I hadn’t been to The Brewery in what seems like forever. Last night they had 8 bands playing so, finding myself with nothing better to do, I bopped on down.

The first band that came on after I got there was Though He Slay Me. They were pretty tight but lost points on the non-metal looking front. I know, I know, the music doesn’t really have anything to do with the look but is it reaqlly that hard to change out of your street clothes?

The next band up was one I’m going to call The Band After Though He Slay Me because they never said their fucking name. Anyway, the set was tighter and they had the look down better (although its pretty hard to look like a really BAMF when you’re a 17 year old suburban white kid) but I didn’t like the music quite as much.

The next band was Steryle from Roxboro. These guys rocked. The performance was tight and the music was good. I’ definitely planning one catching these guys again.

After Steryle was on, something else came up and I left before the last bands played. Sorry. Shit happens sometime.

This is where the WordPress for Blackberry app will be so cool. I’m at Raleigh Downtown Live and I’m posting to my blog. I realize I could do that before with the plugin I had but it was rending a web page on a really small screen and it was kind of a pain in the ass to deal with. This is a native app and I can save stuff and come back to it. Very cool

There was a deal reached this week between the record companies and SoundExchange over music webcasts. It was presented by some as a win for webcasts even though Pandora’s own blog notes that the royalty rates are higher than for any other form of radio. Others such as Techdirt call it a death sentence for Internet radio. One thing I found interesting was that the opinions varied almost entirely depending on whether it was an Old Media or New Media source. I think they’re both right.

What it means is that services like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker Radio get a short term reprieve. They’ll be able to suck up the fees and stay in business for a while but I think the royalty rates are too high to be sustainable long term. On the other hand, it will almost immediately kill off any smaller webcasters that are interested in staying legal.

What it means long term is that the recording industry has killed another legitimate source of revenue and if there is no free web radio to listen to people will download and listen to stolen music for which there is no income associated. They should have embraced web radio and given them royalty rates at least comparable to conventional radio – increasing the number of people listening to paid music. Instead they continued their death dance with Clear Channel.

Here’s a clue for you, RIAA. Nobody likes their corporate, sounds the fucking same everywhere, committee programmed bullshit. Some people will tolerate it but the number who will is becoming increasingly few. They are doomed and so are you. But frankly I think that’s a good thing for both musicians and listeners.

I know it looks like I haven’t been going to see any bands lately or supporting local music in any way but you’d be wrong to think that. What you’d be right to think is that I went and got too drunk to write rationally about it. So, for the record, in the last couple of weeks I went to The Brewery on the 19th, 26th and last night and went to Downtown Live and caught the Tubes and Cracker on the 27th.  Out of all the bands I saw at The Brewery I recall exactly two of the bands’ names*. Why two, you ask? One was Hotspur. I remember their name because they had cards printed that they had laying around for people to pick up. I remember MecanIkill because he said his name several times during his set. See my previous whining bitch posts about bands and why you should pimp you band. I’ve liked several of the bands I saw over the last few weeks but will never get to see them play again unless I luck into it. This is not the way to make it as a musician and give up your day job as a barrista at Starbuck’s, kids.

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Last night Friday night Dillinger Escape Plan, The Number Twelve Looks Like You,  Knife the Glitter and two other bands played at The Brewery.  In my continuing quest for journalistic excellence, I started drinking the moment I got there so some of this will be spotty.

First up let me say again PIMP YOUR SHIT. I have no idea who the first two bands were but all five were what I would call mathcore/experimental/hardcore. I’m about 100% sure one of them was Christian (which is fine) but since one of the components of mathcore is unintelligible vocals we’ll never know for sure. The first band was good and their drummer was amazing. I talked to the bass player for a little while at the merch table and he told me their name but now I’ve forgotten it.  So now I’m beginning to think pimp your shit should include business (music?) cards to give away at shows since some of us destroyed our short term memories in the 70′s and 80′s.

Knife the Glitter played without any vocals. I think they said something about why but I was getting a beer and didn’t hear. They sounded good regardless.

The Number Twelve Looks Like You was on next. They’re  seriously mathcore. They were technically excellent. The problem is that I have to be in the mood for mathcore kind of like jazz fusion and I really wasn’t feeling it on Friday. Again, the band was technically excellent and the energy level was high.

Dillinger Escape Plan was the headliner and they lived up to expectations (see above disclaimer). They tore it up on Black Bubblegum.

It was one of the largest crowds I’ve seen at The Brewery lately which is pretty impressive considering it was a $16 show. Of course for me half of the fun of live music is people watching and this show was no different. My favorite two moments were the really hot girl in the very short denim shorts and fishnets that bumped into me then asked if I had touched her ass.  I said I had and that if she’d warn me next time I’d grab it instead  which she clearly wasn’t prepared for so she hung around and we talked for awhile. The other was the chick that was standing in front of me late in the show with her boyfriend. She was clearly there because he was and very clearly not enjoying herself. I should have shot some video since she was a case study in pissy body language. Every time somebody bumped her from behind she acted like they were trying to dry hump her.

At one point she looked at her bf and said “Is he saying ‘I want your soul’? it sounds like he’s saying ‘Iwant your soul’. (He was). The best part was when somebody up in the mosh pit threw a partially full bottle of water back our way. It didn’t come within more than about 10 feet of us but she freaked and looked at him and said, “I don’t like that. What was that?” He kind of ignored her the whole time and I was thinking to myself ‘Dude, you’re going to be paying for this for weeks.’

If you happen to be reading this my only advice to you is: Dump the stiff and find somebody who’s into the same things as you. Life is too short, dude.

Stan Schroeder posted an article on Mashable titled If Free is the Enemy of Good, Then Color Me Bad a couple of days ago about Paul McGuiness and him being a bitch. That’s not what Stan said because he’s considerably more cultured than I am.  Paul McGuiness, for those of you out of the loop on such things, is the Manager for U2. I’m going to make the first of what will probably be many ugly comments now and ask —have you ever noticed that the bands or band apparatchik or clingers-on that are constantly bitching about the Internet or peer to peer file sharing or people stealing music are from bands that haven’t been relevant in 20 years? Bono is as swell a humanitarian as they come but how many people can name a song they’ve recorded from this century? Metallica–ditto.

The problem is that all of these people have stopped making music (if they ever were) and become part of the general whoredom that is the “recording industry”. They have been at it sooooo long that they believe they are entitled to drink Cristal poured over the breasts of $10,000 a night hookers. So they don’t want people to listen to their “music” unless they’ve been paid for it. When the actual music in the world is almost completely made by people who would gladly give it away just so people can hear it (BTW, Thanks, Trent. The Slip was the bomb). I’ll bet there are 50 bands in Raleigh that would pay to have people hear them play*.

At any rate, this is not the first time Paul has opened his hole and said something stupid. The funniest part is that he’s the fucking manager which means that he doesn’t have any talent and he’s basically sponging off U2′s success.

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*In fact, I knew a guy in a band a few years ago in Raleigh and that’s essentially what they did… after paying for the rentals on equipment and assorted expenses they were lucky if they split enough money at the end of the night to cover their bar tab.

So I was late getting there because I figured the doors would open at 8:00 like they usually did but tonight’s show opened at 7:00 so I missed the first act The Word Alive out of Phoenix. Sorry guys.

The second band was Eyes Set to Kill from Tempe, AZ (essentially Phoenix, was it Arizona night at the Brewery?). They were really good. Jammin’ songs, good sound and an interesting hook… Eyes Set To Kill was formed by 2 sisters which is something you just don’t see every day in the world of metal. I think March of the Dead is my favorite track off their new CD. For the record,  I’d like to note that Anissa Rodriguez is my new favorite female bass player. Seriously talented and really pretty. I was sort of hoping to talk to them after the show. Anissa walked by and said ‘hi’ and Brandon wandered back and forth a couple of times to the merch table but it was while SEA was playing and trying to have anything resembling a conversation while a band is playing in The Brewery is an exercise in futility.

Next up was In Fear and Faith, they had a really interesting line-up… two full time vocalists. It would have been cool if you could have heard either one of them. For this beginning of the first song I thought they were having mic problems then I realized whoever was running sound just didn’t have it turned up enough. It’s a shame really because from the stuff on myspace they both have really good voices and use the vocals to their advantage. As usual, it’s hard to tell whether that’s the fault of the band or the Brewery.

Sky Eats Airplane closed up the show. They did a passably good job.  They did an exceptionally cool cover of Nookie by Limp Bizkit. It was fucking miserably hot in The Brewery by the time they came on. All things considered it was a really good night. I took a couple of pics with my fly new camera but haven’t pulled them off yet. Today is the first 2009 Downtown Live with Candlebox headlining so I’ll get a bunch of pictures and post them tomorrow. Toodles.

Last night nothing else came up and I was kind of Jonesing for some live music so I went to the show at the Lincoln Theatre and caught Brad Benson, Barbarella, Eulogy & Guerilla Radio.

Brad Benson is out of Cary and did an acoustic set with another guitar player whose name I didn’t catch. He was supposed to have somebody on the Congo drum (I think, I wasn’t really paying attention while they were getting ready) but there was a busted head or something so they played without. I thought it was really outstanding. The thing about acoustic sets is that you can’t cover up bad playing or fuck-ups like you can with an electric.

Next up was Barbarella out of Chapel Hill. I’m not sure how to describe them. Kind of a bluesy rock vibe with healthy doses of Lenny Kravitz. Hugh Swaso’s guitar playing was masterful.

Then Eulogy took the stage.  Eulogy is a Tool tribute band. I have mixed feelings about tribute bands. One the one hand I think musicians should be oriented toward creating music or at least “re-imagining” (I hate that term but it fits). On the other hand, I’ll never get to see Tool in the Lincon Theatre. That said I thought Eulogy did a really excellent job. I would have liked for them to have played more off of Lateralus but that’s just because it’s my favorite album.

Last up was Guerilla Radio, a Rage Against the Machine tribute band.  The mosh pit went nuts while these guys were on stage. Several times during their set the lead singer had to tell people to chill. There were a couple of bleeding head cuts that I saw and the bouncers had to take one (really big) guy (who didn’t leave without a fight) down. It took a couple of them to beat the crap out of him bad enough to get him to walk out on his own. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t as active as the pit during the Fuel show at Lake Boone Country Club but there weren’t as many people there last night. It’s hard for me to say who was better (because everything’s got to be a competition, right?). Tool is probably my favorite band and I really have to be in the mood to listen to RATM so I’ll just call it a toss-up.

Hard to argue with 4 bands over the course of 4 hours for $10. Oh, and, Lincoln’s beer price went up $0.25 for domestics to $3.25 since last time I was there. My only bitch about the night was that it seemed to take extra long for the tear down/set up between sets.  My regret is that I couldn’t make my way over to the really cute scene girl on the left side of the stage. She had the most fetch septum and would have been perfect with a couple of cheek piercings  a layer of black hair and maybe a raccoon tail. But anytime you can come home with your ears ringing and your music bits all smiling and happy for $10,  you’ve got to call it a win.

Johnson and I went to see HU and Framing Hanley the other night and I got the tickets through Ticketmaster. Normally I avoid Ticketmaster like a case of herpes but since Norfolk is 3 hours away and I didn’t feel like getting there and finding out the show was sold out I went ahead and tainted myself. The tickets were $15 apiece,  the “convenience charge” was $6.75 (x2), and the “order processing charge”  was $3.55 for a total of $47.05. I’d like to note that I did this all online with no assistance or input from Ticketmaster. So I was charged $3.55 to check myself out apparently. I’m not exactly sure what constitutes a “convenience” but apparently it’s worth $13.50 on 2 tickets. I mean it’s not like they rolled up to the front door and delivered them. I still had to pick up the tickets at Will Call. I did find it somewhat amusing that I was offered the ability to print them myself for an extra $2.50. Let me say that again…. Ticketmaster was going to charge me $2.50 to print tickets using my paper and ink. Is there any other business in the world that can get away with something like that? It would be like the grocery store charging me to take the groceries home in my own car.

My question is: Why is it illegal for me to charge more than $3 over face value for a ticket but not Ticketmaster? I’ll tell you why… because Ticketmaster has bought the right to. North Carolina General Statutes § 14?344 covers the sale of tickets in excess of stated price and basically says anybody can charge $3 over the face value of the ticket but if you’re Ticketmaster you can charge whatever you tell the venue that you want to charge in excess of face value. Ok, that’s not the exact language but it’s what the statute basically says if you read it carefully because Ticketmaster is a monopoly. But nobody’s really noticed that either apparently.

So Johnson and I went to see Hollywood Undead and Framing Hanley last night.

The Norva is a really nice venue. It’s right on the edge of being too big for my tastes  but pulls off the bigness nicely. There’s a second level that’s only available to VIPs that purchase a membership for a year which is kind of a cool idea if you’re seriously into music.  I didn’t move around much since we got there a little late and wanted to hold on to our place in front of the sound guy. One tip that I will pass on is that I got my tickets through Ticketmaster (discussion of which is going to come in a later post) and had them held at Will Call. So when we got there, I’m guessing there were 300 people in line but the Will Call line had maybe 5. So we got in that line and saved probably 15 minutes in line.

Framing Hanley was pretty good. I’m really only familiar with their cover of Lil Wayne’s Lollipop although I’ve heard several of their other songs. Judging from the crowd response that was the song that most people were familiar with. They went on at about 8:50 and did a set that lasted until just about 10.

Hollywood Undead came on some time after 10:30 ( I forgot to look. Shoot me). They opened, as always, with Hollywood Undead (the song). They kicked ass just like they did at the Lincoln. Maybe it was me but the energy level didn’t seem as high as it had in Raleigh even though the crowd last night was probably 5 times the size (it was a sold out show last night). It’s possible that my perception is based on the size of the Norva though since we were significantly farther from the stage than we could have been in the Lincoln. To be that far from the stage at the Lincoln, you’d have to be in the street and possibly the parking deck. The funniest moment was when they did Bitches. There was a youngish girl next to us with her dad and they both just stood there looking really uncomfortable for the whole song.

Definitely worth the trip.

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