The other day, I wrote a post on the comedy rock band Wormrot. I do beg your pardon; death metal band Wormrot. It's so hard not to get these mixed up. I received a comment on this which shocked me a little...I didn't know anyone read this but it shows what I know. I thought it was just a bit of fun to keep my thought on archive so I could look back and laugh. The following comment was what was posted
"Spoken with the wit and grace of pig's ar*e. Do your research on things before running them down and displaying your uninformed opinion.
PS. Why does someone like you have a blog? Who considers these shi**ings on as an important enough to read on a daily basis?"
I was quite humbled. Someone had gone out of their own way to (badly) get back to me and tell me why what I did was biblically wrong and bang out of order...
I, however, didn't think I was wrong, for a number of reasons...
1. "Spoken with the wit and grace of a pig's ar*e..."
Wit AND grace? I wasn't being funny, I was genuinely being genuine.
2. "Do your research..."
I did do my research! I went to HMV and picked up the actual CD; read the actual names of the tracks; Something happened in here which involved laughing at the track names but the less said about that the better; I then actually put the CD down; went home; listened to a song called Fix Your Broken Mind on YouTube; thought "ahh, it is as ridiculous as I thought"; decided not give myself the burden of listening to a mind bending 20 more minutes of the stuff (because it's probably exactly the same); and wrote the blog. If that isn't research then I don't know what is.
3. "Your uninformed opinion..."
Yes, it is uninformed and yes, it is my opinion...Kudos! Well done. 10 points.
4. "Why does someone like you have a blog?..."
Because the kind people of Blogger have given me the opportunity, that's why.
5. "Who considers these shi**ings on as an important enough to read on a daily basis?"
I'm going to clean that up in the grammatical and linguistic sense...
"Who considers your words important enough to read on a daily basis?"
I had to make it make sense because I had trouble deciphering the enigma of the bad grammar. If people don't like what they're reading, there is a big X in the corner. Click that and it will all go away. Finally, if your reading my words and don't consider them to be that important that you simply have to comment, then doesn't that just prove that you have just read it in it's entirety?
I must say, it made my day reading that. I probably wouldn't have know if I hadn't been told. I started this blog as a bit of fun. I even said in my first post that it was a light hearted outlook. But there's always one. I even said 'Don't 'ave a go!' So for that, I am sorry.
Sorry for having a sense of humour.
Sorry for not doing enough "research"
Sorry for having an opinion.
Sorry for starting a blog.
Sorry for making sentences understandable.
Sorry for disowning that one person who loves Wormrot (The band, not actual worm rot. That would be disgusting).
I promise you I will never post something like this ever again for at least 10 minutes...
Monday 26 July 2010
Thursday 22 July 2010
The Happy and Delightful World of Wormrot
Yesterday, I was in town with my good pal Rowan. During our wander, we decided to have a look in HMV - y'know, just to see what they had to offer. As we made our way around we decided to play a little game; Who can find the most ridiculous sounding band/artist name. Puddle of Mudd; Fountains of Wayne and The Jonas Brothers were all contenders for the most ridiculous sounding names. And then we got to the metal bands and we had to start all over again...
Metal is good. I have no problems with the more melodic metal and stuff that you can really bang your floppy hair to. Within the scale of rock, metal is a guilty pleasure. You wouldn't play it over the front room CD player as ambient music at a social gathering, but you wouldn't mind listen to Killing in the Name Of by Rage Against the Machine in the comfort of your own bedroom. But what of these silly sounding names? Well, sit back and I'll show...
Looking at what metal bands there were, we had to change the rules to who could find the most dignified sounding track title. A track that wouldn't look out of place on a pop album. It was a tricky job but there were a few but that was nothing compared to how many track names we found that were literally awesomely ridiculous. Take for example, Wormrot. Wormrot (20 points already for silly name) are a Deathcore, Thrash metal, grindcore, thingy band from Singapore. They released an album called Abuse which is a pretty cool name for a metal album. And that's as far as it goes. Abuse features a massive 23 songs. 23 songs! There should be a rule of thumb with albums. No less than 11, no more than 14. But Wormrot don't play by the rules. So they put 23 songs on Abuse, which are as follows...(Warning: Asterisks * are going to be used to hide some letters. Your brain will hopefully fill in them missing letters so I don't have to)
1. Lost Swines - Presumably a song about a farmer who left his farm gate open and his pigs got out and he couldn't find them anywhere
2. Exterminate - Presumably a song about the Daleks from Dr. Who
3. Double Feeding - Because only feeding one is one less, especially when there are two
4. Born Stupid - See what I mean with the sillyness?
5. Sledgehammer - Maybe this is a cover of the Peter Gabriel hit of the 80's
6. So Fierce for F*ck - Do I have to explain?
7. DisAppointing - This title is (If you say that with a bit of a high pitched growl, you sound like Yoda)
8. Good Times - It wouldn't look out of place on a Will Young album or whatever. I'm guessing this is probably the happiest song on the album...
9. Freedom to Act - Not unless you're a drama student
10. Indonesia - A song about the popular country
(I'm already losing the will...but I shall carry on)
11. Sh*tlack - A song about constipation?
12. Condemnation - Again, sounds quite liable as a metal song name
13. One Round Away - A possible song about drinking before one has to go home
14. F*ck...I'm Drunk - Ahh, spoke too late there
15. Operation Grindcore - Operation Aweful
16. Rich - A song about not being poor. It looks like Wormrot are dreaming of the day this will happen, hence the song.
17. Overgrown Asshole - Erm...yes
18. Blasphemy My Ass - It sounds like a 1930's figure of bemusement. "Blasphemy? My bottom is it!"
19. Fix Your Broken Mind - If you listen to this, it's not hard to see why their mind may be broken
20. Newkiller Nuclear - Oh a pun! That's funny. Or, someone doesn't know how to work the delete key
21. Uncovered and Proud as F*ck - Someone is really pleased with the unveiling of that new plaque
22. Murder - Is wrong...totally and utterly wrong
23. Scum Infestation and Last Song - Infested with scum? Like soap scum? In the bathroom? And if you didn't know that this was the last song, then Wormrot kindly tell you that it is in fact the last song.
23 songs. All of which feature the same thing. Heavily distorted guitars; screaming; drums; and most importantly of all, more screaming. No bass? No scary sounding organs? Just guitars screaming and drums. You start to feel sorry for Wormrot with their song names; thinking that they were written by an 11 year old. But you listen to one of their songs and you suddenly realise 'my god, they ARE 11 year olds!' And altogether, an albums worth is only 21 minutes worth of noise. Because, I'm guessing, 10 minutes longer would give you more than enough time to realise you wasted a tenner! Hat's off to them. Their drums are in time and their guitars are in tune (I think), but with each song being about 20 seconds long and the next one just around the corner, it's hard to see how this couldn't be a hit!
Considering this is only the single disc album, they also sell a double disc which pushes boundaries even further with songs like Propagrinda, Wall of Sh*t and (brace yourself here) Power and Terror Maximator. The latter 2 are crying out loud funny! Power and Terror Maximator sounds like a low budget action film whereas Wall of Sh*t is highly questionable. Why? What mind bending substance were Wormrot on when they thought that was a good name?
If you're ever in the need of a laugh whether a pet has died or you lost £10 on buying a 21 minute album, go to HMV and look in the metal section and read away to your hearts content. If you aren't rolling around on the floor in your own tears, you must have something wrong with you.
(I'm going to carry on this hunt for silly names in the music industry, so keep an eye out)
Metal is good. I have no problems with the more melodic metal and stuff that you can really bang your floppy hair to. Within the scale of rock, metal is a guilty pleasure. You wouldn't play it over the front room CD player as ambient music at a social gathering, but you wouldn't mind listen to Killing in the Name Of by Rage Against the Machine in the comfort of your own bedroom. But what of these silly sounding names? Well, sit back and I'll show...
Looking at what metal bands there were, we had to change the rules to who could find the most dignified sounding track title. A track that wouldn't look out of place on a pop album. It was a tricky job but there were a few but that was nothing compared to how many track names we found that were literally awesomely ridiculous. Take for example, Wormrot. Wormrot (20 points already for silly name) are a Deathcore, Thrash metal, grindcore, thingy band from Singapore. They released an album called Abuse which is a pretty cool name for a metal album. And that's as far as it goes. Abuse features a massive 23 songs. 23 songs! There should be a rule of thumb with albums. No less than 11, no more than 14. But Wormrot don't play by the rules. So they put 23 songs on Abuse, which are as follows...(Warning: Asterisks * are going to be used to hide some letters. Your brain will hopefully fill in them missing letters so I don't have to)
1. Lost Swines - Presumably a song about a farmer who left his farm gate open and his pigs got out and he couldn't find them anywhere
2. Exterminate - Presumably a song about the Daleks from Dr. Who
3. Double Feeding - Because only feeding one is one less, especially when there are two
4. Born Stupid - See what I mean with the sillyness?
5. Sledgehammer - Maybe this is a cover of the Peter Gabriel hit of the 80's
6. So Fierce for F*ck - Do I have to explain?
7. DisAppointing - This title is (If you say that with a bit of a high pitched growl, you sound like Yoda)
8. Good Times - It wouldn't look out of place on a Will Young album or whatever. I'm guessing this is probably the happiest song on the album...
9. Freedom to Act - Not unless you're a drama student
10. Indonesia - A song about the popular country
(I'm already losing the will...but I shall carry on)
11. Sh*tlack - A song about constipation?
12. Condemnation - Again, sounds quite liable as a metal song name
13. One Round Away - A possible song about drinking before one has to go home
14. F*ck...I'm Drunk - Ahh, spoke too late there
15. Operation Grindcore - Operation Aweful
16. Rich - A song about not being poor. It looks like Wormrot are dreaming of the day this will happen, hence the song.
17. Overgrown Asshole - Erm...yes
18. Blasphemy My Ass - It sounds like a 1930's figure of bemusement. "Blasphemy? My bottom is it!"
19. Fix Your Broken Mind - If you listen to this, it's not hard to see why their mind may be broken
20. Newkiller Nuclear - Oh a pun! That's funny. Or, someone doesn't know how to work the delete key
21. Uncovered and Proud as F*ck - Someone is really pleased with the unveiling of that new plaque
22. Murder - Is wrong...totally and utterly wrong
23. Scum Infestation and Last Song - Infested with scum? Like soap scum? In the bathroom? And if you didn't know that this was the last song, then Wormrot kindly tell you that it is in fact the last song.
23 songs. All of which feature the same thing. Heavily distorted guitars; screaming; drums; and most importantly of all, more screaming. No bass? No scary sounding organs? Just guitars screaming and drums. You start to feel sorry for Wormrot with their song names; thinking that they were written by an 11 year old. But you listen to one of their songs and you suddenly realise 'my god, they ARE 11 year olds!' And altogether, an albums worth is only 21 minutes worth of noise. Because, I'm guessing, 10 minutes longer would give you more than enough time to realise you wasted a tenner! Hat's off to them. Their drums are in time and their guitars are in tune (I think), but with each song being about 20 seconds long and the next one just around the corner, it's hard to see how this couldn't be a hit!
Considering this is only the single disc album, they also sell a double disc which pushes boundaries even further with songs like Propagrinda, Wall of Sh*t and (brace yourself here) Power and Terror Maximator. The latter 2 are crying out loud funny! Power and Terror Maximator sounds like a low budget action film whereas Wall of Sh*t is highly questionable. Why? What mind bending substance were Wormrot on when they thought that was a good name?
If you're ever in the need of a laugh whether a pet has died or you lost £10 on buying a 21 minute album, go to HMV and look in the metal section and read away to your hearts content. If you aren't rolling around on the floor in your own tears, you must have something wrong with you.
(I'm going to carry on this hunt for silly names in the music industry, so keep an eye out)
Epiphany I
A while ago, I wrote a post about songwriting aptly named 'songwriting.' In it I made reference to my band, Delayed Finality. Well it is now my duty to tell you why I can't carry on with Delayed Finality. It was, as says, all down to an epiphany.
Bands, especially student bands, tend to phase in and out in all matters and styles over years and if your in a town with very little musical input then it's not hard to see why. If I ask you how many famous bands come from my home town, Lincoln, chances are you probably won't be able to list many. I can give one. I Was A Cub Scout were a 2 piece synthrock band from Lincoln that got some decent airplay and even managed to play at Download Festival. Thier drummer is now drumming live for La Roux; pretty good stuff. But that's from a population 85,000. Two people cracked Lincoln and got out. And then only one of them got further. That's another 84,999 people. "What's this gotta do with your band?" I hear you ask. Well, it goes to show nothing is impossible (a personal quote of mine). It may seem that Lincoln is lacking on the entertainment front; a place where nothing's going to get out its Roman walls. We always had that 'what if?' feeling. We tried but I think it was down to one pivotal point, on what I like to call, the LLC - Lincoln Live Circuit - which were mainly pubs. Good pubs.
Our favourites were two venues that were brimming with people back in the 2008: The Travellers Rest and The Duke of Wellington. The Travs (as it was called), under control of Aurora Promotions, was set up in a function room and had a basic but brilliant set up. A stage, 3 microphones, a drumkit, light effects, the works. Del-Fin's first gig was held there with about 5 other bands. I can remember one band was playing rather early on in the evening. It was their last gig and there was about 3 people watching them. Then along came 4 teenagers who didn't know what they were doing and stole the show with over 50 people watching. Us. It was a great feeling. I got the chance to perform with my friends and show these people who turned up what we could create. Rowan a chance to show of his solo stuff too. Everyone was happy.
When we played The Duke of Wellington (fronted by Bivouac Promotions) it wasn't as heaving as the Travellers Rest but it was a nice easy performance. No faults; just kept it real. That was really good too. A few more performances happened after that. But then disaster and what I think was the beginning of the end. Our then drummer called it a day days before we meant to go stage. We had to improvise with our knowledge and so with the help of Rowan, we created some drum tracks to play along to live. It wasn't the best. It was wierd playing without a drummer and lacked the realism. But we soldiered on, despite the fault. It showed us that nothing could keep us down. A few weeks later, the Travellers Rest closed down which meant Aurora didn't have a venue and Delayed Finality had lost thier prime hotspot. We tried to revive ourself with a Jimmi and Rowan acoustic gig at the Millers Arms (Bivouac Promos were kicked out of the Duke of Wellington and resided there) but the venue wasn't cut out for bands. There was people fighting for space to perform in; it was a good job it was just me and Rowan. If we were a full 4 piece, we would have been in the same predicament. Although it was good, it wasn't much compared to our first gig. The end was nigh. And it took me until recently to think that it wasn't going to last much longer. But, since I have called it off, it gives us all a chance to try something different. Since Rowan's off to Uni and I'm not until next year, it cleaned the air a bit for him to focus on what he want's to focus on, especially for his course. The same goes with me. I've got a route that hopefully in time will get clearer and clearer. So in part two, I'm going to give you the second half of my epiphany.
As it lays then, Finality is now not delayed but On Time. I wrote a lot of songs (about 20) in three years (Okay, 19 and bit) which is some feat. Some were recorded. Others never got to see the light of day at all. But the band was something special. We didn't spend hours hidden away in a garage playing only covers to tell people 'we're in a band.' We created our own music. We recorded our own music. We went out to entertain. We were, in essence, a semi-professional band. We were in an ACTIVE band. We didn't take ourself too seriously. One song I wrote called Equilibrium was originally called Donderkoodal which came about when I got bored and started to type random words into Google. We had an instrumental break called Attack of the Killer Tomato, named by Matt. It must have been a good job we didn't act too seriously because if one of us let us down, we'd be even more dissapointed. I think we got it whilst it at this stage because if it was at all any bigger and we realised we wouldn't get any further and dissapoint more, not just ourselves. All the hype, money, amount of people who saw us is just a bi-product. What really counted was the experience and memories that we created ourselves...That's the important thing really.
Bands, especially student bands, tend to phase in and out in all matters and styles over years and if your in a town with very little musical input then it's not hard to see why. If I ask you how many famous bands come from my home town, Lincoln, chances are you probably won't be able to list many. I can give one. I Was A Cub Scout were a 2 piece synthrock band from Lincoln that got some decent airplay and even managed to play at Download Festival. Thier drummer is now drumming live for La Roux; pretty good stuff. But that's from a population 85,000. Two people cracked Lincoln and got out. And then only one of them got further. That's another 84,999 people. "What's this gotta do with your band?" I hear you ask. Well, it goes to show nothing is impossible (a personal quote of mine). It may seem that Lincoln is lacking on the entertainment front; a place where nothing's going to get out its Roman walls. We always had that 'what if?' feeling. We tried but I think it was down to one pivotal point, on what I like to call, the LLC - Lincoln Live Circuit - which were mainly pubs. Good pubs.
Our favourites were two venues that were brimming with people back in the 2008: The Travellers Rest and The Duke of Wellington. The Travs (as it was called), under control of Aurora Promotions, was set up in a function room and had a basic but brilliant set up. A stage, 3 microphones, a drumkit, light effects, the works. Del-Fin's first gig was held there with about 5 other bands. I can remember one band was playing rather early on in the evening. It was their last gig and there was about 3 people watching them. Then along came 4 teenagers who didn't know what they were doing and stole the show with over 50 people watching. Us. It was a great feeling. I got the chance to perform with my friends and show these people who turned up what we could create. Rowan a chance to show of his solo stuff too. Everyone was happy.
When we played The Duke of Wellington (fronted by Bivouac Promotions) it wasn't as heaving as the Travellers Rest but it was a nice easy performance. No faults; just kept it real. That was really good too. A few more performances happened after that. But then disaster and what I think was the beginning of the end. Our then drummer called it a day days before we meant to go stage. We had to improvise with our knowledge and so with the help of Rowan, we created some drum tracks to play along to live. It wasn't the best. It was wierd playing without a drummer and lacked the realism. But we soldiered on, despite the fault. It showed us that nothing could keep us down. A few weeks later, the Travellers Rest closed down which meant Aurora didn't have a venue and Delayed Finality had lost thier prime hotspot. We tried to revive ourself with a Jimmi and Rowan acoustic gig at the Millers Arms (Bivouac Promos were kicked out of the Duke of Wellington and resided there) but the venue wasn't cut out for bands. There was people fighting for space to perform in; it was a good job it was just me and Rowan. If we were a full 4 piece, we would have been in the same predicament. Although it was good, it wasn't much compared to our first gig. The end was nigh. And it took me until recently to think that it wasn't going to last much longer. But, since I have called it off, it gives us all a chance to try something different. Since Rowan's off to Uni and I'm not until next year, it cleaned the air a bit for him to focus on what he want's to focus on, especially for his course. The same goes with me. I've got a route that hopefully in time will get clearer and clearer. So in part two, I'm going to give you the second half of my epiphany.
As it lays then, Finality is now not delayed but On Time. I wrote a lot of songs (about 20) in three years (Okay, 19 and bit) which is some feat. Some were recorded. Others never got to see the light of day at all. But the band was something special. We didn't spend hours hidden away in a garage playing only covers to tell people 'we're in a band.' We created our own music. We recorded our own music. We went out to entertain. We were, in essence, a semi-professional band. We were in an ACTIVE band. We didn't take ourself too seriously. One song I wrote called Equilibrium was originally called Donderkoodal which came about when I got bored and started to type random words into Google. We had an instrumental break called Attack of the Killer Tomato, named by Matt. It must have been a good job we didn't act too seriously because if one of us let us down, we'd be even more dissapointed. I think we got it whilst it at this stage because if it was at all any bigger and we realised we wouldn't get any further and dissapoint more, not just ourselves. All the hype, money, amount of people who saw us is just a bi-product. What really counted was the experience and memories that we created ourselves...That's the important thing really.
Thursday 15 July 2010
Driving: Advancing the Format (and an apology)
Errr...yeah. I haven't posted anything since the 2nd of June. There are numerous reasons but I going to go with this...Lessons are becoming mundane. Not boring, just samey. That's all. Everything has been covered. As it stands, I am now doing mock tests. I failed my first one. Oh, and I am proud to tell you, I passed my theory test and hazard perception (all thanks to a sheep which I thought at first was a dog and then a horse) and my practical is at the end of August...that is all really. Oh and sorry.
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