I just posted this video to Youtube — Michale Graves performing his song “Saturday Night.” I shot it on my tiny point-and-shoot camera when I saw his show last year in Cleveland. One of my favorite artists!

Let me tell you, I’m a big Misfits fan. Or at least I was, up until today.

Their new album came out today, and since I could get it at Best Buy for 8 bucks with a coupon, I figured I’d go out on a limb. I haven’t really liked anything they’ve done since Michale Graves left the band, and Jerry Only resorted to taking over vocal duties. Let me tell you this: Jerry Only is a mediocre bassist at best, but his bass skills are light years ahead of his vocal abilities.

And that really sticks out on “Devil’s Rain.” He belts out forgettable choruses sounding like he’s drunk and trying to sound like Graves and Danzig at the same time.

The songwriting is abysmal. The one time I listened through the album, there was no point at all where I thought, “Hey, this sounds cool.” It was bland, uninspired, and forced.

On Facebook, I commented on my disappointment with the album, posting it on the official Misfits page. There were many others who did the same. Shortly thereafter, my comment mysteriously disappeared. So did the other negative ones. And they’ve blocked me from interacting on their Facebook page at all now.

This really upsets me. If they’re that paranoid about someone seeing negative reviews of their albums, then that’s a sure sign that they realize their lack of listenable material. They’re getting old — the Misfits are essentially a nostalgia act at this point — and know that the band’s days are numbered.

How sad. Gone are the glory days with the likes of Glenn Danzig, Doyle, Michale Graves, and Chud. Now all we have is Jerry Only desperately clinging onto the corpse of a band that died in 2000.

You’re looking at a fan of everything the Misfits did until 2000. I am now sickened and saddened by post-2000 Misfits, and will never make an effort to see one of their shows or buy any more albums (unless by some miracle we see a reunion of Graves, Doyle, Chud and Only — or even something with Danzig, as weird as that would be).

RIP Misfits.

Every once in a while, I get time to write some new songs and record some stuff. As with most of the songs I write, this new one is the product of just making it up as I go along, having no real plan for how it should turn out.

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You can download this on the music page.

Of all the bands I’ve gone out to see throughout my life — starting with the Pittsburgh stop of They Might Be Giants’ Apollo 18 tour when I was 15 — Phish is the most wonderful, consistent group I’ve seen. Even if you just listen to any of their readily-available live recordings, you’ll hear that they strive to stretch the bounds of their music and deliver new experiences to their audience. And to rock.

Last night was a fantastic Phish show. The highlights for me were “Sample in a Jar,” “Mike’s Song” segued into “Weekapaug Groove,” “Character Zero,” and “The Squirming Coil” as their encore/closer. I always get chills when Page pounds out the last bars of that one.

I took all these pictures on my Blackberry Storm, so the quality sucks on some of them.

The crowd was thick, hot, and impatient. Bottlenecks going in, and worse bottlenecks trying to get out afterward.

The weatherman called for scattered thunderstorms, but it never rained until well after the show. While I’m glad that we didn’t get dumped on while Phish played, I was actually praying for the rains to come and alleviate the humidity. I was coated in sweat the whole time.

Phish has the best light show. Period. Chris Kuroda is a brilliant lighting designer, and is as much a part of the band as any of the four playing on stage.

Balloon Guy. This hippie kept running through the crowd with ornate balloon animals, and seemed to really like running around the area we were standing in.

For the better part of a decade now, I’ve been working on a series of songs based on Zombi 2. There are several of these written and recorded in many forms, but I’m not finished yet.

This is a song about Susan. I originally wrote it faster and heavier, but was never really happy with the arrangement and my vocals. It kinda sucks. So I reworked the whole song, and even made a little video to go along with it that follows the story.

. . . which is terrible for his friends, family, and fans. But I didn’t care for any of his music, so I’m not that concerned.

I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything in several days, so to try to appease your wrath, I bring you my rendition of the Gordon Lightfoot song. I sing/play everything in the song.

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I was hesitant to pick up Fear Factory’s newest effort Mechanize. My first experience with them was their highly popular album Obsolete, which immediately made me a fan. Then I picked up Demanufacture, which is slightly more raw and brutal, also a fantastic album.

But then things went weird for the band. Creative differences began to show through on Digimortal, the followup to Obsolete. It wasn’t a great album, and the band seemed to be in limbo for a while. Madman guitarist Dino Cazares left the band after a falling-out with vocalist Burton C. Bell. Bassist Christian Olde Wolbers switched to guitar, Byron Stroud (from Strapping Young Lad) took over on bass, and Raymond Herrera remained on drums.

They released Archetype — which I love. A few years later came Transgression, which was lukewarm (although I’d still listen to that over Digimortal any day). I figured they were still growing with the rearranged lineup, although they were pulling away from the element of death metal and getting awful pop-sounding on some tracks (like that U2 cover?!).

Then they kind of wandered away from each other. Christian and Herrera began playing in Arkaea, and Burton decided to reform Fear Factory with Dino back on guitar, Gene Hoglan (from Strapping Young Lad) on drums, and Byron remaining on bass. Controversy abounds, and you can read all the (supposed) details on the Wikipedia page.

While I love Fear Factory, I became disinterested in them. All the bickering and problems kind of turned me off. I’m not fully convinced that I like Burton or Dino. I like the Strapping Young Lad guys, Christian and Raymond.

Which brings me back to my original statement: I was hesitant to pick up their February 2010 release, Mechanize.

And to be honest, this is about what you would expect from a Fear Factory album. Dino has come up with some really cool riffs, and the mega-robot-drummer Hoglan adds larger-than-life heaviness to the mix. Burton adds some welcome growls this time around, but his vocals aren’t anything you haven’t heard before. He maintains his ability to do death metal screams and melodic singing within the same song, which ain’t easy.

While this is an album I’ll probably listen to fairly regularly, it’s really nothing new in the realm of Fear Factory. At times I feel like I’m listening to Demanufacture or Obsolete. I’m fairly certain that the purpose of this album was to re-establish cred with an increasingly disillusioned fan base.

Innovation it isn’t. However, it’s an enjoyable album that FF fans will appreciate. Hopefully, Mechanize is a stepping stone to further growth and creativity in the band.

Rating: 7/10

Well, we all knew that already. Their music and images have “corporate sellout whore” written all over them. But when this article came across my feed reader, all I could do was laugh and think, “I told you so.”

Here’s what happened: there’s a company out there who goes around telling companies that they can get their brand name worked into the lyrics of pop songs (such as Mariah Carey, Ludacris, Pussycat Dolls, and all those other pop whores) “for the right price.” They accidentally solicited to an anti-advertising agency.

Here’s a quote that sums things up:

“It’s this desperation that advertising has come to because you can’t just tell people about your product anymore, because nobody cares. Advertisers have created this situation where they’ve made themselves obsolete. There’s too much advertising out there, so they try to find new ways to cut through the clutter that they’ve created. And this is one of those ways.” – Steve Lambert, as reported by BoingBoing.net

As I looked up news on Les Claypool’s web site, I found out that he has recorded original music for the upcoming Wii game Mushroom Men. As I’m a big Wii fan (and a huge Les Claypool fan, of course), I began to investigate this game by going over to its official web site.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll spring for this game when it comes out in November. But probably only because I can listen to new music from Les while I play.

And I’ll be damned — as I was writing this, an interview with Les and Ler (Primus) just came through my feed reader. It was done by Boing Boing, and the lady interviewing them — “Xeni” — is annoying as hell. At least Les and Ler are cool.

Beware of the retarded commercial they put in the middle of it. That’s downright annoying too — forcing that advertisement crap on me. I know it helps pay the bills and all, but come on. Boing Boing already has fifty million ads on their site as-is . . . do they really have to shove more in wherever they can?

I’ve been going by this notion lately: if there’s an ad somewhere that really bugs me — not necessarily the content of the ad itself, but even the timing/placement of the ad — I’ll make it a point to not patronize whoever the ad is for. And I’ll also badmouth the company.