus of the photo seemed to be just how thin he is. The photos would show off his waist/torso and he seemed to be trying to emphasize his thinness. These ‘body check’ photos are something that most people with EDs I know, including myself, take and or post. He ended up on several thinspo websites. A lot of the photos showed off his ribs/collar bones/hip bones, etc.

He also would get sick constantly, even though the rest of his band stayed healthy. Even though he’s a singer he still was sick a LOT, being underweight/malnourished can weaken your immune system. He’s also broken a lot of bones, and eating disorders can cause brittle bones. (side note: the ribs breaking probably would have happened no matter what due to the height of the fall).

Over the years he has fluctuated between healthy and underweight. In 2013-2014 he looked really good, he had muscle on him and his skin looked good. Then he went ‘vegan’ in like 2015 and got down pretty low again. Currently, he looks very malnourished. His face is sunken in and looks older which is common in anorexia where the fat deposits are gone from under the skin in the face. He says he’s vegan for moral reasons but in one interview from late last year, he said his ‘death row’ last meal would be some pizza thing which would not be vegan. Someone vegan for moral reasons wouldn’t eat animal products even on death row because they think it is wrong. I’m not saying he doesn’t love animals but I think at least part of the reason he went vegan is for a ‘diet’. A lot of people with eating disorders go vegan as a way to refuse food.

So yes, I do think he has an eating disorder. There’s a pretty good amount of behavioral evidence he does as well as from what I’ve been told. I do want to make another point though.

This is in no way hate. I have always been concerned about him in this regard. I know the pain of an eating disorder and it is not something I would wish on anyone. If he sees this I don’t want this to be taken as hate or in a negative way. I hope I and everyone else is wrong and it isn’t true, but I’m pretty sure it is or was. I hope that he gets help with this issue. He might think I hate him, but I don’t, I hate some of the things he is a part of and has done but not him. I also think Juliet suffers from an eating disorder and while I don’t like her, I do hope she finds help as well.

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spookyspemilyreid · 5 years

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Happy Anniversary "A Thousand Suns" (September 14th 2010)

A Thousand Suns is the fourth studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released on September 14th, 2010, by Warner Bros. Records. The album was written by the band and was produced by Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin, who worked together to produce the band's previous studio album Minutes to Midnight (2007). Recording sessions for A Thousand Suns took place at NRG Recording Studios in North Hollywood, California from 2008 until early 2010.

A Thousand Suns is a concept album dealing with human fears such as nuclear warfare. The band has said the album is a drastic departure from their previous work; they experimented on different and new sounds. Shinoda told MTV the album references numerous social issues and blends human ideas with technology. The title is a reference to Hindu Sanskrit scripture, a line of which was first popularized in 1945 by J. Robert Oppenheimer, who described the atomic bomb as being "as bright as a thousand suns". It also appears in a line from the first single of the album, "The Catalyst".

"The Catalyst" was sent to radio and released to digital music retailers on August 2, 2010. "The Catalyst" peaked at the Billboard Alternative Songs and Rock Songs charts. Three more singles were released to promote the album: "Waiting for the End", "Burning in the Skies" and "Iridescent". "The Catalyst" and "Waiting for the End" were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Linkin Park promoted the album through the A Thousand Suns World Tour from October 2010 to September 2011.

Although it received a polarizing response from audiences, the album received a positive response from critics, some of whom found it to be a natural evolution for the band. The record debuted at number one on over ten charts, and was certified platinum by the RIAA in August 2017 for sales surpassing 1.1 million copies in the United States, according to RIAA.

Recording for the album began in 2008, less than a year after the release of Minutes to Midnight (2007). As with Minutes to Midnight, Shinoda and Rick Rubin produced the album. Primary recording sessions for A Thousand Suns took place at NRG Recording Studios in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. In November 2008, lead singer Chester Bennington said the new record was a concept album; he said it "sound[ed] a little daunting to me, so, I think my confidence level will drop, but when it was presented to us by this friend of ours, we liked the idea. It was an inspiring idea, and it was something we could relate a lot of the things we like to write about to."

In May 2009, Mike Shinoda revealed info on the album in a Billboard magazine story, saying: "I feel like we've been writing a lot. I'd say we've got about half the music done, though I shouldn't say halfway because who knows how long the next batch of songs will take. But all the material's just kind of coming together, and every week we meet up and assess the situation and for the rest of the week we just go and work on whatever we find exciting." He also explained the experimentation that the band would be working with, saying, "It's not going to be Hybrid Theory. It's not going to be Minutes to Midnight. And if we do it right, it'll have a cutting edge sound that defines itself as an individual record separate from anything else that's out there."

Bennington continued composing for the album while touring with Dead by Sunrise in support of their 2009 studio album Out of Ashes. He said Linkin Park was still making a concept record, stating in another interview with MTV, "we might need to just make a record and still try to do a concept but figure out a way to do it without actually waiting another five or six years to put out a record, to try to pull off all the grandiose insanity we were thinking of doing. And we're doing that." Bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell predicted the band's fans would be divided about A Thousand Suns, saying, "We've known [the album is] going to be different, and if fans were expecting Hybrid Theory or Meteora, they're going to be surprised. It's going to take people some time to figure it out and know what to do with it."

When asked about the new project, drummer Rob Bourdon said, "We tend to be perfectionists and it's sort of how we work. We like being in the studio and when we get in there we write a ton of material." Bourdon said the album was a challenge to complete; he said, "We've been making music for a long time so one of the challenges was to evolve and make something to keep us interested and also have a lot of fun in the process. We've been used to making a certain type of music and using sounds to accomplish that. So to break out of that and push ourselves to grow is definitely challenging." Shinoda later said the album was not a concept record,saying, "People asked us if it's a concept record, and in the middle of the process, we were contemplating whether or not that was what we wanted to do," although he said that eventually, A Thousand Suns at its completion has no narrative and is "more abstract" than many concept albums.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in May 2009, Shinoda said the band was in the process of writing and recording material for the album. The album was originally scheduled for an early 2010 release, but Shinoda was concerned with "the quality of the tunes" and said, "if we need to take a step back and make sure everything is top, top quality by our standards, we will". Shinoda also said that, in comparison to Minutes to Midnight, the new album would have a bigger "thread of consistency" and would be more experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge".

According to turntablist Joe Hahn, the album's title is a reference to a line in the Hindu Sanskrit scripture the Bhagavad Gita "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one," which was made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer in reference to the atomic bomb. The title also appears in the album's lead single "The Catalyst", which appears in the line "God save us everyone, will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?". The band said Oppenheimer's comments about the nuclear bomb influenced the apocalyptic themes of the album.

The band has stated that the album's tenth track, "Wretches and Kings", pays homage to the hip-hop group Public Enemy. Speaking to NME about the song's reference to Public Enemy, Shinoda said, "There is a homage to Chuck D on there. It's probably the most hip-hop song on the record and one of the most aggressive ... Public Enemy were very three-dimensional with their records because although they seemed political, there was a whole lot of other stuff going on in there too. It made me think how three-dimensional I wanted our record to be without imitating them of course, and show where we were at creatively." Ian Winwood of Kerrang! noted that "Wretches and Kings" references the Public Enemy song "Fight the Power" and compared the album's content to Public Enemy's third studio album, Fear of a Black Planet. Chuck D later provided vocals on a remix by HavocNdeeD. The fifth track "When They Come for Me" references The Blueprint2: The Gift & The Curse, the seventh studio album by hip hop artist Jay-Z, with whom the band collaborated on the 2004 EP Collision Course. The album includes samples of notable speeches by American political figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Mario Savio.

Critics and reporters labeled the album's material with several different genres, including trip hop, electronic rock, ambient, alternative rock, industrial rock, experimental rock, rap rock, and progressive rock on the album. Compared to their previous record, Minutes to Midnight (2007), Shinoda contributed many more vocals, while Brad Delson's guitar riffs are put further into the background, which Gary Graff of Billboard described as "on the back burner (and barely even in the oven)". Shinoda raps on the tracks "When They Come for Me", "Wretches and Kings" and the album's second single "Waiting for the End". Derek Oswald of AltWire.net noted reggae-like influences on Shinoda's verses in "Waiting for the End". He sings verses on "Burning in the Skies", "Robot Boy", "Blackout", "Iridescent" and "The Catalyst". Bennington and Shinoda sing together on "The Catalyst", "Jornada del Muerto" and "Robot Boy", while "Iridescent" features all band members singing together.

The album was exhibited at a 3-D laser exhibition at Music Box Theater in Hollywood on September 7, 2010. A Thousand Suns was officially released on September 10, 2010, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and on September 13, 2010, in the US. Linkin Park started worldwide promotion of the album with the A Thousand Suns World Tour, which started on October 7, 2010, and ended on September 25, 2011. The band performed an entire setlist in the Puerta de Alcalá Gate in Madrid; their live performance of "Waiting for the End" was shown at the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Linkin Park also promoted A Thousand Suns by featuring songs from the album in video games. Joe Hahn said "The Catalyst" would be included in the video game Medal of Honor. Hahn also announced he would direct a trailer for the game; it was released on August 1, 2010— one day before the single's release. Dave "Phoenix" Farrell stated that the band's members believed the song's "dark undertones ... fits with the subject matter" of the game, which was the reason "The Catalyst" was chosen for Medal of Honor. During the Japanese release of the album on September 15, 2010, Warner Music Japan announced that "The Catalyst" would be the official theme song of Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. "Blackout" was featured in the soccer video game by EA Sports, FIFA 11. The band released a video game called Linkin Park Revenge—an edition of Tap Tap Revenge that features four tracks from the album and six songs from previous Linkin Park albums. "Wretches and Kings" is featured in the trailer for the video game EA Sports MMA.

"Blackout", "Burning in the Skies", "The Catalyst", "The Messenger", "Waiting for the End", and "Wretches and Kings" were available as downloadable content in the "Linkin Park Track Pack" for the rhythm video game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, which was released on October 19, 2010, on the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, and Wii Shop Channel. Customers who purchased Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock from Amazon.com between October 17 and October 23 received a copy of A Thousand Suns. Three songs were remixed and released as downloadable content for the rhythm video game DJ Hero 2 in late 2010. On January 11, 2011, a Linkin Park track pack was released for the rhythm video game Rock Band 3; it includes "Waiting for the End" and five songs from the band's previous albums.

On March 5, 2011, Mike Shinoda announced the European release of A Thousand Suns +, a limited re-issue of the album that was released on March 28, 2011. The re-release includes a live DVD of the band's MTV Europe Music Awards concert at Puerta de Alcalá, Madrid on November 7, 2010, and an MP3 audio file of the show. On June 19, 2012, a live version of the album, titled A Thousand Suns: Live Around the World was released on Spotify. It features ten of the album's fifteen songs. The tracks were recorded in London, Hamburg, Paris, Berlin, and Las Vegas.

During the announcement of the album's release date, Linkin Park said the album's first single would be "The Catalyst", which was released on August 2, 2010. From July 9, 2010 until July 25, 2010, the band held a contest titled "Linkin Park, Featuring You". In the contest, fans could download stems from "The Catalyst", remix the stems and/or write their own parts for the song on any instrument. The winner of this contest was Czeslaw "NoBraiN" Sakowski from Świdnica, Poland, whose remix is featured as an extra track on a version of the album made available from Best Buy and Napster. The album's liner notes credit Sakowski with "supplemental programming" on "When They Come for Me". The top 20 remixes that were selected by the band are being considered for future use as b-sides and online downloads.

Two of the remixes by DIGITALOMAT and ill Audio have since been released via the band's webpage as free mp3 downloads, while two by Cale Pellick and DJ Endorphin been released on an exclusive German release of "The Catalyst". The music video for "The Catalyst", directed by Joe Hahn, premiered on August 26, 2010. On August 31, 2010, it was announced that the band would give their first live performance of the single at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010, at Griffith Observatory. The venue was kept secret until the performance, although it was revealed to be a prominent landmark in Los Angeles. The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts, and on the UK Rock Chart. The single also peaked at number twenty-seven in the Billboard Hot 100 upon the release of A Thousand Suns, and spent five weeks on the chart. "The Catalyst" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 2011.

On September 2, 2010, Linkin Park released the promotional single "Wretches and Kings" to those who had pre-ordered the album. On September 8, 2010, the band debuted "Waiting for the End" and "Blackout" on their Myspace page. The band announced on its official website the "Full Experience Myspace Premiere", the streaming of the entire album on its Myspace page on September 10. A remix of "Blackout" by Renholdër was included in the soundtrack of Underworld: Awakening.

Waiting for the End" was released as the album's second single on October 1, 2010. The music video for the song premiered on October 8, 2010, and was directed by Joe Hahn. Linkin Park's performance of "Waiting for the End" at Puerta de Alcala in Madrid was broadcast as part of the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards. "Waiting for the End" and "When They Come for Me" were performed live on Saturday Night Live on February 5, 2011. "Waiting for the End" was featured in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation broadcast on CBS on October 14, 2010. The single peaked at number one on the Alternative Songs chart; it was Linkin Park's tenth number-one song on the chart. It peaked at number two on the Rock Songs chart and at number forty-two on the Billboard Hot 100, spending nine weeks on the chart. The single achieved success in other countries, peaking at number thirty-four in Austria, number twenty in Belgium, number 29 in Germany, and number thirty-four in Japan. "Waiting for the End" was certified gold by the RIAA in April 2011.

On January 22, 2011, Linkin Park announced that its next international single would be "Burning in the Skies". The music video, directed by Hahn, premiered on February 22 and the single was released on March 21. The single reached number thirty-five in Austria, number 35 in Portugal, number twenty-six in German airplay, and number six in Mexico.

On April 13, 2011, Shinoda confirmed that the album's third US, fourth international, and overall final single would be "Iridescent". He also said a slightly shorter version of the song would be included the soundtrack of the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and that a music video directed by Hahn had been made to promote the single. Linkin Park performed the single remix of "Iridescent" at the film's premiere at Red Square, Moscow, on June 23, 2011. The single peaked at number eighty-one at the Billboard Hot 100, spending three weeks on the chart; it also peaked at number nineteen at the Alternative Songs chart and number twenty-nine at the Rock Songs chart. Despite these low peaks, the single achieved moderate success in other countries, peaking at number thirty-nine in Australia, number ten in Israel, and number two in South Korea and one the UK Rock Chart.

A Thousand Suns debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 241,000 copies in the United States, exceeding sales of Trey Songz's Passion, Pain & Pleasure by 1,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It became Linkin Park's fourth US number-one album, although the first-week sales were significantly lower than those of their previous album Minutes to Midnight (2007), which opened at 623,000 copies. The album entered Billboard's Rock Albums, Alternative Albums, Hard Rock Albums, and Digital Albums charts at number one. In the second week, the album slid to number three, selling 70,000 copies; in December 2010, two months after its release, its sales passed the half-million mark. On January 11, 2011, A Thousand Suns was certified gold by the RIAA for shipments of 500,000 copies sold in the US. It spent 30 weeks on the Billboard 200. By June 2014, the album had sold 906,000 copies in the US according to SoundScan. The sales exceed 1 million as of August 2017.

In Canada, A Thousand Suns peaked at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart with 23,000 copies sold. In February 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association for 80,000 units sold. In the United Kingdom album chart, on which it spent seventeen weeks, the album debuted at number two with first-week sales of 46,711 copies, behind The Script's album Science & Faith. On September 10, 2010, two days after the album's UK release, A Thousand Suns was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), marking shipments of 100,000 copies to retailers. In Australia, it debuted at number one on the ARIA Top 50 Albums, and retained the top position for four weeks. The album remained in the chart's top 50 for 18 weeks. By the end of 2010, A Thousand Suns had been certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and the following year it was certified platinum.

Upon its release, A Thousand Suns was well-received by critics, although some were less enthusiastic. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 66 based on 10 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Rick Florino of Artistdirect gave the album five stars out of five, saying, "after A Thousand Suns, all rock 'n' roll will revolve around Linkin Park"; he credited Linkin Park with creating their own genre. Ian Winwood of Kerrang! gave it an "excellent" rating, saying it "can only be best described as a political album". He praised the songwriting, saying, "These are songs that have been constructed as much as they've been written", and that its closest comparison was Public Enemy's 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet. Dave de Sylvia of Sputnikmusic called it "an extremely well-crafted rock album," saying it was somewhat better than its predecessor Minutes to Midnight (2007), but does not live up to their debut, Hybrid Theory (2000). David Buchanan of Consequence of Sound gave the album three-and-a-half out of five, saying, "Some might argue this new sound is posturing, complete mutation to the point of absurdity; in the band’s associated artwork and videos, evolution has been touted from day one. In essence, Linkin Park has been chasing this all along, and now it has become tangible, complete." Johan Wippsson from Melodic said Linkin Park "have created a very cool and unique sound" and described "Blackout" and "When They Come for Me" as "really innovative". Ian Winwood of BBC Music, in his review of the band's succeeding album Living Things, praised A Thousand Suns and described it as "a body of work startling enough that it gambled with the massive commercial success the group had achieved since their debut album, 2000's Hybrid Theory."

Kerrang! listed A Thousand Suns as the nineteenth-best album of 2010 on their list of the top 20 albums that year. James Montgomery of MTV listed the album as twentieth best album of 2010, calling it "the year's most ambitious major-label rock album ... there's no denying the dense, dark power it packs".

#linkin park #a thousand suns #september 14th #september 14th 2010 #2010 #2010s #mike shinoda #brad delson #rob bourdon #joe hahn #chester bennington #dave phoenix farrell

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mwelxn · 5 years

Text

Last week, ex-Guns N' Roses guitar slinger IZZY STRADLIN' gave PAUL ELLIOTT exclusive details of exactly what went down with his shock departure from the former Most Dangerous Band in The World. In part two this week, Izzy previews his Stones-influenced upcoming debut solo LP 'Ju Ju Hounds', and reveals that yes, he DID almostjoin forces with this week's K!cover stars The Black Crowes!... By Paul Elliott Kerrang! Magazine - Sept. 1992 "...And that goes for all you punks in the press / That want to start shit by printin' lies / Instead of the things we said / That means you, Andy Secherat Hit Parader, Circus magazine, Mick Wall at Kerrang!, Bob Guccione Jr at Spin..." - 'Get In The Ring', Guns N' Roses Although Mick Wall no longer works for Kerrang!, Axl Rose's anger at the publication has not abated. Guns N' Roses' outspoken frontman routinely bitches about Kerrang! when the band play in London, Presumably, the root of the problem was a feature of Wall's on the Rock In Rio festival in which he accused GN'R of aloofness. Kerrang!gave Guns N' Roses their first British magazine cover in 1987, but Rose chooses to remember only one comment from one journalist. And that, it seems, is the bunker mentality behind the Guns N' Roses/Kerrang!/'Get In The Fucking Ring' feud. Former GN'R guitarist Izzy Stradlin' is equally bemused by it all. "I just write songs," he shrugs, grinning. "I honestly don't know what that was about or what was said. Axl was mad at Kerrang!, right? There were so many things that pissed him off..." It's said that Bob Guccione Jr, editor of US rock periodical Spin, was baited by Rose on 'Get In The Ring' simply because Spinprinted the contract which Guns N' Roses attempted to force on all journalists interviewing the band. The contract sought to censor the press. "I didn't even know about this contract," Izzy protests, "so when I heard Axl was mad about it, I was going, 'What?'! "If I were a journalist I'd probably just tell somebody to shove it up their ass too, cos I guess that'd be like somebody telling a musician how to write a song. "I wasn't aware that Mick Wall was one of the guys in that song. The only one I knew about was Guccione. I was sitting back in Indiana watching MTV and I saw that thing about Axl challenging him to go fight, and Bob said, 'Okay'. And I didn't hear anything else about it! "Axl's real critical of himself, and his anger seems to propel him in a lotta ways. That song 'Get In The Ring', I really love a lot of the lyrics just cos they're really aggressive. Axl played guitar on that track as well, that was the first time I saw him play electric guitar, and he did pretty well. I was digging it cos it was good punk energy. But with all the names at the end I was thinking, shit! I wouldn't have slagged people off on my record." - Izzy's Record, his first since quitting Guns N' Roses, is titled 'Ju Ju Hounds' and is as cool a rock 'n' roll record as anyone has made in the last 10 years. Like The Black Crows', Izzy's music is simple, intuitive, soulful. Both he and the Crowes have covered reggae standards, but where the latter play a lot of blues, Izzy's more of a punk. Axl calls 'Ju Ju Hounds' "Izzy's Keith Richards thing", which is as good a description as any. Izzy's LP has the same lazy charm as Keef's 'Talk Is Cheap'. "I read what Axl said," nods Izzy. "I think Keith Richards is great, but I don't think he has any songs that play as fast as 'Pressure Drop' (Izzy's souped-up cover of the Toots and The Maytals classic, also recorded by The Clash). I wish he would - It'd be great to hear him do that. "I called Keith last week; he was in the studio. I'm gonna try and hook up with him in New York sometime. There's a part of me that wants to take a tape of my record along and play it for him, and there's another part that's going, 'Fuck it, I'll just say hi and listen to his record'." Izzy's such a big Stones fan, there's still disbelief in his voice when he speaks of his friendship with Keef and fellow Stone Ron Wood, who guested on 'Ju Ju Hounds'. "We got together with Woody in LA. We did an old song of his called 'Take A Look At The Guy'." - A Stones CD plays as Izzy talks. The album is 'Black And Blue', one of the Stones' most laid back and most underrated works, featuring classic heartbreakers 'Fool To Cry' and 'Memory Motel'. plus the reggae number 'Cherry Oh Baby', covered by UB40. "I got into reggae partly through the Stones," says Izzy. "I guess it just bled over from stuff like 'Black And Blue' - it's killer. The thing I love about reggae is that it's not technical music where things are perfect; it's very freeform, just a groove. You can lay on a beach or a couch and just absorb it It slows down your heartbeat too, those drum beats and the slow pulse of the bass. It's like a tranquilizer. " 'Pressure Drop' is in this great movie called 'The Harder They Come', starring Jimmy Cliff as a ghetto kid who goes big time with guns; he shoots his way to the top. It's really cool. "There's an energy about 'Pressure Drop' that I love, the rock-steady rhythm. It's very loose, but at the same time it gets the point across." - Guesting on 'Pressure Drop' and on 'Can't Hear 'Em' (a reggae number of Stradlin's which features on the 'Pressure Drop' EP released this week, a month before the LP) is reggae star Mikey Dread, who worked with The Clash on their 'Sandinista' LP. Izzy met Mikey through bassist Jimmy 'Two Fingers' Ashhurst. "Jimmy saw Mikey play in Chicago and got hold of him the next morning. It turned out he was in the hotel right across the street from the studio we were using. We were just gonna do one song dub, but we ended up recording four songs with Mikey, for him. Jimmy and I played bass and guitar on them. Mikey did his rap thing on 'Can't Hear 'Em' and I think he sang some backups on 'Pressure Drop'. His guitar player did a reggae rhythm, real quiet, just a plunky, straight-through thing." Was Mikey surprised that a former member of GN'R loves and can play reggae? "I don't know but it was a trip working with those guys. Mikey had worked with The Clash before, so he must've been familiar with our style." So he didn't think that the way you speeded up 'Pressure Drop' was sacrilegious? Izzy smiles, "His first comment was, 'Y'know, man, this was a big hit in England'. I'm supposed to look him up when I get to New York. He's gonna take us to some place to get us some suits made - they do 'em overnight." - The whole of the 'Pressure Drop' EP has a raw feel evocative of Guns N' Roses' debut EP 'Live Like A Suicide'. 'Came Unglued' is as fast and lean as the obscure GN'R tune 'Shadow Of Your Love', while 'Been A Fix' has the hangdog vocals and fuck-off riff of late '70s Stones (it's also reminiscent of Aerosmith's 'I Wanna Know Why'). "Basically, I just wanted to get back to what really gets me off, just a basic rock 'n' roll band, a couple guitars, drums and bass. Simple. "The album's better, I would think, it's more mixed. The EP's just got three slammers on it, and a reggae song. The album's got a couple of acoustic songs, a coupla slammers, some basic rock tunes and one reggae song too. "The title of the LP came by accident in the studio. I was singing a backing track to something, and when I played it back it sounded like I said, 'Ju ju hound'. It doesn't mean much really." - Before Izzy began recording his album and EP, his name was linked with The Black Crowes, who at the time had not announced a replacement for Jeff Cease. So was he offered the gig? "I don't think so," Izzy shrugs. "When I left LA after I split from GN'R, I went on a road trip to New Orleans. From there I called my brother and he told me I'd got a fax from Rich in The Black Crowes. I had no idea their guitar player had split. "I stopped by Rich's home and he said, 'Maybe we should get together and write some songs'. I said, 'Let me take my stuff back to Indiana and get my house in order'. I love The Black Crowes, but because it was immediately after GN'R, I don't think I was ready to make any quick moves. I thought I'd just go and ride trials for a while. "I just wasn't interested in playing guitar at that time. I don't think I touched a guitar for about a month. I was getting off on riding, but, it got cold, Winter came, and I was sitting in a room with a guitar in the corner and it's like, 'C'mon, play me'! Once I started playing again I thought, this is the one thing that seems to make sense. "I started putting a band together in January. I was sitting in Indiana thinking, fuck, man, how do I find musicians? I couldn't just run an ad in the local trade paper. You wanna find somebody you can relate to, and the guys I got are all seasoned, proven. "I hooked up with Jimmy in LA. I'd known him for years, when he was in The Broken Homes. Once we'd got a drummer, Charlie Quintana, we'd recorded these basic tracks, so I asked Jimmy what Rick Richards from the Georgia Satellites was doing. Jimmy told me the Satellites broke up. This is how outta touch I am! "Rick's playing is so natural. I'll just throw out a coupla chords and he'll bounce stuff of it. He knows how to make it work." - Album and EP feature a number of guest musicians, including backing singers the Waters Sisters, who lift the chorus of 'Can't Hear 'Em' in much the same way that the I-Threes sweeten classic Bob Marley tracks like 'Could You Be Loved'. Barbara and Joy Richardson do likewise on The Black Crowes' 'The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion'. "The Water Sisters did 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' for GN'R. Man, they can sing," Izzy adds with a smile, "but I can't see us going out on tour like that. I think we'll keep it real simple." Izzy's keeping everything simple these days. Guns N' Roses are no longer The Most Dangerous Band In The World, but they'll never be free of the controversy and all that bullshit. Stradlin' is, and he's happier for it. Simply, he's happy just to be back playing rock 'n' roll. It's all he ever wanted to do anyway.

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callmeblake · 5 years

Photo

Kerrang Issue #1761

Magazine Release Date: February 20th, 2019

Issue Label: February 23rd, 2019

Photo Credit: Jen Rosenstein

Illustrations: Brian Ewing

Partial Transcription (from pressreader.com) below:

Kerrang! (UK)

20 Feb 2019

words: emily carter illustrations: brian ewing

“MAKING MUSIC IS MORE FUN THESE DAYS…”

BREAKS HIS SILENCE

Since he was a kid, GERARD WAY has sought solitude in the world of graphic novels – first as a reader, and later, with the weight of the rock world on his shoulders, as a creator. But now, he explains exclusively to Kerrang!, working on the Netflix adaptation of his THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY series helped him reconnect with his love for making music, too…

Gerard Way keeps track of his personal goals using what he calls “the grown-up list”. One at a time, the 41-year-old will tick off these life objectives by means of self-care – a concept he’ll admit he hasn’t kept on top of lately.

“On the grown-up list are all these things that I have to do to start participating in life again,” he explains in a gentle, endearing New Jersey accent, dissecting a mysteriously methodical approach to his return to the public eye – though, it has to be said, still sounding very much like a big kid at heart.

For the past “two, three” years, Gerard feels as though he hasn’t been looking after himself while under the strain of his demanding career as a comic-book writer. And while his workload certainly isn’t slowing down any time soon – if anything, it’s on the increase with the reintroduction of music now, too – he is at least making his own positive changes little by little, “piece by piece”.

“Enough time goes by and you’re tired of feeling tired, and tired of feeling unhealthy, and tired of doing unhealthy things to yourself,” he admits. “I hit a point where I was like, ‘Enough’s enough. I gotta move my body and find a doctor.’ I hadn’t had a physical in I can’t remember how long. It was just time, you know?”

Undertaking this new journey, Gerard first started off by giving up smoking. He afforded himself just two weeks to ditch the cigarettes, before moving on to the next task. “You can’t do it all at once,” he explains thoughtfully. “I quit smoking before doing anything else – like change diet or going to see a doctor. I just take these things in steps. Even if I did have all the time in the world to attack the grown-up list, you have to take any major life change slowly and gradually.”

Had Gerard felt so inclined as to keep a similar grown-up list for professional targets when he first emerged as My Chemical Romance’s awe-inspiring leader in 2001, its trajectory would have accelerated significantly. Darting into the spotlight in 2004 with their astounding second record Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, the frontman quickly became uncomfortable with the intrusive – and borderline paralysing – nature of their fame. It’s no wonder that, between 2006’s triple-platinum The Black Parade, and the festival-headlining status that came with fourth and final studio album Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, Gerard recently labelled the group’s journey as “uncontrollable”. The band’s explosion was just as dramatic as their eventual breakup almost six years ago, and it took Gerard just over a year to then return into view. An excellent Britpop-inflected solo LP, Hesitant Alien, followed in September 2014, and even landed at spot number four in Kerrang!’s top 50 records of that year. No grown-up list – no matter how fool-proof – could accurately record or predict those kind of whirlwind peaks and troughs.

In his life as a comic-book writer, though, Gerard’s accomplishments have kept up a steadier, but no less impressive, incline. As a graduate of New York’s School of Visual Arts and a former intern at Cartoon Network, his imagination and visual creativity was harnessed long before his audio talents came to light. While his comic-book debut in 1993, On Raven’s Wings, was cancelled after just two issues, Gerard’s near 100 (and counting) writing credits have just about surpassed his contributions in music; he even ran his own imprint under the legendary DC Comics banner for two years, Young Animal. And while its status is currently listed as ‘inactive’, Gerard has emphasised that it’s “not the end” of that venture. Now, his prominence as a fullyfledged award-winning comic-book writer is a marvel (no, not that kind).

“The thing about doing comics is nobody asks you about your personal life, they don’t ask you about the drugs you used to take, they don’t ask you if you’re breaking up,” he told Kerrang! while still with My Chemical Romance in 2010, openly battling with the allure of a life buried in books. “They talk about the work. I wish people would talk about the work in music. In music, people want to know what makes you tick – in comics, people don’t care.”

Given the appeal of a more serene existence, it’s clear Gerard’s current primary occupation perfectly suits him. Just as he helped change the face of rock 15 years ago, however, he’s beginning to make similar strides in comics. Once again, he’s got the big guns knocking on his artistic doorstep.

“If anybody ever asks me for advice about being creative, it’s always just to make the things you want to see,” he shrugs, either oblivious to his skills or just strikingly modest. “Make something that doesn’t exist, that you wish existed – that you wanna read, or see, or listen to. That’s the one thing that I’ve applied to everything I’ve done: all the art I’ve made and the music I’ve made.”

Following this surprisingly simple mantra, Gerard now has a tremendous feat on his hands: his apocalyptic comic-book series, The Umbrella Academy, has snowballed into a 10-episode live-action show of the same name, and hit Netflix last Friday. By now, you’ll probably have already watched the lot. For the programme’s main brain, though, while he may have spent release day just ticking off another box on the grown-up list (“I had a physical that day with a doctor, so…”), this marks the beginning of his “participation” in life again. Gerard Way is back.

Gerard Way is obsessed with comics. Across the span of our interview with the author-turned-musicianturned-author again, he says the word ��comic” no fewer than 28 times – each utterance more passionate than the last. Yet it wasn’t until 2008, while still active with My Chemical Romance, that he began to feel the effects of his written works’ potential. And not just in the field of comics, either; he was suddenly struck with the realisation that he could make this his full-time work instead. When he and illustrator Gabriel Bá – a man Gerard credits constantly and with great

“I’VE ALWAYS AIMED TO MAKE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST, THAT I WISH EXISTED” GERARD WAY

respect when discussing the project – were awarded a prestigious Eisner Award for The Umbrella Academy’s first mini-series, it shook him to the core.

“It was scary at the time,” he mentioned in a Kerrang! cover feature at a later date, “because it was another thing that said to me, ‘Hey, you could go and do this. You won’t have a huge career, but you could make a living. There was a part of me thinking, ‘I don’t have to be a singer anymore.’”

Just days after receiving their Eisner, Gerard and Gabriel’s graphic novel was optioned by Universal Pictures. Plans for a potential movie were in development “for quite a while”, until it eventually fizzled out and came back to Umbrella Academy’s publisher, Dark Horse Comics. Then, the idea for a TV show was conceived – and Gerard was instantly sold. Not that it was ever something he’d ever considered when first penning his comics all those years prior.

“You know, I tend to be a visual thinker,” he begins. “When I was first starting out, I was told to embrace the medium of comics: just make a great comic. I think that that’s a common mistake that people make – they see a comic as a film, and they’ll just present it as a film. And there’s a lot of things you can do in comics, and it would almost short-change that. You need to embrace what a comic can do, and then you’ll make a really fantastic one. If you’re just trying to present it as a film, it doesn’t work as well, in my opinion. I still follow that advice to this day.”

Gerard loved the idea of giving his painstaking and deeply intricate world a new long-form narrative, and a way of going deeper into the story’s characters (all of whom are either a reflection of people he knows, or himself). Before taking various meetings – including with Netflix – both he and Gabriel sat down with Universal Cable Productions executive vice president of development, Dawn Olmstead, and discussed their aims.

“My goal was to give those guys the material to make a really great show,” Gerard explains. “That way, if they made a show and it’s successful, they always have material to go back to. That’s always been my goal: to tell a really good story that I have control over.”

Nine years later after its original plans fell through, it was eventually settled that Netflix would be the way to go. Joining forces with a company that had both “the highest production value” and that was also “artist-friendly” made the most sense to all involved. “We knew they would let the show be what it needed to be,” Gerard nods.

By this point, the series’ creator had slipped away from the limelight to create a 20-page blueprint for show-runner Steve Blackman. The Umbrella Academy thus far has three volumes – Apocalypse Suite, Dallas and Hotel Oblivion – but Gerard will eventually complete the story through eight graphic novels in total, many of which are still to be finished (“I have it all planned out, and I’ve just got to kind of write it now…”). In advance of the show’s development stages, though, he needed to let his new colleagues know the whole plot.

“There were talks early on about how much of my involvement there would be – if I wanted to be a co-show-runner, if I wanted to write scripts,” remembers Gerard. “And I really put the emphasis on making the source material and making the comics, so I had to let go of certain things. I weighed in on a lot of them, but ultimately it was Steve’s call to make. I liked letting go, though, because it allowed me to keep moving forward in the ways that I wanted to, which is with the comics or anything else I want to do.”

Working with Netflix became a daily job. From set pieces to wardrobe choices, both Gerard and Gabriel would give extensive notes in the 18 months it took to produce The Umbrella Academy, ensuring a happy climate was reached between their individual artistic palettes. It’s not a giant leap to compare the birth of Gerard’s latest project to My Chemical Romance’s studio swansong, Danger Days. While still in the throes of The Black Parade’s overwhelming success, the frontman had moved to LA from New Jersey in 2008 and was focused on comics – not just The Umbrella Academy, but also a bold, bright new sci-fi spectacular: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, a story of the aftermath of a battle against a tyrannical corporation. Having written and subsequently scrapped The Black Parade’s original follow-up, the frontman was then struck with inspiration on a family retreat in the wilderness, wracking his brains with what to do next.

“I had an epiphany, I had a vision,” he told Kerrang! back in October 2010, of how this new comic informed what would become My Chem’s fourth full-length. “I was writing all these crazy lyrics and they were fearless and fucking reckless. I had this vision in my head, and everything I had been working on in the comic – the masks, the laser guns, the cars, everything – started to swirl around in my head.”

So how does the creation of a comicinspired album measure up against bringing The Umbrella Academy to life on TV?

“You know, they’re both intense and stressful in their own ways,” Gerard smiles. “But one of the things I’ve learned as I get older is that being in the studio and making music isn’t nearly as stressful – it’s a lot more fun these days. Having said that, although things are a little more high-stakes on a film set, we had a lot of fun with that, too.”

Early last year, The Umbrella Academy’s primary architects headed to Toronto to oversee the first week of filming. They were there to “answer any questions and give a little direction”. Though their focus was undeniably on creating the best comic-to-screen transition

“AS I GET OLDER, MAKING MUSIC ISN’T NEARLY AS STRESSFUL – IT’S A LOT MORE FUN THESE DAYS” GERARD WAY

“I DON’T LIKE TO DWELL ON THINGS. I LIKE TO MOVE FORWARD” GERARD WAY

possible, Gerard also remembers the weather; it was snowing, a sight he hadn’t seen since touring Hesitant Alien three and a half years prior. Once more, his two worlds briefly reacquainted themselves.

While in Canada, he and Gabriel reviewed “dailies”. “It hit a point where it was like, ‘Alright, this train is going, they know what they’re doing,’ and I could divert my attention back to the comic,” Gerard says. “Then I was able to work on it remotely – most of the work from my end was done through email or phone conversations, so I could be anywhere in the world and I was still able to watch the footage on my laptop, or whatever computer I was at.”

Once that week was over, Gerard kept a distant watchful eye over filming, which carried on until July. Elsewhere, his time was split between writing more comics, drinking copious amounts of coffee, collecting vintage T-shirts and miniature painted figures, and watching his wife of 11 years, Lindsey – bassist of Mindless Self Indulgence – feed birds and squirrels at their family home.

Rather ironically, his days weren’t spent watching a great deal of television. Even now, he’ll partake in an episode or two of a binge-worthy programme if Lindsey wants him to check it out – but he’ll never consume the lot in one go. “I think that makes my opinion on what we’re making with Umbrella Academy, in a way, even more valid,” he suggests, “because I don’t watch all this stuff. I read a lot of books.”

Most exciting of all, though, is that almost every Friday, Gerard Way began to create music again.

Around 54 minutes into The Umbrella Academy’s fifth episode, there’s a mind-bending shoot-out featuring, among others, Mary J. Blige. While the action unfolds, a familiar voice quietly hits the eardrums. ‘ Imagine me and you, I do / I think about you day and night, it’s only right…’ croons Gerard Way alongside former My Chemical Romance bandmate and guitarist extraordinaire Ray Toro, in a cover of The Turtles’ hit Happy Together – both rich in personality, but also similarly honouring the original. It’s not the first time Gerard and Ray have teamed up in such a manner: last month, they unveiled another joint effort in the form of Hazy Shade Of Winter, originally by Simon & Garfunkel, for The Umbrella Academy’s official trailer. But this is arguably Gerard’s most epic comics-meets-music crossover yet.

Steve Blackman, says Gerard, “thought it would be really nice for the fans – both for fans of my work as a musician, and my work as a comic writer. He thought it would be really cool, and I thought it would be cool, too. It would be silly to not do a song for the show! We ended up doing a couple, which was really great. And I’m sure there will be more in the future.”

The music Gerard made each week last year wasn’t just for The Umbrella Academy – it was also for himself. Possibly over-ambitiously, the musician hoped to release these new sounds once a month, though his workload soon put paid to that. He does, however, now boast “quite the collection of demos”.

“Right now it’s just a stand-alone thing,” Gerard says, “but I think at some point – maybe for a vinyl or something – it would be nice to collect all these songs, just as a body of work for something that I did. With all the work and the show coming, it has been harder to try and do a song a month. And I knew that that would kind of happen back when I first mentioned the goal of trying to do that, just because of all the extra work that was coming. But we’re still making music every week.”

Gerard has enjoyed the process of juggling his own music and songs for Netflix enormously. His recent solo tracks – Baby You’re A Haunted House, Getting Down The Germs and a touching Christmas number featuring Lydia Night of The Regrettes called Dasher – have deliberately not been “overthought”, though music for The Umbrella Academy can be a little more laborious.

“It’s a bit more work, because it’s for something cinematic,” he explains. “It’s not that it has to reach a higher level, it’s just that it’s a different level. The solo stuff is just kind of up to me, and what I want that to convey, or what nature it has. Whereas with the show, everybody has to really be blown away by it. So maybe, in a way, it’s more a little bit of what Ray [Toro] and I and the guys in My Chem used to do; we apply a little bit more of that to what we do in these cover songs for Umbrella Academy.”

Is it a strange feeling to revisit that kind of creative process?

“It makes it really fresh and exciting,” Gerard grins. “It’s actually really nice to go back and do something like you once did it, because you have more experience and wisdom and knowledge. As you get older you bring all these things the way you used to do. It’s refreshing at times – especially if you’re doing a bunch of experimental things. It’s refreshing to go back to your core, and your roots, of what you used to do, and apply your new knowledge to that.”

Gerard Way’s musical future for now, then, will remain both blissfully free and totally spontaneous – a far-cry from his MCR days. But he couldn’t be happier about it.

“I like to move forward a lot,” he enthuses. “I don’t like to dwell on things very much. I don’t usually like to revisit them, either. I like to keep moving forward and putting out new things. I like to try new things and experiment.” Gerard repeats himself once more. “I really like doing that.” K!

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH NOW ON NETFLIX

#gerard way #K!1761 #kerrang #february 2019 #2019 #patch jacket #smithsonian institute shirt #jen rosenstein #kerrang art print

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pathetic-at-the-disco · 6 years

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The Tragic Love Life of Ryan Ross: Part 1 (Masterpost)

So... Ryan has had A LOT of girlfriends over the course of his life. There are easily at least six that the public knows of in any amount of detail. And, unfortunately, most of those relationships ended with heartbreak and a number of angsty songs from our boy.

Since it is Valentine’s Day/National Singles Awareness Day, we here at Pathetic! have decided to reflect on the train-wreck that is Ryan Ross’ love life from 2004 to now.

Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get a move on to the first relationship that Ryan has ever had. The girl that inspired “Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” and “I Write Sins, Not Tragedies”.

“But Mods!” you say, pressing your noses to your computer screens in confusion, “We don’t know who this girl is!”

But we do. There are pictures. Two to be exact.

This is a yearbook picture of Ryan and a girl we are going to call S---, mostly out of respect for her privacy. If you notice the black box in the lower corner, that is because we have redacted her name. We ask for anyone who does come across her full name to please leave this girl alone.

Many people already know the basic story of their relationship. The two began dating while Ryan was still in high school, perhaps after they were voted “The Cutest Couple That Never Was”. Ryan was very reliant on her for emotional comfort and support during this time in his life, because of the difficulties he was having at home, as emphasized in this 2006 interview with the magazine Kerrang!:

Ryan and S--- had also clearly known each other for a while, and she seems as if she supported his musical endeavors. (Note her “Pet Salamander” t-shirt!)

Ryan even posted this picture on his Livejournal some time in 2004, although the actual date and post are long gone. As you can see, it is clearly the same girl as in the yearbook picture.

By 2005, their relationship had come to a bitter end, because S--- famously cheated on Ryan. There were even rumors in the earlier days of the band that she had gotten pregnant with another man’s baby, but of course that can’t really be substantiated. Regardless, S--- was unfaithful and it completely broke Ryan’s heart.

He wrote several miserable Livejournal posts about their breakup, including this one (the exact date is unknown, but it was probably posted in 2004 or early 2005):

put me in parenthesis and make me implied so my name can slip from your lips when mentioned. replace the letters change your sheets (but compare me with all the new boys you meet).

i’ve paged books in dusted cries for attention. sweetheart break my spine I’ll spill my insides and hope my blood will stain and soak in more than I did.

laid to waste but im still “your favorite” death

i still hope you’d haunt the passenger seat. if that was the only way i could keep your company. no matter how veiled or murderous your intent. those scarlet lines in your hair will mark every scar that spoils my appearance. keeping this cavalier is possible: possible like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound and not bleeding to

Many of Ryan’s writings about their breakup focus on his extreme feelings of betrayal, and how he could not understand why S--- would cheat on him after building up his confidence about sex and relationships.

Even Lying, the breakup song par excellence, is fundamentally about trying to understand why someone would toss him aside in the middle of such an intense relationship. In that song, Ryan contemplates about how she may be thinking about him while with other guys, and transforms his frustration and misery into bitter arrogance. “You told me I was so good for you,” he basically writes. “Well, just think about what you’re missing out on.”

I’ve got more wit, a better kiss, A hotter touch... a better fuck Than any boy you’ll ever meet. Sweetie, you had me. Girl, I was it, look past the sweat A better love deserving of Exchanging body heat In the passenger seat, Oh no, no, you know it will always just be me.

(Side bar: There’s that passenger seat again, mentioned for the second time since the Livejournal post! They must have driven around a lot in Ryan’s car.)

Ryan had some understandable reservations about making such a personal song public, as you can see from this 2006 interview with Kerrang!:

Apparently, Brendon (who was a relatively new friend at that point) helped Ryan through the emotional turmoil and even got him into the vicious headspace of Lying. These are Brendon’s own reflections on the song:

Our guitar player, Ryan’s girlfriend cheated on him. A lot of this first verse came from conversations I would have with him. We would hang out alone, when he finally told me what had happened during a heart to heart. I asked him: What happened? How does that make you feel? Are you cool? And he was like, “No, you know what? I bet when she is fucking this other dude she is saying my name.” So this song was more about having vitriol for another person instead of compassion. (x)

Other songs inspired by the situation with S--- include “But It’s Better If You Do” (Ryan fantasizing about getting over her in a strip club, which she would have apparently enjoyed), possibly “There’s a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet” (Ryan fantasizing about wrecking a social event that S--- is also at), and very importantly, “I Write Sins, Not Tragedies”.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from Brendon!

Misogyny aside, this interview highlights how S--- directly inspired Panic!’s breakout song. Ryan was presumably considering taking her back, and what would happen at their fictitious wedding in the future.

It also appears that S--- made an effort to get Ryan back in mid-2005, but by then it was too late. He even posted this on Livejournal:

Sun, Jul 3 2005

as soon as i start being kind of okay she realizes im the best fucking thing that ever happened to her. go figure.to late honey.

i am heaven sent, don’t you dare forget. i am all you’ve ever wanted.what all the other boys all promised

(The second paragraph is taken directly from the song “Okay, I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't” by Brand New. So apparently Ryan was drowning himself in angsty emo music. No one is surprised.)

By this point, Ryan had also apparently rebounded with a girl named Paulina.

This relationship does not seem to have lasted long, because Ryan was single by the time A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out was released in late 2005...

Leaving him ready to date Jac Vanek.

CONTINUED IN PART 2

And here are all of the posts in this series!

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deadcactuswalking · 3 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 07/11/2020 (Ariana Grande, Bring Me the Horizon)

You know, it’s odd how that despite two pretty massive albums dropping, both having an impact on the chart, we actually have less debuts than the scattered mess of singles from last week, thanks to silly UK Singles Chart rules. Regardless, this week’s #1 is still “positions” by Ariana Grande and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

The biggest drop off the chart this week is undoubtedly the #1 hit “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi, exiting the UK Top 75 after a run lasting 50 weeks. Nothing really compares to the weight of that drop-out but I guess we do have “GREECE” by DJ Khaled featuring Drake, “Heather” by Conan Grey. “Bando Diaries” by Dutchavelli, “Heart of Glass” by Miley Cyrus, “forget me too” by Machine Gun Kelly featuring Halsey and “Hold” by Chunkz and Young Filly, only lasting a measly two weeks but still peaking high. There is actually a theme to our returning entries as all of these are spooky scary Halloween-themed tracks. The classic “Thriller” by the ever-controversial King of Pop Michael Jackson is back at #57, “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. Is back at #54 – this is my personal favourite of the bunch, mostly thanks to Neil Cicierega – and even “Monster Mash” by Bobby Boris Pickett is back at #50. Oh, and “5AM” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz is back at #66 but that’s just scarily bad. The biggest fall this week was for “Cool with Me” by Dutchavelli and M1llionz down to #64 whilst the biggest gain was unfortunately for “Whoopty” by CJ at #48. Honestly, what’s the appeal here? Sigh, at least we have some really interesting hijinks this week, pretty fitting for a week that saw the messiest US election in history, and I won’t write this in order so you won’t see what I’m leading up to until a while after you read this part but there is some incredible stuff here. You know what’s not incredible?

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Too Many Nights” – 220 KID and JC Stewart

Produced by 220 KID, Joe Janiak and Mark Ralph

I started off this episode by writing about the Bring Me the Horizon songs first. Not only is the album good and I had recently listened to it, but I had a lot more to say about the tracks, obviously since it’s not something you see on the charts every day and there’s a lot more to discuss in these tracks. Hence, after writing nearly 2,000 words on the metalcore boys alone, I have a question: do I really need to cover this emotionless tropical house-pop crap manufactured by labels and DJs who rarely find any interesting instrumentation, songwriting ideas or even samples to cover up their complete lack of innovation and at times even talent, for a quick buck and stupid amounts of unwarranted chart success? I don’t want to say I’m angry and I don’t want to seem pretentious but music is art. Art is, as a result of the society that produces it, a product, but even #1 hits and major-label records are still pieces of art. They can be analysed, appreciated and listened to with a lot of thought and detail. I cannot see that in “Too Many Nights” by 220 KID and JC Stewart. To me, this is purely a product. I’m taking this way too seriously but this really exemplifies what people hate about pop music in three minutes and eight seconds of cheap plastic dance music. Next.

#67 – “Ginger” – Wizkid featuring Burna Boy

Produced by P2J

Wizkid and Burna Boy are both highly acclaimed Nigerian singers and given everything that’s happening here recently, it’s no surprise Wizkid released an album that I would think touches on these issues, Made in Lagos, which is a name I can infer means he will explore Nigerian identity and what it means to be from Lagos and make it big in music. Wizkid is one of the big stars and pioneers of modern African pop music and whilst I should be interested in the album, I haven’t had the time to give it a spin yet so I’ll take this first impression from the track with Burna Boy. This is a pretty sweet tropical tune with an infectious hook referencing the traditional West African dish of jollof rice, and whilst the language barrier does prevent me from fully understanding the song, I can gather that this is a mix of a hook-up jam and typical rap stuff, with him flexing how he lives nice and if people want smoke, he’s got smoke, and a lot about this woman gyrating on him. Seriously, that’s the whole first verse, which only arrives after a really awkward pause. The second verse is kind of awkward here and Wizkid’s voice and flow have never done much for me, especially here where both he and Burna Boy sound checked-out. Burna Boy’s contributions are pretty much relegated to half of the chorus and an outro that quickly fades away and soon enough, this really slow, kind of uninteresting song has already finished. I’m not personally a fan of this but I am still interested in that album – I like the song with Skepta even if it does sound very much like “Ginger”, just with a stronger guest. Now onto the big story, or at least my big story, on the chart.

#55 – “1x1” – Bring Me the Horizon featuring Nova Twins

Produced by Jordan Smith and Oliver Sykes

I never read Kerrang! magazine, mostly because I’m not a loser [citation needed]. I understand that they originated in the 1980s as a metal-focused magazine but I wasn’t there for that. I was there for the Kerrang! TV era of pop-punk whining, scene-core screaming, nu-metal grunting, emo crooning and the Bloodhound Gang for some reason. Listening to this new Bring Me the Horizon album, titled Post Human: Survival Horror, took me back to that place. That feeling of classic Metallica followed by less classic Foo Fighters followed by the absolutely not classic Medina Lake (some of their stuff still slaps, however derivative) – oh, yeah, and like 10 minutes of adverts after six minutes of music. That feeling of All Time Low and You Me at Six playing back to back and being completely incapable of telling the difference between the two. “If we ain’t got that then we ain’t got much and we ain’t got nothing.” They were simpler times. I may be mashing up eras here but it still stands. Hell, the BABYMETAL tracks even took me back to the “Flashing Lights” disclaimers of all things. Rest in peace to Scuzz by the way, and, yes, I said BABYMETAL, we’ll get to that in a bit. So, yeah, I really liked that throwback to turn-of-the-millennium mallcore, but it does keep itself fresh and interesting enough throughout, especially with Sykes’ unique delivery and topical albeit ham-fisted edgy lyrics. You can say a lot about Bring Me the Horizon but at this point at least they definitely have pretty defining characteristics and a lot of likeability even if they do like to stick to a formula at times that makes it pretty obvious where their influences lie. That said, I do think the album becomes a slog by track seven, and it’s a lot duller than it probably should be for the final stretch. Unfortunately, this is track seven. I’m not familiar with the Nova Twins but they’re a punk-rap duo from London and honestly I am interested in checking out that debut album but I’m not really impressed by them or the metalcore boys – which is somehow a better band name than “Bring Me the Horizon” – on this track. Again, there is a formula to the metalcore boys’ banger tracks, and here it feels particularly stale and awkward, thanks to the loudness war that’s present in the album as a whole (Linkin Park’s influence shows up everywhere, even in the production) and the awkward trap elements shoved into the percussion of the first and second verses. I think Amy Love of Nova Twins obviously flows better on it than Oli Sykes who should have handed everything that’s not the chorus – one of the most cookie-cutter on the record – to the Twins, because he sounds pretty off here. There’s a lot less “epic edgy” lyrical content (I’m not sure if that’s a compliment) but that leads to kind of vague and disjointed ideas that don’t all line up to the core theme of the song, which is human guilt for the sins of man or some crap like that. Boys, when you interpolate four of your own songs AND Linkin Park, you’ve got to realise you’re re-treading some ground here. Not even the typical Bring Me the Horizon drop into the metal breakdown from an electronic bridge really feels like it’s worth it or climactic here, which is a shame but who needs the Nova Twins when the metalcore boys have a collaboration with another unique all-female rock duo...?

#51 – “Kingslayer” – Bring Me the Horizon featuring BABYMETAL

Produced by Jordan Fish and Oliver Sykes

When I saw BABYMETAL on this tracklist, I was amused and kind of laughed it off. These guys do have some pretty bizarre collaborations – they have songs with Halsey and Grimes – but BABYMETAL? I remember them when they were half-awesome Japanese pop-metal band and half-complete and utter meme in the early 2010s, and I knew that they had continued being so, mostly because the last time I heard from them they were playable in Super Mario Maker. Seriously, look it up. Now when I saw BABYMETAL on the charts, nearing the top 50 no less, I was ecstatic and honestly shocked. Needless to say this is their first appearance on the chart and whilst metal bands in the 2000s like Slipknot and System of a Down had genuine hits, outside of, fittingly, Bring Me the Horizon, it’s unheard of, especially for a Japanese girl group who happen to have freaking shredders playing on stage behind them. I haven’t listened to a BABYMETAL album but I feel like I don’t need to because of how much they’ve made an impression through singles, videos and live performances. Judas Priest’s Rob Halford called BABYMETAL “the future of metal” and whilst I’m not into the metal scene, I’m half-inclined to both agree and add Bring Me the Horizon to that conversation. I’m just amazed there is a cyber-kawaii metal song on the charts. I’m honestly astonished. Oh, and it helps that the song is incredible. On the album there’s a short interlude that functions as an introduction but honestly the short, aggressive synth riff followed by an immediate crash into the metal groove and Sykes yelling his lungs out works better on its own to just shove you face-first into some insane music. I love how that opening yell is chopped up and digitally re-arranged in the background of the chaotic instrumentation. The cutesy and bleep-bloopy synths that are not new to Bring Me the Horizon’s repertoire are used to their full potential here and yes, it is complete sensory overload, but it’s also kawaii-cyber metal. I mean, what did you expect? It also thematically makes sense. The song is about Call of Duty but it’s also an ode to the people willing to stand up for what they believe in even if it’s illegal and even if it doesn’t abide by rules and regulations. The album is full of these songs that fully support a revolutionary attitude and a clear frustration with keeping up with the old guard for all these years. You can hear how fed up and sick and tired of the political hellscape Sykes is in his shifts between pitch-shifted whining not dissimilar to Blink-182 and gravelly yelling straight out of extreme metal, except unlike most extreme metal I’ve heard, this is actually mixed properly. This track and especially the opener, “Dear Diary”, have so much anarchic energy and that is what I love about the hardcore punk edge to a lot of the album, not necessarily as much sonically as that in content and lyrical themes, where Sykes presents his inner mental struggles and contextualises them on the world stage, making an album that tackles the pandemic, racism and corruption vaguely and with poetic wit without being shallow or impersonal. Most songs that relate to the social distancing will not use the depressive emotional bloodletting of “Teardrops”, the subtly ominous yet still anthemic choruses about lockdown in “Obey” (seriously, these guys can make even YUNGBLUD sound listenable) and even the slow, sour conflict with both Mother Nature and general isolation on the closing ballad that has a name way too long for me to recite, as much as I enjoy upping the word count on every episode. Sykes’ verse in “Kingslayer” discusses opposing points of political opposition and protest, on one hand wanting to express how sick people are of going through the capitalist machine only to be spat back out again but also asking him the condescending question of if he really wants to poke the governmental bear. On the pre-chorus, he voices those frustrations in profanity-laden motivation that is asking not just himself but the general public to wake up, not that they’re unaware of how unfair the system is but instead acting as a call to action. Su-Metal of BABYMETAL takes this ode in a different angle, seeing revolutionaries as idolised figures, so much so that the chorus works as a confession of love or just awe in how the “kingslayer” is destroying castles in the sky and will save “us” from the darkness and from the struggles that the corrupt elite forces onto the populace. In the verse Su-Metal juxtaposes the imagery in the hook of some kind of medieval warrior (“angel of the blade”) with the near-incomprehensible verse, which is half-sung in Japanese with a cry for help responded to in commanding English, which I see as a reaction from the authority that undermines these problems. They call the revolutionary “artificial” and “modified” in a condescending, mocking tone, as well as using so much digital jargon that the verse becomes practically meaningless, especially backed by the heavy, loud music that drowns some of the messaging about and very much intentionally. It also seems pretty intentional that this song sounds like a take on an anime opening, as all of this cyber-punk imagery and anti-authority lyrical content feels a lot sharper when coated in references and criticism of mass-media. Oh, and it also helps that the song rocks, Su-Metal’s melodies are beautifully placed against a frenetic, monotone bass note in her verse, and that final chorus is absolutely perfect. That rapid-fire addition to the chorus took me by surprise on first listen and just completes the song for me. The song ends with one last wake-up call from Sykes about the rabbit hole before his yell is manipulated, screwed and played with by the production, rendering his scream inhuman... and followed by the playful, childlike inflections of BABYMETAL. If we don’t at least try to change in this time, the generations after us will suffer from our mistakes and missed opportunities. Man, this song is a rollercoaster that starts with drum and bass rhythms and ends with Oli Sykes growling gratuitous profanities that get close to feeling like he’s insulting the listener – it’s really brutal – and I’m here for it all the way. There have been songs on REVIEWING THE CHARTS that I like and that I love and whilst I know this won’t stick around (it is still cyber-kawaii metal), this is undoubtedly the best song I think I’ve ever covered on this show and might as well just be one of the best songs I’ve heard this year and maybe ever. I adore this track, please, PLEASE check it out.

#46 – “Flooded” – M Huncho and Nafe Smallz

Produced by Sean Murdz

Okay, seriously for a second: who cares? There’s nothing interesting here. A synth-based soundscape with some cheap flute loops drowned out by trap percussion that doesn’t even drop in, it just awkwardly fades in – yes, even the 808s – and Auto-Tuned mumbling from a nasal-voiced child with an unbearable falsetto. What is the appeal? None of them sound interested, there are no bars of any interest or even a funny line, not even unintentionally. D-Block Europe make me laugh but this tragically awful duo make me bored to death. M Huncho has a cool mask he wears and I wish his gimmick was more than just that and you know, actually translated to the music, but he doesn’t sound intimidating or like a villain. He just sounds like some dude who decided to rap barely on the beat of badly-mixed type beat with bass mastering that should be pitied. He did have a fluke song that kind of slapped called “Pee Pee”, which just comes to show that the more ridiculous and stupid he gets, the more vaguely entertaining he is. So why is he this dull and lame?! The flow is either talking over a beat that refuses to stay still but never truly reaches any kind of climax or even build-up, or just trap-rap word association. “I flooded the chain, it’s like a lake, we runnin’ the game, you pressin’ the brakes.” There’s nothing here, absolutely nothing, and these two hacks cannot sell it. I’m just looking for some effort and even if something is effortless, at least have the charisma to make it sound like you give a damn because this is pretty inexcusable.

#35 – “Paradise” – MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy

Produced by MEDUZA

I’m tired and I feel like I’m almost at breaking point with these songs. What would usually be generic and uninteresting is sounding offensively bad to me right now and I’m not sure why. That doesn’t really matter all too much to me though as this show has never been an in-depth critical assessment... okay, well sometimes it becomes as such but these are usually just my first impressions of tracks that happen to debut that week on the UK Singles Chart and this can range from volatile frustration to immediate adoration to not giving a rat’s ass about a single one of the songs that debut, depending on how I feel that day. That said, this song is fine. I actually really like Kennedy’s delivery, even if his rougher edges are smoothened and cleaned up by the vocal production here, which is pretty reverb-drenched but does allow for Kennedy to actually release rather than editing the vocals to sound really tight and closed-in... except for that really weak, pathetic drop but I do like the lyrical content, fittingly about distanced relationships as England enters a second lockdown. There’s little to say here but it’s worth a listen.

#32 – “Four Notes – Paul’s Tune” – Paul Harvey, Daniel Whibley and BBC Philharmonic

Produced by ???

No production credits for this one for whatever reason. Anyway, I am tired to the point of just complete speechless confusion at why this charted, and especially so high, rather than having any intrigue in why, but I looked it up anyway. Paul Harvey is a man from Sussex with dementia who is able to improvise beautiful piano melodies with only four notes as a reference point, hence the name. This was recorded by his son Nick and posted onto Twitter, where it soon became viral. This composition was then arranged by Daniel Whibley and recorded by the BBC’s Philharmonic Orchestra to be released as a charity single with proceeds being split between the Alzheimer’s Society and Music for Dementia. This isn’t a song I can critique. The arrangement is really pretty and it was in the original video, with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra only serving to make it sound grander and fitting for a single release. Dementia, Alzheimer’s and any kind of brain disorder are all really tragic and really depressing things to happen to anybody, especially to the people it tends to affect: the elderly. It’s sweet that this is a single and I like that it charted high so those organisations that can assist science in treating these disorders and give help to those with family members diagnosed with and suffering from brain disorders have more funding. The song sounds good, it’s mixed well and honestly it’s pretty gorgeous at times, and if this helps people, then it’s done its job, and I commend Harvey and his son, Daniel Whibley and the BBC for letting this happen. Now for something completely different.

#26 – “Deluded” – Tion Wayne featuring MIST

Produced by Steel Banglez and Chris Rich Beats

Steel Banglez, Tion Wayne and MIST? God, maybe we are returning to the new normal; this is a 2019 line-up. Tion Wayne is a character and a presence on the track always and MIST is quite the opposite, but that “So High” song with Fredo was pretty cool, I suppose. Tion Wayne has always been more of an entertaining presence than half this crop of drill rappers, even if his flow and bars suffer from it, but he’s always a lot more fun and he does have a couple punchlines that hit. This particular song uses that “mm-mm” flow that originated on his track “Keisha & Becky”, and both him and MIST sound really interested and enthused here, as they trade bars in the verses and support each other with ad-libs throughout. The two seem to actually have some chemistry and it’s not an unnatural collaboration. Even in Tion Wayne’s solo chorus, MIST is shouting behind him, and it overall makes the song really aggressive and punchy, even if some of the lyrics are just kind of uninteresting or even confusing, like the oddly-specific jab at an unnamed crack abuser, always referred to as “you” in the song. Is the listener a crack addict? Should I be scared? I’m not entirely sure, but this kind of slaps, especially the keys and vocal sample in the outro. It kind of reminds me of a harsher version of the #1 hit back from 2018, “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo, except these guys are legitimately menacing in the song and the bass-heavy drill beat never subtracts from that, not to say that “Funky Friday” is a bad song (far from it). It’s not about being able to convince me with lyrics, it’s about being able to sell what you say effectively and interestingly – not even uniquely, but just in a way that’s presentable and leads to genuinely good music. M Huncho and Nafe Smallz could take a couple hints from these guys.

#16 – “motive” – Ariana Grande and Doja Cat

Produced by TBHits, Joseph L’Etranger, Mr. Franks and Murda Beatz

Murda Beatz, huh? Well, I haven’t listened to Positions yet, mostly because I’ve been bumping Goddamn Bring Me the Horizon for the past week, but also because 14 tracks of the same song doesn’t necessarily interest me. For the sake of the show I probably should check the album out – it’s not that long – but don’t expect me to have that a positive opinion on it. I said my peace on Grande last week and given the singles I seriously doubt this album will erase my continuous issues with her projects. I’ve always felt that despite her unbelievable talent, she is also unbelievably disinterested and detached from her own music to the point where whatever artistic contributions and creativity she and her team had is completely washed out by the questionable production, weak-sauce trap beats and misguided song ideas (I still roll my eyes on “7 rings” and “sweetener”). From what I’ve heard from this new album, it has a lot more classic R&B keys and strings undercut by trap skitters and modern vocal production, and this is pretty clear in “motive”, a funky house-inspired dance-pop tune that feels miles less robotic and factory-made than most house on the charts, instead going for an organic fast-paced groove and mildly annoying vocal samples. The trap breakdown in the pre-chorus is what gives Murda Beatz the right to put his producer tag at the start of the song, which is honestly just funny. I do like the verses but the chorus doesn’t hit in quite the same way it should, possibly that pre-chorus is just garbage and it doesn’t build to an effective crescendo for the chorus to build up on off of whispery murmuring. Oh, and Doja Cat is here, which took me by surprise when she started lazily rapping since Ari actually sounded like her in the second verse. In fact, this is a Doja Cat song in all but lead artist credit and honestly, the song kind of suffers because of it. This is decent, I suppose, but a collaboration that doesn’t favour either artist.

#9 – “34+35” – Ariana Grande

Produced by ProdByXavi, Mr. Franks, Peter Lee Johnson and TBHits

Ariana Grande’s albums have disproportionate producer credit to producer effort ratio. At least there’s not a M-M-M-Murda on this one. The song title is stupid but this was pushed to radio so I guess it has to be family-friendly PG clean to some degree. It is interesting how it goes for the absurdity of being dirty over Disney-like orchestral blossoms and pretty nice-sounding strings, but it doesn’t go far enough other than the chorus. It’s missing a good, effective, funny opening line, and I feel that the verses are pretty lacking. The pre-chorus is almost cringeworthy and just going into bizarre levels of horny on main but that is very much the point of the whole thing. “You know I keep it squeaky”? I find it almost difficult to take this song as anything more than a joke, but she does have some pretty commanding tones when she asks him to “just give me them babies” and the snarky laugh in the intro combined with pretty slick albeit absolutely stupid punchlines that go from so bad it’s good territory to just unabashedly ridiculous and embracing itself as such. I love the falsetto in the chorus even if it is just building up to that stupid title that is nowhere near as clever as Ari thinks it is. By the way, she completely delivers here and it’s a pretty damn great performance from her, one of her most enthusiastic on record, even with her now typical “yuh”s spread throughout. Hell, the rap verse actually works this time mostly because her charisma actually comes through and the trap skitter has some energy this time, unlike “7 rings”. I don’t get the end where she says she was never good at maths, though, because “34 + 35 = 69” is a pretty solid and correct albeit obviously simple calculation. You got the answer, give it a tick in a different colour pen.

Got the neighbours yellin’, “Earthquake!” / 4.5 when I make the bed shake

There’s a song in the top 10 that uses the moment magnitude scale as a sex metaphor. 2020, everyone.

Conclusion

Let’s cut to the chase: Best of the Week goes to Bring Me the Horizon and BABYMETAL for “Kingslayer”, which should have been obvious. I’m so glad I expanded beyond the top 40 on this show. It means I can talk about songs like that in depth. Honourable Mention might actually go to Ariana Grande’s “34+35” on plain fun alone, although the similarly numeric “1x1” did get close. The Worst of the Week is really a toss-up because there was a lot of disposable filler between the good and interesting stuff this week had to offer. I’ll probably go with “Flooded” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Too Many Nights” by 220 KID and JC Stewart. Both are just impressively lacking in effort or any appeal I can search for, but knowing my luck, they’ll both be “Old Town Road”-level big. Here’s our top 10:

Thanks for reading this! You can follow me @cactusinthebank on Twitter and I need some sleep. See you next week!

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Dave Oberle ...

A Gryphon, is a legendary creature with the head, talons, and wings of an eagle, and the body of a lion - they’re also a band from the UK who, following a lengthy absence, have returned from various personal quests, to once more bring forth their magical sounds to knights and maidens throughout our wondrous lands. What am I talking about?

Gryphon - like the mythical creature which inspired the group's name - is a hybrid of astounding musicians, from varying backgrounds, whose aim was to fuse several different musical styles into their own original music.

The group formed out of the Royal College of Music in London, in the early 1970s. Whilst the founder members were studying classical courses, both had strong musical interests in other spheres ; fascinated from an early age, by medieval and pre-classical music, with a passion for everything from Church music to contemporary folk and progressive rock. This diversity of tastes and influences encouraged them to form a group with a 3rd member, who had predominantly folk and jazz-tinged tastes. For a short while they existed as a trio - playing in simulated medieval eating houses! - until ‘Gryphon's’ line-up was, for then, completed by the arrival of former rock band drummer, David Oberle, in 1972 ; securing his roles of lead vocalist, and percussionist.

From that point on, the group really took shape. Drawing initially on a nucleus of renaissance pieces and re-arranged folk tunes, they easily developed their own distinctive style. By the beginning of 1973 they had started recording their first album for Transatlantic: "Gryphon (TRA 262) - and, with that record's release, there was a great surge of interest in the group. 5 albums, and a number of high profile tours later, Gryphon were lauded in a wide variety of newspapers, had appeared on several major television shows, and performed the unique feat of appearing on BBC Radio's 1 - 4 (inclusive) all in one week!

All this served to highlight how ‘Gryphon's’ music was universally acceptable. It stimulated the interest of folk, rock and classical buffs alike, and delighted all age groups. And then ... they went away. But where did they go? Were they whisked away on some fairytale adventure?

38 years passed by before the band reformed to play live shows, and it’s taken them 41 years to release their 6th album, aptly titled “ReInvention” (out now and available from all the usual places).

Sounds jumped at the opportunity to speak to Dave Oberle, who despite ‘Gryphon’s’ inactivity over the years, has certainly kept himself busy - he was a key member of the original Sounds Magazine team , and went on to be a founder member of rock magazine Kerrang! He’s also a producer of heavy rock bands via his label Communique Records. We caught up with him, whilst he took a break from wandering the not so mystical realms of social media ... DO : It’s a great thing, Facebook, for discovering who your fans are. We have a great number of under 25’s that have tapped into our music, and it pleases me hugely to see the rise of interested younger people in the progressive scene. It’s great for us to see what’s beginning to happen - kids are getting in touch with us as they’re discovering our records in their father’s collections, and loving it!

HR : So, you’re inspiring future audiences - Are they musicians too?

DO : I think a lot of them are. I think Gryphons root fan base has always been musicians - without wanting to sound pretentious, Gryphons music IS musicians music. You have to have some understanding of music to appreciate what the hell we’re doing! I think it would be fair to assume that most people who follow us play an instrument, but you never really know ...

Over the years we’ve all agreed that we felt our music reached people who liked all sorts of music - we’re pretty eclectic ourselves - there are a lot of influences , right the way from rock through baroque, medieval, renaissance, blues, jazz, classical - everything you can think of in one huge melting pot.

HR : In the very beginning, what prompted you to combine traditional folk music with medieval?

DO : It started off - Richard Harvey and Brian Gulland met each other at the Royal College of Music. Brian was studying choral and Richard was studying early music. They both played in a classical music ensemble called ‘Musica Reservata’. Gryphon came together properly once Graeme Taylor, the guitarist , joined ; who’s influences were people like John Renbourn and that style of guitar playing ; then rather unusually they approached me to join them - bear in mind at the time I was playing in a heavy rock band. So bringing a heavy rock drummer into something like that was a little strange ... but it worked! The one thing that was missing, I think, was a solid rhythm. I had to adapt what I was doing to fit in - it was quite difficult for me to go from playing rock to playing 5/4, or 7/4!

We started playing in folk clubs, really because they were the most open minded to what we were doing and took us seriously , with our folk influence. Further than that we didn’t know what was going to happen.

HR : Quite - You were pioneers of the sound at that time ...

DO : Well there were bands around like Jethro Tull, Amazing Blondell, which were in a similar vein and leant towards folk with a medieval tinge, but we were certainly the first band to step into that area and bring in front of the general public.

HR : I can’t imagine that Crumhorns and Bassoons had ever been used in rock music before ...

DO : NO and probably never will be again! [laughs] I think the actual sound of Gryphon is what attracted people because nobody had heard instruments like that - not quite true with the people who were interested in medieval music - they would have know what a Crumhorn was, but the average person in the street wouldn’t have had a clue!

I suppose it was a period of education for people who weren’t sure what was going on. Once the band got going I remember we did a concert at the Victoria & Albert museum in London, which was more like a lecture where we explained what the instruments were, and where they came from - from there the whole thing just expanded ; suddenly medieval instruments became interesting, and people associated the sound with what we were doing, and it was a very different sound - it still is.

We were out playing recently and I was amazed by how many people come up who are fascinated by the vast array of instruments that we have on stage. Between the 6 of us in the new line-up we’re playing between 50 and 60 instruments. It’s a hugely diverse sound.

HR : The expanse of festival stage is really ideal then, when you have what is essentially a mini orchestra! Gryphon had had quite a hiatus before you reformed to play live - what inspired the reunion?

DO : When the band split up in 1977 we really just disappeared without trace as many bands did under the onslaught of Punk.

The idea of doing a farewell/reunion gig had been on the cards for quite a few years but it had never been talked about seriously. Finally he were all together one evening and it was decided that we should go ahead and just do it. It was 2009, and at that time we had nearly 200,000 hits on our website, so we thought that there was definitely something going on and that the support for the band was still very evident.

We decided on a London venue - Queen Elizabeth Hall on the south bank - and we managed to fill the place without any advertising. Then it all fell flat again because the various members of the band had other commitments, but our presence started to grow through social media from there, and in 2014 we decided to put our toes in the water again. In 2015, we did 6 shows all of which were brilliantly well attended, and in 2016 we were invited by Fairport to go and open Cropredy too - which was just perfect.

HR : It’s remarkable really, especially as you didn’t have any new music to promote at the time ...

DO : No. We were not in a position at that time to have a new album ready, so we decided that we would just go out and play material from the first 4 albums plus a couple of new dances.

HR : You’ve got quite a spectrum of musical styles to perform, but from a recording perspective, why did you move from acoustic to electric on the early albums?

DO : After “Midnight Mushrumps” when we got to “Red Queen”, we’d be taken on by Worldwide Artists - which was run by Brian Lane , who at the time was managing YES, Rick Wakeman and couple of others. Rick was a friend of Richard and Brian’s from the RCM, and he introduced us to Brian Lane. Within a few weeks of being signed up, we were on our way to America to support YES.

During that time, we’d all been great fans of the prog scene, and the Canterbury scene - Caravan, King Crimson etc - and whilst we weren’t pressured in any way, “Red Queen” was really our first step into prog ; using a lot more electronic instruments, and taking a bit of a step back from the medieval side of things - Brian was still playing his bassoon and we still used Krum Horns and recorders, but it wasn’t to such a great extent. Richard now had a great Rick Wakemanesque bank of keyboards surrounding him for a start, and we moved into a different phase ... “Red Queen” was the album that we toured the states with.

HR : I can’t imagine the magnitude of touring with YES - they were huge! DO : It was amazing! The response in America was great because we were so quintessentially English , playing all these really weird instruments, and so we went down a storm. We played at places like the Houston Astrodome, and Madison Square Gardens in New York. Definitely the highlights of my musical career would centre around those dates. We came back to the UK and did another leg with them here - probably 150 dates in all. It got to the point where we knew their music as well as they did, and for the last few dates of the American tour in the mid 1970s we would go onstage and join them for their encores, which was quite an experience.

HR : Given that exposure, and the fact that you’d already changed your sound for “Red Queen”, was it a conscious decision to move back to a more traditional sound?

DO : Sort of, yes. The album after “Red Queen”, was “Raindance” - there were still hangovers from “Red Queen”, but there were a lot more, I suppose commercial sounding shorter tracks - we’d been into doing 10 - 15 minute tracks, and suddenly we were producing 2 and 3 minute songs.

The thing about ‘Gryphon’, I believe, is that if I was to play all 5 albums to someone who didn’t know ‘Gryphon’, they would think they were listening to 5 completely different bands. There’s nothing that really specifically links the albums, apart from certain sounds, but in terms of composition and arrangement they are 5 VERY different albums. If you listen to the 1st and the 5th, there is no comparison - you’d be very hard pushed to say “Yes that’s the same band!”

HR : Does that mean that you’ve never labelled yourselves?

DO : We got labelled by other people .... I worked for Melody Maker and for Sounds, so I knew why it happened , journalistically - back then, things had to be pigeon-holed because if you didn’t fit in a pigeon-hole you didn’t fit, full stop. These days music is so diverse that you can’t put a band into a pigeon-hole, a band is what it is, but back then we were classed as “medieval folk rock”. Actually Chris Welch tagged us “13th Century Slade”!

HR : [laughs] that’s brilliant, but I probably shouldn’t laugh ...

DO : No, it took a long time to shake off! It was very funny, and a great thing for our PR guys, but we weren’t Slade. Having said that though, in the popularity stakes - our average audience did, and still does, range from Hells Angels to Nuns, and so far as I know we are the only band who have ever managed to get onto BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the same week - which gives you an idea of the breadth of our audience, and even BBC 6 Music recently played the whole of “Midnight Mushrumps”.

HR : You have quite a few unique achievements to your name ...

DO : We have?

HR : Weren’t you the only band ever to play at the Old Vic?

DO : Ah, yes! The reason for that was - we were approached by Sir Peter Hall , who was running the National Theatre at the time and he asked us if we’d write the music for the Royal Shakespeare Companies production of “The Tempest” ; which is where a lot of the music from “Midnight Mushrumps” came from. It was originally written for the RSC, but was adapted and is how “Midnight Mushrumps” came into existence. That was a huge honour, and a one off.

‘Gryphon’ are a bit of a one off really, aren’t we? I don’t think there are any comparisons - I seriously can’t think of anything that gets even close to what we are and what we’re doing. There have been a few copy cat bands along the way, and a few bands who have gone along similar lines but I still think Gryphon is unique, and all 5 of the albums are unique in their own way - but what it really comes down to, more than anything else is the standard of musicianship and composition - and now we’ve got Graham Preskett in the band too, who has played with everyone under the sun, and getting him onboard was a major achievement. He was Gerry Rafferty’s keyboard player and arranged all the big hits like Baker Street and Night Owl, and things like that. He knew Richard at college too, so there’s some old school stuff going on there, and he’s been invaluable in terms of helping to recreate the sound.

HR : That kind of chemistry is very important

DO : Oh completely. You have to have the right people in a band like ‘Gryphon’ or it wouldn’t work. And it does work. People are still playing the music, people are still interested, and really Helen, what proves it to us is the amount of people who came out to see us last year. I’m immensely proud of the band and the guys that I work with. Richard in particular, who’s gone onto write film music and work with Hans Zimmer, and worked in Hollywood with a lot of people - he’s an incredibly talented musician. It’s very strange, how a bunch of naughty school boys as we were back then, have all ended up being in prominent places in the music, and film industry.

HR : Is it not the naughty schoolboy edge that keeps it fresh for everybody?

DO : Absolutely! The other thing about ‘Gryphon’ is that it was all very irreverent and a big joke as we were concerned, certainly at 18 and 19 years old - but what is great is that feeling has carried on even after 38 years of not playing together. When we get back on stage we slip straight back into the flinging insults at each other, and it keeps the audience involved.

HR : 38 years was quite a break though ...

DO : [laughs] yes - yes, and mainly because everyone had gone off doing other things, there was no other reason for it - it just wasn’t until 2 or 3 years ago that we could take up the gauntlet again. Richard had been out on the road with John Williams, the guitarist, who decided to retire from touring - and that was the first time that he was available, and with him being the front man, we could NOT do ‘Gryphon’ without him. He wanted to carry on playing live, because writing film music is actually quite a lonely existence, and the only time you ever get to hear what you’ve written is when the orchestra is playing it, and its being recorded, and then it’s gone. I think in every musician, whatever they do, there is a desire and a need to play live. It’s completely different to being in the studio where you can overdub, and re-record and correct mistakes - out there live, you’re exposed and what you produce that night is what you produce and that’s it - from that perspective for any musician, playing live is incredibly important. It comes and it goes. You create in that moment. If you’re lucky, when you try to record or film a live album, you’ll capture the essence of what you’re trying to create, but it’s tough, and can go really wrong! We played at the Union Chapel in 2015, and we filmed the 3rd movement of “Midnight Mushrumps”, which really gave people who can’t come and see us, a taste of what they’re missing!

Gryphon - “Magic Mushrumps 3rd Movement”, live at Union Chapel 2015 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMK6tWbUOA

HR : Talking of studio albums - It’s been 41 years Dave ...

DO : [laughs] We’d been promising our fans for a long time, but because of various things going on for various members of the band, it’s just been impossible. I’m sure people think “but you’re musicians, you can write an album in a week and get it recorded” but with ‘Gryphons’ music we probably write about 3 minutes in a week!

HR : But it is here ... FINALLY! Are you happy with it?

DO : Yes we are. We all think that it works very well. New material but with the feel of the old Gryphon. We have indeed ReInvented ourselves. A difficult thing to do after 41 years. Our fans have responded really well to it and we appear to be getting some good airplay and reviews.

HR : Was the material written over that vast break, or is it all pretty recent?

Most of the material is recent apart from “Ashes” which should have been included on the “Raindance” album but was rejected by the record company much to our annoyance. We have given it a makeover and are very pleased with the result. The longest Track “Haddock’s Eyes” was written by Graeme and is based on the ‘White Knight’s Tale’ from Alice Through The Looking Glass. We have tried to re-connect with our ‘Alice’ roots and John Hurford who did the cover artwork and design was really helpful with this.

HR : Did you feel that it was important to stay true to ‘Gryphons’ original sound?

DO : I think that any band who forget their roots and where they came from are in danger of losing their way. We did for a while after “Red Queen” so when a new album was finally discussed we felt it important to ourselves and our fans, to remain true to that original direction. You can hear it very strongly on “ReInvention”. It’s everything you would expect from a Gryphon album, Folk, Prog, Jazz, a strong medieval flavour, classical overtones and downright straight Rock.

HR : I have to say that I think it’s worth the wait, so Congratulations! And in the personal life of Dave - are you working on any new projects outside of Gryphon at the moment?

DO : No – Gryphon is taking up all my time at the moment. HR : You haven’t been completely off the musical radar over the years though have you - can we mention your involvement with ‘Gandalf’s Fist’? They seem to be very popular ...

DO : Aaaaagh! ‘Gandalf’s Fist’. Yes! I recorded vocal sessions for their “Clockwork Fable” album. Dean Marsh is a very talented young man, and I have great hopes for them - Even more so after Classic Rock Magazine voted them number 3 in their top 100 albums. That’s really quite an achievement, and I’m chuffed and quite proud to be involved with them. It was the first thing I’d been happy to put my name to in the past 10 years.

HR : Well, between them and Gryphon, you’re doing a sterling job at helping to keep the British prog scene alive so - thanks Dave!

DO : You’re very welcome. It’s nice to know that people are still following what we’re up to, after having taken such a long break. When you come back after that length of time, you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen. We could have leaped out there and ended up playing to 3 people, but we didn’t, and it’s nice to know that the music is still appreciated ...

HR : It’s called standing the test of time ...

DO : Which is more than we have! [laughs]

For more info, or to get your hands on a copy of "ReInvention", please visit http://www.thegryphonpages.com/

#gryphon #progressive rock #orchestral rock #crumhorn #kerrang #reinvention #drumminglife #percussions #drummer #daveoberle

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herselfportrait · 5 years

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INTERVIEW: ALEXANDER MILAS

(Written for Soundsphere Magazine)

In the boxing ring of journalism, Alexander Milas has more than a fair few champion title belts under his name - a little less heavyweight, a little more heavy metal. Embarking as a contributor to Kerrang!, the British oracle on all things hard rock, Milas interviewed a spectrum of the genre’s fabled heroes from Metallica and Slipknot to ‘The Prince of Darkness’ himself, Ozzy Osbourne. With his work across a smattering of publications, his career reached its apex when he became Metal Hammer’s Editor-in-Chief. Picking off the mammoth titles of GQ and Timeout, Milas has been crowned PPA Editor of Year during his decade at the iconic heavy metal music magazine. You might wonder where you could possibly go next, but Alexander Milas shows no signs of slowing down.

“So many people hate the way they’re going to spend their daytime,” Milas speaks, considering his departure from Metal Hammer. “Because I experienced that misery really early on, that has always motivated me to chase things that I’m passionate about. That hasn’t always helped my bank account, but it has always felt like I’ve never wasted my time. I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to do after writing for Metal Hammer. It led to me travelling around the world and meeting so many cool musicians and bands. I didn’t just want to take a desk job and kind of retire – I’m only 40 (which I know sounds like I’m older than time itself to most people), but I still feel like I have a lot ahead of me. I decided I was going to start something of my own and follow my instincts and resulted in Twin V.”

Twin V is a creative solutions company that has become Milas’ full-time occupation since 2017. The award-winning network of photographers, directors, social-media strategists, community managers, audio producers, and journalists, chaired and founded by Milas himself, have produced programmes for Iron Maiden; feature-length documentaries for Amon Amarth; and have even collaborated with the European Space Agency. “A lot of people think Twin V is to do with engines,” Milas laughs, “but the name was inspired by the legend that English archers and their longbows were so effective against mounted, heavily-armoured knights that they’d often have their first two, bowstring-drawing fingers chopped off when they were captured. Holding their two fingers up in the two-fingered salute became a common taunt. It has been a real ride, two years in, and it has been a lot of fun.”

Within two years, Twin V’s clients have been prestigious to say the least. Their work with the European Space Agency gave rise to Spacerocks: a celebration of space exploration and the art, music, and culture it inspires. In 2018, Twin V managed to secure Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May and ESA astronaut Tim Peake at Spacerocks’ panel show at the O2 in London. Speaking on Twin V’s rapid success, Milas is quick to say, “Your relationships are everything.” He continues, “If you ask yourself what a relationship is, it’s just trust. You’ve got to be relied on to do things, and I guess that’s where a lot of it came from. Some of the first people I worked with were people that I knew. Spacerocks, however, was very different. I felt like I had to get out of my own lane for a change, and I had a great opportunity to do that. James Isaacs was the extraordinary arts editor at Metal Hammer who is also a great creative; Todd O’Sullivan, the guy who produces The Golden Gun, it was made a lot easier because I’d had these great relationships with people I’d worked with for years. That’s the defining characteristic of everything successful that I have done: I have worked with great people. A lot of people make this happen, out front and behind the scenes. With Spacerocks, working with a European space agency, that’s a whole new set of relationships, which is of course very different from the music industry. You’d be surprised to know that a lot of people there really love music and art, and want to see it go forward.”

‘Successful’ isn’t quite the word Milas would use to describe himself. “Nothing I do feels successful at the time because I’m in the middle of it. I’m conscious that from the outside it looks like there’s a lot going on, but the truth is, like anybody, I’m still hungry and always looking for what’s next.” He reflects. “I think the worst thing you can ever do is coast on the inertia of past success. It’s done. It’s over. It’s all about what you’re doing right now and being in the moment. What I love about Twin V is that though it’s not always easy, it has given me a huge amount of freedom to literally create things. It’s a huge privilege. If I wake up in the morning and love what I’m doing, then I’m on the right path.”

There is a promise of more progress with Spacerocks for 2019; between that, and a number of hush-hush projects Milas wants to keep under wraps, he tells us that one project that is on the cusp of launching is World Metal Congress. The inspiration for his, he reveals, was an extension of his work at Metal Hammer. He flew to Mumbai, and other unlikely places across the world, and discovered incredible heavy metal music scenes. “It was just so energising to see so many people cooperating in that way, not only making amazing music, but really caring about metal.” He tells us. “Quite a lot of Metal Hammer’s coverage was about bands from further afield: Indonesia, Afghanistan, Syria – the list goes on. Once I left Metal Hammer, I didn’t want to just let that go. Working with an amazing team of people, we managed to organise a two-day event where we invite people from the industry – not just from the US or the UK – but the world. We’re talking musicians from as far away as Singapore, South Africa India, Lebanon. It’s really a global community. One thing that we hope to achieve is creating a forum for people to connect on a worldwide scale. There will be panels, bands playing, a couple of screenings, one of which is about the metal scene in Syria. Can you believe that exists?”

When we asked Alexander Milas to tell us what moment was the highlight of his career, it is quite an unlikely choice. “We got a bunch of metal-heads to write that metal was their religion on the UK census. That was brilliant – not because we beat the scientologists and the druids – but just because it pissed off a lot of people and stirred an incredible debate. I think I must have done 60 interviews around the world about that very thing. We’re having fun, but we were making a very serious point. There are a lot of people for whom heavy metal is more than a genre, it’s a lifestyle. People take it very seriously; it’s worth paying attention to. It felt like a middle finger up to all sorts of people, which I felt was in the spirt of metal.”

This shares a joint position of pride with creating Heavy Metal Truants, a charity he devised with Rob Smallwood, the manager of Iron Maiden. The now infamous charity cycle rides have generated more than £600,000 (not far at all from their goal of a very fitting £666,000) for children’s charities such as Nordoff Robbins, Teenage Cancer Trust, and Childline. “Gosh, that’s an ongoing joy,” Milas says.

The advice Alexander Milas has to offer applies not only to journalists, but to any creative. His pearls of wisdom are particularly valuable, after having worked in the industry for decades with people of all positions and walks of life – and, of course, having the honour of being top of the pile. “I feel unworthy to dispense advice really, because in many ways I’m still learning myself.” He confesses. “One thing that I have learned is that ‘it’ll do’ is not good enough – ever. You have to hold yourself to as a high a standard as possible at all times. It’s important to develop and cultivate your contacts. Don’t get over-ambitious; what you see as a photographer when looking at someone in the pit shooting a big band is someone holding a camera, but what you won’t see is how it took 25 years of experience to get there. Patience and humility to learn, enjoying the process, realising that you’re not going to get there today, but maybe tomorrow or the next day or the next day is a big part of it. I think, in a creative industry, you’re probably an idealist at some level because you’ve decided that you want to make the world better. Maybe you want to make it more visually appealing, maybe you want to share things that you are passionate about, so I think that this can lead to impatience. I am 42 years old, and I have never felt that I have reached a plateau that I am happy with. It’s not about reaching a plateau, it’s about asking yourself ‘Do I love what I am doing? Am I happy?’. If you’re waiting for some bright afternoon where everything falls into place, then you’re in the wrong industry. You’ve got to understand that there is always someone who’s going to be further along, and those are the people you can learn from. Let them be your guiding light. I’m very much on the same journey that anyone starting out is, except I’m probably just a little bit further ahead. The best advice I can give to any creative working in any field that is self-driven is to stay optimistic. It’s so easy to be beaten down by rejection, failure and competition. Every gets that way, including me, which is probably symptomatic of being a sensitive creative type. Tomorrow is always another day.”

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regular-lord-reckoner · 7 years

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AFI: Secret Nazis?!?!

Alright, so...let’s jump into this, I guess

I’ve posted before about Davey’s clothing line Eat Your Own Tail here because that’s just a wholllllle bucket of problems, although like I said in my post, I’m not gonna take that as solid 1000% proof that dude’s a secret Nazi

Do I think what he’s doing there is the most responsible thing? No. Have I called him out on it? Yes. Is he gonna do something about it? Idk, that remains to be seen

I realize that this has caused a looooot of emotional turmoil for fans and it’s even garnered the attention of non-fans who have looked further into the band and the situation as a whole and there’s a post going around that lays out what it claims to be proof that AFI is basically a beehive of racism

And here’s the thing, like...we all understand on just a base line level that white people are inherently racist. We were born into a racist society and we benefit from white privilege and it’s not like reading a few articles or watching 13th magically cures any of us of being racist

Is it possible that this group or at least half of it is totally fucking racist and at the very least Nazi sympathizers? I mean...yeah, anything’s possible.

Given some of the posed arguments, though...Idk. I might be an oblivious fan over here with my head stuck up my own ass, but I’m not swayed by arguments such as “They have a song called ‘White Offerings’” as proof of them being racist

Like...okay, and?

These are the lyrics:

If I were only If I were only here I'd try I'd try to give you little birds I've made Oh, everyone takes flight never to return again White offerings are all I bring Welcome to white room, white room White offerings are all I bring I welcome you, I offer you this white room If I were only If I were only here I'd try I'd try to gift you paper birds I free And you'd set fire to my sky Oh, but I will offer you White offerings are all I bring Welcome to white room, white room White offerings are all I bring I welcome you, I offer you this white room I can feel your color changing I can feel your color changing I can feel your color changing I can feel it change White offerings are all I bring Welcome to white room, white room White offerings are all I bring I welcome you, I offer you this white room White White room White room White offerings are all I bring I offer you this white room

Now, perhaps I’m just super duper ignorant here, but...this doesn’t sound like a pro-ethnic cleansing anthem to me ????

As someone who’s listened to this band for years I can tell you that the lyrics often reference colors (white, black, gold, grey, etc.) and that there are a loooooot of songs about failed relationships

Another way of looking at this song could be that the use of the color white here is symbolism for the absence of something. I’m no color theory major, but I know a lot of people tend to think of white as being the absence of color (which I feel like is actually wrong but regardless it’s still something people believe so bear with me)

You could interpret this song as being about a situation being disturbed or changing, becoming tumultuous or chaotic. “I offer you stability and you reject that” in other words.

Or, y’know, you could take it to mean Davey wants to see the destruction of all other races, that’s a thing, too.

I guess by that logic any time I hear the word white in a song sung by a white dude I’m gonna have to rethink everything. I’m lookin’ at you, Thom Yorke and your “Daydreaming” song. “WHITE room, by window?” I see you.

Another point was that Kerrang! magazine rated AFI’s most recent album with a series of Ks because their name begins with a K so I guess instead of stars they made the piss poor decision to giving albums ratings in Ks? Or maybe just this one? I don’t fuckin’ know, but it sounds like Kerrang!’s problem if you ask me, but Idk maybe Davey asked for that rating specifically as a shout out to his brothers in the klan.

Yet another point is in XTRMST lyrics and this one I can see because that’s some angry, violent shit but...here’s the thing, I dunno why we all suddenly have amnesia and are pretending that we don’t know what that band’s purpose was

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t XTRMST supposed to be an angry, violent straight edge thing? Meaning...the references to Xs have to do with straight edge symbolism. The lyrics are talking about drugs culture, alcohol culture, meat/dairy culture, and religion? The talk about eradicating shit is in reference to doing away with society’s acceptance of what Davey perceives to be toxic behaviors and mindsets as they pertain to drugs, alcohol, meat/dairy consumption, and religion.

Because it’s not really any big secret that these are things Davey has a pretty big problem with, like he’s not been quiet about that in interviews and in songs and look, like...I like AFI and shit, but I do find some of that shit to be borderline obnoxious

I bought into straight edge culture at one point in time and thought myself morally superior and better than, etc.,etc and now I’m just like...let people fucking live their lives, man. If someone wants to get fucked up on drugs, that’s their choice. If someone wants to believe in something I don’t, I’m cool with that as long as they don’t try to force it down my throat. If someone wants to eat meat and consume dairy I’m cool, just don’t insist that everyone else do the same and we’ll be okay

So yeah, on that level that kinda makes him a dick, like I get that he has strong feelings about this shit, but the name XTRMST itself suggests that he knows as much but he’s gonna go ahead with it anyway

But like I said, I get how you could look at that, especially given everything else, and be like, “Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes” And I could be totally ass wrong about this, I really could

My thing is, though...I’m trying not to go into this with confirmation bias. Like...I think people are understandably uncomfortable and displaced with the EYOT shit, fine. But I think now people are looking into other things and trying to find further evidence to compound this situation and I just...I’m not sure it’s really there???

Again, I could be totally, totally ass wrong and if I am then believe you me I’ll be right there with you throwing away all my posters and albums and shit because fucking no, man

But like...before I start just burning everything down and wailing and screaming I’m gonna try to take a step back and really think about this shit and think about what the other possible explanations could be

Ideally, yes, they would be 100% up front about this and it would be clear as fucking DAY where they stand and I realize that’s caused a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and I feel ya on that one, I do

But I think it’s also worth noting that like...people have pointed out how good Hunter and Adam especially have been about speaking out against all the bullshit that’s been happening lately in the world and with politics. And if nothing else, maybe that’s something to consider?

Because here’s the thing, either these two are somehow completely hookwinked by their bandmates and somehow would have just no-fucking-clue whatsoever that they’ve been friends with Nazis for like 20 some odd years and they’re completely innocent in this or...

They’re okay with it. They don’t think it’s that big of a deal and by proxy then, they’re assholes as well and belong in the trash right alongside Davey and Jade

And I would hope to fuckin’ god that Adam especially isn’t in the latter category because heyyyyy someone tell his wife she needs to fuckin’ run because apparently Adam’s down with his bandmates wanting to kill her

So, there’s that.

Again, like...I’m not here trying to excuse a bunch of shit and act like, “my faves aren’t problematic!!!” because uh, yeah, they are

Personally, I’m of the camp that I think Davey’s clothing line disaster was an effort to try to pay homage to the occult/witchcraft shit it’s just...so many of those fuckin’ symbols and shit are tainted now and should probably go in the fucking trash, Idk. Being that that’s the theme I could understand why there’s an image of a church with a noose in front of it because correct me if I’m wrong, but supposed witches were hung in the gallows in addition to being burned and thrown in rivers with pockets full of stones and being that this persecution came from churches, well...ya know

But again, the image of a noose brings up a lot of other shit that, given this whole situation makes people go, “Eh????” so I get that, I do, I’m just saying like...that’s not the only explanation, especially when you put the image in the context of what at least was trying to be intended here

Again, though, I could very well be wrong and this whole thing could Davey’s way of trying to make his Nazi affiliation be known, I’m not necessarily ruling that one out because the world’s a fucking garbage dump, my country’s basically on fire, and I say you kill your heroes and fly, fly baby don’t cry because people you look up to usually end up disappointing and devastating you in some way or another, right? Might as well go big or go fuckin’ home in this case

As of right now, though, right in this moment I’m sorry but I can’t get on this bandwagon of, “Let’s throw all AFI shit away and wash my hands of this!!!” because I feel like this is a clusterfuck of a situation and that there are other explanations besides, “Well clearly this is the work of some racist mother fuckers who want ethnic cleansing”

Yes, XTRMST lyrics are...what they are and maybe I’m being misdirected by the creators themselves, but if you look at the songs again from the lens of someone who’s talking about rejecting/destroying these things that he finds abhorrent (again, drug culture, religion, consumption of meat/dairy, drinking) it leaves less room to interpret it as, “Oh, well clearly this is all about ridding the world of races other than white”

Hold Davey accountable for his misstep with his clothing line and keep trying to reach out, try to get him to listen because I agree that even if his intentions were good, even if he was trying to reclaim these images back to their original context, given the climate of things right now it’s A. not really his place to be doing so and B. just overall not a good idea and comes off as super sketchy and not okay

But I will implore you, if I can, to not jump to conclusions. To not try to twist every lyric you find that has the word “white” in it into something it’s more than likely not. And to just sort of take a step back if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed and upset

Also to realize that yes, we need to do our best to recognize and identify and reject symbols that have Nazi affiliations, but to also realize that guys, there are...a fuck ton. Because as I said in my other post, that’s part of their insidious nature is to hijack shit that doesn’t belong to them and fucking taint it and ruin it for everyone else. The fucking Swastika should tell you as much (and although there are cultures that have since given up the symbol there are some that still continue to use it because it belonged to them first and they refuse to let someone take it from them, fair enough).

In the case of the occult/witchcraft symbolism Nazis have borrowed pretty heavily from this well. The image of three figures cloaked in black has been circulating with some of these posts. These, again, are images meant to signify the occult, these are as far as I know meant to represent witches. The pointed hood, however, lends itself to klan imagery which came after and which stole from this look, taking the all black look and turning it all white. You could then argue that continuing to use the all black imagery is a middle finger to the klan for trying to re-purpose and make shitty what doesn’t belong to them, but that’s sort of a tricky area, I think. I’ve seen recent photos taken of covens at some of the protests that have been happening and these individuals are still wearing the black garb with pointed hoods because it’s still integral to their imagery. If the two are too similar, though, I think we need to have a larger discussion then about what needs to be done in those communities regarding certain imagery, wardrobe, and symbolism and if Davey wants to get in on that and contribute in a positive way, then great. If not then that’s unfortunate and we need to continue to try to address that point with him.

And here’s the thing, like...I get it, man. Nobody wants to be the fucking asshole. Nobody wants to have egg on their face and it’s better to err on the side of caution by just saying, “Yeah, they’re probably a bunch of racist Nazi fucks, fuck them” because if you’re wrong then...oh well, but if you’re right then you dodged a bullet and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you made the right call

At the same time, though, maybe don’t make villains out of people because they’ve done problematic shit? Still hold them accountable for what they’ve done wrong, absolutely, but like...you don’t have to go on a fucking treasure hunt to uncover more fucked up shit that might not even be there to support your argument

I think the clothing line shit within itself is bad enough without having to take lyrics out of their original context in order to say, “And as you can see, this clearly proves my point that these dudes are racist as FUCK”

They may very well be, but I guess I say all of this to say I’m gonna need something besides what’s been provided to convince me and maybe that’s just shitty and terrible and ignorant of me, maybe I’m being a stubborn fan here, but I’m just not seeing it.

I am seeing the problems with EYOT (even though I don’t think there quite as severe as some have made them out to be) but when I see these posts dragging out lyrics and shit all I can think is: it’s not that deep

I understand that this is a serious and sensitive issue and I’m not saying people are wrong for being concerned, but...being that it’s a serious and sensitive issue I guess I want to see it treated with a little more care than just going, “Well, he used the word white in a song so clearly he’s racist” or “he used occult imagery that’s since been tainted by Nazi use so let’s rule out the possibility that he’s misguidedly trying to reclaim these images and instead insist that it means he’s a full blown Nazi because here’s some pictures of witches with pointed hoods and a picture of a church on fire, clearly this can’t have anything to do with his views on religion or interest in the occult, it’s gotta be the Nazi thing and the Nazi thing only and if you say different then you’re a Nazi, too!”. Like is that really helping? Nazis are a legitimate problem right now, we’re dealing with some serious shit and there are people insisting that if you don’t reach to connect these dots that you’re the real problem here. I realize that not all Nazis exist in the spot light, not all Nazis do super obvious Nazi shit, but like...we’re also not going anywhere if we’re going to, forgive me, go on a witch hunt.

Be skeptical, keep your eyes open, pay attention, watch this EYOT closely and like I said, keep trying to push this point with him if you can and hopefully we’ll get some answers or going forward he’ll start using symbols that haven’t been tainted in his designs instead. But digging into lyrics and taking shit that’s honestly likely about failed relationships and straight edge culture and twisting it to fit a certain narrative isn’t really helping anything. You can still be 100% on your fuckin’ guard about this shit without having to reach

By all means, if I end up being wrong you can come rub it in my face and tell me how badly I have fucked up and how wrong and stupid I am, but I honestly, i feel like people are jumping to conclusions here and I’m not saying there’s no basis for it whatsoever, because there is unfortunately, and I understand the mindset of “no fucking excuses” and that’s fine, but like...these arguments are just not that good, my dudes. Beyond the already established problematic use of symbols in EYOT the rest of this is relying on taking things out of context and finding a way to apply it to this particular situation and it may in all actuality be completely valid and I’m just too blind to see that right now, but I just...yeah, I can’t get on this particular outrage train

From what I’ve seen from this band so far is that even though some of its members are a little extreme in their edge life shit that overall they’ve been on the progressive side of things and before you say anything like I get it, there are people who are fairly liberal and supposedly open-minded who are still racist sacks of shit and I understand that, I’m just saying it’s something else to keep in mind

We need to be aware of who the enemies are, for goddamn sure, but I think it’s also important that we don’t make enemies out of people who might not actually be enemies.

Do your own research. Look into these symbols, see what their origins are and what the other meanings consist of. Think about shit for yourself, not just what someone else is telling you to think. You can take everything I’ve said and throw it out the goddamn window if you don’t agree and that’s fine because I don’t want someone to just mindlessly read what I’m saying and go, “Yep, that sounds good, I’m gonna believe that now!”

I think people mean well and I think you’re trying to do the right thing, I do, but I see a loooooot of people who just let someone else dictate to them what is and isn’t good and bad. Someone posts an argument and it sounds convincing and suddenly everyone’s on board with that, they’re fully behind it, but someone poses a counter argument that’s just as convincing and suddenly there’s some doubt there, there’s some uncertainty and people are reevaluating their feelings

I know it’s tempting to sit back and let someone else do your thinking for you, I fall prey to this as well, but I implore you to really take a step back here and reassess and if you feel the same way then that’s totally fine, I won’t hold it against you, but I just...I really feel like this is verging on fear-mongering and I can’t get behind it

#AFI #Davey Havok #Jade Puget #EYOT #A Fire Inside

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prettyoddfever · 3 years

Text

comments about Pretty. Odd. in 2008 that I liked

some others will be in magazine scans. I just wanted to share a few random ones:

Rock Sound: “It is a record of outward joy born from inward pain. It is the kind of record that will never make sense on the first listen. It is probably mad. But it is possibly brilliant.”

Pete Wentz: “If Willy Wonka made a record, it would sound like this.”

Blender: “Some kids discover the Beatles through their parents’ vinyl; some get wise during freshman year. Panic at the Disco’s indoctrination seems to have started with the Oasis discography and culminated in row AA at Cirque de Soleil’s LOVE revue. Well, what’s wrong with that? Panic’s cherry-picking yields several good songs, and a few that brush up against greatness… The band began at a stratospheric level of pretension. Here, they’ve relaxed, shed their grandiosity and learned how to goof around.”

Ryan Ross to NME: “This is the start of something special for us, we’re in control of our band now, we’re doing what we want to do.”

Spin Magazine: “Pretty. Odd. lives up to its title because it dares to be optimistically beautiful at a time when sadness and ugliness might have won them easier credibility.”

From the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s Advance Titan: “Pretty. Odd. is a prime display of a futile rebellion into an uncertain and shabbily-constructed identity. Regardless of quality, cohesiveness or originality, this album will sell a lot of copies, a filler song will be dressed to look the part of another radio hit and loyal fans intentionally alienated will be urged to adjust – and thus, will. A star for trying something new, but it’s best to simply recognize the young band has already painted itself into a corner in which it should just sit. In short, Pretty. Odd. is Pretty. Dull.”

Kerrang: “this is an album that is too restlessly creative to be confined to one thing… Pretty. Odd. is outlandish and accomplished: fearless, even.”

NME: “Chances are you’ll read some poisonous reviews of Pretty. Odd., but while it’s no masterpiece, it’s far from a disaster… it takes balls – proper Tony Montana-sized ones – to do what Panic at the Disco have done and, for that, they deserve credit. They’ve wrestled control of their band away from what their fans, their critics and – despite their protestations to the contrary – their record company want them to be and, for better or worse, are ploughing their own furrow.”

A review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine on BMG: … PATD shows far more humor than MCR or the Killers. That humor -- and it's possible to laugh at and laugh along with the band in equal measure here -- makes "Pretty. Odd" a giddy absurdity, as Panic at the Disco is determined to have it both ways: to make grand, pompous music while retaining their identity as pranksters. The album is so out of control, it's hard to tell whether the group planned "Pretty. Odd" to be a kaleidoscopic mess, or if occurred by happenstance, but that raggedness will appeal to the teens who loved "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out", but this bafflingly blurred Brit-pop could hook in older listeners, too, either through its genuine tunefulness or through pop junkies who will marvel at how "Folkin' Around" comes startlingly close to re-creating the sound of the Byrds circa "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", or how "Do You Know What I'm Seeing" is equal parts Morrissey parody and homage. It all adds up to a pretty and odd record and it erases no suspicions that the band aren't quite sure of what they're doing, but the glorious thing about "Pretty. Odd" is that the album works in spite of this...or perhaps because of it. Either way, this is a deliriously jumbled, left-field delight.

Rolling Stone gave the album 3.5 stars and said “Even when it's over the top, which is basically always, Pretty. Odd. sounds cheerful, with a broad sense of humor that does honor to the noble legacy of ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne. These guyliner fart-knockers may have ditched their exclamation point, but they haven't lost their fundamental ridiculousness.”

Cleveland.com: “Half the fun of listening to "Pretty. Odd." is spotting the Fab Four influences. "Pas De Chavel" gallops a la "Get Back." The neo-psychedelic "The Piano Knows Something I Don't Know" echoes the Mellotron strains of "Strawberry Fields Forever." And "From a Mountain in the Middle of the Cabins," an exercise in oom-pah-pah noir, begs to be subtitled "Son of Maxwell's Silver Hammer." PATD works everything from strings to horns to bells into a retro chamber-pop potpourri, the perfect accompaniment for all those trippy lyrics, penned by Ross... This isn't the most original album you'll hear this year, but don't panic. At least PATD had the good sense to steal from the best.”

This paragraph sums things up nicely: PATD has earned a veritable ream of critical acclaim for "Pretty. Odd." Spin awarded the set four stars, noting that PATD "have stepped up their songwriting skills" to create a "dazzling" album that is both "blindingly bright" and "optimistically beautiful." "A brave change," affirmed the New York Times' Jon Pareles, "the magnum opus of a talented band." Entertainment Weekly praised "Pretty. Odd." as "a dense... enjoyable layer cake of ideas and instrumentation," while USA Today declared it to be "unrelentingly upbeat, melodic, and punchy." Rolling Stone commended the album for its "often beautiful" songs and "broad sense of humor.

#PO

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