The true music fan’s life is a rocky passage, an out of control rollercoaster. There are ups, downs, twists, turns, moments of elation and moments of heart wrenching despair. The true fan sets himself up to be let down, but in doing so, opens himself up to true sensations, both positive and negative. To elaborate; there comes a time in any fan’s relationship with a band where a critical point will be reached, and from this point, there will either be triumph or disappointment.
Let’s say The Rotting Anemone’s have released two albums which you have been pretty stoked about, their first album was good but not great, but still the kind of album that kept a steady rotation in the tape deck of your mustard yellow Volvo. However their second release knocked you for six, and you flogged the crap out of it on the boom box in your backyard shed where you escape the maniacal tirades of your wife/girlfriend/sister/stepmother/stoner dad/boss. And now The Rotting Anemone’s have put out their third album. It might as well be titled ‘The Moment of Truth’, in fact that would be a better title than the highly unimaginative ‘III’ moniker that they have gone with. You go to the store/distro/label website and buy/order the title, sound unheard. You have a bond with this band now, you wouldn’t ask your long-term boyfriend to have a blood test every time he wanted to stick it in you, why would you do the mood-killing equivalent to this trusted band?
You get home/the package arrives, and you head out to the backyard shed to blast the sh** out of this new long-player. Here are the two paths that may emerge in the bloody aftermath;
a.) This album is fu**ing sick!!! It’s like the best parts of their old stuff, minus the shoddy half-baked filler tracks, plus exciting and totally appropriate hints of a new direction, and it sounds phenomenal. This moment is called TRIUMPH. You have been blown away. The trust you put in this band has been rewarded tenfold, that much more for you having bought it instantly, without preview, and with your own hard-earned.
b.) Holy sh**, what happened? This can NOT be the same band. They have forgotten to write any songs, Bob Rock has given the album a bizarre corporate rock sheen, it’s all ‘interludes’ and ‘experiments’, they have incorporated elements of jazz/rap/world music/dance/spoken word and the results are absolutely DISGUSTING. The high becomes a low. You have been let down. You will never listen to this band’s good albums in the same way, and you will never listen to this abomination again.
Life goes on, but things are not the same. Now you love this band, or hate them, or maybe your previously excellent relationship is now full of mixed feelings. As a true fan, you can’t shrug your shoulders and deposit the downloaded mp3s into the recycle bin. You paid good money for this triumph/abortion.
However in either case, in the long run things are going to be OK. You have experienced a depth of emotion the casual music listener will not experience. You will find a new band if it blows, and if it ruled, well it’s a joyous occasion calling for mad bucket-bongage and rabid masturbation.
To celebrate the phenomenon I have called upon a hardcore music nut to shed some light on his most intense Blown Away/Let Down experiences, both recorded and in the live domain.
The nut is Richard Ingham aka Channelled Beast Spirit. Richard’s musical wanderlust is near unparalleled, even in Perth’s incestuous genetic swamp of a music ‘scene’. As the guitarist/synthesizer in improv noisegazers Whalehammer, the guitarist/bongo-boy in psych rock fiends Mink Mussel Creek, the drummer in ultra shambolic youth punkers Taco Leg and acid thrash visionaries Puke Rainbow, and the auteur of countless ill-fated solo projects, he spreads his sonic seed far and wide with gay abandon. Not bad for a man who hasn’t witnessed a second of AM time in years (excepting late night post-PM AM time).
Richard in the foreground, playing guitar in Whalehammer.Richard’s Blown Away/Let Down entry;
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RECORDED MUSIC:Biggest Blown Away Experience:I was at a very important and sensitive crossroad in my musical journey. I had for several years been a diehard fan of both progressive rock and thrash metal and both genres occupied vastly different areas of my taste and catered to different emotions and musical cravings. It got to the point where the prog wasn't proggy enough and the thrash wasn't fast or angry enough and I slowly and tenderly like the deflowering of a fair maiden ventured down the path of death metal.
This was the path I swore I would never take, it was too extreme, too down-tuned, too atonal, too self-ridiculing but I began to see that this was the only way I could further my musical experience. So I decided to quit being a limp-wristed pansy and dive in head first with some technical death metal - Atheist's acclaimed and legendary album 'Unquestionable Presence'. I had heard amazing tales about jazz fusion drumming, breakneck riff changes, wild bitchin' solos and slap bass and I thought this is so crazy that I must listen to it.
Needless to say it absolutely tore my balls off, I couldn't comprehend what the f*ck was going on at first, all I knew was that there were killer riffs and funky drum beats but it quickly began to sink in and it has been my favourite album ever since.
Also My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’ LP. On a whim I explored this 'shoegaze' genre thinking I would encounter a whole bunch of second rate indie bands. I fell in love with it on my first listen through, I connected with the music in a way I had never experienced before and it was an incomparable experience at that. Thankfully this was the first shoegaze album I listened to as I quickly realised the rest of the genre was made up of second rate indie bands.
Biggest Let Down Experience:
This is an easy one for me - The Mars Volta. At the height of At the Drive-in's fame I was an angsty teenager who was literally just beginning to listen to music, I hadn't liked a band in years and the inoffensive tunes of the Foo Fighters and the angular aggression of ATDI appealed to me. After the much publicized break-up of said group there were rumours that the two masterminds behind ATDI were forming this new band with some crazy new unbridled sound.
I downloaded all the demos and they were incredibly unique to me (and still are after all my prog/avant-garde adventures), in such a way that I didn't quite know what to think but I knew that I loved it. So when they released their 3 song EP I immediately got my hands on it and it kicked serious ass. Some demos of their album leaked out and they kicked even more ass, still to this day some of the best sh*t I have ever heard.
‘De-Loused in the Comatorium’ was released and along with Mr Bungle almost single-handedly crafted my interest in prog, every song was incredibly unique and had such rich tapestries and sounds with such melodies and concepts, I listened to it practically every day and became a rabid fangirl. Fast forward to the follow up, I was giddy with excitement, I had heard one of the songs from a leak and it was pretty good, not quite as good as De-loused but it was a leak so I thought the rest would be even better. At first I liked ‘Frances the Mute’ and then I realised they took it too far, it was overblown, utterly pretentious and contained about 20 minutes of decent music and 50 minutes of meaningless intro, outro, breakdown noise wank. From there it only went downhill, all the indie-fags around town started parading around wearing their Mars Volta shirts and I became too self-conscious to be associated with those wankers so much that, ever conscious of my image, I wouldn't wear my TMV shirt anymore.
The third album came out and sucked even harder, and I lost interest entirely. Now the fourth album is out and I don't even like the band anymore, they turned completely sh*te, they play some form of bland accessible excuse for prog (which, being a prog elitist, I just can't abide by) with ultra-compressed pop production values.I was let down so much by TMV's decline. I was there at the very start checking it out, they released some cathartic, raw and highly original music and then they succumbed to external pressures and being meth'd up intellectuals and started releasing a whole bunch of crap.You've unleashed a monster here, don't ask me to do long-winded or else you'll be riding the roaring forties all the way to Chile.
LIVE MUSIC:
Biggest Blown Away Experience:Fantomas. I have never seen a spectacle quite like it; they played their avant-garde compositions so amazingly super-tight that it defied belief.
Biggest Let Down Experience:
Slayer at the Robinson Pavilion (
Ed – a large sheep shed turned music venue by greedy promoter jerk-offs). I used to be a big Slayer fan and now I don't even like them anymore, my interest for them was on a large wane as it was and when I saw them live it killed any interest I had in the band. The sound was horrible, they were sloppy, they played a whole bunch of crap songs, people were chanting "Reign in Blood" all night and they only played songs from the album in the last 20 minutes or so, which was a major cop-out. I sobered up, took off the beer goggles and saw the thuggish sloppy band for what they really were.
BONUS QUESTION
Biggest FORMERLY LOVED NOW HATED NOW LOVED AGAIN REDEMPTION/COMEBACK Experience:I'm not much of a Love -> Hate -> Love guy, I'm more of a Hate -> Love guy or a Love -> forget/don't listen to for a year -> Love guy. The former situation has occurred to me though, you see despite how I may try and present myself and despite what I may tell you in person I'm a very fickle and elitist little man when it comes to musical taste as you yourself already know quite well. I decided I didn't like the band Death because it was too accessible and so many other people liked it that it must be shit (which to be fair is usually a good way of pre-judging a band in relation to my tastes), then I decided to listen to their Human album again and I slapped myself upside the head for being such an immature c*ck-hole.
LINKS:
Whalehammer – psych noisegaze
www.myspace.com/whalehammerMink Mussel Creek – psych rock/stoner pop
www.myspace.com/minkmusselcreekPuke Rainbow – acid thrash
http://www.myspace.com/ridethepukerainbowIPRR – ‘pretentious sh*tdi**ery’
www.myspace.com/iprrTaco Leg – shambolic youth punk
http://www.myspace.com/tacolegGnarled Oak – acoustic folk wandering
http://www.myspace.com/gnarledoakAtolah – stoner-rock
http://www.myspace.com/atolahQuintus Colourscape – sound destroyer of worlds/open mic nights
http://www.myspace.com/quintuscolourscapeCragscleft – abstract black metal
http://www.myspace.com/cragscleft
Debbie Gibson were a short-lived d-beat/hardcore band from Perth, Western Australia. I would say their timespan was approximately late summer, early the-season-that-comes-after 2006. The music was a mixture of thrashy d-beat and occasional blast beats with a bit of an 80's hardcore scrappy feel and liberal doses of chaotic feedback. Their influences were Discharge, Rudimentary Peni and modern Scandinavian/Amerikan d-beat acts. The lineup was Zaheer on guitar, Luke on bass, David on vox and Rama on drums. Zaheer and Rama had previously played in the quite popular asian-power crust/d-beat punk band The Magoos.
