Nostradamus… Nostradamus… is avenged…
It’s HUGE. Massive. Epic. Rob Halford has HUGE LUNGS and he’s not scared of opening up.
Viking metal
After pirate metal, my favourite “novelty” genre is definitely Viking metal.
Swedish band Amon Amarth are the heavyweights here - we saw them live at the beginning of the year and it was truly kickarse. In fact, it’s still probably the best show I’ve been to this year (admittedly it’s only April).
Here’s the video for Runes To My Memory - a highlight of their live set:
YouTube - Amon Amarth - Runes To My Memory
Today I heard of another Viking metal band - Norway’s Helheim. They are releasing a new album this week and playing at a Norway kindergarten to celebrate. That’s the difference between Norway and Australia. When I was in kindergarten we made artwork out of glittery pasta and did the hokey pokey.
Here’s a Helheim video clip. I picked this one for the Krollster because it has some blacksmithing (blacksmithery? forging? smithing? messing with fire and tools?):
YouTube - Helheim - Jernskogen
According to Wikipedia, there are quite a number of Viking metal bands in existence, mostly from Sweden and Norway. Guess I’m going to be busy checking all of them out.
Pirate Metal
I think Dave was the first person I know to discover the genre of pirate metal - pirate as in “arrrrr matey”, not pirate as in illegally downloaded, that is.
The concept sounds weird until you hear it, but the combination of blistering metal riffs and the lore of the high seas actually go together really well. Pirates are back in vogue thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and what group of musicians are more like lawless outlaws than metalheads?
The first band Dave discovered was Verbal Deception, a Canadian band. Here’s a live clip:
YouTube - Verbal Deception - Pirate Attack
We are of course going to Wacken this year and one of the bands on the bill is Alestorm - Scottish pirate metal, of all things. Metal Sucks recently posted about them. Here’s a live clip:
YouTube - Alestorm - Captain Morgan’s Revenge (Live)
While Verbal Deception are awesome metal first and pirate second, I think that Alestorm are less metal and more pirate/folk. I recently found a third band which takes the cake as far as I’m concerned - Swashbuckle. They are very metal and very, very pirate. Carn, the dude plays with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder. And check out the background of their MySpace page = that’s my new PC wallpaper. Live clip:
YouTube - Swashbuckle - “Crewed by the Damned” Live
Apparently pirate metal is not a new thing - there was a German band called Running Wild in the 80’s. I haven’t tracked any of their stuff down though.
So there you have it, ye scurvy dogs…
We’re going to Wacken
Tickets to world’s largest metal festival (already sold out): check
Airline tickets to Germany: check (well, booked and will be paid for soon)
Backpacks (for very lightweight travelling): check
The Metal Horns: always at the ready
Yep that’s right kids, we’re going to Wacken Open Air 2008.
Trent shows ‘em how it’s done
Everyone knows by now the traditional record industry’s dead, yeah? I talked a bit about how impressed I was with the gear we ordered from Amon Amarth a while back, their record company actually seems quite switched on. Radiohead had this great idea to let people pay whatever they wanted for their album, and while they made money they were also shocked that a large number of people didn’t want to pay anything at all. Now Trent Reznor has shown everyone’s that there’s a better way to do it with the Ghosts release by giving away some stuff for free, but stacking the goodies in for the people who want to pay a little more.
The deal is multi-layered, but essentially you can download some of the tracks for free, pay $5 to download the lot, pay $10 to download the lot and get a double CD shipped to you, pay $75 to download the lot and get a deluxe edition shipped to you with a data DVD, printed booklet, Blu-Ray version etc etc OR for 2,500 of the super-serious fans, $300 gets you limited edition vinyl personally signed by Trent.
The super special edition sold out in 28 hours. We bought the $75 version (and it took several days to get through as the site was swamped). The international shipping was very high. We actually thought twice about the whole thing because of that, but in the end decided hell, it’s Trent, and it’s bound to be a historic release, so it was worth the extra cost.
Some people have worked out that Mr Reznor has made a quite tidy profit from this little exercise in marketing. I’ll let them go through the numbers for you but essentially, it’s not bad work if you can get it. However, I think it’s only the Trent Reznors of the world who can get away with that kind of deal.
I’ve said before that as this current shift in people’s attitude to buying music progresses, the fallout will be that successful recording artists will no longer be multi-millionaires - and that’s a good thing. Everyone deserves to make a good living doing what they love, but the death of the traditional label system may mean an end to the ridiculous excesses of the Michael Jacksons and Britney Spears’ of the world.
An unknown band is not going to be able to pull a $750,000 profit, Trent-style. But I can see a system coming into place where the big, well known artists introduce newer artists they they dig to their own fan-base. And bands will always need help with business - they’re musicians, not accountants, which is why we like them - so “artist development” companies like LaMafia Records (set up by Chimaira’s bassist and others), seem like an interesting solution to that problem.
At any rate, we’re eagerly awaiting delivery of our Ghosts package. Good one Trent!
