Golden beverage goes with a rock show, as naturally, as a guitar in a hand of a musician. Naturally some countries were more blessed with better beer than others, but even Czechs have some crappier brands, which you want to avoid. Luckily great show has some incredible powers...
The Czechs were blessed by god by the country's location and hundreds of years of beer tradition, so we can freely say, we have the best beer in the world. Sure, there are world miracles as Serbian Nikšićko, Croatian Osječko or some pieces from Germany or Ireland. But there is one only master, which is Pilsner Urquell. We can also include miracle brands as Radegast, Ostravar, Krakonoš and Březňák. As the Czechs are such a top class beer drinkers, there are naturally plenty of crappy/ier brands, which are sold in stores and bars. Some even make it to the world as Staropramen. At home, when a waitress says, what beers are on the menu and she mentions Staropramen, most of us we say: "And what else?" but in Serbia where, izvinite braćo, the beer is not so lofely, it is sold as a premium beer. It is considered "daily beer" next to a brands as Gambrinus and naturally sold in most of the bars and especially music clubs in Prague, where the top music shows take place.
We respect each other with Staropramen, in a certain way. ;D Czech Yugo Fanclub
Imagine you coming to a club as Roxy and only thing, they have on a tap, is Staropramen. Bottled beer is a not a good solution, plus I'm seriously not walking around with Cuba Libre with a small umbrella on top of it. So I order few pieces, as I rarely go on a rock show alone. I'm bloody thirsty, so I start to drink and the experience is nothing special, but you go with it. Especially, as the show of In Flames, Devin Townsend or Karnivool, has just started. People around you have a drink, or smoke (Wait, I forget, we are trying to cut on smoking in my home country. Ok, outside only), based on everybody's preference, to get to the mood and start to pick a place in the audience. As George Carlin said: "There is always a big fat fuck standing in your way."
First piece goes away with a first few songs, which are naturally some of the most popular, to get the crowd going. After third song, naturally comes the speech from a frontman and rather less popular songs. Fortunately, all of the people are in the audience already. So, the path towards the bar is open. I order few more and with these kind of gestures: "Excuse me, watch the beer, thank you very much," I get back to my previous spot easily. Show starts to get eventually more exciting towards the end, and there might be a third drink, based on the thirst or the bathroom preferences. Best songs are suddenly played and you may even get pulled by the crowd and excitement in the wilder areas of the audience and party for the rest of the amazing show.
When the show is over and you grab your forth beer, stand with your buddies or when you are lucky, sit on a couch or dry stairs, you suddenly realize, the beer is actually pretty awesome!
...Sorry baby, but Greek beer is really shitty, no matter what I do ;D
There are many reasons we watch South Park. However next to unique humor, there are once in a while worth trying music tips. One of them was also The Cure's legendary album Disintegration.
There are bunch of music references in South Park. First of all, they are plenty of celebrities getting their portion of jokes, whether it is Lars Ulrich's "Napster friendship", Britney Spears (btw, my early teenage obsession, seriously!) paparazzi attacks, 9/11 "artists" and plenty more as Kanye West or Michael Jackson. On the other hand, over the years you might get an idea about the taste of the authors Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
They honor legends as Ronnie James Dio or ballad experts Toto, but at the same time, they make fun of them a bit. Well, still in the matter that the bands themselves will be ok with it. Toto got their few seconds of fame and mighty Dio serves his mighty duty, on a kid's school party.
On the other hand, Radiohead, Korn or The Cure are rare cases – Authors look up to them, and would not get to any level of degradation. Radiohead are presented as an idol/unreachable band in a Scott Tenorman Must Die episode. Korn were a sensation for surprisingly long time in our hearts and they included them in a great Scooby Doo style episode. The Cure on the other hand, are shown with even more respect. Frontman Robert Smith, who provided his own voice btw, is portrayed as a superhero, who destroyed Barbra Streisand monster. In addition, in the moment singer is flying away, Kyle yells at him fading in a distance: "Disintegration is the best album ever!"
I can only agree. We all love Friday I'm In Love and it’s not bad to hear some other stuff from them as well, but this album is a concentrated pile of heartbreaking atmosphere, heavenly melodies and moody beauty. I fully recommend for you to check the recording of their live show in Wembley, which is a part of 3CD limited edition.
Btw, if you ever manage to get your hands on Guitar Hero, do it for yourself and try out to play Fascination Street. Well, I did and I can only say: “Well spent few days!” ;D
If you feel the hunger for a new music, same as I do, you get to come across various unique pieces of music all the time. In this series, I will share time to time, some unique music discoveries. The amount of new music is so huge that it's even hard to diggest. On the other hand, I covered great number of dark ambient records from bands as Amenra, Hail Spirit Noir, Moanaa, My Sleeping Karma, Winterfylleth etc. Here are some of tho most interesting ones. Btw Sunn O))) and black metal yoga is slightly higher level, which I'm not afraid to describe as work-in-progress. ;D
Om - Advaitic Songs
It is amazing, how much can be created by just combining drums and full range of bass effects. Add a guest cello, violin and a spectrum of vocals, from manly sludgy to a womanly gentle and you will get Om. Specific topic on its own, is a work with oriental atmosphere, where in slow tempo pieces, compared to heavy doomish pieces, they work tastefully with Middle Eastern, Arabic or even Hindu folk/religious music. In order to make the mix even more broad, they placed a portrait of John the Baptist on the cover. Need more positive reviews? Check here.
"Why do people consider it depressive music?"
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Really great discovery! I am aware, there is a legion of Chelsea suppo’ers, but seriously about a month ago, I never heard a bit from her heavy, dark beauty. I listen my ass off every day, since I was a teenager, but there is so much I haven’t heard yet and sometimes, I even freak out from the amounts of new music. I'm saving full discography of Pink Floyd for one summer vacation, but Chelsea Wolfe is so good for autumn, winter nights. Why do people consider it depressive music? It’s a cure for depression. You might feel miserable, but it’s just you in your small fucked world. Music floods the whole world in a compact, tasty shade, where you might feel even more scarred, but in general - safer.
Woods of Desolation - Torn Beyond Reason
Atmospheric black metal has absolutely unique characteristic. It may combine the heavenly beauties of post rock or ambient, mixed with the most mental, animalistic black metal straight from the Satan’s ass. I can imagine a scene from Big Lebowski with a flying carpet. All around, we can see a beautiful sunset, while on the carpet is sitting a sphere of compiled madness and anger. Btw, don't worry. Hearing voices is fine...
Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestite Atmospherical albums, such as this prove, you can incorporate any story, feeling and visuals into music and let your mind lead the way. Tip - try it on long train journey. Btw it was voted The Best Ambient / Drone Album Of 2014 by metal storm.
One might think, when you get an interview with such a demanded rock star, getting a front cover image, would be a piece of cake. Well, no and can we blame labels, promo teams, photographers, economy, ethics or god for that? Lil bit of each.
The interview with Greg on Brutal Assault festival last summer was great fun and we talked about their wild shows, insane music, but also his side activities in The Black Queen. Dark ambient project, with occasional 80’s pop inputs, could be a hell of shock to most TDEP fans, but in all seriousness, it’s one of the best music, I’ve heard in years.
After the interview we went to see THE show. You know, what I’m talking about – climbing, falling, crowd surfing and throwing gear. At one point Greg, found a dude in the first line, who knew the songs really well. Greg threw him a mic, guy sang a bit and threw him the mic back. At that time, it came to my mind that I also have to interview the band’s tech. It must be a nightmare, I thought. And for what he told me in an interview, it is like taking care of bunch of wild animals.
Great material without packaging
So what do you do now? First you go to the label, which is in our case Sumerian records. Result - only horizontal band pics both TDEP and The Black Queen. Secondly, try their promo team, my long term partners - Pirate Smile. They have even more pics, from all those years, including cool live pics, but there is the same problem. While you wait for them to check their archives, go for a solo search.
Big brother Google can find you a lot of useful stuff, like an old archive of pics on a Season of Mist label's presskit, from the days TDEP was with them. (However like the one lower, it's not big enough) Internet provides a lot more, however for the front cover, you need to get a permission to use it. There are great pics, like the ones here on the sides. But here comes the tricky part...
Everything that is provided by labels or promo agencies, is free to use, however if they don’t provide stuff u need, you need to get into negotiations with corporate press agencies or photographers who need that money, more than Reuters, who were in the game for a blood pic. Photographers ask for huge prices (like the one with Greg on the stairs), where agencies are fine to negotiate, based on the circulation of the magazine. Muzikus has a long history, stable readers, but a small budget. Luckily, we made a fair deal with KT Wright of NegativeOne Photography, who took this great pic above for a February issue of Muzikus. Luckily we didn't have to worry about a question in the office: "Can we even show a blood on the front cover?"
I am currently finalizing a front cover article at Muzikus on post rock/metal. I have gathered numerous interviews with top post rock/metal bands, but I would also like to use some of the opinions from listeners and fans.
Please feel free to contribute on a question: What does post rock/metal mean to you?
Be open and philosophical as you wish and I will include the best comments in the article. Thank you
Here are the videos from bands, whose interviews are included in the article:
When you reach a point, where you speak to U2, there are two things which are more than true: It was a long way here and barely anything can top that. Plenty of various conditions had to fall in place, some great people had to help, it’s something worth remembering and it only took few months to reach Adam Clayton of U2.
Well, naturally rather years, as only few of us in Muzikus magazine team might hope for such an attractive product. Based on the gear essence of the magazine, there are plenty of top class equipment brands promoting their products and naturally carefully analyzed by our strict reviewers. Next to that, they are all also really happy, if we include them inside the few interviews we do. One might think we work on a deal: “We will get you a top musician and you speak nicely about the brand!” You wish my friend…
If we would have done it even once, readers would kill us, it would be more than clear to a musician and interview would suck. Therefore, when we talk to someone, all of the brands, which he/she ever used, are discussed and compared, no matter, who arranged the interview. In the case of Adam Clayton, it was more than a free interview, as there are numerous brands promoting their products, with Adam included on their portfolio of signature artists, in our magazine: Everything from Fender, Aguilar, Warwick and possibly even Ashdown. The ground was more than open for comparing and finding compliments and an appropriate time of usage for each. However we didn’t stop there.
We started covering what Adam does in his free time, as I just saw on U2’s Facebook page he was enjoying a visit in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Than we moved to the magic of their live shows, followed by a new album and discussion on a band’s writing style. This was a chance to discuss some of the crucial songs as California (Remembering their innocent early days) and Song for Someone, where we also talked about Woody Harrelson and how they managed to get him for their brilliant video. Towards the end we talked about the new generation of musicians, which are walking in their footsteps, however still influencing them back and Adam’s charity activities within Walk In My Shoes Charity. No need to mention, there was not enough time for everything.
I was preparing for weeks, since I heard about the chance for an interview and I had numerous A4 sheets filled with structured questions. When I was informed, it would be a ten minutes interview, I had to pic only the best ones. As a part of my research, I looked at every single good article and interview from recent days, but also some of the established stuff from the past. Personally I can recommend some of them here:
Nothing would have happened if I didn’t have a proper support from the Muzikus team, especially the editor-in-chief, deputy editor/graphic designer and a colleague Milan Janeček, who supported me, as a professional bass player, on the gear questions. Plus, I knew he was trying to get this interview within our team for years. Interview was actually supposed to be done at first over email, few months ago. I provided an extended list of questions by the end of July and we have waited for weeks. Suddenly, I received a call from editor-in-chief, saying Adam will call me personally at 10AM Stockholm time on 16th of September. When Adam called, we even agreed on sth more than twenty minutes. Cheers mate and thanks for a great interview!
What next?
After that, you can only humbly thank those who helped you, thank higher powers and hope you will get Ozzy or other guys from Black Sabbath, while they are still alive...
We all know that feeling, when you desperately fall in love with a band. On the other hand, those who really experienced it know, it doesn't happen every week. British Lonely The Brave are the band, for which I fell in love, like for any other in years. Unfortunately that love was not returned.
One of the best aspects of music journalism is the fact, you can contact the bands you love right away. Remember the days, when you were practically obsessed by the band, listening to all of their stuff non-stop, downloading every single photo and trying to find every possible live video? Music meant for night walks, close-to religious experinces - We all have been there...
The moment I heard the song Backroads, I was in love!
The first time, I heard about Lonely The Brave, was when I was checking the line-up of Rock Im Park 2014. Every music journalist should do that, when he/she gets the chance to be on such an incredible event. These guys were practically on the complete end of an endless line-up. I was really tired from checking all the bands, especially some really crazy German bands. No offence, only you can love it guys ;D But the moment I heard the song Backroads, I was in love! I started checking other few songs they had online and playing it non-stop. It had all attributes I love about music and it truly spoke to me. Magical feeling was also enhanced by the fact, their debut album wasn't released yet. No one denies it's simpler to fall in love with a band, which has released six songs so far, rather than hearing Dream Theater for the first time and desperately checking their whole catalogue. ;D
Lyrics of Backroads:
Making eyes with a sea of lies
So you understand
That you're raping on my dreaming
And you're ruining my best made plans
First line of twenty people at Rock Im Park 2014
Next was a live show at Rock Im Park 2014. They played on the second day of a four day festival and basically first, on the second of two giant outside stages. On the first day, only the main stage was occupied and Lonely The Brave were practically the first to play the second stage next day, early in the morning, around 10AM, I guess. My colleagues from Rock&Pop mag, really didn't share my excitement, plus I could see those bastards laughing at us, from the press centre. It was bloody hot and so early, I couldn't believe that there was somebody supposed to play, on that stage in the matter of minutes. Suddenly they started to play in front of the field that can hold around twenty thousand people, for about twenty viewers, with me in the first line. Well, practically all of us, in the first line. But it was magical...
Bookpack dream
Whole summer I couldn't wait for their debut album The Day's War to come out on the first day of September. I had really tough summer, so I highly appreciated their music, which helped me a lot. Soon, after the album was released, everything was turning better and was really looking forward to buy the album. By the point my bank account was healthy again, I said to myself: I will get Adidas superstar shoes, red Long Distance Calling t-shirt and Lonely The Brave’s The Day’s War Bookpack. At that point I also asked for an interview. Well, inside my interview request was also a request to get the limited edition Bookpack signed, before they send it. I was slightly hoping that an interview will get me a free copy ;D but I would more than happy to pay for it. It had all the lyrics beautifully written and autographs of the members on the top would be the bloody best.
Well, I actually asked for the interview before the Rock Im Park, but I didn't get an answer from:
wez@fulltimehobby.co.uk
ed@trailofpress.co.uk
In September 2014 I returned back to the interview request and I carefully followed their promo team, they had on their Facebook profile.
3. 9. ed(at)trailofpress.co.uk - nothing
16. 9. louise.mayne(at)sonymusic.com – nothing
17. 9. james(at)prescriptionpr.co.uk – nothing
19. 9. wez(at)fulltimehobby.co.uk
Wez was the one, who replied and we arranged the time of the interview perfectly. When I reminded, about my request regarding a signed debut Bookpack, I was assured it should not be a problem and Mease will co-ordinate.
mease@fulltimehobby.co.uk
Can anybody hear me?
Interview was great and Mark Trotter apologised for the promo team, as it was just getting adjusted. Mease even wrote, it will get sorted and I will receive one of the last thirty pieces. I sent my address right away. When the interview came out in a month, I also sent a scan. I also tried to remind myself, but that was the last time I heard from Mease. After multiple tries, I included in the middle of December, all of the contacts related to Lonely The Brave, I came across during my interview requests etc.
Wez <wez(at)fulltimehobby.co.uk
Mease <mease(at)fulltimehobby.co.uk
James Parrish <james(at)prescriptionpr.co.uk
Sophie Graham <sophie.graham(at)sonymusic.com
ed(at)trailofpress.co.uk
louise.mayne(at)sonymusic.com
After that I wrote a sms to Mark Trotter and wrote on a bands Facebook inbox, and I have received this answer:
Lonely The Brave
Hey Dan, Mease is sorting this for you. Bear with him smile emoticon
Thank you for your support smile emoticon
Mark x
That was the last time I heard from anybody from Lonely The Brave team. (Bookpack was soon sold out). It's October 2015 and let's go for teenage girl attitude: "I only love them for their music now."
Update
It was actually few weeks ago, when I saw my dad after a while, to whom I give some new music into his phone once in a while. A fan of Sting, Peter Gabriel, The Smiths etc., came I said: "You gave me some good albums, but one was hell of a good: Lonely The Brave!" He was not the only one, whom I recommended this band. When I meet new people or old friends and they ask me for a single music tip, I go for LTB. Including famous musicians, when we talk about latest musical discoveries...
Update 2
As soon as I released this article, Lonely The Brave team got back in contact. They apologized, but included a comment: "We actually have a signed book pack here in the management office. Only three of the band members have signed it at this stage." Anyway, I received the album very soon after that, which I'm grateful for. I was also offered 1 + 1 ticket on any of their show, but it's still too far for me from Czech Republic. We exchanged few tips on their future festival shows and plenty of friendly greetings. I'm glad, I didn't write all this for nothing.
