Author Archives: Alex

Down don’t have time for a full album, and we don’t have the patience

I’m 26. What that means is that I’m still relatively young, but I’m not really young anymore. People who are my age can relate, and people who are older can probably remember. It’s a weird period of life, because you’re definitely not old, but you’re still way older than teenagers.

I talked to a girl the other day, and found out she was born in ’92. I couldn’t believe how mature she looked considering 1992, to me, feels like 10 years ago. But it’s not 10 years ago, is it? So am I turning into an old man? The same old man who doesn’t understand the new generation, and remembers how good it was in his day? The same old man I used to laugh at as a kid? Probably.

Here’s why: When I was a kid, CDs were relatively new to me, but my favorite band releasing an album meant I’d have to go to the store and find it. The search itself was part of the fun — Browsing through the letters, desperately finding the artwork I saw on TV, that was a quest, man. Then I’d get the album but I couldn’t listen to it until I got home. I mean, sure, I had a portable CD player (that was so high tech in those days), but I didn’t want to risk damaging the CD (it was a Sony Walkman, but for some reason I didn’t trust it with new discs) so I just waited until I got home.

So I get home and play the first song while I’m reading the booklet. Man, those were the days, right? I even touched on this subject in my interview with Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson.

But those days are over. Because today, people want things NOW. Not tomorrow, not when they get to the store, right now. This very instant. Doesn’t matter if they’re on their tablet taking a shit, or at work streaming porn on their smartphones. They want it all, and they want it right now. And without going into an obvious Queen pun, I have to mention that they expect it to be free, also. The world has changed, and even though I was down with technology since I was young, I still feel like a dinosaur.

How does this relate to Down and Mr. Anselmo? Read on to find out, although let’s not pretend like this bullshit rant is going anywhere.

Everyone posts trailers nowadays

Fear Factory just released the trailer for their upcoming music video for “The Industrialist.” They even went through the trouble of recreating that green MPAA rating thing at the beginning. Why are people releasing trailers for music videos? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, the video seams to be the typical, run-of-the-mill low budget lyrics internet video. Edited with stock After Effects elements and shot on a Canon dSLR. I think it’s great that technology has advanced so much that you can give a professional music video from MTV a run for its money with a $1000 camera and your own personal computer, but it’s also created this trend of cliche videos which look and sound the same because everyone is using the same Video Copilot products.

But yeah, this is a metal site, not a video editing site, so just enjoy the video and don’t mind me…

Du Suck So Much

Okay, so I’m not a parent. But I’m pretty sure that if I were, I would not upload videos of them covering songs until they got good enough.

Case in point: The mistake above. Not only do those kids suck, but they seem to not have much in common with playing an instrument. Lemme break it down for you:

The vocals: Horrible.
The guitar: Horrible.
The keys: Horrible.
The drums: What drums?

Seriously, parents, get a fucking clue. Encourage your kids to play instruments but do not embarrass them online until they can play like this cute little kid.

Dave Mustaine was fueled by hatred

If you ever wondered what made Dave Mustaine so creative during Megadeth‘s first years, wonder no more. Chris Poland comes with the answer. Hint: It’s very predictable.

You really have to give Dave credit. Dave wrote a lot of the material. It came from his… He was fueled by hate for Metallica, so that added that extra angst to what we were doing. It was perfect timing and like you said, the chemistry was right.

This is why I’ve always said Dave being kicked out of Metallica was the best thing to ever happen to us. We got two great bands out of it. Can you imagine Dave practicing guitar?

“MUST. BE. FASTER. THAN. KIRK!!!”

More from the same interview here.

New Dose of Metal layout

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but never had time. Now the site sports a new look. Some things may still look weird, like a lot of the images of the older posts which got a bit distorted, but hopefully everything will get fixed at some point.

Oh yeah, I’ll also try to write more. Enjoy!