Fucking Drummers.

Like the title says, fucking drummers man.  My experience with them has been nothing but Spinaltappian.  I mean, they haven't exploded or anything, but I feel like the problem would be less confusing if they had.

Drummers 1, 2, and 3: The First Band
Like it says, my first band.  We were terrible and no I'm not telling you the name; it's a name I came up with and it's a name I'm still damn proud of, but I can't say the same for the music.  Started the band with three friends.  I'd just learned bass and that's all I did, whereas the other three all switched between guitar, vocals, and drums. Thus, the first three drummers.  Band dissolved, goodbye first three drummers.

Drummer 4: The Weak Link
Being in a band with this drummer was easily the most fun I've had in a band setting, and he's still one of my best friends.  But damn playing with him could be hard.  Were the singer-guitarist (who was actually one of the members of The First Band) and I just so ahead of the curve?  Not really, no.  Did we make it work?  Sure.  Anyways, that's not why his time as Drummer #4 was cut short; he actually quit for his job.  Pssh, real careers.

Drummer 5: The Older Dude
The Older Dude was cool, good drummer.  Usually.  He had his problems though; namely, the last show we played with him where he fell asleep in the middle of the set.  Not kidding, went fucking narcoleptic on us, hands moving autonomously (if it was on-time, it would've only been a problem for him).  The singer/guitarist's CD release show no less.  Again, like Drummer #4, the problems weren't what got him (unofficially) terminated.  He eventually just dropped off the map, not returning calls and shit.

Drummer 6: The Prodigy
Not even fucking around, this guy's the best drummer I've ever played with.  What's crazier, he doesn't own a drum kit and, for the most part, doesn't even listen to that much rock music.  Or, you know, any other kind of music where you think of drums.  Dude listens to and plays mostly gospel.  Okay, funk-kinda-stuff too, which is definitely known for drumming... stuff...  Anyways, off track.  So, good drummer, great fucking drummer... LAZY fucking drummer.  Seriously, there were several practices toward the end there, before we finally pronounced him dead, where I'd come all the way from downtown and he just wouldn't show up.

Drummer 7: The Doofus
Good friend.  Good drummer.  Good dad.  Wherein lies the problem.  Motherfucker's on his second goddamn kid with a second goddamn woman.  For an atheist, he's got a weirdly hard time believing in birth control.  Well in the meantime, it looks like he's giving up on music, sold his kit and everything.  Not calling him a doofus for having kids, more for being silly and not wrapping his willy.

Holy balls, I'm just gonna stop here.  This was all a lot more depressing than I'd intended.  God damn it life, why can't you be more like Spinal Tap?

For your time and troubles, here's a picture of a silly drummer.  Or the offspring of Danny McBride and a walrus. You decide.

Dead-Trend Friends

Well, this is probably gonna be a pretty short one, at least compared to the other posts so far, just some observations on the people I know on a more personal level in the Chicago area music scene (Chicago area I say ah say because a bunch of them are from the Summit/Stickney area, but play shows throughout Chicagoland).

Long story made short, I just recently joined a band.  They're called Lian Paranoia.  Probably about a year ago this time, a friend of mine joined these peeps as main guitarist.  I tagged along to some (a lot of) practices, went to many of their shows, became friends with them, they broke up a while later, stuff happened, I ended up joining as bassist when they got back together like three weeks ago.

I noticed recently that this band I'm now a part of, along with the other bands we're friends with, all represent a different facet of 90s-ish music, certain scenes you don't really see anymore.

Lian Paranoia, I'm not sure what to call besides "nu metal" without mashing together a bunch of terms to try to invent a genre.  Yeah it's not metal per se, but it's too heavy to be just "rock" or "alternative" (sorry, I think those terms are pretty outdated; the music world's just grown too large), and I'm personally against the term "alternative metal" existing, simply because just about every single band under that unfortunate label can be considered either nu metal or post-grunge, which are actual things.  To paint a better picture, I'd describe them (I still have trouble referring to LP as "us", as I've yet to write any material with them) as Alice Cooper meets Tool.  The theatricality, personality, subject matter, and heavy metaphor of the former with the raw emotion (thanks to our singer, Rob), heaviness, progressitivity (made up a word, deal with it), and time-changey polyrhythmic goodness of the latter.

Second band of this wee scene I befriended are a group called Short Story Inc.  They're a bit harder to define in a sense of where they fit into my bring-back-the-90s fever-vision, but they give me a distinctly out-of-time feel even if I could technically see their music thriving in today's day and age (which good God, just like the rest of the bands on here, I hope it does).  Think the thrashy skate-punk that only the 90s could properly deliver meets emo (bear with me a second here) back when it was still a type of hardcore.  And I mean REAL hardcore, not Warped-Tour-core.  Uber-personal lyrics, hard-edged yet strangely melodic guitars, heavy emphasis on vocal play.

Third would be Adisent, from Stickney.  Less hard to define but no less awesome, Adisent are a post-grunge WHERE THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING.  You will sit the fuck back down and read about my friends' bands.  Okay, they're post-grunge, but not in the way you might first think of.  They have catchy riffs instead of four-guitar-thick Howard-Bensoned power chord progressions, a tight three-piece dynamic, and, get this: good, intelligent lyrics.  Seriously, this guy sings me gravelly poetry.

Lastly and not leastly, unless by "least" you mean "youngest", we have the high-school-age heavy-hitters, Uptown Mayhem.  Pop-punk before it all sounded THE GODDAMN SAME.  Healthy blend of early, non-suck Green Day and Blink-182 with a hearty dose of All-American Rejects.

So there you have it, the Dead-Trend Friends.  Hopefully they'll read this (hmm... should probably start actually telling people about this blog), and it'll catch on and it'll be the name of an awesome tour.  Am I totally plugging the band I just joined plus the other local acts I like?  Totally.  Should you check them the fuck out?  Abso-tota-lutely.

TL;DR:
Listen to Lian Paranoia, Short Story Inc., Adisent, and Uptown Mayhem.  Like now.
Or I might cut you.